UPDATE:



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Hey everyone, got another hard surface model of the Eurocopter HAP. Obviously still work in progress but I thought I've put enough work into it I'd post. Still missile the top rotor mechanics and the rear rotors are just place holders. I still got some paneling to model in and there are a few mesh errors in some corners.









Comments and crits are always welcomed

Body's a bit messy and blobby, I'd look at ref a bit more.

I'm working from blueprints so you'll have to be more specific

With any realistic asset that you're trying to model as close specs as possible, you should have a collection of as many blueprints and photographs as possible. Work from blueprints, and a few dozen reference pictures you spent a few hours collecting. Then Xoliul won't have to be specific, because you'll probably be able to see pretty clearly where the form and depth of the model is off.

The reason why I ask is because I have been doing exactly that. I have blueprints witihn max as well as a dedicated monitor with images of the the best angles I could find. When he says blobby I don't understand since all my face are smooth. The only area I could think of is the nose and that's what I'm currently working on right now.

I got some more WIP shots, I've straigtened out the sides and fixed the mesh errors around the side panels.

The seam to the left of the first panel is because the tail and body are seperate pieces right now.

The nose feels pretty blobby along with the back end section that goes from the top to the tail.

Alright so its been far too long since an update, I FINALLY see the blob. Sorry about you guys on that one :S.

Anyways I fixed it and moved on the texture finally.

Although I don't have much done here I have the camouflage started, took me a while to get the colors I liked.





Crits as always please, every bit helps!

Another update, got all the colors on and working on the localized stuff like the weapons and rotor blades. I have a soft spec all over and a temp AO so far.

I have a few areas on the mesh I'd like to attend to like the step under the window, the exhausts for the engine and on the tail.

Anyways here's the Update

Alright so added some rivets, seams and decals.

Update:

Bump: Could use some critiques on this, I have is I changed the windows from a blue to grey. Pics later today.

I think I'm going in the right direction but my rivets seem a little off at this time.

Hi, i made you some indications regarding the hi poly shape.

Wow, Thanks a lotfor the reply! I haven't worked on the HP since I began the thread but only now did I start to notice the inclined plane when doing the rivets.

This will definitealy go to good use!

I feel I've had this project for far too long. It's time I moved on, but this project was not without loss. I've learnt a lot and thanks to everyone posting I can only go up from here.

This is the final look at it:







I know I missed out on a lot of key features of the helicopter. Mainly the above post regarding the cockpit is something I completely over looked. The rear exhausts never looked right to me. I took too much liberty in modeling some parts on how I felt they should look rather then what they actually do look like. I'm still trying to find my workflow that feels right, in this one I went HP to LP and found that didn't work very smoothly for me.

When it came to textures I'm still relatively new. I've been working on a combat vehicle along side this project and similar issues came from both of them. This gives me great feedback in knowing exactly what I need to work on.

Here's the Diffuse and Spec, I left out the normal map because I only had the rivets done, I could never get anything that looked right from the HP.

Comments and critiques are always needed!

I may revisit this, but now I'm declaring this completed.

it looks too smooth, I can hardly see any details.
Its a nice mesh (so far as I can tell) but the textures have nothing on them bar some colour and a tiny bit of unnoticeable details :/
There is no wear and tear either like marks off of the paint on non-occluded edges.

Texturing is definitely where I lack the most. I've been doing a lot of hunting for tutorials and references to be able to put more into my textures.

I get what you mean by smooth now, maybe scyff and scratches would help?

I think a normal map or some raising of rims and bolts would make a bigger difference than the wear and tear, it'd make the details visible for one thing.

Your UV is EXTREMELY inefficient!
The body, 90% of the visible surface takes up about 10% of your UV, and then some small part like the shocks for the wheels have almost equal UV space. That's completely, unnecessarily out of proportion...
I suspect you don't know about un-normalized UV unwrapping, I suggest you watch the UV'ing part from my hotrod, or get the Dozer pt2.

Thanks for the links, I was never told how bad my UV's ever were so it's not something I worked on a lot.