Rivets and rendering!

Today I went looked over some better ways to display model renders from 3dsmax and continued modelling the tank based on the Battalion wars concept art. I looked over some techniques which used a composite of 3 renders in Photoshop consisting of wireframe, ambient occlusion and diffuse.

I'm pretty happy with the results of the composite and will probably used this technique to show the vehicles high poly once the models finished. I'm going to continue modelling to add further details such as:

-antennas

 -ladder bars

 -attached field equipment (covers/fuel/ammo).

Thanks for reading :)

-Andy

Tank progress..

Fore those interested in seeing I've made further progress on the tank model based on the Battalion wars concept art. I've been looking over subtle practical details the original concept didn't appear to have as well as adding additional geometry and smoothing groups to remove most the visible the low poly edges. Below is the concept art I've used as a guide.

The original concept didn't have any grip for towing gear or rope ties for carrying equipment. I've fitting both the front and rear with two ties based on the Tow grips of photos found of the American M26 Pershing heavy tank used in world war 2 and the Korean war. This tank has a similar western origin with a similar purpose as the heavy tanks faction and design. Below is a progress render of the tank model so far. 

Thanks for reading :)

-Andy

Back to tanks

I've been ill again the last couple of days haven't been able to eat much more than two small bowl fulls of rice. So amongst my feeling too sick to sleep and illness I decided to start creating a new portfolio site and also made a start to my portfolio's first vehicle model. I've made vehicles before but only for small mods/indie games all of which have been quite low poly as most were for mobile devices or real-time strategy projects.

You can see what I've got so far with the new portfolio site at the link below.
 http://abishopart.wix.com/abishopart

Still very unfinished with a lot of placeholders but I'm happy with the general layout so far. As for the vehicle I've decided to make a high poly version of a Western tank from the Battalion Wars game series, it has a fantastic fun charactured artstyle. All the features are exaggerated and slightly cartoon. It's very similar to one of my favourite game boy games Advance Wars. Below is a piece of concept art for the Heavy Tank I've used as a guideline for modelling.

Below is a screenshot my current progress of the model in max. I'm hoping to make this model a strong portfolio piece and looking at spending about 40k tri's on the model. At the moment unoptimized it's currently stands at 22k.

It's not the first time I've made tanks before, last November I spent an hour each morning monday to friday making some low poly tanks for my a Unity game idea similar to battle tanks.

Thanks for reading,

-Andy