For my project I decided to model a 19th century naval cannon complete with carriage. As with anything ever a moodboard came first.
The first thing I started to model was the side of the carriage, the wooden frame with attached trucks (wheels) which holds the cannon. The semicircular notch at the top for one of the cannon trunnions was made using a cylinder and subtracting it away from the side of the carriage. This produced edges that needed to be connected and looped around the model.
Inside of the carriage. When completed it will be mirrored over so some faced needed to be deleted.
Forming the fore support of the cannon.
The trucks. These are separate objects from the rest of the carriage.
Modeling the main cannon. It's simply a cylinder with edge loops added to created the appropriate tapering shape with a flared muzzle.
The trunnion clamps were modeled separate from the carriage on which they sit from a cube that was shaped and extruded before being cut in half and mirrored a achieve the symmetry required.
The cannon sitting in the carriage. Note trunnions added to the barrel.
A progress pic of the cannon showing detail on the trucks and rivets on the sides.
A side view of the cannon with the barrel at a more realistic angle.
Top view of the cannon.
A back three quarter view.
The high poly model subdivided with creased edges showing. These creased edges are not permanent.
A top view showing the same.
Adding in wood grain textures using alphas in ZBrush to give the cannon's carriage a more realistic finnish. This was achieved with a selection of alphas made from simple Google images and stamping them on with the brush's drag feature enable whilst the surface was masked appropriately.
The carriage all wooded up.
The full cannon detailed in ZBrush. The untouched surfaces are all the cannon's metal parts which do not need any detail added ZBrush. The detail will be added in Quixel SUITE.
A three quarter view of the cannon in Zbrush.
The "low-poly" version of the cannon's Maya model ( I use the term "low poly" loosely, It could be much lower but it isn't necessary for it to be so). Note the slightly highlighted areas where the UVs have been cut.
The UV sheet. Poor use of space but practical. The somewhat crude layout should not interfere with the processes to come. Next time I would be good to take the time to arrange the UVs more efficiently, which, of course, is expected of you in the industry.
From here I went back to my ZBrush model to add colour using Polypaint which is to be extracted later to form the objects colour map.
The result was a rather funky-looking green and purple cannon. The green for old, battered wood and the purple for a sea-beaten cast iron look.
Using XNormals I created the colour and normal maps to place on my cannon in Quixel Suite.
Some neatening out was required for the colour maps but as can be seen I got it mostly under control. I, in fact, had to produce three of each maps, six in total, for the cannon's carriage, trucks and (naturally) cannon. These were all combined in Photoshop to produce final, all encompassing maps.
The penultimate stage is to place the object in Quixel Suite. To make sure the maps operated smoothly I did a few tests before hand.
The carriage as it appears in Quixel. The normal maps appear to work fine. The colour is, of course, not final.
The trucks showing both normal map detail and some wood and metal texturing thanks to the colour maps.
These shots show the cannon in Quixel's 3DO viewer. With the textures and materials established it was time to take the model into Unity 4.
A series of screen shots of the cannon in Unreal, sitting on top of a quickly pieced-together pier overlooking the sea. Fitting, perhaps, for a naval cannon.
To get the cannon into Unreal the Quixel textures are exported so that they can be applied in engine. These textures are then placed on to a material which is then thrown on to a .fbx export of my low poly Maya model.
The model is, however, not without it's flaws (of course, I made it what else was to be expected).
As can be seen, because of the nature of my colour mapping metal "shadows" can be seen on the wooden surfaces near this rope loop. In retrospect I should have payed more attention to the details on the normal map. I would be pressed for time to fix it now so I feel that, in future models, carefully surveying the normal map for flaws should be done straight after baking.
The same can be seen here on this loop on the side of the carriage.
From here I went back to my ZBrush model to add colour using Polypaint which is to be extracted later to form the objects colour map.
The result was a rather funky-looking green and purple cannon. The green for old, battered wood and the purple for a sea-beaten cast iron look.
Using XNormals I created the colour and normal maps to place on my cannon in Quixel Suite.
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| A bit rough. Given more time I would have been able to neaten it up. |
Some neatening out was required for the colour maps but as can be seen I got it mostly under control. I, in fact, had to produce three of each maps, six in total, for the cannon's carriage, trucks and (naturally) cannon. These were all combined in Photoshop to produce final, all encompassing maps.
The penultimate stage is to place the object in Quixel Suite. To make sure the maps operated smoothly I did a few tests before hand.
The carriage as it appears in Quixel. The normal maps appear to work fine. The colour is, of course, not final.
The trucks showing both normal map detail and some wood and metal texturing thanks to the colour maps.
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| Tilt shift blurring (so artistic). |
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| Shiny lens flare (wow). |
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| Top view with no camera nonsense (boo!). |
These shots show the cannon in Quixel's 3DO viewer. With the textures and materials established it was time to take the model into Unity 4.
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| I could have done with better seam placement along the cannon. |
A series of screen shots of the cannon in Unreal, sitting on top of a quickly pieced-together pier overlooking the sea. Fitting, perhaps, for a naval cannon.
To get the cannon into Unreal the Quixel textures are exported so that they can be applied in engine. These textures are then placed on to a material which is then thrown on to a .fbx export of my low poly Maya model.
The model is, however, not without it's flaws (of course, I made it what else was to be expected).
As can be seen, because of the nature of my colour mapping metal "shadows" can be seen on the wooden surfaces near this rope loop. In retrospect I should have payed more attention to the details on the normal map. I would be pressed for time to fix it now so I feel that, in future models, carefully surveying the normal map for flaws should be done straight after baking.
The same can be seen here on this loop on the side of the carriage.
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