Almost there, I hope

So I'm very almost there, well as much as I can take with this project. Everything's textured and baked out properly it's all a case of getting a good scene set up in max for the final render. Though I'm sure that'll take all the rest of the week with these horrible shaders. I've had to switch to XoliulShader 2.0 because 1.6 won't cast shadows or render alphas. Saying that 2.0 is still giving me trouble with the alphas.

Here's my current progress. It's alright, I'm currently working on the scene to just give it a slightly better render. Hopefully that'll be done tomorrow so that I can quickly take it into UDK to get a better beauty shot render but that shouldn't affect the work done in max. But I mostly just want it done now, these shaders are far too frustrating and unpredictable to work with much longer.

Updates? What Updates

I realise I've not updated my blog in a while, it's just been constant work to try and get this damned vehicle finished. Having not updated in almost two weeks there's been not all that much progress it would feel. 

It took me a few days to build the low poly as I found it a real challenge to get this under 10,000 tris whilst still holding the rough silhouette. I knew I should have just done something sci-fi with bold geometric shapes :/ Certainly not something with a lot of small details, but then what's life without a challenge? 

And then it took me another 3 days to get it unwrapped after that and another day for baking. I realise that the texel density is probably really awful for this unwrap but I'm just trying to get it done now.

That's the low poly ready for baking and my unwrap for you. 

And here's how it looks now in Max with the Xoliul Shader and a basic diffuse. So I guess it's coming along. It looks like I'll get it easily done for the hand in with the environment as well, though not sure how that will turn out. 

But in other news, I've just started on making this character, sorry can't remember who actually did this concept but I'm just making it for fun so it doesn't really matter I guess as long as people know it's not mine. But I just need a break and plus I've wanted to do something hand painted for a while but I think I'll take it into UDK and play around with getting a really nice shader on it once it's done.

Finally Got It Done

So I finally got my high poly finished today and started on my low poly. I've managed to get through about half of the low poly so far. 

This isn't quite the finished model as I forgot to screenshot it today and my computer at home isn't too great at handling the high poly scenes, but this is about 95-99% done version so it's not too bad. 

Now this weekend I've got to finish the low poly and start unwrapping so that I can get onto the baking quickly.

Progress Feels Slow

So I know what I want to be when I'm older.... anything but a vehicle artist. This project feels like one big ball of *kill me now*. But even so, some progress has to be made. My original plan of have the high and low polys finished and baked by the end of the week is starting to look like a fantasy. But I should be easily unto texturing start of next week and no matter what the vehicle will be finished by the time James comes back, I will not have nothing to show him again.

But enough of the ranting (it's never enough...) So I finally finished the chassis today. I never want to see tracks again. But it's come out a fair bit better than I had anticipated. So now that's finished I've got the chassis, main body (which requires some tweaking and refining) and about 70-80% of the arm done. 

Once I get this damned arm finished, which will probably be done tomorrow if I actually sit down and focus. After that is just tweaking the main body and then building the inside. Then I should be finished with the high poly. I wish it wouldn't have taken me so long but what can you do other than go back in time and tell past me never to do an excavator.

Vehicular Fun Times.....

So I realised I hadn't actually updated my blog since getting the vehicle project from codies. Basically for this project I am planning on doing a small excavator. If you really wanted to know the make and model, it's a Kubota KX161-3. But that's probably way too specific. So once I've got this modelled and textured I was thinking about putting it in a construction site type environment or turntable.

So this is as far as I've gotten with my highpoly since getting the project. It's taking me a smigden bit longer than I had anticipated but I'm still confident that I'll have the high and low poly done, unwrapped and baked by the end of next week so I'll still be on schedule. Oh and I'm aware of the flaws that need to be fixed later, but I'll get round to those.

Progress (or lack thereof)

So works been a bit slow as of late, I've been working constantly for the last couple of weeks but it seems like I've got nothing done. I suppose it's coming together alright and for the final hand in it'll lovely, I'll make sure of it >:( But as of now, it's like so.

It's alright, I guess. There's so much needs done to it though to get it there. The textures are all it various stages of completion, but I imagine that'll take me under a week to get those all finish to a standard I'm happy with. And that'll be done before assessments for sure. I'd only say I'm about a week behind with my work, and I'm be no means contented with it, let alone happy.

I'm just holding on to the idea of the christmas break so that I can add all the little tweaks and especially the visual effects so that I can really sell it properly.

But for now I'm going to just get hand in over and done with and dive head first into the next project :)