Acidburns Art thread: Tank (done)/Ship (WIP)/Gunship(WIP)

Acidburns · Post by **Acidburns** » 2006-05-02 01:15pm

Started work on this yesterday. There's room for a lot more detail, but I'm having trouble filling a lot of that blank space on the hull. I've been looking at pictures of tanks, and there's a surprising amount of doodads on the chassis.

Definite things to do:

Driver and commander's hatches to finish - check
Anti-infantry weapon for commander. - pintal finished
hull mounted anti-infantry weapon - check
laser diffusing smoke grenade launchers on turret. - check
More boxes for external storage
Maybe sandbags built around the turret?
Turret needs viewfinder/scope/sensors or something. -check
Engine vents on rear - check
spade/tool rack - check
hooks so it can be pulled onto a flatbed after crashing - check
anti-personel flechette mines on hull.
hand rifles for crew - rack placed
Muzzle brake

Any treadheads tell me what other things I am missing? I'm still deciding whether to model the armour plating or whether to texture it.

Turret details. The half-sphere is an anti-missle laser. Note the shading/geometry error on the boxes.

Vehrec · Post by **Vehrec** » 2006-05-02 01:26pm

I have to ask, how loud is a hovertank? 100 decibels?

But serriously, I like what you have and what you are adding. However, I think that a few things could be added to that list. Strap some Claymores or futuristic equivelent on the sides, so if infantry suround you you can blow the mines and kill lots of infantry.(Hammer's Slammers?) And you can add some weak buffer armor designed to pre-detonate man-portable missiles and HEAT rounds before they hit the main armor. Then again, I have no idea how you would model such a thing, or keep it on. Still, it's a feature I would include.

Acidburns · Post by **Acidburns** » 2006-05-02 01:43pm

Ah, the claymore idea is genius. I used to play 40K, so I should have thought of that myself.

Maybe by adding another layer of armour plates over the hull would do for what you were saying (theres a word for it, can't remember it though). That'd make the hull more interesting too.

Now that I think about it, maybe I could stick a couple of rifles on the outside as well. Opposite side from the spades, wouldn't want to get them mixed up eh?

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2006-05-02 01:59pm

Explosive Reactive Armoring?

You could modify the ERA to serve as a claymore-type thing. You never go wrong with claymores

And how about ARENA? It's a Ruskie thing where they intercept incoming bad stuff with mini-rockets or something.

Anyway, my friend drew a hovertank I cooked up. Not really a hovertank, but a flying tank. A Blitzpanzer. A sleek, stealthy killing machine. Might post it on SDN when he finally scans it

Acidburns · Post by **Acidburns** » 2006-05-02 07:37pm

Ah, ERA is it. Now I know what it's called, i've been able to get some good pictures of it.

Tweaked the rear to age engines and another rear thruster.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Updated:

It's looking really rather good now, if I do say so myself!

Here's where I currently am:

Also, I tried out a more realistic looking ERA, but I'm not too keen on it. Maybe it would have looked better if the panels were at right angles. Maybe not.

Ford Prefect · Post by **Ford Prefect** » 2006-05-03 02:51am

It's beautiful. So beautiful . . .

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2006-05-03 11:18am

What are those things sticking up in back of the tank? Those prevent the turret from traversing a complete 360 degrees.

Acidburns · Post by **Acidburns** » 2006-05-03 01:08pm

It's the engine thrusters at the back that are sticking up. The tank would be suprisingly agile for a tank. If you've ever played Battlezone you'd be on the right track. Shouldn't be a major problem.

Almost finished modelling I think. I'm starting to think about texturing it now, and I suck at texturing. Bah.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2006-05-03 01:21pm

Well, OK, I suppose it isn't mandatory that turrets be traversible to the rest of the tank.

However, I would move the ball turret gattling gun to the top of the tank. With how it is situated, it has a very limited firing arc.

I don't know if you are still modelling it, but a latter so the men can reach the hatch would be nice too.

Vehrec · Post by **Vehrec** » 2006-05-03 01:24pm

Am I correct in counting five missle tubes on each side of this turret? Thats a nice touch, especially if they are Anti-aircraft. The long whip antenas make me think this is a command varient, with extra hardware to organize and direct the rest of it's devision. Also worth noting is the lack of an independantly mounted machine gun on the turret. the ball mounted laser probably isn't up to the task of keeping the back quarter of the tank covered but I might be wrong.
On the other hand, this tank is VERY well armed in the forward direction. Small anti-personel weapon, ball turret, co-axial autocanon, main gun, missiles, and the pulse laser. It seems designed to fight line battles against a variety of foes, and even the inability to turn it turret around isn't much of an issue as the obvious solution is to simply turn the tank itself. And I like how you made the air intakes large and obvious, because they would have to be, wouldn't they?

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2006-05-03 01:32pm

Not missile tubes, smoke grenade dispensers. We got 'em nowadays too, though those things on his tank look slightly bigger. It could be possible that a variant would sport mini-missiles instead of grenades or something.

And damn, those air intakes are almost identical to my friend's Blitzpanzer's!

Anyway, it's awesome!

Elheru Aran · Post by **Elheru Aran** » 2006-05-03 03:08pm

Have you considered putting a muzzle brake on there? Unless you can time thrust to counteract your shots, that tank's gonna be knocked backwards each time it fires...

But it's quite nice otherwise, much more practical than the vast majority of sci-fi tanks that I've seen. Good going!

Acidburns · Post by **Acidburns** » 2006-05-03 04:52pm

Ok, another update

Yes, Shroom man is correct that it's a pair of smoke nade launchers on the turrets. There is a mount on the commander's hatch for an anti-infantry weapon, though that will probably be added last.

The smaller cylinders alongside the main gun, I origonally planned them to be some kind of optical sight for the cannon, but I might change it to a co-axil weapon as some people have said.

Elheru: good idea on the muzzle brake.

All the comments so far have been really helpful, if you've got anything else to say, please do! Thanks! Once I'm finished modelling it, I'll be sure to write something up.

I've been pretty scared of attempting to go for a realistic render so far, so I tried some funky cell shading.

Need to get some glowy effects for the engines.

I've started this in preparation for what I'm planning as a final scene. I'm going to try some seperate projects before I complete it, the current model is becoming a bit cumbersome for experimentation. I hope to do some kind of marscape. I'll be looking into doing some crew, or powersuits as well.

Pax Britannia · Post by **Pax Britannia** » 2006-05-03 06:32pm

It seems to be slowly turning into a one turreted Apocalypse Tank from Read Alert 2.

Siege · Post by **Siege** » 2006-05-03 07:21pm

It's not just a kick-ass tank, it's a real sweet ride too

. I love this thing, especially the cell-shaded version.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2006-05-04 02:09am

State of the art badass!

Ford Prefect · Post by **Ford Prefect** » 2006-05-04 02:35am

Let me take this time to state that I love you and your tank. The 'wheels' especially.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2006-05-05 09:59am

I give it the White Haven Thumb of Approval. It could use more guns, but then again, I think that about most any tank short of a Bolo.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2006-05-05 10:39am

Aye, very cool.

I´d add some more stuff in the front though, these little handles and crap that nobody knows what they´re good for but look cool, like on these tanks:

tank 1

tank 2

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2006-05-05 03:19pm

Dude, if you ever get the itch to make a couple spaceships for a silly sci-fi short, drop me a PM!

Acidburns · Post by **Acidburns** » 2006-05-05 06:31pm

I'm pretty much finished with this model till my skills improve. I could keep adding details forever, but I think I'll improve faster with a different challenge.

I begun work on a ship for someone on omni-verse today:

Plenty of work to go, though I'm starting to build up some confidence with this whole texturing shit. The big red array was just for a bit of fun for myself, it'll won't feature in the final work.

I'm gonna hook up with Poe for one of his Movie shorts too. I just love biting off more than I can chew

Comando293 · Post by **Comando293** » 2006-05-05 07:16pm

That ship looks great. I don't think the lights on the tank fit with the red very well, but the engine scatter effect is cool.

Acidburns · Post by **Acidburns** » 2006-05-05 07:20pm

I think your right, it's awfully bright for a tank

I love the engine glows myself. It would look better without the other effects, but I was mostly experimenting. I'll maybe re-render it while I'm out tommorrow.

It's pretty easy to get carried away with those wonderful glowing things. Once I get some more practice texturing I'm going to come back and give it a nice gritty, worn look. But I can't do that, yet.

Comando293 · Post by **Comando293** » 2006-05-05 07:34pm

Hey, glowies are fun!

Enigma · Post by **Enigma** » 2006-05-05 09:26pm

This is going to sound dumb but what program(s)?