Armored Train

Marko Dash · Post by **Marko Dash** » 2007-09-23 11:35am

I thought I'd already posted this but it seems like it didn't go through

I'm trying my hand at making a few railway cars, I may end up making enough for a whole train.

first, the base for all the cars

The first car done, two heavy turrets 4-6 inch, two quad 40 mm turrets, and 6 HMG casements.

An artillery gun car, one 12-16inch gun, may redo this one later.

other cars planed.
troop sleeper
transport flatbed
ammo car
ammo car for artillery car
machine gun car
anti-air car
Loco (still not sure if I should do it a diesel or steam).

salm · Post by **salm** » 2007-09-23 02:39pm

Are these supposed to be high or low poly models? If they´re high poly you need to put in more detail. If they´re lowpoly the wheels have too many segments.

Marko Dash · Post by **Marko Dash** » 2007-09-23 02:48pm

most of them are low ploy, around 3-15 thousand ploys, the mixed load ammo car is taking forever to render with it coming in at around 170 thousand ploys.

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2007-09-23 03:11pm

For the Engine go with diesel as it is much harder to knock out of action and gets more horsepower for the same size.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2007-09-23 03:20pm

Marko Dash wrote:most of them are low ploy, around 3-15 thousand ploys, the mixed load ammo car is taking forever to render with it coming in at around 170 thousand ploys.

Damn. Where are you using that many polys? These objects could be done with probably around 2000 polys. I guess the high poly count comes from all the round objects like the turrets and the wheels.
Like said before, i´d put in more detail if it´s going to be a high poly object.
If it´s going ot be a low poly object for some real time rendering engine you got to reduce the segments in the round parts and simulate detail with textures.
Could you post a shaded wire?

Marko Dash · Post by **Marko Dash** » 2007-09-23 03:49pm

i could have it render in wire frame but i can't reduce segments, just parts, i added the program to the sticky thread if you want to try it. the ammo car is so high because is has stacks of HE shells, some ammo crates and a forest of rockets. i might just make bigger boxes for the HE and rockets to lower the polys, but all that exposed ammo looks cool.

Marko Dash · Post by **Marko Dash** » 2007-09-23 04:27pm

this is the car that was taking so long, now that this is done the others should be coming soon

Sidewinder · Post by **Sidewinder** » 2007-09-23 07:09pm

Looks good so far. What about colors? (Having everything be gray is kind of boring.)

Marko Dash · Post by **Marko Dash** » 2007-09-23 08:23pm

i could, but what color do you make a rolling slab of armor? i was thinking of adding a few rust textures but decided against it

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2007-09-23 11:40pm

Camouflage fool1

Marko Dash · Post by **Marko Dash** » 2007-09-24 10:31am

completely forgot about camo, maybe a slight urban with some light bump-mapping.

one of the cars i haven't posted yet, the light anti-air car, basically as many quad 40s as i could stick on while giving them rotating room. the heavy anti-air/guncar comes on the same frame but mounts DP cannons.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2007-09-24 04:59pm

That doesn´t look much like a camo pattern.
It looks very much like the mapping is off. But you don´t necessarily need to uv map it (at least not for the camo pattern) since camo pattern can very easily be done procedurally.
Try making a noise map and then put two more noise maps into the map slots of the first one. Then play with the size, the colors and the noise threshold.
Also, if you want it to look like steal you will have to create some sort of specular map.
Also small signs and labels and perhaps some rivets and stuff like that is generally good on industrial and military objects.
Some visible wear and tear would be great as well but first i´d see to that i´d get that camo pattern working properly.