3D Modeling of planes |
||
|
Submitted by Dev Blog on Sat, 05/01/2008 - 11:36
Let me introduce myself. I’m Lehel Seres, senior technical artist at Eidos Studios Hungary. What this title means? A technical artist not just model, makes textures, animates objects, but works close to the game engine, filling the gap between programmers and artist and helping the communication between the professions. Working on Battlestations games for 3 years for now helped me to get a lot of experience in this field. For this blog entry, I will help you to get a brief overview about the plane modeling. First, we will need references about the plane we want to make. For a authentic game we will need the most precise information and dimensions, most accurate paintings we can obtain. There are lot techniques for this. Mock-up references basically mean we shot high-resolution digital pictures from every side of a mock-up plane both unpainted and authentically painted version. We can also shoot reference photographs (We’ve taken 1500 shots in San Francisco bay on the USS Hornet Airplane Carrier). There are a lot of magazines, books and blueprints one can buy about most of the vehicles, and of course there are countless dedicated homepages exists on the internet. For additional detail we can also gather movie references about vehicles on DVD and internet.
So, we got our references, and we are ready to make a plane. There are several softwares available for this task, but for this entry we will use Lightwave and Modo, as our current workflow is based mainly on it. Many techniques exists for modeling, but the main two we use for a plane modeling are: Slieces Technique and the Primitive Bodies Technique. Let me briefly explain them.
The slices technique: If we are lucky, we can get blueprints which contain original slices data, but of course we can also use this method without them. Once finished drawing the slices we can connect them with the “bridge” tool. Of course we could build these bridges manually, but it’s faster to them with today’s modern modeling packages.  The primitive Bodies technique: The advantage of this technique is that the topology of the primitive body is already given. From this point it’s easy to shrink the tube or any other adequate primitive according to the reference picture.
Now we got the rough model of the plane, we will need to model the details now (cockpit, propeller, gears, armament, etc). This is the most time consuming part of the whole process. We have to be very careful now, because we have to decide which parts should get more attention and detail. We also optimize the object at this point. We should also focus on moving on animating parts.
Now we got an untextured plane build, let’s add textures. First we will need to know how 2D textures are applied to 3D objects. This process is called UV-mapping. To take it short, we peel the surface of the object to project it to 2D space. This flat 2D space is the UV coordinate space. We can position the pixels of the textures and the vertices of the objects along the U and V axes within the value of 0 to 1. As our space is finite, we will have to utilize this space as optimally, as possible. A texture is considered optimal if each pixel in it carries useful information. Of course this is almost impossible, but as you can see it in the picture, graphics artists try to do it at their best.
Now we can start to “paint” the model. We have the object, and have the UV-map. Now we can paint these textures using the references. The next step is the specular texture. This is a mask texture which defines the surface gleams, glares. On matte surfaces like the paintwork of an airplane, the light glares heavily but not uniformly. With this mask we can control the amount of this glare. The next step is the reflection. Reflection mask defines where the surface should be reflective and also defines its amount. Of course these airplanes were not highly reflective, but they were battered, rusty and grungy and the painting wasn’t perfect, so the original more reflective aluminum material was also visible on some parts. The last part is the bumpmap. The bump texture defines bumps and bulges of the surface without adding extra polygons to our object. If we paint black to this texture, it will appear as lower surface, if we paint white, it will raise the appearance of the surface.
When we got our final object, textured, we are almost able to use it in our game, but there are still some works to do with it. This part is called “setup”. We will need to setup collision, animations, propellers, parameters and name the parts so the game code can access them.
Of course this was just a brief overview of the process, and it has much more steps.
|
||
 |
|
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
© 2008 Eidos Interactive Ltd. Co-published by Eidos Inc. and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, a division of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc. Battlestations: Pacific is a trademark of Eidos Interactive Ltd. Eidos and the Eidos logo are trademarks of Eidos plc. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, the Windows Vista Start button, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox LIVE, and the Xbox logos are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies, and 'Games for Windows' and the Windows Vista Start button logo are used under license from Microsoft. The rating icon is a registered trademark of the Entertainment Software Association.
(s08)  
|
||
Wow! I had asked about this on the forums a while back because I was interested. Mycoldman had said something like a dev blog would show up eventually, but I didn't think it was going to happen!
It's cool to see the process. Do you use similar techniques with ships (Lucky if you have original plans, model the timbers, then bridge them together)? I am looking into the type of field you are in, so I find this kind of stuff very interesting.
Also, can you tell me what the average poly count for a plane is? Once again, my curiosity is getting the best of me.
...that some cool stuff there, Lehel. This looks like it will be an amazing game. Keep up the good work, and thank you. Hope to see all the devs playing this awesome game with us on release day.
Any body know what are all of the planes that are on display on the hornet it might give a hint on some new aircraft for the game
1 quick question, that blue plane in one of the screenshots was it a hellcat or a wildcat?
the plane is a tbf advenger used for torpedos booms and sout
...thats some cool stuff there, Lehel. This looks like it will be an amazing game. Keep up the good work and thank you, sir.
wow it look hard i guest you can hike up the price of the game like up tp 75 us dollers lol
(i was just kinding)
ok guys that model hes showing above is 1 of the later Zekes A6m5 31mod i think wich was deployed in 1943/44
there is new aaircraft chk the screenshots Air units from what ive seen US corsair and wildcats TBF, Devestator and Dauntless SBD2c Helldiver p-80 mustang p-38 warhawk b25 pby b17 b29 IJN will be
a6m cpl diffrent models i think Raiden/lightning and Val Judy Kate Tezan ki-43 shiden betty the other bomber
the jap me262
but this aint a official list in no way this ist what im guessing at from screenshots and vids plenty more in those shots and screens what else is out there any1
it will be an awsome time flying F4- corsairs... i hope the increase your plane cap from fortty in BSP at least in an F4 realisticly they dramatically increased the amount of planes per carrier.
Hopefully you will do a better job than they did on BSM. The Catalina's landing gear (wingtip sponsons) don't even retract in that game! The attention to detail was PATHETIC. Please do better.
thats a bit harsh that was a very large game with many air and naval units not all of them get to be perfectly detailed besides the fact that the game is old now and just look at the ps2 early games had poor graphics but later ones had higher graphic quality.
Isint it hard to make moving parts in to a dizine so the p5catlieas wings didnot move so wat? cant you yell at them alittle less tey are trying.
=)
hey sukhoi35BM, why dont u make us BSP? then u can complain abt detail.
Because I ha the foresight not to become a developer in a failing economy (their jobs, along with other superfluous jobs like the Best Buy employees will be the first to go when the collapse comes later this year). But don't worry yamamoto, I'm going to complain my heart out. These guys need to have some attention to detail, and I want this to e the best game it can be. I'm BUYING the game, so I have more of a right to complain than a developer that half-a$$es the animations for an aircraft. Lay off.
how do you play the game?
sure hope they have the more advanced PBY-5A amphibian in pacific
Sukhoi35BM you have the right to point out the things you didnt like about the game and say what you want to be better for the game...but the way you saying it is like they did a sloppy job..but you have to understand if their games is so PATHETIC in detail why are u waiting to buy their secoud game dont only point out what you didnt like about the game. point out the good stuff 2.
lack of attention to detail IS sloppy. No need to point out the good. Don't want that fixed.
OK Sukhoi35BM.BSM was made for XBOX but got pushed up to XBOX360.The tech and software they had at the time was PS2 standard.The stuff they got now is advanced enough that they can put in super detail.
i wonder how they make ships, and how the gun turrets rotate and fire.
very interesting process
Good work lehel and i can't wait to play the game
Is there a way i can get a joystic to play with for my 360?
Looks like alot of hard work has been done
Ive always wondered how some of the process are carried out...
hey big E im right above you we are attacking the enemy air field dead ahead. bring up some fighter to ecort us will ya?
Impressive! The modeling of the planes are excellent. Keep up the good work! That is one cool way to make the planes for the game. By the way, my favorite plane of WWII would be the F4U Corsair.
Reminds me Of DLing planes for MS flight simulators
I am SOOOOO Excited about this Game!!!
Who isn't?
What software in Mac is being used?
hard work on modeling, bravo!!!
Lehel,
The game appears somewhat more blocky and dark than the original BSM, at least on 360, although there IS a very noticable amount of greater detail added and the ships/planes look much more realistic and 'used in battle' and less 'brand new'. is there a reason as to why the graphics appear somewhat more blocky and dark than the original? Is this simply due to the time of day in the demo? It almost appears as though the planes/ships were put together in "detail blocks", like placing in blocks in autocad to form one larger object. (im a draftsman =)) By doing this, each "block" in a plane/ship appears much more detailed (like nose windows on a b-25 Mitchell), however you can noticably see where these nose windows merge with the canopy (it is not so smooth/ rounded but very angled) and with all the blocks put together to make the plane, it appears very angled like a stealth and less rounded. Is this just the best technology offers at this time? It appears to be that the planes in BSM were much more smooth, but much less detailed. Dont get me wrong here, you did an amazing job and the planes look a hell of alot more realistic than in BSM, so kudos ,just wondering about this...
thats sweet, although, I wish I crashed when I fly through trees
. But models look great.
tree crashing would be the death of too many players. its ok w. me BUT where are the debris when the planes crash, all there is is smoke. but dont get me started on Kamikaze, its amazing.
every thing on skirmish is so gay because you can instint spawn cuz all the A.I. does is spawn like 30 battle ships all at once right before i capture the island. can someone please fix a setting so u can turn off and on instant spawning please tyvm...
You people who made this game. it neeeds more kamikaze's in skirmish like island capture. like zero kamikaze's more then just the ohka's ty for reading
...and the Catalina's gear STILL d0es n0t retract...way t0 g0?
Can whe do it in Maya? What is the format? I am a 3d Artist too but I have mostly work in the movie/publicity industries so i dont realy know what rules you have to follow. If that games is open to modding it could convince me to buy it.
i wish you could use smokescreen
then you couldn't see either.
I model 3D starships for the PC game "Star Fleet Command", so I know that it can take a fair amount of time and patience to make a model work.
Some aircraft are noticeable by their absence in the game and would make interesting additions.
For the Japanese the following could be added:
Ki-27 "Nate" which was as common as the Zero, being the Japanese Army's principle fighter.
Ki-61 "Tony" and the later Ki-100 radial engined version.
Ki-84 "Frank" the most feared of all Japanese fighters, having close to P-51 Mustang performance.
A5M which was the smaller fighter version of the A3M "Val" and still served on Japanese naval bases for defence.
For the Allies how about:
Bristol Beaufighter which the Japanese called "The Whispering Death". Probally the most well armed and maneuverable twin engined fighter of the war. Can carry rockets and a torpedo together as well.
Douglas A-26 Havoc anti-ship fighter bomber. It has 12 x 0.5" guns in the nose.
SBD-2 Brewster Buccaneer which was safer to fly than the Curtis Helldiver, but plagued with the usual Brewster poor build and quality control issues. Handling like a flying brick was another problem. Used as trainers and fired into the sea as unmanned carrier catapult test objects.
P-61 "Black Widow".
Seamew floatplane which was even more underpowered than the Kingfisher and much hated by its crews.
B-26 "Marauder".
Mr. Seres I would appriciate it if you gave us a tool to open mmod files we can actually do 3D modeling too as I tried a large number of 3D programs and none manage to work for mmod files. Are these compressed if yes is there a tool that can do it?If not what program opens them. I have a substantial amount of models I am planning on adding to both BSP and BSM like Fw-190, BF-109, Scharnhorst, Bismarck, Type VII, Type 1936A, Type IXD, He-111, Ju-87 and 88, Spitfire, Tribal, Queen Elizabeth, Somers, Colorado, Richelieu, Conte Di Cavour, Zara, Contotiere 1,2,3,5, Admiral Hipper, Prizn Eugen, Graf Zeppelin, Nelson, New Mexico, Dunkerque, Hood, Algerie, Konigsberg, Deutschland, Leipzig, Furutaka/Aoba, Kirov,Kent, Southampton, V & W, Pensacola, J/K/N classes, and O/P classes. I have already created a map for BSM and tested it succesfully but would like to take this one step further.Me and a friend have created these models.
i think it would be good if say you completed the game that you unlock a modren jet fighter plane? think of the damage you could do!!!!
come on for your shopping now designer handbags and replica handbags or replica watches all come here.we supply Replica hermes handbags and Versace Replica handbags or Louis Vuitton handbags .Replica chanel handbags very cheap base on high quality and perfect service .replica omega watches and Swiss replica watches very cheap at our store .designer purse very BeautifulDiscount handbags and Cheap handbags let u Save some money .handbags as Marni handbags and Versace handbags .Thomaswylde handbags .Juicy Couture handbags .Loewe handbags .Valentino handbags all in our sits
|Alexander Wang handbags|Bottega Veneta handbags|Kooba handbags|insulated glass|marble composite slab|Replica Bvlgari Watches|Replica Cartier Watches|Replica Chanel Watches|Replica Chopard Watches|Replica Corum Watches|Franck Muller Watches|Replica Gucci watches|Replica IWC watches|Jimmy Choo handbags|Jimmy Choo bags|Yves Saint Laurent handbags|YSL handbags|breitling Superocean|breitling bentley watch|breitling bentley GT|breitling Montbrillant|breitling Navitimer|IWC watche|Replica IWC watches|IWC Pilot|IWC InGenieur|replica iwc portuguese|royal oak watches|Audemars Piguet watches|Audemars Piguet Replica Watch|Baume Mercier Watches|Bell ross watches|Bvlgari watches|Bvlgari watches replica|replica jaeger le coultre watches|jaeger le coultre watches|Replica Cartier watches|Cartier watch|cartier tank francaise watch|cartier tank watch|chanel J12 watch