Chapman PLIII Merchant Frigate (Swedish Indiaman)

[philipjn]

Thanks for the comments everyone,

I have completely redone all the hatches and gratings, added a capstan on the quarter deck, modeled a rudder coat which is finished off with some trim, added some simple decorative work on the catheads, repositioned the hawse cables on deck and scaled the backstay deadeyes up to look better.

I still have some decoration to model and I have downloaded Make Human to see if I can use it to model a figurehead. Any experienced modelers got any tips on modeling a figurehead?

Renders:

http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/a...IDetails06.png
http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/a...IDetails07.png
http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/a...IDetails08.png
http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/a...IDetails11.png
http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/a...IDetails12.png

http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/a...IDetails09.png

An Unrendered image of the one above as shadows hide some detailing:
http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/a...IDetails10.png

Cheers,

Phil

[Josh_Brown]

The ship is looking beautiful.

[philipjn]

Been a while since I posted as I have recently become a dad ,

Anyway since my time is limited my brother has been doing some work on this ship to help me get it finished. Here are some renders of a figurehead that he modeled using makehuman to create a base figure. The figure was imported to 3ds Max and rigged to a biped then posed, garment maker was used to create the clothing and manipulated to look right. The hair was modeled using this tutorial as reference (hair section): http://www.webdesign-tutorials.com/v...orial/383.html

The figurehead depicts the Roman Goddess Fortuna with a Cornucopia (Horn of Plenty) on her right arm and holding the Rota Fortunae (Wheel of Fortune) in her left hand. She is blindfolded and has a necklace around her neck to add some detailing. The colouring of her skin is just the basic white grain texture and her clothes are coloured using the wood texture (any suggestions of a better colour scheme would be appreciated). The figurehead was reduced in polygons using the Multires modifier and currently weighs in at 6558 triangles.

Renders:

http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/a...gurehead01.png
http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/a...gurehead02.png
http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/a...gurehead03.png

Cheers,

Phil

[JW Santhem]

First of all: Congratulations!

I really love the model used, and 6k poly... though its alot, i dont think its too much. Especially since you can scale humans pretty well using LoD's. Another thing i noticed is that it has artifacts in the inside-elbow of the left arm, thanks to the posing. You should be able to manually fix up some poly's to fix that.

As for the colourscheme. Im always a fan of deep red. I think that would make a neat combo with the gold. One thing you 100% certain have to change in colour would be the blindfold... I love the model, but the black colour kinda makes her look like a cartoon-villain.

Another thing you might want to check out as far as mapping goes, is using the gold texture and strechting ALOT, to get the idea of blonde hair. ZaPPPa used this technique on the figurehead of his 'Amsterdam'.

Another thing that might be intresting to get even more detail on the human model would be to use the highpoly version and render ambient occlusion maps for it. Then layer the AO map on the wood_grain texture and use that as a custom texture. I used a similair technique for the 7 Provinciens stern lions.

[Sadet]

I also love the figure but I would suggest that a Roman goddess needs to wear more appropriate clothing like a dress/tunic with lots of pleats rather than a simple frock. Of course, I'm guessing that would be much harder to model....

http://kalemlyco.deviantart.com/art/...Love-192403005

[JW Santhem]

Not to mention that that would increase the polycount to unacceptabe heights. You could try to do some folds on texture though (just drawn or AO-rendered, shouldnt make alot of difference).

[jamesjn82]

Thanks for the comments,

@Sadet I tried to model creases in the garment but the results were high poly and didn't look right, this is what I based the clothing on: http://www.goddessgift.net/images/go...ze-AT-7311.jpg

I have other clothing references which I may try to re-create but it may take a bit of time as Phil has asked me to try and model Mercury for a figurehead so Fortuna may end up being used on a refit of this ship. I have rigged a makehuman base figure to a biped ready for clothing and posing into Mercury.

@Santhem I have never used AO maps but it sounds like something I should try out after I have read up on it. I have also been trying out different texture colours for the skin, hair and clothing and this is one combination: http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/a...aColours01.png The colours in the render have not been adjusted to get the correct tone so the final colour combination will have to have the tones adjusted to look better.


Regards,

James

[JW Santhem]

Love the colour of the dress. I would however let the colour of the pendant stick out a bit more. At a distance its not going to be visible with these colours. Id go for a more 'agressive' combo of black cord and hard red pendant.

[mud117]

Pirates of the Burning Sea meets Project Runway? <3

[philipjn]

While James is working on the figureheads (Mercury and Fortuna) I have done a few fixes and adjustments to the binnacle, wheel and lower wale which now runs much better with the planking, the timber heads around the forecastle have been redone as well as the ropes that secure the anchors to them.

With the new timber head spacings it is possible to mount a pair of chase guns the same length as the quarterdeck guns on the forecastle.

Forecastle render:
http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/a...imberheads.png

Cheers,

Phil