[NicoR44]

Great progress Becco

[simmsimaging]

looking great man!
b

[Becco_UK]

simmsimaging & NicoR44: Thank you.

Found some time today to get the 'Rainmaker' interior a bit more detailed and almost ready for painting. Still looks a bit sparse but I'm hoping some detail can be included into the textures.

[Becco_UK]

I've got used to the front view of previous preview renders and have decided to use that for a future completed render.

The runway arrows are simple painted polygon objects positioned slightly above the runway - I chose that method because the runway uses tiled texture and normal maps.

The tree line presented problems because the original maintenance hangar image was taken some time ago and I needed to extend this across the horizon. I waited for a day when lighting conditions were similay and took a few photo's of some local trees. Then in Paint Shop Pro used those photos to paint another 3 images for use on billboards. Needs a bit of tidying up but will look better when finished.

I also kept thinking that the front pistons of the bomb bay door rams didn't look correct. The solution was simple - I hadn't applied a material! Now they are shiny chrome using Maxwells' chrome IOR data.

[Becco_UK]

A similar preview to the previous one with a few changes:

Finished the UV map and painting of the partial interior I made earlier. This took much longer than I thought and ended up using 250+ polygon selection tags which was a mind numbing excercise. Still. it's done now. The main interior colour is a very dark green which when rendered looks more realistic than my earlier green zinc primate colour.

The smoke texture I used for the upper wing surface was used for the engine smoke staining to the lower wings and engine panels - painted on a seperate layer, lightened, blured, smeared and the layer opacity lowered to around 50%. It looks sort of ok at replicating the typical greyish coloured British aircraft exhaust smoke staining (caused by the fuel composition).

Made some small adjustments to the materials, mainly lowerering their roughness values and increasing reflective properties.

The material of the landing struts now uses a low (8%) weighted layer of tungsten Index Of Refraction to try to give them a more painted metal appearance.

Next bit to do is adding some rivet lines to the bump maps and trying a few ideas for a stressed metal effect (the aircraft looks far to smooth lined at present).

[lsega77]

Seriously impressive! I think the only thing that 'tweaks' my eye a bit are the tires (seem too clean and I believe aircraft tires would be treaded but don't quote me on that). The composite looks great and you matched the lighting well.

It'd be really cool to see a scuffed up, "battle tested" version of this

Killer work. kudos.

Luis

[Becco_UK]

lsega77: Thank you. I agree the tyres need improvement. I originally made some 'treaded' tyres but the bulge deformer I am using needed a much higher polygon count so that the treads also bulged correctly, particularly when rotating. Plan 'b' is to use a bump or normal map or better still Maxwell's displacement when it arrives.

[d7mcfc]

Looking great now, You can almost feel the power of those engines...

I'd love to see it dirtied up though as if had seen some action!

[DrMerman]

Wow, how have I only just seen this?! Awesome work mate. I agree with d7mcfc, and would LOVE to see some nice worn metal around the edges.

It's cool to see something different here,

Cheers,
Dr Merman

[glebe digital]

Terrific stuff, now.......all we need is time for tiffin and a nice pipe!

[Becco_UK]

Thanks for commenting and making suggestions.

I've added some treads to the tyres and this forms the first image of a planned sequence.

Not seen here but I finished the mid gun turret and added a simple gunner figure which is really a straight copy of the pilot in a different pose.

I spent some time adding some paint flaking to show bare metal but I couldn't manage to get it to look correct this time around - I've opted for the well maintained look!

[Becco_UK]

Full size version (1024*768).

[Mihai]

If you work more on the materials you can have a killer model/image

[Becco_UK]

Mihai: Thank you. I agree the materials still need some more work and I hope to make some modifications before the next image in an intended sequence.

[Becco_UK]

Having built a new computer some months ago I've finally got around to transferring the 'Rainmaker' model over to my new system and got it rendering with Maxwell 1.6. Hopefully, I can soon make a start on the second image of a planned series. The first bit will be some more work on the 'Rainmaker' textures because it still looks to clean and new for the high number of mission being indicated.