Tank Texture

     I have found another great website which has helped me with my model. Here someone has made a tank the same model as mine which has been really helpful to look at.

More information on the model can be found here http://www.antos.ca/freebies.htm



I have now stuck in to the texturing process of my work. This has led to several different developments.

Problems
The first issue I ran in to luckily occurred whilst I was at Uni. Therefore Lothar was able to show me how to fix it. I am not sure how it happened but I had manage to parent a lot of the objects in my scene unintentionally. This led to problems when I tried to duplicate some of my textured objects but was relatively easy to fix.

The second issue came later. I had organised the different textured group objects into corresponding layers, When I was rearranging these however it became impossible to remove certain objects from a layer. I was able to fix this eventually just by deleting and recreating the layer.

Texturing
Throughout this project a lot of people have looked to the internet for textures to use on their model. I have spent a lot of time working on my tank in Maya and am really proud of how my abilities have developed because of this. In keeping with this it was really important to me that my textures should be completely made from scratch. This has taken up a lot of my time and has forced me to work further into the last week of my deadline then I had hoped for however it is still something I am glad I made the choice to do- and furthermore it has been another big learning curve for me within this project.

I found a really helpful tutorial online that was actually made for a tank model which can be found here: http://www.moddb.com/tutorials/all-texturing-tutorial. This gave a fantastic step by step guide to creating colour layers, metallic textures, variations in shades, chips and damage, plus dirt, grime, and mud layers. Applied to the model this creates a really pleasing effect.
     Decals
Another step mentioned in the tutorial includes decals. It is important that the model isn't completely bare of any insignia as this will look unnatural. It is also important that these details must have suffered similar wear to  the rest of the tank.

I looked at images like this to make sure I obtained the right kind of decals. In the end I opted for a minimal touch, just including the tank number and a small logo.

Though the tank will be the same colour pretty much all over, I have adjusted the shades slightly on the different texture layers so there is some variation.

It was important to take into account what part of the tank I am texturing and how its surface may vary. This image shows the wheels layer which I decided , as it was closer the the ground and the various terrain rubble, would be heavier affected by chips, scratch, mud and grime. Again it seems like a small difference but it really helps once the whole tank has been textured.