Hopper Dredger "Crane"

axeonalias

Thanks Jason & Tadema,I would like to see the car you had modeled,Ive always kept away from cars since I had a bad experience years ago trying to model a golf4 in Maya...
And heres a Horrible Unbaked shot in game with the Bridge fitted :

Gus R

Excellent work as always. It's as if though you can almost touch it.

axeonalias

Thanks Gus R, In Sketchup... you can touch it thats what sets Sketchup apart from the rest!
Work progresses inside the bridge,still plenty to do but im having great fun doing it :

And here is the start of the Suction Pipe Control Centre (which Im guessing is no longer in use as the whole suction pipe assembly was removed)

Oh and a Question, what are these rubber mats called? :

Sergio Morera

It is absolutely extraordinary

Mike Lucey

bupaje

I think those are called anti-fatigue mats but not sure. It could be recycled tire material as those are durable and no slip. I did a quick Google and this mat seems like a possible candidate but didn't spot a big image.

http://www2.blackwoods.com.au/infoBANKProduct.aspx?SG=2000165&S=4084709&G=7522034&P=7800030

axeonalias

Thanks guys Bupaje Im still searching for a usable texture for those...hard to find and I didnt take any
Ok whoa this is quite a mission,im kicking myself for not taking enough photos to use for textures when I was on the bridge,there was just so much! Anyway im going to have to phone them tommorow and reschedule another visit onboard and this time im going to go crazy!

I came across a interesting few challanges that I would like to share,some textures had ropoes,lines etc overlapping the photo that will be used as texture,so Gimp is my friend with the cloning tool in order to save such textures,and man there where quite a few,so far ive used over 60 custom textures on this project from the photos that I had taken.

Here where 2 of those instances : First one was a simple little piece of steel infront of the clock :

Using the Clone tool and carefully pulling nearby colours around,this is the result :

Although you can clearly see it on the texture,its barely noticable on the model however a piece of steel would be instantly cirtisised.
Heres a bit of a bigger problem :

And this was the only shot of the printer I had...

And here they are applied on the model:

Although I am not happy with Many of the textures so far, Its a start at least and now I know what I need to do when I get onboard again.

axeonalias

Well Folks the hardest part is done, exterior is baked,optimised and cleaned up, in game she is getting a good 60fps on full settings with a compliment of 7 1024x1024 textures and 1 512x512 texture for the fine details like signs and writing.

boofredlay

Outstanding.

Stinkie

I couldn't care less about boats, but this thread kicks *ss. Severely enjoying it.

bupaje

Beautiful work.

axeonalias

Thanks Guys!

Well after visiting her again yesterday (Thanks to Jerry ,Transnets Dredging ship manager) ,I was fortunate enough to stand and watch her coming in,of course video and photos where taken a plenty ,a few things noted this time,a few details left out from the model (exterior) but hey,some times you have to draw the line and say..enough is enough,more details will just drag down the fps and its tiny stuff anyway

My main focus was the interior ,another 300 photos where taken and added to the 200 from before and still I dont feel it was enough,but the bridge will be highly accurate when it is complete

Here is the centre Console that I had no info or photos on last time and the main cause for having to reschedule a second visit :

designerstuart

excellent to see a true fanatic every step of his crazy path - thanks for sharing this is wonderful stuff. do you apply basic colour to elements (like buttons, console etc) in sketchup, before detailing it with the render software?

axeonalias

Everything is done in Sketchup,only the renders and baking are done in max:

designerstuart

wow! then in a funny way your work is even more amazing! all those special textures must take ages to apply.

bupaje

Wow, amazing.

Maybe in the future we will have live tracking of ships via GPS so we can watch your ship models moving on Google Earth.

axeonalias

Thanks, Sketchup is by far the fastest at applying textures than any other modeling program i have ever seen,although this did take a while as there are 201 materials on the bridge alone
More details added on the bridge and a new helm modeled. Almost done here I guess,will still need to polish some areas and add some of the chairs, oh and all the fittings that sit on the ceiling.

Just noticed my reflection in one of the textures...Noob!

axeonalias

Chairs in and fine textures seperated,although you cannot see it all the textures that will need to retain resolution in bake have been seperated so that when it comes to baking it will have its own texture and you will (hopefully) still be able to read everything written on the instruments.

Heres a photo of the real interior vs the current model ( I didnt quite get the angle on this render but ill get it when everything has been added :