What is it?
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@roger said:
You have an elevating wedge to aim the gun mine has an elevating screw. Mine also has lifting dolphins to lift the barrel into the carriage. Otherwise they seem quite similar.
Are you doing this for yourself or do you have a client for this kind of work? Are you working off the real dimensions or like me working from a model. I should have scaled everything up. I am running into follow me not working for some of the fine detail. What renderer do you plan to use.
Will the cannon be polished or have some patina? And the wood? Oak I suppose. Did they oil it, varnish it, wax it?
I used to work for a tech company and was visiting the UK office in Isleworth. Went into the cafeteria and ordered beans and toast and they threw the beans on top of the toast. Walked into a tavern called the Prince of India and hit my head on the ceiling beams. The story has it that the country was being deforested to supply the Royal Navy, but the inn keeper traded free food for for the oak beams used to make the tavern.
I am working from measured drawings. The HMB Endeavour is an extremely well documented vessel. I also have the advantage of having had extensive access to the replica! This is a personal project, so progress will be sporadic and slow, I expect. I have several photos of the replica canon and one of an original on which the replicas were based that was recovered from the seabed.
As for the carriage finish - the Australian National Maritime Museum experts came up with the matt red finsh as the most likely to be used!
I plan to try a range of rendering solutions.
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The trick here is unwrapping the image from a real world 3D image of the cannon and then rewrapping it in the virtual model.My problem now is that I do not understand the path of events in adding a bump map when I get to the render engine.
I have not added bronze to the non decorated part of the cannon's muzzle as I was in a hurry to see how the image unwrapping and rewrapping would go. And if you think this looks OK, it can be mad to look 10x better. I did not use my studio to take the shot. The cannon barrel was held in one hand and the camera was held in the other without tripod. And a series of 4-5 images was shot under a dim flourescent light. Then the images were merged and flattened in photo show to make a long narrow panorama.
Not bad for sub-optimal conditions. Sizing of the wrap was not perfect and so the repeat is not perfect. But like the other side of the moon, I am not going to show that part.
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I have finished 80 percent of the project but I think the last 20 percent of the project will take 80 percent of the time.Where did our ancestors find the time to spend on so much decoration. The lifting dolphins were my first attempt at any sort of organic modeling. They are not great, but they are OK. The important thing is that I am loosing my fear or modeling organic shapes.
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At this point I feel like I am just along for the ride and don't know when or where this project will end. -
@roger said:
Where did our ancestors find the time to spend on so much decoration.
Well if their gonna invade you gotta look nasty, if your gonna lose you gotta look good. Apparently thats how it worked in the middle ages, the ugly ones kept destroying the better looking one accomplishments.
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Thing are going a bit slow as I am running out of processing power for the Royal escudo (heraldic seal) at the rear of the cannon. I should put the different pieces on separate layers, that I can turn off until I get to the final render. My poor computer is dying when I do anything complex. I tried to bend the escudo using Fredo's bend tool. It ran for 15 seconds and then choked.
I need to think more about optimization and planning.
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quite the little project you've chosen for yourself here, Roger.
as for bump... it maps automatically with the image... so make sure that they are both exactly the same pixel size, and you're all good.
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This is the part of the cannon is at the rear just before the cascabel or rear-most element. I wonder if the effect has been worth the work. I decided to raise it in 3D rather than using a photographic wrapping technique as I did in the two other decorative bands on the weapon. This at up at last half a week and involved a lot of geometric gymnastics and post production.
One more major part to go on the barrel. A floral decoration for the finial at the end.
Should I build the castle, seawall, ocean and ships in the distance?
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The gun is complete. Now I need to assemble it and continue work on the carriage and the wheels.
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@roger said:
Should I build the castle, seawall, ocean and ships in the distance?
Perhaps just a merchantman in the offing under the battery with a english frigate in wait with the battery under its lee. Of course with a high sea. Just kidding Roger. The model is amazing enough the way it is, I can't wait until it is together!
Oh on a side note...you have an elevating screw because batteries didn't have to deal with the swell of the sea. John's Endeavour has chock's (wedges) for it's long guns because it made for fast barrel adjustment under the rise and fall of the sea. This would be common on all ships carrying long guns. The exception would be carronades which was a short stout ship cannon that was extremely powerful but incredibly inaccurate. So these would also use an elevating screw. If you already knew this you can just tell me to shut up
Well you have inspired me...It may just be time for me to play with something on the historic side instead of just work. Beautiful piece Roger. I will be following your progress.
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Jeff, if I laughed at your comment would that make me a Jolly Roger?
Seriously thanks for that little tidbit of history about chocks vs leveling screws. I thought the screw was just a technology upgrade over the chock, but what yo say makes perfect sense.
I have to come up with a better texture for the gun carriage. The engineered wood look lacks historical accuracy.
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@roger said:
Jeff, if I laughed at your comment would that make me a Jolly Roger?
Seriously thanks for that little tidbit of history about chocks vs leveling screws. I thought the screw was just a technology upgrade over the chock, but what yo say makes perfect sense.
I have to come up with a better texture for the gun carriage. The engineered wood look lacks historical accuracy.
Was the carriage indeed bare wood? Most commonly they were painted. Does it still exist? Do you have photos of it now? It would be interesting to see.
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This may be worth a look as well. This is from the woodworking forum. http://www.veneeronline.com/home.aspx Although it may be best to look into lumber reuse companies. They may have photos of nice reclaimed textures. Just an idea.
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![Not quite aligned yet barrel of the mole gun "El Tigre."](/uploads/imported_attachments/wCOh_cannon_barrelassembled_peg2_sm.jpg "Not quite aligned yet barrel of the mole gun "El Tigre."")
Jeff, I know it will disappoint some, but when it comes to the wood for the carriage the art director in me will probably out vote the historian. Maybe I will do mahogany with a rubbed tung oil finish.
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That will be beautiful. Will you do all the caps, bolts, etc in the same material (brass?) as you have done with the cannon itself? That would look spectacular.
Thanks for posting a pic with cannon together. It looks great!
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Oh ya...here is a nice high res mahogany material if you are looking for one. May need some post pro but that would be easy for you. http://www.dackor.com/colors/422-3018_Mahogany_Large.JPG
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Pretty cool model, Mr. Hawkins.
How did you do the renders? I really like the style.
Nice texture wrapping too. Can't wait to see the final model.
Have a great day!
_KN
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Jeff, all the stuff on the gun carriage will be black iron with only the gun in bronze.
Thanks for the mahogany texture. I will also shoot the backrest of the mahogany couch that I built. I built the entire couch out of a single mahogany board. The board itself cost $500. When I went to the lumber yard and told them what I wanted, they said come out back and see what we have. It was one 2" thick board big enough to build the whole piece of furniture. They said it had just come in and they had not had a piece that size in 18 months.
I had been downsized by my company so I had a lot of time to stand outside and rub down the wood with oil. Mahogany is a bit magical as the wood sucks up minerals like silicates while it grows. It dulls saws quickly, but the mineral factor does crazy things with light. Depending on sun orientation the wood sparkles and changes color.
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Ken, Chao Ong.
I haven't run it through a render engine yet. I is pretty much straight SketchUp with some minor post production in PhotoShop.
I am far from happy with the texture wrapping. One thing that did please me was the decorative bands at the front and middle of the gun. I am working from a detailed reference model and I was able to photograph the model in my studio and digitally unwrap the bands, rectify and color and tonally correct them before rewrapping on the virtual model. The middle band was perfect. The front band was also good when I built the front module, but came apart when I assembled my various sub components. I will have to go in and remap that texture.
As to the background, it is the masonite style that comes with SU. I burned, dodged, and played with the levels and color balance. These adjustments made the burned areas come out way too red so I went back and toned that down with the desaturation brush.
Hoa binh my friend.
And always remember that the slow water buffalo drinks muddy water.
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I think I will give this a break for a while before making corrections to the model and doing a photo real render.While I am working, I am listing to a Discovery Channel program on undersea archaeology and cannon recovery. It is confusing to listen to while working on this.
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