So school ended last week, and the whole time I was learning and using Maya for everything from modeling to rendering a 20-second animation. Later on I'll have to post the end product but for now, back to this...
I figured this summer I'd start using 3ds Max again beside Maya, so that I could work on and release updates to the USS Nimitz and HMS Queen Elizabeth models I made for the ArmA II community. Upon entering Max I found my control of the camera and shortcuts were devastatingly corrupted after using so much Maya, thankfully someone in the ArmA forums pointed me to a plugin that makes it all like Maya, and I changed shortcuts to match too.
Anyway, so I decided to make some small object just to get used to modeling in Max again, but it turned into an entire artillery piece which I'm hoping to be the first model I really put a lot of detail into, both in terms of the geometry and the textures. I don't plan on personally realizing this model as a working piece in ArmA II but there seems to be some interest in sci-fi models so perhaps after it's all done I can give it up to someone who will see it through.
Here it is (playing with the Acrylic view in Max for these shots):
I've been told it looks like a sewage pipe in the first two but hopefully once it's done that'll change, still a lot of detail to add to it. My basic concept for it is that the blue objects are the magnetic plates, and when firing, they collapse back into the barrel of the cannon in rapid succession, attracting and shooting out the magnetic round (which by the way is 7 inches in diameter, its a big boy). The piece itself is about 18.5 feet in length.
Still to add:
- Power cables from each of the panels that run all the way down the cannon, into a generator or power source somewhere on the base
- Various other things as they come to mind, mostly props and stuff on the base
