Keiths Polybook

Just a couple more progress shots, I added the eccentric rods and also added that 'fork' above the piston and a few pipes at the back. 

A few more details added, I think it's starting to come together now.  

The little handle was quite interesting to model. I treated it almost like a wheel using the bridge faces tool, and the array modifier.

So, I think I'm just about done with the modelling of this engine, and I've spent some time today figuring out the animation. In my previous animations I've just used key frames and various empties to achieve what I needed, but this time I've used an armature system. It was quite fun learning how to use the bones to get a nice animation, and honestly - a lot easier doing it this way. 

I've used EEVEE to give me a test animation, it's really crazy how fast it can render. Each frame was only 1 second or so! I couldn't get the motion blur to work though, that's something i'd like in the final animation.

Next I will move onto the texturing and I'm thinking this could be a good time to try out UDIMs as I've never used them before.

That valve is amazing. I want to touch it!

Haha thanks! I'll render a close-up of that for you once it is textured!

Reminds me of the contraption on Sherlock Holmes

Very nice work! Did you use bone constraints for some of the complex cam movements?

Thanks frikkr! I made a quick vid showing how the bones work. 

It's just an IK constraint between the smaller rotating bone and the larger bone at the very top, the lowest bone is stretching to allow for the vertical movement, and the bone second from bottom is locked in X & Y.  It sounds complicated now I've typed it out, but it's very simple - I hope the video shows that! 

I've started to work on the textures today in Substance and here is where I am up to. Definitely needs more work, but it's getting there slowly I think!

This is looking super crisp beefkeef

I personally think the wood base could use a little less glaze and the whole thing could perhaps use some grunge on the areas with some more pronounced AO. But that's just my imagination taking off again.

It's really looking great.

Looks really good already.

The metal looks a bit 'splodgy' maybe...could be a Substance Painter thing (I think I remember seeing some unrealistic metal coming from SP before, but I have never used it, so I can't be sure)

And yes, the wood...

But you haven't finished yet, so ...

Thanks for the feedback guys it's much appreciated blanchsb & spikeyxxx  You're both spot on with what you are saying - I am going to keep working on the textures this week.

I've hit a bit of a wall with texturing the main parts - I can't quite get the metals to look right so for now I decided to take a little break from that and do a different part - the nuts and bolts. I cheated a bit and used the addon called 'Bolt factory' to give me a nice looking bolt - then I just modified it slightly and unwrapped it. 

I plan to make instances of these four, and move them in to position on my model. Hopefully if I rotate them a bit that will give me enough variation that it won't be that obvious they are copies. I also modelled the thread separately so I can move that up and down to add more variation there too.

These textured bolts look great, tasty and teasing. Can't wait for the Substance stage with my model.
 

Hmm , I'm an engineer so I work with nuts and bolts regularly and I gotta say the threads look really off like they are far to shallow.  I can't tell from your ref as they are too small , so maybe you are intentionally going for that look because its how they are supposed to be , but generally , bolt threads look like this on machine screws at least : 

They are quite deep and have a very pointed ridge. I also use bolt factory amd usually go for something along these lines : 

Ignore me if what you have done is intentional/true to the reference , but I just wanted to offer my advice :) 

Unless he is going for a stripped bolt look. Then I'd say "Nailed it!"

I too am an engineer. frikkr makes a good point if you are going to have the threads visible, like on the top two bolts. If they are not going to be seen on the threads then I would agree it's not worth the extra effort.

At the end of the day you are the puppet master though. You know what your puppet needs.

Thanks for the comments guys, I appreciate it! It's cool having engineers critique 👍

I'm using a normal map to give me the thread depth as I didn't think it was worth having the extra geometry for such small bits. I'm thinking I can make the spacing more narrow to get closer to the pic that frikkr posted, and maybe push the depth a bit more. I'll have a play with that later. 

Cheers guys! 

You could always bake the normal detail from a high poly bolt right?

Yeah....  I'm sure that would work too - I am more comfortable painting these in though as I've tended to have issues with artifacts when I've baked in the past. 

Heres how they look now after a quick tweak in Substance - I don't imagine zooming in any closer than that, do you guys think the look pretty believable? 

Here's another progress shot on the texturing, I've been adding some dirt and grunge to the metals. I've also tried to add a grinded effect to the steel to make it a bit more interesting.