[Vehicle] Panhard AML-90 (PR:F & ARF) [WIP]

[Whitt]

Here is what I've got done so far on the Panhard AML-90. I'm 5-6 hours in and I have most of the big bits in place. Lots of smoothing errors and such things as that, but it's the first vehicle I've tried so it's off to a good start. I'll continue tomorrow and work on prettying up the big bits and start putting some of the small stuff in. I think its going well, If you have any criticisms, they are greatly appreciated. Here are some screens >

[lucky.BOY]

Nice, looks like a nice start

Only major thing i can spot atm is that your turret looks too big. I tend to use drawings like this one at the start of the modelling process:



They are not to be 100% trusted, since they are not blueprints, but they do help with getting the basic proportions done. After that I discard them and work from photos solely, but as I said, they are helpful in the beginning.

Also, no need to model so many details on the wheels, these will be done through normal map.

Nice work, keep it up!

PS: There are two variants, Panhard AML 60 and 90, which have very different turret, but it seems that only the 90 ever saw any major conflicts so it seems that there is no need to model the AML 60 turret, right?

[Rhino]

Cool, looks pretty good but I'm bit worried about both accuracy and optimization. I understand your just blocking out right now but its important that the foundations are solid in both terms of accuracy and optimization otherwise your going to end up with heaps of problems later on.

On the accuracy front, try and just make each and every panel in the fewest amount of tris possible to keep them flat. This wont only just save tris but it will make the model more accurate as at the end of the day, all this thing is for the most part, especially for its main armour plates, is flat bits of steel welded together. If we just take this ref here we can see some basic panels pretty clearly, just to line out a few in tris, note my blocking out might not be totally accurate you need to cross ref a bunch of refs to be sure:



Naturally once you start adding hatches etc on top the mesh gets a lot more complicated than that as they need to be welded in to avoid zfighting and to save UV space etc but if you get the simple foundation right, it will be far easier to do in the long run with getting it right and well optimized
If you look at the Scorpion you can see that a lot of the panels are still simple flat planes with the hatches etc that are prone to zfighting are welded up, for the most part although tbh a few other things should be welded up too:


Right now your mesh has so many verts that don't need to be there its overall messing up its shape, not to mention the optimization side.

Moving onto your wheels, its very easy to fall into the trap of wasting a lot of your tris on the wheels, especially in this case since this vehicle is going to have five wheels including its spare on the left side like the above ref and my refs from the Falklands War concur that this is how the Argies had theirs too back in 1982:

Right now your wheels have a lot of inner detail you've done with tris that could be done just as well for the most part using a normal map. Naturally the best way about going about making wheels is to make a high poly wheel that you bake the normals off of. I understand if you don't want to go down this route but if your thinking of doing a high poly bake for anything on your model, the wheels are certainly the thing that would benefit the most from them and the rest can be done pretty easily by hand. Quick example I found on google of a HP wheel bake, although tbh not the best example as his low poly wheel could have less inner detail but its still only 566 tris. The "real time" one being the low poly model with textures and no edged faces:


Its also important to note that you can optimize the inside of your wheel by just collapsing every other edge as you go inwards, without affecting its silhouette and keeping it in line with the outside of the wheel's detail. Quick example I've just whipped up:

Unoptimised (430 tris):



Optimized (310 tris):



While yes you can see a difference between the two, especially between the two smoothing groups between the tyre rubber and the inner rim, if this was for a HP bake you wouldn't have that issue since they would be on the SG and then the baked normals would sort out the smoothing from the HP

But that's a 120 tri, 28% saving from just doing that which hardly makes any visual difference especially when compared to the outside of the wheel which is now in line with that which then frees up tris for other things, like if talking about the wheels possibly making some low poly nuts (which could also have normals baked onto them too from a HP model) and your still using 24 less tris than before (406 tris) with a much more detailed end result, with the nuts being easily removable from the lods too



Also for the turret, you don't need that bit under it like you've done it. The underside of the Scorpion turret for example is just bare, with a low rez UV.


Some tanks that have a slightly offset turret like the CR2 do have a cylinder under them but it doesn't need to have an inside etc like yours. Although in the case of the CR2's I would have welded it up to free up the UV space on the inside of the cylinder:





Other than that looks good. Don't take my feedback the wrong way either I'm just trying to make sure you start off down the right path for the best possible end result

Here's also some refs I've quickly gathered up, ones in the Argentina 1982 folder are from my Falklands refs too: http://realitymodfiles.com/rhino/refs/A ... -02-14.zip
And these walk arounds should help too
AML-90 Walk Around Page 1a
AML-90 Walk Around Page 1b
AML-90 Walk Around Page 1c

PS: There are two variants, Panhard AML 60 and 90, which have very different turret, but it seems that only the 90 ever saw any major conflicts so it seems that there is no need to model the AML 60 turret, right?

Ye, don't know if we need the AML-60 for anything? The AML-90 can be used for both the PR:F Argies and the ARF, possibly some other factions?

[Whitt]

Thanks, tbh I wasn't even thinking about the polycount I was so tired last night. Also thanks for all the images, I couldn't find very many myself, guess I didn't search hard enough. I'll fix all this stuff when I get home.

[Arc_Shielder]

If this is your first vehicle then it's off to a good start. Keep it up!

[Rhino]

Thanks, tbh I wasn't even thinking about the polycount I was so tired last night. Also thanks for all the images, I couldn't find very many myself, guess I didn't search hard enough. I'll fix all this stuff when I get home.

Cool, as for more refs, plenty more out there. Simplest way to find decent ones is to just do a google images search with the search tool set to only display large images like so: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=AML-9 ... &tbs=isz:l

This way pretty much every ref you find there is of decent quality

If your looking for something more specific thou then its best to turn off the large img filter and refine your search term to w/e your looking for, like Falklands/Malvinas (Malvians being the Argentine name for the islands and since this is an Argentine vehicle, most pics would have come from them and as such a better search term) AML-90 refs: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=AML-9 ... 1#imgdii=_

Hope that helps and looking forward to seeing your progress

[Whitt]

Here's a quick update, I fixed a lot of the really bad issues with the tri count.

Cut the front panel down a lot, thanks for the tip Rhino, now it actually looks flat like the ref.
Also fixed a lot of clipping issues with the wheel arches.


Merged a lot of the vertices on the sides and top, now it looks a lot flatter and better.


Fixed the bottom of the turret a bit.


I'll break out these new reference pics and fix the proportions. If there are any other places that need to be cut down in vertices tell me. I'll probably update again tonight.

[Mineral]

You can probably loose those triangles on the underside of the turret I think. It won't be visible anyway. Saves you on triangles and texture space

Nice work. I'd love to see a panhard in PR. Such a unique vehicle.

[Whitt]

Making some more progress.









Also I took out those edges on the bottom of the turret cylinder even though they are in the screenshot.

And also random bored GIF

[Rhino]

Its slightly better but I think you missed my main point of getting rid of the useless verts which only waste tris and don't help the shape. A few quick examples:




The arrows show where you can vertex weld those pointless verts onto the key ones, and circled in red is some verts you may also need to get rid of just can't tell from your screens, or ones you simply don't need. Also for your wheel, note how I did mine which I did on the AML-90 refs, the inner bit should be pretty much vertical so scale in that edge and also would add a central vert to control the smoothing as well as pushing it out a bit since the middle dose pop out and something you can easily remove in lod1. That hatches should also be closed up, this is unless we want to add a MG on one but tbh, it isn't worth it and in combat the crew would turn in. If you like you can model the inside for future proofing but unless anyone on the ARF side thinks they need the MG on the top, I wouldn't waste the UV space tbh.

Also the spare wheel if you look on the refs is mounted on backwards, doing this however dose mean the spare wheel model dose need to have a more detailed back than the normal wheels, which may also require its own UV for the back side especially if you want to have a shadow baked onto the back of the normal wheels which is worth doing, but would look odd if the spare, mounted the opposite way round had a massive shadow on a part that should be fully exposed, but not sure if its worth the UV space for just that. For now however would mount it on backwards like the ref and make a more detailed rear side, as per the refs for it and we can see if we have the UV space for it or not later on.

Once you've also got the base done the next best step is looking at adding hatches and other things that need to be welded onto the hull. The extra details like the metal girders you've made really should come last as they just sit on top and when showing your progress tend to block the stuff we need to see to give you feedback at this point

I would also advise to do your smoothing groups as you go, its much easier to do than to do them all at the end where you can easily miss some bits.


Other than that looks good so far and nice little animation

[Whitt]

One question, is there any round abouts tri count I should stay under?

[Tim270]

8-10k triangles is what you should aim for max.

[Rhino]

Aim for 8k, if your going up to 10k for a vehicle of this size/design its quite extreme when compared to other vehicles. But optimization is still key even with a high target

[Whitt]

Haven't got to work on it till today. Added a few new bits and welded a lot of verts.








Imma wait till i get it in max 9 to do the smoothing groups.

[Rhino]

Need edged frames to be able to give any good feedback and if your not working in max9 right now, before you do any more work you should port it to max9 and continue from there as porting it crates more problems than just smoothing groups and as I've said to you before, pretty much all models made in later versions in max never see the light of day ingame as no one can face the task of back porting them... Do it now while its still a relativity easy task that isn't going to create too many issues.

[lucky.BOY]

I wouldnt bother wedling those smoke greande launchers onto the turret, they wont Z-fight or waste much UV space.

Cant give more advice without proper edged shots.

[Rhino]

Bumpy, any updates here Whitt? I know the porting to max9 is a massive hurdle to get over but if your going to do it, its 10x easier to do it now rather than later.

[Rhino]

Hey Whitt have you made any progress on this and porting it to Max9?

Its been three months since your last update and if your not working on this any more please let me know so anyone else who might want to do this task can hop in it. But if you are still working on it, it would be nice to see your progress

Cheers!