Shopping Cart
UH-60M main rotor system
June 16, 2011 - 5:10pm
- 10947 reads
Hi everyone!
First time posting 
Wanted to share my latest project. In my previous life I was a Blackhawk helicopter mechanic and thought it would be awesome to high poly (and eventually low poly and texture) a UH-60M helicopter. Just starting with the main rotor system and I'll branch out from that. Here's what I've created so far. Looking forward to any feedback!
Wanted to share my latest project. In my previous life I was a Blackhawk helicopter mechanic and thought it would be awesome to high poly (and eventually low poly and texture) a UH-60M helicopter. Just starting with the main rotor system and I'll branch out from that. Here's what I've created so far. Looking forward to any feedback!Thanks!
Katie
Very cool stuff
Cant wait to see more!
Are you going to do the whole chopper in that detailed scale? Awesome! And you´ve got a loooong way to go, I salute you!
Hey guys! Thanks so much for the comments Glad you like it so far. I've finalized a few more of the parts and wanted to share those with you.
@ chojin...I'd love to finish the entire helicopter with this much detail! The main rotor system and probably the tail rotor will be the most demanding, with the exception of some of the cockpit areas. Little bits at a time
I've touched up the damper and have started refining the spindle and horn attachments. I'll have some more to post soon. Thanks again for taking a look!
Katie
Awesome!
Promoted 
Beautiful work
I guess we shall have to assume its all mechanically correct
Would love to see it all completed to this level of detail.
Keep it up chap.
It looks like a lot of those holes are made with boolean, is that what you are using? It just seems a bit odd because for the level of TB's you have, the isoline view should be more complex.
Great progress though!
-Jeremy-
Just about to post my "final" bits here before I start to render. There is a lot of detail that is currently not in the model, but for the moment I'm going to call it done.
@ Jeremy Nope! Didn't use boolean. I did try that first, but the actual base is really just a cube. What I ended up doing was once I got the shape I wanted with Turbosmooth, I collasped it down, and deleted the faces where I wanted the holes. I regularized the loops and did one more Turbosmooth to get the nice holes.
Thanks for all the support on this project! I appreciate everyone's feedback!
Gonna take a break from it for a little bit, but I'll definitely be revisiting it and the plan is to create an entire Blackhawk. I'll make sure to keep updating!
Katie
The model is looking really nice!
Although, you could achieve this quality with 10-15m polygons. 50+ million Tri's (Or roughly 25m polygons) just on the blades seems a bit insane 
I would try to optomise your polycount down dramatically. Unless you plan to zoom up and inspect the smoothing on the bolts molecules lol.
Great progress and can't wait to see more!
-Jeremy-
Yeah, there's a lot I can get rid of There are some extra pieces that are hidden right now that are also showing up in that count, but I'm going to go in at some point and take some of that down. I'll get some more up in the next week or so!
Katie
I love the detail - be interesting to see how you tackle the mapping. Are you going to use planar mapping for most of the sections? Seams for pelt mapping?
I see you're using max 2012, I've had a couple problems with viewports if I lock my PC and then unlock it 10min later, my viewports don't come back - i have to restart max. I'm also not a fan of the sluggish new unwrap dialogue.
Hi Leaking! In 2012, the only issue I've really had with the viewports is that they go black. But usually either clicking or changing the viewport view using the hotkeys fixes that for me. Autodesk also put out a hotfix that addressed a lot of the issues with the initial release, the crazy lagging in the UVW window being one of them. Not quite sure how I'm going to tackle the unwrap of this thing yet. Once I get a low poly version done, I hope that things will be a little more clear
Thanks man, I'll get that hotfix. I'm only using the trial but still it's annoying. Good luck with the rest of this. I'd be interested to see some updates.
very high detail! awesome!!
Found some time to build out a little farther on this. I've got the lower pressure plate, scissor links, and the beginning of the swashplate started (basically the bottom half ) I'll have more updates soon!
Getting very close to finishing this portion of the aircraft! Last bits will be the pitch control rods and then the various nuts and bolts holding everything together. After that, I plan on starting to build out the actual airframe!
Thanks!
Simply awesome
It's been a little while, but I've been making some progress on finally building out the rest of the aircraft! Still going high poly, but I'm taking a little more of a game related approach, as in I'm not modeling each individual piece as I did with the main rotor head, but taking a more "holistic" approach Looking at the H-60 model that was in a downloadable package that Crytek provided on it's CryDev site has helped me a lot in terms of what I need to build and what I can just leave out or partially model (shock struts that are only partially exposed). I've also got the low poly version of the head done and unwrapped, so eventually I'd like to get this thing into both UDK and CryEngine3. I know there's still a lot of detail in there (main rotor with swashplate is around 5,099 tris), but I wanted to see how much detail I could keep before having to knock it down. I belive the LOD 1 of Crytek's verison was around 12,000 tris.
I'd love any feedback, especially on the low poly model and unwrap. This is an area that I'm trying to improve on and refine my workflow.
Thanks for taking a look!
Katie
very good
The LP is looking pretty nice, but i think that you should even out your UV's a little more and give them a 1:1 ratio and remove the ngons that you have
Cant wait to see more
Thanks metalliandy! Right now I've got everything broken up into layer groups (so the blades are in one, the main hub another, swashplate, etc.) so each piece is unwrapped separately and haven't been combined onto one map yet.
I do have a question, though. Would it be best to finish up modeling the rest of the aircraft before attaching everything together or kind of do a little bit at a time? Since there's a lot of stuff going on, I'm wondering about the best way to get it all in there.
Thanks again for the advice!
No problem
It's common to finish the LP before unwrapping everything, so that it what i would recommend in your case.
Cant wait to see more!
Made some more progress...Got a cockpit door completed, refined the tail pylon, and got a good start on the tail rotor!
Now that we're wrapping up our team game project, I'll be able to dedicate a lot more time to finishing this thing Over the last week or so I've been working on refining shapes and getting in more of the smaller details. There's still some larger pieces that need completion...I kind of jump around from area to area I'm building the low poly in tandem with this. Planning to make some hard-core progress on this and hopefully get it out the door before the end of the year (that's textured and everything). *crosses fingers*
Here's what I've got up to date:
Awesome! Can you post a smooth shaded version please?
The main rotor and the tail rotor look super close together. Is there much of gap between them or is it the angle of the pic?
http://www.the-blueprints.com/vectordrawings/show/1365/sikorsky_uh-60_bl...
Cant wait to see more
Thanks, metalliandy! Here are some shaded versions. It's probably the angle...In reality there's only 2.3" between the tail rotor and main rotor blades The entire main rotor system is also canted 3 degrees forward, but I'm waiting until everything is in place before rotating it. I've included a straight on profile to better see the gap. Thanks for taking a look!
Ahh nice!
Looks great
This is the timeline of people who love 3D but are not in the proffession: (at least for me anyway)
Think of something-
start working on it-
just get started and settled in-
have to leave it because you need to go back to work-
months later you get leave and open your file-
have forgotten where i was and what i was doing-
takes forever to get back into the swing of things but eventually - yes! Scene starts progressing again-
as you start up again holidays finish and you have to go back to work
cycle repeats...aaarrrrg!
So good on you for keeping it going!
Yep, this one's been a lengthy challenge. I've set a goal to have everything (including textures and renders) done by January 20th...2012 I figure this way I can keep myself disciplined on the amount of detail I put in...Working on these things, it's sometimes hard to say "nope, I don't really need to put that in there". 
I'll have a few more shots up by the end of the week!
GET TO THE CHOPPER!
This is just am awesome model, so complex and so detail oriented. I am am impressed. Great Job! So whats next with the thing?
I'll finish up the landing gear tonight (I've added the brakes, wireStrike cutters, and a few more small details). I'll wrap up the engine area next, then finally move onto the airframe. I'll tackle the interior at another time. I want the main part out the door at least, then I can always come back and finish up the cockpit and cargo area
This is great! I'm working on a Kiowa helicopter right now and found your work :3 the rotor is keeping me busy too.. it's a low poly prop with normals so have to make the highpoly now.. just don't really know what I can leave out and what not..
Ok! I've made quite a bit of progress on the high poly (and still continuing with the low in the meantime). Got the wirecutters/guides on the main landing gear and tail landing gear, finished up the engines and IHRSS (the exhaust part on the back), made a lot of the threat detection stuff, and am starting to add in some of the smaller details like certain paneling, windshield wipers, etc. Feels good to be making some solid progress again
Ok! Well, I'm calling this good for now, but when it comes times to bake, I may go back and end up putting some detail in Zbrush. Still so much stuff I want to add Anyway! Working on unwrapping the low poly and I'm creating an interior, too. I'll post more of those later. Thanks for taking a look!
Awesome Work, Waiting for more Updates !!
SUPER
Looks great!
Finally getting to baking the low poly! I've started a bit of the diffuse to lay down the basic colors. I need to go back and re-bake some areas of the main rotor head to get better results. Hopefully will be able to knock out the rest of the normal and AO bakes today. The low poly clocks in at 19,215 tris. That's with a super basic interior (still need to make the pilot seats and a few other tidbits) while keeping it at under 21k tris - the limit I set based on Crytek's MH-60 sample asset. Right now focusing on getting the outside ship shape Will post more as it progresses!
W00t!
Quick taste of what I've been working on....Got the model into CE3, and have the major textures on. Now I'm basically tweaking and polishing...The interior still needs some work, but at least it's coming along Right now the tri count is around 21,400...A little higher than I wanted, so I may try and optimize it a little bit more. More tweaks on spec and general diffuse details in the works!
It's finally getting there
Here are some final renders from CryENGINE 3. Overall pretty happy with it, but there's still so much I want to do! Going to step away for a little bit and work on some other things, then come back and polish. Oh, it is broken apart and is ready to be animated. My final goal is to have this be a playable asset in CE3. Hopefully not too far in the future
Ah, a close-up of the main rotor and the respective wire frames. Learned a lot while making this
You're a cool guy! I respect you!
/"(O_o)"\ !! JUST AWSOME4000 !!
I see long time ago the topic.
♥ CE3 preview!!!
Yeah that's some cool stuff, awesome.
Thanks guys!
jaw dropping.... all i can say
Amazing work, you got a lot of nice details and everything seems to be well researched almost like you have one of those in your backyard. :)
@ Robo...well, pretty close. I was a mechanic on these for about 6 years or so. Got a lot of "intimate" knowledge from that
Some sumptuous details in there. Beautiful.
nice work man - can't wait to see more stuff - I always tend to find people with 'proper' backgrounds in design and engineering have that edge. Keep it up -