Time for another update, and this time I've got enough parts of the gun textured to actually show a half-decent look at the project as a whole. Please keep in mind all images are still WIP and not final. 

With about 20 individual parts to choose from so far, we have a decent amount of customisation options available, with each part falling into either the Classic wooden style, a Militia/Guerrilla loadout, A modern, familiar but lightweight version or a more tactical looking setup.  There are more pieces that I want to add to the project but for now I'm going to focus on the original 20 and then when they are all finished, look into the additional parts. 

I have pretty much finished the classic wooden parts, but I'm thinking that I should make a more worn and rougher texture for the metal to help fit the classic insurgent looking rifle that you'd see in all your favourite war films. The current metal texture is lightly worn with a few scuffs here and there, but since I made the texture versatile and easily modifiable, I should be able to quickly make a "rough/dirty" version of my Smart material. This will also likely be used with the Militia/Guerrila style as well to properly give that used, battle-worn look.

The Modern + Tactical variations are the last parts that need attention. I have finished the Tactical parts but the simpler, modern furniture still needs to be textured, but luckily that should be fairly simple with the Smart materials I set up a few weeks ago. I would like to make some sort of reflex/red dot sight to add to the modern variations, along with maybe a torch or laser to stick on the rails, but they currently sit in the list of extra parts that I will have to focus on after I've finished the core sets. I'm really loving this project so I have a feeling that I will get a little carried away with the extras, so at some point i'm going to have to slap myself on the wrist and put the mouse down. 

It's a really good feeling to finally see all of these parts coming together. This has been a dream project of mine for a while so getting closer to the end is rather exciting. Hopefully the next blog post will see the texturing completed along with some early renders if we're lucky :D

See ya in the next one!

Time for yet another well-overdue update on the project 😁

Since the last blog post I've made a decent amount of progress but not as quickly as I had hope. A bout of sickness and other priorities taking up my time have slowed my progress a bit but hopefully I should be getting back up to speed again now. I've mainly spent the time finishing up the unwrapping of the remaining pieces and making some smart materials for the project that can be used for this project along with any future guns that I will make.

These textures are still gonna need a lot of tweaking but I think I've got a solid base for my gunmetal texture (above) and the wood texture that I showed off in the previous post for the grips/stocks of a classic AK. The version shown here is the "clean" version, as if it was fresh out of the shop and giving off a modern AK feel, but I also plan on making a classic grey and very worn version that most people would associate with an AK-47 that they would have seen countless times in films and games. 

As you can also see at the top of the layer stack, I am also experimenting with making some camo variants that most people expect in modern shooters, but that's not going to be my main focus, so that will likely be looked into more after the main parts of the project has been completed. Hopefully over the next two weeks I'll be able to make better progress on the textures for several more parts of the gun and start being able to combine them into a marmoset project and the Unreal scene I'm also working on.

Until the next one,

Adam :D

Back again for another update on the project after a couple of weeks. The gun is nearing the completion of modelling aspect. I have just got the receiver left to model as I've restarted that one a few times as I've not been happy with it. I'm also Unwrapping as I go so I'm not leaving myself with just a pile of meshes to unwrap at once. 

As you can see from the image above, I've added in some attachments that I made a couple of months ago to make the gun look more interesting in places. I was blown away by the latest Call of Duty gameplay and the realism that they've achieved with the weapons. It looks beautiful, and that has set the bar for me. The customisation that they have implemented into the gunsmith for the game also looks awesome, there are like 60 weapon attachments per gun!!!! I wont be making that many for this, but since the project that I contributing to will be built around weapon customisation, i'm gonna make a decent amount of attachments and variations (like the stock below).

I've been experimenting with some texture creation before starting to fully texture the gun to establish some key materials that will be used across the whole gun, along with trying to see what sort of variations I can make for it. I'll be doing the classic wood look along with a couple more modern versions made of metal and/or plastic. 

Follow my instagram (https://www.instagram.com/adamharvey3d/) for more frequent updates on my projects as these blog posts take a fair bit more effort than just a pretty picture, these will likely be just for key milestones in the projects :D 

See ya next time!

Now that I'm steadily pumping out projects, I thought that it'd be good to get back into the process of putting some blog posts up to keep people up to date with my current and upcoming projects, so here is the first one. 

I've tried my hand at making an AK-47 again. I attempted this in my second year of university and whilst it was decent enough for a good grade back then, I was limited by my skill level and a shared polycount with another module. Now I have the knowledge and freedom to really make this idea shine. The end goal is to have a beautiful AK model with a variety of additional parts and attachments to really make it stand out.

The end goal is to have a beautiful AK model with a variety of additional parts and attachments to really make it stand out. I am collaborating with a colleague of mine who is looking to make a weapon customisation system (similar to that of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier), and I am providing the weapon and variations to his project. This is a great chance to let my inner gun nut loose and make all of the attachments and features that I want, and finally realise the ideas that I had several years ago.

I'm using a load of real life references to make sure that this rifle is accurate to a real one, but I'm also going to add my own creative flair in places to make it really pop! 

No idea when the next one blog post will be made but I'll try and make them semi regular. 

Thanks for getting this far,

Adam :D