Finally finished

So it hasn't gone quite to plan. I would have had it in UE4 if the explosion had worked and I wished the model would have looked better and I had the time to make it look better but in the end it's the write up that matters, and I do have plenty to write about.

This final render crashed first time so I had to re start everything which is why the explosion looks a little different. Why I have no idea as I had both explosions on the same frame.

An encountered problem

So I found a rather massive problem with my project. I wanted to import the Hood into UE4 to make it look better and practice my PBR texturing however I wanted to use my fancy Maya Fluids explosion, you know the one that breaks the view port, but I couldn't import it so I looked on the internet and didn't find anything useful so I went on the UE4 forums to ask how to import it and the short answer was no. The long answer was no but here's a YouTube video on how we made the explosion in the tech demo.

The tech demo explosion

Turns out this is STUPIDLY hard. The guy made it in 3DS Max using the FumeFX plug in and then took cross section renders (which is what the grey plains are)

Then importing them into UE4 as a Sub UV texture. Then things happen in the Material editor....

....which is super confusing and I have no idea what the guy is doing and I can't even hope to recreate this even if I did have the faintest idea on how to use the more advanced techniques.

 What I will do instead is try to get a render out in Maya as well as research how to build explosions in UE4 however if it's as difficult as the above method then I will just go back to breaking Maya.

Long time no see

Well I finally got some time to spare and got round to texturing the Hood using PBR methods. I haven't gotten round to a roughness map yet only the metal map and I haven't even attempted bringing the particle effect in, god help me :S

Also the textures have gone slightly blurry but get better when you go closer 

Long over due update

So now the model is finished I started UVing all the geometry that  I will need to duplicate like the guns and the boats. But the model I think looks good and I'm quite happy with how it turned out and how much the model I bought actually helped so it's good to know I didn't waste £16 on it :D

Gannt chart

The Hood

So my model of the Hood arrived and has been built and it's quite a detailed model. I really do think this will help with my modeling. Especially as it cost my £16 -_-

The new project

So I found a few pictures of a very nicely modeled HMS Hood and I also ordered a modeled of the Hood to help me build my own middle

and here is the link to the pictures
http://3dhistory.de/wordpress/3d-models/hms-hood