CSS Manassas - Digital Model

[OwenRichards]

You may have seen AndyHall's Manassas thread here. Based on information from that thread, I've put together what I thought she would look like. Many thanks to all who have contributed information about this fascinating ship!

I'm going to be posting renders as I complete them. This may take a bit of time as I refine things and fit this project in among the other irons I have in the fire.

Again, many thanks to Kazziga, rebelatsea, Bil r , Wardster and all the others who have contributed information!

 

[nitrofd]

That is most cool.

 

[DaveBrt]

Very nice! In future versions, you might want to reduce the width of the armor; the strap iron rails were generally 4" wide, or less.

 

[AndyHall]

Excellent!

 

[Kazziga]

Fantastic!

 

[7th Mississippi Infantry]

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Small wonder that thing freaked out the Union sailors at Head of the Passes...

 

[rebelatsea]

OwenEgan, That's brilliant. Thank you.

 

[reading48]

.....

 

[jay gale]

nicely done......smoke and fire effects are hard to do aren't they.....

what program are you using to do this?

 

[OwenRichards]

Thank you!

DaveBrt - Yes, I'm not happy at all with them at the moment. It's one thing that would be relatively easy to create in a 'real' model by gluing strips to the hull. It's fairly difficult to get the texture of the rails to conform to the hull without distortion on a digital model. I might have to cut them in as 'real' geometry. This is first on my list of things to fix.

jay gale - I'm using Blender for everything 3D at the moment with Cycles as my renderer. I've tried to get a few smoke sims going but they take ages to mess about with and in the end they tend to look strange. I'll play with them a bit more to see if I can get them to come together a bit more. At the moment, I'm doing all smoke effects with a paintbrush in Photoshop! The fire from the cannon is a cylinder with an glowing material applied to it.

 

[AndyHall]

It's one thing that would be relatively easy to create in a 'real' model by gluing strips to the hull. It's fairly difficult to get the texture of the rails to conform to the hull without distortion on a digital model.

"Fairly difficult"? That was where I started banging my head against the wall.

Expired Image Removed

 

[OwenRichards]

Hell yeah. If I had hair, I'd rip it out!

Saying that, I imagine that cutting and gluing hundreds of small plastic rails would not do your nerves any favours either.

I think I've found a few unwrapping tricks that should get it looking better. Updates to come.

 

[vikingbear]

Great work!

GRIZZ

 

[OwenRichards]

Thanks!

Got the rails a bit better. I'm going to try and get the sims to work. So far Photoshop is doing OK though.

 

[AndyHall]

Wow.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Wow. All you need now is a little image of Capt. Robert Handy with the American flag wrapped around his waist!

 

[vikingbear]

Wow! is right. The Things that can be produced on a computer now days!

GRIZZ

 

[OwenRichards]

I've been itching to get some more ACW stuff done recently. So I chucked the Manassas into Substance Painter to see what it could do. I'm pleased with the results.

I'm shocked that it's been YEARS since the last post.

It's not intentional.

 

[nitrofd]

That's cool.