ADF-10 Falken idea

My third idea is a fighter plane called the ADF-01 Falken from Ace Combat: Assault Horizons Legacy. I particularly like this plane as it has some interesting shapes and an unusual cockpit and looks surprisingly imposing.

ADF-01 Falken (1)

My original idea was to just have this plan sitting in a hanger but I found an image (below) of the plane with the 'canopy' open and that gave me an idea to have the canopy of my model open, showing the cockpit.

(2)

During the modeling phase I worked on a high poly version of both the plane and the cockpit with a fair bit of success. I found that using xNormals and Maya normal map renders were quite poor with lots of errors so I decided to try and render  out a normal map using Substance Painter. This proved to be a great idea as the map came out with very few errors, after a little experimenting as I realised that the normal map was rendering at a 512 x 512 where as the texture sheet was a 4096 x 4096 giving very blurry results but once I realised that and that using a cage file actually creates horrible errors the map rendered almost perfectly, I even rendered an AO map just to add a little extra detail to the models. The cockpit normals however have some strange errors which I will look into.

Making the cockpit however has been a slightly harder job with some artistic license needed as the cockpit is hardly ever on show, as you can see from the below picture.

(3)

This required me to go looking for other reference images for other components such as seats, pedals joysticks and throttle controls to add to the cockpit to actually make it look like one.

The hanger needs a little more artistic license as the images are not very clear as you can see in the picture. It's very spartan so I wanted to add some more detail too it such as the Falken being re-armed and fueled to add some more life to it. It was also recommended that, because I am using photogrammetry / photo scanning  techniques to create 3D models for my dissertation, I use these techniques to create some models for the hanger. This could require a trip to an aviation museum to get some good reference images.

(4)

Below are some images of where I am at currently with the model.

The normals for the cockpit have some strange errors which I will look into

If I were to pick this for my project I would certainly try the photo scanning technique to create some none important assets to help me better understand the technology for my dissertation. I think it would also help me show how versatile I can be as I can create both a vehicle and an environment, if the hanger can be classed as one. This feels like the most promising project to follow through with as I can get a lot of experience in a variety of things that will prove very useful later on. 

References: 

(1) http://image01.seesaawiki.jp/a/y/ace-infinity/2424944bc377b58f.jpg

(2) http://orig00.deviantart.net/11fd/f/2011/173/3/3/adf_01_falken_2_by_lolmanic45-d3jom9x.jpg

(3) http://i.ytimg.com/vi/eZM9_g4LODc/maxresdefault.jpg

(4) http://images.nintendolife.com/news/2014/11/bandai_namco_announces_ace_combat_assault_horizon_legacy_plus_for_3ds/attachment/1/630x