Birth of a tank - Building an M1A1

David part man, part machine, all modeller, gives us an insight into rapid assembly of a game ready M1A1.

"The way i built the model means that making LOD's is a really simple process the hull and turret are all built by hand to be as optimized as possible, i don't use any primitives on those. it means they can be used for every LOD"

"For LOD2 i just delete all the high poly accessory objects.. LOD3 i replace all the wheels with flat planes.. LOD 4 i delete anything that isn't hull/barrel/turret and replace the wheels with 1 single plane."

LOD vs Faces

LOD1 - 4800 faces

LOD2 - 2700 faces

LOD3 - 1200 faces

LOD4 - 630 faces

Each vehicle takes approximately a couple of days to produce, working a few hours a day and have full body hierarchies and normal maps (bump mapping).