Type VIIC german U-boat 3D model

[herask]

hello guys! 

 

long time no new model from me. job, family and life in general (the usual suspects) got in the way of me doing this more often. fortunately, I was able to divert much of my free time lately into modeling this Type VIIC. I wanted to do a certain scene in Unreal Engine 5 where, among other things, I would need a German sub. since I like Type VIIC look very much I decided to model my own for the purpose. Ironically, I don't think that the model will fit the scene in the end, but modeling the sub was pretty enjoyable affair and I'm glad I did it. apart from researching and hunting for good set of plans and references. that went horrible...

 

since free time is, well... an issue for me lately, I haven't spent much (enough?) time doing research and going really deep with it. I ended up with a mish mash of plans, references, other models and whatnot, which didn't have a lot in common with one another and by the time I gathered a lot of references I was thoroughly confused on which particular sub should I model, which details to include, etc... the fact that existing scale model kits and 3d models aren't particularly accurate to begin with, it didn't help my cause much. it seemed to me that even particular sub models, like that of U-96, featured various differences between models, depending on authors interpretations. all of this resulted in me doing the general hull shape like 5 times. each time, if I modeled it according to one set of plans or images, it didn't fit to other plans and references. I was torn between just doing manual corrections where needed (accuracy be damned), and doing a historically accurate model as much as possible. in the end I was so frustrated that I just said sc*ew it and started modeling the sub including various details as I saw fit or found interesting along the way.

 

so, taking in account all of the above, I present to you a general model of Type VIIC, with no particular vessel in mind. there are various details that I included in "optional" collection which might've been featured on particular vessels, and that can be turned on or off at will. for my purposes it will be more than enough, and hopefully enjoyable read for you. 

 

first, the "done" renders, and then I'll try to recreate the modeling process in following posts. hope you like it!

 

 

 

detail variations ...

 

 

and an underwater render attempt...

 

modeling process breakdown to follow....

Edited October 2 by herask

[herask]

the most annoying part of the modeling was getting my hull shape to play nice with all the various references I had. and I had A LOT...

 

plans 01:

 

plans 02:

this one is from a book from Super Drawings in 3D series, The Type VIIC U_Boat, Waldemar Goralski

plans 03:

 

I even found a paper model template which I tried aligning in Blender to get some hull representation...

 

and finally, a not-so-detailed 3D model which I thought might help me get the hull shape right...

 

now, let's see how my model of the hull fits all of these references....

not perfect, but close enough, this one...

 

 

not even close to mr Goralski's plans. granted, I didn't model the hull to his plans, but still it shows subtle and not so subtle differences between various sub models, which should belong in the same group.... oh well... on to another plans:

 

 

still not perfect, but much closer. in the end I used this plan and that 3D model as a base reference for my hull. 3D model was closest to the plan above, but featured very wobbly hull lines. so I traced 3D model's hull loosely while keeping an eye on the plans and keeping curves nice and smooth:

 

 

at this point, accurate or not, finally I had my main hull shape which I was going to use as a base for further modeling...

zz

 

oh yeah, I forgot to include paper model attempt. you can see how it too differs from my final shape. I tried modeling hull by drawing lines from station to station, but it came out so wobbly and wrinkled it was really unusable, and completely off compared to any of the plans I have... but hey, at least I have a paper model which I'm going to not finish sometimes in the future, lol...

 

 

more to follow: hull base mesh refinement, conning tower base mesh

 

Edited October 1 by herask

[herask]

so at this point I've refined hull shape some more, I've added indentation for the anchor, finalized those side hull thingies and ballast tanks and made conning tower base mesh... I was ready to start adding details... finally!!

 

[herask]

I've started with cutting holes in the hull, before I start adding surface details. better to get this out of the way sooner rather than later...

 

 

shaping those side hull thingies was interesting. on some models I found it seems they don't add additional thickness to hull, whereas on plans it seems they should. again, it was hard to find consistent info on the subject, but I opted for added volume instead of just being pressed to the hull sides... if that makes sense, lol.

 

 

topology is ugly at some places, but in general it holds pretty well and hull curvature is maintained...

Edited October 1 by herask

[herask]

adding various surface details to hull...

51

 

nothing tricky here. there were again a lot of variations on how specific hulls were constructed, but I just chose to follow closely that plan from the beginning... 

 

regarding saddle ballast tank valves, there were again a lot of choices to choose from. like no valves, only two, oval shaped, circular shaped... in the end I chose this configuration. funny thing is, I can't remember anymore from where I got this idea... 

 

 

adding weld lines and valves...

 

couldn't find very detailed photos of the valves. In general they look like simple shapes that follow the hull closely...

 

coming up next: depth planes, rudders, screws and the rest of the hull details...

[herask]

starting with the bow depth planes. on most of pictures I've seen there's no line connecting vanes (are they called that?) with the hull aft of the bow planes. but I thought it looked better with lines included. it seems like they give the whole construction more strength and honestly I like it more like that... I've thrown historical accuracy through the window long time ago anyway...:D

 

 

anchor...

 

 

 

aft torpedo hatch... I didn't dwell a lot upon it, since it's rarely seen anyway....

 

 

aft depth planes...

 

 

 

screws...

 

 

 

twin rudders...

I've couldn't find much clear photos and info on rudders, so some of the details are pure conjecture on my part and some creative freedom. also, on some rudder photos those horizontal weld lines were present on both sides of the rudder and on some photos they seem to be present only on the insides. I opted for the latter as I think it adds some variation instead of rudder looking boringly symmetrical...

 

and, as a final hull detail for now: rivets. as they seem not to be present on every sub I've decide to include them as an optional detail. 

 

 

next up: the deck, with all the glorious holes, openings and a lot of work for something flat, actually...

Edited October 1 by herask

[herask]

well, that was a lot of hole cutting. apart from that the job was straightforward...

 

 

foremost and aftermost parts of the deck were made of metal and were separate pieces...

 

 

retractable bollards...

 

 

and various additional details...

 

 

next up: conning tower...

[herask]

for sake of simplicity, I made conning tower out of two pieces. I used that base mesh as a starting point and started cutting away...

 

 

that waveguard, sprayguard, windguard, whatsitsname, hides seam between upper and lower half quite nicely...

 

 

more grates and holes. yay...

 

 

 

various railings around the tower...

 

 

I wasn't sure how those wooden seats on railings are fastened, so I came up with something stronger than just securing seats with screws on a single pipe. les wobbly me thinks...

 

 

observation periscope....

 

 

UZO binoculars. that and attack periscope were a bit complicated to make. I had to make do with whatever blurry photos I could find so a lot of details are my interpretation and creative freedom...

 

 

attack periscope...

 

 

hatch...

 

next up: more conning tower details...

[herask]

first, I finished interior details. I mean, not inside, but inside... at the top... oh, you know what I mean...

 

 

DF antenna...

 

 

now to deal with outside details...

 

 

next up: AA gun and 88mm deck gun...

[herask]

guns were complicated to model in that there are only so many good references to find. so again I had to resort to conjecture and creative freedom. but I think they'll do really nicely as a deck decoration...

 

 

deck gun...

 

 

it took me a while to make both weapons, but I think they fit really nicely. both can be rotated and pivoted as well...

 

 

next up: radio wires, variations with and without net cutters...

[herask]

although doing wires falls under "hate digital ropes" category, it was pretty simple affair actually. first I've made aft wires, before doing two fore sets - with and without net cutter mounted...

 

 

for the fore wire, I started with netcutters first...

 

 

now I could mount the wire...

 

 

making variation without netcutter involved reusing existing meshes and was quickly done...

 

 

I'm almost done with modeling. just a few optional things to do, coming up next...

[herask]

I've included a few optional things that can be toggled on or off, depending on how one wishes to display the model. things like deck railing when in harbor, ensign, aft wire feed thingy (which is apparently not present on every sub variant), deck poles (I haven't found out their purpose), deck gun waveguard, rivets (to hide them when not rendering them)....

 

 

safety railing...

 

capstan...

 

hydrophone...

 

aft wire feed thingy...

 

ensign...

 

lower safety wire (which may or may not be present on a particular ship, based on photos...)

 

removable part of safety rail...

 

deck poles...

 

deck waveguard...

 

rivets...

 

 

and modeling done! after a few months of late night modeling and sleep deprivation this thing is ready for texturing....

[herask]

okay, before texturing I've organized things a bit more, merged and grouped some stuff together, and added weight sag to wires to make them look less fake...

 

 

 

 

and that's it... maybe not historically accurate but nevertheless quite good looking, I'd say    I'll cover materials creation next...

[herask]

continuing with materials. I won't go into depth on how to setup materials in Blender, I'll just cover the process in general. I've found this neat PDF about colors on German U-Boats which helped a lot when deciding how to paint what and where. here's the color chart I'm going to use for hull colors:

 

 

so for the primary hull colors I opted for Hellgrau 50 and Dunkelgrau 52.  and that's where I'll start, just basic colors on a hull, and work my way toward variations, edge damage and rust.

 

basic colors: hellgrau, dunkelgrau and mask to separate the two at the right place....

 

mask:

 

colors applied:

 

 

to avoid colors looking flat and boring I'll add some black and white noise to get subtle variations, like uneven wear or something like that...

the effect is not particularly strong but subtle is the key word here. 

 

 

now, onto the roughness of the hull. right now the roughness is nice and even, which I don't want. hull this size is bound to have uneven roughness even on a new paint applied, let alone after some months in use. I'm going to use the same noise texture and overlay it over base roughness to get some subtle variations. here's "before" and "after":

 

 

to make surface of the hull not so perfectly new and smooth I've added some subtle bumps to simulate uneven surface. again, very subtle effect but helps with the realism...

 

 

due to water pressure when submerged deep, hull plates between frames tend to curve inwards giving the hull that wavy look. I didn't want to model that waviness for real so I made a simple texture that would simulate the effect through material. the effect being subtle it's practically impossible to notice that the hull is actually still smooth...

 

although I could stop here and call the material finished, I'd like to add some wear and tear to it. right now it looks new and visually boring. so I'm going to add some dirt in crevices, slight wear on edges and rust around drain holes. dirt and edge damage I can add procedurally, meaning the material will determine where edges and crevices are and add those effects there. upside to this approach is I don't have to manually paint wear and tear on the hole sub, but the downside is I only have limited control on placement of the effects. fortunately the procedural approach worked quite nicely with me needing to mask out damage manually on just a few spots where I didn't want it...

 

first, the edge damage. I need to isolate edges on the model and then add some variation to the edge mask and then use that mask to put different color or chipped edges on the hull. the clean edge mask:

 

 

mask automatically isolates sharp edges, but right now it looks too clean. after doing some masking and tweaking parameters I got this:

 

 

and here's the result when applied to material:

 

 

it's easy to overdo this type of effect so again, very subtle. next is dirt accumulation in crevices. actually, on a ship that's spending it's life in water it's not actual dirt but residue of all the stuff that's floating in water and which accumulates over time in tight spots. I'll use another procedural mask that isolates tight spots and again mix it with some variations to make it look less clean and more random...

 

 

variations added to mask:

 

 

and with the effect applied to material:

 

 

all that is left is rust and maybe leaks, that white-ish streaks that accumulate under the drain holes on the side of the hull. I'll start with the rust. this time I've painted it by hand as I couldn't come up with the way to place it procedurally and to look believable at the same time. 

 

 

I've also added the effect of chipped paint on edges and painted exhaust dirt...

 

 

and that concludes hull material. in the end I've decided against white streaks residue because it did give me some trouble when painting, due to how the hull was modeled, plus on majority of photos I found the effect wasn't even present on sub. oh well, one thing less to worry about...

I've assigned hull material on the rest of the sub, and here you can see another good thing about procedural materials: they can be applied on other objects and the effects automatically apply. material finds sharp edges and tight spots regardless of the object, and applies effect according to rules I showed above. if not for that, I'd have to paint everything everywhere by hand. this way, although not 100% accurate, it looks good enough and saves time. I could spend a lot more time on the material, tweak stuff and hand paint more accurately, but as I said, I think it looks good enough and I'm calling it done.

 

 

 

next up, deck materials...

 

Edited October 3 by herask

[herask]

ah, deck material. this one puzzled me for a few days until I stumbled upon that PDF with sub's colors study. basically, it's a wood placed on metal casing. reason being that metal freezes more easily in cold weather than wood. although logical, one does not actually spend time casually thinking about it. you learn something new every day :D. the wooden deck was treated with black preservative which would fade away with time giving the deck a brown tinge. and that's what I'll be aiming at: dark brown color, texture of wood and random spots of more worn out preservative. although it would be more accurate to paint out those places manually I didn't see that effect on photos I found, so rather than guessing where that wear would be more pronounced I just went and put brighter spots randomly. again, not 100% accurate but sells the effect of worn out preservative just fine, just not in particular places due to crew's activity... and as with hull material I've added random variations in color, roughness and worn edges...

 

 

 

that PDF states that "the watertight ready-use ammunition hatches and some of the square-shaped hatches on the deck were not wood but metal." since I don't know which are which, I just painted them all in metal of similar color as the deck. 

 

 

foremost and aftermost parts of the deck were made out of metal but apparently not given the same color treatment as the hatches. gray with diamond pattern for better foothold it is then...

 

 

I've applied materials to the rest of the stuff on deck according to info in Colors PDF. you can see procedural wear and tear doing its thing on some objects. 

 

 

only now I've noticed I left aft nav light in hull color, while based on it's position it might've been painted dark metal like deck hatches. feel free to chime in what would be more appropriate...

 

 

with the deck done, I can move onto conning tower...

Edited October 3 by herask

[herask]

by the time I got to conning tower I've already created all the materials needed. it was just a matter of assigning them appropriately... 

 

 

and for the rest of the objects I could just reuse the same materials over and over...

 

 

and that's about it. hope you like it. here's one for the end, an old vintage photo of the sub waiting for food delivery somewhere in open waters... 🤣

 

...and one in black and white, just for the giggles...

 

cheers, guys!

[Duck]

Beautifully done!  Thank you for sharing!

[3DShipWright]

Very well done, Denis! I don't know if you are a professional 3D artist or a hobbyist, but your skills are clearly at the pro level, so the critique/feedback I will give you is the same that I would give to someone in the industry:

 

 

Tip #1: Drive your Edgewear with the Material's Normal Map

I recently found out that in addition to plugging in a noise texture to your bevel node(s), you can also plug in the normal map. This is especially powerful on woods as now the edgewear will not only appear on the edges of physical geometry, but also on baked geometry (i.e. the wood grain). This works on metal as well to a lesser extent.

 

I'll give you a quick before and after comparison in a moment, but first, here's a shot of the edgewear portion from the dark blue wood material as seen on both my Confederacy and 3D Longboats projects. Note that there are two methods of edgewear. One just uses a single bevel node, whereas the other uses two bevel nodes, set to different samples mixed with a MixColor node set to 'difference'. I'm using a hybrid, but what I'm about to show does require two bevel nodes with the Normal plugged into only the higher sample node.

 

Figure #1: My edgewear node setup

 

Here's what the bevel nodes look like with/ without normal map comparison:

Example a. without normal input

Example b. with normal input

Now obviously, I am going for a far more 'beat up' look than you are, but you get the idea.

 

 

Tip #2: Bake your Bolts

Specifically in terms of the U-boat, I would go ahead and bake any bolts/screws along the hull into the normal map, even if you plan on keeping them as part of the 3D mesh. In conjunction with tip #1, this will allow you to add minute amounts of rust/warp/damage to everywhere there is a bolt on the hull. Use sparingly, but its an awesome effect.

 

No picture here, as this is really an extension of tip #1....

 

 

Tip #3: Add Wet and Standing Water OR Caustics (situation depending)

From a texturing perspective, the drawback of a submarine is that it can be depicted as both floating on the surface or submerged. And the special effects that will really bring your model to life, can only exist in one stage or the other, not simultaneously. These effects are standing water or underwater caustics.

 

Example a. Standing puddles and wet spots on wood.

I've deliberately overdone it here to demonstrate. Blender Guru has a great tutorial on this, in fact, I'm guessing you've already seen it or already know how to do this, but here's the link if you need it: 

 

 

Example b. Caustics on the top of the hull when submerged.

A bit hard to see from the image, but caustics on the hull is going to be key. The trick is to NOT have the caustics as an emission shader in the actual hull shader. I tried this once and it failed miserably. Blender's caustics systems also don't function well with EXR/HDR setups. My solution gets into lighting and environment artist pro-tips, so I won't go over it here. But if you're interested, DM me and I'll be happy to share. I spent weeks figuring out how to get the caustics, god-rays, murkiness and particle systems and water plane to all play nicely together, and I think what I learned would really help to showcase your submarine beautifully.

 

 

Summary

Regardless of whether or not you implement any of these, your U-Boat is outstanding. I continue to be blown away by the quality of your work. In fact, got a couple questions of my own. Feel free to DM me so as not to derail your thread here if you want, I just figured other artists may want to know this as well:

 

At the beginning of the materials thread, you spoke of a 'mask' on where the various paint colors were applied. Am I correct to assume that means your texturing work is being done in an external application like Adobe Substance Design/Painter or the Marmoset Tools? If not, are using the RGBA channel method inside of Blender? A general answer will suffice, I'm familiar with both. You appear to be a bit of an Enigma (U-Boat pun intended) in that the way you talk about texturing I would peg you as a real-time application artist - Unreal or Unity (though let's be honest, Unity may not be around much longer following the runtime license fee model they had to walk-back). Yet, you've managed to make what is essentially a giant capsule into a 4million vertex model that I'm pretty sure would smoke even a RTX4090... Lol, Just curious.

 

Once again, awesome stuff!

-Nate

[herask]

hey Nate. thank you for your kind words and I'm glad you like the model. I've seen your longboat model and that stuff is also on a next level. that wood material is pretty cool looking.

 

your hunch was on a right track, though. I work as an environment artist and occasional level designer at a game development company. over there Unreal Engine is my main tool. but, I also like to do some hard surface modeling in my spare time where I can just model without concerning myself with those cursed optimizations required for real time application. that's what's probably thrown you of the scent and made me an Enigma ;D, I do both, lol!

 

I admit I haven't heard of using normal map plugged into  bevel node. but then again, I never use bevel node. why fake it, when you can add a bunch of additional polygons, right? but, it sounds like a pretty great technique to achieve that good looking worn paint. will sure give it a go, if not on the sub then first chance I get on another model...

 

regarding bolts, I thought of making a normal map trim sheet or something like that, and just use strips with the fake bolts shrinkwrapped to the hull. that would surely help with performance, but since the bolts are optional thing, and they aren't even visible from some distance away (you hide them in that case), AND since I modeled all of the freaking treenails on my Pegasus, I thought why not use real geometry here as well? might still make normal map, though. I'll give it some thought later. what I also need to make is bake my procedural masks. right now performance in shaded view is somewhat awful because of it. and speaking of masks, they're all procedural, made using AO and Pointiness nodes. rust mask is hand painted using vertex paint, though. Blenderguru published video about it somewhat recently: 

 

 

 

egde damage setup:

 

AO dirt control:

 

 

and a noise generator with control for big, medium and small patches...

 

 

but this procedural stuff is what's slowing viewport down a bit. so I'll have to look at how to bake those masks most efficiently. the reason for procedural approach is, as stated above, to be able to reuse material on any mesh, and second, to use material on large meshes. baking anything on mesh this big requires large resolutions which still won't look as good as tiling materials. there's always some kind of freaking tradeoff involved...

 

so, no external apps used. and this model was intended for use in UE5 which can handle high polycount. I'd just need to recreate materials over there. and if someone buys this for use in video and CGI VFX... well, they can handle way more polygons than this.... 😊