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Nautical Barometer & Clock

A
s a kid, I frequently visited both my Grandparents houses. In their hallways, was a strange wooden clock, with letters instead of numbers on the face and a brass dial you could turn and set yourself.

It wasn't until I was much older (old enough to reach it!) that I came to question what exactly it did. It turns out, what I thought was a peculiar clock was a barometer. A device used to measure atmospheric air pressure and indicate how likely the weather will change in the day.

In the 20th century, before mobiles and the internet, fishermen out at sea for weeks relied on instruments such as this to get a heads up on the ever-changing weather.

Since I had this connection, a first-hand real-world memory of it, I found creating a model of the device for D_ROGUE lots of fun. As it is something I am so familiar with, I could visualise the steps in order to recreate it digitally in 3D.

As I wanted to create the whole thing anew (including a clock), it took a bit more time than I anticipated. I had to create the face graphics completely from scratch (something I had never done before). Furthermore, I had to add rough circular measurements in increments and wrap text around the curvature!


Jason Bartlett ©


Here are the two faces I created using vectors. Vector graphics is made up of points rather than square pixels. No matter how large or small the image is it remains smooth and crisp. If I had used a pixel-based image for the stamp tool in Substance Painter, the final texture would have looked pixelated and low quality close-up. Afterall, this is the 'face' of the device, the area we instinctually concentrate our focus on.


Jason Bartlett ©

Above I have the low poly model in Maya ready to be exported. I was fairly pleased with how the UV unwrap went, considering how I always run into problems in this stage, it went surprisingly well.


Jason Bartlett ©


Here I have the textured model open in Substance Painter. I used multiple materials and layers to build up the textures, adding unique features and weathering, to tell a story of the instruments (the really fun part). In the split screen view, is the 3D viewport to the left and the 2D map to the right. This map is the texture of the clock's glass front. I quite enjoyed figuring out where the fingerprints, scrapes and scratches would be on the barometer and the clock. As the barometer would be handled more, I added more wear to the surrounding brass and scratches to the cover.


Jason Bartlett ©


Finally, I have the model assigned with all its finished materials in Marmoset Toolbag 3. I have set up a basic scene and lit the subject with various lights to present the subject. Below are a few renders I am really happy with. Enjoy!


Jason Bartlett ©

Jason Bartlett ©

Jason Bartlett ©

For more shots of the model, check out my Artstation page here. Overall, I'm very pleased with how this model turned out and the whole workflow process. I look forward to animating the hands in the future!


Thanks for reading :)

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