The TRG42 Sniper Rifle

[becsta]

Hi Everyone,

This is my first post to Blender Artists, so please be kind to me.

I started using Blender back around June this year. It was a tool that I could learn about, and have some fun with during the evening, when I had time to unwind from work stresses, and a release from the months prior when my mum passed away. I could get lost in Blender, watch many, many Youtube videos from Andrew Price @ Blender Guru, and also Blender Cookie, and a few others.

I didn’t really get into Blender with any goal in mind, bar maybe do something as an intro to my own Youtube vids, mainly about shooting and BF3.

Because I’m a shooter, my first instinct was to model a rilfe, so I chose the Sako TRG42 .300WinMag Sniper Rifle. It was an easy decision, as I have one of my own, so I could take lots of photos and use them to begin modelling.

As my first ever foray into Blender, and 3D modelling, this rifle wasn’t easy for me to model, as it has quite a few intricate curves and shapes around the buttstock. I had some initial goes, but after watching a few tutorials on YT, I’d erase some of my work and remodel them.

Probably the hardest part of this was the action details, cutting the ejection port hole out of the side of the action, and crafting the bolt slide (the bolt head being triangular, but also circular…).

I’ve had no real goal for this other than to maybe animate it to the point where the mag gets loaded, the bolt cycled, a new round going into the chamber, and the trigger squeezed. I was hoping for the camera to follow the bullet down the barrel and out towards the target.

Given this is my first project in Blender, I think the render you see below (200 passes in Cycles Render) is a pretty good result, and I sit in awe myself looking at the details, especially around the scope turrets, bipod, the magazines, ejected rounds (and yes, they were modelled according to SAAMI specifications ), and the rear bag.

The scope has glass in it, the entire model is textured, but I need some help on how to do the parkerised look of the grey parts to the rifle, some scratches and wear marks in the stock, action, barrel and scope. I modelled an Nightforce NXS 5.5-22x56 MOA-marked scope. On the left side of the scope is the intricate NF logo.

What I’d like to do is rework the scene to be more grungy, sitting on top of a bench, having just been fired. I need to add a Sniper’s diary, and TIS sling to the scene, and do some final markings on the scope magnification scale.

Other than that, what do you guys think of it?

Thanks for your comments in advance,

• bec

[becsta]

Hi everyone,

After some more work, I’ve added a Tab Gear Elite Sling to the left-side of the rifle. At the moment it hasn’t been textured or anything, and the buckles, QD rings, and COBRA buckles haven’t been given any materials, so they’re still the default white.

It took me a while to work out how to lay the sling out in a natural position, as I’d modelled it straight along the Y axis. I had to combine all the objects into one mesh (well, three, given the sling is built from three parts), and then use proportional editing to move them into position.

But what I’d like to know is what the best method for modelling the seatbelt-like sling material? The way I’ve done it at the moment is to box-model it using a flat plane and using the solidify modifier. It works well, but the texture of the sling belt is very rough with webbing ridges across the material - the ridges are quite reflective to normal light.

Thoughts? Ideas?

[becsta]

After doing some experiments with the texturing on the sling straps, I think I came up with a workable solution. I used a Checker Texture Node to generate a checker pattern, UV’d the straps, rotated the UV 90 degrees, so the pattern lay across the width of the strap, and scaled the strap UV to get the checkering quite tiny.

I then used a technique in BlenderGuru’s gas lantern tutorial to bring out the checkering, and get it to be a bit more reflective to light. The render above is quite dark, because I have my lights hitting the right-side of the rifle, so the sling is mostly in darkness, but you can just see some of the texturing, and the edges of the straps now really stand out.

I’m also quite proud of the way the sling logo came out. It’s not accurate of the actual TAB Gear logo (only realised it after it’d rendered…).

So guys, what do you think?

[becsta]

Added a subtle roof light to the scene to try to bring out the detail on the sling a bit more - a subtle yellow glow.

Where to from here? Well, I need to work on the parkerisation a bit more, add some flecks and roughness to the parkerised parts (the bipod, barrel, action etc). On the real rifle, these parts are phosphatised, and so are quite dry, a bit rough to the touch, with a bit of speckle thrown in. The surface also is quite easy to “mark” with noticeable scratches. That’ll be the next challenge, I think, to get right.

[PTKS]

The rifle looks good. I really like that sling.
As far as the modelling work is concerned, i think that you should put some more work in the muzzle area. You could add some details there (see this picture)

@becsta

Where to from here? Well, I need to work on the parkerisation a bit more, add some flecks and roughness to the parkerised parts (the bipod, barrel, action etc). On the real rifle, these parts are phosphatised, and so are quite dry, a bit rough to the touch, with a bit of speckle thrown in. The surface also is quite easy to “mark” with noticeable scratches. That’ll be the next challenge, I think, to get right.

What to do next? Well, you already gave the answer to that: Work on the materials to give it a more realistic look