[released] PBR Attack Helicopter of the Vietnam War Era – 8 variants, desktop & mobile versions

Community Showcases
1

This is my first asset on the store. :slight_smile:

Asset Store link

3D model of an Attack Helicopter in 7 different 8 different variations of which each comes in 3 different qualities for desktop & mobile usage.

Mobile Versions:

• NASA Variant without any weapons. Has a demilitarized gun pod. Consists of 3 meshes: hull, main rotor, tail rotor. Unity Editor Statistics (unlit): Tris: 3.6k, Verts: 4.4k

• Arctic color scheme variant without rocket pods. Consists of 3 meshes: hull, main rotor, tail rotor. Unity Editor Statistics (unlit): Tris: 3.7k, Verts: 3.6k

• Army Variant, fully armed with rotatable guns and rotors. Consists of 3 meshes: hull, main rotor, tail rotor. Unity Editor Statistics (unlit): Tris: 4.5k, Verts: 4.4k

Desktop Versions:

• NASA variant without any weapons. Has openable cockpit windows and a demilitarized gun pod. Consists of 9 meshes: hull, canopy, main rotor, tail rotor, window frames & glass, HUD. Unity Editor Statistics (unlit): Tris: 13.8k, Verts: 16.0k (LOD0), Tris: 5.2k, Verts: 5.5k (LOD1)

• Arctic color scheme variant without rocket pods. Has openable cockpit windows. Consists of 11 meshes: hull, canopy, main rotor, tail rotor, gun pod & guns, window frames & glass, HUD. Unity Editor Statistics (unlit): Tris: 14.2k, Verts: 16.5k (LOD0), Tris: 5.3k, Verts: 5.6k (LOD1)

• Army variant, fully armed with rotatable guns and rotors which has openable cockpit windows. Consists of 12 meshes: hull, canopy, main rotor, tail rotor, gun pod & guns, windows, rocket heads for the rocket pods. Unity Editor Statistics (unlit): 21.2k, Verts: 25.0k (LOD0), Tris: 7.3k, Verts: 7.4k (LOD1)

The desktop versions are set up for Unity’s Level of Detail System (LOD0 and LOD1). They have transparent windows and a simple cockpit interior, rotatable rotors, openable windows and rotatable guns (except for the demilitarized NASA version).

The mobile versions have rotatable rotors only. Windows are opaque and can’t be opened, guns of the mobile version are not rotatable. (You could use the LOD1 of the desktop version if you need transparent windows or want to rotate guns or windows)
NASA and Arctic Variant are late models with the tail rotor on the right side, Army Variant is early with tail rotor on the left side.

Textures, Materials & Shaders:

• each 2048x2048 – the layered PSD source files are included which makes it easy to modify the textures for your needs.

• 7 different prepared colors schemes: Standard/Vietnam (4 slightly different camos), desert, arctic high visibility scheme, NASA.

• Shader of the desktop materials is based on the Unity 5 standard shader but uses the 2nd UVset for the ambient occlusion.(LOD1 and the mobile versions use a single UV set).

• Desktop: Albedo texture, smoothness, metallic and ambient occlusion map (UV1 & UV2), normal map.

• Mobile Standard: Albedo texture, smoothness, metallic and ambient occlusion map, normal map.

• Mobile Bumped Specular: Main texture composition with gloss map, normal map.

This asset comes with a simple presentation scene and a basic example how to control rotation of rotors guns and cockpit windows from a script. The script also handles acceleration of the rotor and syncs the loop of a basic helicopter sound file to the rotation speed.

As a bonus this asset contains the model of a H70 rocket (folding fin air-to-ground) in 3 variants with retracted, extracted or rotatable fins.

785×418 102 KB
785×418 59.9 KB
785×418 59.6 KB
785×418 57 KB

785×418 51.1 KB
785×418 54.1 KB
785×418 59.1 KB
785×418 73.4 KB
785×418 63.3 KB
785×418 41.7 KB
785×418 30.3 KB
785×418 36.7 KB

Asset Store link
There is also a reduced mobile only version available on the Asset Store (mobile assets only and without H70 rocket): Asset Store Link

4 Likes
2

Nice looking model.
A matte grey color scheme would also be a nice to have for customers. It’s a common look for this helicopter prior to the first Gulf War.
Also I understand the naming convention you chose. I think adding AH-1 to the name wouldn’t be a violation of copyright, though I’m no law person.

3

Thank you.
You mean those grey ones of the Marines? This should be another variant of the AH-1. The one I’ve made is like a AH-1G.

It is pretty easy to change the textures, I’ve added source files with layers in a way that someone could do that quickly. I’ll try to create one later.

4

Roger. :slight_smile:
I thought they were only Marine versions also until I saw them up close at Bragg when preparing for deployment to Haiti, so maybe they are for Army and Marines also, but could be a variant as you said.
Source files are great.
Some additional planes in this style would be a nice offering to compliment this quality model. I see several Warthogs in the asset store but none matching this quality.
Also Osprey, Harrier and Spec Ops would be cool - this era - related models.
Nice work.

5

I will upload an update with variant #8 tonight: Marines Grey Color Scheme

1102×642 658 KB
1102×642 434 KB
1102×642 509 KB
1102×642 473 KB
1102×642 497 KB
1102×642 255 KB

1 Like
6

I’ve uploaded the new version of the asset tp the store. As usual it might take 5-10 days for review. But please keep in mind that usually the grey color scheme is used with a different variant of the Helicopter!

This is the variant which looks like my Asset:

This is the version which uses the grey color scheme – the backbone of the United States Marine Corps:

Picture sources: Wikipedia, both public domain.

7

That was fast. :slight_smile: The version with the new United States Marine Corps variant (update 1.1) is out now.

1 Like
8

Fantastic Model Vic nicely detailed and great texture schemes included.
Would it be possible to add pivot points to the Weapon Pylons as these could rotate to fire from stowed position.
As can be seen from 2.25 in this vid.

Also would be great if the Main Gun and Grenade launchers could be separated from the Turret to allow them to pivot up/down as well as left/right. (Turret Gimbals limits were: 230deg Azimuth, 50deg Depression and 15-25deg Elevation).

Also noticed that the pivot points for the Bonus H70 missile are incorrect (centered instead of at end of fin) so rotate incorrectly.

Hope you don’t mind me listing the above additions that would make this a more versatile model for animating.

Overall I’m very impressed with the amount of detail and work that went into creating this model and have left a 5-star feedback in the Assetstore.

1 Like
9

Thank you :slight_smile:

They are already separated and can be controlled with the helper script and manually in the inspector – This works for the desktop versins only, on purpose the mobile versions does not offer separated guns to keep draw calls low.

Sorry for the stretched video

I don’t know if I understand correctly what you wrote.
From what I know the plyons and M260 & M158 rocket launchers at the AH-1G can’t be rotated. The AH-1 in your video, which is a Super Cobra, uses a different type of weapon – maybe this weapon itself (not the pylon) offers some degrees of rotation or kind of compensation mount for the recoil? I’ve tried to figure out what you mean and searched for over an hour without any luck so I finally asked someone a few minutes ago who was pilot in the navy and actually used those weapons. The pods are tighten with sway braces and don’t move at all – you use the whole helicopter to aim.

There is also no compensation for the recoil or something like that – they are just fixed as you can see in this great close-up of a rocket launcher firing Hydra 70s (ca. 2:20)

For the fins or for the rocket? Just tested that and the fins are correct. The rocket itself has the pivot in the center – yes. I am confused, why is that wrong? My head starts to smoke… Shouldn’t it rotate around it’s center? The Hydra 70 is unguided anyway and flys straight ahead. I think most people would use it with a rigidbody and add force at position.

10

Hi Vic,

Thanks for the video on gun rotation, I must have been selecting them wrong as I could only select the turret as a whole.
Will look again, but guess it was user error on my part.

As for the weapon pylons the angle of them just seems to be on the high side from photos I’ve seen.
Though it’s hard to tell as some pics have them level with the skids and others have them around 15deg.
The video I had made me think they rotated to point at target before firing by the weapons officer.

No biggie I will try them as are to see how they are for aiming while nose forward in flight.
I can edit the model myself if I need to rotate them a bit.

Not at the PC till tomorrow, so will post a pic/vid of the Fin’s pivot point issue. But to be honest as you have a model for both open and closed I will just swap between them as the missile will be flying to fast to even see the Fin’s opening in flight.
The Fin’s pivot were rotating around the center point of the fin so that it rotated thru the model.

Love the way you added a fake missile head mesh on the rocket pods, while still have the missile tubes modeled.
Makes it a breeze to add individual missiles into each missile slot for individuals firing.

Going to try my hand at making an version of the old Strike series of Apache games.
This model is perfect for it, a real work of art.

EDIT : 08/03/16
Re-imported the project into a new scene and the Missile fins are rotating correctly now.
Don’t know what was causing my Issue previously, but they are working perfect now.

11

I’ve collected a lot of pictures and drawings and I’ve used the same angle as the majority of the drawings – only a few very bad drawings had a different angle. So I guess it is correct. The manuals for the AH-1, which are the best official documents I have, don’t list the angle.

Gremlins or maybe you was in a rush and just rotated it into the wrong direction?

12

Hi Vic, not sure what was going on but it’s all working as should be now.
Fin’s are rotating correct and guns are selectable.

Go figure, was mostly likely something I did wrong as imported into my own scene rather than a new project.

Being hooking it all up and have it flying now, and loving it.

Will post a pic/vid of it in use once I get the scene tidied up a bit.

Anyone looking for a model of this type, look no further. This one is outstanding value for all it contains.

13

Yes please! I want to see it actually flying.

14

As promised

15

Thank you!

What happened to the colors? Looks like something is wrong with your setup. have you set the rendering of the cubemaps or reflection probes correctly? The main benefit of IBL/PBS used by the new Standard Shader is that you don’t have to tweak settings for a scene anymore. If set up correctly things will always look good and fit perfectly together in any situation – just like in the real world. Do you use the prefabs provided with the helicopter asset?

In a greenish environment the Arctic Variant should look like this:

1251×599 118 KB

The cockpit was made for external views. For close ups or when a character is near to the helicoper or comparable situations. Sure you could use it for a mobile game or something simple but usually you would always have an additional model for the cockpit only, which possibly has more polygons than the whole helicopter.

But anyway when you use a cockpit you should always set up its own camera. One for the cockpit the other one for the world. To avoid any z-fighting you set the near clip to lowest and the far clip to something like 10m (for the mockup of the rotors or wings). The cockpit should be always centered to the position 0,0,0 – otherwise at high velocities you will within a few seconds run into floating point issues – the cockpit model just follows the rotation of the helicopter. You also would place a reflection probe inside the cockpit, possibly with its own rendering setup because it needs to render both, the environment and the cockpit interior. Of course you would use a light which overrides the shadow settings of the scene to fits to the short far clip scenario and lighting conditions (adaption of the eye, shadows on the cockpit should be less intense) of a cockpit rendering.

Hope this helps :slight_smile:

As said the cockpit is for extrernal usage, just look at the cockpit frames, such prominent objects need much more polygons if you want to use it for a pilots view. But this is how it should look if you use the prefab, adjust the camera clip settings and set shadow intensity to something like 0.5:

1480×826 181 KB

1 Like
16

Thanks for tips Vic, lots to learn. Not sure what happened along the way. It was looking perfect colour wise earlier. Think it’s Truesky as changed to linear and it’s blown out the brightness of the sky.
Was on deferred but the terrain was washed out.
Getting my head around how to set up PBR correctly.

Ran out of time before heading to work to look further into the issue.

Will hopefully get some time over the weekend to figure it out and post a better video.
Lots of work to get the cameras working better.

17

Ok figured out the Issue, I somehow had switched the uv sets for Lod0 when switching skins.
Also I had forgot to rebake the lighting before building and both combined to mess up the lightning of the model.

Remade a shorter vid to show of the Model and the terrain using Gaia and Distingo.

Thanks Vic for the pointers helped a lot to track down the issues.

18

Try a reflection probe inside the cockpit. You can see the “reflected“ light of the floor plates shining on the packpit in an unrealistical way from below. I also would reduce the shadow strenght of the light used for the cockpit (need to set up layers for that - I would use another model of the helicopter for that as you don’t have a dedicated cockpit model and I would use a dedicated cockpit set up for that layers – you could also just switch settings at runtime but it is much easier the other way).

You are a simmer, Don’t you use real time reflection probes? I never bake light, makes no sense in simulation games because the time and location constantly changes. Only games with basically fixed and comparable small scene setups like for example first person shooters will really benefit from baking. The whole baking concept does not really work when you have serious simulation games which usually offer procedural terrain of the whole planet, smooth real time weather transitions and sometimes even time compression.

19

Sorry when I said baked lighting, I really should have said recompiled the Realtime GI. Not actually using Baked GI, still learning the methods and terms for Unitys lighting.
Have yet to figure out light probes and reflection probes. Can these be used with dynamic objects by attaching them as children?
What way is best for really large environments to make sure that all objects static and dynamic are being lit to best use.
Not worried about the cockpit as the test game I have in mind for your model will be exterior camera only, thinking of doing a type of remake of the desert strike genre.
But when I get a ring to working on the flight aspects of the naval sim I will definitely take your tips into account when doing the cockpits.
Really good advice, and much appreciated. This is what I love about the Unity community, makes it much easier to learn for us old guys.

20

Short answer: Yes, you can attach them as a children to dynamic objects.
Long and paranoid answer: I don’t know if that breaks any optimizations done by Unity or not. (I doubt it will but I would always test that). I don’t use Unity probes in my own projects, so I never tried to measure if that has any impact on performance. I have written my own mobile solution some years ago which has a good mobile performance because it just does what I need and nothing else.

I personally don’t use static objects because I always move the world and not the player/camera (due to the floating point issues) in my sim so I can’t tell.

1 Like