Crowbar 3D (Blog): April 2026

4/30/26

Part 4: Final

Redid the texturing, and reduced the polycount by 2K via instancing the satellite solar panels, for a total of 23K. Got a much better bake after some troubleshooting.

UE5 Render

Tri-Count

UVs

Main Reference

4/28/26

A little behind on texturing, but should be finished along with the environment for the final turn in. Retopo took me a while, I had to reduce 98K down to 25K final. I had some insane bake skew, so I learned how to deal with that using Marmoset Toolbag.

UE5 Render

IRAY Render

Tri-Count

UVs

Main Reference

4/20/26

Part 2: Hi-Res and Materials

Pushing the model further by adding a lot more resolution. This project has pushed my understanding of Plasticity and CAD in general, surprisingly, I think I'm modeling faster than I ever could in Blender, which I have a thousand hours in.

I tested some early textures in Painter, I plan to do some Marmoset bevel shaders on most of the hard corners. I'm also building a mini-environment for display.

UE5 Render

Close Up Renders

Blender Animation

IRAY Render and Materials

Plasticity Modeling

Main Reference

4/14/26

Part 1: Block out and Scaling

Part 1: Blockout

Here are some progress shots for the personal project. Below is the Plasticity block out for the Hubble Space Telescope, simple turnaround, and UE5 Render for scale and early lighting.

UE5 Render

Blender Animation

Plasticity Block out

Main Reference

Hubble Telescope PurRef Board

Original PurRef Board

4/13/26

Part 0: Planning out

For the upcoming final personal project, below are the PurRef boards for the models projected, most likely will be going with either the Hubble Space Telescope or Voyager 2. Also below is the plan per week for planning out the project as a whole.

1. Week one
- References
- Block out
- Scale

2. Week two
- High-Poly
- Materials
- Early Environment

3. Week three
- UVs
- Final Materials

4. Week four
- Renders
- Animations

Hubble Telescope PurRef Board

Original PurRef Board