New Units; Updated Russian WWII units

O.K. I'm doing an over haul of all my units, Iv'e fixed sevaral of my major problems, such as lack of shadows, correct light source location, stable camera possitioning etc..
The firs unit is actualy a new one, Thats why Iv'e made a new thread for it. You may already have a version of my KV2 heavy tank (basily an armoured howitzer), well the KV2 is a modification of an early russian Heavy tank design, the KV1 which was upgraded because of its underpowered main gun.
Here is the KV1 heavy tank; XXX KV1 heavy tank XXX

I am going to rework all my tanks, and airplanes to the same standard, and you can also look out for a Il-2 assault plane, IS3 heavy tank, one of the ISU mobile suport guns (plus an earlier support gun based on a different base) and some german units including the mk III panzer (which, because of its flexibile and highly modified design I plan to make the object of a 3d unit design tutorial, people should be able to use my tutorial to help make Mk IVs, Stug IIIs and IVs, and other variations).

Here is a shot of the KV1 and my new version of the KV2 (finished soon) note the bigger barrel and removed track guards;

they look brilliant well down whoops pardon me for the brown on my nose

Great work!! This KV1 is your best tanks' work, I think. I specially like the death animation, is very well done.

Thanks for the compliment pablostuka; I feel that ive turned a corner in my unit design, all at once ive figured out how to get stable animation, real shadows and quick turnout time. I think I'm finaly ready to do a good job on some infantry units.

But for the moment Here is my next unit; XXX Tank Killer XXX
The ISU 152 is a russian suport gun based on the IS2 chassis, You could also use this unit for a generic heavy tank killer. The 152mm gun could make a dent in just about anything, while the IS chassis has strong armour, the disadvantage of the ISU is the lack of a rotating turret, which make it much cheaper and able to take a bigger gun, but make targeting enemy tanks difficult as the whole tank has to be turned.
I also plan to do a light russian tank killer based on the T34 chassis the SU-100.

Heres a preview;

how, what, where is that background for all the tanks from it looks really kewl

Ohh yea also your units are incredible, The tanks are my favorite unit in the whole game and with your tanks along with some others i have filled that void from the time that i first got the game, thanxs soooo much keep up the good work man

lata

is the tank killer done yet because you said that it was your next unit so i was just wondering cuz i really want to get that into the game it looks like the equivilent of the german elephant i don't know if it is but it just looks vicious

Smoking mirror, your units were great before, now they're so good they fit right in with the firaxis ones! Just 2 quick questions,

will you be reworking your King Tiger also?

And were you still planning to do naval units for the ww1/2 era?

Eagerly anticipating your next work!

for Incubus0223; yes its already done, just click on the download link in the thread (XXXtank killerXXX) yes it could be used as a german elephant, germany and russia both used similar designs for their support guns and tank killers (well similar when compared to the american priest and the sherman variants).

For TVA22 yes I do intend to do some WWI /WWII naval units, but they are not at the top of my list, I plan to do a 3d unit tutorial if you want to use my techniques to help in making your own. Animating a unit is not as dificult as it seems, the hardest part is making the model in the first place. If you do that right, you can use simple routines to give a very realistic set of animations. I am thinking of reworking my tiger II though some one else is already working on a new version (with a better 3d model) I plan to keep all my units within a strick size alowance from now on, the KV1 is just the right size.

The back ground is just a big cylinder on its end with the unit sitting on top. Corel dream 3d has advanced texture functions (about its only good point) and alows you to mix seamless textures and bump maps in a single texture. It makes for a very pretty preview.

I like your KV tanks. They look really cool.

Hi, Smoking Mirror. I have a little request. Can you make the units_32 & Civilopedia pictures of all your units?I hope it doesn't is much work, with your 3D programs Thanks.

Your work is GREAT.Would you Please Make modern Russian units I love them but I cant draw.It would be great to make a chechnya mod.Keep up the good work

what 3d program do you use?

I use Corel dream 3d it comes with corel draw 8 (I think their on corel 10 now, so shouldn't be too expensive, I got it in apackage with the computer), its good for producing high quality still images, and has a number of good features such as advanced textures Semi and full transparency and good multiple light sourcing, But it doesn't feature any animation functions, so its all hard work but gives a good result if used properly.