With the Texture Aging Kit users will find animation tasks involving aged looks easier and less time-consuming. The 300 texture-aging layers can be added and mixed with any textures the user is already working with, thereby expanding creative & artistic options.

This week Cgtuts+ brings you the first in a brand new, multi-part series from regular author Chris Tate, available exclusively to our Premium subscribers. The tutorial follows Chris as he walks us through modeling, UVing, texturing and rendering of this amazingly detailed, and strikingly accurate Civil War Cannon. Today we begin the modelling process, and we know you’re going to love it!

In this tutorial we will be going through the entire process of creating a detailed, high resolution Civil War Cannon using 3D Studio Max, xNormal and Photoshop. The entire pipeline is covered in detail, starting with the creation of the model and then moving onto Uvmapping and texturing
Throughout the project, we’ll utilize a wide range of tools and techniques, including basic poly modeling and spline work, to more advanced subdivision modeling. We’ll also make use of many of 3ds Max’s modifiers and uvmapping tools. We’ll then move over to xNormal to bake out an Ambient Occlusion Map and then into Photoshop to create our Diffuse, Bump and Specular maps. Lighting the scene, shader creation and completing a final render are also covered in detail.