SPAS - 12 Combat Shotgun

Mathew O

Hey guys, I thought I'd start working on a Spas 12. I've made a good start on the high poly and thought I might as well get it on here and keep this thread up to date so that people could spot any problems that I haven't seen.

Any tips, tricks or critiques are more than welcome.





Thanks guys

Mathew O

Just a quick update before I go and get some lunch

BobtheGreatII

I'm sad no one has posted in here. This is coming along nicely. Are you planning on going in game? If so you might be careful with your edge tightness. I really see it on the barrel, stock, and forward grip (the rest of the body seems pretty alright though). So you might consider loosening it up just a bit. Other than that it's pretty sweet looking.

Mathew O

Hey thanks man! I was thinking once I had finished up a nice high poly I would bake it all down to game res but I'm not really sure what sort of poly count or texture size to aim for... What do you mean by edge tightness by the way?

Thanks for the comments

cookedpeanut

Edge tightness = How sharp the edges are.
Baking normals works better when the edges are smoother or more rounded. If they are too sharp then you will get artifacts or shitty bakes.

Just loosen up the edges if you intend to bake it down, if not then it doesn't matter.
Good work so by the way, looks good!

Mathew O

Ah ok awesome, thanks guys. I'll definitely loosen those edges up before I get to baking.

alexdubbeat

Looking good so far.

Mathew O

Just a little update, I've had a nice long christmas break with no computer so I haven't been able to do much until now. I've loosed up edge loops all over the gun in order to try and get better bakes later on, I've also added the butt of the stock and am going to start on the sights next I think.

Please feel free to leave any feedback, even if it's only ideas for how to make the gun look cooler

Yogensya

What software are you using? It looks really neat so far to me, and i like the texturing so far but won't you have to unwrap the low poly before texturing?

I want to model a modified Aliens Pulse Rifle (shares parts of the spas) and this makes me want to get to it but i use max and still don't get the best bakes either in max nor in xnormal.. :P

mr_ace

looks good, keep going!

Mathew O

Yogensya - Hey thanks man, i'm modelling the high poly in Maya and using zbrush to render/look at it as zbrush' realtime is waaaaaay better than Mayas (Gief Xoliul for Maya). I'm no pro at bakes either so hopefully I can get some tips from some of the veterans here The texturing is just a matcap inside Zbrush, no work on my behalf.

Mr_ace - Thanks man!

Small update anyways, I've put a little bit of work into the top of the gun and popped the front sight on.

Mathew O

Just another little update before I hit the sack

RedRogueXIII

Modelling technique is pretty solid, but edges are too tight on the pump and ventilation shield - even compared to the real thing. As for why to get nice curves just for 3d reasons : the looser the edge, the more curvature to bake onto more area on the map, thus maintaining the appearance of a curve even with smaller resolutions. Same goes for the number of ribs on the muzzle and magazine tubes, small sharp variations in curvature needs high resolution maps to correctly capture. Less of them, but bigger would also look right, while allowing a smaller map size.
Also that bit in front of the trigger guard is a part of the trigger guard and uniform width with it: refs. It only appears to differ in widths because there is a safety lever on one side.

Looks like your still not done, so I won't point out missing pieces, but there's plenty more refs on the gunbroker site. Just search for them and ya should fine more than plenty.

@Yogensia : With xNormal, use a cage generated from the 3d viewer, global extrusion - make sure it extends from the low to entirely encapsulate the high - save the meshes as sbm, bake using those. Process Explained: http://www.xnormal.net/Tutorials.aspx in video "Ray distance measurement method 2A: xNormal built-in cage editor" Cage does a much better job than raycasting normally, this is pretty much the process to get a good bake. But it also depends on: where your uv seams are, where your hard edges/breaks in smoothing are, and tangent and polygon normals being the same in every engine, and sometimes having control edges to avoid distortion and warping between sharp angles (example: End caps of cylinders are 90 to the cylinder body)

maximumsproductions

I think what looks a little off to me is the end of the grip[if that's what it's called] nearest to the butt doesn't feel like it matches the curvyed silhouette however everything seems to be coming along well. (I'm not a gun person but I just glanced over to the same spas reference so take it with whatever grain of salt :P)

Very solid and clean , I was curious though as to how you approached the process of holes inside your gun especially the rectangles because usually what I do is make a bunch of swift-loops for the places I want the holes, then inset and work from there but usually this produces a lot of pinches and I feel like I have to go in and do dirty work by manipulating a bunch of looping

Mathew O

Hey guys, thanks for some awesome feedback it really helps. I've loosed up some more edge loops that were far too tight on the grip and ventilation shield as per rogues feedback. (Thanks Rogue, your guns are amazing!)I've left the trigger how it is as they vary in different reference images and I felt that having it more like this http://i.imgur.com/7ZrTz.jpg would look a little more interesting from the side of the gun that the player will actually see.

I've also made a few changes to the Grip/handle, I don't know what it's called as it wasn't quite the right shape and I agree with your feedback Maximumproduction on that, hopefully this is better?

Also I think you just described exactly how I put holes into hard surfaces, some of the holes I just had to remove/add edge loops until the holes would smooth properly without pinching.. Some can be a total pig to get right :P

I still have loads of little details to do but here's a another small update, please feel free to point out if I'm going the wrong way with anything.




Thanks for the awesome crit guys

Yogensya

Would love to see some wires, the model looks really nice so far!

Mathew O

Hey guys, here's what I have so far. There's a couple of small details that i'll need to add before the bake but I'm about to start the low poly. I've included a close up of the semiauto - fullauto switch as I'm not very happy with it, I'm struggling to figure out what it should look like from reference..






Any feedback is appreciated