Recurve Bow [Far Cry 3]
polycounter lvl 5
Hello guys,
First post here, bear with me, I'm trying to get advices to be a better artist
So, I just finished Far Cry 3, and absolutely loved the Bow gameplay, and after seeing the post from warxsnake here, I wanted to try to make one.
I will try to push it in the right direction, have a lots of questions. Would not be as good as the one from the game, but I will do my best.
Here are my ref sheet and wip, questions are on there.
So to sum up:
_ For the small bolt parts, should it be modelled in hp then bake, or should I just use a custom alpha in zbrush, or directly on the uv with a pattern wth Ndo2 ?
_I can't see clearly how the scope is held on the bow ? I see a trail, with some "pinch piece" that could work. Not sure about it
_On the top of the bow, I see a concave shape around the border, should I try to get the shape in the lp or could I just bake it from a small extrude on the hp ?
_For the arrow, that razor edge around the tip, would it work with just a plane with an alpha on it ?
Sorry, lots of questions, I really want this piece to be good. Will try to not mess it up too much haha
Thanks for reading, c/c obvisouly welcome !
Nksilver5
First post here, bear with me, I'm trying to get advices to be a better artist
So, I just finished Far Cry 3, and absolutely loved the Bow gameplay, and after seeing the post from warxsnake here, I wanted to try to make one.
I will try to push it in the right direction, have a lots of questions. Would not be as good as the one from the game, but I will do my best.
Here are my ref sheet and wip, questions are on there.
So to sum up:
_ For the small bolt parts, should it be modelled in hp then bake, or should I just use a custom alpha in zbrush, or directly on the uv with a pattern wth Ndo2 ?
_I can't see clearly how the scope is held on the bow ? I see a trail, with some "pinch piece" that could work. Not sure about it
_On the top of the bow, I see a concave shape around the border, should I try to get the shape in the lp or could I just bake it from a small extrude on the hp ?
_For the arrow, that razor edge around the tip, would it work with just a plane with an alpha on it ?
Sorry, lots of questions, I really want this piece to be good. Will try to not mess it up too much haha
Thanks for reading, c/c obvisouly welcome !
Nksilver5
Replies
Very good start!
I boolean everything in, meaning any screw or similar detail is inset in the mesh with a cylindrical boolean.
You can use floaters if you want, its upto you. Personally I cant stand floaters.
Its faster an easier to create a high poly with floaters, but you may need to bake on a low poly with a single SG, which I dont do (split SG).
There are no alphas with the bow, string is a cylinder.
All details are modeled as high poly, no zbrush. I only use zbrush when cloth or similar is involved.
All youre missing after that are control edges and some topo cleanup.
Thanks for the feedback
I was going to clean my mesh a little bit after all the pieces were in place.
I don't usually use boolean, since it does kind of a crappy topo in the end, but I will give it another shot.
For the split uv island and multiple SG, it's something I'm still strugling with, even after reading the topics here.
I just can't figure out the one SG per Uv part, I don't know..
Thansk for the advices !
Looking at your geometry, it's all very nice: smooth, clean and mostly efficient. The only questionable area I can spot is on the cylinders attached to the scope. Two things:
1- The caps of the cylinders are NGons, a bane in modelling, especially where turbosmooth is involved. I would suggest cutting the verts together to create a center point, then remove a few of the lines to leave yourself quads or tris at the worst. Even though it's a flat surface, having a 24 sided poly will turbosmooth very bizzarely and could mess with your textures.
2- Again with the scope, those same cylinders, if they are integral to the main scope, could be attached. You could cut the unnwanted geometry off the cylinders and attach them to the main body. This costs a few more loops for turbosmoothing purposes, but the overall look would be much smoother.
Mind telling me what your polycount is? I'd be interested to compare it to my own bow, the two being similar.
Just saw your bow, looks really clean, I like it
For the cylinder, I know they are actually ngon, I just established the form only, didn't optimize anything yet, as I don't have too much free time with our school project actualy ( final is in 2months ).
I just got the main shapes of the parts, no cleaning, no polygon flow improve and so on. Actually for the polycount its not relevant, since I mostly did an lp / semi-hp mix, so its around 8k for the moment. When my HP will be done I will retopo it, so I would say my target would be 5k Max, as an Fps weapon, I think it's reasonable.
Actually I'm still trying to figure out how the trail work, But I could call it a day and saying " you don't see it, do anything, meh ".
Thansk again
Edit:
Worked a little bit on the parts of the scope, still that pinch piece which holds it to do. Then I will clean my meshes as much as possible.
Will try to work on it this week-end if I can have some time to.
Actually HP is finished ( will do some work with ndo2 for some parts ), lp is finished, have to uv it.
At the moment it's about 2k5 polys, with symetry of, so almost 5k poly for full model.
Is it okay, or can I go a little bit further ?
In my opinion, lower is better if quality not sacrificed, so, let me hear what you think, 5k for a gun is actually quite high for me.
Cheers, will be updated soon !
Edit: small peak, actually working on all the mechanical parts in the normal, still lots of work to do
I had the time to work on it a little this afternoon, started some texturing.
Simple for the moment, some pieces have a spec ( just so eveything is not blobby ), still lots to do, might need another day or two, only could mess with it for 3hours
Took some liberties on some pieces, and fucked up some uv island on some parts -_- Worse thing is that I know that they would happen if I went that way, so.. shame on me ! But practice is practice, right ?
really want the spec to shine, and work on material definition also.
C/C welcome of course, please do
Nk
Maybe even see if you can give the bow some character in the texture, perhaps the owner has painted a decal or some design on the bow somewhere, or done something distinct with the colour scheme. One common difference between most archers is the colours their arrow feathers are, since they're made in all sorts of combinations. Arrowheads also come in lots of different types, if you want to make your piece unique you could choose some of the less common types.
Good luck! Don't stress if you make mistakes, that's all learning.
For the bow, it will have some decals, I left some space on the diffuse for it
But I cant see the part where the arrows rest.
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5172/5727327716_e27c0afdba_z.jpg
http://allencompany.net/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/500x/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/i/m/image_1760.jpg