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Deus Ex Oven Lab

Hey guys was wondering if I could get some feedback and advice on this piece, its based on this Deus Ex concept. I think the spec in particular still needs a lot of work to get that nice shiny material from the concept but any feedback would be appreciated.

cheers!


QhN3qJl.jpg

diffuse 1
http://i.imgur.com/FdsGJU6.jpg

spec 1
http://i.imgur.com/drU2kGq.jpg

diffuse 2
http://i.imgur.com/6H9T7kt.jpg

spec 2
http://i.imgur.com/m0kn6vb.jpg

Replies

  • mats effect
    Still some stuff I want to play with but think I have managed to improve it a bit.

    4OoJdtG.jpg
  • anomandarius
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    anomandarius polycounter lvl 10
    Forgive the pun but the glaring issue is your spec map and gloss map.In the concept you can see that the red paint has a very mild specular component while your render appears to be all the same material.

    You need to adjust your spec map to contrast the different lusters. Darker on the red paint, darker on the yellow paint near the bottom(if you look at it right now it appears to be made of gold). In all I'd take the entire spec map down a great deal. It also appears you're using a black and white spec map, if you observe the concept, the specular highlight on the upper yellow component has a yellow tint to it. A colored spec map will give you the same effect.(for your conductors), and a gloss map will tighten up your specular highlights. They should be a lot tighter on the metals and stay roughly the same on the mattes. Your reflections are all white, which is the proper behavior for matte surfaces. Metals reflect a color and the final pixel color should be dominated by the specular tint.

    If you want to play with this, I'd take your diffuse map and cut the brightness in half or more for the high specular items. Then play with your spec map and see how much of the detail you can push to it.

    The pay off is that once your diffuse map is authored it is final. The spec map actually plays with the light and is interactive. The more you can push towards a dynamic representation, the less static your render will appear.

    You could also stand to beat the entire model up a little bit to echo the scratches and wear on the concept. This is another place where the specular map really shines(Yes, another pun). Scratches in the paint reveal metal, and demonstrate a nice contrast to the rest of the area. It is these contrasts that make the piece visually interesting. You're communicating more to the viewer because the information is denser per texel.


    edit**

    just saw your maps posted and you are using a colored spec. Not sure why its not coming through in the render. May be a bit oversaturated. Is your lighting tinted blue? That would explain the brown component of the gold color reflecting white.
  • mats effect
    Thanks very much anomandarius for the feedback. Its gona help me a ton to improve this.

    Yep the lighting is tinted blue.
  • mats effect
    Made changes to the spec and gloss maps can see now why the previous one's where so crap. Gona have to continue spending a lot more time working on them in future projects, I do tend to leave them to the last minute some times.

    onlYRnt.jpg
  • Shrike
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    Shrike interpolator
    you really need to bake an AO

    Your materials need edge highlights. Drybrushing in the diffuse. I also cant really read the scale of this thing, the labels give mixed impressions.
  • alvordr
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    alvordr polycounter lvl 6
    I have to agree. The piece is fine, but the spec is too uniform. Even if you don't do an AO map, masking out areas where the spec isn't so high would help.
  • mats effect
    Cheers for the tips guys. I will spend some more time fixing it up.
  • biofrost
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    biofrost polycounter lvl 12
    A cubemap will greatly help sell the look of the metal!
  • mats effect
    Cheers biofrost, yeah I agree. I attempted to add one for this next render but something I need to explore more in marmoset as it was a very quick attempt.

    Made a few more changes hopefully looking a bit better now. Keen to move onto something else now but reasonably happy with this. A lot of things to remember for next time!

    CsS4ji3.jpg
  • anomandarius
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    anomandarius polycounter lvl 10
    I just remembered your post and dropped in to see your progress. Your last render is much improved.

    I'm stealing from my betters but a couple of rules of thumb I've found to be true in my limited experience is that less is more when it comes to specular, if you examine the data available for physically based lighting you'll see that even materials we consider highly specular aren't even at half specular saturation, and the difference between something that is very specular and very matte is mathematically not too dissimilar.

    People tend to over-crank their spec map and then adjust the different materials relative to one another. If you're going to make relative adjustments start from your flattest material and scale up from there.(remember that nothing is 100% flat, unless you're modeling a black hole.)


    The other tip is to make sure and push as much detail into your spec map as possible. For this concept piece that would mean taking those smaller scratches out of your diffuse and just adding them to your spec map.

    When the model is viewed in motion the lighting will play along the detail and be more convincing than having just drawn it on the model. Subtle changes in specularity and specular color add a depth to the model that is richer than simply changing the pixel color in a non-dynamic way.

    Finally take this advice with a grain of salt. I'm a rookie compared to most on this board but I have studied the issue in detail, and I'm passing on what I've found to be true.
  • leleuxart
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    leleuxart polycounter lvl 10
    Your last model is definitely an improvement over the others. I haven't read through all the posts, but are you using a Gloss map? In Marmoset, a Gloss map is stored in the Specular alpha and is used when you adjust the Specular sharpness. It helps to define the edge highlights and would be good to differentiate the different types of materials you have. When you use a Gloss map, the whiter the area of the map, the sharper the highlight and the more reflective(Marmoset will load a blurred cubemap, so the area will pick up the sky colors), while the darker the area, the more spread out/soft the highlight is.

    I also agree about baking out an AO, as well as a Cavity map. I normally bake them from the high to low bake, as well as any photo normals you generate. I like to use them both lightly in the Diffuse, but they both help tremendously in the Spec/Gloss area, especially with pushing the depth in the Normals.

    good luck!
  • moondog760
    Looking pretty good! I'd like to point out something fairly obvious, though I'm not sure if it has already been mentioned. But I think the presentation of this piece would be greatly improved if you would incorporate the floor piece from the concept. Or at the very least, a simple tilable metal floor texture or something. The design of this particular piece makes it look kinda weird with it just floating there. Just a thought man, keep up the good work!
  • mats effect
    Hey guys, thanks very much for the reply's, loads of helpful stuff can't tell you how much I appreciate it :D . Not updated this for a wile as I am working on a new environment and plan to return to this with fresh eyes again after its done.

    I think I will end up texturing it from scratch again.

    cheers!
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