UPlander Supreme Shotgun

pmiller001

Hey everyone! i've never modeled a gun before, so I tackled this on Saturday/Sunday. I think it was a lot of fun. That being said, I already see some problems that I dont know how to solve at the moment. So if you all would be so kind to help, then thanks!

with that out of the way.
My goals are (in this order)
-Learning to model the shapes of the gun without them coming out wobbly, and/or having any strange pinching going on.

-Efficient ways to model a gun. And if some of the same thought processes for modeling a certain type of gun can be applied to another type of gun.

-Retopoing a gun. How do i do that? or am I supposed to do that?

-(this one is the biggest to me) UV unwrapping a gun!. Making good uvs for baking normals. As of right now baking hard surface maps is a problem for me.

-Making believable/realistic metals with specular maps (I think thats the correct wordage, if not let me know please).

-Completing this model as if it were to be used in UE4.



So yes, these are the things I'm trying to accomplish. If most of you have seen my threads, you know they tend to be a long lonnngg time. So this might be another 2 weeker in the chamber haha. Either way. Comments are appreciated always.

pmiller001

cough

DeviatePanda

Could we get some renders with wire frames?

Also I see that your barrel lock mechanism-thingy juts almost straight out of the gun, while in all of the references it is contoured much closer to the stock.

Shrike

it looks like your proportions are off , the 2 barrels are a lot wider than your stock and reciever, while they are not too far off on the real one, can be seen well on the very bottom photo

make sure to have enough references and something you can trace at best, like side shots and front or back shots

pmiller001

@shrike; Are you saying that the barrel is wider on my model than it is in the picture?

pmiller001

@shrike Will this work?


[sketchfab]2427483088d744a188ceddabb1e78bd9[/sketchfab]
UPlander Supreme by pmiller001 on Sketchfab

BradMyers82

Looks good so far man. I think your topology needs some work in the pump part (not sure whats that called exactly), and some of your support loops seem sorta oddly placed imo. Like the back of the gun (large wooden part) seems sorta blocky, like its not transitioning quite right. and I think the furthest part back (the plastic or metal bit there) should be oval shaped. Its hard for me to be sure on some of these details because you don't have a whole lot of reference here. Hopefully you have like 100+ references images because you really need that for doing this kind of work.
Lastly it looks like there is some shading error in the tip of the barrel. Perhaps you just need to add another loop up there. This tutorial might help btw: [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Tgy0lBdJK0&list=PLXmzoxG4U6Raf91BmOtZyOUfyY-r3pyBW&index=1[/ame]


But good work so far man, looking forward to seeing more/

pmiller001

Thanks for the words Brads!
I gathered a lot more reference, and tackled this a second time. I can already tell its changing quite a bit.

BradMyers82

cool man, keep at it!

pmiller001

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pmiller001

I'd like to move on to retoplogizing it.
Any thoughts on it so far?

pmiller001

I feel like i'm getting better with baking normal maps on hard surface objects. It took me a little bit to get to this result, but MAN was it worth it!. Plenty of crashes later and this is the result. I'm going to move on to texturing now, but if anyone has any words to say about this, They'd be greatly appreciated!. I will use the knowledge on my next model.

pmiller001

SECOND IMAGE i messed with the metalness in 3DO.








Copied from my post on my blog.

So I'm calling this one done for now. I want to take what I've learned on to some new projects. That being said, let me document exactly what I've learned!
1. Cross APP mode using DDO. I've always liked Marmoset Toolbag, and this feature is really cool
2. I've learned to use a metalness map. I still kind of prefer a specular map, but I still want to get better with metal maps.
3. I've learned Some PBR theory.
4. Baking normal maps for hard surface objects, and using cages to do so
5. Modeling hard surface meshes, and optimizing said meshes inside of 3DS max after using turbo smooth.
6. UV'ing using UV Layout.

Now these are the first few things that came to mind, when I asked myself what'd I learn. That being said, there are still things I wish I figured out.
1. Why do my textures still look so doggone low resolution? I feel like it looks like an early playstation 2 gun.
2. I'd like to learn how to retopologize a hard surface object. (Mechanical objects mostly).
3. How to use metal maps more efficiently,
4. How to use DDO quicker, and more efficiently.
5. How to use photos for textures,


Any comments are greatly appreciated, as I will take them onto my next project. Thanks for tuning in everyone!

pmiller001

I'm not sure how to upload this with mats yet, I tried zipping up the .mat file i got from DDO up with the OBJ, but It didn't work. I'll try it more tomorrow. Its very late now and I've got to get to sleep.

[sketchfab]2427483088d744a188ceddabb1e78bd9[/sketchfab]
Uplander Supreme by pmiller001 on Sketchfab

pmiller001

Had this thought you all.
What if, after getting my maps from DDO, i go ahead and paint over em. You think that'd work?
Also, i am having the hardest time getting my textures to look higher resolution ! haha. I gave up temporarily because I hadnt made any progress today. But i thnk i'll tackle this again by the end of the week.

Pedro Amorim

Dude, sorry to be a harsh critic here.. but I can't believe you went ahead and made a highpoly for this, even though your blockout was completely off in the first place.

I mean, do you even use photos as blueprints for this?

My advice to you is to take a step back and focus solely on making a proper blockout for this. With correct proportions and curves. Every shape that you want to have in the hipoly should be in the blockout.

giltand

I Think aswell,that you should take a step back, abandon this one for a while , and do the whole Milenia's gun tutorial on ytb, learn the fundamentals of the whole proccess.(or restart this gun and do it while you watch the tutorial, which was linked by someone a few posts earlier)

pmiller001

@erik Rading- Wow! that looks SO much better! Thats where I'd like to get.
Alright so tell me if this would work,
I'm going to open up the normals in NDO.
Beat it up a little bit,
Bring it into DDO,
Use the Dynamask to apply some materials.
Do you think that would work?
also my texture is at 1024x1024


@Pedro Amorim- Hey pedro, its alright man, nothing to apologize for. IF you think you're justified, and you took the time to post here, I really appreciate it!
That being said. Its odd that you ask if I used a photo reference, because I did! :O. So I thought to create a slow transition to see how off I was. I'm having a little trouble seeing what you're seeing.




I noticed that the barrel should taper a little more at the end, but other than that I cant really tell. Can you help?

pmiller001

I looked up schematics/blueprints, and this is what I found.


http://marauder.homestead.com/files/stoeger.gif




I'm not even sure how i'd begin to use this as a reference, Any suggestions?

Pedro Amorim

That photo doesn't look like it has a correct aspect ratio.

Your stock looks like it's bigger (scaled) and if you look at the trigger guard, yours isn't perfectly round, looks more like skewed.

pmiller001

oh wow. you're absolutely right. damn!
I had such high hopes for this project too haha.
If i start it again, i'm sure I can get it done faster.
DO you think its too late to try and change it? or should I just start to model again? which would YOU do? If you'd do either hahah

Pedro Amorim

Start from the start and don't start to do the hipoly until you get the blockout in a state that you are happy with.

And by blockout I mean.. model the entire weapon like if you were to texture it for old Cs source. With all the curves and shapes that you want.

pmiller001

ok, thanks pedro! I dont kknow how i got it to look so skewed! I'll be gone for a week, but when i get back this is gonna get done! I'm trying to make it good