Shotgun Weapon - Help Thread

mobpapst

Hey guys,

i made this weapon within a few hours and i would like to get your feedback and i need some help on specific areas. First of all i want to post some picutes and then i mention the problems i see. I hope you can give as much advices as possible to make this a cool and good asset.

Here a few shots from the HP:







Here some from the LP:







I hope to get a first feedback from you guys. I will post the UV and the first baking maps later on.

Greetz and thanks for now

SuperFranky

Imho, the handle could use more polys to smoothen up the silhouette.

mobpapst

Hey there,

thanks for reply. as reference i used this one:



but i can fix some parts with your help. thanks so far ^^

Joost

mobpapst wrote: »

Hey guys,

i made this weapon within a few hours

I'd personally spend a few hours just looking for reference before I even start modelling. If you're modelling a real gun you should strive for accuracy. You should have reference for every angle instead of "winging it" IMO. Also never use a 3d model as reference because chances are pretty high that they got stuff wrong.

SuperFranky

Joost wrote: »

I'd personally spend a few hours just looking for reference before I even start modelling. If you're modelling a real gun you should strive for accuracy. You should have reference for every angle instead of "winging it" IMO.

That's a great advice for anybody. Spending time preparing your references will save you a lot of time and you'll make fewer mistakes.

mobpapst

Thanks for all your posts. but i stick with some adjustments with this right now just in case of exercise.

Thats what i got for now - its only a quick texture with nDO but i want to do this on my own in photoshop only.

I want to come close to the results nDo gives me but i dont know exactly how to do it. i want to put all in cryengine in the end. So i would be glad to hear how to texture this from you guys and get good advices from you

WarrenM

First thing that jumps out is that wood grain ... it needs to go the other way, lengthwise down the gun. It would snap like a twig the way you have it.

Deadly Nightshade

Based on your creation I will asume that you are new to 3D, so don't take my critique too hard. And if you are not, it appears that you have a lot yet to learn.

The wood looks like a floor texture, the barrel is blocky instead of smooth and has no wear and tear at all. Also, the wood color is off and has too much green in it.

Additionally nDo2 can never be better than a bake from a highpoly model - although there are exceptions to this ofc... so deal with that software later. You should also post the maps and UVs so we can tell you how to improve there.

If you want to create a FPS weapon you need to create a HP (highpoly). Then a lowpoly with a polycount of... I dunno what current gen models are at but I would say anything between 10k and 30k polygons depending on a number of factors. Like: is the gun large or small? set the polycount accordingly. Will there be a iron sights feature in the game? Then you need more polys around those areas. Or will there be a scope that the camera will zoom into? Give the scope up to 10k polys and the gun 20k. Always put your polygons where they are seen (back side, right side, iron sights/scope area, reload chamber, etc) - and do the same for the UV shells (ie: avoiding a uniform texel density)

Once you've baked the HP to the LP you should focus on learning Photoshop better before moving on to "cheat" tools that will do half the work for you, tools like dDo and nDo. They are great tools, but I fear that new 3D Artists might not learn the proper Photoshop basics first before using these tools, like how to work non-destructive, create a save action, how to work with adjustment layers, learn pixel blend modes, transparency, how to create brushes, etc). Last but not least: You can use a large map size for the weapon. CryEngine and Unreal can both handle 4096px maps without problems.

mobpapst

@ Deadly Nightshade thanks for you post but i think you understood some parts wrong. the model you see is the baked lp with maps and all that stuff. i only used ndo2 to create a kind of look i want to go with photoshop. the reason because i post it is to get some hints how to texture this one in photoshop the best way.

For the model itsefl: i know that there are some parts i've to rework in some way cause the results arent't like the way i want it too.

to sum it up. i only wanted some practical hints how to start texturing this the best way. maybe for adding the scratch details in the gloss later on based on the cavity map or sth like this.