Matt's Big Improvement Push Part 2

mats effect

Here is the first thread for reference but, its getting a bit cluttered so making a new one to keep it easy to read.

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Latest

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Current project is a prop based on this concept from destiny. I know its not there yet but getting feedback helps me a lot when I start to feel a bit stuck on a piece.



Thanks as always

mats effect

Few texture changes and added a few more tri's to the curve at the top.

http://i.imgur.com/JdWpf7K.png

http://i.imgur.com/LHKKsNr.png

BARDLER

Looks like you have some baking errors. Can you post your normal map and lowpoly from maya/max viewport?

mats effect

Sure. Yeah definitely some nasty errors still on the normal map, sadly getting nice clean bakes is something I still have issues with.

Bek

That's one messy lowpoly. You've beveled too much. The two clips/locks on the front have very long and thin triangles which need to be fixed; they'll give you problems with your textures. The stairstepping you can see on the legs in that last textured screenshot can be fixed by dithering your normal map (bake at 16bit; reduce to 8bit in photoshop)

You should definitely reconsider the lowpoly though, you have lots of unnecessary geo on flat surfaces and too many bevels. Perhaps spend some time testing what looks acceptable when baked.

With layers in nDo you should set their blend mode to overlay.

Another general tip, which isn't always possible, is to plan what materials go where when you're doing your UV's and smoothing. If a separate material can also be a separate UV island, try to do so. This way the different material gets edge padding and will have a nice crisp border rather than one based on texel density, which looks particularly bad when the textures are shown at a lower res (like with mip maps).

If you have that brushed metal look in the albedo too (it appears so) lower or remove it significantly and rely on the gloss to provide that detail. It is also a bit poorly planned that the sudden change in direction on the brushed metal accentuates the UV seam from the top curve to the beveled sides

mats effect

Thanks Bek a lot of good points there. Going to go fix up the lowpoly and the UV's.

mats effect

Some changes to the model and textures. Still need to do look at the brushed metal on the colour map though like Bek suggested.

skodone

i think this would help with the long tris

mats effect

Thanks skodone. I originally had a connection going right round the mesh from each of those but removed them to cut tri's. Really should have thought more and done it the way you have suggested above.