PC-CSGO | Warpstalker (Desert Eagle) WIP

Gaunt · May 2016

Very rough concept for the Desert Eagle "Warpstalker", intended as another entry for the CS:GO competition, the antithesis of the "Void Hawk"; drawing inspiration from early John Blanche/Les Edwards (Warhammer 40K/Dark Future), Metal Hurlant/Heavy Metal/White Dwarf magazines and 80s B-Movies involving murderous cyborgs, the grungy colour scheme and overly macabre appearance gives the "bad guy's gun" look, where the Void Hawk is the embattled good guy's. Gunsmith will be the finish style.

RenegadeM · May 2016

Damn I'd keep it like this

Emkay · May 2016

Oh this is going to be good! I think this style will work really well with the deagle.

K_A_S_I · May 2016

You really show no mercy Gaunt. xD

kingfisher_ws · May 2016

hot damn, this is going to be great

EmkaStudios · May 2016

Too many hot deagles....you sw and millenia are my favourites...and from the whole contest a deagle will be picked for sure..i also think this one looks better then the other you made. Typical gaunt signature there

Gaunt · May 2016

Here is the reference set used in the design of the Warpstalker. The style will be similar to the Void Hawk in overall technique, going for a fairly realistic movie prop look, but a very cyber-apocalyptic one.
R.O.T.O.R. is a terrible movie, but the poster is cool. That goes for pretty much all of the movies here.

EmkaStudios said:

Typical gaunt signature there

Guilty as charged.

Gaunt · May 2016

A test bake of the barrel upper (rearground) and still-under-construction high polygon geometry as reference (foreground).
Many of the normals need to be cleaned up in the highpoly mesh, as errors show up in the bakes.
The slide has not yet been done, but the in-game ambient occlusion texture is overlaid, the uneditable MAGNUM RESEARGH and grip stippling/ IMI logo are visible. Very basic colouration is applied, will look far different later on.

dcneil · May 2016

Another good deagle design. This will be gold

K_A_S_I · May 2016

Overpowered. Gaunt is.

AKTrashheap · May 2016

oh noes....gaunt's doing a deagle

its looking good, dude. Your color pallette is always spot on.

EmkaStudios · May 2016

If valve gives me this deagle with the emu ak combo i will be global elite!

Gaunt · May 2016

The bake maps are in place, minor value balancing and tweaking still needed, only block colours in as placeholders.
The texture map looks flat at the moment, it will need a lot of work to recreate the depth illusion.
Small changes to design, position of feature lights and a changed grip icon, but other than that, everything is proceeding as planned.
Next up, a large amount of hand detailing and grunge mapping, the end result is going to look severely used and abused.

K_A_S_I · May 2016

I like where are you going with the grip and can't wait to see when the depth illusion works properly, becouse it will, I'm sure.

Gaunt · May 2016

Grime buildup effect painted onto weapon, one of many effects to be blended; base colours will change as texture builds up, the metal will not remain a single hue. Many more detail effects are to be added. Thanks again to all posters for the critique and support.

Gaunt · May 2016

Texturing progress update, approaching intended appearance, still a long way to go, hues and balances need fixing, extra detail textures need to be implemented and specular exponent mapping needs a lot of work.
The cyber-apocalyptic look is starting to show.

JonathanMacgregor · May 2016

This is looking awesome!!

K_A_S_I · May 2016

Impressive.

If I was to point something out maybe you should try to give the pipes, and some of the smaller emelents a bit of different tone then the base metal colour, so it blends less and pops out a bit more?

yourseruy · May 2016

you WIN ! nice work

Seee · May 2016

Great man!

Ego_Death · May 2016

Looking fantastic man!

Gaunt · May 2016

Ingame test preview to troubleshoot texture and visibility issues, grip has had very little work applied so it looks slightly out-of-place, rest of metalwork is nearly at the required 20 years out in the Cursed Earth look, overall colour scheme is pretty close to finished.
It's factory new, but not the sort of factory you'd want a guided tour of.
K_A_S_I said:

If I was to point something out maybe you should try to give the pipes, and some of the smaller emelents a bit of different tone then the base metal colour, so it blends less and pops out a bit more?

First thing done after uploading the last image

It's very subtle, but still noticeable.

oDD · May 2016

this turned out great. I especially love the rusted/burned fade on the barrel

K_A_S_I · May 2016

Yeah, it does look cool, altought I probably like the first deagle more it is still on super high level, gj.

Nolt · May 2016

Oooo I really like the wear you have grading down it. Looks great!

Gaunt · May 2016

In-game and workbench shots of current progress. Here's how to get your work ingame to test and preview.
Getting close to final appearance, overall texture and specular exponent mapping is 90% there, only minor fixes and tweaks remain.
Wear is limited to a 0.60 float, no apparent green or magenta artifacting from texture compression is noticeable.
Thanks for all the kind words and support, the work will definitely not be to everyone's taste, but is an attempt at something a little off the beaten path.

Ego_Death · May 2016

Nice job avoiding the color artifacting. That attention to detail! This one is awesome, Great job as always man.

Gaunt · May 2016

@Ego_Death thanks man, anything around DXT5 level compression is fine. DXT3 screws up the specular exponent though, as it displays a small number of grey shades in the alpha channel. DXT1 is yes/no alpha. Colour map seems pretty stable under any of the above, but DXT1 starts getting a bit 'muddy'.
Here's a pretty comprehensive example of the weapon under multiple lighting conditions.
Very close to setting it loose upon the interwebs.
Was thinking of doing a Giger-inspired AWP instead of this second Desert Eagle, but did that back about a year ago, didn't see the point in re-treading the same style.

MGBazz · May 2016

Looks very good!

Gaunt · May 2016

Here is a selection of the various hand-painted texture layers and a final composite.
Time consuming stuff, but the result seems well worth it, the aim of a cyber-apocalyptic movie prop with 'realistic' texturing looks to have been met.
The grip icon is evocative of an 80s sci-fi cartoon faction, and the overall design and finish is reminiscent of many a Cannon Group or Imperial Entertainment movie release.
Wouldn't look out of place in the Cursed Earth, or in the hands of a metal terror from the outer reaches; doesn't look to have been assembled by anything sane or safety-minded.