[WIP] Sig Sauer P220S

artstream

Working on my first gun model, a Sig Sauer P220S. Figured I'd post here to get any feedback so far on the shape to see if anything is off from other users that know more about guns than I do :-). Some parts are still in the works, like the grip and the attachments on the back & front. I attached a quick google image of the gun I'm making, I have the actual gun here (unloaded, no ammo!) for reference as well. Any and all feedback is welcome!


In regards to some of the smaller bits (the bolts on the grip, the holes on the front, etc), how do you weapon artists typically handle that? Floaters? 2D Stamping via Quixel/Substance? Or do you model them into the mesh itself? The text will be stamped.

Chris Kuhner

Looking good so far. May want to thicken some of your bevels a bit if you're going for game-res. Also looks like a couple areas could use the 'Make Planar' function to relieve some of the pinching you see. You could always do a Proboolean; if it were mine (I'm not as experienced with booleans), I'd just model the hole in using the "Make Circle" function  (Loop Tools in the graphite tool-kit) and cover the hole with a separately modeled screw. Not sure if you're currently using this, but you should also check out OpenSubdiv. Allows you to use edge creasing instead of the traditional double-smooth technique. I've found it particularly helpful for all my hi-poly modeling. Might make things a bit easier to work through.  Looking forward to your next post.  

artstream

Thanks Chris! Looking at the model again, softening the bevels would be a good idea, thanks for calling it out. Yea, I'm going to look into ProBoolean again, it was crashing Max consistently last night so i modeled the barrel space manually. Looked up the "Make Circle" function, neat--definitely adding to my arsenal. Is OpenSubdiv Max 2015+?

artstream

Updates! Spent time making some tweaks to existing geo and adding new geo:
-- "Slats" on the slide
-- The inner barrels
-- Holes in the muzzle (thanks Chris for the "Make Holes" feature call-out)
-- Updates to the grip
-- Safety 
-- Clip & Bullet
-- Clip Release Button (the capsule in the first image). 
-- Sight

Next phase will be adding the asymmetry to the gun (grip, main body, slide, etc) and the back attachment. 

Any feedback is welcome! Hoping to have the HP done today or tomorrow so I can spend the weekend making the low and getting into texturing. :-)

artstream

High poly done! (I think). First time rendering in Keyshot, nice program, excited to use it more once I'm ready for final presentation. Will do the grip bumps and details in Substance, as well as the text engravings, excited to get this gun textured (also excited to UV, first model I've done in a while without much symmetry).

artstream

Updates! Got it baked down, it's sitting somewhere in the high 6k range last I looked. Some texture work, metal is still in progress, currently using default Substance aluminum and steel. Pattern for grip was made in Designer.

artstream

Few updates. Moved out to the West Coast end of September, so progress has been a bit slow. Tuned down a lot of the noise on the gun, while trying to add some history to it. Feedback welcome!

Chris Kuhner

Looking nice so far. I'll hold off on texture crits since you said you just started. One curious thing in your render though. The objects seem to have a dark halo around them. Is that because they aren't quite making contact with the shadow plane? Either way, if you reduce/remove that effect it'll help make the items pop on screen. Last quibble: you may want to lighten the background & blur it to a point where the variations aren't overriding the model. Looking forward to the texture updates.

artstream

Feel free to crit away on the texture, it's my second "pass" at it after the first initial substance material assignments. Updated with brighter backgrounds. The dark halo (I think) was the occlusion size; it was ramped up too high. 

Oniram

something im noticing straight away from your highres, is the amount of aliasing happening on your model. i hate how repeated it can get as a crit but it just feels a bit necessary to point out that your edges could be a little softer. my main reasoning for this is just simply that there arent really enough angle differences in this gun to give it any incredible visual interest (the gun itself, not your model).
more or less, a lot of the main shapes are along the same plane, with panel lines in between, so thats basically the only "detail" you have to call out. 
i also notice straight away that you started blocking in your materials with texture detail. and while substance is good for getting things done quickly, i think a lot of their procedurals tend to be REALLY noisy. between the brushed metal pattern happening, and the dirt breaking up the gloss, its just a lot of noisy details. i think that it would be a good practice to strip all that down and just focus on the main colors/valus=es of your albedo, roughness and metalness. 

also a thing about marmoset or any physically based renderer, with full metals your AO tends to get ignored, since the surface is basically reflecting everything, i find that it helps to just throw a little AO in your diffuse. or at least mimic the effect by making "dirt" by using your ao as a mask. AND kill the height channel in substance. those subtle little details that get added to your normals tend to not be very flattering unless you're texturing at like 8k. haha.

artstream

Updates based on feedback. Cut most of the dirt and refined the noise from the metals a bit to read better.

Chris Kuhner

These renders are much better and easier to read. Black plastic is reading well at a macro-level. 

I don't think handgun bullets typically have red casings on them. From most the ref I see they seem to be all metal. Found this chart and thought it was pretty neat: 
http://sub-silentsuppressors.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Bullet-Ammunition-Comparisom.jpg

May want to add some subtle variation within your roughness map so the metal material doesn't feel so even in the larger resting areas.The overall scale of your damage pass should likely be a bit smaller/more refined/subtle. If you have a curvature map baked, you may be able to use it subtly in a soft-light/overlay manner so you can emphasize some of your hi-poly detail.  

 Beefaroni (Chris Stone) recently did a rifle with super solid textures & attention to detail if you're looking for a good ref point.  

artstream

Think I'm close to calling this done, other than lighting. Tweaked the textures a bit to reduce the noise while still adding some contrast to break up the metals. As always, any and all feedback welcome!

artstream

Been working on some feedback from Oniram, mostly geo issues and matching the shape of the real life reference. I increased the bevel of the lip on the left, made the safety handle bigger, and rounded some corners to have the nice highlights you'd expect (my normal map was overcompensating for not enough geometry). Also added some geo for the left side to have a better recess for the grooves, which I think helped add some visual interest to that area. Also removed a lot of the dirt, as it wasn't reading too well.

Think I'm going to call this "done" and start the rendering for the portfolio, learned a ton---about guns, hard surface tips, texturing, so it was a good project. If there's any last feedback, I'd still love to hear it, even if I can't integrate it, I can keep it for the next project. 

artstream

Final renders of the Sig are up on my Artstation!

https://www.artstation.com/p/8ZYdG