[WIP] Halo Reach - Heavy Machine Gun
greentooth
I got the opportunity to work on the heavy machine gun from Halo Reach (and a little bit of Halo 3) for Installation 01.
Here's the finished high poly:
Initial blockout:
I'm having too much fun with this one, currently working on the low poly.
Comments and critiques are welcome!
Here's the finished high poly:
Initial blockout:
I'm having too much fun with this one, currently working on the low poly.
Comments and critiques are welcome!
Replies
Here are the baking results:
Triangle count so far is 3.5k.
Im looking forward to seeing this progress
Got everything baked out, ended up with 10.5k polys for both the tripod and the gun.
Really excited to finally start texturing
Marmoset:
UE4:
Substance Painter:
This is the original concept I used:
I tried to giving it a green accent color instead of blue because I wanted to give it more of a Halo 3 feel, also it fits nicely with the barrels imo.
Like it looks updated texturally for the XBOX One. At this point, I think it's an "art" thing to get it popped.
The first thing I would do is define your materials better. The paint really doesn't look like paint, and the rubber handles don't quite look like rubber. Changing up hues, saturation, and contrast subtly (seems to me like you went a tad too subtle imo) can help substantially in giving the gun some separate materials to look at.
To me this is where the fun part begins. Storytelling ftw!
How old is the gun? Has it been installed for a long period of time. Where is it installed at? How many rounds has been spent using this gun? Has it been properly cleaned? Has it rained recently? Has it rained on it ever? What kind of metal is it and how has it lived up to the elements? How does the gun operate and how would that affect the wear?
These are all questions you should be asking yourself in the texturing process and I'll do my best for just offering some suggestions on where to go because I'm a huge Halo nerd.
The first thing I'd do is add some dirt layers on the bottom. Pretty much no matter where it's going to be located it will accumulate dirt layers at the base through gradual use. keep in mind any dirt tracked through the area will be kicked up, splashed, or generally dispersed on the bottom more than the top. I would keep this layer pretty subtle in order to prevent it from looking weird on forerunner structures for example. Furthermore, adding some streaks to the dirt layers could signify that it's been rained on.
Adding some light bullet impacts/damage on the shield would be really cool. I think this effect could look very repetitive, so it would be best to design it in a way where it looks nice up close but fades as you pull away from it. Basically add the damage in the normals, but keep the contrast in the roughness and color maps relatively low key by comparison.
Adding some grease streaks in several areas could be a really cool effect showing general use, while at the same time showing a utilitarian pneumatic compression system to reduce recoil. The cylinder in the center for rotating the gun and the legs near the top would be great for this.
Adding some scrapes on the ammo clip could be cool too. Imagine that the outpost or wherever it's located was running low on resources and say had to reuse ammo containers. It'd get pretty scraped up after a few times reloading that thing.
Adding some gun residue on the front of the barrel would be great to show some heavy use. No need to go too crazy here.
There's probably at least a handful of areas that should have welding marks on there to effectively combine pieces together.
Adding a very VERY light amount of rusting could show that it's been there for a while. Guns rust incredibly easily if not taken care of and oiled on a regular basis. Especially if that gun is sitting outside, that shit's going to rust in no time.
Overall though, you're doing great. Halo has a history of taking a minimalist type attitude and it's definitely showing in your work. I'll be following this thread like I followed the pre-release hype train for Halo 3
This is very useful feedback, many thanks!
I made lots of improvements since the last post, but somehow I'm unable to be satisfied. Like the textures aren't living up to the potential of the model. I tried using a position map for the dirt on the bottom and also for the scorching on the barrel. Added some streaks to the dirt on the tripod (perhaps a bit too subtle), I thought that was a really cool idea. Also added some welding marks, a tiny bit of rust and lots of bolts and screws.
I will keep going at it, still want to define some of the materials better and also give the grease streaks a try
First attempt adding grease, it's barely noticeable from a distance though
Your metalness map doesn't make much sense to me at all. You have parts that should be metallic that aren't and some parts are metallic that probably shouldn't be. The painted metals should be full black where the scratches haven't peeled the paint away, while the unpainted metal should be full white except where grime is collecting.
My suggestion would be to use the materials that are provided in substance painter or scans as a base. They're pbr accurate and as you start blending everything it should come out looking correct.
Make your substance materials how you would imagine the actual materials would be layered. Make the base layers metal since everything builds onto that. Add the paint. Add masks to remove some of the paint through scratches and wear.
Add the dirt, grime, and grease pass on top of that. Dirt will be very rough with virtually no shine to it. Grease on the other hand is very shiny. Roughness is incredibly important in defining your materials.
Looking at your last screenshot, grease is very VERY shiny. I'm seeing none of that shininess come through in your render. My guess is you're flattening everything in your roughness with so little contrast that these materials are forming into 1 incorrect material rather than multiple distinct pbr accurate materials.
Now it should be 100% correct. Not really happy with it yet, but maybe my perspective is somewhat skewed from looking at it for too long. I'm going to work on other stuff for a while and hopefully come back with fresh eyes.