The thirst quencher.

imb3nt

Hello hello.
I've been working on this hydrant for a little while as an attempt to completely figure out normal mapping from high poly meshes and in the process make a small asset for an upcoming project. I'm pretty much done with the high and low poly aside from a few minor tweaks that i'll do later on. I'm wrestling with the actual baking at the moment. I figured i should take a step back and look for some input before i get too far ahead of myself. C&C very much welcome.

McGreed

Looks very nice from here, though I have to wonder how you are going to transfer the chains to the lowpoly model, just using planes with alpha texture?
The ground looks a bit extreme in the bump area, normally those things are standing on concrete and not directly on dirt, but don't know what kind of setting you are working from.
EDIT: Ah, just noticed some strange ripple effekt on the edge of the plug where the water comes out, but since there is no wireframe, I cant tell what it is.

imb3nt

Yeah, I was going to attempt to do the chains on alphas but thats a little later on down the road. The ground is nothing, just something i threw down just for s & g.

butt_sahib

SO thats the high poly your working on right? i.e you have to start on the low?
Make sure you read through the polywiki before going any farther. Its got loads of information that will help you get the best looking low/nmap possible, e.g. if you have a conical highpoly, the normal map turns out better if the low is actually as less of a conical nd is mor like a cylinder (you dont get the ridges in the normal map that way)

Jeremy Lindstrom

polycount wiki is in my sig

imb3nt

Thanks a lot. Theres a wealth of knowledge in there. I already started my low but i don't really know the ins and outs of what it needs to be, so this'll help out alot. Once i get all of this worked out I'll post the high/low w/ normal to see if its doing what it should be doing.

Thanks again!

imb3nt

Little bit of an update. Here is what I have so far:



894 tris right now with some some left to cut. Still not happy enough to call it done, I've been wrestling around with the chains now for a while. Just wanted to get some feedback. Thanks!

d00kie

do yo chain hang low, DAWG?! nice chainage.
its lookin real good brospeh, id say add just a few more my-nute details in there tho
like this:

- more rust/lack of paint damage on the main valve...thingie...
- maybe some clever imprinted name, like "im bent & stank sewage"

those are just some thoughts, but godspeed senor. hfgl.

killingpeople

The ref d00kie posted has a cool gear looking base piece underneath. Keep it up, you're doing rad Ben.

imb3nt

ref pic:

Jesse Moody

That is one hell of a fire hydrant.

Uly

Hey dude, good start.
First thing I'd have to comment on is your edgeloop placement for the top part of the hydrant. Sadly, no photoshop on this pc, so I can't point to exactly what I'm talking about, but the loops on the top half of the dome should be placed to properly sell the silhouette best as possible, right now you have it too low, and it's easy to see where the polys break into the next ring.

You've put a lot of polies keeping the sides round, so you might as well spend them on the top as well. : ) Make that baby smooooth and round

butt_sahib

Jesse Moody wrote: »

That is one hell of a fire hydrant.

haha. Yeah definitely Great work

imb3nt

Thanks guys, I'll be posting up an update tomorrow.

- Uly
I totally agree, I added an extra edge loop at the top and it makes a huge difference.

- butt
Thanks you very much!

- d00k
Before its all said and done I'm going to try to add a couple more details that'll bring it all together.

- killnpc
I you.

imb3nt

Update!

SomberResplendence

Lookin sharp man. Can't wait to see how the rest of your project is going to turn out!