Home 3D Art Showcase & Critiques

First post and a Pistol WIP

polycounter lvl 17
Offline / Send Message
Quack! polycounter lvl 17
Long time lurker, first time caller!

I visit polycount daily finding insight from all the brains here. Threads like "How do you model dem shapes" and " Games don't use colored specular" are my reading material for entertainment and advancement.

I decided to take the plunge here where all the pro's go, because I feel that I am finally working on my first 'serious' piece and want to get it right and start my portfolio on the right foot, with your guys' help.

Enough jibber jabbering.

This weapon is based on a concept by Keith Thompson., an amazing artist and inspiration.

I have only put down the base colors for the gun along with AO/cavity/ and a rudimentary spec map. Still a lot of work to do on the diffuse/normal/spec.

First person style "golden gun".
Personal tri limit of 6,000, actual tri count 5,500.

[Low]
beauty_1_small3.jpg
beauty_1_wires.jpg

[High]
hipoly4.jpg
pistol_wires.jpg


Xoliul's max shader was used for the screen grab.

Questions:

When using xnormal how long should I let the ray distance calculator go? Sometimes if I wait for it for too long, it spits out numbers that give me a crazy bad normal map.

When exporting to .obj from max, is it okay to have the top item in the stack be the turbosmooth? I noticed some wierd artifacts that are in the normal map (may post a picture tomorrow) that seem like they are coming from the polys on the high res version.

At one point I wanted to use max to render to texture, but when I set everything up and hit the 'render' button in the RTT dialog nothing happened. Anyone encounter this before?

Why do my low poly normals sometimes affect the normal map? In my top picture you can see the first piece above the handle has some funky normals where the triangles are in the low poly. I battled high and low and could not find a compromise.

I'm sure I have more, but am too tired. See ya in the morning.

Replies

  • Dippndots
    looks good man the only thing that stands out to me is the shading issue on the bottom lip of the handle
  • jogshy
    Offline / Send Message
    jogshy polycounter lvl 17
    chaosquack wrote: »

    When using xnormal how long should I let the ray distance calculator go? Sometimes if I wait for it for too long, it spits out numbers that give me a crazy bad normal map.
    You should use cages instead. It will fit better your model.
  • Quack!
    Offline / Send Message
    Quack! polycounter lvl 17
    Dippndots - Thanks, the 'shading issue' is actually a kink modeled into the handle. followed it off the concept. But you are the second person to mention that, so I may take a look.

    Jogshy - That makes perfect sense now that you mention it, will do that going forward, thanks for the great tool!

    Not much time to work on it today. Updated the diffuse / spec. And in this pic I can see a couple shading errors that I will have to figure out how to fix. The low poly normals seem to be causing it, don't know why though.

    textured_2.jpg
  • Quack!
    Offline / Send Message
    Quack! polycounter lvl 17
    Not finding much time. Work/ Modern Warfare 2 keep distracting me.

    Minor update. Gonna rebake the problem areas tomorrow to fix the normals issues.

    textured_3.jpg
  • Dippndots
    chaosquack wrote: »
    Not finding much time. Work/ Modern Warfare 2 keep distracting me.

    story of my last 3 weeks...

    I'm digging the engraving and details you decided to add
  • Soft_Hands
    Kinda reminds me of a gun from Captain Bucky O'Hare.
  • roosterMAP
    Offline / Send Message
    roosterMAP polycounter lvl 12
    I think the level of detail in the handle doesn't reflect the level of detail in the rest of the gun. Maybe seek more balance?
  • Quack!
    Offline / Send Message
    Quack! polycounter lvl 17
    Dippn - Thanks for the comment. Luckily I have been good and can put down MW2 for extended periods of time to get stuff done.

    Soft Hands - All the style goes to Keith Thompson since he created the concept.

    roosterMAP - I'm going for an ivory look in the handle, playing with textures right now to see what I can do to add more interest as you suggested.

    Here is a minor update. Spent more time working on the spec map then I have on the diffuse trying to make this look more like metal and less like stone.

    Is this the right direction?
    Anyone have any tips on setting up a 3 point lighting system in Unreal? I threw my model into it as a static mesh (is that right?) and unreals lighting seems to make my model come across as stone like. Even after I make a 3 point light setup, it seems they aren't effecting the model as much as they should.

    textured_5_large.jpg
    Max viewport, Xol's shader.
  • Quack!
    Offline / Send Message
    Quack! polycounter lvl 17
    Got it into marmoset, and liking what it is doing!

    textured_Marm.jpg
    textured_Marm2.jpg
  • crazyfingers
    Offline / Send Message
    crazyfingers polycounter lvl 10
    pretty cool gun, but the handle looks like some kind of sickly appendage, you should meaten it up, especially where it connects to the main bit.
  • shotgun
    Offline / Send Message
    shotgun polycounter lvl 19
    beautiful work... the handle does feel a little limp once i think about it, but still looks good. i'd like to see something more on the grey area, it feels too barren compared to the rest at this point. the engravings on the handle look great, especially the gradient of the hue. i'm thinking more could be cooler but i guess its a matter of taste.
  • Quack!
    Offline / Send Message
    Quack! polycounter lvl 17
    Crazy - I agree 100% with you now that you mention it. I'll see if I can fatten it up without killing the UV's, thanks.

    Shotgun - I also agree with the grey areas. I have some references of ornate guns and will see if I can add in some more detail. Thanks for the comments.
Sign In or Register to comment.