Big Sandwich Games Art test

Avanthera

So I decided to complete the big sandwich games art test.

Here is the first one, An M80 ammo box;

And wires:


The restrictions:

[FONT=Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]350 Triangles[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] 1 Diffuse Map at 512x512[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] 1 Specular Map at 256x256[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] 1 Normal Map at 256x256[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] 1 Transparency Map at 256 x 256 (optional)[/FONT]

[FONT=Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The Ammo Box needs to be functionally modeled so that the top latching can be opened up.[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]On the interior of the box, have an unused ammo belt containing 7.62MM shells. [/FONT]

My box is sitting at 250 tris, and all maps to specifications, except for a specular map.
The handle is usable, and the front has all the stuff needed for a working latch in game.

Ive never worked with such a small normal map before, and the bullets arent looking quite as good as I wanted, but good nevertheless,
My Diffuse:

so any C&C would be great!

s0id3

There is no detail in your diffuse, and the bullets look off scale. Some scratches and wear and tear could really made it look more lively.

rasmus

A specular map to define shiny bullets and non-shiny gaps between them, not to mention interesting wear and tear on the case itself, both in the diffuse and specular, is really needed. You have absolutely nothing going on on the surface of the box - surely this is a wip?

Ben Apuna

Not bad, not bad at all.

After looking at the actual test, here's a list of things you might want to fix.

1. Missing lettering on the box.

2. Textures need a lot more wear and tear, don't go overboard but look again at the reference. Your texture is too clean.

3. Textures could be mirrored to achieve a higher pixel density.

4. Edges could use some more wear in the spec map.

5. The corners of the box are too sharp, they need more triangles to round them out a bit.

6. Adding more triangles to the corners of the box will also help you fix the normal map smoothing artifacts you currently have.

7. The handle and latch on the side of the box both look a bit too narrow compared to the reference image.

8. You seem to be missing the piece of metal that attaches the latch to the side of the lid. I see a hint of it in your top left pic, but it needs be be more well defined. Same thing for the piece of metal attaching the hinge to the other side of the lid.

9. Make sure you follow the guidelines for texture resolution, if your spec map isn't the right size, make sure that it is.

Good luck

EDIT:

10. You're also missing a thin edge that runs around the top of the box part.

Flava-Fly

Is the diffuse just a flat colour with an AO map overlaid? Don't think that would impress many employers. Also if you have some extra detail allowance in your triangle count I would use it, maybe to flesh out a few of those bullets? Or add some damage details? The restrictions may seem tight at first but for a small box some smart thinking will go along way!

LlamaJuice

When you did your AO map you had the box closed, so there's an outline of shadowyness where the square latch with the hole should be when the latch is open. If that were to be scratches and such, rather than shadow it'd work a lot better for you.

Put some time into your diffuse, as stated before right now it's just a flat color with an AO, it's your biggest map, use it better :P

Avanthera

alright guys, this is very wip at the moment, there is no spec map, and the diffuse is just AO over basic colors so you can see what it is. I just wanted to get some feedback on the overall look of the bake and low mesh.

I am currently rebuilding the low to add more geometry around the corners of the box, and around the bullets,

s0id3- I changed the size of the bullets on my HP, trying to keep it as close to real life as possible,

rasmus- Yah, its a wip:) Will put most of the damage in the spec map, (soon to come)

Ben Apuna- Thanks for the advice! you say I should mirror the texture, but wont that leave a nasty seam and bad artifacts on the side with flipped uvs?
5- on it!
8- I have that piece of metal baked into my normal map, I'll try and make it more obvious with the next bake.
9-the spec will be the proper size, when i make it

Fava-fly- yep, flat colors, just previewing atm, im fleshing out some bullets as i type:poly124:

Llamajuice- i did all ao maps seperately so there arent any ao overlapping when the box opens, what you see is an extra piece that will be brought out more in my next bake, here is the high:


just an extra piece of metal welded onto the front.

havent added the lip yet, almost done uv-ing my new low,

thanks for the advice guys!

Edit: just in case any wants to look at the test:
http://www.bigsandwichgames.com/testpage.html

Ben Apuna

Depending on your engine you should be able to mirror your UVs without getting a seam. It works especially well on flat surfaces.

In Unreal you need to mirror your UVs horizontally ←|→ in order to not get seams. UDN documentation on the matter, it's not 100% perfect but I think it's usually worth doing if you can.

It looks like you are going to use xNormal to display your final work, I'm not sure how it handles mirroring/seams.

You might want to take a look at using Marmoset instead, it's usually fairly easy to get good results with it.

Avanthera

wow, thanks for the link, I actually was about to present my second low-poly, but due to the whole mirroring deal that will take a backseat for a bit.

I plan on using Unreal 3 to render the final image, as marmoset isnt agreeing with alpha maps, ive been looking for a way to implement them in the marmoset master thead, but no luck yet.

Ben Apuna

Marmoset needs alpha maps to be in the diffuse map's alpha channel saved as a 32bit uncompressed TGA. Also change the blend mode of the material to "Alpha", though it seems to work with "None" as well...

Avanthera

So i have just been playing with marmoset, and ive made a couple of versions, but the mirroring is just too obvious.
Marmoset:

and in unreal:


gonna give up on mirroring the normals, I have tried flipping normals, softening/hardening edges, and still nothing good. (you dont even want to see maya high quality:poly122:)
these shots are the best of the bunch, with normals all set properly and conformed faces.
perhaps it has to do with where my uvs are, as none are centered.

I'll try to just get it into marmoset, thanks for all of the advice Ben and everyone else!

Nistrum

not on the whole model man. just the stonking fat side panels. they take up 80% of the uv map. save the space by overlapping the 2 biggest sides (as the front and back have too much specific detail to make them really elligable for overlapping without making it hard work..

personally if you had the tris spare i would deive up the plane with the bullets on OR i would try and imprive the normal/spec map to get the bullets reading better. its mostly because you can see the flatness of the plane because it runs into the sides on all 4 sides.. so its painfull obvious it has no 3d element.

dont be diecouraged keep going you never know you might learn some important normal mapping from this keep pushing it.

Avanthera

all right, came home tonight and worked on all of the little things you guys mentioned.
Thanks, Ben, finally got my model into marmoset properly
And Nistrum,
doh! im an idiot :poly124:
mirrored over the side and it works perfectly.
added the tris to the bullets and it does look a ton better.
Finals (I think):

on the left, at that angle, the bullets look like crap, but with the small end of the bullets on that end, it looked weird raised too much. and the bloom is killing the textures a bit:poly141: but all in all im happy.
and my textures:

C&C still appreciated!

Ott

Neutralize the yellow bullet spec-color more. Right now they look like cartoon bullets.

Your diffuse and specular are doing nothing to accentuate your normal map.

Ben Apuna

If you don't want them, you can turn off the post effects under the render tab of Marmoset.

Avanthera

that helped alot;

What do you mean by the diffuse and spec accentuating the normal?

Daniel Doerksen

diffuse and spec help bring out details of the normal map.. or rather they shoulld

Avanthera

Hmm, Like this? or am i moving in the wrong direction?

and thanks

Avanthera

OOOk, so I just ruined my psd that contained all of the maps,

so I still have the 512 and 256 tgas, just no more work on this I guess. *shrug*



was in a rush to check out my new spec map in marm that I saved my psd,
in 256x256.
the new spec doesnt look much better anyways:D!
I need to get some sleep anyways,
thanks guys.

Nistrum

hey dude. if you post your maps if nothing else i can give you a rough idea of what to change. especially in the spec map

Joao Sapiro

i would get rid of the alpha and use the extra 100 tris to make the remaining pieces, for the texture just look at the ref and try to replicate what you see

oobersli

still looks a tad clean to me. maybe a bit more dirt/noise in the spec. agree with johny, you could easily build the alpha parts with the remaning polys in your budget.

Avanthera

oops, forgot to mention that with the extra bevels to fix smoothing errors, and to add depth to the bullets, the box sits at 344 tris.



johny and oobersli, thanks, I added some streaks to the spec, seems alot of my reference images had a wavy/washed out look, I tried to replicate that.
Nistrum: Crit away:)

HAL

Your specular map really lacks contrast, and is missing the details like the scratches wich should be stronger in the specular than in the diffuse.

Try a combination of: Dark scratch in the diffuse and strong/bright in the specular.

This works for metal in general quite good.

JohnnyRaptor

stack some planes inside the box with the bullet texture on it with some alpha to fake the layers of bullets and slight UV ofset between each plane, should work better than what you have now and wouldnt require any rework except adding alpha and a few tris

Nistrum

yeh i thaught your specmap would look like that. spec is all about contrast. youd be supprised how far you can push it with scratches and edge highlights.. ill post one of mine to show you what i mean

Sirdelita

check out some of racer445.com's texture tutorials. You will see how much further you can take this. Looks much too clean.

G3L

yeah man, add some elements to it, a story of it in itself if you will. maybe this ammo box was laying around the ground from a battle or war and think about all the types of dirt and grunge it would've received from laying there (i.e. dirt buildup from ground rising from bottom to top, noticeable more on bottom, less as it reaches the top, scratches/dents from bullet hits or people tipping it over, etc).

basically, just give it some character man!

Avanthera

Thanks for all of the great advice!

Hal:
the dark scratch/light spec works really well, thanks!
Johnny Raptor:
so what your saying is to have a single plane on the bottom, with multiple planes sitting on top or a distance away? or a whole group floating?
Nistrum:
Wow, 'spec is all about contrast', that phrase really helped me out!
Sirdelita:
took a look at racer445s tuts, really awesome stuff, thanks for sharing.
G3L:
Im trying man, I think I will add a few more dents and such to the normal map, but I think I'll get my other maps nailed before adding in those.

Nistrum

holy ****. totally and utterly a different thing all together from the first shots. gold star for taking on advice man.

the plane thing hes talking about (im guessing is making a slight gap beterrn the bullets with an alpha and place a 2nd plane slightly under the first. so you can just about pick out the 2nd layer rather than just havintg the black bits....

achillesian

massive improvement sir

acapulco

That is loads better! Can just agree with achil and nistrum!

Avanthera

Thanks guys, I think this will be the last of this model, as the whole plane thing will blow my polygon budget, but I will definitely try that in the future.

for now, I think I will start the second bit of the Art test.
Sand bags!

This is only a sculpt at the moment,
I dont know how the end that is tied up will work with it being in a pile and all, Im just hoping for the best atm.
Ref: http://darunaholic911.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/sandbag1.jpg

The specs are:
[FONT=Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]40 Triangles per Sand Bag.[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Maximum usage of 20 Sand bags to make bunker stack, totaling 800 Triangles.[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] 1 Diffuse Map at 256x256[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] 1 Specular Map at 256x256[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] 1 Normal Map at 256x256[/FONT]


All C&C will be great!

PS. sorry about the crap shader in zbrush, just trying to let you guys see whats going on:)

Nistrum

at that kinda texture rez the fine details will be redundant.. might even make the normal map very noisy..

in ZB go down to the lowest iteration and flare the end of the bag a bit more ATM the bit where its tied is wider than the end :P nice statrt tho

Avanthera

alright, finally worked on this tonight, couldnt get the low poly mesh under 40 tris, the old sculpt being as dynamic as it is,
so here is one with less curves, I actually had to think of the low poly before I started to sculpt,:poly142:



exactly 40 tris, and all maps are to spec, I know there are a few seams, and I tried to get shots of the most problematic areas. I'll hopefully be able to fix the seams after some C&C

Edit: now with more image.

HAL

Really nice improvement.

Good job.

OrganizedChaos

I really hate to say this, but all I can think when I look at it is "paper sandwich bag", and I'm a little confused by the scaley dirt (?)

Avanthera

haha, I made a paper bag !

its supposed to be a rolled-end sandbag, not widely used by the military, but much easier to model, was able to get it within my budget. also trying to emulate the example on the test page,
http://www.bigsandwichgames.com/image/SandBag.png

and the dirt is supposed to look like caked, dried, and cracked mud,
since these are supposed to be modular, I figured a bit of dirt would make them more dynamic.:)
doesnt seem to be working well, will work on it when I get off of work!

Hal: Thanks for the help.

BradMyers82

Looks like you have a nasty seam there on the side. You could detach the uvs there and rebake to fix it I think.
The sculpt for the bag looks really nice tho.

BradMyers82

Oh, I just dug up a good normal map reference for you.
Have a look at this to better understand how normals work, and how to setup smoothing groups and uvs so they bake correctly.
http://www.svartberg.com/tutorials/article_normalmaps/normalmaps.html

BTW, Racer does explain some of this in his tutorials as someone already mentioned.

Progg

It's too hard edge for a sand bag.. I just can't imagine anything holding sand to be that hard edged and crisp. Add some more edges to it to round it out... it will help a ton.

PixelMasher

I used to work at Big Sandwich, take the specs are guidelines only, not exact. if its gonna cost 10 or 12 more tris to have it look like the ref the go for it, I much preffer your original version of the sandbag. just make the art look good. are you doing the test for fun or are you planning on applying?

Avanthera

ah, just for fun, I figured making an art test to restrictive guidelines is more of a realistic challenge than just going at it with unlimited amounts of texture and polys.

My whole problem with the old model was the tri limit on the low poly mesh, I think I'll have another go for the old one now. I prefer it more too.

and to progg and brad, that seam/hard edge is where I cut my uvs, it is a soft edge, but since it is at such an acute angle, it is getting a very sharp look to it,
but I'll remake it.
Thanks guys

Avanthera

ok, I baked it and it looked really good from the top.

but as you can see, on the bottom, along my uv seams, there is a nasty shading artifact, I tried all combinations of hard/soft edges before and after bake, and I still cant figure it out.
all edges are soft, and the edges on the other side of the model, which are on a similar angle, don't have the uv seam, or the shading issue.
Baked in xnormal, viewed in xnormal, maya, then marmoset, just to see if there is a difference,:poly127:

oh, and thanks for the link Brad, that really helped:)

BradMyers82

Glad the link helped.

We'll try this. take your high poly and bake it without the surface details.

This will determine if its a matter of how you setup your uvs and smoothing groups or if its that little indent texture that is creating the seam (the surface detail you have if not lined up properly would cause a seam).
If you can bake the high poly without surface details, and don't get seams, then it is your surface detail causing the seams.

If your angles are not greater than 90 degrees and you have all your smoothing groups set to 1 then it should bake properly. If you have a spot with an angle greater than 90, you have to separate the smoothing groups and separate the uv chunk.

You should be able to get this baked and have no seam.

BTW your normals are not inverted right? (the green channel isn't inverted correct?)

Avanthera

no, the green channel is correct, I tried seperating all angles even remotely looking like 90 degrees and above and it still is the same result as above, most noticably at the corners on the end of the bag.
here is a shot from Xn, with lighting on the left, and normals displayed on the right.


funny, if you look at the other sandbag model, the sharp corners were the ones on the uv boundery as well, every time I cut a uv out, problems arise in big ways around it. if its welded back on, then then every thing will work fine on the next bake, without changing any smoothing groups.

BradMyers82

If you cut a uv section out you have to give it a unique smoothig group in many cases. Did you do that also?

Avanthera

no, Im using Maya 2008, no smoothing groups, just smooth edge/hard edge.