Bog-Standard Prop Bonanza!

PatJS

After my series of aircraft I realized that I had never really made any of the cliche props, and I figured it would be a good exercise to try to take basic objects (crates, desks, etc) and try to make them look really cool and interesting, as well as have the opportunity to do materials that aren't metal. To that end, the only photosourced textures here are planks of wood from a pristine unblemished photo on CGTextures, and a subtle overlay on the very top of the tanker desk. It's still a work-in-progress project, but the stuff I'm posting right now is done (though please, critique away!). It's been pretty nice to be able to crack out 2 props a day instead of the multi-week epics i've been doing before.

GoSsS

Wow!! I really like these wooden boxes. The worn paint effect on the wood is really believable and theses crates really seem to have a history.

bounchfx

whoa, 512's! high roller!

they look great. good job dude.

Wells

i really like that first box. well done.

Stromberg90

Looks realy good and sharp, but the wood on the first one is just spot on, love it
For the rust on the small flat file model, it's a bit to bright and redish imo.

Keep on making this props, cause you defently have talent for it

PatJS

Thanks for the comments guys! Stromberg90, I'll mess around with the flat file, thanks for the crit. Here's another one:

Tom Ellis

Nice work on that shipping containter, it's insanely realistic.

How much (if any) of the diffuse is photosourced? It looks like you just ripped the orthographic views of a real world container and slapped them on the low poly, but looking at the normal map, I'm guessing you created the diffuse yourself, which is very impressive.

killingpeople

The subtle changes in your spec are awesome. Great job on defining the materials in your texture

PatJS

There's no photosource on this stuff with the exception of the wood on the boxes (which is clean in the source, all of the wear and grime and paint is hand painted), and I've twice now used this dude for subtle, uniform specular variation: http://www.cgtextures.com/texview.php?id=5224&PHPSESSID=0f462bcd0a54ad6d86f9c8b3fb703b90 (once on the table-top of the desk, and once on the shipping container).

killingpeople: thanks man! This whole thing was kind of test of my abilities to apply everything I'd learned in my long projects to quick props, and I think it's turning out pretty well

sltrOlsson

Every thing is just, WOW. Love every little bit.

Just one thought, you have some pretty heavy gradients in our normal map bakes. Something that could give artefacts outside the viewport. Maybe you already know this and choose it, if that's the case - I'll shut up

PatJS

I've been trying some stuff with unwrapping to see what I can get away with w/r/t normal baking and geometry complexity. I'm going to redo the unwrap on the flat file because those drawers are prominent, and there is some "bowing" in the apparent surface when a strong spec highlight goes across it. In other areas, especially with lower specularity, I've been able to get away with much more (for example, the inside of the studio box). I've also been doing it areas which are very low visibility, like the inside of the drawer on the desk, or which you really just can't see the distortion, like drawer handles. I've found that it works better when the curvature is going in one direction, like a cylinder, than when the mesh has two directions of normal curvature (like a box, which has a plus-shaped unwrap). However, it seems like plus-shaped unwraps with very small centers seem to work well enough; I did that on my Ka-27 and Ja-37 in the rotors and wheels and they worked just fine.

Also, I'm rendering everything in marmoset, which I'm fairly certain handles normal maps in a normal fashion.
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So I just finished this aircon, and I'm not quite happy with it. I especially don't like the vanes. any suggestions?

Racer445

grayscale specular

PatJS

How would you recommend that I use color for this? I've really only used color specs for colored metals like gold or brass.

ajr2764

Great work, love your texturing on these models, your textures are very crisp for the rez they are. The container is my favorite piece but I do agree about the rust on that one piece being to red.

sltrOlsson

I've realized that marmoset handles shading and normals very close to how maya handles it to. So, as you say, it doesn't really matter. I from what i understand it's better performance wise to use soft edges instead of hard..

Really inspirational stuff! Though my texturing skills are pretty basic i would throw a hint of blue in there. For the metal that is..