Warhammer Battle Axe
Hey all I would like any advice on the following model. This is an excercise to improve my texturing. The programs I use are Maya, 3D Coat and Photoshop.
Thanks to Dan Scott for providing the concept art.
Thanks to Dan Scott for providing the concept art.
Replies
I know you said this was to get better at texturing but think places like the shaft could do with a few more divisions just to help sell the shape.
and the knob is only black.
the colors are way off, too...
is this for ingame or a render only?
because if latter i would guess going a step back and modeling out more details would be neccessary...
As for the eye designs I was planning to do those using a normal map later. My goal is to make a low poly game ready weapon.
And i think you are maybe overestimating what a normal map is going to be able to do. There are a few forms from the concept that i really think you need to model in, but in saying that if you are going to try normal map stuff on i would have thought you would have been better off just running with a high poly and baking the normals and ao from that onto your low poly.
I'm going to model the eye as low poly as I can and I will also model out the inner metal beam on the shaft to make a place for the the bolts. Should I use bevel on the edges or should I add an edgeloop and scale in to get the rounder edges? What is better practice and more preffered in the industry?
This is the Xnormal one
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_LMXl-w2J5nE/TQlMOHB8j-I/AAAAAAAAAFo/wIRWL_RW9yM/s1600/archwayXnormalTest.jpeg
I started out texturing low poly art with simple diffuses because my downfall was understanding light and shadow. You seem to be suffering from the same handicap. The model doesn't have a normal or spec, just a diffuse, and that is fine if that's what you want to start with. I wouldn't really recommend going the normal route right now until you learn more about how light affects objects because that is essential to your knowledge of what to model detail wise and what to leave to normals.
This is a great starting point. You have all the right elements to start making things look great, so now you need to start asking yourself some questions:
1. What direction is my light coming from. I would assume overhead, but never directly over head. Always at a slight angle.
2. What does the light do to my object once it hits my object? If the object is metal, it's going to reflect a ton of light, so the highlights on the metal will be very bright in some spots, and non existent in others. For the leather handle, it will reflect some light, but will absorb other light, which means you will get a good grainy spread of light.
3. Where are the shadows going to be? Usually underneath edges where light doesn't reach. Start a new layer in photoshop and start blocking out your highlights and shadows based on that question.
I only say stick with diffuse for now only because it's the route I went, and I learned a ton from it. I'm not the nest artist yet, but I'm getting better because I don't shy away from the challenges of learning.
But it is atleast doing a transfer.
http://www.mediafire.com/?0e5u0oed8a3dh1x
http://www.mediafire.com/?97el63p4xi49iq6
hope this helps
we got a "how you model dem shapes" stickie in the technical talk forum, maybe some of the techniques described there will inspire you?
but i think extruding isnt THAT off....
the ornament thing looks a little ragged until now... (or is rough the better term?)
http://www.cgtextures.com/
http://www.imageafter.com/
-The iron part seems very lumpy and soft. Depending on the type of material, it can of course have irregular noise/shapes to it, but usually with something iron it is pretty chiseled I think, rather than lumpy.
-The scratches appear like segmented little dots
-Texturing in general seems kind of soft and blurry. The blood is probably the biggest offender and would look much better if they had some defined shape/splatter like the concept. For the iron itself, I would use a grunge map with defined patterns (overlay some kind of iron/metal photo, or use a brush) to get colour variation rather than using some kind of random soft fractal type texture. You can see this is apparent in the concept as well, as well as if you look at real world examples.
-Some AO/dirt in the crevices and where parts of the iron butt up with other parts would help improve a sense of volume.
-The rust/dirt running under neath the bolts probably shouldn't be sculpted in but rather just diffuse/specular components.
- The scratches are kind of pixelated because Zbrush wont let me increase the polys past 5X the original, I'm not sure how I can fix that.
-Would I use the smoothing tool to remove the lumpiness or how would be the best way to do so?
- Do you know of a older weapons texturing tutorial I can refer to?
I don't understand what this is. I know what AO is but what do you mean by AO/ dirt in the crevices? Is that like painting extra dirt into the AO areas?
I referenced from the DT video of Game Weapons Creation when making this in case you wanted to know where I got my techniques from.
I understand that you want to make this axe look like it has been through hell and back, but I think in this case it may be a bit overboard. A lot of the details just seem to be slapped on because you were having fun in zbrush. I'm pretty sure it is safe to say we are all guilty of that at some point, it is just way too easy to go crazy with the details.
I agree with popngear on a lot of the issues with this axe. Before you go and add all the battle scars and blood to this weapon, I think it could be really beneficial if you take some time to find references for the materials on the axe. Get those base materials reading properly with a diffuse and spec, then subtely add the details the tell the story of the weapon, scratches, blood, etc.
Hope that helps. I'll be looking forward to your next update to see where you take this.
I checked out Pavel Petrenko's Thread I think I will approach the texturing again but instead of adding the detail in Zbrush, I will just add a base color and export the diffuse map to Photoshop. There I will start painting in the detail then add an AO map over it to add dirt and what not to the crevices. What do you think about this way of approaching it?
Also when I do start to texture, where is a good place to start such as what materials to use like a base metal picture or what? Like I said I'm a total noob when it comes to textures so any help would be appreciated.