Sci-fi-ish Knife (LARGE images!)

supaclueless

Greetings Polycounters, been working on this for around 2 weeks now (90% of it being spent on texturing), I found an awesome knife concept online at conceptroot (awesome website and i forgot who started the website...was at the WAYWO thread :S ) and I decided to do it so i can further practice texturing...after about 3 rehauls on its textures i'm slightly satisfied with its current (although i personally think its terrible) ...i also decided to try out making a few beauty-like shots in marmoset with various lighting and settings.

comments and critiques are extremely welcome and I will say that i deviated QUITE ALOT from the original concept when it came to texturing. I still have a MASSIVE amount of things to learn and I still have a Looong way to go before my stuff looks as good as alot of stuff you guys show out.

Concept:


shots:





Low+high poly models:


textures (diff,spec,norm) (all of them are 2048,2048)

Lucas Annunziata

I look at the concepts and I'm like wow! Those are cool designs and materials! And then I look at your model and I wish you had tried to recreate the concept as it is. Look at all that awsesome specular info in there and really try to push it to look like that.

It also looks like your support edges of your hi poly are way too tight. Loosen those up a bit and you'll get much better normal bakes. You've really got to push the material definition in this. You can also clean up the low poly a lot by having that cylinder on the underside of the hilt either not be attached, or merging those edges to the corner.

Cordell Felix

those are some wicked concepts!
nice model man, the lp could go lower by getting rid of a bunch of those loops.
And the texturing could be pushed alot further, i suggest looking at this tut by raccer445:
http://www.nextgenhardsurface.com/index.php?pageid=racer445

supaclueless

@darbeenbo, after reading ur critique....i actually wholeheartedly agree...i'm gonna overhaul it right now and fix up the design to fit the concept (btw just to let you know my main concept piece is following the 2nd top concept)...gonna redo the blade which is the main piece that is not following the concept and the piece above the blade with the two extrusions...one problem with me is that i am COMPLETELY terrible at fully grasping the frigin concept of materials....even after watching/reading guides/tuts...but this is WHY i have to practice even more

@cordell, thx for the tut by racer...i've watched that vid so many times yet my GODDAM mind cant grasp how metal always seems to react....and metal is supposed to be one of the easiest things to create :S

supaclueless

decided not to make a new thread for this...but i think i'm 2x more satisfied this time with the texturing....decided to put off any design modifications so that I can understand how to "NOT SUCK in making epically bland textures"...sorry for the long time it took to redo the textures...wanted to learn more and was busy..

Would LOVE to hear critique and Comments on the textures for the blade now...to me personally it looks.....somewhat "ok"....lots more to learn still








texture maps (2k,2k in toolbag) (downscaled in photo)
(Diffuse)


(Specular)

ayoub44

Great Job man , somehow this remind me of Metal gear solid : Rising

good job

Computron

Your sub-d mesh's edges are way to sharp and material definition is lacking.

supaclueless

@computron yea i know many of the edges are too hard...decided to put off the model silhouette (which i SHOULD NOT) so i can practice texturing...this knife was so i can grasp better material def

btw which part of the material is bland to you....is it the whole thing?...i know i still have to tweak and change

@sasochicken i completely agree with you and the knife handle...thing was that i was trying to follow the damage from the original concept (2nd photo) until i never thought much about making it realistic...also left the other side void of damage just cause i wanted to see the contrast between the sides...i did a crappy job on the high poly which made this suffer