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Decal Guns

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MACHIN3 sublime tool





These are screenshot of Unity, No actual texturing done on this. Custom normals for edge highlights. All details are decals. Edge wear, dirt and grunge controllable in the surface shader in real time. 

Blender(DECALmachine, HardOps), Unity3D, a little bit of Substance Designer(baking AO and Curvature and combine them with DECALbakes to create channel packed 'masks' map to feed into the surfface shader and control weathering). Grunge, dirt, edge wear - all using a mix of 256px  tileable textures.

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  • MACHIN3
  • Prime8
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    Prime8 interpolator
    Interesting approach, I like the overall look, but the details look unclean.
    Not sure what it is, aliasing artefacts, post processing, the material setup or something else?
    Maybe you can post a shot of the first image without post process and one with normal map only?
  • Bek
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    Bek interpolator
    I don't know why people insist on adding DOF to images like this; more than half the image is blank background already, and now you're leaving 20% of what's left clear? Are you trying to cover up errors? Or do you just not want people to actually see your details for some reason?

    Ask yourself, what is the purpose of these pictures — to show off your work, or to show off your renderer's effects?
  • MACHIN3
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    MACHIN3 sublime tool
    For the curious, without decals:

    and without decals + without surface shader:

    original for comparison:


    Some more, because of how easy and quick it is to create these:








  • Prime8
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    Prime8 interpolator
    Still difficult to tell. I guess you have very thin chamfers there for your custom normals, in combination with some post process effect they cause that ugly edges. Decals look clean, can you post one more with a simple material and decals but no post processing?
    I'm no fan of the over the top post processing effects, would turn them down a lot or switch of some of them.
  • MACHIN3
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    MACHIN3 sublime tool
    Did a bunch of themes and light setups. These are 8k renders from Unity without AA, scaled down to 1/4

  • MACHIN3
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    MACHIN3 sublime tool
    Hand Gun vid
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxCuouGbXg

    Sub Machine Gun vid
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpedyyQYjq4

    Demo of how the Surface Shader does grunge and wear using tiny tilable textures and a single small to mid res masks texture per asset
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUTSnDc_cOE

    Also, I did a few grenades








    As always, everything rendered in unity.

    Bonus, theming a grenade, quick and easy
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhmxHa83j_o
  • MACHIN3
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    MACHIN3 sublime tool
  • Ged
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    Ged interpolator
    impressive work considering its mostly decals and shaders wow
  • LaurentiuN
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    LaurentiuN interpolator
    Awesome work mate!
  • Vitalliy
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    Vitalliy polycounter lvl 4
    Looks really cool.
  • poopipe
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    poopipe grand marshal polycounter
    It looks really, really good - I can't quite work out how the main object shader knows enough about the decals to selectively place wear/stuff.. 


    As a side note, the grumpy old bastard in me really wants to know how you handle LODs with this arrangement, 
  • Mehran Khan
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    Mehran Khan polycounter lvl 9
    poopipe said:
    It looks really, really good - I can't quite work out how the main object shader knows enough about the decals to selectively place wear/stuff.. 


    As a side note, the grumpy old bastard in me really wants to know how you handle LODs with this arrangement, 
    I think setting up LODs should be the same as having less details on the decals/less decal count and a lowerpoly base model? And maybe even simpler shader  with simpler performance?

  • Mehran Khan
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    Mehran Khan polycounter lvl 9
    @MACHIN3 cool stuff , except for the noise/too white edge grunge the reuslts look fantastic.
    Did you make a custom shader to get the mesh decals working in inside of unity? Last time I checked you needed a custom shader to do the decals in unity.
  • poopipe
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    poopipe grand marshal polycounter
    poopipe said:
    It looks really, really good - I can't quite work out how the main object shader knows enough about the decals to selectively place wear/stuff.. 


    As a side note, the grumpy old bastard in me really wants to know how you handle LODs with this arrangement, 
    I think setting up LODs should be the same as having less details on the decals/less decal count and a lowerpoly base model? And maybe even simpler shader  with simpler performance?

    not really - it's an expensive way to draw an object due to the number of materials/overdraw etc.  it's fine up close because you get loads of fidelity and at distance you can drop the decals entirely but the mid range is where I think you'll struggle to get something efficient and pretty.  

    I'm sure there's a good solution, I was just wondering whether it was a solved problem or not. 
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    yea, the LOD issue would be easily fixable if most of the large/medium forms were done with geo with custom edge normals, and then things small/micro details like screws are done with the decals . on almost all the models above, the decals could be dropped on an LOD more than a meter or 2 from the player, those grenades would be what....20 pixels on a 60" hdtv unless they were in the players hands (LOD0). and at that size you will never see half the decal details anyways, its more the large shapes and material definition. another issue you might run into on moving/animated/dynamic objects is sometimes the decals can start to swim on the surface a bit or draw ontop of other objects at a distance, due to being rendered in a differed manner.

    I can see games with crazy customization going this route, using a huge material library of smaller tiling texture more generic materials and low res masks to drive blends between them, while either relying on details from a unique normal map in channel 2 or geo normals to drive details. and then add the decals on top for extra sexyness.

    That way the materials could be used across characters, environments and vehicles but pull from a common pool which would have the side benefit of everything being extremely consistent in terms of material definition across the board. like the gold used on armors is the same material used on the guns, its just broken up using masks to drive where it appears on the model. I am pretty sure destiny 2 is doing something like this for its weapons and armor sets, due to the crazy amount of customization the player can do. 

    the thing i love about this age of art creation is there is 1000+ ways to skin a cat and people are creating art in new and more efficient ways every day. usually you are bound by what your engine is good at doing, and recognizing that and going all in on that workflow tends to yield optimal results. but TIME is usually the god that dictates all, and finding ways to save that is incredibly valuable.
  • Andrew_Sovetkin
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    Andrew_Sovetkin polycounter lvl 7
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