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Re: Inflating high poly before baking normal map

If you want your edges to be smoother, make em smoother in the high poly phase.

This is an art direction, maybe tech art decision to be made early on and then everyone can follow this ruleset for consistent bakes/textures.

Neox

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Re: Inflating high poly before baking normal map

I don't use hi poly mesh for such things at all. All the edge rounding could be baked by just using rounded corner / bevel shader or whatever your 3dpackage or renderer call it and this tiny "detail" could be just painted in substance painter, 3dcoat , or any texture soft. It's a bit less easy on cylinders crossing each other but boxy shapes doesn't need any hi res at all for sure. In fact you could do it all in Painter/ Designer even without special shader using ancient blur UV islands borders technique on boxes.

Just keep your Low poly without shading gradients to compensate using simple combination of hard split edges and custom vertex normals and you wouldn't need it even with cylinders . Saves you lots of time because you wouldn't need to do any sub-D modelling for hi res.

gnoop

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Re: Inflating high poly before baking normal map

Thats a whole different topic tho

And I'd say this is the sorta question tech art and art direction should defind before anyone gets to do actual content

Neox

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Re: Inflating high poly before baking normal map

Generally, you want the shapes in the high and low poly to match as closely as possible - this means that often the low poly will either be exactly the same size or both slightly bigger and smaller than the high. For something like a cylinder, the low should intersect with the high in a vacillating pattern. Here's an example (white lines are the high and black are the low):

Mismatches between the size of the high and low can cause problems when baking, usually resulting in the baked content ending up on the wrong section of the low, which means the normal map lighting and the shadowing systems won't be aligned.

When you sub-divide the high poly mesh, curved areas will tend to shrink a bit. So this may be something you need for with the low poly. If you copy the cage mesh and optimize it for the low without taking into consideration the shrinkage, you can get mismatches. But inflating the high poly universally is a poor way to solve this issue and will introduce other problems. As you note - "Many details are pinched or completely deformed when attempting to displace the geometry of the high." - this is a very poor practice and should be avoided.

Neither the low nor high should be inflated or enlarged to cover the other for baking purposes, that's what the cage is for.

EarthQuake

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Re: Inflating high poly before baking normal map

Neox said:

If you want your edges to be smoother, make em smoother in the high poly phase.

This is an art direction, maybe tech art decision to be made early on and then everyone can follow this ruleset for consistent bakes/textures.

Yes, if you want your edges to be more round or to have thicker bevels for readability or style, this should simply be a part of how the high poly meshes are constructed, not a step you add at the end of the process.

EarthQuake

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Re: Help with outline Post process and UE4 water system

Someone else could explain it more technical terms, but:
The unreal water shader isn't actually translucent - its doing a trick where it projects what's underneath onto the water plane.
This all happens prior to the point where the outline post process happens (its right there in the name - post process) - the depth data you need to draw outlines doesn't exist below the water, because its actually an opaque plane.

Benjammin

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Re: [WIP] Scylla Von blast [Nudity,XXX,NSFW]

This is where i am at, i guess let the C&C fly for those that check it out anyway:

Have yet to do the hair elements on the face.

Sry if img is to big wanted to show details, i tried to merge and mix the elements of wax and skin, if this is straying to far from the concept let me know, i figured it looked better than just clear. In the end i want to make her transition in the scene animation from this to the clear and then boom.

If you feel i should cover her xxx bits idk how to go about that without removing the appearance in the concept. I also like the colorful elements i added since its suppose to fake skin and look real at least i think she can't just walk around looking clear and waxy the whole time but i guess i am ruining the idea of her world and she probably lives in a world full of special ability "beings". Oh also i learned there is a clear wax so i am trying to add that in as well, i did study the elements beforehand and creating this version of the idea/concept.

Darkened and worked on the gloves more from the update.

Here is the skin from zbrush i made in the thread for anyone that wants to check it out and play with it:

iam717

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Re: Please Rate Portfolio. This Job Hunt has been brutal and I could use an honest evaluation.

I think the important thing to ask yourself, what would you like to do? I see you have a lot of props, which is what I assume is what you're aiming for, but you have a human sculpt in there. I would pick a specialization and cut out anything that doesn't align with that.Then ask yourself, what would you like to work on or where you would like to work? This is to give you directions, a bar to hit and a start on searching the portfolios of those people who work on the things you want to work on.

Once you start having those things defined for yourself

What do you enjoy making?
Where would you like to work?
What quality bar do you need to hit?

The rest starts becoming easier, it also makes it easier to critique your portfolio. Right now here are my thoughts on your portfolio as it is:

Your props are the most developed parts of your portfolio, I would get rid of anything that is too old or doesn't meet that quality bar.
Even though your props are the most developed, I would want to see them placed in a scene with context. What are they for? What world do they belong to? Who uses this? Little storytelling and presentation elements that can really elevate your work to the next level.
You should get rid of the Chacho's house, or at least upload a proper screenshot. Taking a photo of your screen with your phone feels super amateurish, when there are a billion and one ways to capture a screen or render.
The props you have chosen, while done fairly well, don't show a long of challenge or complexity, they feel rather "safe"
Some things like the lamp post or the engine make me wish there in a scene, like the lamp post on a simple street corner or the engine being taken out of the car that you have modeled (they seem to be from the same make/model) in a garage

I hope this is helpful!