Best Of

Dragon hunters weapons

Finished up the props for the character.

There's also a lighting turnaround vid here https://www.artstation.com/artwork/QnVZJE (not sure if there's a way to embed videos on polycount so I just linked it.)

These shiny metallic props turned out to be trickier than expected. Its tough to make sure details and variation are subtle enough but also visible. I decided to put some extra time on them so I could have them as a separate piece on my portfolio, initially they were just going to be props with a character and I wasn't planning on making them nice enough to be a standalone piece. I think it turned out ok in the end.

Ottomotto

3 ·

Re: The Bi-Monthly Environment Art Challenge | July - August (79)

Hey :) Started on the plant container. My plan is to bake an atlas and then uv the lowpoly to it.

At first I modeled the tubes directly on the cylindrical glass + mirror and shrinkwrap modifier and bent other elements with simple deform modifiers.

Then I switched to UV mesh from cylinder and deformed the elements with it, seems more simple.

However I'm wondering if there is a way to quickly un and rebind multiple objects surface deform modifier after having modied their geometry?

Current wip

Fabi_G

6 ·

Re: Is there a way to instantly turn lowpoly model to rough highpoly model?

For UE use : do your best to generate decent-ish UVs (ideally by proactively marking seams on the pieces as you model them), and bake down the Blender bevel node (or the Modo/Max/Maya equivalent) to a normalmap.

Or, bake everything (with hard edges) as an Object Space normalmap, blur it ever so slightly, and convert it back to the desired tangent space. The downside of this is that the blurred edges will only appear as intended over continuous UVs but not at UV splits which will just show a small shading artefact (resulting of the blending of the island color with the background). Whereas if you use the bevel node they will all show up everywhere regardless.

Two benefits from there : no highpoly is ever involved, and you end up with a model with UVs ready for automatic texturing in SP or any other texturing tool.

Lastly, you could also simply model everything with the desired non-destructive bevels/chamfer modifier you mentioned yourself. That is by far the most simple and straightforward solution, so why not just do that ? And for the parts that glitch out like on your screenshot, then just don't use it there. Or stack the effect multiple times depending on the widths you need.

(BTW, sharing some test meshes would probably be a good idea too)

- - - - -

Oh and : I can't help but notice that there aren't any screenshots showing your UE rendering experiments using these models. In practice there is actually no guarantee that you'll even need any these hypothetical edge processing effects on your models to achieve the high level goal you are after... Any conjecture on that is pretty much pointless until you actually test out your final rendering really.

pior

6 ·

Re: What Are You Working On? (3D) 2022

Hello people! Here's a sculpt I worked on for the OnePageRules july release, the Mummified Ammut! It was all done in Zbrush and rendered in Keyshot!

More images on AS: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/g8qveG

DoctorBloup

4 ·

Re: Airbørn

https://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2588501#Comment_2588501

*cough*

sorry for the spam, but i just had to clear my throat in preparation of whats going to happen soon™

ehem... 😎

Neox

17 ·

Re: Strange baked normal artifacts. Need help figuring out how to fix it.

@rememba_da_name Lots of good advice so far so try working through each issue. There's a few different types of normal baking errors showing up so I tried to replicate all of them on this shape. Isolating each issue and working through it will help determine what's going to be the best strategies(s) for the issues with your mesh.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/jx/xvehg29wokq3.jpg

Figure 1: The black areas are ray misses caused by the high poly mesh falling outside of the cage mesh. Ray misses aren't always this obvious. Sometimes they appear as streaks, blotches, underlying geometry and other shading errors. The more you work with different baking applications the easier it will be to identify what's causing the issue.

The jagged areas are caused by a lack of texture space. This can be resolved by either increasing the texture resolution or adjusting the UVs to increase the pixel density in this area. Sometimes the outer edges need to be scaled up or the internal shapes need to be relaxed to even out the textel density.

The visible seam in this area is another type of ray miss that's related to mesh smoothing. This is commonly caused by incorrect smoothing settings from mismatched hard edges and UV splits but it can also be caused (in some applications) by using incorrect bake settings.

Taylor's right: try going into the baking settings and increase the cage mesh offset, samples and texture resolution. Verify the results of each change and adjust the model as required. This should resolve the majority of the ray misses in your model. Here's some relevant documentation from Adobe Substance: https://academy.substance3d.com/courses/substance-painter-baking-parameters

Figure 2: The black shadow / outline along the outside of the mesh is horizon occlusion that's suppressing light leaks from backwards facing vectors in the normal map. This can happen along edges where the low poly mesh doesn't closely follow the profile of the high poly. In this case the low poly has a hard 90° edge and the high poly has a rounded edge.

Gnoop is right: the easiest way to eliminate this dark outline is to bevel the corners so the low poly mesh better matches the high poly. Forum member Thanez has a good explanation of why this happens and explains how to resolve the issue: https://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2714694/#Comment_2714694

The waviness in the normal map is caused by the difference between the high poly mesh and the low poly mesh. There's a thread in the technical talk section that covers this topic: https://polycount.com/discussion/81154/understanding-averaged-normals-and-ray-projection-who-put-waviness-in-my-normal-map/p1

Figure 3: More ray misses caused by the high poly mesh falling outside of the cage mesh. In this area there's some minor differences in how the mesh bakes based on the geometry and the UV splits.

Eric is right: either adjust the cage mesh by changing the baking offset or editing the actual mesh to better fit the object.

Figure 4: The bright lines that run on both sides of the chamfer are ray misses caused by hard edges that aren't backed up with UV splits. There's a few places on the original model where this is occurring so make sure the hard edges, UV splits and UV layout make sense for the object.

There's a great thread in the technical talk section that covers this topic. In the first post there's a link to a video by Alec Moody that covers most of the key points: https://polycount.com/discussion/107196/youre-making-me-hard-making-sense-of-hard-edges-uvs-normal-maps-and-vertex-counts/p1

Here's an example mesh that's setup in a similar way and baked without any adjustments to the cage mesh offset. The dark areas are mostly ray misses but the occlusion around the front and back edge of the silhouette is caused by the difference between the low poly mesh and high poly mesh. The crunchy pixels around the shape transitions are caused by a combinations of issues. Mostly related to sampling and texture density in those areas. This mesh is 747 verts / 1,490 tris.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/a9/kxkh00afcx13.jpg

Here's the results from adjusting the cage mesh offset settings and re-baking. Nothing else was adjusted and this mesh is the same as the one above. Most of the ray misses have been resolved and the dark occlusion is still present where the low poly mesh makes hard 90° transitions. The low segment count is noticeable in silhouette but may be acceptable for third person applications.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/xb/vgnxs7e7te99.jpg

Doubling the segment count on the cylinder improves the silhouette and resolves most of the waviness but the dark occlusion still remains because of hard transitions. This mesh is 931 verts / 1,858 tris.

Switching back to the lower segment count model: beveling the hard 90° angles softens the transition areas so the low poly mesh better matches the high poly mesh. This resolves the dark occlusion issues but retains the waviness issues. Depending on the view distance and camera angle this could be a passable solution. This mesh is 811 verts / 1,618 tris.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/8x/pva9l38lx4ep.jpg

Combining both strategies resolves the occlusion, waviness and silhouette issues. Optimize the mesh by only increasing the segment count on problem areas and reducing the segment count on central details that won't be visible from oblique angles. This mesh is 1,059 verts / 2,114 tris.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/jx/dzjitqs9yor9.jpg

Looking at the original model's UV layout: it appears that a lot of conical segments (Including the spiral shapes on the front of the drum) have been unwrapped as long thin strips.

If hard edges are absolutely necessary in all of these areas and if this is the optimal packing solution then it is what it is. However: If the mesh bakes properly without all of these hard edges then it may be worth revising the UV layout since it has the potential to cause additional issues further down the line.

Adding unnecessary hard edges and the corresponding UV splits will increase the model's resource footprint and straightening a series of concentric conical segments (that would otherwise nest) can also reduce the overall textel density. The straightening process will also introduce waviness into the texture and can make it difficult to apply human readable patterns like cammo, text, decals, etc.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/9b/iqxv30o34n24.jpg

Most of the shapes on the front of the drum should be able to nest without causing any serious issues and removing some of the unnecessary splits will help optimize the mesh and UV layout. It's also worth looking for a way to mirror some part of the internal feed and winding mechanism, since it will rarely be seen and it's currently taking up a lot more UV space than seems reasonable.

Here's an example that shows the differences between the split / straighten and nesting strategies. Another drawback to the split / straighten strategy is the possibility of normal details bleeding through or around the flattened areas in the center of the drum. The increased textel density in the nested UVs helps alleviate some of the pixelation issues near the front transition area.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/13/3ahof9bxzb6t.jpg

Definitely more than one strategy for setting up the hard edges, mirroring UV segments and laying out the UVs. When multiple issues like this pop up the key is to start isolating variables and testing what strategy will work best for each issue.

FrankPolygon

6 ·

Re: Trim Sheet question: mouldings and cornices

@Fabi_G thanks for pointing the normal map issue to me.

Shading looks good now.

I Still have lots of questions about trim sheets, but I guess I just need to experiment more with it.

I really appreciate all the help your guys are providing. What an awesome community.

GlowingPotato

5 ·

Re: Ghostbusters Headquarters - Firestation - Hook and Ladder

Starting to add details, pipes, vents, roof and decals, I'm looking forward to playing with the lighting and just balancing and tweeking the scene.

model

littleclaude

3 ·

Jesse needs critique !

Hey polycounters !

I rarely post but i'm at a point where I feel like I need to open up.

I've been practicing digital art (both 3D & 2D) for the past 6 years, I work professionally in the games industry (doing 3D and rough 2D for a big French company) but I want to make the shift to be a full-time illustrator/concept-artist.

For that, I am well aware that I need to focus on my 2D art, but unfortunately I never seem to get any feedbacks/critiques on my pieces. And that's really tough since i'm pretty sure a great way of improving is by hearing what people who have master the craft have to say about my art !

So yeah this is a new and hopeful attempt at getting help going forward!

Here's the latest piece I worked on, she's the main character of a short story i'm writing at the moment.

I would LOVE some advice that I could take into account for the next painting, especially that she's gonna be the protagonist again.

Thanks a lot everyone! ♥