M-308 Gunner (Metal Storm) WIP

ScottHoneycutt

This is a high poly model of the M-308 Gunner from the NES game Metal Storm. A low poly will be made from here, then unwrapped, baked, painted, etc. Some of the biggest challenges were related to making a 3d dimensional machine that actually works, based on 2d anime-style references that don't actually "work". The back was mostly made up. I made this slowly over 3 or 4 months.

All crits and comments are welcome. Thanks!

ScottHoneycutt

Here's the now completed low poly mesh. Any comments are welcome.

AlexCatMasterSupreme

The low seems like it could have a few less polys imo, what's the polycount.

ScottHoneycutt

Here's a quick update. Don't know how much you can see here but I moved the polygon count from 12,672 down to 11,704.

ScottHoneycutt

OK here it is. Any thoughts, critiques, advice or otherwise are welcome. I decided to sort of take the old school game, anime and next gen ideas and try to bring them together. This is based on an old NES Japanese game and when I had created a basic diffuse I realized it was missing something. I figured this could be the mech after years of battle or being lost in space ... and I figured a clean mech wouldn't impress anybody.

The textures are all 4096. I used 3ds Max, UDK, and Photoshop (and a little X-normal). Any advice specifically on the way to display this in UDK (is this default daylight too much? Should I use a still turnaround?)

I'm excited to show this after all I put into it! Thanks!

ScottHoneycutt

I added more wear to the feet, hands and a tad to the cockpit. I took away details from some of the back areas. Any last thoughts?

Thanks!

Darkleopard

The model is pretty nice but i feel that the texture lets it down. Grunge and dirt everywhere just floods it with to much information. Try making a really nice clean version, then slowly adding dirt in a few places. I had this problem when i started texturing, i would add way to much 'detail' and it just made my models look bad. Try to get a bunch of reference of other mecha's and see where they add the damage and dirt

ScottHoneycutt

Here's an update. Do you guys think this is better?

thanks!

Quack!

Your model looks like it is about 3000 triangles, yet is 11k. What this means is you are wasting a TON of triangles and not letting your normal maps do any of the talking. You have to trust your normal maps to describe alot of detail that you can leave out of the low poly version.

On top of that, you need to rely less on a generic grunge texture overlay, and pay more attention to painting in specific details with scratches and wear and tear.

Good luck!

Gungriffon Geona

The M-308 gunner was way more rounded and blobby than this from what i remember. the edges weren't so harsh. even Irem's own art has curves on it's angles so it's more pleasing to the eye. try looking at more references for it and understand it's shapes better, okay?
http://toyboxdx.com/phorum/file.php?1,file=6928
http://www.gamecaseworld.com/image/cache/data/ProductImages/NES/Front/nes_metalstorm-800x800.jpg

ScottHoneycutt

Being stumped as to what it was that would make the tri count seem so much less than it is I did a test: I deleted all the wire/coils and sent the tri count from 10,828 down to 6,408. Then deleting the hands sent it down to 5,598. The thing is I'm usually told I'm not using enough polys so I wanted to be careful about the silhouette. Other that this I'm not sure what else I could do.

Hhhhmmmm...Does anyone else think it's not curved enough? I suppose my thinking is that it's hard edged to be optimized...which multiple people are telling me it's not optimized enough. Any thoughts on that? Obviously my main reference was the front cover art just linked to by Gungriffon Geona. I preferred it to the few physical models there are.

I'm stumped at this point about the texture...which is expected. I've fought with texture painting for years and lost every time so it's a process. You learn some more everytime. I just felt like leaving it clean was going to get me scolded for not being textured much. hhhhmmmmm...

Thanks!

ScottHoneycutt

Here's another. I managed to get the tri count down to 7,611 with the coils so thank you for that push. The daylighting is gone and the spec is less hot.

Stoop_Kid

I'm definitely digging the changes you made and how you took advantage of the feedback!

I think the spec could use more contrast and love. But the textures are looking much much better since your first post.

Quack!

Yea that is a pretty huge improvement with the optimization. I am assuming you have seen some of the good metal game texturing tutorials out there. But I suggest you just keep at it. Isolate 1 area and work on that, say the arms. Give that arm a visual boost in the texture and spec and make that look the way you want all over the model. From there apply that style to the remainder of the model.

Take a look at JacqueChoi's great megaman. The small details added to the sense of scale and help with the texture. Also pay attention to how careful his wear and tear is. It is intentionally placed. Not just tossed around haphazardly. To get this effect have your base metal be a dark color and your spec be bright on it. This will make the scratches pop a bit more.

Keep on truckin!

ScottHoneycutt

Here's a really cleaner version for a test. Thanks. And yeah I've spent quite a bit of time with quite a many tutorials on the subject. It's a process. Thanks for the push!

Darkleopard

Ah that's looking much nicer already. Good work on the polycount. Now you need a good ambient occlusion layer in that texture to show some shadowing.

Would love to see another post of the wires after your cleanup

ScottHoneycutt

I'm feeling revitalized with this update. Going with a darker base on the white areas helped a lot as well as putting more pronounced color in the spec. I again painted scratch marked around edges, some dark paint around all the outer rims of the islands to help accentuate the "gradient" of the light, put some long scratch marks finely all over (will probably go in and erase them on some areas), and added an emissive for the yellow lights. I suppose one big question is just how to get an interesting look in a game editor for something not dirty all over? Most of my experience is with advertising and high res stuff so I normally would just use a mental ray arch material, throw some white planes in the air and get some cool reflections on the shiny surface. I will go over the whole mesh one more time thinking of little things I might be able to do to add visual interest (I'll probably add vent holes in those big blue chest pieces).

Visceral

Amazing job! I mean with taking crits and acctually applying them to your work. It looks much better now.
Only thing i can comment on is, where did the details go? I mean for a 7k model, and the UV space looks really busy aswell. But when i look at the model all i see are theese big undetailed surfices.
You have improved so much and you can still do so much moore with this model!
Keep at it!

Samfisher84

looks allot better!

ScottHoneycutt

OK :poly105:

1) I remodeled the highpoly details
2) Reoptimized the lowpoly, now at 6,766 (The pink areas are over 2,900 and the yellows are over 2,000).
3) Rebaked normal and AO (including dealt with all kinds of bugs)
4) redid the diffuse, spec and normal

My first impression in comparing the last two versions I've done is a little disappointing I admit...I think I like the cleaner version better. I'll give it a little time. What do you guys think? Not sure how much longer I'm willing to keep revising this since I was supposed to be done by the end of June.

Thanks!

ScottHoneycutt

I'm happy overall with the outcome at this point. I believe it was worth working through the revisions to get to this point and have learned a lot from the process. I was originally going to make the gun for it but at this point I need to move on. Maybe later.

The only question I still have now is about UDK lighting. In the pedestal perspective render above...is that really the only shadow I can get? I just can't seem to get anything around the feet to stay after building the lighting. Am I missing a button somewhere? I've tried cranking dynamic direct light shadows, inside and outside renders, a bunch of over things. I've seen cast shadows on game grounds all the time but I can't get it here myself at all.

Thank you!

Quack!

To get proper shadows that ground piece will have to have proper lightmap uvs.

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/LightMapUnwrapping.html

You can also select the light you want to cast the shadow in the editor and it will cast dynamic like in the editor window. That will give you hard edged real time shadows.

I don't think it would be a bad idea to move on. Take what you learned from this piece and apply it to your next! Keep on trucking!