Modified MP5

Topcross

Hello everyone, I've been lurking around polycount for quite some time now and finally found the courage to post some of my work.

I'm currently working on a MP5, losely based on a quick sketch by friend of mine, Thijs De Rijcke. I wanted to maintain more of the MP5 feel than was the case in the concept and I also moved some of the props attached to it around a bit.

Any comments/feedback are most welcome.

Concept:

SouthpawSid

the original concept has a better feel than your model when it comes to visual weight. Yours is reading kind of heavy up front since you packed all the extra stuff onto the front only, whereas the concept has added shit all over it. I'd stick closer to the concept on the back portion (fatter grip and mag) of the weapon as well if you like the concept enough to base half you weapon on it

also, a lot of your hi res edges are too sharp and don't translate very well on your images with the LP+normal map. I'd loosen them up considerably in a few areas, like the mag, grip, and that knife blade.

one last thing, start interacting with the community and critiquing others and your stuff won't get pushed to page 4 so quickly. Cheers and welcome to PC :]

Topcross

Thank you for the feedback, very helpful.

So I changed the weight by adding some more stuff to the back, tried to stay under 7.5k tris and with some extra optimizing on other parts I managed to have less tris than the previous version.

Also tried losening the edges. Not sure if it's enough though, I have a hard time finding the right balance when it comes to this.

Harry

this isn't really modified so much as covered in trinkets.
I would suggest that theres a lot more you could rebuild and replace - the entire forestock for instance. The trigger group could be totally redone so long as you don't take any bites into the silhouette of the original. The stock can be completely removed or replaced with something else.

I don't mean to tell you how to suck eggs but this has a real weird feel to it - there's some whacky nonfunctional additions to the weapon but nothing's actually been modified. The result is kind of like... like it's sitting on the fence between straight fantasy and a thing that's meant to make sense. You've maintained most the ergonomics and efficient construction of the MP5, but the extra additions really feel like they're there in SPITE of that rather than being COMPLEMENTARY to the rest of the weapon.
I think it would help a lot to push the actual modification a lot more to bring the additional attachments into context. Right now there's just a very obvious divide between two design paradigms and they're clashing rather than working together to form a final object which can be taken seriously (either as a crazy modified thing or a realistic thing)

Topcross

Modified in the title was maybe a wrong choice of words on my part. My goal with this to take a MP5 and give it a personal style, not quite realistic either. My plan wasn't really to change much of the functionality of the weapon itself.

JO420

I like the idea of a modified or personalized, but being a nerd about how weapons function, this MP5 would come off as a bit silly since it would throw the performance of the MP5 off.

The construction of the bayonet knife attachment would lead me to believe that it would probably be a bad idea to use it with 2 hands. I could see an issue putting in another clip with the placement of the leather straps, in a pinch a clip might get the leather caught and not close as needed. And it would seem really unbalanced with all the stuff strapped on.

If the gun was intended for some ridiculous character who had no idea about a guns performance then it could work.

Topcross

JO420 wrote: »

If the gun was intended for some ridiculous character who had no idea about a guns performance then it could work.

It's supposed to go with the character in the concept art. Which according to what my friend said is supposed to be a goofy character.

Joao Sapiro

"It's supposed to go with the character in the concept art. Which according to what my friend said is supposed to be a goofy character."

the thing is , the gun itself makes no sense whatsoever, it just feels "wrong". The aditions you made could contribute to a character development, but right now comes off more as something totally random .

Usually "tell a story" with a model/texture, you can have a plain colt45 for example but texture it in a way that you can clearly identify exactly who used it etc , like engravings, or a silverpolished Slide , customized text etc .

Modelwise you can do the same , but in a way people look at it and think "yeah the guys that used this is badass/lame" , home made additions to it for example , or like in metal gear solid 3 , when Snake receives his gun he can understand the story behind it by just analizing the model, but its a different case heh

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boeBzVkgsrY"]Metal Gear Solid 3 - Snake Eater - Part 12 (EVA) - YouTube[/ame]

skip to 4:30

hope it helps mate !

Harry

IMHO its not useful to say that it looks silly or that it doesnt tell a story. Like i said, the problem imo is that it's got equal serves of "plain mp5" and "tattoo flavoured mp5" and this kind of clashes, just compositionally, before we get into the abstract realm of the character using it or the story behind it.

if you either made the plain mp5 elements a bit more gnarly, or toned down the gnarlyness on the added trinkets it would work much better and feel like a unified concept. The added trinkets just dont feel integral to the overall concept of the gun at this point.

Out of curiosity, did you model a plain mp5 then add to it, or did you draw a concept first?

Topcross

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

Before continuing, thought I'd upload a quick screenshot of what I have so far to see if it's going in a good direction:




And yes Harry, I modeled a plain MP5 first, which was a big mistake on my part.