Halo 4 Hard Surface question

Cathodeus

Hi,

I'm starting high rez modeling for the first time and i got a question.

How do these shapes were done in halo 4 ? Do the bigger one are modeled into the object as same mesh or are they floating geometry ?

I think the small one are floating geometry !

I tried to model those shape to train myself and wasn't able to ...

Do someone can help me. Do someone can give me some advice to high poly hard surface modeling (if possible in maya). Tutorials or what ever.

Thanks a ton.

JohnnyRaptor

google "hardsurface modelling tutorial" returned this

http://www.3dtotal.com/tutorial/3d_studio_max/hard_surface_essentials/hard_surface_01.php

and you also have this right here on polycount tech talk,

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=56014

Cathodeus

Thanks JohnnyRaptor is did a google but youtube only ... Thanks again ! Keep going other vids !

ghaztehschmexeh

Three main ways of doing that come to mind.

1. Model it into the object.
2. Floating geo
3. Add it to the normal map using ndo2

In this case number 2 is probably easiest, but can cause issues when baking an AO map.

EDIT: A couple of good tutorials that are free - google "Grant Warwick Hard Surface Essentials" and "Racer445 AK Tutorial"

Scruples

ghaztehschmexeh wrote: »

Three main ways of doing that come to mind.
In this case number 2 is probably easiest, but can cause issues when baking an AO map.

Apparently can be solved (for the most part) by baking with ignore back-facing ticked within Xnormal.

Or for 3ds as Joe 'EarthQuake' Wilson puts it "by disabling shadow casting and enabling backface culling on your floater object, by going to the object properties or something." [sic]

Quack!

Any easy geometry should just be modeled into the object. Easier bake and less worry about skewed details. Easy is determined by time and ability. Tiny details that have tiny resolution should be done in photoshop. Those shapes you pointed to, I would consider easy details and should be part of the object.

Good luck.

Cathodeus

I just tried to bake the high poly into the low poly with maya transfer tool. But when it come to Floating geometry i got a big problem into the normal map ... Strange result ... How can i fix ? I tried to increase decrease the search enveloppe but didn't solve the problem

Cathodeus

Solved ... Sorry guys ... The floating geometry normal's were reversed