Chiappa Rhino & M720 Concept Revolvers

Digital Cantina

Hey guys, I thought Id get some input on these revolvers. The first is a concept by an artist on deviant art you can find it here










http://www.digitalcantina.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Rhino-LP-WF-Sheet.jpg
Rhino-LP-Sheet





Im still working on the textures but seem to be having some issues with baking normals I think. I think I might have to redo the high poly to get better bevels for these. Or try messing with xnormal a bit

Olli.

your edges are way too sharp to bake, resulting on aliasing on your normals which turns in to a huge barcode type thing when you add padding, and ultimately leads to stuff like that.

AlexCatMasterSupreme

It looks like you're smoothing with smoothing groups?

RedRogueXIII

Edges of your high polygon are too sharp for sure (see all the aliased edges on your normal map, it's 2048^2 and the captured curvature changes are like 1px large. Any smaller resolution and they'll just disappear.)

But the black lines remind me of a similar problem caused by when the low polygon model has a break in the smoothing (whether by hard edge or sharp angle) but the uv-unwrap treats it as continuous by connecting the two unconnected (by smoothing) faces together. The solution to this is to separate polygon islands by the smoothing breaks of the low poly model. I'm not very familiar with max but I'd assume this would be something along the lines of spliting the uvs by smooth groups.

For the front recess of the M720, I'd suggest adding either an internal laser or flashlight, similar to the Kriss, above the barrel.

warxsnake

Extremely sharp edges on the high res almost defeats the point of a high res.
Soften them way up for a better bake.

Digital Cantina

Thanks for all your help so far guys. Im gonna try a few things with my baking before I go back and redo the HP again. Gonna try Handplane as well as cages and smoothin groups

Digital Cantina

So Ive done some tests and it looks like its a combination of edges that are too hard and UV islands issues. Im gonna go back to start and re UV and redo the high poly as well.

Digital Cantina

Ok so heres the new HP:

Compared to the old:

Bek

Looks incredibly similar to Human Revolution's revolver, which isn't a bad thing because it looks awesome.

Some stuff still looks a little too sharp but you'll have to see how your bakes turn out.

AlbinLundahl

Some of the problems could be hard edges on lowpoly where uv's are not seperated, usually resulting in black artifact lines, though I've never seen a bake quite like that, must also be what other people said about too hard edges in highpoly. Looks better in new version, but I can still see some problem areas.

Digital Cantina

Yea I see what you guys are saying. Ill do the LP next and get the UVs right this time. Ill only know if its soft enough when I bake so well see

Digital Cantina

Just a quick Low poly wip update

Elod.H

Hey there,

The models look cool, will be interesting to see the working normal maps. How are you planning to do the texturing?

mospheric

I think you are off to a great start, but there are areas where you can further optimize your poly distribution. Other areas you've modeled into the low poly, yet the normal map should be taking care of those details. Examples include the screw on the handle and the interior of the smaller 2 barrels above the actual barrel.

Not only will adjusting these areas make your model more efficient, but it will save you time UVing those tiny details.

Digital Cantina

Thanks for pointing that out Mospheric, Ill fix the laser site and im not sure if I can get away with the screw part at least on the handle, More likely ill remove the detail on the metal side of it

Digital Cantina

Ok Low poly is just about there, I'm probably missing a few things.

Digital Cantina

Hey guys so Im running into some trouble with my normal map bakes not coming out right, Ive used handplane and xnormal for bakes, I may try topogun next to see other results.

BARDLER

You should probably reduce your images down, I don't think posting 4k maps is necessary lol. You probably need to do an exploded bake on this since a lot of parts are close together. Also are you using a custom cage?

Digital Cantina

@Bardler - Yea I wanted to get as much resolution as possible for now, it doesnt take long and when they come out right I can always reduce it. No cage though and its already exploded.

BARDLER

No I mean for what you are uploading them to polycount lol. It takes forever for them to load and it isn't really needed.

Then you probably want to set up a cage in maya then export it out to xnormal, or make a cage in xnormal.

Digital Cantina

Oops sorry, Ill edit them with resizes. Ill setup a cage in xnormal and see what happens, thanks!

CordellC

Your edges in your high-poly are too tight if you are getting those errors.

Digital Cantina

Latest update:

Digital Cantina

Another update:

Digital Cantina

Getting closer...

Shanthosa

This is getting awesome. I'd love to see some more texture on the grip. Make is so I would know what it would feel like to hold the weapon.

Digital Cantina

Thats a good idea, Ill add some more to the grip. The concept gives a metal look but Im sure I could take some artistic licenses with it lol