How many hours would this take you?
polycounter lvl 7
**UPDATE** (new discussion starts at page 3)
How long would it take you to create this prop?
1. high res
2. low res
3. textures
polynaut - 2-3 days
ysalex - 4-5 days
**ORIGINAL POST**
Just out of curiosity, how many hours would a prop like this take you to create?
1. high res
2. low res
3. textures
polynaut - 2 days
ysalex - 6hrs
Selaznog - 5 hrs
Lonewolf - 3 days
Clos323 - 2.5-3 days
radiancef0rge - 24 hrs
amile duan - 6+ hrs
Karmageddon - 3+ hours
Quasar - 1 day
wirrexx - 2-3 days
InvertedVantage - 3 days
Faltzer - 1 wk
Kuki - 1.5 days
Teclis - 2-4 hrs
Shadownami92 - 24 hrs (old computer!)
AimBiZ - 1.5 days
DeadSpace - 1+ wk
lotet - 6 hrs
Edrice - 4+ hrs
KartoonHead - 1-3 days
Shiniku - 5+ hrs
nick2730 - 1 day
Kbrom12 - 6 hrs
NickT3D - 4-5 hrs
bugo - 4 hrs
PogoP - 4 wks
Cordell Felix - 1.5 days
Luke003 - 1-2 days
How long would it take you to create this prop?
1. high res
2. low res
3. textures
polynaut - 2-3 days
ysalex - 4-5 days
**ORIGINAL POST**
Just out of curiosity, how many hours would a prop like this take you to create?
1. high res
2. low res
3. textures
polynaut - 2 days
ysalex - 6hrs
Selaznog - 5 hrs
Lonewolf - 3 days
Clos323 - 2.5-3 days
radiancef0rge - 24 hrs
amile duan - 6+ hrs
Karmageddon - 3+ hours
Quasar - 1 day
wirrexx - 2-3 days
InvertedVantage - 3 days
Faltzer - 1 wk
Kuki - 1.5 days
Teclis - 2-4 hrs
Shadownami92 - 24 hrs (old computer!)
AimBiZ - 1.5 days
DeadSpace - 1+ wk
lotet - 6 hrs
Edrice - 4+ hrs
KartoonHead - 1-3 days
Shiniku - 5+ hrs
nick2730 - 1 day
Kbrom12 - 6 hrs
NickT3D - 4-5 hrs
bugo - 4 hrs
PogoP - 4 wks
Cordell Felix - 1.5 days
Luke003 - 1-2 days
Replies
I don't really think you can do that in that time.
1 - The strapping is polymodeled, would only take a couple of minutes to get done. Then unwrapped, with a generic tiling mesh for normals. This includes the handle.
2 - The buckle is arguably the hardest element, but even then it's rather uncomplicated, with no attempt to blend the upper webbing of the strap into the bag where it meets the zipper. Probably 30 minutes total for the buckle.
3 - The bag is nothing more complex than a box shape, with extruded top sides. Box-modeled and into zbrush is less than 10 min. In zbrush, it would take 20 minutes to pop out what is here, and an extra five to add in a zipper alpha.
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So from here, retopo on the bag takes almost no time because of how simple it is. There has been no real texture applied to object, except for the ohio logo which I assumed was downloaded rather than recreated.
Comp together the strap and buckle and bag normals in photoshop.
There is no specular map either, it appears.
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I honestly don't see why it couldn't be done in that time. Maybe I'm being blind to something.
My general thinking comes from this piece --
http://www.yurialexander.com/photo-journalist/
-- (the bag), from my portfolio which is similar, although more complex because of the extra side latch. It's a bit less quality than this piece, but I've learned a ton in terms of skill and workflow since then, and at the time it only took a couple of hours.
By the way, it looks good! Pretty plain though.
- if you're quoting to a client, even for a simple piece, add an hour or two or more depending on it's complexity for padding. Not to cheat them, but because they'll inevitably want changes.
- if you have really strong concept art or photo-reference, you're good to quote lower like I did, but in reality you're going to have to be making a lot of design choices on the fly. This can double the amount of time it takes to do something.
- personally, if a client came to me with this and a couple of grainy photos, or incomplete references, i'd probably quote somewhere in the five hour range, maybe six. If they had AMAZING refs, then four or five. 2 or three to get it done, and 2 for any changes they'd want.
the bake will take you longer...
Are you kidding? Just to hit bake let it go you think it would take that long?
What the hell are your bake settings? Even 4098 in xnormal, a couple million polygon high meh, with high ray settings should take <30 min for an AO map.
For this piece? 1024 with 2xAA for reduction to 512, with a high poly of 2 million should take you no more than 5 minutes to bake.
i would estimate probably 24 hours work hours to complete it if you are not using tilable premade textures
I'm shocked @ 1.5hrs. If you can model your low res, high res, bake and texture in 1.5 hrs you'll have this industry on their knees. I can't even get all my software open in that amount of time!
And I'll bet if you remade it or something like it in its level of detail and the same workflow it'd take much less time every time you do it. It's just a matter of practice. Also, I didn't take into account computer speeds. If I dusted off my old laptop, didn't have a second monitor, this would have taken much longer to do.
Yes I am that slow
I say one day is a reasonable amount of time to study the model, do a decente modeling, uv mapping and detailing, I understand who say 1,5h if everything is made very quickly maybe straight in Zbrush....I still think that if you're doing a model from a reference you need sometime to study and adjust proportions, time to do the lowpoly as well, get some proper alphas for the texture bumpiness etc...
I say 8hours is reasonable but it will take another 4 hours to me, if you want to do a clean job and texture it properly, I mean doing a more detailed/varied texture pass than the one that have been made (looks cool though
Since Xnormal have been introduced...baking time it's always a matter of minutes...and that software is so smart that doesn't really suck all of your machine's power, so you can still work in the meanwhile
You're spelling is hilarious! BOOM 8)
But there isn't much to it that would burn a large amount of time.
But that's only the point if I would clone it like that. If the refference is less accurate it would take more time to study it. But there is no real texture work to it, it's basicly just a material with normal and specular effects.
I mean, if you have to model the whole thing then make the low poly and bake down it would take a while. But if you model the general shape, sculpt in the sort of waviness/wrinkle type texture, then for the straps and the smaller details use detail normals that tile with a UV mask it wouldn't be bad. The zipper could simply be made in 2d or modeled with an array modifier of some sort. The spec isn't really that complex and seems pretty even, and the diffuse is pretty much flat color other than the logo.
If you have to design the symbol yourself then that could take a bit of time though.
Though in all honesty most of those textures could easily be referenced from images save for the overall shape.
On a decent computer I think 4-6 hours would be enough including the time it takes to set up the texture and lighting in UDK.
And I don't know if I'm going crazy or if it's the angle of the shots, but isn't that zipper missing something?
yep yep.
People seem to underestimate how long something takes just because it looks simple.
Xnormal mate, go for it! what are you using to bake Nmaps?
I'd dare to say 8 hours for this, but an additional 4 as padding. This provided the design is more or less fully established.
Edit: Kuki, I think Pedro means the whole process from an artistic point of view.
I'm willing to concede a couple points:
1 - my total time was 2 hours 38 minutes.
2 - I did not hit the quality that this piece has. Nor did I hit the quality that I would send to a client. In fact I'm really not proud of it and hesitate to upload it, but I made the guess, so I should be honest enough about it to show my work.
3 - I estimate that the changes I would have to make would equal about 1 extra hour of work.
4 - The main mistakes I made:
-- the buckles were poorly baked. I opted NOT to use a cage to bake them, and I also used too few polygons. I don't know how many polies OP used, but personally I tried to be stingy with how I allotted them. The time to make a cage for the bake is relatively low, maybe an extra ten minutes.
-- I would use a different method to making the straps. I think if I went back I would instead not do unique Normals for each strap, and instead just the normal I bake out of the bag to get the curve on the bottom.
5 - The tiling texture for the bag, made with Ndo, was arguably the easier part. It took ten or fifteen minutes.
6 - If I ever get asked to quote a piece like this, I will quote 6 hours, with two of those being for client changes, and 1 being padding for myself.
7 - I did this up and down over the day, watching my daughter (meaning feeding, changing, playing, taking her for a walk, putting her down for naps). 2.5 hours is the total time (recorded start-stop via a notepad, so the time is accurate) it took me, but with a ton of interruptions.
8 - A MAJOR POINT: as I stated before, and others have stated since, the speed at which something like this could be modeled is largely dependant on what references you have. With bad refs, it would take double the time. With freedom to simplify and decent refs, it would be easier. As for myself and this piece, I used the original model posted here, plus I google 'ohio state 12 pack cooler', and used those too. Didn't get a lot of good refs.
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Main point here, I am conceding that my guess was a least double off, which is a pretty big margin of error on my part, so I concede my point and take back my words.
when I first saw this thing I though to myself maybe 2-3 hours, so double that and your up to 4-6 hours which sounds accurate of what you would end up with adding those changing you mentioned.
good job man
I'd say it would take around 4h, maybe more depending on how you need to optimize the low rez and uv's. On top of that if you add a little back and forth with the client it could take up to a day of work(with some down time between emails).
If it's backgrounds stuff 4h should be more than enough, since you need to get a lot of these out. For a hero prop you should probably spend more time on it.
EDIT: just seen that you guys managed to bully ysalex into actually making the bag, that's bloody hilarious! Props to ysalex, looks pretty good!
Yes, it might be a different answer if the question was, "how much time should I set aside for client liaison bullshit". Of course. In other news: sky is blue.