Bread

alvordr

Any suggestions on tweaking? I can't seem to get the polycount down further without majorly sacrificing the look of the model.



I'm also running into a problem when I get it into UDK. It looks fine in the Static Mesh preview, but in a level it looks off. I've lightmapped it several ways, so I don't think it's that [see below]

Obscura

It looks delicious :P Best 3d bread that I have seen! Try turning off lightmap specular in the material properties.

RogerP

that's some good looking bread

alvordr

@Obscura

So you think that the spec is too high? I didn't want to turn it off, because I'm using the spec map to show off where it is baked with a hard crust. It shows fine in the preview, in Max, in Marmoset, etc. I'm just stuck on why the low-poly nature is being shown so easily in UDK. I'll try turning down the spec and see how that goes. Thanks.

@Xxxcubanxxx

Thanks!

Obscura

I said turn off the lightmap specular in the material properties, not the specular itself

alvordr

Ah...I didn't catch that. I did as you said and yes, it fixes the hard lines, but now I can't seem to get the specularity to show. I hooked up a multiply with a constant and the spec map and pumped it from 1 to 15 and still no luck.

Obscura

Interesting. Is your model can receive dynamic lights? Try to place a light source near to your model, and move it.Try to play with the lighting channels in the mesh's properties and in the light source's properties.If its still not working, you can try a blurred cubemap instead of a simple specular (Marmoset works with cubemaps)

alvordr

Yes, it's set to receive dynamic lights. I'll try that out. Thanks a ton for your help.

alvordr

OK, so a dominant light works. You've really helped me a lot here.

So if I put a dynamic light in, it works, but then I'm left wondering what the point of having lights that aren't dynamic in a level is. Do dynamic lights use more instructions?

Obscura

Static lights are using lightmaps for lighing/shadowing/gi so its pre-computed, so its cheaper than calculating the shadows in real time,but it costs memory (if i know right) because of the using of lightmap textures. UDK dont have real time GI solution, so you can make GI with lightmass (precomputed lighting) and you can make SIMILAR effects as the GI with cubemap based lighting.Its not the easiest thing to make but if you are good in UDK materials, then its totally possible.If you would use this, then you would get the same quality that Marmoset give.But.If you use 100% cubemap based lighting, instead of a mix of dynamic lighting and cubemap based, then using light sources is totally unnecessary, because your mesh will lit by the cubemap.So then its also "static".

Anyway, back to the main theme. This is the weakest side of UDK. The lighting. You cant get dynamic GI and dynamic soft shadows if you use dynamic lighting.You can get these things only if you bake the lighting into lightmaps, but then they will be static. I dont really understand that why its so hard to make nice dynamic lighting in 2013 because in 2005 there was dynamic in doom3 for example (I know they was stencil hard shadows).A few years ago I thought that we will see 100% dynamic lighting/soft shadows/GI in the most of the modern engines in 2012-2014.Because the new pcs are impossibly strong. But as I see its still far from us.

alvordr

@Obscura

You rock! This is one delicious piece of game bread...mmmm...polygons!

alvordr

Yes...and it is my understanding that the next UDK will have real-time lighting...so I'm guessing they'll have what you've mentioned. You've been a HUGE help here, and I'm thankful.

alvordr

I've done cubemap lighting before, but only to get reflections from the environment onto things like glass, but it's super heavy on the build-time.

Obscura

Well, the real life "specular" is also a reflection, its just blurred because of the roughness of the surface. So, if there wouldnt be limits that we get from the clients, then I would always use cubemap (or reflection) based shading methods (as we can see in Marmoset, it looks awesome). That "specular" thing is a little outdated to me. I know, it looks similar as a blurred reflection.but...its not realistic when you need sharp reflections.

alvordr

Yes. Specularity is shine, but not to be confused with reflectivity. This is something I've asked for from a developer of one of my 3D programs. I can paint specularity, which is fine, but I would like the ability to paint reflectivity, as well. Some of the users in those forums seem confused by the difference. One example is Skyrim. Everything looked "wet" in it. It is a great game and has excellent artwork, but it lacked dimension as to how shiny something is. There isn't really any reflection, as I recall (but I may be wrong).

I guess I can see why specularity is also reflective, but it's a diffused reflectivity. It reflects light, but not necessarily nearby objects.

Obscura

Its because of the exaggerated specular level, and possibly because of the lack of glossiness. Usual sickness of the games in the last few years.

alvordr

Agreed. That's one of the things I love about Cheetah3D. You can tweak all kind of settings and the renderer is amazing.

Obscura

"I guess I can see why specularity is also reflective, but it's a diffused reflectivity. It reflects light, but not necessarily nearby objects."

Just think about Vray.There is no specular value.Just Reflection and glossiness.Its the same thing.The "specular" itself is the reflection of the light source.

Greg DAlessandro

how do you get texture for bread? (i'm curious bc it looks all unique + bread is not flat)

When i say flat I mean flat images from cgtextures and such.

alvordr

Actually, the bread textures I used for this are from CGTextures.com I normally prefer to make my own stuff and almost always do, but I didn't have the patience for it, last night when I decided to do this piece.

thepapercut

Looks really good man.