ZeroBigSis's 3D scrap book

ZeroBigSis

Hey there.

I've decided to start an online scrap book for my 3D work as I am rubbish at actually getting my work uploaded and finishing projects.

I'm self taught which means I am the only one looking at my work at the moment so would really appreciate your opinions - please critique / comment as it's the only way I'm going to get any better. Thanks for taking the time to look!

First piece...

This is the high poly of a blast door based on a photo by Richard Shepherd which can be found here



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I'm going to put some rebar protruding from the surrounding wall and rubble on the ground to make the image a bit more interesting. Low poly version to follow

ZeroBigSis

LP version. This is without the rebar as I am using path constrained edit poly's - planning on baking out a single piece of rebar on the same texture sheet then instancing (instance on UV only, shapes will change slightly to add variation):



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Memory

I would consider more edges on your low poly to get more curvature in the main door. You're losing a lot of the roundness of it. Consider how many sides some of the smaller cylinders have, which may not be as important.

The center wheel, I see it's triangulated, but the polys aren't distributed very evenly. There may also be some better ways to cap your cylinders if you're trying to hit a strict poly budget. http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=86261&highlight=cylinders

Anyway, just a few thoughts, I'm all about the clean wires + nice silhouettes.

edit: Also check out Paul's work to get more interesting design ideas for hard-surface things of this type: http://www.peperaart.com/

ZeroBigSis

Thanks Memory. I'll check the links out.
I always hit issues when taking a curved surface to LP. I'm not working to a strict budget on poly's but don't want to go overboard with them. Will rework and post an update...
Thanks for your reply

ZeroBigSis

Quick update (as per Memory's suggestions):
Increased the curve on the door and surround
Decreased the sides on the smaller cylinders
Redone the wheel
Redone capping of cylinders to decrease poly count to allow for extra curve on door

Previously the door was sitting at 5,960 tris, now at 6,408 - both figures are door only, wall and rebar not counted as I figure in-game only the door would be used - wall has been optimised a bit more as well.



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Paul's work is amazing btw, remember seeing his thread on sci-fi doors - tempted to revisit the design for this door and see if I can push it a bit more, get some of that 'areas of concentrated detail' going.

ZeroBigSis

It's been a while since I did an update on the blast door. This is still in progress however I decided to start building a visual library of mechanical/industrial parts to draw inspiration from. To do this I pulled a number of images into Photoshop to make a montage, and looked in detail at the manufacturing of objects around me starting with my office chair:

HP version


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and a quick LP version in Marmoset (materials need a LOT more work, they are just place holders atm):


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A quick update on the HP blast door - this is very much a WIP:


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Memory

I think your blast door adjustments came out well and I can see from your office chair that you are able to do these thing relatively quickly. That's good.

I think something that might help your work start reaching the next level is to take inspiration and interesting shapes and add them to your pieces. Both your blast door and office chair are modelled just fine, but they aren't super interesting. Things like Straight corners and uniform chamfers are clean modelling but sort of don't give the work it's own character.

Referring back to Paul's work again, you can see he has a lot of different shapes, different edge sharpness, different surface types (wires, metals, cloth) round mixed with hard, things like that. And they really make his pieces interesting. I mean, after all he has just modelled something as simple as a door, but it's so interesting that you could look at it for an hour and keep discovering new things. He has done this part smart though too. He hasn't added detail for the sake of detail, everything has a purpose!

Anyway, as always, this is just my opinion, perhaps you just need to find a nice interesting concept and get some good shapes in there.

Keep it up!

ZeroBigSis

Thanks Memory. Absolutely agree
The door is a WIP, adding more detail all the time - as long as it makes sense to the manufacturing process - did product design at uni so I'm maybe looking at the manufacture side of things over the artistic appeal too much.

ZeroBigSis

Long overdue update:


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Playing around with dDo (hence the colours on the HP) and surrounds at the moment.
Hopefully have taken the advice on board and executed it ok, please crit away, cheers

ZeroBigSis

So this has taken a while but quite pleased with how it has turned out so far.

This is rendered in Marmoset Toolbag, texturing done in dDo. Textures are 1024x1024 (door on one, surround and pipes on another)



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Close up of the door:


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Took my time to look at and build up a visual reference library. Also think I'd fallen into the trap of just considering the technical side rather than the art/visual appeal side (3D artist - clue is in the title! Doh!)

Now to sort out the floating railings...