ECGC art contest submission

Misciagno3d

Hello polycount, I'm entering an art contest that my school is going to be holding at the East Coast Gaming Contest(ECGC) and was looking for some critique on my submission. I took Andreas Von Cotta's gun concept(from conceptartworld.com) and modeled everything I could make sense of from the one reference. I tried to change it up a bit and make the gun dirty and worn with some random details and also make the metal materials a bit more interesting.

Deforges

Sometimes it's difficult to do when you're in the process of making a model, but take a step back and come back in a few minutes and take a look at this model. Does it look realistic? Does it accomplish the look you're trying to go for?


This is a picture of an ak-74m


What's interesting about this picture is that the color of each part of the gun is the same. The only thing different are the actual materials they are made out of. Even though everything is the same color you can very well tell which parts are rubber, which are metal, and plastic.


Now look at this Styrofoam gun


It's very easy, just by looking, that this is not a real gun. The only definition in terms of texture that differentiates is color, otherwise the material reacts the same all over.


Now look at your model and ask yourself, "Are my materials defined like the real gun or the styrofoam one?"

As for now I would say styrofoam. It looks to only be diffuse which is fine, but even then you can fake material definition like so



What you need to do is get a way to preview your models in a real-time shader. Something like marmoset or cryengine. You really need that to accurately judge your materials. Just be honest with yourself, look at what others have done to accomplish what you're trying to do. Great artists steal, they take what they see from others and apply it to their own works. If you stick with it you'll be making great stuff.

Misciagno3d

I see what you mean. I'm glad that you like the diffuse though. I think I will look up some tutorials on importing models and setting up the shaders in cryengine because I like the way it handles lighting. Thanks for the input! I think the bump map on the metal area is giving it that styrofoam look.