Student work: Mech Model

Heather_Bea

Hi there! I just got a new project for school and will be updating here. Any critiques are welcome!

Main reference:



I have a few more that detail out how the mech is made, might post them later if asked

Requirements:
 Art must be packaged in UDK package that can be opened and viewed on other machines
 Model must not exceed 30k triangles
 Texture size must not exceed 2048x2 (Diffuse,Spec,Bump,Gloss)
 Must have player actor in level to walk around model
 Default skybox/lighting

Milestones:
3/13- Highpoly Done
3/17- Low Poly Done
3/18- UV's Done
3/24- Completely done, in UDK and packaged

Add3r

3 Days to do High Poly and 4 days to do the LP? Oh man, I think you need to step back and reevaluate your scheduling. A high poly for such a complex, detail oriented model is going to take much longer than 3 days, unless you plan on working some long hours and make zero mistakes along the way. You could absolutely get away with kit bashing like 50% of the model though if you plan it out correctly. My recommendation if you plan on sticking to the budgets.

I am not saying this to scare you or try to push you away from the concept/schedule you have laid out, but as having a bit of hard surface experience I can say that you have a super super tight time budget. I say spend like 2/3 days texturing at tops, and spend a majority of your time working on your HP. Spend like a day or two on your LP. A good High Poly will carry this project, especially if you are allowed a 2048 texture set. Planning on going with physically based materials?

Heather_Bea

We have no choice in the milestone scheduling, unfortunately, my teacher sets those.

My school is open from 7am to 1am everyday, I am already prepared to be here most of those hours to get this done @.@ I hope to get the legs done tonight, the top part tomorrow, and the body on Wednesday before 7pm when its due.

I will definitely try to do my best at the HP, I usually try to fake a lot with the textures but I think it'll be good to try a different way this time.

I have never heard of physically based materials, what are those?

almighty_gir

advice: block everything out for proportion, and think about what can be reused. you only need to model one leg for example, and only the top isn't symmetrical.

the highpoly should be done by the deadline.

silkroadgame

The reference is so nice,hope you can make those details in good quality.
Cheers!

Heather_Bea

I wanted to get more done this evening, but I need to skedaddle. I plan on changing angles of some objects and adding hold loops tomorrow for turbo smooth. Anything else I could do?

BARDLER

Just speaking from personal experience I think you should be careful with those deadlines you set for yourself. I modeled this same mech in November 2012 when I was just starting to get confident and knowledgeable about sub-d modeling. It took me about 5 weeks, putting in 25-30 hours a week, to figure out how to model and organize those shapes.

I feel like at my skill level right now I could barely make those deadlines you set. Just a friendly warning, goodluck.

MeshMagnet

What Bardler said.

I mean, by all means go for it, but if you find yourself way behind with you schedule, don't be surprised.

Also, I'd recommend getting the quad chamfer plugin if you're doing sub-d modeling.
http://www.mariussilaghi.com/products/quad-chamfer-modifier

Heather_Bea

I agree, but I did not have a choice in the deadlines, they were set by a teacher. We usually get one week per project, and this one is a two week. I usually spend 12-14 hours a day at the school already so I should get the time in.
I appreciate the warning though ^_^

I will look into the quad chamfer plugin, though I do not think I have access to download things. Thank you!

silvershrimp

Your proportional relationship from the concept to your model don't look 100%, but with that deadline I'd be content to get it finished any way I could. Top wheel on side shape is too close to edge, bottom shape on side view (looks like a turtles face) is a different shape. Few other oversights across the form. I'm not a hard surface person but your approach doesn't look like it'll sub-d well without some serious point moving, looks more like a low poly. I could be wrong.

In the U.K. at university projects like that would typically get 3 - 6 months, along with 3 other subjects. Great that you've got such long access hours to computers though.

Also pbr = https://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-theory

Heather_Bea

3-6 months! I'd love and hate to have that much time. :P

I think I fixed the issues you pointed out, and the ones that I missed will have to wait until I finish a majority of the mech.

Thank you ^_^

Heather_Bea

I hope to go back and add more detail as floaters later. I also now see some proportions that I missed, as well as one part of the mesh that is crooked in the side view.

almighty_gir

you totally got this

stevston89

Careful of your edge sharpness. Other than that looking pretty good.

Heather_Bea

@Almighty_Gir - Thank you ^_^

@Stevston89 - Eek! You are completely right, I will add that to my list and try to rework some edgeloops in places

@Chillydog12345 - I have never done thought of that before, I'll give it a try.

RocketBryan

Should look badass, mate, can't wait to see the final!

But yeah, dem deadlines!

Even on the professional level, that's cutting it close, and that's with 40 hour (or more) work weeks. My general suggest for deadline management with class assignments is to vet the project scope a bit and perhaps choose something slightly less complex if you can't change the due date. You can scale one or the other, but it sounds like the teacher won't give in.

However, I still admire the hell outta your dedication and ambition. Just don't burn yourself out on too many hardcore assignments. You'll end up learning a lot, but not having much fun doing it after a while.

Marshkin

Yikes, what a tight turnaround!
Still, it seems to be coming along pretty well!
Have you already done a full body block in? I find it's easier to catch mistakes when I can compare the scale to the rest of the model as a whole.
Ie: You may think that the bolts on the leg look fine when modeling only the leg, but notice that they're too big/small when the leg is attached to the rest of the mech. The block in can start very low detail for the whole thing, and then you can refine it further bit by bit as you go along.

Heather_Bea

@Rocket- We did not get to choose the subject. Thanks for the advice ^_^

@Marshkin- I wish I would have done a body block out before hand, it was very dumb of me not to and I am still kicking myself for not. I am going to do that for my next high poly for sure.

Heather_Bea

I am a bit further behind then I wanted to be today, but at this point I think I will finish. I tried playing a bit more with how tight the edgeloops are, as well as building smarter. I found it hard to decipher the reference and made up a bit.

24 hours to go until the deadline

Heather_Bea

Welp, the school is closing soon so I am gonna try and tackle the rest either at home or in the morning. I know there is a lot to fix, any critiques are very welcomed!

NomadSoul2501

Great progress.
I used to love those tight deadlines while in school

Your model is coming along nicely.
Some things on the lower body to look out for if you still have the time.
The vent on the side is angled out more in the first concept than what you have it.
Not a huge deal, I find it directs the eye towards the turret and would be nice to have in there.

The tower seems to be beefier in the concept. Yours is rather flat in comparison.
It's fairly flat in the schematic next to the main concept too though so do what you will

Can't wait to see this textured. Should be badass!

Cheers

Neox

a few things that pop to my mind

- i think your edges might be quite a bit too tight to come over properly

- i would also suggest to use a darker base material with more specular

- how much detail do you plan on putting into the lowpoly and whats is going to be baked in?

Add3r

Neox wrote: »

a few things that pop to my mind

- i think your edges might be quite a bit too tight to come over properly

This +1. Your edges are absolutely too tight for any sort of baking, if this is SubD'ed that is. If its still the LP blockout, then awesome stuff so far, gotta keep pushing! No stopping now! But yeah, look around the forums for the many hard surface threads and you will see some awesome examples of soft edges for baking. Right now, if you bake, you are only going to get surface detail, all of your edges will read razor sharp. You want to exaggerate the edges so when baked down and applied to the hard edges of the LP, it counter acts and attempts to smooth them out with the NM. (if that makes sense) Once again, not to beat a dead horse, but look around. There are SO many Hard surface threads recently that have SO much invaluable knowledge waiting to be soaked up, on hard surfacing.

Popol

+1 On the too tight edges. It's never gonna bake well like this.

Heather_Bea

@NomadSoul2501 - I didn't notice that, thank you. I'll attack that today. : )

@Neox - I completely agree. I will do my best to soften some edges today as I go over for final details. I'll try switching, what is the purpose of using a darker material, is it easier to see? I plan to put as much detail in as I can within the next few hours before I turn it in. @.@ I will bake it in xNormal or do some Photoshop work to use Knald.

@Add3r - Lol It is all subd'ed x) I was not aware of exaggerating edges, I will do my best to loosen them up now. Thank you, I'll lurk through the forums and get a better idea.

@Popol - I'll get to work now on getting them better ^_^

Heather_Bea

I did the gun at home last night, I strayed a bit from reference and I will try to make it match more now.

I have a little over 5 hours until turn in, in this time I am going to add as many floaters as I can as well as go over my edges and play with them until they are as soft as a kitten. Thank you all for the advice!

Heather_Bea

Welp. here is the High Poly. I will still do a bit more when it becomes time to bake, but now its time for the low poly which is due monday.
I tried my best to soften the edges but some of the geo was too messy for it, particularly the front of the legs.

Thanks for the help so far!

Bonus Venusaur x)

Heather_Bea

I have been working on the low poly and combining objects. I am at around 24k right now and plan to go down further in the next day or so.

I am attempting to make this so I will be able to rig it later, is there anything I should know for that?

Heather_Bea

I had to redo a lot of my low poly because of smoothing errors inside UDK. I added base colors yesterday and started adding dirt and grime today.

Heather_Bea

I think I am done! Here it is inside UDK. The past two weeks have been rough but it feels good to accomplish something in the amount of time that I did, with the look I got. ^_^

almighty_gir

Hi Heather.

You need to make your edge highlights in the diffuse a loooot more subtle, you can absolutely tell right now that you've run the normalmap through something like knald or something similar and overlayed it into your texture. this is a big nono... using it as a mask to create some cool edge-wearing effects is a good way to use those maps in future.

Would you mind sharing your material network? it looks like the spec/gloss are almost non-existant. Have you tried rendering in another package like marmoset? i realise you're probably being graded on your ability to import into an engine but it might be worth seeing a comparison.

Heather_Bea

I see what you mean, I'll try to get to school early tomorrow to mess with the Diff and try to lessen it.

The spec is plugged directly into the shader, and the Gloss is hooked up to a multiply times about 50-70, if I recall correctly. (I'll take a screen capture of it all in the morning)

As for marmoset, I have noticed a lot of people here on poly count recommend it and I have never understood why. Is it just to make renders look better and does it show the same as game engines? (I am still very new and learning, sorry if this is an obvious question) I will try it out tomorrow as well!

stevston89

Marmoset is basically a standalone real time renderer. It's great for learning how to polish for a game engine and for getting really high quality renders. It's definitely worth the investment.

almighty_gir

you should hook your gloss into the alpha channel of a linear interpolate node, with a low value of 8 and a high value of 256.

your node should look like this:
a: 8 (constant)
b: 256 (constant)
alpha : glossmap

plug that into your spec power.

Heather_Bea

I am not quite sure what you mean, Almighty_Gir. Sorry! I'll ask my teacher to go over it with me a bit.


I played with the gloss a bit more and also created a showcase environment.



[SKETCHFAB]3914614e0c8c459ab86e82b312f22455[/SKETCHFAB]

On a side note, does anyone know how to get the importer to sketchfab from Max to work? o.o

CandyStripes05

that "showcase environment" isn't doing your model any favors man

Jesse Moody

CandyStripes05 wrote: »

that "showcase environment" isn't doing your model any favors man

yep, def killing the whole feeling of the model. The base is ultra low res. Why?

You aren't going to win any awards for having ultra low poly and low res textures. At this point unless you are shipping to mobile you should be kicking out much higher res stuff.