Corinthian Helmet WIP (Beginner needs help)

HashBrownHamish

Hey so i'm currently working on a Corinthian Helmet which i hope to use in a mod for skyrim.

I've ran into a couple of problems and here are the most glaring ones:
- Strange triangle doesn't reflect light and is extremely visible
- I don't have a proper interior for the helmet and it is proving difficult to model.

Other than that the UV map's have been done. I've baked my normal map and AO map and i'm prepping for texturing.

In both photo's the issue is noticeable i believe.

Critique is more than welcome as long as it's constructive x)






Oh and seams are visible because i haven't done anything on the diffuse yet.


Update:

Got most of the glaring errors fixed and I've textured quite a bit. But i'm having trouble with the top plumage bit since i pretty sure skyrim engine doesn't support opacity maps so it's pretty ugly atm.

It seems background color for marmoset was also a bad choice x)

Kimon

Are you baking in mudbox? In that case, don't.
Use maya, 3ds, xnormal or substance or whatever, just not mudbox.

Are you using a cage? and is your smoothing groups correct? Your normal map looks strange.
Also check if your green channel is inverted.

Can you post a picture of your high poly?

As for interior, the easiest would be something like the shell modifier in 3ds.

SuperDuty455

Do you use 3DSMax to model ? There may be overlapping vertices that you can't see unless you move each vertex on the problematic quad. I would delete the quad and create a new one then assign the smoothing group.

I see some stretching around the outer edges at the top of the eyes openings.

The sides look like it's all dented, you might want to smooth out the alignment of the edges here

HashBrownHamish

I use 3ds Max for the modelling and the baking (rendering to texture). I'm fairly new at it so i'm not sure exactly how the smoothing groups come into play.

What i have been doing is using textools "smoothing groups from uv shells" tool (I learn't this in a step by step tutorial so again not sure exactly what it does :S).

High_res model: (basically a turbo smooth sadly x) )





AAAnnnnnnd i have just realized i wasn't outputting into a normal bump in the baking process, so that might be the cause of "the odd normal map"

HashBrownHamish

Updated version in first post. Could use some feedback

Shiniku

Well, I thought it was a weird normal map at first, but looking at your high-poly, your model looks really mushy looking. You were probably going for a dinged-up battle-damaged look, but right now it just looks like lumpy clay

Also your choices with the red fibers coming from the helmet confuse me a little. It appears that these fibers are sharing a plane with the bit of the helmet and it's creating a very flat look. You may want to have the fibers taper more at the bottom and flare out slightly at the top, with a little more geometry around the part of the helmet they insert into, so that it looks like the fibers are going into the helmet as opposed to the current abrupt transition.

Odeca

The edges on the HP are way too sharp, if you make them more soft you will achive better normal map bake results

The texture doesn't seems to be right to me, it looks more like cement ... I don't think you are using any specular/gloss map,right ?

Tobbo

It looks really lumpy and the edges don't seem very uniform in certain places. Are you really just using 3ds Max to model? You're not trying to sculpt or anything?

I would step back and try and understand hard surface Sub-D modeling using control edges. The rest of your process and model is falling apart because the underlying base is not as correct as it should be.

Are you using reference? Please post your reference images.

Also, where did you get the idea that Skyrim can't use opacity maps?

HashBrownHamish

Shiniku wrote: »

Well, I thought it was a weird normal map at first, but looking at your high-poly, your model looks really mushy looking. You were probably going for a dinged-up battle-damaged look, but right now it just looks like lumpy clay

I've changed up the model quite a bit since i posted the high poly no texture version.
Or are you referring to the textured one looking like clay ?

Moosebish

Take some time to really straighten out your edges. It might seem tedious, but having a clean model to work with makes a huge difference in the end result.

Go into the orthographic views and clean up the mushy lines, make sure all the edges flow uniformly, no wavy lines. Making clean models is a great lesson to learn if you want a job in the game industry. Its usually easy to tell student work from professional work just from looking at the wireframes of their models.

HashBrownHamish

Ok one last try today on this one. So i did has you all suggested and tried making my mesh look less like clay and more like metal. I had troubles with some areas (eye openings for example) but i did my best and i did what looked good to me.
Most importantly i used an FFD modifier to make the front of the helmet more flat and less oval-ish.

Also i haven't done anything to plume again. I'm stumped as to how i could make it look good.







(i like making these gif's but are they useful at all ? )