Class project - "the Mangler"

dwbowes

Sooo i just made this for a class project. I wanted to make a fairly simple weapon that still looked like it could do some heavy damage as well as look menacing and came up with this hatchet/meat cleaver design! Any critiques or ideas for improvement will help as i still want to perfect this thing!

JunkieKong

are the normals really soft or is that softened edges on the geo? because some parts look like they are made of plasticine. Also can you give us a wireframe?

dwbowes

JunkieKong wrote: »

are the normals really soft or is that softened edges on the geo? because some parts look like they are made of plasticine. Also can you give us a wireframe?

Hey thanks for replying JunkieKong!I think what you are referring to is just the normal maps along with my spec maps. here is a wireframe as well as a normal and spec only render. Do you think i should work more with the spec so it isn't so bright?

also, do you know how i can embed these pics onto my replys rather than having to attatch them?

Thanks a bunch!

BagelHero

Your normals are weirdly soft. It lacks punch and refinement because of it; it doesn't look sharp. Do you have a high poly that we can see?
EDIT: Also, upload to a site like imgur and use the bbcode option to copy-paste the image into your post.

JunkieKong

Yep those normals are super squishy for a death-dealing cleaver, but its also in the diffuse highlights (did you bake them from a high-poly?) - the metal highlights should be short and sharp and the normals should be tight like a tiger. But I like the shape and design of the actual weapon.

dwbowes

thanks for the replys guys! The hi-poly is just a basic one i made in max, didn't add any detail or anything in Zbrush so i can re-bake my normals to look sharper pretty easily. Are you guys saying i should bring all the edges in tighter so they look "harder"? here is a screengrab of the old hi-poly and i will post an updated one in a few!

JunkieKong

You don't need to put it into zbrush, but that highpoly just has some very rounded edges for sharp metal. I don't use max so I'm not familiar with the tools, but you will want to crease those edges to make them look a lot harder.

dwbowes

Ok so this is my old hi-poly:



my reasoning behing making it so soft originally was to try to get some broad edge normals to use for texturing.


this is the updated one:



I'm going to bake it out and see if the new renders look de-plasticized lol.


Thanks for all the feedback! this is going to help me out a bunch

BagelHero

Well, I mean, keep in mind that without bevels hard surface hipoly stuff won't bake down very well. Your old stuff was too soft, but I feel like some of the edges here might be a bit too hard. Not my area of expertise, though, so this is possibly A-OK and I'm just a worry-wart.

I think you might be getting some bad areas in your bake because your low-poly and high are too different in some areas, though-- mainly I'm looking at the tearing on the edge of the lower blade. Make sure they match up as close as possible.

Anyways, good luck. Looking forward to seeing this finished.

dwbowes

BagelHero wrote: »

Well, I mean, keep in mind that without bevels hard surface hipoly stuff won't bake down very well. Your old stuff was too soft, but I feel like some of the edges here might be a bit too hard. Not my area of expertise, though, so this is possibly A-OK and I'm just a worry-wart.

I think you might be getting some bad areas in your bake because your low-poly and high are too different in some areas, though-- mainly I'm looking at the tearing on the edge of the lower blade. Make sure they match up as close as possible.

Anyways, good luck. Looking forward to seeing this finished.

Thanks for the reply! I also think they might be a little too tight now, im going to try going just a bit softer than my new update and i'll post some new screenshots of it with the textures!

dwbowes

ok so i've messed with the textures a bit and added my new normals map. what do you guys think?

this is the old one, from my first post:



And this is the new one with all the changes we've discussed:

GrungyStudios

Try putting correct smoothing groups (after you baked) on the low poly see if that helps. Looks like the whole blade is on one smoothing group that may be why it looks too smooth

dwbowes

GrungyStudios wrote: »

Try putting correct smoothing groups (after you baked) on the low poly see if that helps. Looks like the whole blade is on one smoothing group that may be why it looks too smooth

I just realized that i forgot to touch up alot of edge detail around the blades, i'll post a fixed version in a moment. thanks for the reply, every bit of critique helps

dwbowes

Nathan3D

I think maybe on the texture side you could add some variation of grey towards the sharper parts to show that its a bit more sharp like a lighter grey, it seems a bit too uniform grey at the moment, and also the blood could do with some more variation in its reds , maybe add some darker parts. the top parts blood seems like its a bit of a straight line, i dont know if thats just the angle but it just seems like its unrealistic how straight the blood line is.

Nathan3D

I posted this before but I cant see it anywhere, I think you should add some lighter parts to the sharper edges of the blade, I think it will make it look sharper without having to do much else.
also the blood could do with some variation in colour, and the blood at the top, it seems like its in a perfect straight line, don't know if that's just the angle its at.

lotet

you reaally need to work on your spec. Right now its looking like the whole thing is made with some sort of plastic and its hurting an otherwise good model.

Also take a look into smoothing groups when you bake your normals. basicly in your lowpoly model everything that is above a 90 degree angle should be a seperate smoothing group.

Nathan3D

If you have access to crazybump or Ndo2 create a normal map of your texture and overlay it with your model normal map, this mixed with a more detailed spec map could help. Try taking a scratch like brush with a slight darker or lighter grey and brushing down the blade edges on the spec map to make it look as if it's been sharpened at some point you could also do this on you colour map

dwbowes

lotet wrote: »

you reaally need to work on your spec. Right now its looking like the whole thing is made with some sort of plastic and its hurting an otherwise good model.

Also take a look into smoothing groups when you bake your normals. basicly in your lowpoly model everything that is above a 90 degree angle should be a seperate smoothing group.

Thanks for the reply! I have all the smoothing groups correct, i think the problem is in my unwrap. I totally forgot to separate a lot of the 90 degree angles from each other and it messed up my hi-poly bake lol. as far as the spec goes i will be working on it. Thanks for the feedback, every bit helps!

dwbowes

Adelphia wrote: »

If you have access to crazybump or Ndo2 create a normal map of your texture and overlay it with your model normal map, this mixed with a more detailed spec map could help. Try taking a scratch like brush with a slight darker or lighter grey and brushing down the blade edges on the spec map to make it look as if it's been sharpened at some point you could also do this on you colour map

I do have Ndo, i haven't used it much yet but i will try it out! I have heard lots of good things about it lol. As far as my spec goes i will definetly be working on it soon here and will post an update. Thanks for the reply!