College Project: Objects and a VG remix scene
Hi there,
(Like a few others here) I have been given the assignment to create a number of 3D models for a college project, each of which has a set limit on tris.
The project was split into 2 parts, firstly a set of 4 objects, each with a 500 triangle limit, and a texture size of 512x512. The objects were:
-A melee weapon
-A ranged weapon
-An item of clothing
-A physical object you have
The second part was to create a simple scene from a video game or other media in the form of a diorama (using slightly eased up rules for the VG Remix contest from Polycount).
The things I chose to model were a sword, a rifle, a jacket, my DSLR camera and for the scene I did a recreation of a scene from the opening cutscene from the game Timesplitters 2.
Here are the models, they can be considered done, but as I'm pretty rubbish at texturing I might go back at some point and improve them (once my skills improve).
[sketchfab]e1026b95db904151a37a9cbde453b48e[/sketchfab]
Sword by bgt1990 on Sketchfab
[sketchfab]5487902ef7e944ee9033a5f2e077d227[/sketchfab]
Rifle by bgt1990 on Sketchfab
[sketchfab]6cc963e6a21142128773e1aab11c46b8[/sketchfab]
Hoodie by bgt1990 on Sketchfab
[sketchfab]0b84fc2cf96d48c69ec08d65028609bb[/sketchfab]
Camera by bgt1990 on Sketchfab
[sketchfab]7a578a5c00bf47de9d71301c8cdf2d34[/sketchfab]
TS2 Spacestation Portal by bgt1990 on Sketchfab
(Like a few others here) I have been given the assignment to create a number of 3D models for a college project, each of which has a set limit on tris.
The project was split into 2 parts, firstly a set of 4 objects, each with a 500 triangle limit, and a texture size of 512x512. The objects were:
-A melee weapon
-A ranged weapon
-An item of clothing
-A physical object you have
The second part was to create a simple scene from a video game or other media in the form of a diorama (using slightly eased up rules for the VG Remix contest from Polycount).
The things I chose to model were a sword, a rifle, a jacket, my DSLR camera and for the scene I did a recreation of a scene from the opening cutscene from the game Timesplitters 2.
Here are the models, they can be considered done, but as I'm pretty rubbish at texturing I might go back at some point and improve them (once my skills improve).
[sketchfab]e1026b95db904151a37a9cbde453b48e[/sketchfab]
Sword by bgt1990 on Sketchfab
[sketchfab]5487902ef7e944ee9033a5f2e077d227[/sketchfab]
Rifle by bgt1990 on Sketchfab
[sketchfab]6cc963e6a21142128773e1aab11c46b8[/sketchfab]
Hoodie by bgt1990 on Sketchfab
[sketchfab]0b84fc2cf96d48c69ec08d65028609bb[/sketchfab]
Camera by bgt1990 on Sketchfab
[sketchfab]7a578a5c00bf47de9d71301c8cdf2d34[/sketchfab]
TS2 Spacestation Portal by bgt1990 on Sketchfab
Replies
Imagine trying to wrap your actual hand around the gun hilt. You'll see that your wrist gets blocked by the placement of the stock and butt. This is bad. I'd recommend fixing this deisgn wise. Same deal, lighting could be baked in better into the gun (top-down), the textures overall, without the light, feel really flat. You need to define the depth of those "vents" you have on the gun forward grip a lot more, it just looks like they were painted on. Not sure why there's two brass ejection ports, but I think that's because the texture is mirrored on the gun receiver. Also, if there's a brass ejection port, where are the bullets coming from? Is there a gun magazine somewhere?
If you're going to make a new gun or revisit this one, you need to really study the basic forms and shapes of rifles. See why pistol grips, forward grips, sights, etc are placed the way they are. Right now, while the gun definitely looks sci fi, it looks too obtsude for, what I am assuming, human use.
Interesting design for the jacket but I can't tell if you're going for a cell shaded look or a subtle/realistic shadow look. There's the issue of the stark dark value of brown happening on the underarms and sides of the sweater, which I understand if there's a seam there, that's an easy solution. But then you have value blending goin on in the front. You need to choose one or the other. I recommend programs like 3Dcoat i the future to do handpainted, across the seams, texturing, or take hte time in Photoshop to deal with texture seams.
Also, do not just use brown to communicate that it's a brown jacket. In real life, as light and atmospheric factors descend upon most objects, the local hue of said object changes at certain points. Shadows become cooler in hue temperature. Brighter areas become warmer in hue. What this means in laymen's terms is that you can't just rely on the local color (i.e. brown in this case) to paint the whole object, especially if you're baking in shadow. Get references of real ackets (preferrably brown) and color pick in Photoshop areas that are lit, in shadow, and the somewhere inbetween. Notice in the Color Picker that they have DIFFERENT HUES as well as values. You need to play around with different hues while changing values to add more depth and body to your textures.
I also recommend splashing in off hues subtly to add in slight wear and tear, and additional body to the texture.
Base Camera texture looks fine, but if it's going to only be handpainted, top-down lighting should be painted in more.
Not entirely sure which characters you are modeling in the VG Remix scene, but jsut in case, focus on nailing down a silhouette. In many video games, and if you look at the games you play, you can find you identify different characters a lot better when they have distinct silhouettes. That's why characters like Chun Li or Mario have longevity in the public eye: they have unique silhouettes. Even with such a low poly model, you need to spend polys focusing on making sure oyu nail the silhouette. Look at Tom's TF2 models once again to see how with a little finesse, you can tell difference between the Soldier and the Demoman.
Also, you need to fix your topology to allow deformation. Right now you have cylinders with spans that will not make future animators you work with happy at all because they don't bend properly after rigging. You need to be cognizant of proper topology solutions for deformation going forward if you're making something that will be deformed in animation like that.
I hope you used reference, BgT, for the low poly meshes. Something like Tom Tallian's, who did an EXCELLENT job of reinterpreting the TF2 Characters into low poly: http://tommytallian.blogspot.com/p/low-poly-tf2.html
You definitely need to spend time learning how to paint in real life. I'll be the first to admit, it feels like your texturing was done in Microsoft Paint. This isn't a bad thing, it just means it would be in your best interest to immediately adopt a disciplined artist's work ethic:
Practice still life drawing.
Do Figure Drawings
Do simple value paintings in Photoshop from regular photos of real life objects.
These solutions do not fix immediately, these are very long-term practices a lot of artists still do today. We're not making a new sword, we're just continually over the years, sharpening an existing one. If you don't start soon, though, you're just delaying opportunities to improve your artwork overall.
Where are you guys studying at?
I think now that I've finished this specific work for now, I might just spam out a bunch of models in 3DS and try texturing them.
I think one of the main issues with my texturing was the fact that I wasn't so competent in UV unwrapping, but as I did more, I started to get the hang of it more. (most of these objects have UVs that have the majority of the faces separated from one another, which really didn't lend itself to nice smooth texturing, and I ended up just basically doing block colours on them.
Oh and we are all on a Games Art course at Warwickshire College in the UK, we should all have posted our projects on the forum by now, I wonder if you can find us all?
Oh! I forgot to mention, on the course we do actually study non-digital art too, with various studies such as life drawing. frankly I'm better at that atm, shame I haven't got the knack of translating that into digital yet ^^
http://blog.sketchfab.com/post/59605329752/vg-remix-winners-announced
But I see your point, they are a great example to learn from.
You can do this. Hopefully Polycount helps winnow out the sheer amount of aimless help one might get by just trying to find tutorials through Google.