Exteel Gun (PBR)
greentooth
What's going on folks! I've just wrapped up a project a few days ago and I have been working on this thing since.
I really liked the concept for this gun, I guess it's for this Korean Gundam style shooter that NCSoft published. The gun concepts they had for this game have a really cool style!
My focus for this project is to really nail the detailing in the gun and to be on point with the PBR texture. My last project really let me get my hands dirty with PBR and Substance Painter for the first time, so this time around I really want to push things further.
So here goes!
Concept I am following:
[IMG][/img]
HP Blocked out:
[IMG][/img]
I really liked the concept for this gun, I guess it's for this Korean Gundam style shooter that NCSoft published. The gun concepts they had for this game have a really cool style!
My focus for this project is to really nail the detailing in the gun and to be on point with the PBR texture. My last project really let me get my hands dirty with PBR and Substance Painter for the first time, so this time around I really want to push things further.
So here goes!
Concept I am following:
[IMG][/img]
HP Blocked out:
[IMG][/img]
Replies
Maybe it´s just me but the gun could be a bit longer, no?
And give us that cutout in the front of the barrel : D
My only crit is that it feels a bit more squished vs. the initial concept. It loses a bit of the heft when the handle isn't that long n ridiculous.
@ Ged: Thanks man, I feel like some of the bevels I have are a bit small right now just looking off of the concept. Anything that is still feeling small I will emphasize in Zbrush when I do my detailing.
@ beefaroni: Thanks for the comment dude, I took another crack at the handle and made it more in-line with a revolver. Hopefully it lends itself more to the weight of the front of the gun.
[IMG][/img]
[IMG][/img]
[IMG][/img]
You'll also inevitably draw a bumblebee comparison.
Otherwise, the changes look good. I'm excited to see this progress, and to take what you learned from the solider dude into this!
Thanks again guys! Will post again whenever I get some more detailing going.
My plan from here is to put in some minor wear and tear, tight up some of the pieces that are feeling a little "gummy" from remeshing, and polish up some of the less sharp cuts and paneling. Bakes coming soon! I can't wait to get this thing into Substance Painter!
I've been doing some research and the conclusion I have come to is that I will need a seam wherever I have a hard edge and in my current unwrap I don't have that for the vast majority of the pieces. The game plan now is to go back and re-unwrap, and re-bake my normals for a better result.
If anyone has any advice on input on this it would greatly help, and I would very much appreciate it!
It feels like the mesh you baked with and the one you've presented the maps on are slightly different possibly when it comes to triangulation. Also, increase the anti-aliasing on your bake settings, you're getting some nasty jaggies especially in front of and just behind the tank.
Thank you for the comment man, definitely going to give a look at my bit depth and see if I can adjust it for a better result.
Here is the wireframe for the low as well.
[Looks like you might have already seen it, but I don't know if you're following every step, with the results you're getting]
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=107196
To boil it down, anywhere the UVs are split, there should be a hard edge. And there should be a UV split just about anywhere that is a sharp angle in the mesh (~75 degrees or more). And you need to make an averaged cage, to use when baking the normal map. It's explained in detail in the thread, and it'll make this look fantastic.
So what I have done is added extra supporting geometry where it is needed to fit the high poly more closely before I try to do any "quick fixes". What that solves for me is that I no longer get the bunching in the edges of the mesh like I did in my original bake. Problem solved in that regard.
The problem I have now however is I am getting gaps on all of my hard edges. I have tried making a custom cage and doing Averaged Projection Mesh bakes. I have tried doing Explicit Mesh Normal bakes in xNormal. I have tried adding extra edges and I have also tried adjusting my smoothing groups to no resolve.
Currently, it seems to solve the gaps I would need to go in a put UV seams with padding wherever I have angle changes in my Smoothing Groups. I can do that easily enough, but then I'll have a bunch of seams everywhere and I'll only be doing so for very small pieces, especially in the example piece below and I'm not even sure if that is the right way to go about it. Ultimately, I feel like I am missing something on this.
Definitely going to keep hashing at this and see if I can get to the bottom of the issue.
If anyone has any information I would greatly appreciate it. I have exhausted as many options as I have seen throughout researching the problem to no avail and any help is solid gold haha.
Test Bake on a section of the gun
Normal of that same section
The other option is to add more bevels so the normals aren't so extreme.
Here:
Each different color outline represents a different smoothing group, as well as a different UV shell. Right now you have one long UV shell that has a lot of hard edges. Hard edges need UV splits and padding. So break that UV shell up according to your smoothing groups and then rereneder.
I use textools but maybe im not using it right can you elaborate exactly on how to do this. I usually start unwrapping with split UV tool
This will automatically assign smoothing groups according to how your UVs are split up.
Though it looks like you haven't split your uvs at hard edges either.
Special thanks to Sean Vangorder for taking a look at my mesh and smoothing groups and showing me how to approach this problem.
Here is a current bake on the same piece above.
No gaps, no problem! Will update again after repacking and rebaking. Thanks again for all of the assistance guys! I really appreciate it!
What do you use for baking / viewing the normal map?
Bonus Akimbo!
What software do you bake in?
I may have not had my Tangent Space set correctly in Marmoset when I took these renders.
I took another shot with the texture blocked in and it is much less pronounced.
I am wondering if I could get rid of it entirely by editing my smoothing groups post-normal map or perhaps painting it out as a last resort.
Neither of those things are good ideas. Editing smoothing groups after baking your normal map is kind of contradicting what the normal map is trying to do. And painting it out is just putting a bandaid over a deeper problem with your workflow.
Do some baking tests on simpler objects, and figure out what works. You'll be able to do it faster on those simpler things. And you can keep the texture blockout when you finally do rebake your gun, because it won't involve changing your UVs.
Also, I'd recommend xNormal instead of Max; if it's giving you trouble (unless it's crashing or something), it's not the program that's the issue, it's something in your process. xNormal is a more compatible tangent basis than Max, in my experience.
I'm going to put the brakes on the texture for the time being and work on fixing those normals! Thank you for your comments and feedback!
I think the only issues sticking out are some edge line waviness on some of my pieces with very small map resolution and I plan to sample the normal and paint out those minor details.
So with that being said, back on track to the texture!
I am referencing the gun art of several other artists and trying to get some subtle value/saturation shifts in the metal to really sell the black metal bits. Also playing around with color variations. Again, any feedback would be really helpful and I would greatly appreciate it!
Right now, it feels like a lot of dust/dirt stamped on top of a simple base materials. It feels very muddy. The wear really doesn't seem to have a story behind it. Maybe some edge chips on the top of the gun from hitting it on a wall or something. Maybe a large dent in the metal cylinder.
The dirt should be more towards the crevasses. I think the biggest offender of that is the trigger and the yellow part down by the handle. Why is the area where the two meet perfectly clean?
I'm also having a problem with the read of the green and the yellow. The yellow in particular feels like a plastic, and the green feels a bit plastic-y.
I guess to try to simplify. You kind of have the base texture down, and the tertiary detail (kinda). The secondary detail isn't currently present.
My advice would be to get rid of all of the dust/dirt/scratches/etc. Focus on some amazing base materials that are super clean. Then, once you have base materials that you are super happy with, think of the edge wear and where chips may be in the paint. Then figure out where some dirt and that kind of stuff would be.
• Look on photos of real weapon and try to avoid putting all damage and weathering effects randomly.
• Do not think that if it is a sci-fi weapon, then you can not compare it to the damage on weapon from life.
I am going to start from scratch on a lot of these materials and really try to nail this thing. Thanks again guys!
It feels slightly better, but still pretty far off.
Any suggestions in regards to material would be a great help. I think the tank is looking the best of all the pieces but I can't seem to nail down the black or grey metal. As for the yellow bits, I'm going to change them explicitly to metal and not have them look like matte plastic. Again, any further suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you a ton for your feedback man, it is definitely very helpful.
Figure out exactly what type of material everything is. Is the metal steel/iron/aluminum/titanium, etc? How does the paint apply to each metal? Does the texture of the raw metal show through the paint and produce a unique normal texture that other metals don't? Once you figure that out, go online and grab a ton of ref of that specific metal in similar conditions (so maybe war or something).
Guessing a material broadly (metal, plastic, etc) is going to hinder the quality of the materials in my opinion.