MZ Trophy Motorcycle - Help with materials, C&C appreciated!
greentooth
I've been working on this motorcycle for a while now outside of my day job, so I thought I'd share my progress here and see if people could help me take it to the next level. I'm hoping to include the final version of this guy in my portfolio for applying to game industry jobs for the first time this fall (at least, that's my goal).
I finished up a first pass at texturing with Substance Painter (my first time using PBR, so there could be some mistakes there), and I rendered it out in Marmoset:
There are a few obvious errors here, which I'll be fixing:
- Large metal part of engine appears completely white because the FBX is saved out with the baking envelope still present (whoops)
- The mirror material has a weird not-as-metallic stripe on the right, which I'll figure out what's going on there and fix it
- The black plastic parts on the sides of the main "nosepiece" (for lack of a better word) have quite an abrupt edge to the normal map.
- The heightmap is messy on the seam to the leather seat
- There's a strange seam on the end of the handlebars
I'm looking for feedback on everything, but here are a few more subjective places where I could see improvement:
- I think my metal texture isn't working very well. Here is the reference I am using for general wear and tear levels and also the metal texture, but I'm not really hitting the mark. What should I do to improve it? Mine looks not metal-y enough but I can't pinpoint why.
- I'm missing the big metal screws in the main handlebar piece -- do you think it's important to add those in or is it okay to leave them out?
- Not sure if the general shape is too narrow and not blocky enough? Since I modeled from a side view, that is possible, but not sure how big of a deal that is.
- Edit: I forgot to add that I am using 2k textures, but I'm noticing some pixelation on the finer elements like the metal logo on the side of the "nosepiece". Should I upsize to 4k, or is that something where I need to optimize the UV map better? Not sure if 4k is too much even for a portfolio piece?
I've uploaded more detail shots to Imgur here.
Also, I've been compiling a lot of reference photos throughout this project. If anyone's curious, I mostly worked off of this photo (from this helpful blog post) for most of the project with the following exceptions: this photo for general wear and tear level and seat, this photo for material reference on the paint and metal, this photo for the badge thing, and this one for the parts that connect the wheels to the rest of it.
I finished up a first pass at texturing with Substance Painter (my first time using PBR, so there could be some mistakes there), and I rendered it out in Marmoset:
There are a few obvious errors here, which I'll be fixing:
- Large metal part of engine appears completely white because the FBX is saved out with the baking envelope still present (whoops)
- The mirror material has a weird not-as-metallic stripe on the right, which I'll figure out what's going on there and fix it
- The black plastic parts on the sides of the main "nosepiece" (for lack of a better word) have quite an abrupt edge to the normal map.
- The heightmap is messy on the seam to the leather seat
- There's a strange seam on the end of the handlebars
I'm looking for feedback on everything, but here are a few more subjective places where I could see improvement:
- I think my metal texture isn't working very well. Here is the reference I am using for general wear and tear levels and also the metal texture, but I'm not really hitting the mark. What should I do to improve it? Mine looks not metal-y enough but I can't pinpoint why.
- I'm missing the big metal screws in the main handlebar piece -- do you think it's important to add those in or is it okay to leave them out?
- Not sure if the general shape is too narrow and not blocky enough? Since I modeled from a side view, that is possible, but not sure how big of a deal that is.
- Edit: I forgot to add that I am using 2k textures, but I'm noticing some pixelation on the finer elements like the metal logo on the side of the "nosepiece". Should I upsize to 4k, or is that something where I need to optimize the UV map better? Not sure if 4k is too much even for a portfolio piece?
I've uploaded more detail shots to Imgur here.
Also, I've been compiling a lot of reference photos throughout this project. If anyone's curious, I mostly worked off of this photo (from this helpful blog post) for most of the project with the following exceptions: this photo for general wear and tear level and seat, this photo for material reference on the paint and metal, this photo for the badge thing, and this one for the parts that connect the wheels to the rest of it.
Replies
If not then you should, or at least add more geometry overall.
You Questions.
1. About the metal texture, show us the textures and we can give some tips.
2. Add the screws on the handle.
3. With looks good to me without looking to closely, but you should have at least a front or back view when modeling to judge the width.
4. 4k does not have to be to much, it depends, just like a 512 can be to much, if you could show the uv's we could tell if they could be optimized.
I am interested to know how you did the normal map, cause it looks off.
Like the handle looks very blocky.
Other things.
Tires are way to lowpoly, add more sides.
The light at the back is missing the rubber strip around it.
Can see right trough the exhaust pipe.
The springs on the suspension is missing.
There are more things to handle, but this should be a start.
Thank you for your comment, this definitely gives me a lot to work on before I think about the materials. I think I'll fix up the normal mapping issues you pointed out and then come back to the texture.
For the normal map, I only made high polys of things that I thought had lots of surface detail, like the badge thing, "nosepiece", etc. I thought that it wouldn't be a big deal that the handle was so blocky but you're totally right, it's definitely obvious there -- there should be some more beveling so that the light bounces off of it better.
My plan from here is to go back and rework the model this week, baking out a new highpoly that's more detailed and adding polys to the wheels, as well as fixing the other issues you pointed out. For the suspension springs, I was going off of this reference, but I can see how that is kind of a cop out so I'll see if I can add in alpha'd springs.
I redid most of the materials and also redid the UV layout to be more efficient. I think the metal, paint, and rubber materials are close to being finished, with the thought that I probably need to tone down the wear on the painted parts and the metal. (Oops... Substance Painter is just really exciting). I also definitely need to work more on the leather seat because I haven't touched that.
Any other input/suggestions/comments?
I also made an album here with texture flats and UV map for the metal and painted parts, since those are the materials I feel are closest to being complete. This is my first time doing PBR/Substance Painter so please let me know if you have feedback (are they... supposed to look like that with all the weird radial lines?).
Same goes for your leather seat. You might also want to add some natural leather texture detail to it, ie http://us.123rf.com/450wm/aabbc/aabbc1209/aabbc120900002/15502316-closeup-of-seamless-black-leather-texture.jpg
It's really coming along! I'm looking forward to more updates!
Newest version:
I haven't applied all the materials yet, like the headlights/side headlight things, just working on getting everything else tied together. I also made a little base for the motorcycle, which I'll be refining (and probably making a bit more high-poly... such faceting. Will probs also be refining that texture).