WarrenM - Portfolio work thread, please crit me to death
I'm going to be dedicating a slice of each day to working on pieces I can assemble into a workable portfolio over the course of time. I'd love it if you guys could stop in here and crit me hard on this stuff.
This will mainly be props and smaller pieces ... at least initially!
The goal will be to take all of these into UE4 as finished, game ready assets. And then I'll likely offer the high poly meshes on Gumroad for a few bucks for those interested in picking them apart.
As a note, I model and UV in MODO. I use iPackThat for finalizing UVs, use ZBrush from time to time for various purposes, and do 99% of my texturing in Substance Painter.
Starting off with a tracker knife:
This will mainly be props and smaller pieces ... at least initially!
The goal will be to take all of these into UE4 as finished, game ready assets. And then I'll likely offer the high poly meshes on Gumroad for a few bucks for those interested in picking them apart.
As a note, I model and UV in MODO. I use iPackThat for finalizing UVs, use ZBrush from time to time for various purposes, and do 99% of my texturing in Substance Painter.
Starting off with a tracker knife:
Replies
For a portfolio piece, is there a way you can amp this up a little? Maybe grip texture on the knife or something else that will make it stand out more? The materials could also do the job. I am concerned it is a little simple to be a dedicated portfolio piece.
Solid so far. I would assume the hex bolts would be baked, if that's the case you'll probably want to taper bevels more to so they get picked up in the normal map.
Not sure if this is accurate to any particular knife/reference so it might be intended, but just below the 3 inset teeth at the top of the handle it looks like the handle itself has some concave look to it, noticeable in the 3/4 view mostly.
Presentation wise, I personally like to look at Hard Surface stuff with some specular material on it, helps see if there is wonky geometry/pinching a bit better. And lastly looks like you have some GI splotchyness most noticeable again on the 3/4 view on the blade part. Just pointing that out because again when evaluating hardsurface stuff if a surface is supposed to be smooth, you want it to look smooth, and not have odd shading/low GI samples/artifacts.
It's looking good though, looks like a pretty light SubD HP, you didn't over complicate the amount of geo you needed to make the shapes.
Worked on it some more this morning. Softened the bolt holes and worked on the handle shape a lot - softening it and making it more molded and less rigid. I think this is done and will move on to the low poly next.
And Alec, yeah, I'm hoping to convey the surface details through texturing rather than in the high poly.
doesn't resemble like the one from the real knife.
Also as for the UVs I remember watching this video two years ago. You can do something like this:
[ame]
(Skip to 7:52)
Also I think you should make those holes in the screws just a bit bigger.
I got one question: Is iPackThat good for UV mapping?
Good luck on the portfolio
Cheers!
I like the general direction tho:
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/tracker-knife
The issue with the normals in the viewer is actually a Marmoset issue, as we compress the normals as we export (something we hope to address soon).
My main issue isn't really with the asset, but with the TYPE of asset. I understand that you've said you want to focus on small props to begin with, but i've never really seen those as portfolio pieces. To me, a portfolio should be full of things that pop, things that make you go "wow". And this just isn't that.
Your portfolio should be an expression of the best of you.
Fantastic feedback, alot of us suffer from this. I know I personally have alot of weapons and little things but i need to go something WHOA
As newer things go in, older things drop out. And the cycle continues onward...
It's actually reflective of modern day game design in the F2P realm. Ship it. Tweak it, refine it, update it ... it doesn't have to be perfect at launch. Treat it as a living thing.
I think the bottom 2 errors are the compression stuff Gir was talking about.
Embarrassingly, the white sparkles things on the handle ... that's an issue with my UV map. I left enough padding between UV islands but not between the islands and the sides of the UV map. So there's some splooge from hitting the edge, I believe.
Thanks for pointing that out, now I can avoid that moving ahead...
Mood board: