Wildstar Resonator- Stylisation Critique Needed

R_Clay

Hi guys, I've been working on this project for a while, hoping to use it in my portfolio to show ability to work from a concept and follow an existing style. It's not quite finished but since this my first time attempting handpainting/stylised textures I thought I ought to get a bit of feedback first.

This is the Concept I have been working from

These are screenshots from marmoset of the current state of my model. It has a normal map and the albedo, I will make the roughness and emissive maps once I'm happy to move on.
I am also not quite settled on how I will produce the final renders, purely because I don't know exactly how the Wildstar game engine does things. I am leaning towards PBR but I might have to have a play around.
This is a screenshot from Max (consistent colours) for a better look at the albedo.

I know the lights definitely need a lot of work, I haven't really touched upon them yet. I'm thinking the darker metal areas might need more tweaking, I've been struggling trying to work out what to do with very flat areas. In hindsight I should've sculpted in more scratches or weathering, that might've helped. 

But I would love to hear how you guys think it compares to the in-game art, and any tricks I may be missing out on!

AgelosAp

Hey @R_Clay ,
pretty good job so far, you got a solid base.

You need to bake more lighting in your albedo(check ref, it's very baked), check the Dota2 Texture Guide for this, and bake AO, and Top lights from Normal map (green channel).
If you display this in pbr, copy your albedo on low opacity in your emmisive so no shadow gets too dark and it feels more cartoonish rather than realistic.
Another good thing would be to add some color variations/gradients, right now every material has 1 hue which doesn't follow wildstar's stylization.

Hope this is helpful and good luck carrying on, I love this style!

edit: also show us your high poly
ref:

rough paintover for gradient and direction:

Ferg

Hey R_Clay, I can give you a couple of tips that should help a bit

one rule of thumb I use for really stylized art is to avoid parallel lines and 90 degree angles on things. It doesn't have to be varied much, but it makes a huge difference in terms of making an asset look more interesting.  For this gun model, try angling the sides out a bit, so edges taper in slightly towards the bottom (from the front view, mainly).

Another thing that will help is to introduce some other subtle colors into the texture.  Instead of using blacks and whites for your darks and highlights, try using dark blues and light yellows.  Bring the low poly mesh into zbrush, subdivide it a few times with smoothing off, and paint some large soft gradients on it to use as color masks in photoshop. Some subtle color variations can make a world of difference.

R_Clay

Here is the high poly sculpt

Thanks @Firith, this is all super helpful! The only AO in this was used as a guide under the handpaint so it’s pretty all gone, I’ll definitely add some on top.

@Ferg ah yes I see what you mean, I’ll nudge around some verts and see what I can do. Thanks for the tips!

This is a lot of good stuff to take away, I’ll post my results after I’ve acted on all of this feedback  

R_Clay

It's looking a fair bit better now


These will probably be my final renders, as I really ought to be moving on to my next project.