Knives - Textures Lights & Rendering Class

SaltyTurtle

Hello!

For my final project for a Textures, Lights, & Rendering class, I'm modeling and texturing a couple knives. The knives were modeled based off of real life references and the diffuse maps were created based off skins from Counter Strike: Global Offensive. As a requirement for the project, I am supposed to post in a forum asking for feedback.

Specifically for this project, I'm wondering what people think of all the different maps compiled in Unity 5. Included are diffuse, specular & gloss, normal, and ambient occlusion maps, with the normal and ambient maps transfered from the high to low poly model in Maya 2016. I'm not too sure how the specular maps look with the lighting I chose, so if anyone has any feedback about that or any of the textures I made, please let me know!

Thank you!

EDIT: I should probably mention that I'm only halfway through college so I still have a lot to learn in this industry, but I'm pretty happy with all that I've learned so far and look forward to learning more and growing as a 3D artist

SaltyTurtle

Update: I fixed the lighting in the scene and made the diffuse on the blades bolder by adding the texture into the specular map as well as the diffuse. I also got some better screenshots that better show the specular maps. The marble was also given more of a red hue just to add a bit more color into the scene. 

mystichobo

Hey,

It's a bit hard to give feedback on the unity renders with the image size you've used, you should probably go with one knife per image to make it easier to critique (See Martin Bergman's excellent knife renders on Artstation as an example of what I mean).

mystichobo

Hey,

It's a bit hard to give feedback on the unity renders with the image size you've used, you should probably go with one knife per image to make it easier to critique (See Martin Bergman's excellent knife renders on Artstation as an example of what I mean).

Add3r

I would find a real picture (not a render) of the knife you are working on, or as close to it as possible, and try to replicate it.  That is the best way to start tuning materials and mesh details.  You have too many factors right now working against you to get an accurate shading model.  I say temporarily ditch any sort of environment and place the knife on a stand or directly onto a matte floor plane, and light the knife that way to start.

For my lighting pipeline when not working in PBR, I attempt to nail down one portion of the *problem at a time (*problem = whatever task is at hand, this case lighting these knives as realistically as possible I am assuming).  Example:
 1. I throw in a diffused background that I know lights correct, like using a prebuilt lambert surface.  I choose a lambert surface as to get soft bounce light if the engine supports this, as well as not taking away from the focal point of the scene: the knife.
2. Remove all lighting in the scene, so it is pitch black.  I usually create a BSP enclosure around what I am working on.  Then place a spot light, not too harsh, middle ground brightness about equivalent to a diffused photoshoot/studio style light, pointed at future position of object.  This light should be 100% white., changing colors will ruin
3.  Place object you are presenting in a position that is similar to that of your reference photo of choice.
4.  At this point you can start tuning intensity of light to match reference, and materials to match reference as well.

For lighting in PBR, I will replicate most steps above, but instead of being in a pitch black enclosure, I will make sure that I first remove all "placed" lights and BSP/models from scene.  Then I find a physically correct HDRI sky image, and place in the world.  Physically correct meaning, a raw image, usually 32bit down converted to 16bit for in-game use, with zero photoshop-ing of the RAW images themselves.  This will crunch the HDR value range, but is about as close to physically accurate as we can get with current lighting tech in publicly available engines (as far as I know).  This is a requirement, and highly important, as the sky image will do a LOT of the lighting for you.   Then place your key spot light again, maybe one or two fill/rim lights for presentation, and then tune your materials.  Ditch the background and environments until you have your primary object as close to your reference as you can get it.  Then you can look into adding the presentation environment around it. 

One way to skip 90% of the setup of the environment, is trying out Marmoset Toolbag 2.  It will give you a ready to go environment you can drop an image into, and easily tune materials, HDRI sky preset of choice, etc.  Takes away a lot of the work needed to get a properly setup PBR ready environment.  Your Materials/Lighting teacher might not be teaching your PBR material workflows, but it would definitely be something to start looking into ASAP.  You are working in the "old-school" material pipeline, one that is very quickly becoming obsolete in most game development pipelines.  PBR is what recruiters and team leads are looking for in a portfolio these days, now a requirement for most places to be even considered, especially just breaking in to the industry.  

Feel free to PM me with any specific questions about material or lighting workflows.  

SaltyTurtle

Oh man, I didn't think anyone would actually respond to this! Thank you for both of your feedbacks, I really appreciate it!

I will try out that PBR material workflow. This project is due in a few days and we don't have any more actual class time, but what was taught was very basic in terms of lighting processes compared to what you are describing. I will definitely play around the with the workflow you laid out and see how that looks, especially if that's what companies will be looking for.

Again, thank you so much for your input!