Looks very good to me, but some edges are way to sharp. If is not for bake then it`s ok.
"If is not for bake then it`s ok." I think he's well aware of that, look at Bens other work, he's well known around here for his Hard-Surface assets. Just sayin...
In the renders you have really nice highlights on the edges, but when I look at the wireframe you only have hard edges. How does that work? I always thought you need to add a bevel to the edges to get a nice reflection or is the model smoothed, but from looking at the wireframe it seems like the model wouldn't look good smoothed. I'm pretty new to this could someone help me understand?
If I'm not mistaken, he's using the dynamesh method for creating the high poly models. I'm doing the same thing on my current project. Here's a video explaining the technique https://youtu.be/Fg6QPJ7XirE?t=1089
In the renders you have really nice highlights on the edges, but when I look at the wireframe you only have hard edges. How does that work? I always thought you need to add a bevel to the edges to get a nice reflection or is the model smoothed, but from looking at the wireframe it seems like the model wouldn't look good smoothed. I'm pretty new to this could someone help me understand?
The shots that have wireframes are lowpoly updates, the rest are highpoly updates. I tend to work on both at the same time.
Workflow stuff so far,
The frame has a lot of complex (more than 1-dimensional) curves, so it starts as a very low poly blockout to get the primary forms right, and then that gets subdivided so there's enough precision for zbrush later on. That subdivided model is used as the base object for a proboolean which is then cut away for the magazine well, recoil spring, trigger, camblock, &c.
The rest of the parts are just primitives turned into proboolean objects with more or less subtractive ops applied. The most basic objects are chamfered by smoothing group and then turbosmoothed, the rest are run through zbrush for edge polishing.
So on the slide serrations for the LP, you can just use a flat face for the cut-out and have the other geometry floating over it? Interesting, thanks for sharing. Looks good!
Yeah that way you don't have to use geo attaching all the teeth, and they bake down to the face underneath so for LODs you can just delete them. You can do the same thing with rails.
Rented one of these at a range today to get a few additional refs. Posting them up here even though it's just cameraphone quality because some of these angles are not easy to find on the internet and may be helpful to others
There is one thing i´m still not sure about the Dynamesh Workflow: The Bools in Dynamesh are always a bit harder on the edges then the parts which where manually done in 3dsmax. I know that there is the Clay Polish Option under Geometry Tab and the Polish Option under Deformation.
But a to high Clay Polish Value will make the whole Part to soft. So the manually adjusted HighPoly from Max gets more soft because of the high Clay Polish Value. A to low Clay Polish Value will keep the Bool Edges to hard.
My question is: Can i tell zBrush (maybe with blue and red color or something similar) to focus more on the Bool Edges, to make them soft and to leave the rest untouched?
The only alternative i see so far is to model harder in max and when it comes to the dynamesh bool workflow, to use a high clay polish value to make then all more soft.
I try to just use zbrush as a "minimum edge width" pass to avoid having to brush things. If some edges need a different bevel profile than others, I'll do the larger ones in max inside the boolean object
One crit; in the photos you took, you can just see a small gap between the front lower part of the slide and the polymer frame under that. This gives you a glimpse of the spring. Since you did the internals (badass) it would've been really cool to sneak that detail in as well. From looking at other photos it seems that end of the frame has a very slight angle to it, while yours is straight, hence having no gap.
Replies
Nice work chap, looks properly good!
Starts at 18:00
Workflow stuff so far,
The frame has a lot of complex (more than 1-dimensional) curves, so it starts as a very low poly blockout to get the primary forms right, and then that gets subdivided so there's enough precision for zbrush later on. That subdivided model is used as the base object for a proboolean which is then cut away for the magazine well, recoil spring, trigger, camblock, &c.
The rest of the parts are just primitives turned into proboolean objects with more or less subtractive ops applied. The most basic objects are chamfered by smoothing group and then turbosmoothed, the rest are run through zbrush for edge polishing.
There is one thing i´m still not sure about the Dynamesh Workflow:
The Bools in Dynamesh are always a bit harder on the edges then the parts which where manually done in 3dsmax.
I know that there is the Clay Polish Option under Geometry Tab and the Polish Option under Deformation.
But a to high Clay Polish Value will make the whole Part to soft. So the manually adjusted HighPoly from Max gets more soft because of the high Clay Polish Value. A to low Clay Polish Value will keep the Bool Edges to hard.
My question is: Can i tell zBrush (maybe with blue and red color or something similar) to focus more on the Bool Edges, to make them soft and to leave the rest untouched?
The only alternative i see so far is to model harder in max and when it comes to the dynamesh bool workflow, to use a high clay polish value to make then all more soft.
HP render stuff
One crit; in the photos you took, you can just see a small gap between the front lower part of the slide and the polymer frame under that. This gives you a glimpse of the spring. Since you did the internals (badass) it would've been really cool to sneak that detail in as well. From looking at other photos it seems that end of the frame has a very slight angle to it, while yours is straight, hence having no gap.