need Modelling help - 3DS MAX

jayantbhatt007

hi, I'm working on an environment.where in the scene, there is a light box in which it has some small details pattern. How will you create the pattern.I want it low poly.

JordanN

jayantbhatt007 said:

hi, I'm working on an environment.where in the scene, there is a light box in which it has some small details pattern. How will you create the pattern.I want it low poly.

Sounds like you're giving me a job. My salary starts at $25/h and I'll be in the office by Monday.

Serious answer, I think you will get more responses if you post your attempt at it first before seeking help.

I'm not a low poly expert but I've seen lots of games would approximate such detail through the use of an alpha texture. I would personally model the outside frame with rectangles and cylinders and either insert a plane in the middle or go half and half with the detail so that some of the detail is modeled and the rest is an alpha/normal map.

jaker3278

You could definitely model this all low poly if you wanted. Lots of the piece repeat which is great, so use your clone tool. Model one of the repeating elements and clone it. Then repeat for the rest of the object.  Its going to eat quite a few polygons but if its for presentation and not games i would model it.

The problem with and Alpha texture is your not going to get the depth of the wood.

Larry

I have to do such decals for my project. If you want this low poly try and bake the pattern into a normal map in a 1polygon plane, then convert the normal map to an alpha and use it on opacity. If you do it please tell me the result as well. In theory its a decal with some fake depth. Practically I dont know if it will work.

jaker3278

@Larry How on earth are you going to convert a normal map to an alpha to use as an opacity?  Hes going to spend more time modeling the pattern for a normal map than actually creating a low poly model. I would like to see the OP come back and give us some more details on what he wants. 

Larry

@jaker3278 can you really tell me you cannot change a baked map into a black and white alpha in photoshop to make it an opacity mask???

jaker3278

@larry how would that work with a normal map? why use a normal map? Wouldnt you just have to hand trace the back and white. I cant see how you are going to convert a normal map. 

throttlekitty

Larry said:

I have to do such decals for my project. If you want this low poly try and bake the pattern into a normal map in a 1polygon plane, then convert the normal map to an alpha and use it on opacity. If you do it please tell me the result as well. In theory its a decal with some fake depth. Practically I dont know if it will work.

I'd skip the normal map step and bake it like a colorID map: have your modeled cutout as the top layer as black, a white plane underneath it, and the plane you're baking to at the bottom.

Though doing this entirely in 2d as vector would be much faster, particularly in Illustrator or Inkscape. Or use something free like https://vectormagic.com/ and upload a source image if you have one.

Larry

jaker3278 said:

@larry how would that work with a normal map? why use a normal map? Wouldnt you just have to hand trace the back and white. I cant see how you are going to convert a normal map. 

I wasnt talking about normal map in specific but any map he can get from baking, he can convert to an alpha. He can also import the mesh to zbrush and extract an alpha. There are literally alot of ways to make an alpha mask from that mesh. Maps also have different channels that can make it easier to convert to an alpha in photoshop.

https://www.google.gr/search?q=zbrush+convert+mesh+to+alpha&oq=zbrush+convert+mesh+to+alpha&aqs=chrome..69i57j33.7931j0j4&client=ms-android-huawei&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8


From your words I get that you think its hard to make an alpha map ? It doesnt matter what he extracts it from, its generally not very hard or time consuming to get one. Dont get stuck in a specific scenario, whatever works for anyone