[W.I.P] ZZ(ZOUTZUUR) Grenade 01 (Feedback is Welcome)

alex_kim

Hello. This my recent project for job portfolio. :-)

This is my reference art:


Reference modeling: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z6GunNKpSI


This is so far what I've done:



This is not done yet. However, I would like to upload all of process for the future students' sake. :-)

Larry

That is looking nice, but where is the white gap that  has the "ZZ 01" written on it?  also try and make the safety pin with 6 sides and adjust smoothing angle, it seems like it has too many polygons

alex_kim

Thanks Larry. I will post my recent version as soon as possible.

alex_kim

This is what I did so far.

This is lo-poly work:



And, this is hi-poly:



The wire frame is very thick because I use "crease" tool so can smooth mesh without breaking original form.

I am now trying to bake normal map which is the hardest part.

I gladly accept all type of opinions or criticism as well :-) 

alex_kim

And this is hi-poly that is rendered by marmoset tool bag 3

Larry

Alex for a game-ready low poly grenade you can spend about 200-300 polygons.
So the inside does not need modeling in general. Can you try to make this less than 500 polygons?

alex_kim

@Larry

Hello, Larry. Sorry for late answer :-)
I want to present inside as well since I am trying to show something awesome.
If I don't make inside, it could be a lot easier.

Brian "Panda" Choi

What is the wireframe and poly count for the low poly then?

Larry

alex_kim said:

@Larry

Hello, Larry. Sorry for late answer :-)
I want to present inside as well since I am trying to show something awesome.
If I don't make inside, it could be a lot easier.

Even then, the outer part of the grenade can be 1 simple cylinder with beveled edge, cut in half, and baked, and still maintain all the details without the polygons. Like i did a paintover in the picture, it is really easy for you to make another object SLIGHTLY smaller than the ones you already have and bake all the information in a normal map



All the yellow lines can be a normal map. The green and blue are just an example of all the simple shapes you can make and bake the details on. Even if you want to show the inside, this should not be more than 1000 tris.

alex_kim

@Larry

I thought you want me to create something, and don't worry about number of poly counts yet (at least when I create N99). :-)
Do you think now I need to considering number of poly count from now on?

hm... what about this? I will create ZZ - grenade for now. I will consider number of poly count and try to reduce it in the next project.

Larry

when i said don't worry about the polygons, it was to push you to create something with very good quality in terms of modeling. Now you need to take all this good quality and learn how to bake it down using the lowest amount of polygons.
You need to understand where you should spend more polygons to create something better and where you can just bake the information into a normal map. 
At the very least, the outside part of the grenade could/should be all baked in a normal map.

When you search for a job in 3d industry you need to show these things:
You can model anything in 3d
You know the techniques required to make games without "weird" errors
You know what to bake in a normal map and what not
You make smart choices in number of polygons without losing quality

alex_kim

@Larry

I understand it now Larry. Actually, (this sounds like the excuse but) I also planned that I could bake the bumpy anti-slip part of the shell of the zz-grenade instead of modeling.

However, same as N99 pistol, this is for FPS Game. Protagonist will hold the grenade right in front of his face or camera! I do not underestimate the power of normal map. I just thought that I should not skip the detail for this reason.

I did not mean to ignore your advice. I totally think you are right. And, I am also big fan of the normal map. However, let me work on for this project (I already spent too much time for this). I will check what you listed from the next project. I guess I am ready to consider the # of polygons for the industry requirement.

Larry

Then why do you want the high poly? The way you built this even if you smooth your model it is almost exactly the same. No need to make a normal map, if you want that exact silhouette. That means you dont even need the crease so just stick to your original form and look what kind of edges you can remove without changing the shape

Brian "Panda" Choi

Bruv, are you doing that low poly, but beveled edges thing again, Alex?

alex_kim

OK, Since Larry and Brian recommended me to fix lo-poly. I decided to do it again.

Actually, the quality is a lot better!



This is not done yet. Although I guess I am done 80% for lo-poly

Olingova

Sooooo much better And you already got a good beginning of high poly to bake with the first model you made

alex_kim

Olingova 

Thanks Olingova. Long time no see. Actually, recent version is simpler then previous. However, the quality itself is a lot better to bake the normal map. 

I am kind of scared to create high poly that has beveled edges to create normal map.

Previously, I bevel the edges on the lo-poly only. But, in this time, my lo-poly has no bevel edge; however, hi-poly does. I hope I can bake the map well.

Larry

Remember that you need to manually adjust the low and high objects, so that every low poly object is a little smaller than the high poly.
To make this easier, one thing i personally do, i give the low poly green material, and the high poly red material, and i carefully fix the geometry so that i cannot see any green

alex_kim

lo-poly is done :-)

Brian "Panda" Choi

Looks alright.  Good to see that beveling not there.  A lot of those perfect cricle UV islands should be broken into long rectangular strips to save on UV space.

Jack M.

You're definitely wasting a lot of uv space right now. Beyond what Brian mentioned, there's a few other best practices you should get in the habit of.

1) The first thing you really want to do is take everything out of the 0-1 space. Take the largest and easiest uv islands and start building up out of the bottom left hand corner. Try to keep things packed in a square as you build out. Then once everything is placed, scale up to fit.

2) Keep things aligned well. It seems you have this down for the most part. Keeping straight islands straight.

3) When possible, and if it doesn't distort the texture much if at all, straighten as many edges as you can. For example that bottom center island can definitely be straightened out. This will allow you to pack things far more easily.

4) On the circular components, if you can't straighten them because of distortion or otherwise, try to prioritize uv texel density and shrink one circle and encapsulate it in the other. Circular uv islands waste an enormous amount of space, and you should do everything possible to avoid having them with nothing inside of them.

alex_kim

Thanks for all of comments, and sorry for late answer. 

This is what I've done so far:

Lo-poly:


Hi-poly:



And, this is my normal map applied lo-poly:



Sorry for bad quality of pictures. I do not know why. It seems fine when I took a picture. But, quality is damaged when I uploaded it.

There's some issue of normal map that I need to fix it. :-)

alex_kim

Jack M

Nice to meet you Jack, and sorry for late answer. As you said, uv-mapping is very tricky job to me. But, I totally agree that I need to adjust so it should not waste space.

Brian "Panda" Choi

When you're presenting your low poly model with normals applied, it will be most helpful if you turned off the wireframe rendering so we can see if the normal map is properly applied.

Also, have you tried uploading your images to a place like IMGUR and THEN posting it here?

alex_kim

Alright, long time no post. I was struggling how to bake fine normal map. Thanks to Brian's help, I finally figured out why my normal is always bad. 

There are three things I must check before I bake the normal map. I will write down here for the people who are suffering because of bad normal map especially edge parts :-)


1. On the uv-mapping, cut the faces by edges that will be beveled in the hi-poly (red lines, in this case), and keep the distance from each island.


2. Bevel larger until you can figure out the difference between hi-poly and lo-poly from the distance. If hi-poly and lo-poly are too similar, computer will fail to understand what the lo-poly or hi-poly is  


3. This is not required; however, increase segments of bevel. So, computer can bevel smoother.


And, this is my result. Lo-poly ZZ-Grenade with normal map

alex_kim

Alright this is what I've done so far:



This is not completely done yet.

The plastic is way too new.
I need to add paper, paint (tattoos), and normal map holes. :-)

alex_kim

Now, I add damaged effect

alex_kim

This is my recent work :-)

Larry

It's looking much better than your previous weapon! Try to add some overall damage on your yellow cylinder, it looks like a pattern now

alex_kim

Thanks Larry! As Brian and Larry suggested, I added some damaged pattern.

alex_kim

I think I have two issues here

1. Stencils(such as number, icon...) are pixelized.
2. The manual paper texture on the yellow plastic shell is also pixelized because texture size and uv map are not matched.

alex_kim

Since Edge wears are looking too "unnatural", I changed some parameters of the generator

Brian "Panda" Choi

What are you referencing for your photograph references to figure out what details need to apply where?

alex_kim

Hello, Brian. I just searched the google as "used grenade", "grenade", or "3D grenade".

https://lh3.ggpht.com/0qIr4xCyokAQ7pQVk1g5pBAH27LXWp89qxREn0mVoh5NhIHKt1HQXLX0I3x_IjK6ohg=h900

https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/004/770/974/large/stefan-ekelund-stickgranade.jpg?1486133286

https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/project_modules/1400/b2b95a30400033.5620fa14c87ae.jpg

I am referencing those scratch, dusty, edge-wear effect.
I am trying to add patterns on the grenade that "rolls around the ground multiple times" or "people touch it a lot of times"

Brian "Panda" Choi

What about photos of real grenades?  Most of those are artificial renderings.

alex_kim

So far, mine was not looking realistic. I do not know why, but as Brian suggested, I searched the images.


This is the one of images that I found from the internet. As you see the blue shell, there are some bumpiness while mine is very clean and slim.

Those bumpiness came from people's touch. And, would make the grenade awesome. That's why I added my own pattern.

alex_kim

The final Edition, I hope :-)

alex_kim

As Brian suggested, I add more patterns.

The rendering of Substance Painter somehow stops at the middle of the process.

Brian "Panda" Choi

I didn't say anything about adding more patterns.

Can you render this in a final render scene like Toolbag?  You keep taking screenshots from the viewport of Painter, which won't give you the optimal rendering solution for this.

Larry

Iray in substance stops after 10 seconds if i remember by default. Change that to something like 60 and you will get a bit better result.

alex_kim

Alright, This is final (I hope) product that is rendered by toolbag3



I just took a picture from toolbag3's screenshot function.

alex_kim

This is same mesh, and same maps, but different rendering.

Brian "Panda" Choi

Hydriochloric acid core needs to be transparent.

alex_kim

alex_kim

This is my recent work



I am spending too many days for this project. I am getting distracted. I guess I should move on, and revisit again later. If this is not perfect yet.

Brian "Panda" Choi

Whats the resolutions of the texture export?  There's sections of the decals that look really pixellated that might be a texture resolution export issue.

Zodd

Even tho it may be too late now but the pull ring is waaay to small, looks like hair strand, while in ref image its almost half the grenade size.. well more of a 1/3 but you get my point
Also the bit holding the ring is different shape from ref image.. In general there are some forms that differ from concept by a fair bit but there are the first that pop out,
To add onto what Larry said, regarding what to show in portfolio pieces, also ability to work from concept/ref image as closely as possible
this means, shapes and forms as well as good polish (textures and materials)
When i say form, for instance take a look at the conic metal bit between yellow fragmentation shell and fuse cap, adds a lot to the overall shape and give the grenade more elongated look and better proportion design wise, while on your model its almost disregarded and given very little spotlight... soo those kind of things
Maybe not now since its already done... since you are gonna be building this almost from scratch, but keep this in mind.
Also regarding hi polys, maybe take a look in "traditional" hi poly creation, sub-d modeling and support loops and those kinds of stuff
because for now some things are very visible in both low and high (take a look at fragmentation square there is visible polygon edges in middle of the frag square)
And there is definitely something up with texture resolution as brian said >hence pixels visible


Now since those things up there seem like im being negative >
I agree with the fellas, this one looks much better than previous one (the system works )
Again the process takes time, im just pointing out stuff that i see, and that you should pay attention to in the future if not now

Keep it up