General noob modeling and texturing - critique welcome!

Daniel91

Hi guys and girls,

I'v been making a few game assets, im hoping to get them into dayz standalone if i can work out how.

This is my first time 'successfully' making a low poly and baking down textures to it, they arent amazing, but I learned a lot doing it.

will be adding more as I go,

rexo12

Some wireframes and polycounts for both would be nice to better evaluate them, that said though:

First model looks fine, i think you need to think a bit more about where the rust/wear is placed. The sections on the top are good, reads like rust drip from the rebar inside/on top. However maybe more edge wear to match the wearing in the center would be good to improve the overall read? 

The fence, however, i think needs a lot more work. The poles just look like deformed hunks of metal, and i think the shading is a bit poor in places. Do you mind posting a picture of your high and low poly wireframes?


The feet also make the fence look very easy to topple over, which may be what you want, but most portable fences use some kind of sand/water bag feet to keep it steady, like so: 

Good work, baking can be very confusing and first attempts often go wrong, so this is a nice result. Keep it up!

Alex_J

this thread may be helpful:

https://polycount.com/discussion/128700/anyone-tried-creating-assets-for-arma-3/p1

there is a well written tutorial in there for arma 3. Not sure how similar that is to DayZ standalone, but man... it's not so easy getting shit into arma. I tried briefly but gave up on it.

Good luck. Let us see you blow that stuff up in engine when you get there.

Daniel91

rexo12 said:

Some wireframes and polycounts for both would be nice to better evaluate them, that said though:

First model looks fine, i think you need to think a bit more about where the rust/wear is placed. The sections on the top are good, reads like rust drip from the rebar inside/on top. However maybe more edge wear to match the wearing in the center would be good to improve the overall read? 

The fence, however, i think needs a lot more work. The poles just look like deformed hunks of metal, and i think the shading is a bit poor in places. Do you mind posting a picture of your high and low poly wireframes?


The feet also make the fence look very easy to topple over, which may be what you want, but most portable fences use some kind of sand/water bag feet to keep it steady, like so: 

Good work, baking can be very confusing and first attempts often go wrong, so this is a nice result. Keep it up!

thanks for the feedback mate, i agree, the fence i'snt great, i started off just experimenting with making the wire mesh texture and decided to chuck some poles on it, didn't really do a whole lot of work on it if I'm honest

I'v been keeping the models super simple so far, just to make it easier for me to learn how to unwrap them and bake etc.

some of the rust on the wall was meant to be just dirt, but now i look at it, it does look like rust, ill have to play with the colours a bit i think

here are some wire frames.

BIGTIMEMASTER said:

this thread may be helpful:

https://polycount.com/discussion/128700/anyone-tried-creating-assets-for-arma-3/p1

there is a well written tutorial in there for arma 3. Not sure how similar that is to DayZ standalone, but man... it's not so easy getting shit into arma. I tried briefly but gave up on it.

Good luck. Let us see you blow that stuff up in engine when you get there.

Thanks mate, I'll check it out, i think dayz use their own engine now, so it might be a bit different, but worth a shot

i

Daniel91

I remade the fence, i think the design is better, texture still needs a lot of work, but i think it looks promising


forgot to get wireframes, so will post them tomorrow

Daniel91

taking a break from those props and been doing a bit of high poly modeling for practice, will make a low poly when im happy with it

Daniel91

Ok i need a bit of help,

when making a low poly for a model like this, would you make it as a simple box that is the overall size, or would you do a low poly for each "plank" of wood?

or does this just depend on how low poly you want the end result to be?

cheers

Daniel91

Iv changed the name of this thread,

I don't think I currently have the skills (or time) to get an asset into dayz, so this is now going to be my learning thread.

I will update it as I try new things, and hopefully you can all tell me what im doing wrong    

updates to follow

Carabiner

Daniel91 said:

Ok i need a bit of help,

when making a low poly for a model like this, would you make it as a simple box that is the overall size, or would you do a low poly for each "plank" of wood?

or does this just depend on how low poly you want the end result to be?

cheers

Yep, this mostly depends on the tri count you're working towards for your lowpoly. I will say that you probaaaably don't need to make each plank separate unless you're going to get VERY close to the box or it's for a cinematic piece. Normal maps can do a lot. A nice thing to kepe in mind, though, is that a box like that might be animated to be opened - so you could model out the interior, too.

Daniel91

Carabiner said:

Daniel91 said:

Ok i need a bit of help,

when making a low poly for a model like this, would you make it as a simple box that is the overall size, or would you do a low poly for each "plank" of wood?

or does this just depend on how low poly you want the end result to be?

cheers

Yep, this mostly depends on the tri count you're working towards for your lowpoly. I will say that you probably don't need to make each plank separate unless you're going to get VERY close to the box or it's for a cinematic piece. Normal maps can do a lot. A nice thing to kepe in mind, though, is that a box like that might be animated to be opened - so you could model out the interior, too.

Hi mate, thanks heaps for that!

at the moment the box has no actual purpose, it was just made for the sake of making it and practice, i have been thinking about making something to go inside it, ill have to see if i can find some reference images

for the lid for example, if i didnt model each plank, am i right in thinking that the low poly still needs to match the overall shape? like how the planks that make up the lid are a bit warped and arent perfectly flat? or would you make a lowpoly that is flat and just sits inside it and let the normal take care of the curve?

thanks

Daniel91

can someone please help me understand what i did wrong here? baked in substance painter

I'v been slowly making my models more complex to practice my unwrapping and baking, but i cant work out what is making this happen

is my low poly not following the shape close enough?

cheers

ZacD

You probably need to adjust the Max Frontal and Max Rear Distance. Try .1 instead of the default .01. 

Daniel91

ZacD said:

You probably need to adjust the Max Frontal and Max Rear Distance. Try .1 instead of the default .01. 

Thanks, I'll give it a shot next time I'm on the PC!

Daniel91

ZacD said:

You probably need to adjust the Max Frontal and Max Rear Distance. Try .1 instead of the default .01. 

That improved it a far bit, still getting a bit of a strange result


with my high and low poly, the rings are only on the high poly model, do i give them the same name as the high poly base model? for example body_high, which is the name i gave to the actual wooden barrel part. the reason i ask is, im getting an odd result on the plug (which i decided to make a low poly for) and i know its caused because im not doing the "match by mesh name" method in substance when i bake, if i do that method, it fixes it, but it makes the rings look terrible

next 2 pics are with max frontal and max rear at 0.4 (didnt notice a different between that and 0.1 which gave the best results) and with 'match' set to always, as you will see, its a big improvement on my last attempt



the next ones will be with match set to by name

it gives a much better result on the plug (i havent shown a picture of it, as i know the cause of the problem) but it makes the rest of the bake look a lot worse



cheers for any advice you can offer

had a play with a rough texture, doesn't look bad at all, but there are a few spots that are a bit odd

musashidan

Mate, res up that barrel. Geo is cheap these days, so unless you're authoring for mobile or low res style don't be afraid to add a few triangles to improve the silhouette. The silhouette is one of THE primary cincepts to focus on when creating your in-game asset.

Daniel91

musashidan said:

Mate, res up that barrel. Geo is cheap these days, so unless you're authoring for mobile or low res style don't be afraid to add a few triangles to improve the silhouette. The silhouette is one of THE primary cincepts to focus on when creating your in-game asset.

Hey mate, thanks, its not actually being made for anything but practice, i honestly didn't have a clue what kind of count i should be looking at for it, but i figured if it was in a game, it would just be a prop in a corner and wouldn't be too high res, but that said, i wouldnt know what is classed as high res and what isnt, over 100 polys for something like that felt like a lot at the time.

off the top of my head, i think it was something like 113, what kind of res would someone normally make a low poly for an object like this? i guess simply adding a couple loops would really improve the silhouette without actually adding much to the count,

Thanks for the help mate!

ZacD

Make sure the low poly is triangulated before importing/baking. Make sure the high poly model is shading properly when using basic lighting.  

Carabiner

Daniel91 said:

musashidan said:

Mate, res up that barrel. Geo is cheap these days, so unless you're authoring for mobile or low res style don't be afraid to add a few triangles to improve the silhouette. The silhouette is one of THE primary cincepts to focus on when creating your in-game asset.

Hey mate, thanks, its not actually being made for anything but practice, i honestly didn't have a clue what kind of count i should be looking at for it, but i figured if it was in a game, it would just be a prop in a corner and wouldn't be too high res, but that said, i wouldnt know what is classed as high res and what isnt, over 100 polys for something like that felt like a lot at the time.

off the top of my head, i think it was something like 113, what kind of res would someone normally make a low poly for an object like this? i guess simply adding a couple loops would really improve the silhouette without actually adding much to the count,

Thanks for the help mate!

Hey there, a few things! @musashidan is correct. Personally I measure in tris, not polys, since it's more precise. So If you're making an asset like this for your portfolio, I'd say you could go up to 1000 tris (maybe even more). You should aim for little to no faceting on your model and see what tri count that gets you. People will understand that this is a cylinder so it needs more tris for that. 

Also, since you said you're a "general noob" (hey, we all start somewhere! :P ) when it comes to these things, I want to make sure you understand what adjusting the max frontal and max rear settings in SP actually does -- it tells SP to search further out (or further in), which can capture more of your highpoly detail and eliminate awkward clipping.

Daniel91

Carabiner said:

Daniel91 said:

musashidan said:

Mate, res up that barrel. Geo is cheap these days, so unless you're authoring for mobile or low res style don't be afraid to add a few triangles to improve the silhouette. The silhouette is one of THE primary cincepts to focus on when creating your in-game asset.

Hey mate, thanks, its not actually being made for anything but practice, i honestly didn't have a clue what kind of count i should be looking at for it, but i figured if it was in a game, it would just be a prop in a corner and wouldn't be too high res, but that said, i wouldnt know what is classed as high res and what isnt, over 100 polys for something like that felt like a lot at the time.

off the top of my head, i think it was something like 113, what kind of res would someone normally make a low poly for an object like this? i guess simply adding a couple loops would really improve the silhouette without actually adding much to the count,

Thanks for the help mate!

Hey there, a few things! @musashidan is correct. Personally I measure in tris, not polys, since it's more precise. So If you're making an asset like this for your portfolio, I'd say you could go up to 1000 tris (maybe even more). You should aim for little to no faceting on your model and see what tri count that gets you. People will understand that this is a cylinder so it needs more tris for that. 

Also, since you said you're a "general noob" (hey, we all start somewhere! :P ) when it comes to these things, I want to make sure you understand what adjusting the max frontal and max rear settings in SP actually does -- it tells SP to search further out (or further in), which can capture more of your highpoly detail and eliminate awkward clipping.

hey mate, thanks heaps for the tips, Im going to redo it now

i kind of assumed that's what it did, based on the name and the effect it had, but i hadn't actually confirmed it

ZacD said:

Make sure the low poly is triangulated before importing/baking. Make sure the high poly model is shading properly when using basic lighting.  

Thanks mate, i will work on that now

Daniel91

possibly a silly question, but whats the best way to triangulate your mesh?

i tried tessellate, but i feel like its adding a lot more than it really needs to,

can i just export as OBJ? that triangulates doesnt it?

musashidan

You're working in Max so use the 'turn to poly' modifier set to 3. Leave it as a modifier on top of the stack and don't collapse it down or you lose the non-destructive aspect that you should always aim for at all stages of authoring an asset. The modifier will be respected on export.

@Carabiner It's the on-card vert count that matters to the engine, not the triangle count. Vert amounts increase as you split smoothing/uvs/matIDs so triangles won't be 100% accurate.

Daniel91

musashidan said:

You're working in Max so use the 'turn to poly' modifier set to 3. Leave it as a modifier on top of the stack and don't collapse it down or you lose the non-destructive aspect that you should always aim for at all stages of authoring an asset. The modifier will be respected on export.

@Carabiner It's the on-card vert count that matters to the engine, not the triangle count. Vert amounts increase as you split smoothing/uvs/matIDs so triangles won't be 100% accurate.

thanks mate, i actually did it the obj way while i was waiting, but i will do it your way now, (also just noticed you do youtube videos, so ill be watching all of them over the next few days)

also i have changed some of the render settings and i don't know which ones, is there a simple way to reset to default? google says i need to rename a file or something


The areas I have circled where its a bit darker than other ares, is this cause by there being a there?

I think i might modify the design of the rings, on the high poly it looks pretty good, but I'm not sure if the shape translates well or not.

I'm learning so much thank you all!

ZacD

Try baking at a higher resolution or using anti aliasing. If that doesn't help, makes sure there isn't a gap there in the high poly model. Raising/lowering the max front/read distance might help a bit as well. 

Daniel91

This is looking so much better thanks to all your help

one final question before I try and actually texture it, the part I have circled in the next pic, is there anyway of stopping this that doesn't involve changing the high or low poly? on the high pol there is a gap there, and on the low I didn't add it, I'm thinking the only way to make it look better is to either add a split in the lowpoly, or close it up in the high?

cheers

musashidan

Looking much better. Those gaps are blank spots on the normal map because there's nothing there for the rays to hit. You could add an opacity channel and paint the gaps in. You should add some thickness to the model around the top rim. It looks unrealistic.

ZacD

Opacity for something like that probably isn't worth it for performance and effort reasons. 

If it wasn't on an edge, you could just darken the gap a bit to hide it. But since it is on an edge, the best solution would be to modify the high or low poly. 

musashidan

ZacD said:

Opacity for something like that probably isn't worth it for performance and effort reasons. 

True, but since these are workflow practice pieces I thought it might be good for OP to see how to use the opacity channel.

Daniel91

thanks all, will have a play and post the results a bit later

Daniel91

So I was having a look at some references and noticed that my model wasn't great.....so i redid it, It looks a bit more like a real one now

I might rotate the rings a little bit, just so they don't line up with that join so much, otherwise i think I'm ready to try texture it. 

Daniel91

Ok, I have one last thing i need help with (i hope)

Can anyone tell me what is causing this? I can improve it by adjusting the tolerance on the colour picker for the mask in substance painter, but it appears to be baked in to every layer, I took the ID map into photoshop and corrected the errors on that, but it will be a bit harder on all the other maps.

I baked at 4k and the ID map was created using material colours from 3dsmax

I just checked and the artifacts/errors seem to line up with the vertical edges of the low poly, does that mean that my lowpoly is still too low res, or is it something else?



any help is greatly appreciated.

Daniel91

Update,

I fixed it for the most part,

i was watching an arrimus 3d video where he used a higher poly base mesh to bake on and then transferred that texture onto the final low poly.

so i added a turbo smooth with smoothing groups turned on to my low poly, used that to bake all the maps, then saved them off and applied them to my proper low poly model, I'm not sure if this is the right way to do it, but it seemed to fix my problems, I did have to go in and do a small amount of touch up to the masks, but otherwise it worked really well.

here is how the textures look so far, the wood i made using the wood fiber bitmaps on a mask, and played around with the scaling a bit to get something i like, then i added a base colour, then added some more colours using those wood fiber maps as masks, to get a bit of variance in the overall colours of the wood.

I was going for a very desaturated sun bleached look for the wood (i do have a reference, but its in my head at the moment, waiting for my brother to send me a picture of the wine barrel i bought him)

the rings are just the standard steel rough that substance offers, with a slight tweak to the base colour, i need to do more work on this.

Daniel91

Taking a little brake from the wine barrel, texturing isn't coming out the way i want and the more i try the worse its getting, so I thought it might be a good idea to do something else for a little while and come back with fresh eyes, the main point of that model was to get the the hang of baking and low poly, and I think it helped a lot


anyway, decided to do some high poly modeling, going for that sci-fi war table type look, ill post a couple references i'm using to get a bit of idea, it isnt amazing detailed yet, I'v just been blocking it out a bit and experimenting with a few things

pink box is my human sized reference 

Daniel91

Little bit of progress on this, I'm not happy with the floor, I was, but now I'm not

some of the assets aren't smoothing properly because I still have them broken into smaller parts and instances for easier modeling.

I don't have a very good imagination, so continually playing with this and adding bits is helping me learn to come up with interesting shapes, at least that's what I tell myself

The emissive parts need a lot of work, and by work I mean I need to learn how to do it,

(materials are mostly place holders to try give me some ideas, very basic at the moment)

Any crits or suggestions are very welcome