PBR Old Binocular, Looking for critique on Texturing

Slothfuldrake

An old Binocular i modeled and textured to learn Substance Painter. Id love to hear your critique, and how i should improve. Some said its a bit "toy-like" due to the not so good metal, but idk how to do that better. Im proud about the leather though. Also im looking texturing artist whose style is similar (old and grungy stuff). Thank yall and have a great day!!!
Artstation post link: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/qAKZBe

rexo12

So, just firing off what I notice:
The metal is very rough, which is from my experience rather rare, but it's also inconsistently rough. The copper (?) sections at the front of the model are much glossier than the brass on the rest of it, and even the brass seems to have different base glossiness between the front and back sections.

More importantly though, your detailing (scratches, grunge, etc.) seems illogical and random. The big chunks taken out of the metal is more characteristic of concrete than metal - which tends to dent or scratch minutely, rather than crumble away. The scratches are also quite random and inconsistent with the underlying material definition - they're very deep, especially on the metals which is not easy to do accidentally (irl), and cylindrical objects tend to scratch along only a single direction, usually around its circumference. Alongside this, your leather has a lot of sand on it, but this isn't reflected in any of your other materials (including the rope seam things), leading to this sort of incongruency with the rest of the model, as if someone's very carefully masked everything except the leather off, and then dropped the binoculars in a sandpit and taken a leaf blower to it. The oxidisation on the copper also doesn't appear to respect the geometry of the shape it's applied to.  

As i'm sure you've noticed, the big word here is "inconsistent". Do you have references? To me, the model seems to be saying that you are unsure of what its story should be. The detailing seems to be slapped on purely to break up uniformity, meaning that it ends up looking false and unrealistic. An important part of detailing is to make sure that each of your detailing elements is trying to communicate some aspect of a narrative or character to the viewer. Is it old, poorly treated? or new and well cared-for (or somewhere in-between). Where is it, what environment has it spent most of it's life in? What events and incidents gave it each of those scratches. These are all questions you need to be consistently asking yourself when you do your detailing - essentially, "Why does this deserve to be put here?" 

I hope this helps, keep it up!

Slothfuldrake

rexo12 said:

So, just firing off what I notice:
The metal is very rough, which is from my experience rather rare, but it's also inconsistently rough. The copper (?) sections at the front of the model are much glossier than the brass on the rest of it, and even the brass seems to have different base glossiness between the front and back sections.

More importantly though, your detailing (scratches, grunge, etc.) seems illogical and random. The big chunks taken out of the metal is more characteristic of concrete than metal - which tends to dent or scratch minutely, rather than crumble away. The scratches are also quite random and inconsistent with the underlying material definition - they're very deep, especially on the metals which is not easy to do accidentally (irl), and cylindrical objects tend to scratch along only a single direction, usually around its circumference. Alongside this, your leather has a lot of sand on it, but this isn't reflected in any of your other materials (including the rope seam things), leading to this sort of incongruency with the rest of the model, as if someone's very carefully masked everything except the leather off, and then dropped the binoculars in a sandpit and taken a leaf blower to it. The oxidisation on the copper also doesn't appear to respect the geometry of the shape it's applied to.  

As i'm sure you've noticed, the big word here is "inconsistent". Do you have references? To me, the model seems to be saying that you are unsure of what its story should be. The detailing seems to be slapped on purely to break up uniformity, meaning that it ends up looking false and unrealistic. An important part of detailing is to make sure that each of your detailing elements is trying to communicate some aspect of a narrative or character to the viewer. Is it old, poorly treated? or new and well cared-for (or somewhere in-between). Where is it, what environment has it spent most of it's life in? What events and incidents gave it each of those scratches. These are all questions you need to be consistently asking yourself when you do your detailing - essentially, "Why does this deserve to be put here?" 

I hope this helps, keep it up!

Thanks alot. This is my first texture work in Substance so i had my work cut out for me. FYI i dont have a reference so i just winged it. Your feedback on metal scratch behaviour is awesome, ill bear that in mind next time. The color difference on the leather is supposed to be scratches, not sand. Adding realistic dust and sand is next on my to-learn list, i tried it here with the smart material but the effect wasnt there. But yeah the binocular is supposed to be used heavily in rough situattions and then dumped in the desert. Ive already moved on but your critique definitely helps my future texture work

CrackRockSteady

Slothfuldrake said:

Thanks alot. This is my first texture work in Substance so i had my work cut out for me. FYI i dont have a reference so i just winged it. Your feedback on metal scratch behaviour is awesome, ill bear that in mind next time. The color difference on the leather is supposed to be scratches, not sand. Adding realistic dust and sand is next on my to-learn list, i tried it here with the smart material but the effect wasnt there. But yeah the binocular is supposed to be used heavily in rough situattions and then dumped in the desert. Ive already moved on but your critique definitely helps my future texture work

This is a pretty common mistake that people make especially when they are first starting out.  Always use reference, even if you you're very familiar with the subject matter.  Gather up as much reference material as you can find before you even start modeling.  Study everything closely, look at the details, and more importantly try to understand why things look the way they look.  Do some research about the subject, find out what materials it's composed of, how those materials wear and age, how the thing is constructed, etc.  The more you understand about what you're making the more believable the details that you put into it will be.

I can almost guarantee you'll start to see big improvements in your work if you start using references to aid the process.

Ashervisalis

The stitches in the leather aren't holding the leather together: the leather should be separated where the stitches are. Add some dust onto those lenses! The metal has been through so much that its so damaged, but the leather just looks old yet undamaged. Unless this thing was re-leathered recently, it doesn't make too much sense. Aside from everything else that was said by others, it looks cool.

Slothfuldrake

CrackRockSteady said:

Slothfuldrake said:

Thanks alot. This is my first texture work in Substance so i had my work cut out for me. FYI i dont have a reference so i just winged it. Your feedback on metal scratch behaviour is awesome, ill bear that in mind next time. The color difference on the leather is supposed to be scratches, not sand. Adding realistic dust and sand is next on my to-learn list, i tried it here with the smart material but the effect wasnt there. But yeah the binocular is supposed to be used heavily in rough situattions and then dumped in the desert. Ive already moved on but your critique definitely helps my future texture work

This is a pretty common mistake that people make especially when they are first starting out.  Always use reference, even if you you're very familiar with the subject matter.  Gather up as much reference material as you can find before you even start modeling.  Study everything closely, look at the details, and more importantly try to understand why things look the way they look.  Do some research about the subject, find out what materials it's composed of, how those materials wear and age, how the thing is constructed, etc.  The more you understand about what you're making the more believable the details that you put into it will be.

I can almost guarantee you'll start to see big improvements in your work if you start using references to aid the process.

ahh I meant didnt have a ref for a beaten up binocular. I did my research for the individual materials. The brass looked bad cus i couldnt find a ref in which the brass is as a shat on as i wanted.

 Ashervisalis said:

The stitches in the leather aren't holding the leather together: the leather should be separated where the stitches are. Add some dust onto those lenses! The metal has been through so much that its so damaged, but the leather just looks old yet undamaged. Unless this thing was re-leathered recently, it doesn't make too much sense. Aside from everything else that was said by others, it looks cool.

Im suprised it take that long for someone to mention the stiches. I realized that pretty late on the project and didnt have enough time. Furthermore i actually dont know how to make that rough damaged leather edge. More about the leather, i mean the scratches are pretty visible, if you scratch the dark colour outer layer, the newly exposed layer below is gonna have that ligher tint. If you want the leather to tear all the way through, boi thats above my skill level, the curling, the deformation, the rough edge. Might make for future challenge though. I will also spend more time to work on a better dust in Painter.