Sketchbook: indiscernible_i

indiscernible_i

Hi! First post on this site - just wanted to post some of my stuff on here as I learn. Feedback is always appreciated.

Here's a barrel I did a while back. It was the first model I took from beginning to end in Zbrush. I was daunted by the UVs and baking I would have to do to go from high poly to low poly. I finally got over that mental hurdle though, and made this:

The texture painting was a lot of fun. I really enjoy stylized environment art and I might stick with that for a while (I wanna do everything, though). I posted this picture on another website, so I already got advice on the mesh tiling (Next time vary it up, rather than use radial symmetry for everything.) And use cavity masking (I did it all by hand - again with some radial symmetry.)

Next time I think that I would work harder to make sure that the final texture is supported by the underlying mesh. Some of the detail I wanted to paint in once I figured out what texture style I liked had to be scrapped, since I had planned an entirely different wood grain in the mesh itself, and I didn't want to go back. I don't know how I would fix that, except to start over.

I didn't really have a plan for the wood texture and it evolved from my first idea once I started painting. I'm happy with the result, though. Probably wouldn't do the exact same thing again for a while, but a variation would be fun.

indiscernible_i

Here's my current WIP:

I wanted to create something more detailed and to learn more about using different materials.

I'm happy with the high poly, but I've come across problems with creating the low poly mesh and the textures. When I export part of it to Unreal Engine, it looks SUPER washed out.

The only real fix for my texture problem that I've figured out seems to be to completely redo the texture on the model but with the Gamma in Zbrush pumped up to 2.2 times higher than the default. I don't know if there's an easy fix in Unreal Engine for this.

The low poly mesh, however, I'm struggling with. I'm trying to retopo in Zbrush (Used to use Maya, but the student license ran out, and I can't justify the cost rn.) and it kinda works with UV Master and poly-grouping, but my low poly mesh doesn't really support the higher level detail - especially around the edges. And I found that the Normal Maps kinda look shitty as a result. I wish I could manipulate vertices and edge loops like I could do in Maya.

I don't know how to get the best result for a Normal Map. I don't know how much detail should be in the map itself vs the mesh. But it feels like other people can get great results with Normal Maps and so little geometry. I'm jealous. I wish I could get good results too.

I'll post more pictures when I can.