[Finished] Sturmgewehr 44 / STG 44
polycounter lvl 7
Hi people! Starting my first public WIP here to get some useful feedback and comment during this work.
Final version
My goal
Here I will do Sturmgewehr 44 - a German assault rifle developed during World War II. My deadline is set for about 15-20 days and for quality I'm aiming to CoD and Battlefield series. It will be challenging so planning is everything. Additionally, I need to say that this is my first such complex model (yeah, it's not that complex compared to some other weapons but this is just for me).
I'll try to post here every day or at least every second day.
1. Gathering references and researching the gun model. - 0,5 day. I very like this stage when I search all necessary (and not) images, learning how this mechanism works and what this all details for.
2. Blockout/Greyboxing. - 0,5 day. As I have no additional time to re-make something major it's very important to make basic forms from primitives so I can see where something needs to be tweaked, scaled down or up before I'll go to the next stage. These primitives also will be used for both of the next two stages as well.
3. HighPoly. - 5 to 7 days. DETAILING! YAY! This gun has a lot of details plus asymmetrical design so it's a bit of time consumption stage and it's hard to set estimate time.
4. Low(Mid)Poly. - 2 to 3 days. REDUCING DETAILS! Meh... As I'll re-use a lot of meshes it's saving me a bunch of time so I need to reduce the amount of polygons here and there.
5. UV's. - 1 to 2 days. Nothing special, just unwrapping and packing all UV's.
6. Baking. - 1 day. I like this stage. Again, as this model has a lot of small details I need to make sure everything is baked properly.
7. Texturing. - 2 to 4 days. Best stage! (for me) I'll try to make this gun both interesting to see and realistic so I'll reference something between factory-new and used in battle.
8. Rendering. - 1 to 2 days. Photosession for the model. I think this stage as important as all others so I need to spend a certain amount of time to present my model in portfolio.
9. Extra stage - Rest.
I'll use the power of ZBrush to make the HighPoly stage because it's very powerful when you making weapons with its LiveBoolean. Basically I'll combine SubD for small and easy parts and ZBrush for main parts.
I'm making all meshes in 3Ds Max and sending them to ZBrush to boolean all, also I can sculpt some details like rumples on metal, major scratches, other things.
When I finish the HighPoly stage I'll go back to 3Ds Max with all my meshes, duplicate all of them to the new layer and boolean them once again and clean geometry. By that, I will get my Low(Mid)Poly mesh ready for UVing without a lot retopo.
Next, I'll use 3Ds Max and RizomUV for unwrapping and packing. RizomUV is very powerful when you need to pack your UV's so go check it if you don't know what is this app.
Substance Painter will be used for the Texturing stage (wow). While texturing I like to use a lot of procedural grunge masks to make a natural scatter of color/roughness variations, scratches and other wear&tear effects, later I'm polishing them by hand a little.
And finally, when it comes to the render stage I like to spend some time finding good light positions. For me it's like to paint by light.
I hope you like this and have a good day!
(ps, also you can visit my Artstation, he-he)
Day 1
Here we go!
Double-staged day. First, I started to look for all references I can find. I used Google Images with Large image size setting to find only high quality references (I didn't want to peer into small images
)
Next, I watched few videos about STG44 (did you know that this gun is actually the ancestor of almost all modern rifles?) to learn about how it works and also my friend gave me some advice about it
The good thing is to search auction websites - you can find there a lot of high resolution photos where you can see all details.
Here's my refboard and I certainly should spend some time to sort this garbage
Then, I started to model my gun piece by piece from muzzle to stock. Here I modelled only major parts to get all my sizes and placement.
It took me for about 5-6 hours I think. While modelling I also searched for additional references to make some parts.
Final version
Artstation page (click me)
My goal
Here I will do Sturmgewehr 44 - a German assault rifle developed during World War II. My deadline is set for about 15-20 days and for quality I'm aiming to CoD and Battlefield series. It will be challenging so planning is everything. Additionally, I need to say that this is my first such complex model (yeah, it's not that complex compared to some other weapons but this is just for me).I'll try to post here every day or at least every second day.
My plan
As I have 20 days I've divided them to approximate stages, here they are:1. Gathering references and researching the gun model. - 0,5 day. I very like this stage when I search all necessary (and not) images, learning how this mechanism works and what this all details for.
2. Blockout/Greyboxing. - 0,5 day. As I have no additional time to re-make something major it's very important to make basic forms from primitives so I can see where something needs to be tweaked, scaled down or up before I'll go to the next stage. These primitives also will be used for both of the next two stages as well.
3. HighPoly. - 5 to 7 days. DETAILING! YAY! This gun has a lot of details plus asymmetrical design so it's a bit of time consumption stage and it's hard to set estimate time.
4. Low(Mid)Poly. - 2 to 3 days. REDUCING DETAILS! Meh... As I'll re-use a lot of meshes it's saving me a bunch of time so I need to reduce the amount of polygons here and there.
5. UV's. - 1 to 2 days. Nothing special, just unwrapping and packing all UV's.
6. Baking. - 1 day. I like this stage. Again, as this model has a lot of small details I need to make sure everything is baked properly.
7. Texturing. - 2 to 4 days. Best stage! (for me) I'll try to make this gun both interesting to see and realistic so I'll reference something between factory-new and used in battle.
8. Rendering. - 1 to 2 days. Photosession for the model. I think this stage as important as all others so I need to spend a certain amount of time to present my model in portfolio.
9. Extra stage - Rest.
My workflow
Now let's breakdown how I'm gonna make this pretty gun.I'll use the power of ZBrush to make the HighPoly stage because it's very powerful when you making weapons with its LiveBoolean. Basically I'll combine SubD for small and easy parts and ZBrush for main parts.
I'm making all meshes in 3Ds Max and sending them to ZBrush to boolean all, also I can sculpt some details like rumples on metal, major scratches, other things.
When I finish the HighPoly stage I'll go back to 3Ds Max with all my meshes, duplicate all of them to the new layer and boolean them once again and clean geometry. By that, I will get my Low(Mid)Poly mesh ready for UVing without a lot retopo.
Next, I'll use 3Ds Max and RizomUV for unwrapping and packing. RizomUV is very powerful when you need to pack your UV's so go check it if you don't know what is this app.
Substance Painter will be used for the Texturing stage (wow). While texturing I like to use a lot of procedural grunge masks to make a natural scatter of color/roughness variations, scratches and other wear&tear effects, later I'm polishing them by hand a little.
And finally, when it comes to the render stage I like to spend some time finding good light positions. For me it's like to paint by light.
I hope you like this and have a good day!
(ps, also you can visit my Artstation, he-he)
Day 1
Here we go!Double-staged day. First, I started to look for all references I can find. I used Google Images with Large image size setting to find only high quality references (I didn't want to peer into small images
)The good thing is to search auction websites - you can find there a lot of high resolution photos where you can see all details.
Here's my refboard and I certainly should spend some time to sort this garbage
Then, I started to model my gun piece by piece from muzzle to stock. Here I modelled only major parts to get all my sizes and placement.
It took me for about 5-6 hours I think. While modelling I also searched for additional references to make some parts.
Replies
Day 2
Hi! Little update is here!First day of the HighPoly stage. I started from Muzzle and Barrel parts as I planned.
Additionally, I finished a bit earlier than expected so I decided to start something else but the main part and I chose Stock part. Tomorrow I will finish it then move to Magazine and Upper Reciever.
Does your day have 24 hours like the rest of us?
No, I'm from Nibiru planet, we have 48 hours a day here and we don't sleep at all
(yes, it does
Actually I work only 6-7 hours per day to not overload myself because I have modelling tasks at work
Yeah, I can't work with red clay because my eyes will be full of pain after just a few minutes xD
Day 3
Hello guys! Hope you're doing great.End of the weekend
But I'm finished Stock, made Magazine and started to do Receiver. Tomorrow I'll finish the upper receiver (I hope) and start lower one.
Here's the general view all current progress
Now let's see closely (yes, I made the bullet)
Tell me what you think?
Day 4
Stuck on ejection port for a long time so didn't finish receiver todayNow this part is done so there are left not so many details
Do you feel like this gun transforming into a real gun?
Hope you like it
Close-ups:
Thanks!
Day 5
Hi! Another day, another progress.I had some issues with modelling piston and bolt because I've mis-scaled some inner parts
I have only 3 days left for HighPoly stage, I think lower receiver is the easiest part here so I hope I'll finish it tomorrow and will spend another day or two to polish, decimate and export the whole gun.
What do you think, guys? Any comments? Do you like this progress? Tell me what you think. Thanks!
Also, i cant be bothered to google refs so... great job
Thanks!
Day 6
Here they are! 6 screenshots for the sixth day."Boolean stage" finally finished, now it's time to polish edges of this thing!
Do you like it? Cause I do pretty much!
Some close-ups?
And the last two:
Day 7
No more sharp lines! Worked for just a few hours but anyway I've done what I wanted - to polish edges.Tomorrow I think I'll do some pretty basic damage pass and add a bit of imperfections, and then I'll start to do game-ready mesh. Stay tuned!
Day 8
Hi! Done quick sculpt pass (very simple) and started to make Mid Poly. I think I'll do around 35-40k Triangles.Spent too much time to try to decimate one piece for test bake
Boring screenshots are coming next few days before Texturing!
7800 Tris for this thing:
MidPoly will be finished tomorrow I think as this is weekend
Day 9
12 work hours and I've finished Midpoly stage. It's 38k of Triangles for everything.Here's wireframe:
And here's without wireframe.
As I have some extra time I'll spend it to make a sling and I'm already started:
In fact, chamfer some edges here and there and you dont even need a normalmap.
Looks dope, anyways.
I'm trying to find a balance between good-looking mesh for close-up renders and game-ready mesh for FPS
38k tris for an FPS weapon seems pretty reasonable to me, but the geometry usage is a bit uneven and could use some redistribution from loops that wont affect the silhouette to areas with large curves and not enough geo.
Day 10
Done a lot of things today and worked for about maybe 14 hours straight? Madness.Okay. So, I've took into account some feedbacks about wireframe and tweaked it especially on small parts plus added few loops on big curved, finished sling and made full UV.
I've separated them into few UV sets, you can see them in different colors:
And here's all this sets except belt/sling part as I didn't save screenshot of it
Additionally I did some bake tests for barrel and body parts to check pixel density and it was pretty good.
By that, I'm a bit outpace my plan but this more good than bad
Texturing is just a few steps away!
When I'm using dyna/polish in zbrush, I usually run into some artifacting after I dynamesh, and remains even after I polish...(i'm also using "by crisp edges"). Your results are immaculate and super clean, could you go a bit into what your process is in zBrush? Thanks!!
Yeah, there's nothing special but I'll give some explanation about the process when I start working today.
In few words: I'm using Dynamic SubD in ZBrush to smooth rounded shapes, next I'm using Boolean Mesh and then just DynaMeshing it with pretty high resolution (so some pieces have few millions of points), it allows me to polish edges perfectly. Also I can notice that for some parts of one mesh I'm masking them to make much smoother than other edges or to keep something sharp.
Do you have any good resources/tutorials on how you do the Zbrush work. I have been using Zbrush for regular organic shapes for years now. But never got into using it for things like weapons. Seeing your progress, I am wondering how your workflow is.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/DxoeNR - Eugene
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/lVy0bV - Simon
Also insane working 14hrs haha. Keep it up, I really want to see the result as of now since everything is so on track and well organized.
Day 11
Hi guys! So today I worked only 4 hours but they were productive: I've done all bakes and started to set up Painter scene to texture this pretty gun.Just created some base layers and still experimenting with colors and materials settings. Actually it will take some time for me as I like to try different variations and combinations of colors and parameters.
Please share your opinion, I'll be very glad to hear what you think!
For those who are interested here's my scene settings:
I like to use Studio lighting and my favorite is Tomoco Studio cause it gives me good reflections on metal parts and good colors that will work in any other environment. Sometimes I switch to different environments just to check everything in other scenarios.
Also, I'll create a test scene in Marmoset with basic lights where I can check how these textures look there.
Plus I use 16pp Anisotropic Filtering.
Still experimenting with textures. I need some iron-ish feel but maybe it's too strong at the moment. Will keep trying to create great overall look.
Made almost from scratch, this version has much more interesting look I guess but still needs work with surface and roughness. (stamped numbers are temporary, just tested some easy stamp-anchor system)
here's a very high-res close up that I believe reads close to the original - https://osob.store/image/catalog/stg44/IMG_5516.JPG
Hi guys! Re-done almost everything (again) based on gathered feedback and I like this version much more.
Here are screenshots from two lighting scenarios: