Best modelization practice for games assets.

Dvid3r

Hello everyone,

This is my first post here on Polycount I started building a train station platform for a game environment in unreal engine 4 and I'm wondering what would be the best way to modelize the corners of my windows. I feel like I did it the wrong way... Could someone give me a hint ?

Thanks !

Axi5

Nothing wrong here really.

Artistically speaking, it's up to you if you want to add a few more polygons to that upper lip since it's starting to betray it's low-poly nature. Also it's a bit strong of an indent angle, you could angle it a little less so it reads a bit better. Lots of building trims around doors and windows do cornicing, so you could look into adding that, plenty of examples on the net.

From a technical standpoint, nothing glaringly bad here, just remember to smooth your normals, weight them to face. That's pretty much it.

Dvid3r

Hey Axi5, thank you for your feedback and reminding me about my normals !  Good to know that I haven't messed that up. I'm a bit too obsessed with poly count. I know its just one small side of optimization but as I'm beginning I'd rather not take bad habits and get too comfortable with low poly models.

Following is my reference for the windows :
 

Axi5

There's a few extra details in there that you can add to give it a little something extra. There's that bit of cornicing just at the top of the window for instance.

One thing I noticed that your model is lacking is this consistent radial bevel that your reference has. Here's a quick paint-over which has the flow lines I'm talking about on top of your model.



It's subtle but could make it appear more polished.

Since you're building a wall, looking at the silhouette isn't going to do too much for you, but you could put a fairly rough specular material on your model and disable wireframe view then just look at it from a few angles to see if the shapes are popping the way you want them to. It's easy to get caught up in the wireframe but it's not what the end user really sees, especially if it has been modelled well.

Dvid3r

Hi Axi5, I followed your advice to modelize corners. It looks much cleaner this way. 
I've also tried to unwrap and apply materials. The model itself looks kind of flat, even though the mat makes it pop a bit more I will make the indents slightly stronger and add a cornice at the very top 

Axi5

That's looking pretty decent, it's just small things to help you make it pop now. A little tip, 90 degree edges are a bit hard to read, you can replace that indent with a 60-70-ish degree edge and it'll probably look a bit better than if you had extruded in more. You should be able to do this in Max easily with a small edge loop slide towards the window opening.

Regarding the texturing you could probably do some paint work where the brick and cement transition, it looks a bit abrupt at the moment you probably need to tidy that edge up. Further down the bricks sort of distort outwards in the model, you could probably do some work in the texture here to highlight this as well.

It's coming along great