Robo
polycounter lvl 18
This model was done for a competition over at Sumea.
This was the first model I have completed, so I am pretty happy with it. I also learnt alot, especailly about how boring and time consuming uv mapping is! .
The polycount is at 3442.
The brief for the comp was 3500 polies and 2 1024 maps.
Crits are more then welcomed
Replies
In general that model does not look like it's using 3500 polys and 2x1024 maps effectively - the texture seems blurry and lacks any fine detail - you could have used 1/8 of the mapping space and got the same amount of detail from this texture.
The UV-map layout in general is very wasteful... there's loads of empty space where you could have given pieces more texture space.
You also have a lot of polys not adding anything to the shape or silhouette of the model - the front leg guards, for example, have a bunch of polys in a perfectly straight row - this is unnecessary.
I like the design, and the colours, and the general idea behind it all, but from a game-art, techical standpoint, you could really stand to squeeze a whole lot more from your polygons and texture maps.
MoP
**edit** I think the texture also looks like a first pass IMO. I think it would be a lot more interesting if you had dings and scratches and just some wear and tear. Also the areas with the blue lights could look a lot better if you spent a little time on them . Like the main eye ... if you did something besides just paint that metal wire cage over it like maybe gave it some inner rings made of a lightly bright metal and then did some kind of fake glow it would look a lot better . As it is now it just looks so flat and boring .
These areas could all look identical with less polys, without affecting deformation, shading or silhouette.
It could have used more fine tuning, though I was running late so I did have to rush it abit.
I agree the UV layout isnt that great. It was my first time uv mapping so I will have to try and squeeze more out of it. I remember looking at the uv window in max and thinking that there wasnt a great deal of wasted space, but when I exported the texture at 1024, there appeared to be noticibly a lot more space. This is something that I guess you learn over time.
The front of the model and the cylinders (especially) could have used some weilding, probably the shin guards as well. I dont think I could have shaved off many polies from the head though, alot of it is fairly low poly as it is. The front area I had to cut out to make the front light (cylinder). Also you pointed out the arm gaurd area, how could I have saved polies there?
Thanks again for the crits.
Gauss, I tried to go for a blue colour scheme all over, so I didnt want to stray to far from that. Though now that you mention it, I could have used some more colour to draw attention to the face.
The glowly bits are used as to define team colours (this was something that was suggest in the competition brief)
pogonip- thanks. The blue lights were one of the last things I did so they were done pretty fast.
I was going to paint on some blue reflected light but didnt get around to it.
I wouldnt say its close to perfect as far as not wasting polies. The leg cylinders could have used alot less.
My only real crit, like others have said, is the lack of color variation. Even some colored racing stripes would really make it stand out (it may be tacky, but can anyone deny the awesomeness of racing stripes? I think not.)
Its true that it has some issues technical-wise. But wow that design is so cool!
One thing you might want to do is to grab the viewer's attention a bit more. I'm loving it atm but if I squeeze my eyes the thing I'm attracted to is that glow on the chicken leg. You might consider giving it a nice paintjob (I mean, real paint, markings and all) to structure the readability of it.
But man I love these shapes!
dont ask me about wasting polies
i just wanted to say i was also looking at ur pencile stuff gallery -- sweet stuff man you should post more!
it doesnt cost money you know
as for the tex i honestly thought it was a WIP.. color and rendering should probably be your focus if you intend to make more 3d like these
As far as polys go, maybe a FEW areas such as the leg plates and cylinders could have used less, but what the hell, if you're under budget it's a non-issue.
I think the one thing that is holding the model back is the skin and the unwrap job. I feel your pain about unwrapping. oh the pains of a day wasted playing tetris with UV corrdinates... There are some features like in max (and I think in maya also) that help speed up the unwrap process by auto unwrapping, you still have to spend a few hours aranging everything but sometimes it gets pretty damn close to what you need.
I hope you don't mind but I took your texture flats and re-aranged them to show just how much wasted space there was. I also scaled a few of the important pieces up, and the not so important pieces down to better fit them on the textures.
First thought I have is, don't arange your pieces on a black background, its ok to DRAW them on a dark background. If you switch the background to an obnoxious color the wasted space jumps out at ya. Black has a filling quality, our eyes read things into blackness that are not there, it makes you think the pieces are bigger than they are. In this case I wouldn't draw on an obnoxious colored background, I would pick a more inert color like light grey since it is close to the overall color of the model.
There was enough wasted space to fill two 256x256 textures, ouch...
Even for what I have done there is still lots of wasted space, see how the black really does a number on your minds eye and what you think is there? You will never be able to use 100% of the space when working with most models but you want to hit as close to that as you can. Every pixel/polygon you save is something that can be used somewhere else to enhance detail. If you take out the polys mop suggested, you might be able to make a cool antena, or add a litle detail to his guns? With the extra texture space an enviroment artist could use that texture space for props. Think of wasted space as stealing detail from something else in the game. Is the game lacking a lot of alpha shaded grass? How much grass could someone make out of 512x512? My guess is a lot?
I won't labor on the point any more than I already have, but make sure when you are playing tetris with UV shapes you really pack em in there.
Awsome job I really do love the model and its character
uv's are not boring though!!!!!!!!!!!!!! aaaaaaaaaaaaah uv's rock your world, and you should come to terms with that
as for the texture, it aint bad at all, just needs more love to it, and more areas to compliment the mesh.
rockin. dont rework this one, start a new one from scratch and do it in half the time. gogogo
aesir- thanks. racing stripes = awesomeness!
pior- I see what you mean when looking at it when squinting. Great normal map texturing tut, btw
shotgun- wow thanks man. Im a long time fan of your work. I do have to focus on my colour work a bit more.
irrtant- thanks man
vig- great stuff. I see just how wasted the space really is. This was my first time laying uvs so thats my excuse!! I wanted also to keep things fairly even in terms of pixel
distrubition
moose- I learn to love them, though only like a father can love a red headed step son!! It is indeed quite a puzzle try to arrenge things perfectly.
Im not going to rework anything on it as I have started on something else.
I'm sorry if I came across like I was hammering the point home but I really was trying to make an impression. Something that seems to be lacking in recent days. [rant] There seems to be a tread on these boards and in the industry to let some things slide because "you're still under budget". A budget isn't so much as a license to waste, its a license to pack as much as you can into a model before you are cut off.[/rant]
Man I preach too much...
Scott