fuck: a pistol skin!

Kitteh

shouldnt be showing you all this

everything is mine cept the model and unwrap

one 2048x2048 (!) and an equal-sized normal map


pretend you never saw this

Neo_God

First off, this wouldn't be going against any NDAs would it? Or are you on a mod team with a jack ass for a leader who wants to keep all the assets a secret.

It looks nice, I can't imagine why you'd need a 2048x2048 map for a pistol alone, I mean I'm sure you could get more than enough detail for the pistol on a 1024x1024 map.

Kitteh

The latter The 2048 was the modellers fault, both the designer and I, and a few other members of the team (The Opera R2) agreed on 2-3 1024s per gun AT MOST... so uh yeah.

Weiser_Cain

I really like that render! Could you let me have a look at it, say delete the model and just put up the file so I can have a look at the settings?

Slainean

Looks like a good start, but you are overestimating the amount of texture space you'll be needing.

Consider taking the current 2048 map and scaling it down to 1024 - that should allow for more than enough detail.

Daz

Too much effort to come up with an appropriate thread title?

It really doesn't look like there's a normal map on there. It looks like most of the form is described in geometry. Are you sure a bump wouldn't suffice for a hard surface model with as little surface undulation as this? You should be using the normal map to give you bevelled edges etc, but I don't really see that in this model. I'd be curious to see your high poly normal map source.

nitzmoff

Nice title, score one for professionalism.

As Daz said, it all looks modeled, I really don't see any normal map save the emblem on the handle. Swell render though.

vahl

even 3 1024's per weapon is too much...especially if normalmapped/bumped...one 1024 or 1 512 would be far enough.
the global-illumination fucks up the normal rendering for sure, a proper lighting with good enough specular map would look far better and make the details pop out a lot more...

the 2048 is the fault of the modeller ? how comes ? is the modeller the project leader of the team, or the programmer ? if you were in charge of the texture, then it's up to you to make it fit the game requirement...and going from a 2048 to a 1024 is pretty easy I think...

anyway, sort out a better render, with 3 point lights rather than GI, something that really make the normal map show, add specular, and shrink down the map to 1024...I'm sure it will then look even better.

good luck with that

Frank

Er...you know verm hangs out here too, kitteh? If you're not supposed to be showing it?

Frank the Avenger

MoP

Don't see where all the detail is going, to be honest. A 2048x2048? Heh. I do recall something similar happened with your last weapon model I saw around here.
It's pretty monochrome.
Anyway, the modeller doesn't really have any control over what size texture map is applied to their model. You could just down-size it to 1024x1024 and it'd look the same.

Actually to tell you the truth, I loaded up this thread and read your "shouldn't be showing you all this", and expected to see something stunning which was meant to be under wraps - to be honest I've seen tens, if not hundreds of better weapons textures. Seriously. This needs a lot more work before you should get so excited about giving off sneak peeks. There's nothing stunning about the image I'm seeing there ... it seems mediocre at best (and yay, token basic GI render!).

The only thing I can think of is that you've edited your post and removed the better images you weren't meant to show, just to leave that one...

I may sound a little harsh because I just stepped off a plane after waiting around for 6 hours, about an hour ago... but there you go. That's what I think about that model and texture. Mediocre. It really needs a lot more work.

MoP

acc

As has been said, the modeller has no control over what resolution the texture is. Texture coordinates are relative; you can resize it to 8x8 if you want and it would still work. You could even go 32x1024 and it would work.
In this case, going down to 512x512 doesn't look like it would hurt much to me.

The problem I see about making a gun texture with such low contrast and non-existant colour variation is that who is ever going to see any of it in a game? Back up from your computer and take a look; it all starts to become one big black, blob very quickly. In a game where you'd be looking mainly at the top of the gun and only at a sharp angle for the side -- and in one corner of the screen, not a huge render like this -- the situation will be even worse.

toddiej

Seems to me you're trying to show off the texture. Perhaps you could actually show the texture flat. Another thing, the Beretta logo is backwards. I know you said you didn't unwrap and its probably due to mirrored UVs, but if you're going to show it off, at least turn the gun over or tweak the UV's a bit to compensate. Seems everyone else covered the rest of the problems, like the overkill of mapspace.

EarthQuake

if you've got a normals map dont render with radiosity, you want directional lighting to show off the normals.... Radiosity will pretty much just null your normals.

gauss

it's a nice model, but i have gone ahead and taken the liberty of amending the thread title to be more descriptive.

Kitteh

it isn't my model just my skin and render. ignore the model, look at the skin (which i know sucks very hard but i started it when i was no good at skinning and just finished it recently with some copy + pasting mostly (had to do other side of the frame) and well.. don't really feel like redoing a 2048, lol.

the normal map was just a quick nvidia filter, i did nothing to prep it for normal map-ness, it was mostly just to bring out the metals texture, but i will most likely redo it (this guns headed to half life 2)

TomDunne

[ QUOTE ]
Er...you know verm hangs out here too, kitteh? If you're not supposed to be showing it?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm guessing he doesn't know

I think that one was my model, but can't remember as it's been a while. I pulled the ripcord on my involvement with the project some time ago, so I'm not up with whose content is being used now. Mods are fun, but they don't pay the rent, yeah?

Anyway, I figure Kitteh can post whatever he wants here for crits - I don't see why that would be an issue, so there's no need for any drama. Is that the lighting rig I set up for the original UT2003 content? I actually don't remember my old renders turning out quite like that.

Kitteh

no, this is a basic skylight + default renderer, its really nothing fancy at all, the render takes like a minute at most.

this is genn's model

btw hello verm

MoP

Yeah, if you're doing normal-maps, don't bother rendering with a skylight or GI at all. To show off the normal-map nicely, use 2 or 3 standard point or directional lights. IMHO viewport screengrabs work just as well as renders for normal-mapped game assets, and are also a lot faster

Kitteh

i have a mac keyboard... sooo.. no printscreen key

Zeldrik

Hey Kitteh

I dunno why people are trashing you so much, I guess the texture size is excessive for something with that amount of detail and you could probably even get away with only using a 512 texture but the work itself isnt bad.
Could do with a bit more colour variation, wear and tear but over all its pretty good.

The way I see it you have the fine detail there but you have missed a very important part of game art and that is the mid details, when you zoom out you should be able to still make out what it is and be asthetically pleased.

MoP

Hmm, the other image wasn't showing up for me when I posted the other day. The zoomed-in angle really makes it look worse than it is.
The wider angle render looks ok, but as Zeldrik said it needs more colour variation and wear + tear, and mid-level detail.
Likewise the render shouldn't be with a skylight, it's completely negating any normal-mapped details you may have.

Daz

[ QUOTE ]
Hey Kitteh

I dunno why people are trashing you so much

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't see any trashing of kitteh in this thread. The lad is being given hard, sound advice by people that know. Honesty is the best way to learn. No need to complicate things.

Anyway, welcome to the forums kitteh. I didn't pick up 3D software til I was 25, so you've got a good head start there!

EarthQuake

one thing i just noticed... it REALLY REALLY needs some subtile color variation.

TomDunne

[ QUOTE ]
no, this is a basic skylight + default renderer, its really nothing fancy at all, the render takes like a minute at most.

[/ QUOTE ]

Cool, that explains it.

[ QUOTE ]
this is genn's model

[/ QUOTE ]

Nah, he didn't do a Beretta. I'm pretty sure that's the one I worked on with Supernaut back in 2002-03. Not that it matters. And I may be wrong anyway.

[ QUOTE ]
btw hello verm

[/ QUOTE ]

Howdy

Kitteh

No, this is definately Genn's model. Believe me.

Zeldrik

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Hey Kitteh

I dunno why people are trashing you so much

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't see any trashing of kitteh in this thread. The lad is being given hard, sound advice by people that know. Honesty is the best way to learn. No need to complicate things.

Anyway, welcome to the forums kitteh. I didn't pick up 3D software til I was 25, so you've got a good head start there!

[/ QUOTE ]


Yeah fair enough I took another read and you're right, I guess I was just surprised with Mops response he is usually such a nice lad

SirTimberWolf

Looks reall nice.
Uh, question though: How does the suppressor get attached to the pistol without a threaded barrel? :P

Raven

GI seems to be doing too much to make much of an opinion.
The mesh is a little high for any current generation engine, unless your planning on using it as a visual weapon; even then probably best to strip away and add detail where it matters. Might not be your weapon, but still it's a bit of a shoddy detail mesh.

You have the handle which is horribly low, then the main chamber and such that seem to just rocket the polycount for no real reason when the detail could be added as normal maps.

The texture itself again isn't realistically going to run on current hardware at a reasonable speed unless your running top-end hardware.

When making weaponry you need to make sure the skin you use for the visual weapon can also be used on the world weapon, else your just adding needless work to your pipeline and rather than getting several weapons done in a week you get one of alright quality that doesn't blend seemlessly.

(Half-Life 2 itself was extremely bad at this imo, very poorly done world media spoilt much of the effect)

As for the texture itself... I'd say it isn't detailed enough, looks far too clean and flat. Quite obvious it's relying far too much on the geometry itself to provide most of the depth. You need to give it some character.

Guns don't always come freshly out the plastic wrapper on use.. they have scratches, dints, etc. you want to try and show this off across all the maps. Not many Half-Life 2 models, maps and materials make proper use of the advanced effects. So for the most part it just looks like a slightly prettier, higher polygon Half-Life. The engine however has some truely awesome potencial, you'll need to work with your model artist in order to really get the most out of the engine.

I'd recommend taking a few weeks out purely to play and test what is possible with the VMT format. Half-Life 2 can use Normal (even Parallax), Specular and Diffuse just like Doom 3.. while for the most part the lighting is more static, you can still make one heck of a lot of use of what effects are there as standard.

Get used to the new pipeline before jumping head-first. Try to bring some character and depth to what is going on. Heck even some colour of the metal would really help.

Mark Dygert

It looks good but I suggest tossing in some color varriations like, some very light hints of green. Try adding grease marks and stains, weapons need to be kept lubed to work correctly. Think about powder blow back and what that would do to the finish of the gun around the tip of the barrel and where the shells eject. Also think about adding some LIGHT rust overlays. Nothing too over the top unless you want it to look like it was dredged out of a swamp.

See the varriation in the colors on this one. There is blue, green and even some orange in there. They help give it that just cleaned look.


This has some brown skungy stuff in the cracks, sweat, dead skin, bits of the holster where it rubs day in and day out.



Honestly there isn't too much to the skin, I don't say this to be mean but it looks like something most people could do in an hour at the most. If you spent more time than 3hours I have to ask why? Here is a mini tut for those interested.
File>new>512x512>ok
Shift-F5>background color>ok
New Layer
Color picker>grey
B>[>[>[>[
paint>paint>]>paint
R>smudge>smudge>erase>smudge
Done!

moose

not too shabby. now do that with a 256.

and its avatars like yours that i wish we would not allow animated avatars.

Rhinokey

i think the texture looks verry good, my only suggestions would be to make the rubber resin part of the grip stand out more frm the grey steal, now it looks like its all metl and the griop pattern is just presed in the metal, also i would resize it to at least 1 512x512 should be plenty enough space to show the gun as in any game, hell even 2 512's if you want, i would not worry too much about the color variation, tho a colored spec map would look good