new mod asset

oobersli

just finished a ooo so wonderful asset for a ww2 mod I'm a level designer for. I'm sorta having to give the rest of the team a idea of the style the mods going to be. My first somewhat successful high poly projection model using the projection modifier in max. Its 280 polys, and I may crunch it down by 20 or so. Any crits or ideas on what to add or change would be great.

Jarrod1937

i guess level designer implies prop modeler these days?
i like it, the texturing looks a little generic which is fine if you're going to be using a lot of these, but i think it would looka bit better with some unique texturing detail. and yeah, 280 polys is a bit much for it, but it shouldn't be hard to reduce the polycount.

aniceto

the metal isnt very convincing, looks more like concrete with the spec cranked up. tone down the normal bump on the metal a bit, it looks like its been coroded after sitting in the ocean for a few years

JDinges

Looks way too monochormatic, add some pretty colors in there. Or atleast make the metal and siding different colors.

EarthQuake

If you're going to do the same asset as someone, atleast make sure you texture it as well =D
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=154024&an=0&page=1#Post154024

hawken

you could make that from 12 polygons and a normal map.

I swear to you, no-one would ever notice.

odium

Yeah, normal maps are there to be used to fake complex geometry after all, you only need to use real polygons if its really going to change the silhouette quite dramatically. I'm a killer for over-detail but this COULD be done with just 12 polies.

moose

if anything, id cut the hatch polygons as NormalDetail, but keep the bevels on the edges of the box. You'd be surprised how much taking the time to add the extra polygons on the edges to try to elliminate jaggies helps.

The metal edges do seem a little too fucked up to be natural. Id go in maybe and add some dinks, dents, and even some ripped fabric, exposing wood underneath (rims of box)

depending on what engine you're putting it in, you could lose the inner bevels as well... but lighting will do some nice things to those areas. A couple extra polygons wont kill you, just be sure your textures arent massive, and you dont have 8 of them.

oobersli

I lowered the polys by a bit over 100, with keeping the edges chamfered. Gave a bit more color to the texture so its not soo mono. I've still got the hatch/latches modeled, but I'm going to see how well they look just being normals. The diffuse texture gives the look of the metal of being worn alot, so I'll have to work on that. Thanx for all the replies so far, it helps alot, my instructors are a bit useless at this point on giving me constructive advice.

moose

not sure what your ref is like, but some ideas for the canvas:





specifically, the edges of the books, and how that meets areas of high friction - the rims of the lid and box part.

motives

i think you should bake out a AO map from your high poly asset and multiply it over your texture to get some more depth in it. Otherwise nj. I think the canvas looks pretty good. Maybe put some stocker or logo on there.
I think the metal is a bit to messy with to much stuff goin on. little hard to "read". Lastly maybe increase the contrast or even go for a different kind of material for the eh "cornercovers"