Your edges are too tight imo, i think at the distance you'll be viewing this and the map size you'de have for a pistol it would look much the same as if you simply had hard edges. Also theres some shapes you can tell are soft and round in the concept, but you have them modeled hard and polygonal.
Thanks guys. Yeah I was thinking it was too angular as well and EQ is right about the corners and edges being a little too sharp. I'm gonna soften them up and adjust them to see how they look.
A good rule of thumb with that stuff is, zoom out to a distance that you think is close to where you'll actually see it at and if its getting all aliased and too sharp you need to tweak it so it reads better.
Also if this is going to be in first person, get a back concept! as it is now this will be very boring as a view model, flat sides and no real detail where the player would really see.
Cool Jesse, really interested in watching this since I'm currently doing something sort of similar and running into problems, so going to ask a bunch of questions when you move onto the lowpoly, hehe.
maybe less hard edges man, right not its depending too much on 90 degrees angles, the one from quake 4 is smooooooth , play around with the smoothness man
johny... smooth huh. you want some more smoothness... we will see... we will see.
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I still agree with johny. Right now I can't see the normal map looking too good, or the gun looking interesting at all in 3d. Wider bevels, smoother forms.
Ok i'm not sure if you can see in the screen shots but the edges are softer now. Not by a ton because I don't want the organicy feeling the q4 blaster had.
I have a few things left to fix, detail and clean up and then I'm moving on to the low poly model.
Ok so I am calling the high poly done now. I like how it feels and looks. I rounded out and smoothed a lot of parts and changed what I didn't really like about the original concept.
This is really pretty cool overall, despite my personal opinions about design.
Trigger looks really uncomfortable and potentially imposisble to use, though. And those shapes on the back of the grip have that 'meshsmoothed box' look, where the shape just looks rushed and poorly thought out.
I also don't really like this part:
It looks kinda muddy and vague and not really how synthetic parts of firearms do, and definitely not like a metal form.
I'd really better define those forms, whether soft or hard. Either add some more loops in, or exploit the hell out of floating pieces (which actually do wonders for form based stuff like that, not just details)
Nice overall Jesse. I agree with SupRore. The shapes at the back of the grip are a bit mushy, and honestly, probably shouldn't be there. Imagine trying to grasp this gun with a big protrusion right where the web of your hand would go. It would be quite uncomfortable. Also, it doesn't look like there's much room for someone's finger in front of the trigger. I think you need to make a bit more room up front there. Lastly, the slots in your screw heads seem very star-like to me. I think they should probably be a bit straighter.
But those are all very nitpicky, very nice overall.
Total tri count is sitting at 2356 minus the battery pack as that will have a seperate texture since it's a seperate piece of geometry and would be used as a prop as an ammo pickup if this was put into game.
Ahh first pass on the textures just trying to see what colors I am liking. I am thinking of doing a few color schemes to see how it looks with different materials.
With the colors you chose it looks like a squirt gun/nurf gun. I have never seen s gun with red on it thats not a toy. Things that will look cool at that size are gold, silver, steel, and carbon fiber(why a gun would have any no idea).
Its looking good, i just don't like the nurf feel.
Paintover! It looks like you're going for that bold, high contrast, warhammer40ky look. Trouble is where you should have bold, high contrast colors, you just have flat bright ones. Quite a messy paintover, but this is how I'd personally treat the materials:
i notice people associate metal with a tight specular highlight for metal. i think it's because of the highly reflective metals like chrome have them. really dull metals don't have them, but the ones inbetween, like a bronze or soemthing, does have a highlight, but i see the larger surface information more important. it's like tight spec and broad spec were clinging onto a cliff's edge for their life and you had time to only save one. with your typical realtime cg stuff, where the light is, it will show surface detail in your normal maps and spec maps, where it is not, it relys on the diffuse, so typically it will look flat as fuck, which to me, makes the material look more like plastic or laminated.
i think, in order for that type of material to be read correctly, you'd need an environment map in the mix (which only look good with a mask, imo), or maybe you'd be able to fake it with painted reflections or highlight in your diffuse map and the specular dancing over them. dual specs would help, or some type of other metal shader fun that i'm sure is out there, but i just haven't been lucky enough to play with it yet.
basically all i wanted to say is (using max terms here) that you should keep the "specular level" where it's at (maybe exaggerate edges, dynamic shines across surfaces, etc.) but adjusting your gloss in a way that it has a wider specular highlight, covering more of the surface, revealing more of your spec map. doing it this way seems to make the most sense in my mind in how i understand the way this stuff comes together.
the first thing that comes to mind was the way pior handled texturing his metal gun.
[ QUOTE ]
doing it this way seems to make the most sense in my mind in how i understand the way this stuff comes together.
[/ QUOTE ]
Personally, when I've been texturing metal lately, I've gone with a low gloss setting and a very specific texturing style in my spec map. The main body of it would be a flat, mid value color with some minor imperfections/details, and that would give that metallic sheen over the whole surface, and then over that sharp, bright scratches and nicks and details that stand in for what the high gloss setting would normally do. Adding small, strong, high contrast details.
Not to derail Jesse's thread, but I've never tried anything like it with an environment map involved. How exactly would you use one of those, to make it look good?
SupRore's approach to the diffuse map is the way to go, tight spec usually looks plasticky, even with a colour tint.
Adding an environment map is pretty simple, although while you're "faking it" in Max or Maya you'll probably want to desaturate the source image a bit for metals. Most decent game engines allow some control over how cubemaps (envmaps) appear on a material, with controls for saturation, colour tint etc. You'll need a greyscale mask to control the strength of the reflections as well.
In Maya, you slot your mask into the "reflectivity" slot of a phong or blinn shader. Stick an image that looks like the kind of environment that your model will be in in the "reflected colour" slot. In game, this would be replaced by the nearest cubemap.
SupRore:
typically i'd prefer having my large dents and scratches in the normal map, i will make their presence known in their spec map for certain, smaller scratches will go in here as well.
due to the nature of the projects i've been working on, i unfortunately have not had the chance to dance in more than one texture map for a while now, so i am definitely rusty in the area. the most recent experiments i have done with an environment map was this old armor here i tried showing as much info as i could without having to get too much into it. with this model/texture here, i was just tweeking images and numbers and settings all over just to see what i could do. it's hard to see in these renders, but an environment map becomes very apparent with movement, it's just the setting i had left it at at the time.
Hey Cheese, could you explain what you mena by the nearest cubemap? I've only had experiance with one engine that assigned a cube map to the material and had nothing to do with proximity to anything.
From the sounds of it, its like you drop cube maps in environments like volumes then the material reflects whatever you go through?
I still just don't think the texture is looking good at all, color scheme or not. The spec isn't working, the diffuse isn't working, and the gloss most certainly isn't working.
I actually liked the last color scheme better; it gave the weapon some personality and a story; it looked like it could be a special gun, or royalties weaponry; this one looks like your standard issue piece, and without any real colors, it looks boring
This is going down the more realistic serious route, which is cool, but think you need a different colour or material in there on some of the parts. its essentially the same material/colour for all of it.
Thats really fine detail on the handle, how big is your map or are you tiling a seperate detail map?
[ QUOTE ]
I still just don't think the texture is looking good at all, color scheme or not. The spec isn't working, the diffuse isn't working, and the gloss most certainly isn't working.
[/ QUOTE ]
Wow... not working at all. While I can take crits with no problem I don't think that one has anything to offer to be honest as far as adding to what could make this look better.
This is being rendered in UE3. Maybe the reason the spec map and gloss isn't working is because I have neither of these on the model as of right now. When the diffuse is completed I will work on an individual spec map and not just use my diffuse in my shader like I am now.
There is no gloss map. So that is why it's not working.
So I don't think I'm being out of line when I ask if you don't have anything to constructively add to this then don't bother. Have a great night.
[ QUOTE ]
This is going down the more realistic serious route, which is cool, but think you need a different colour or material in there on some of the parts. its essentially the same material/colour for all of it.
Thats really fine detail on the handle, how big is your map or are you tiling a seperate detail map?
[/ QUOTE ]
The texture is 2048x2048. No seperate detail map.
I am playing with some slight color adjustments to break things up a bit and will post more later.
I think you really ought to make the screws a different type of metal. Not only a brighter metal, but make sure it doesn't have the brushed metal look like the rest of the gun has.
Right now there isn't much in the way of contrast on the gun. It's very much the same across the whole gun (except the grip). Add a few different types of metal here and there, with slightly different tones. Or even just adding some grunge overlay that makes some areas a little darker or lighter. Right now it's scratched to hell, but the metal that isn't scratched looks to be brand new. Give it some history, give it some imperfections/blemishes that would go along with all the bright deep scratching as well.
Wait you dont have spec? You have all those scratch details in your diffuse? Take them out and put them in your spec, that definitely shouldn't be in your diffuse map dude.
Looking good Moody!. I like your new version a lot better.
I am curious if you are planning on keeping the final texture sheet at 2048x2048 or if you plan on scaling it down? And if you planning on scaling it down, what advantage is there to painting it at that high of a resolution? I have read the advantages and disadvantages of both methods, but would like to hear your thoughts.
Disagree Earth, why would you take scratches out of a diffuse, the metal has scratched the paint/overcoat/whatever off; why would it only show up in a specular hit and be hidden the rest of the time? I don't think that would make any sense.
If you leave it in leave it very very subtle, you want scratches to be a dynamic thing, they get bright because you see light reflecting off of a surface that is very shiney. If you were texturing something chrome, you wouldnt make it bright white in the diffuse because the material shines. So why would you make bright white scratches in the diffuse?
Also i'm a bit used to our engine, which always has a bit of ambient specular, so if you have that detail in the spec you're always going to see it to some extent, for the most part.
ok took some thoughts mentioned here. Created the spec map for this and really lightened the scratches and scuffs in the diffuse to a really really light overlay.
Looking better. Both the rear and front sites are lacking a tremendous amount of detail. Even if they are flat, there is no scratches (except for the overlay you used) and the normal map doesn't even seem to exist there (making the edges look softer than 90 degrees, etc). And the front site is just black (as is the piece in front of the rear sites). Not sure if you had gotten to those or not, but it's really odd feeling.
The barrel looks really flat. I can see a lot of spec in the middle where it bevels in, but the front part look as flat as can be. Is that just the lighting/angle?
The handle is in perfect shape. There are no scratches, oily residue (from a hand holding repeatedly) or any sort of blemish that it would have picked up over time. Even a composite/plastic pieces will do this too, just not as bright and shiny as Metal.
This biggest thing that feels weird to me about this gun is it just seems that you overlayed a metal texture, and added a few scratches here and there. There's a lack of depth, lack of character. There's also a lack of ambient occlusion (at least on the low poly). Look at the barrel for example. There should be some AO at the top and bottom where the other parts of the body rest on the barrel. Could explain some of the flatness on the barrel as well.
Think about a couple things with this gun. When was it manufactured? Who has used it? Did they take care of it? Has it been through a war? Or any other question you can think of that explains it's history. Having an idea of what you want it's history to be, can really help with how you want to texture it.
Replies
Alex
I agree with EQ, too, pretty much every edge on your model is too hard. It won't look good normal mapped, and it's not how it is in the concept.
Few more problems I noticed:
http://i18.tinypic.com/4tpvqex.jpg
I'd say my biggest complaint is you squaring off the rounded area at the front top.
Thanks for the feedback guys.
Also if this is going to be in first person, get a back concept! as it is now this will be very boring as a view model, flat sides and no real detail where the player would really see.
johny... smooth huh. you want some more smoothness... we will see... we will see.
johny... smooth huh. you want some more smoothness... we will see... we will see.
[/ QUOTE ]-
I still agree with johny. Right now I can't see the normal map looking too good, or the gun looking interesting at all in 3d. Wider bevels, smoother forms.
I have a few things left to fix, detail and clean up and then I'm moving on to the low poly model.
So now i'm moving on to the game model.
Trigger looks really uncomfortable and potentially imposisble to use, though. And those shapes on the back of the grip have that 'meshsmoothed box' look, where the shape just looks rushed and poorly thought out.
I also don't really like this part:
It looks kinda muddy and vague and not really how synthetic parts of firearms do, and definitely not like a metal form.
I'd really better define those forms, whether soft or hard. Either add some more loops in, or exploit the hell out of floating pieces (which actually do wonders for form based stuff like that, not just details)
But those are all very nitpicky, very nice overall.
I got started on the low poly. It's sitting around 2300 tris right now without the magazine (battery cell) in that count.
I'll post up some wires in a bit after I try to optimize it a bit more
Total tri count is sitting at 2356 minus the battery pack as that will have a seperate texture since it's a seperate piece of geometry and would be used as a prop as an ammo pickup if this was put into game.
Its looking good, i just don't like the nurf feel.
http://i22.tinypic.com/wb8a6u.jpg
Just to give something to consider.
i think, in order for that type of material to be read correctly, you'd need an environment map in the mix (which only look good with a mask, imo), or maybe you'd be able to fake it with painted reflections or highlight in your diffuse map and the specular dancing over them. dual specs would help, or some type of other metal shader fun that i'm sure is out there, but i just haven't been lucky enough to play with it yet.
basically all i wanted to say is (using max terms here) that you should keep the "specular level" where it's at (maybe exaggerate edges, dynamic shines across surfaces, etc.) but adjusting your gloss in a way that it has a wider specular highlight, covering more of the surface, revealing more of your spec map. doing it this way seems to make the most sense in my mind in how i understand the way this stuff comes together.
the first thing that comes to mind was the way pior handled texturing his metal gun.
-kp
doing it this way seems to make the most sense in my mind in how i understand the way this stuff comes together.
[/ QUOTE ]
Personally, when I've been texturing metal lately, I've gone with a low gloss setting and a very specific texturing style in my spec map. The main body of it would be a flat, mid value color with some minor imperfections/details, and that would give that metallic sheen over the whole surface, and then over that sharp, bright scratches and nicks and details that stand in for what the high gloss setting would normally do. Adding small, strong, high contrast details.
Not to derail Jesse's thread, but I've never tried anything like it with an environment map involved. How exactly would you use one of those, to make it look good?
Adding an environment map is pretty simple, although while you're "faking it" in Max or Maya you'll probably want to desaturate the source image a bit for metals. Most decent game engines allow some control over how cubemaps (envmaps) appear on a material, with controls for saturation, colour tint etc. You'll need a greyscale mask to control the strength of the reflections as well.
In Maya, you slot your mask into the "reflectivity" slot of a phong or blinn shader. Stick an image that looks like the kind of environment that your model will be in in the "reflected colour" slot. In game, this would be replaced by the nearest cubemap.
typically i'd prefer having my large dents and scratches in the normal map, i will make their presence known in their spec map for certain, smaller scratches will go in here as well.
due to the nature of the projects i've been working on, i unfortunately have not had the chance to dance in more than one texture map for a while now, so i am definitely rusty in the area. the most recent experiments i have done with an environment map was this old armor here i tried showing as much info as i could without having to get too much into it. with this model/texture here, i was just tweeking images and numbers and settings all over just to see what i could do. it's hard to see in these renders, but an environment map becomes very apparent with movement, it's just the setting i had left it at at the time.
From the sounds of it, its like you drop cube maps in environments like volumes then the material reflects whatever you go through?
I am starting to like this version a lot more.
Thats really fine detail on the handle, how big is your map or are you tiling a seperate detail map?
just a thought. looking good though
I still just don't think the texture is looking good at all, color scheme or not. The spec isn't working, the diffuse isn't working, and the gloss most certainly isn't working.
[/ QUOTE ]
Wow... not working at all. While I can take crits with no problem I don't think that one has anything to offer to be honest as far as adding to what could make this look better.
This is being rendered in UE3. Maybe the reason the spec map and gloss isn't working is because I have neither of these on the model as of right now. When the diffuse is completed I will work on an individual spec map and not just use my diffuse in my shader like I am now.
There is no gloss map. So that is why it's not working.
So I don't think I'm being out of line when I ask if you don't have anything to constructively add to this then don't bother.
This is going down the more realistic serious route, which is cool, but think you need a different colour or material in there on some of the parts. its essentially the same material/colour for all of it.
Thats really fine detail on the handle, how big is your map or are you tiling a seperate detail map?
[/ QUOTE ]
The texture is 2048x2048. No seperate detail map.
I am playing with some slight color adjustments to break things up a bit and will post more later.
I should have a real spec map by then to.
Right now there isn't much in the way of contrast on the gun. It's very much the same across the whole gun (except the grip). Add a few different types of metal here and there, with slightly different tones. Or even just adding some grunge overlay that makes some areas a little darker or lighter. Right now it's scratched to hell, but the metal that isn't scratched looks to be brand new. Give it some history, give it some imperfections/blemishes that would go along with all the bright deep scratching as well.
I am curious if you are planning on keeping the final texture sheet at 2048x2048 or if you plan on scaling it down? And if you planning on scaling it down, what advantage is there to painting it at that high of a resolution? I have read the advantages and disadvantages of both methods, but would like to hear your thoughts.
Thanks.
Also i'm a bit used to our engine, which always has a bit of ambient specular, so if you have that detail in the spec you're always going to see it to some extent, for the most part.
The barrel looks really flat. I can see a lot of spec in the middle where it bevels in, but the front part look as flat as can be. Is that just the lighting/angle?
The handle is in perfect shape. There are no scratches, oily residue (from a hand holding repeatedly) or any sort of blemish that it would have picked up over time. Even a composite/plastic pieces will do this too, just not as bright and shiny as Metal.
This biggest thing that feels weird to me about this gun is it just seems that you overlayed a metal texture, and added a few scratches here and there. There's a lack of depth, lack of character. There's also a lack of ambient occlusion (at least on the low poly). Look at the barrel for example. There should be some AO at the top and bottom where the other parts of the body rest on the barrel. Could explain some of the flatness on the barrel as well.
Think about a couple things with this gun. When was it manufactured? Who has used it? Did they take care of it? Has it been through a war? Or any other question you can think of that explains it's history. Having an idea of what you want it's history to be, can really help with how you want to texture it.
/2 cents