you have tons of smoothing errors there
rexture seems blurry and cartoony, I don't see much sense and logic in the way the scratches are painted, why are some insider parts more weathered than edges?? Why are they so deep ??? your spec just doesn't work, you need contrast and color in there, scratches should be way shinier than the rest of the gun, unless it's a silver coated gun or something, which is not the case. the screws are supershiny while these parts usually catch dirt a LOT, should be quite weathered since, given theage you want to give that gun, it should have been disassembled and reassembled a LOT of times for cleaning, maintenance, etc. and scratches are not everything, add bigger bumps to the metal put contrast in the details you add, don't just add detail for detail, but add it for definition and identity of your mesh, as flewda told you.
also looking at your lowpoly, you modeled some parts that you don't even notice are in relief once textured (that little screw next to the trigger) while other parts could have been more detailed and are in the end quite lowpoly (the barrel, the handle), you need to work on your distribution a little more IMO put polies on details that will actually be seen, let the normalmap do its work, it's meant to reduce polycount while still faking highly detailed surfaces, adding useless polygouns (aka anywhere that doesn't define the silhouette or helps for better animation/deformation) defeats the purpose.
also your serial number is mirrored, that will make you look very bad for having such a HUGE map and not even being able to put unique details where you need to
Vahl thanks for the feedback. I have gone back to the low poly model to smooth the rounded parts a bit more and match the sights closer to the high poly model and ditched the screws since that can easily be faked in the normal map.
I will also probably just start to retexture the whole thing starting from scratch.
I went back in and tried to clean up a lot of things on the low poly model to hopefully get rid of smoothing errors and also to redo the texture and hopefully get a better result. I'm rendering the new ao and normal maps now and will post later today.
I am not sure if it was specifically mentioned or not, and you might already be doing this, but be sure to try and make things all 1 smoothing group as possible (without it looking way bad). I know when you first do it, and you're looking at just the mesh it looks all blobby, and whatever. However, if you bake the high poly model while the smoothing groups are like this, the normal map will compensate for the smoothing groups, and make things look hard/flat where they should (even if the model without a texture on is kinda funky). It also gives the benefit of not having hard edges/seams that you would get when two faces meet up that have different smoothing groups. It works pretty well, and Unreal handles it well, but not as nicely as Max does.
Well I'm going off my experience with Source here, but I'd say either use a lot of chamfers to smooth stuff out, or use separate smoothing groups. You do get a seam, but depending on your texture size it usually isn't visible. With the smoothing errors you have now it doesn't have any hardness or defined surfaces.
Source is a nice engine, and I like it, but it doesn't do the best job representing the power behind normal maps. Unreal 3, Crysis, etc. are way better at demonstrating Direct X shaders than Source is (just my opinion).
That aside, I didn't believe the whole "as few smoothing groups as possible" thing until I did it myself. I finally tried it (obviously you really need a high poly source to bake from) but it works wonders with making your low poly look like the high poly even more so. Because with the smoothing groups mostly the same, when you have an edge, the bake will get the bevel on the high poly, and it will be a smooth transition between those two faces. But if you make them separate smoothing groups, you'll have that razor sharp edge right where they meet. Sometimes this might be what you want, but most of the time, it's going to benefit to have that subtle bevel. The rule of thumb I go by is if the angle is around 90 degrees, use your best judgement. Sometimes you will get groups that are so bad that even the baked normal won't work perfectly with it, again, if that's the case, separate the smoothing groups. Usually what I do is if I have say, a rectangular piece. All the sides are visible except the bottom face is going into another face, and not visible. I'd make that bottom face a separate group or just delete it. This will help the rest of the faces smooth a little better (usually).
I posted this a little while back in the WIP thread. It's just a low poly, with the normal map. However, almost the whole thing is 1 smoothing group, but it still feels like it has the hard edges (that were on my highpoly). And if you look at it without the normal map on, it's all blobby. I've looked at the same model/normal map in UE3, and it renders just as well. LoL I know it's hard to tell with the wireframe overlay, but it does work pretty well.
So when it comes down to it, I'll say "to each his own" but I think this technique works pretty well. Again, when I was first told about it, I totally didn't believe it would work either.
OK I am gonna stop going on about this. I ramble way too much.
Josh yeah I was trying to fix it so I could put it to 1 smoothing group since that is usually what I have to do for work anyways and yeah you can't really judge how it looks in max because when you take it into ue3 it looks great.
I hope that my post didn't confuse you. I didn't mean for it to be taken that you should only use 1 smoothing group. You will need to have more (most likely), but as EQ said, you need to split them where needed.
I think this is definitely a step in the right direction. Overall I think it is looking good. The only thing that stands out (as bad smoothing) is the front top piece (the piece the front sight rests on). Looks like you got some errors on there. And I assume the front of the handle isn't actually a hard edge, rather the funky shadows from the static mesh editor. There may be a few other areas to investigate, but that's something I noticed pretty quickly.
All in all, I really do think it's looking better. Nice job.
Replies
So here it is.
rexture seems blurry and cartoony, I don't see much sense and logic in the way the scratches are painted, why are some insider parts more weathered than edges?? Why are they so deep ??? your spec just doesn't work, you need contrast and color in there, scratches should be way shinier than the rest of the gun, unless it's a silver coated gun or something, which is not the case. the screws are supershiny while these parts usually catch dirt a LOT, should be quite weathered since, given theage you want to give that gun, it should have been disassembled and reassembled a LOT of times for cleaning, maintenance, etc. and scratches are not everything, add bigger bumps to the metal put contrast in the details you add, don't just add detail for detail, but add it for definition and identity of your mesh, as flewda told you.
also looking at your lowpoly, you modeled some parts that you don't even notice are in relief once textured (that little screw next to the trigger) while other parts could have been more detailed and are in the end quite lowpoly (the barrel, the handle), you need to work on your distribution a little more IMO put polies on details that will actually be seen, let the normalmap do its work, it's meant to reduce polycount while still faking highly detailed surfaces, adding useless polygouns (aka anywhere that doesn't define the silhouette or helps for better animation/deformation) defeats the purpose.
also your serial number is mirrored, that will make you look very bad for having such a HUGE map and not even being able to put unique details where you need to
I will also probably just start to retexture the whole thing starting from scratch.
(imho) :P
That aside, I didn't believe the whole "as few smoothing groups as possible" thing until I did it myself. I finally tried it (obviously you really need a high poly source to bake from) but it works wonders with making your low poly look like the high poly even more so. Because with the smoothing groups mostly the same, when you have an edge, the bake will get the bevel on the high poly, and it will be a smooth transition between those two faces. But if you make them separate smoothing groups, you'll have that razor sharp edge right where they meet. Sometimes this might be what you want, but most of the time, it's going to benefit to have that subtle bevel. The rule of thumb I go by is if the angle is around 90 degrees, use your best judgement. Sometimes you will get groups that are so bad that even the baked normal won't work perfectly with it, again, if that's the case, separate the smoothing groups. Usually what I do is if I have say, a rectangular piece. All the sides are visible except the bottom face is going into another face, and not visible. I'd make that bottom face a separate group or just delete it. This will help the rest of the faces smooth a little better (usually).
I posted this a little while back in the WIP thread. It's just a low poly, with the normal map. However, almost the whole thing is 1 smoothing group, but it still feels like it has the hard edges (that were on my highpoly). And if you look at it without the normal map on, it's all blobby. I've looked at the same model/normal map in UE3, and it renders just as well. LoL I know it's hard to tell with the wireframe overlay, but it does work pretty well.
So when it comes down to it, I'll say "to each his own" but I think this technique works pretty well. Again, when I was first told about it, I totally didn't believe it would work either.
OK I am gonna stop going on about this. I ramble way too much.
Cool piece by the way.
A few shots of just the normal and one with the ao map.
I think it looks a lot better now.
I hope that my post didn't confuse you. I didn't mean for it to be taken that you should only use 1 smoothing group. You will need to have more (most likely), but as EQ said, you need to split them where needed.
I think this is definitely a step in the right direction. Overall I think it is looking good. The only thing that stands out (as bad smoothing) is the front top piece (the piece the front sight rests on). Looks like you got some errors on there. And I assume the front of the handle isn't actually a hard edge, rather the funky shadows from the static mesh editor. There may be a few other areas to investigate, but that's something I noticed pretty quickly.
All in all, I really do think it's looking better. Nice job.