Umbrella Mans Prop Thread

The Umbrella Man

I figured I would start one of these since I can see my desert thread getting clogged with new stuff. I'm trying to get better at texturing, poly flow, and shaders. At the same time I am trying to get into the habit of good efficient modeling, so without further delay here is the model I am currently working on.

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2/pfassett/RifleCrate.jpg

I added some rounded edges to this model in order to break up the hard edges of the wood on the crate. Currently it's at about 244 tris. Does anyone see anything that I could improve on in the mesh, anything obvious before I start unwrapping?

MoP

If this is intended for game use, I would get rid of those rounded edges and extra polys to smooth it out, and put that sort of detail into a normal map, since most games (PC/360/PS3 etc) support that these days.
If it's not intended for real-time use then that's ok.
I would make this a base for a high-poly model with all the rounded edges and details you need, then bake that down to a simpler version with no bevels and stuff.

Not a bad start though. Just spend a bit of time planning your specs (texture size, style and poly limit) and try to make the most of it. The less polys the better. I'd rather have 20 crates using 50 triangles than 5 crates using 200 triangles, if you know what I mean.

The Umbrella Man

MoP: That's exactly the type of advice I was looking for. One question, should I use smoothing groups still if I plan on using normals? Only ask because the edges will be real hard when I optimize the mesh down.

tremulant

hey dawg, generaly it doesnt matter too much about the normals, cause in a normal map it will overide much of that when its applied...i still put basic groups on my models tho,

The Umbrella Man

Got the tri count down to 76, unwrapped to a 512 (Don't know if that's too big for next gen prop that small). Heres the flat and a render.

Flat
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2/pfassett/skin.jpg

Model
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2/pfassett/RifleCase.jpg

Going to start on the skin now. Thanks for all the help.

cholden

Get rid of all that black on the flat (with out stetching the texture). That's wasted space in the UVs. I'd model and UV a test real quick as example, but gots to work now.

The Umbrella Man

Ok how's this?

Flat
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2/pfassett/flat.jpg

Texture isn't stretching or anything.
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2/pfassett/render.jpg

Savage

your unwrap is better in that last one but still lots of room to scale up your uv's to better utilize the space provided. your uv's should really be snug up against one another.

Flewda

Although Savage is right that you want to make them as snug as you can, you also want them to keep the same pixel density. So be careful to make sure no one piece is getting a lot more UV space than another. It's fine to give more important parts a little more space when needed (especially if it's something that the player will get up close to, but not be able to get close to on areas you give less UV space). For example, you may want the iron sights of a gun to have a lot higher pixel density than say the barrel. But if your camera is fixed, you'll not likely get any closer to the barrel, but those sights are right in your face. So just keep an eye on that stuff too.

The Umbrella Man

I've done a lot of normal maps, but never got a result like this. Anyone know why my normal map is rendering like this?

The Umbrella Man

The flat so far



And Normal mapped crate



Im still going to put alot more detail in the normal, I just wanted to make sure it looked ok first.

RazorBladder

Wood grain doesn't often Twirl like that, you're better off gettin a good reference and just copy what you see. Not sure the really dark blue hue on the brackets were intended, monitor issues or 8/16-bit texture?

I always find you're better off getting the normalmap done before you start texturing.

John Warner

http://mayang.com/textures/

i appreciate that you want to make hand painted textures-- i think being creative is awesome, but IMO, there's nothing wrong with a base as long as you can work it in your direction. right now, that texture you have... just doesn't read as wood. start with a wood texture, edit it depending on your style, add some dirt, marks, scratches, location specific detail, dirt, dust, grime, whatever.. it'll be fuckin slick.

if you're going to stick with what you have right now, here's some crits.
there's no range of detail. right now you've got what amounts to a very even coat of noise covering the whole object.
check out a piece of wood like this one:
http://mayang.com/textures/perl/preview.pl?image=wood_varnish_9271244.JPG
if you move your head closer and further from the screen, you'll notice a wide level of detail..

there are large details-- general value varience accross the surface.. those large but subtle white rings..
medium details-- knot holes, wood grain, interesting swirls in the grain
small details- marks and scratches
tiny details- fine wood grain

there's a few important things to notice. this balance of detail makes it so the object can be identified at any distance. this is an important thing to learn, especially if you're like me and work on RTS games, but it's certainly universal

the second thing worth mentioning is that every. single. detail works together to tell the story of this piece of wood. the objects we see are just a collection of the components that make them up-- this might seem obvious, but it's very important. EVERY SINGLE PIXEL of your texture has to make absolute and perfect sense, because the understanding of this object that you're making is only composed of the collection of understandings of it's components, if that makes any sense.

i think in general, the process of improving as an artist is a process of making deeper distinctions of understanding of what it is that you're making.

The Umbrella Man

Ok I used a texture that more fits the concept of a shipping crate, need to get in there, add dirt, stains, scratches, stickers, ect, but this is the general idea.

The Umbrella Man

I had some real problems with the normal map on this one. I ended up having to fix a bunch of the issues in photoshop though I don't think I did a real good job. What's agood way to draw in the detail when max just won't render it right?



Still need to work on the metal bindings on the brackets, don't look like metal yet, but it's getting there.

Wells

having a knot of wood overlap two planks is a bad idea. same with all the grain. If nothing else, just grab the wood texture on that piece and flip it. Unless you had one giant plank that you ripped into three [for what reason, i don't know since the original was the size you needed] that wouldn't happen.

Jesse Moody

Yeah I second Sectaurs here. Flip the uvs a quick 180 and that will get rid of the knot going across 2 boards which is possible if somehow you had bot pieces of wood and matched them exactly when the case was built.

Not very likely though and it would be very noticeable and you don't want that.

Also it doesn't look like the normal maps are really doing much for this.

* i took a second look. I can see them now. Maybe you can add some rivets, nails, whatever to make it more detailed / interesting and a spec map would help.

Also maybe doing some type of paint on the wood would be more appealing and having some chipped off / worn.

That way you can do a few different variations of this.

The Umbrella Man

Ok I got rid of the mitering on that lid for the rifle case. Heres a new set of props I have been working on, this is the first of four different hallway peices I am doing for a space ship hallway. They are all modular and unwrap to the same uv so everything matches up.

This texture is hand painted in photoshop.



I'll post a flat when I get back from looking for an appartment.

Marine

you normal mapped the stickers on the crate

Joao Sapiro

those highlights on the metal dont looks natural, note every edge of metal should have sheen , play also a bit more with colors. Good luck !

The Umbrella Man

@Johny: Yeah, I can't tell if it's the spec, or the normal. I'm pretty sure it's the spec. I adjusted it a little, but I need to go into the spec map and hand paint it a bit.

Jesse Moody

it still looks like there are artifacts on all the edges. looks really weird to me.

The Umbrella Man

Working on the sci-fi wall panels again, but taking a different approach at the normals. Going to model hi to low. Here's my first one.

Front


Back


If there is anything you guys think I can do to improve these let me know. Been struggling lately to finish anything.

EarthQuake

You shouldnt ever have visible edges in your highres mesh on circular things, you're rendering it onto a texture so use as many polys in this stuff as you need to get it to look good.
Also any 90 degree cuts = no good, the raytraced will look straight on when rendering, and if you've got a something cut into your mesh at a 90 degree angle like: |_| the raytacer cant see the difference, because it dosent see the sides, onto what you would see looking straight at it. So you need to soften the edges around, or make the shape more like this: \_/