WIP low-poly beamblade

PrinnyKing

Hey all first post on polycount, currently working on a low poly beam blade that could be used in a futuristic, sci-fi setting. maybe replacing a traditional police baton with the energy beam. 3DS Max 8

Plan to use normal maps, diffuse maps, and specular maps to create the textures.



Low polycount=2012 High polycount=188800

Quickel

You certainly don't need as many polys in your low poly model as what you have. Even if you have a higher budget, you don't have to use all of them. Keep it efficient.

If you want to have more polys though, I suggest less on things like the handles and more to make the blade look a little smoother.

Welcome to Polycount!

jgarland

I agree with what's already been said. Focus more on the sihouette of the blade, rather than the curved top of the blade. I would personally only use two or three edges for the entire length of it. You could also easily use five edges or so for the cylindrical handle, while keeping the look more or less the same.

You need to let your textures and normal maps add detail, instead of trying to model all of it.

Good luck, and welcome to Polycount.

Wells

any chance for a better angle? something more of a top-down so we can see the basic shape you're going for

PrinnyKing

Here it is with some preliminary textures, and with a top-down wireframe view.

Quickel

can we see your texture maps on these? what did you do for your glow effect?

rooster

I would remove one or two edgeloops running down the length of the blade and use them to smooth out the sihouette

PrinnyKing

MAPS

D4V1DC

WOW, lower the resolution on these maps for god's sake and 56kers sake. There like 2048x2048?

512x512 for these is sufficient enough.

animatr

good lord.

i know that wasnt constructive. i'll come back later.

PrinnyKing

Sorry bout that guys, now resized 512x512 and 72 dpi. basically generic color for the blade, and generic fibering and noise for little red button and metal. This was done rather quickly so I'm ready for some harsh C&C. Oh, and the glow effect was done by using a lens effect through Video Post Quickel. made a detach copy of the blade, self illuminated and set an object ID to create the glow effect.

Spark

PrinnyKing, you really need to pay attention to how your uv maps are laid out, as it is, it doesn't matter if they were 2048's or 64x64's they would look the same... bad. You really, really need to look at how some of the other guys that have shown how good uv's are done, and start from scratch on this. You have so much wasted space, and really not even sure what some of your maps are showing, possibly posting some of the wires over your uv maps will help others direct you to how you might layout your uv's more constructively. It doesn't matter if your the best modeler out there, or the best texture artist out there, if your map layouts are bad, then so will your final art.

Spark

Emil Mujanovic

First off, welcome to Polycount.
To be brutally honest, I don't think the normal map has done you any justice with this model. If anything, its made it looking muddier and more amateurish.
Now for the diffuse map. With the amount of detail you have painted, you could easily crunch that down to a 256 if not a 128 without losing all that much detail. Do you mind posting your UV map? I would like to see how you've unwrapped your model.

[ QUOTE ]
Sorry bout that guys, now resized 512x512 and 72 dpi.

[/ QUOTE ]
So you mean to say your texture had a higher dpi than 72? You don't want to go higher than 72dpi for anything digital because its pointless. If anything it just makes the image size higher. The only time you'd go higher is for print, where you need that extra detail and where it will actually be useful.

Okay, the model. WAY TOO HIGH POLY! You have cuts in there that do nothing to silhouette, it needs some serious optimization.
Here's a quick paintover:


Keep at it dude.

-caseyjones

PrinnyKing

thanks for the feedback, im gonna re-unwrap this thing after i fix the edgeloops and stuff this weekend. the green object is actually a separate object not attached to the model itself. I'm gonna do some of the revision suggestions and repost with some updated work hopefully by the weekend.

greenj2

Hey man, welcome to PC, just a few suggestions for your revised version. I might be preaching to the choir but this is what I would do anyway...

Firstly I recommend doing a complete rebuild of the low base mesh. Try making the original mesh transparent, freezing it and building a new low mesh over the top. Since you're redoing the unwrap anyway, I think you'll find it's a lot quicker doing a rebuild than trying to clean up the old mesh.

Keep in mind that it may be a lot cleaner to not have every part of the weapon welded together as single element. Separate pieces as separate elements are a good idea, just have the pieces intersecting rather than joining them. You can do it all as one but it will cost you more polys and it seems to be throwing off your mesh flow in some places. Also, if you do use the separate elements method, keep in mind you may have to break up the low poly cage when rendering normal maps and do them as separate objects to avoid artifacts in your normal map renders.

Focus more polys on the top view silhouette of the blade having a nicer, more rounded shape. Because the blade is self illuminated and glowing you don't really need much definition on the flat sides of it.

Finally, for the glowing stuff in the handle (I'm guessing it represents the power source of the blade?) I'd recommend a much lower poly object with an animated texture map applied to it. Maybe bubbles or lightning bolts, just something flashy with animated UVWs to make it scroll over the mesh. Make a smaller version of the glowing piece inside the original, apply transparency to the outer version and have the textures scrolling in different directions for a nicer effect.

Just my two cents, good luck with the remake.

EVIL

wow what was the need for the normal map? I think you can get a cleaner texture if you just throw out the normal map and use a suble bump map instead or just nothing like that at all