Almost all the colors on it are the same value/brightness. The gray plate on the foot rest, the handle bars, and the bag on the front are the only things that are contrasting. Everything else is just the same level, just different hue.
Also the fact that there still seems to be a significant lack of spec on the body makes it pretty flat as well. As I mentioned before, ATVs are usually a glossy plastic finish. The burlap sack you have on the front is catching more light and glossier looking than the body, that just doesn't make sense.
I guess if you are wanting this thing to be all military type, then perhaps a matte finish makes sense, but I think it would be visually better as an asset to have the glossy finish.
As I mentioned before, the bag looks like a burlap sack or something tied on to th front, I dunno, that seems really weird, and like I said, it's pretty high in spec, and if that is supposed to be burlap, wouldn't quite be so glossy.
Throw some stickers on there. Even if it was military, you'd find unit logos, warning labels, etc. If it's not military, then you'd have the company logo all over, as well as warning labels. It's as plain as all get out right now.
The seat is boring. You have no detail on there are all. Also have quite a nice hard edge on it too, looks like you'd cut your leg everytime you go for a ride.
I would also take the front bars and make them brighter or something. Your darks are way dark on this thing. It could be the lighting as well.
I honestly don't see a lot of changes made to the critiques people have been giving you. I see a little bit of AO, but not a whole lot.
Also, I am not sure if you have them on there or not, but it appears to be lacking lights.
I just noticed as well, the back fender at the corner, just underneath the metal rack, what's going on there? Looks like you have some stray verts pulling way out.
thanks for the crit man ill put some logos on there make the seat look more interesting and break up the colors better. also how dark should the ao be? i put it at 50 %
hey flewda i took your advice i added some decals, i searched the net for military type atvs's and only came up with them having number and logos, i also changed up the pain the main body is a different color than the fenders also i added a camouflage and toned down the scratches so the body looks less like metal and more like the plastic that can be found on most atv's.
I see some change there but not a lot. I agree with flewda, the body of the jeep still look flat. Put some logically placed dirt or dust on the green body of jeep. Add dirt in the corners of parts of the jeep. Also you could add stickers, cracked paint, or dried mud on the bottom of the jeep where the wheels are. Also he's right about that bag tied to the front of the jeep. If you still want it there i would think it would tied on the back of the jeep. Also that bag is still shiny dull it way down it distracts from the jeep itself.
working on it a little more ill add a glow to the lights on the front of the bike, also still want to fix the front bumper a little more. im going to add mud but im going to try to make it stand out instead of having it on my diffuse. i might normal map it in.
Hey lev thanks for the heads up kinda wierd question wich vehicle on my portfolio should i switch out for this one? my friends and brother say i should take out the tank any suggestions?
Focus on making this one look as good as you can first, then worry about putting it on your portfolio. 100% agree with Lev, you really should try to avoid separate smoothing groups on the low poly when baking your normal map, ESPECIALLY on more organic shapes (such as the tires and seat cushion).
You still haven't baked a high poly normal map to the front grill, and it looks pillowy still. If I rammed into something with that, it looks like it would pop like a balloon. That is a huge problem IMO.
Is that the A-10 warthog shark mouth on the side of that panel? It's an interesting idea, but no well executed. It would go all the way to the front, making it look like an actual mouth, not just have some on the sides. Personally, I don' think they would do that kind of painting an ATV. You'd want it to have as few things to stick out as possible. Having a red & white mouth painted on the side is kind of asking for someone to spot it. Of course they can do that kind of crap on jets, because well, no one's going to probably see it from the ground.
The bag on the front still feels way out of place, it would be really good to get this either replaced with a more appropriate bag, or just nuke it all together. My eye instantly goes to it and that's not a good thing in this case.
Lastly, you still need to do something with the spec on the body. Even if it's matte, it would have spots that are getting worn down and might be a bit shinier than other areas, you'd have dirt caked on there (like some other people mentioned). Right now I can't even tell what the crap is going on with the spec. I would also get a simple 3 point light rig in there. I think the light you have in there now is really not helping matters.
EDIT* Also, I just realized that the logo you have on there is chrome, and so are the handle bars. I would make the handle bars a black matte paint, and would do something different with the logo or get rid of that as well. Even dim moonlight hitting chrome at the right angle could show an enemy where you are. If you look at a tank, almost everything on it is painted with a matte paint. If you're going to paint it with a matte paint, you're gonna want everything that way or what's the point?
I've been having trouble finishing this atv up so instead of trying to finish it and having a bad portfolio piece i decided to redo it but because i was having such trouble with the military theme i decided to go for a more sporty type of atv
heres an update still need to add the drive chain thingy to the back wheel also those wheels are temp so i could get a look at the size:
First off, while I think this new model is looking better already, it amazed me how you just got frustrated with your last piece, and quit doing it to move on. Yeah, I agree that it wasn't working out too well, but instead of saying "I am not doing well with the military theme, so I am going to go in a totally different direction" you say "I'm having trouble with this theme, so I am starting all over on it from scratch, and applying what I've learned, and the advice other people gave me, so that I can make it better". Believe me, once you land yourself a job in the industry, you don't get this freedom, so you need to overcome it. I've worked on a lot of stuff recently that were totally outside my comfort zone, and things I had never even thought about working on before, but I can't go to my lead and say "Hey, I'm doing it my own style because I can't get the hang of the one you want" Just doesn't fly. The best way to improve at something is to do it over and over until you feel you have really nailed it down. I'm not saying that if you do a piece, and you are satisfied with it that you have to just keep doing it, but when you just give up on something...I dunno man, I just see you do that quite a bit, and that's not a good trait.
Critiques on your new model. For starters you are still using smoothing groups like they are going out of style (fact is they are already out of style). Sometimes using smoothing groups are necessary, but usually only when you have a REALLY harsh angle, and even then, if you have the polys, I would suggest adding a chamfer or two to alleviate how harsh the angle is and it usually will make using 1 smoothing group on that element work still. I know a lot of people have been telling you this for a while, and we're really not trying to pull your chain. When you have a smoothing group, even with a great high poly model, there's a good chance you are going to have a seam (especially noticeable on organic shapes) and it's going to look bad. I think you would seriously be amazed at how much better your high poly bake will be if you use fewer smoothing groups. Let the high poly do the work for determining your hard edges, etc. The wheels you have right now are a good example. Looks like just one smoothing group, and I bet it will turn out better than the last time.
Those four cut outs on the front could totally be normal mapped. They really won't do anything major for you as geometry cut outs. 2 reasons why I think this. A) They are not deep at all, so a normal map would do a good job at faking this. They don't really alter the silhouette. Therefore, in my opinion, it's wasted geo.
Keep working at this, and don't quit or finish it just to finish it. Really try to take your time, learn from it, and do the best you can.
Hey flewda the reason i started on this new ATV is because of well thought out crit from bitmap over at game-artists.net thats the real reason i started over. he pointed out someting that i ignored and i thin he was right so instead of finishing a decent portfolio piece i decided to scrap that and work on an awesome portfolio piece and thats the great thing about workingon personal projects you have to showcase your best work and thats what i need to start working on. also im using the "pure game models as a ref for this.
Edit: flewda what do you suggest i do with the smoothing i have in the main model just turn it all to 1?
Since you're starting over: Make the high detail mesh of the tire PERFECT, first. Then translate it to low poly, material and all PERFECT before doing anything else. If you can't make a tire freaking sweet, what's the chances everything else is going to fall in place? (btw, it's slim to none)
Hey cholden i shall make the tires amazing thanks for the heads up, i got some questions though ive been looking at PURE as a standpoint of how i want this model built i was thinking of seperating the model into 2 pieces the frame and the plastic body each having 1024x1024 maps on them but do you think i would be over killing it by also seperating the tires ?
made a normal map andput it on with a basic texture map nothing special just to see how it looked. i dont know what knd of style im gonna go for but ill have to see.
Since you're starting over: Make the high detail mesh of the tire PERFECT, first. Then translate it to low poly, material and all PERFECT before doing anything else. If you can't make a tire freaking sweet, what's the chances everything else is going to fall in place? (btw, it's slim to none)
Yeah, I have to agree with this. Don't focus on the details, the crazybump, any of that crap dude. You are all over the place like you're on speed. You really should focus on one thing at a time. Do the high poly wheel like Chris suggested, make it look as awesome as you can, then move onto the high poly frame, then to the engine, then the details, etc. THEN move onto the low poly. You can't just make a low poly, start doing some crazybump crap on it, then make the high poly, it just doesn't make sense as a good workflow. I'm not saying my workflow is the best way, nor the only way. You need to do what works best for you, but I imagine most of the artists have a workflow somewhat similar to this.
- Make a medium poly block in. Make sure everything is position properly, good silhouette, things of this nature. I don't know how common this is, but for me it's great because if I have to make changes with the mesh at this point, it's much easier to do before any detail is in there.
- After myself and anyone else involved is happy with the shape & form, and positioning of each element, then I start going in and detailing out each piece into a high poly. I get my high poly finished, and then usually take another quick pass to try and find any other place I can improve it (whether it be fixing pinching/small geometry errors, or adding a bit more detail).
- Then I move on to the Low poly model, matching it as close as I can to the high poly. Personally, I find it much easier to match the low poly to the high poly, than match a high poly to low poly. Some people prefer doing the low poly first, and I don't find anything wrong with that, just preference. I also make sure I am using 1 smoothing group as much as I can.
- Unwrap, sometimes I'll throw it into engine with a rock/concrete texture on it that's the same size my map is going to be, to really see the pixel density, it's size in game, etc. etc.
- Project normals/ao
- Check again in game to see how the normals are looking. Is there any smoothing errors, bad seams when mirroring, etc. If this looks good, then:
- Texturing begins. Usually I start out by blocking out the texture colors with solid colors, that way it's already masked out in Photoshop, and then sometimes you can get an idea for your color scheme seeing it in game, and maybe make a change or two with what you had planned for the colors. Obviously you can't do this with every little piece, but you can get a general idea with the big picture.
- Final details, tweaks, spec, etc.
Again, I am not saying you have to do my method or anyone elses, but the method I see you using just really doesn't seem practical.
thanks for the info flewda but umm thats not crazybump i made a quick high-poly model normal. for the main body. also im focusing on the main body first and then the rest of the model.
For your normal map, sink some serious time into the high poly mesh. Take your time to experiment and learn how to do proper hard-surface SDS modeling. The aim shouldn't be to just kick stuff out like the you've been doing, it should be to learn how to do it properly. Once you have that nailed down you can worry about doing it inside of a time frame.
Also, like Ironhawk said, sink some polys into those tires. The cage on the bottom (fiddly detail - not often affecting silhouette) has a smoother silhouette than the tires (large and important to silhouette at all times).
Yeah, this is starting to take shape nicely. From what I've been told, try not to make the details too small on the high poly or they won't show up in the normal map. But looking nice, keep going
I'm not sure how you are modeling the high poly, but there are a lot of details that have such tight edges that you are not going to get really any sort of normal map detail generated from them, because they'll likely be smaller than a pixel. The front panel with the 4 insets, looks like you just hand modeled that (didn't use any sort of mesh smooth). Same thing for the back area. Once again, there is an overall lack of detail on the seat, even your high poly has a fairly substantial harsh edge (given the fact it's supposed to be a cushion). How are you modeling this though? Looks like you are mixing and matching just hand modeling, and then using some mesh smoothing. I also see some smoothing errors in a couple of different places. These errors will transfer over on the normal map, so you'll get the same problems on your low poly, things like that need to be addressed.
It's going in the right direction, but far from finish imo.
hey flewda im actually just fixed all those smoothing errors and for the seat atv's dont have very detailed seats there pretty rigid like the one i made:
ill be adding some detail with crazybump though so dont worry about that, i do think i need to fix the front top area a little more before i go in for a final pass at the normal.
Looking good
Though there are some shading errors on the front panel. And don't you think some dirt would make this piece even more alive? Perhaps give the engine and steering bars some more loving. Some colorvariations or something.
Looking good but you still have some smoothing errors on the front panel. Post up some current wires in the same render position. I get the feeling you may need to add a few polys there.
For what I'm guessing is a muddy variation on the far right, you want to give the muddy sections an additional normalmap overlay and their own specular properties. For now it looks more like a Diffuse job which in turn looks like a brown airbrush paintjob.
Keep at it man, you've improved by a large margin
Replies
Almost all the colors on it are the same value/brightness. The gray plate on the foot rest, the handle bars, and the bag on the front are the only things that are contrasting. Everything else is just the same level, just different hue.
Also the fact that there still seems to be a significant lack of spec on the body makes it pretty flat as well. As I mentioned before, ATVs are usually a glossy plastic finish. The burlap sack you have on the front is catching more light and glossier looking than the body, that just doesn't make sense.
I guess if you are wanting this thing to be all military type, then perhaps a matte finish makes sense, but I think it would be visually better as an asset to have the glossy finish.
As I mentioned before, the bag looks like a burlap sack or something tied on to th front, I dunno, that seems really weird, and like I said, it's pretty high in spec, and if that is supposed to be burlap, wouldn't quite be so glossy.
Throw some stickers on there. Even if it was military, you'd find unit logos, warning labels, etc. If it's not military, then you'd have the company logo all over, as well as warning labels. It's as plain as all get out right now.
The seat is boring. You have no detail on there are all. Also have quite a nice hard edge on it too, looks like you'd cut your leg everytime you go for a ride.
I would also take the front bars and make them brighter or something. Your darks are way dark on this thing. It could be the lighting as well.
I honestly don't see a lot of changes made to the critiques people have been giving you. I see a little bit of AO, but not a whole lot.
Also, I am not sure if you have them on there or not, but it appears to be lacking lights.
I just noticed as well, the back fender at the corner, just underneath the metal rack, what's going on there? Looks like you have some stray verts pulling way out.
You still haven't baked a high poly normal map to the front grill, and it looks pillowy still. If I rammed into something with that, it looks like it would pop like a balloon. That is a huge problem IMO.
Is that the A-10 warthog shark mouth on the side of that panel? It's an interesting idea, but no well executed. It would go all the way to the front, making it look like an actual mouth, not just have some on the sides. Personally, I don' think they would do that kind of painting an ATV. You'd want it to have as few things to stick out as possible. Having a red & white mouth painted on the side is kind of asking for someone to spot it. Of course they can do that kind of crap on jets, because well, no one's going to probably see it from the ground.
The bag on the front still feels way out of place, it would be really good to get this either replaced with a more appropriate bag, or just nuke it all together. My eye instantly goes to it and that's not a good thing in this case.
Lastly, you still need to do something with the spec on the body. Even if it's matte, it would have spots that are getting worn down and might be a bit shinier than other areas, you'd have dirt caked on there (like some other people mentioned). Right now I can't even tell what the crap is going on with the spec. I would also get a simple 3 point light rig in there. I think the light you have in there now is really not helping matters.
EDIT* Also, I just realized that the logo you have on there is chrome, and so are the handle bars. I would make the handle bars a black matte paint, and would do something different with the logo or get rid of that as well. Even dim moonlight hitting chrome at the right angle could show an enemy where you are. If you look at a tank, almost everything on it is painted with a matte paint. If you're going to paint it with a matte paint, you're gonna want everything that way or what's the point?
heres an update still need to add the drive chain thingy to the back wheel also those wheels are temp so i could get a look at the size:
Critiques on your new model. For starters you are still using smoothing groups like they are going out of style (fact is they are already out of style). Sometimes using smoothing groups are necessary, but usually only when you have a REALLY harsh angle, and even then, if you have the polys, I would suggest adding a chamfer or two to alleviate how harsh the angle is and it usually will make using 1 smoothing group on that element work still. I know a lot of people have been telling you this for a while, and we're really not trying to pull your chain. When you have a smoothing group, even with a great high poly model, there's a good chance you are going to have a seam (especially noticeable on organic shapes) and it's going to look bad. I think you would seriously be amazed at how much better your high poly bake will be if you use fewer smoothing groups. Let the high poly do the work for determining your hard edges, etc. The wheels you have right now are a good example. Looks like just one smoothing group, and I bet it will turn out better than the last time.
Those four cut outs on the front could totally be normal mapped. They really won't do anything major for you as geometry cut outs. 2 reasons why I think this. A) They are not deep at all, so a normal map would do a good job at faking this.
Keep working at this, and don't quit or finish it just to finish it. Really try to take your time, learn from it, and do the best you can.
Edit: flewda what do you suggest i do with the smoothing i have in the main model just turn it all to 1?
[ame]
I've started to build hi-poly meshes and then bake the details into a normal map and the results are so much better than just using the nvidia filter.
I like the white to orange colour scheme though
Yeah, I have to agree with this. Don't focus on the details, the crazybump, any of that crap dude. You are all over the place like you're on speed. You really should focus on one thing at a time. Do the high poly wheel like Chris suggested, make it look as awesome as you can, then move onto the high poly frame, then to the engine, then the details, etc. THEN move onto the low poly. You can't just make a low poly, start doing some crazybump crap on it, then make the high poly, it just doesn't make sense as a good workflow. I'm not saying my workflow is the best way, nor the only way. You need to do what works best for you, but I imagine most of the artists have a workflow somewhat similar to this.
- Make a medium poly block in. Make sure everything is position properly, good silhouette, things of this nature. I don't know how common this is, but for me it's great because if I have to make changes with the mesh at this point, it's much easier to do before any detail is in there.
- After myself and anyone else involved is happy with the shape & form, and positioning of each element, then I start going in and detailing out each piece into a high poly. I get my high poly finished, and then usually take another quick pass to try and find any other place I can improve it (whether it be fixing pinching/small geometry errors, or adding a bit more detail).
- Then I move on to the Low poly model, matching it as close as I can to the high poly. Personally, I find it much easier to match the low poly to the high poly, than match a high poly to low poly. Some people prefer doing the low poly first, and I don't find anything wrong with that, just preference. I also make sure I am using 1 smoothing group as much as I can.
- Unwrap, sometimes I'll throw it into engine with a rock/concrete texture on it that's the same size my map is going to be, to really see the pixel density, it's size in game, etc. etc.
- Project normals/ao
- Check again in game to see how the normals are looking. Is there any smoothing errors, bad seams when mirroring, etc. If this looks good, then:
- Texturing begins. Usually I start out by blocking out the texture colors with solid colors, that way it's already masked out in Photoshop, and then sometimes you can get an idea for your color scheme seeing it in game, and maybe make a change or two with what you had planned for the colors. Obviously you can't do this with every little piece, but you can get a general idea with the big picture.
- Final details, tweaks, spec, etc.
Again, I am not saying you have to do my method or anyone elses, but the method I see you using just really doesn't seem practical.
Take it for what it's worth.
i havent even started on the main chasis
Also, like Ironhawk said, sink some polys into those tires. The cage on the bottom (fiddly detail - not often affecting silhouette) has a smoother silhouette than the tires (large and important to silhouette at all times).
It's going in the right direction, but far from finish imo.
ill be adding some detail with crazybump though so dont worry about that, i do think i need to fix the front top area a little more before i go in for a final pass at the normal.
Though there are some shading errors on the front panel. And don't you think some dirt would make this piece even more alive? Perhaps give the engine and steering bars some more loving. Some colorvariations or something.
Bit of dried mud on the tyres and body maybe? On the tyres could help to make the tread even more raised.
Great improvement
Keep at it man, you've improved by a large margin