I make a door WIP

alexk

I'm trying to make a door, this is what I have so far. I've baked the normal, and in my pic, I'm using a ambient occlusion bake as a temporary diffuse. It's currently 847 tri's, I'm not sure if that is too much, I'm aiming for current gen. Any C&C as to how I am doing so far would be great, suggestions are also welcome.

Microneezia

Above the top of the door, with the small windows and frame stuff, it looks like that pattern of framing is for a dome kind of, so maybe take that section and FFD it into a kind of half dome or something, or you might be able to path deformWSD it along an arc or something.... something so that, well it looks a little stiff all flat....then have a section of those small windows open upwards maybe... Also in the dome space that is created you could hand a nice wrought iron lantern maybe. and make the small windows colored glass like recycled liquor bottles.

It looks good though, I like it.

Ive been drinking...

alexk

micro, thanks for the feedback. I think I get what you're saying and will give the FFD and path deformWSD a try, though, I've never really used those modifiers before, it will be good for me to learn

Snader

could you post some closeups of the door banger and the..''crown'' on the sides? looks like you might be using a bit much polies there

i think if you're going in that much detail, you could spend a few polies on the 4 big insets on the door as well

alexk

sure, here are the close ups. I struggled with these when I was doing the low polys. I originally had a very low tri count on these but then they baked horribly. So I ran the Max polycrunch on the highpoly and then cleaned up the resulting mesh, and this is the result that I kept. The handle is 74 tri's, a single crown peice is 49 tri's, and there are 6 of them in total

Snader

those meshes still look messy.. i think automated crunches always end up messy, no matter how good the script

i tried my hand at both lowpoly things, didnt really get the polycount down a lot, i focused more on making the shapes rounder and the silhouette smoother
also tried an alternate solution for the crown but that didnt save polies =/

crown:
http://pixelsnader.nl/stuff/crown.png
http://pixelsnader.nl/stuff/crown.max

clobber:
http://pixelsnader.nl/stuff/clobber.png
http://pixelsnader.nl/stuff/clobber.max


looking at the first post some more.. i think the top 2 loops in thearch are pretty redundant

and while you've got 2 visible loops on the part of the door with the diamonds, there are 3 on the uvwmwap.. i think you could get rid of the outer one there ..takes off another 24 polies

alexk

Started on the diffuse today and also imported into Unreal3. I can't seem to get a screen cap of the entire door without my the Unreal Editor automatically reducing my texture quality, it's kind of annoying, does anyone know how to stop it or increase the distance before it does that?

Snader, thanks for pointing the 2 redundant edge loops. I think I'll keep the crown and handle as it is right now. It should be easy to change later if I really need to, but I like your crown model. I blame myself for doing a highpoly first and not even thinking about the low poly. Something I'll do differently from now on

alexk

Here is what I have at the end of today... It's a dirty door, lol. I still can't figure out how to zoom out without Unreal Editor reducing my textures to crap. Hence the reason why my screencaps doesn't show my entire door



Here is the diffuse, the original size is a 1024, but resized to post here

Microneezia

I found this door again, and, Ive been drinking again... destiny!

I like this in general, I want to walk up to it and twist its nobs, and grab its knockers. But, I think that with that strong green its a shame not to have red in. Im a total sucker for the complementary sucker punch.

Uhm I did a paint over, I hope you dont mind, I was showing you a little what I was talking about before with that open window thing i sometimes see..., just real quick, and I added some color stuff. I like the gold trim foot scraper thing, so I tried to replicate it into the crown accents.. You could easily push your diffuse into a more interesting way I think. Maybe you not finished the texture tho! Right now, im not sure what materials you are showcasing... like what stuff is made of, other than grey... at least make it "after rain grey" or something, not plain grey. "after rain grey" at least smells good.

Anyway, Im a fanboy now! go door go!

alexk

Thanks Micro for the paintover. That helps alot because when I was reading your suggestion about the window, I didn't know what you did in the paintover is what you meant. I totally had a different interpretation, lol. hmmmm... your paintover has inspired me to try making the door a brown color isntead of boring white . I want the door to be wood, and the top arch and colums is definetly a stone or concrete, so I'm not sure if the gold trims will work(?). I'm going to also add a wall, sidewalk, and a light on the wall next to the door. This is the reference for my door that I'm using as a guide. Thanks so much for the suggestions!

Microneezia

ya that reference is decent for modeling, but its ass for textures... man you should find a way to get those pipes in there too. I like that, its like they just waiting to leak septic style all over that pretty white door...

The arch at the top sticks out way farther than what you have, easy fix and looks better.

I dont expect you to do any window cutting I was just explainin.

That door looks so outta place in that wall, but is obviously original. probably repainted into that hideous white tho.

Lamont

Nice door. Other than what was mentioned above my crit would be the blurring of the arches on the glass, or is that 3DS Max messing with me?

alexk

It's the Unreal Editor doing that, I have no idea why it wants to reduce my texture quality so badly when I zoom out so little Glad you like my door though

Lamont wrote: »

Nice door. Other than what was mentioned above my crit would be the blurring of the arches on the glass, or is that 3DS Max messing with me?

Lamont

alexk wrote: »

It's the Unreal Editor doing that, I have no idea why it wants to reduce my texture quality so badly when I zoom out so little Glad you like my door though

Look at the filtering, you can also change the compression settings. Save before you do in case you don't like it.

alexk

I found out that it's my diffuse causing the problem. Certain areas, like the window crossings, don't hold up when zoomed out even a little. <sigh> I'm going to go over my diffuse and try to figure out how to fix it

alexk

After looking through the art in UT3 and Gears of War, I wasn't happy with how my door was turning out. So I decided to start over on the diffuse and concentrate on defining my materials. I also am doing a little more hand painting, it seems to hold up alot of better in the unreal editor. I found out that why my diffuse got blurry sometimes was I think I was using a bit too much texture overlays. But eh.. I dunno, heres a screen

killingpeople

Change the wood grain

Snader

also, make sure that different elements look like different elements. the door and the windowsill have one continuous texture, offsett one of them a bit, to create a visual break between both.
i also think the gold is too yellow and the wear and tear doesnt match up with the shinyness.

brave decision to redo the entire texture btw, and good luck with that

whats the polycount atm?

Mark Dygert

I'm not sure the new diffuse is taking steps in the right direction.
- The first diffuse is pretty good, the gold could be desaturated. But its the best out of the three.
- The second Looks like an attempt to add color using solid colors & paint bucket fill.

The last:
Each piece seems a bit monochromatic and overly saturated. The gold parts are glowing bright yellow, the door is very brown and hardly any other colors are making it into those pieces. Gold/brass isn't always R 255, G 255, B 0. Take a look at the ref photo, you know the material is some kind of shinny yellow-ish metal but its not banana yellow.

It looks like you're limiting yourself to 4 crayons when you have a room full of different kinds of paint.

I think KP and Snader make very good points. The door wouldn't be carved out of one big block of wood, but assembled from different pieces. The grain needs to be flipped on those seperate pieces.

Paint over:


EDIT: Three things I forgot to mention.

First is that you can apply a wood grain to your high poly. Make cuts and flip UV's around to get the grain working like it should, then bake out the diffuse.

Second, you can also create a second UV channel for your low poly that is a simple planar map. Put a weathering overlay that uses the 2nd channel in a blend material (or composite) with your diffuse and rebake the diffuse. This will take the weathering and accurately scatter it around your original jumbled up UV1.

Lastly, for weathering you can take just about any pic, blur it out and overlay/multiply it. I used this. If its for commercial work you'll want to be careful where you dig up those kinds of photos, best if you take them yourself, or just doodle blurry colors.

MoP

nice paintover vig, i think you nailed it!
with these crits you should be able to make this door look awesome - the highpoly and lowpoly are already fine, and although the UV layout is a bit "fragmented" for my liking, I think with a good texture this will be an excellent portfolio piece.

SHEPEIRO

this crit is abit late for this model but maybe for the next- a door like this should have a REALLY simple uv unwrap, I would hve said that 1 shell for nearly everything and then a couple of small ones for the handle and the doorstep (lintell?) this will maximise texture usage and give a cleaner bake.

edit ^ Mop got there first ^

personally i would have made a simpler low poly aswell, i generally think that cleaner results are given by letting the normal map do most of the work, at the expense of a few pixels in silohette definition, for example the detail round the edge could have been a simple cylinder with a lump in the middle and some lumps at the top, this would have removed alot of 90degree angles which are causing slight shading issues making the normal map more "solid" but mould have reduced the impact of the sillohette slightly.

also it looks like you are hand painting your masks between materials in photoshop, you dont need to do this, simply apply lots of different flat colour materials in max then bake a diffuse-only texture out, use this to select the masks (if you have three materials use R G B as then you can simply select the channel in PS)

Ghostscape

I need to work more attractive women into my weathering

alexk

I guess I didn't like my first diffuse because it just sucks compared to the stuff in UT3 and Gears. Okay.... I'm going to return to my original diffuse and use all the tips here to try and push it further. And then for my next model I will take a more hand painted approach Thanks SO much for all the tips and suggestions

Snader, I think my current model is 841 tris, just 6 tri's less from my original. I was only able to delete one loop on my top arch. The other loop caused nasty stretching, I couldnt seem to fix it in the UV editor, so I ended up only removing one loop

alexk

Here's what I have on the door using the suggestions. Vig, I loved the trick using a blurred photo. I feel better about this, but I wanted to post to check if I'm on the right track. I was thinking of going in and painting some scratches now that I have the wood. Sorry if some things are a bit too shiny, I don't have a specular map done yet.

alexk

Here's an update. I really want a white or cream coloured arch for the door but it keeps ending up as grey, gonna keep trying on that. I still haven't done the brass elements. I also want to revisit the mohagony door and maybe add some light scracthings and adjust some of the colors. The concrete sidewalk underneath belongs to UT3

Edit: err.. forgot that I changed some of my lighting colours, didn't realise its making it a bit too yellowy



And my diffuse so far

vj_box

much better i guess,the wood now seems to be better

Vj

Mark Dygert

Much much better, just need to get that brass under control and you're in business.

Well, one last thing, and MoP already covered it and its easier then you might think to fix, and that's the UV layout. There are a lot of broken pieces which chunks up the vertex count quite a bit. Every UV seam is broken and verts along those seams are doubled when you get it in game. Less seams the better.

"Oh crap I have to redo my UV layout, but I just got done creating this great materials... It will take days to shuffle all that around in photoshop!"

Easy to fix, even at this stage. Here's what you do.
- Apply Unwrap UVW save the layout, call it DoorUV1.
- Apply a second Unwrap UVW, change the channel to 2.
- Rearrange your pieces, save this new layout as DoorUV2.
- Open RTT (0) set your object to render to UV Channel 2 and render a diffuse map.
- If you have normal maps and spec maps, put the old maps in your diffuse slot one at a time, and render with it set to diffuse.

You're UV's are totally fluid and open to change at any time

alexk

Vig, thanks for another great tip! I still want to work with my layers so I will do a final render when I've completed my textures. I've moved onto doing a specular and would like some crits on it. I also tried to do an emiissive, I'm not sure if I'm doing it right, seems to look fine in unreal editor. Here are the screens.







and my current diffuse

SHEPEIRO

looks like a brand new door with old fittings?? that doesnt make much sense age the wood

alexk

Hope this is better

Tumerboy

I feel like you've lost a lot of the contrast and saturation you had here:


I liked those two things. While weathering is important, you should be able to do accomplish it without washing out the piece.

Keep going, this is looking good!


Edit: Looking at them side by side now, it may just be the lighting! Look at Vig's Paintover again, and see if you can get some of the dynamic range he's got in that one into yours.

alexk

Tumerboy, you bring up a good point about the lighting and is still something I'm confused about. Should I be working on my diffuse with just white lights (which I have done so far), or do I work with some colored lights? I think, just maybe, it's time to adjust my weathering under color lighting instead of plain white lighting... hmmm... i'll go give it a try, thanks

gamedev

I'd suggest when you're doing your color maps not to use colored lights or post. Focus on the colors and tones / values. You'll have no idea how it will be lit in a game environment and adjusting your color maps to a particular light setup will make the textures look wrong in other lighting conditions.

Couple of crits:

- Address plaque could look better placed above the door rather than on the mid right.
- The trim where the top of the door and glass meet looks pasted in. Work on the transition from the top of the door to the trim, show structure and seam where the door and trim separate.

Keep at it!

SHEPEIRO

maybe go the other way then instead of ageing the wood, clean up the fittings so that it looks like a new door in an old doorway, can you not have two lighting setups and just swap between

Tumerboy

I think it's worth checking it out in different lighting once in a while (as Shep mentioned) but I think as you're working you want a very generic (white) lighting setup so you can see the true colors you're working with.

I guess I just liked the warmer tones in that older version. I think you could potentially add a little of that color into the texture without making it look out of place/pre-lit.

alexk

I'm going to call this pretty much done. Thank you everyone who posted their tips, I made HUGE progress with this peice and much of it was due to all your help. I'm really happy with everything I learned and I'm dying to apply it to whatever I model next. I still need to go back and clean up my UV's, after that I'll post up my final textures.

Gamedev, I'll tweak it a bit more, I think I know which part you are referring to. As for the plaque, I think I'll move it up a little, but I'll probably keep it on the right door trim

Heres a screen cap with colored lighting. The thing that still irks me is that Unreal Editor keeps blurring out some of my details when I zoom out to screen capture the entire door </shrug> I'm so tempted to run a sharpen filter on my screengrab, but NO! No cheating !

SHEPEIRO

you dont need to cheat, that is the mip-mapping working and is how it would apppear in game so leave it as is, for display purposes, just use a full shot and a couple of nice detail shots to show actual texel res.

Mark Dygert

Yep, I think you've got a winner! Nice work, way to take crits and really turn them around into something great.

bounchfx

I really like how this came out - Great job

Tumerboy

looks great, nice work!

Now you just need the building to put around it :P

alexk

Shep, ohhhh.. I kept thinking it was something to do with my settings for the textures. Hmm... when I create textures, are there ways to make it hold up better, or is mipmapping just unavoidable?

Here are some large screens of the door as well as my final textures. Gonna add these screens to my portfolio, this will be my first portfolio peice, woot!

Tumerboy

looks great! Good job!

SHEPEIRO

"Shep, ohhhh.. I kept thinking it was something to do with my settings for the textures. Hmm... when I create textures, are there ways to make it hold up better, or is mipmapping just unavoidable?"

try turning the filtering/mipmapping off in the engine, get your screen res and size on screen as large as possible then downscale the image after, this can lead to a slightly sharper image but may result in some graininess/moire effects if you cant get the res large enough.

Mark Dygert

There's one thing that bugs me, and its probably just me, but the diffuse has a slightly rounded bevel to the cut outs in the door and I think its fighting with the normal map. You might want to put some slight highlights in the diffuse so it isn't quite so rounded. I also suggest adding a few dark cracks where the different pieces of wood meet.
Paintover

Also, (ok two things) the normal map is missing the wood grain details like the deep cracks. CrazyBump (and I think XNormal too) does a pretty quick job of adding extra maps to your normal map, I wouldn't add your entire diffuse, but add just the cracks and maybe some detail to the stone.

LEViATHAN

No lacquer on the wood? Looks too matte.

/e Don't 'dwell' with one project for too long, especially if it's one of your earlier projects and as 'simple' as a door. My 2 cts.

alexk

LEViATHAN wrote: »

No lacquer on the wood? Looks too matte.

/e Don't 'dwell' with one project for too long, especially if it's one of your earlier projects and as 'simple' as a door. My 2 cts.

No, don't feel that way, I like it that you guys push me and raise the bar for me everytime I improve. I'm still learning and I'd rather spend more time on this door and actually learn to do things properly than do more models and put out crappy quality, or be lazy on some things.

For example, because of your post I went back to try to put the lacquer effect on my door. It's something I wanted from the start but left it out because it was too hard. But now that I am trying it again, I'm finally getting that effect or at least the beginnings of it. The domino effect is that, I am revisiting my specular map and making it better and also looking into more Unreal Editor material settings. I'm also going to explore what Vig suggested, so I'll post a screen when I have something ready to show.

My thoughts is that I'm going to squeeze as much knowledge out of each model I make, and I thought this door was running dry but there's still milk in those teets!

LEViATHAN

alexk wrote: »

No, don't feel that way, I like it that you guys push me and raise the bar for me everytime I improve. I'm still learning and I'd rather spend more time on this door and actually learn to do things properly than do more models and put out crappy quality, or be lazy on some things.

For example, because of your post I went back to try to put the lacquer effect on my door. It's something I wanted from the start but left it out because it was too hard. But now that I am trying it again, I'm finally getting that effect or at least the beginnings of it. The domino effect is that, I am revisiting my specular map and making it better and also looking into more Unreal Editor material settings. I'm also going to explore what Vig suggested, so I'll post a screen when I have something ready to show.

My thoughts is that I'm going to squeeze as much knowledge out of each model I make, and I thought this door was running dry but there's still milk in those teets!

That's not what I'm trying to say though. I think it's better to apply your new skills to a fresh project and expand on that, get new insights, instead of keeping on revisiting/hammering on an oldy. But that is assuming your aim is to get better at what you (want to) do, instead of trying to build the ultimate door. :poly141:

bounchfx

wait a sec where the hell is the door knob? am I missing something?

alexk

I decided to completely redo my specular map. Hopefully my door now has that lacquer effect, it's more obvious in my second screenshot, at a different angle. I haven't gotten to the concrete yet, and of course will tweak the entire specular further. I also overlayed a few minor things onto my normal map, most noticable on my window. I like how this is going, my old one was too matte looking and that was due to my poor excuse for a specular map. So I hope this is an improvement, as usual any C&C is welcome!



also, the door knob is the thing that kinda looks like a knocker near the top.. I think it's a eurpoean thing. My reference photo (on page 1) looks like its taken somewhere in europe

Mark Dygert

looking better

I think the thing up top is the knocker, and the handle is the thing in lower center. kind of like Bilbo's front door, but I think you're right its pretty European?

LEViATHAN

Lacquer makes the entire surface shinier, so the grain should be shiny as well, not just the bright areas.