Starcraft Gauss Rifle
First time posting my work here. I think the highpoly is about done, unless someone has major issues with it. It's a gauss rifle from starcraft (the terran marine's rifle). I drew reference from a few different shots, but the main ones were this wallpaper and the last page of this PDF for the side view.
I just realized looking at these images that I forgot to do the fire selector knob, the manual shell ejection lever and the gakk on the front below the barrel. I'll do that next. I'm planning on making a low-poly version and baking normals, but I've only done this once before and I'm not sure what sort of polycount I should be shooting for. The last time I shot for GoW specs and ended up around 1800 tris. I think I'd like to make this one higher qualtity, perhaps closer to FPS specs, so I was thinking around 5-6k tris? Too much, too little, just right?
Also, should I stick to baking tangent-space normals, or go object-space? Object-space seems to be better overall, but it's not as commonly used it seems. Do I want to show people a better quality final product, or that I can bake out the type of normals they're used to seeing?
I just realized looking at these images that I forgot to do the fire selector knob, the manual shell ejection lever and the gakk on the front below the barrel. I'll do that next. I'm planning on making a low-poly version and baking normals, but I've only done this once before and I'm not sure what sort of polycount I should be shooting for. The last time I shot for GoW specs and ended up around 1800 tris. I think I'd like to make this one higher qualtity, perhaps closer to FPS specs, so I was thinking around 5-6k tris? Too much, too little, just right?
Also, should I stick to baking tangent-space normals, or go object-space? Object-space seems to be better overall, but it's not as commonly used it seems. Do I want to show people a better quality final product, or that I can bake out the type of normals they're used to seeing?
Replies
A nice start you have there. Although I would suggest a few things for improvement:
you highpoly looks like the main parts of the gun are totally build from one piece. but a real gun consists of many seperated parts out together and fixed by bolts and stuff. So to get the look a little more realistic I try to build this gun by modelling the serperated parts and stick them together. just like a real gun would be put together.
I expect this to give the model more shape and "realness". I'm not sure if it will make a diference on the normalmap, but I'm pretty much expecting it. At the moment your edges where on part should stick into another part of the gun are pretty much beveled, which gives it the looks that everything is one solid shell. Reducing those bevels or modeling each parte seperately will make the gun look better imo.
At last I would consider to rename the gun. as I see it what you have here is pretty much a standard machinegun / aussault rifle which fires conventional projectiles.
If this weapon design from starcraft is supposed to be a gauss-gun than fine. To me it's just a scifi assaultrifle.
As a gauss-gun I imagine some kind of railgun thing which has a slow rate of fire but delivers a projectlie at ultra highspeed to the target. This is acomplished by Electromagnetic rails to accelerate the projectlie. As much energy is needed I expect a gauss gun to have some kind of energy kondensators, things on it.
So unless the the design is meant to be a gauss gun I ouls consider to not naming it this way.
Totally ands that my only crit, the modeling is quite badass
Slave_zero: It's the name of the gun :-P Go tell Blizzard ^^
anywayyy. keep it up!
Good job so far.
Nearly all of the shapes seem totally random, aside from this being "gun shaped" there is very little here to clue me in to the fact that this is a firearm. This is a problem with the concept of course, not just your model, but i would have tried to take on some other refs and bring a little bit more interest to the model by borrowing from some existing weapons.
If you're going for a FPV model, this thing is way way too flat, and there isnt any interesting detail from the player's point of view. Some nicely detailed scope or something when seen from behind would help. As it is now, you basically have all of your shapes in the side view, and just the flat geometry connecting it together in FPV. Work on bringing some of these elements together in a more interesting manner.
Its good to know how to get quality results with both, i wouldn't use OS simply because you cant get good results with TS maps, because at some point, you'll be expected to use TS maps. So dont use it as a crutch, is what i'm saying.
I also took the chance to change one thing from the concept that bothered me: that stupid, useless handle behind the front handrest. It's too small for a marine's gauntleted hand, and it was too close to the flip to be of any use. In the version used in the new trailer, it almost looks like the whole assembly was made to slide forward like a pump shotgun ejecting a shell, but the bottom rail wasn't designed to allow it to slide. I considered keeping the handle and making a proper slide, but I still don't like that setup. I replaced it with a clip ejection lever. Lifting it up will drop the clip out, it will snap back down when the new clip is inserted.
I also followed the reference from the new trailer much more closely this time. Let me know what you think (especially you EQ)!
Anyway good hs work.
I think you have way to many 90degree angles and flat planes, try to blend in some more organic forms to make it look more interesting, some curved surfaces would go along way in making this look interesting.
I'm guessing the slide in the middle is the breach of the rifle. But how does it work if it is lower then the barrel of the gun?
Some of the best fictional guns in games aren't functional in any way (Space Marine Bolter?).
I think this new render looks great. You still need to get some varing sizes in your bevels though. Right now they still seem to be the same. Thicker more defined bevels in some areas might help imo. Looking good man!
When you talk about bevel size, are you talking about more variation like A and B, or more variances like A and C?
As for adding more rounded shapes to this, I think I would prefer not to diverge too far from the concept. This has always been an angular design and I want to remain recognizable. Plus I think it will force me to step up my texturing to keep big flat faces interesting.
I looked at a few unreal 3 weapon models for an idea of what kind of polycount I should be shooting for. It looked like 5-12k tris depending on the weapon. I didn't worry about it too much and just beveled what I needed to for a decently smooth low-poly. There are a lot of 90 degree corners on that model so it took a fair number of bevels, but I could probably optimize it a bit better. It clocks in at about 11.5k tris.
Diffuse and spec to come.
Mandatory marmoset screenies:
Wires:
I think the front looks awesome due to the 2 big bolts looking as though they had function to hold the front of the gun together. try and mirror function like that in other parts. Dont worry about what all those parts actually do (although that could help) but just worry about hinting at some functionality. and I think it`ll sell much better!
*edit
er, ...what slave zero said