Air Lock

Seaseme

Hey all,

Just posting an art test I'm doing right now. C&C would be appreciated!

It's 1300 some odd polys right now, I'm allowed 1500. I'm also allowed to use 4 shaders with up to 4 512 maps a piece. I'm working on the floor section right now - I'm not sure the etiquette of posting the concept art they gave me.. so I'll hold off on that for now.




There's still tons to do with this, but I figured there was no point getting too far ahead of myself without consulting the polycounters.

Thanks!

Luke_Starkie

I dont really have any c&c but it looks great! And i love the textures

vj_box

So what piece is this exactly?
Vj

renderhjs

some reference pics or sketches would be nice.
From the choise however at least I have seen that type chamber door already a few times here- it reminds me of those doom3 lift doors - merged big tubes in a compact room with technical stuff attached to it.

Seaseme

Yeah, here's the concept they gave me.

Orgoth02

Ah the good old Insominac Art Test. Seen this thing so many time. Interested in what you will do with it to make it pop

Seaseme

Well, I'm thinking I will also animate/rig it when the time comes. Any other suggestions?

Seaseme

I made some changes, pretty much started over again on that. I chose to keep the paint on the other locking mechanism because I like where it's at. If it's too inconsistent in a few days I'll scrap it and do a new design.

whats_true

How big is this thing, because your yellow and black warnings are super small for something that might be human size.

Seaseme

You make a good point. I'll change that asap.

Mark Dygert

Its a decent start but I think you might be missing the mark with some of the details.
The far right image in the concept I think is in an animated state? If this is the case then it effects the way you need to model this.

Crits:
- A lot of the center details extend out away from the surface, most notably the top and bottom of the center lock.
- The top clasp details seem kind of thin. They might read better at a distance if they where exaggerated a bit?
- Pay attention to how the smaller sketches show it opening, you should make this fully possible.
- The right side of the center lock looks like it should clasp over the left piece
- I think you've pushed hard to keep it all one conjoined mesh, but you could probably work faster and pack in more detail if you used floating geometry.
- there are some cuts in the center lock that aren't really doing much?

Seaseme

Thanks Vig, I made those changes. I see what you mean with Floating Geometry - It didn't occur to me that method would be simpler. The locking mechanism on the outside door was a little weird to make. Based on their concept I figured out a way to make it lock using the tiny gear shapes that are there. More to come on that - I'm already at my poly limit, so the doors' detail will be all done in texture. No big deal.



P.S. I played your TF2 map. Great work! that thing is on par with anything Valve has made. Congrats! Let me know if you need more playtesting for it. I'm always up for some TF2.

Steam name - Seaseme

PixelMasher

the concept screams for a solid high poly to rip normal maps from, any plans to create one? textures look decent so far, cant wait to see what you do with the spec and normals.

Seaseme

Hi PixelMasher,

Thanks for the reply! I originally planned on making a high poly mesh, but I opted not to as I figured most of it would just get destroyed when doing textures at 512k. Any input on that?




Edit -- There is grime and Dents and such on the normal map - It's just very low contrast. It reads pretty well. I'll update with some stuff from UT3 in a bit so you can see how those are working.

G3L

your spec map has some dirt at the top that's easily recognizable as a uniformed brush. might want to random that up some because it's repeating on the spec. i would suggest still trying to do a high poly so you can show them your high poly skills as well plus it'll help your normals and diffuse pop out some more. best of skill on your art test!

PixelMasher

you said you have 4 shaders with 4 512'x a piece? so this whole object could be made up of 1024x1024 pixels worth of texture space even if it is broken up into smaller maps.

A high poly would be good for multiple reasons, you would get nice bevels on most of the edges that would catch light niceley, it will give you a super nice AO map to overlay on the diffuse to punch out the forms and It will show you have a competent grasp of highpoly modeling which is prtty much expected these days.

yes, you can make it look great with hand painted normals but if I was looking to hire somone and I got 5-10 of these come in at once from multiple applicants, I would be looking for the best. remember there are probably a bunch of other applicants doing the exact same test right now. so having a sweet highpoly could help you get a leg up.

I dont think you would loose much normal info, 512 is still pretty decent size, especially since you have 4 of them, if i understand correctly. plus you can alwyas texture at double res then downsize too.

Seaseme

Ok, thanks for the response PixelMasher.

*G3L - thanks for the tip. You guys are all right. High poly incoming!

EarthQuake

Why would you have black in a normal map?

Seaseme

EarthQuake wrote: »

Why would you have black in a normal map?

haha. Being tired does crazy things to a person . I fixed it.