Workshop #3 - SyncViewS
polycounter lvl 13
Hi guys, here's my entry, a Straight Pipe Wrench by Ridgid. It's 24" (60 cm) long and weighs around 6 lb. (2.7 Kg) being it in aluminum. Right now I'm still blocking it out, and as the model develops, I may add details like a mop wrapped around the hand grip, or some bludgeoning item grasped by the claw, to make it more appealing for a FPS melee weapon (maybe Unreal Plumber III 
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This is the base for the highpoly?
As the main model is almost completed, I'm starting to collect ideas about what to stick inside the claw. The idea I like best is to wrap a chain made by big rings around the head a couple of times with extremities hold by the claw. Another one is to have a big bolt with a nut. Another one, since this is a wrench for pipes, to have a short piece of tube cut like the extremity of a syringe needle. (Am I too gory?
By the way, this workshop rocks! The amount of workload is just perfect. I love the idea to do something fairly simple, but appealing, from concept to game ready prop. In this way every aspect can be mastered, done and redone until it turns out well. I can do quite decent high poly models, but every further step is a sort of voodoo, not mentioning the huge question mark about texturing. I'll need your guide and advice. Thanks.
make some pipes, attach something to it. You know..
A melee weapon could be a rope with rocks.
Loose your imagination. Think of rage, and try to see what kind of weapons you could make with stuff you could find in a dump or a junkyard
Before baking it, or during that step, I'll try a passage in a sculpting app to beat the wrench a bit and add major scratches and so on. I'd like to learn how to add details in the finished normal map too, so I'll save some details for that.
The model is completed but lacks writings and manufacturer's logo inside the handle and the claw. I'd like to put something nice, with floating geometry, using MoP's nondestructive technique, so I'm open to ideas.
The line along the whole body isn't a smoothing mistake but the reproduction of imperfection of aluminum casting and draft angle to extract the piece from the die. Comments and critiques are welcome. Thanks.
Here is the model in OBJ format.
Thanks for posting the OBJ aswell. That's what this workshops are all about
-N
@ IronHawk: The product I linked is a different wrench size, a 14", while I'm working on a 24", so proportion could look slightly different. Anyway I guess I'll beef it up a little.
@ bitmap: You discovered and announced IllusionCatalyst on this board more than one year ago, you know, I like to share. Give what you know and get what you don't, that's learning from each other.
@ Mechadus: Is it so hard to get a good normal map? I don't really know, let's see what happens when I feed xNormal with the wrench (disasters expected).
I was thinking about using a non-square texture like 1024x512. So I got some questions:
1- Assuming the texture is 2:1 x:y ratio, I guess I have to pack everything in the lower half of UV space, from [0, 0] to [1, 0.5]. Is it right?
2- When I apply the texture (in 3ds Max) simply set V tile to 2 and V offset to 0.25. Is the same in game engines? Marmoset too? (I still have to try it)
3- Can I use even more stretched formats, like 1024x256? Can it cause problems? Is it uncommon at all?
And not related to texture dimensions:
4- Is it better working at target resolution from the beginning, or could be better working on a multiple, then scale as last pass in Ps?
Thanks
I guess I'll try filling the whole UV space by scaling and rotating islands when I decide what to fit into the claw, since I got 270 tris left and can spare some more for almost hidden parts.
Here is the low poly model, already tested for normal maps creation in xNormal. It produced nice and clean results. I'll post new renders as soon as UVs are fixed. There are some apparently wasted tris on the symmetry plane, but I voluntarily kept them to help the unwrapping.
Here is the low poly model in OBJ format, still without unwrapped UVs.
Well, the thing is, you map it to the entire square(by scaling it 200% in one direction), and the square "Stretches" to fit your texture res, say 1024x512, there is no wasted space in doing this.
What I do for non-square textures is first fill half of the UV space and then stretch 200% (just like EQ said) and when rendering the UV template choose your size as 1024x512 and it should come out perfectly sized. Not sure if I missed something in the conversation and If I'm giving misinformation. Let me know if I am
Thanks Havok, it is a nice tip to allow having stretched UVs and don't mind them anymore, I'll put it into action if needed after adding last piece of geometry in the model.
Here it is. After trying some solutions, this is the one I like best. It is a piece of threaded pipe fastened to the wrench by two big bolts, since the wrench is for grabbing pipes and cannot hold something by itself. Pipe extremities are cut and shaped to add the maximum damage to the wrench weight. It is a concept to convey the message that it is a weapon, that's conceived to bring pain, by first sight. Textures should help a lot.
Right now it is under defined, just a concept. I should scrape together a bunch of tris from almost hidden parts in the jaw to make it look better (read fearsome).
I wish to know your opinion about current design. Let me know your ideas too. Thank you.
Just an idea but keep it up!
This makes me miss my welding days hardcore =[
*sniffle* I miss you arc welding, and you too oxyacetylene, and even you, MIG. T_T
About the heating... well, you're evil
Sync - Haha, wow, I didn't think you were gonna see it as a good idea. No problem I guess
Meanwhile here is the current UV layout, as I said it's 2:1, so I guess I'll go for a 1024x512, or 2048x1024 to make it look better as it would be my first finished game model. It is the best layout I could pack after unwrapping everything and normalizing clusters. I know there's quite a lot of unused space, but I feel like I've really done my best. Next time I hope would be better.
Out of curiosity do maps like 1448x724 exist in games? It is almost the same as 1024^2 pixels and has aspect 2:1. If it makes sense I'd go for it, please let me know.
The UV isn't bad at all. The only sort of blanks places are at the top left and middle right. Now you want to scale it vertically to fit the square well and when you export the map, just use the right size and run with it!!!
Almost but not quite!
When the engine loads a non-square texture, it stretches the UVS to fit the texture, the other way around would be quite wasteful memory wise
Just to clarify, you can do any power of 2 X any power of two, so:
64x1024
256x512
16x4096
1024x1024
2048x128
etc etc etc, these are all valid resolutions.
Your uv layout looks fine too, with such a simple shape its hard to get full UV usage out of it, i think the amount of wasted space you have there now is totally acceptable. Scale it up to fit the entire square and call it done!
Yea, I should have told him that. Thanks for clarifying...
@ Havok: I've been thinking of your idea of incandescent pipe extremities, and came up with some sort of black magic that could keep it heating, but I'd like to do it in a good way, trying to make sense, with runes symbols and so on. So I guess I'll do some concepts about it, and if it doesn't look good enough, discard it for this time. I hate when the word "magic" pops up just to justify the impossible.
Rune symbols could be pretty cool and I know what you mean about "magic" being used to explain impossible situations. Another idea (while being too late and too much with the restrictions at hand) could be some sort of attachment that when a trigger is pressed, two flames shoot out of small pipes to heat the ends of the larger pipe. Just experiment and see what keeps your boat floating
Get final unwrapped low poly model here.
I decided to sculpt subtle surface details as well as wearing on the model, so I must fix the high poly model to a make it more suitable for high level subdivision, which means removing n-gons, trying to have the maximum number of quads, keep their aspect as square as possible, and even in size. It is obviously impossible on a mechanical model, but allowed to a certain degree. Details to be sculpted on hard surfaces require to work at high subdivision levels only, so the quad distribution becomes a little less important.
Wanting a very bad worn wrench, I went through a lot of scratching. First I made the standard tool roughness and emphasized the dye opening line along the whole model, then sprayed scratches all over with different sizes with a custom alpha, a lot of very small signs, decreasing in number as they grew bigger, then took some of them and reworked by hand, since metal usually doesn't disappear because of a scratch, but it's simply shifted by side. Last passage has been to deform the surface slightly here and there to let it look like it was smashed, and brake normals regularity. Pipes end have been cut by a coarse saw, then kept into acid, which gave them the raw look.
Next passage was to export every single piece and bake its normals. Once they were all done, a single map was composed.
Next was the AO generation. Man it required hours... and reminded me of about eight years ago when rendering first GI scenes in Cinema4D on a Celeron 466 MHz.
Last for this update was the Cavity Map generation. Not so fast as Normals, but much faster than AO.
I'm quite satisfied of the outcome, considering this is the first time I reach this step in a complete model. I see the pipe could have had some more polys, but that's the mistake I made to think about it at the very last, having to deal with a bunch of tris. A little more concept and design on the initial phase could have helped a lot.
Next step is texturing and gives me shivers, as I've never done it, except for some casual decals on design models... Any advice is more than welcome!
Here are some renders and maps showing the results.
With a nice texture this can be a great portfolio piece!
Keep going!
Next step is a good Specular Map. Right now it is rendered with a standard uniform very low specular and metal seems a bit like concrete, but it should turn out well with a right map. Any advice and suggestion is really welcome. (Thanks Pedro
Here is the last update, rendered in Marmoset (awesome! thanks guys). Some minor updates on the Diffuse map, added Specular map. I hope you like it. Thanks for the opportunity to create a full asset in this workshop, I've been breaking many "first time" along the way. Thanks to everyone who stop by and left a message or an explanation.
sharp work
i need to finish mine!!!!
I LOOK LIKE A LAZY BUM!
Congrats!
The "back" rounded bit of the top, should probably have zero red paint left, as using it as a weapon would quickly remove it down to the bare metal, and probably have more intense denting as well.
Top notch work though.
@ stimpack: You're right, the lower part is a bit chopped by low polys, I don't like it very much too, but it's a choice I had to do when harvesting tris here and there to make the pipe and bolts. As you can see first low poly had it more rounded. I thought, as the model is a FPS weapon, it isn't likely to be seen very much in the lower part, so I took quite a lot of tris from it.
@ poopinmymouth: Great hints! I see what you're meaning, and have to adjust quite a lot, but I guess it worth. You're right, it shouldn't go toward orange, but more likely to magenta/bluish color, as it happens to paints "baked" by the sun. It seems Marmoset added a little bit of warm tones too. Should have a little less color variation too, as the painted metal do. The rust is a super-fake visual effect as an aluminum wrench would NEVER rust, anyway I liked it and think it would give more character to the piece. I see it should be more worn around the edges and less in planar protected parts, as where the sticker lays. Touching the sculpted model now, would mean redo all the maps and adjust the low poly accordingly, a big rework.
@ Calabi: Hold on man! It's really rewarding.
@ bitmap: You'll never look lazy, there's a cog waiting for you!
In the end, I'm not done with this cute wrench. Let's tweak it and see how it turns out. Thanks again!
To make it simple I took two steps back: I'm redoing completely the sculpted model adding tearing and wearing where needed and matching the new diffuse map. I've already re-optimized the low-poly model, adding some triangles in the lower part to make it smoother, taken from overlapped surfaces between pipe and wrench.
I'm currently finishing to re-scratch everything, then a new texture work waits. I want to really deserve that "Top notch work" from you, Ben!
I'll be away for a few days, but I'll finish and post the new work soon. Thanks again for your tips, they made me learn smarter techniques during the redoing process too.
Here is the latest update. I've redone almost everything (sculpt, low, uvs, bake, textures) except for hi poly model. Now it makes more sense, less fancy color variations, and I decided to go for a different feel: more weapon, see blood crusts, less aged tool, (can't) see rust.
To be completely honest I quite like best the first version, but maybe is something emotional, being my first.
Here is the latest unwrapped lo poly model. Enjoy.
Looking forward to undertaking next workshop! Thank you
-Adam
Are the textures photo resources?
I made a white text on black background in a square format image to create an alpha stencil. It had slightly blurred edges to avoid hard transition during sculpting.
Imported in ZBrush as alpha, converted to stencil, then placed in the right spot. At highest subdivision level, raised it with the layer brush with stroke set to freehand and low Z intensity.
Hidden everything except for the text area with a small frame all around, under Tool > Deformation gave about 10 times 100% Smooth, as it is light at high subdivision levels.
That's it. It is the first step to do, before any other surface work because smooth would destroy anything else in the text area.
Thank you for appreciation
EDIT: Forgot to mention textures are hand/procedurally painted except for a quite subtle rust texture used to render blood crusts. It's from CG Textures under category Metal > Bare > MetalBare0015.
To be honest I'm not fully satisfied by the outcome, but I learnt a lot by doing AND redoing the whole detailing+texturing process, which is the purpose of these workshops, so it's right to let it go and put the experience gained in the next piece. I hope these workshops will go on, as they're a great opportunity to get better, exchange knowledge and be a little pushed to finish things
These workshops are pretty great