Manhole Cover
Here's my latest prop made... a manhole cover! Exciting I know ![:\](https://polycount.com/plugins/emojiextender/emoji/twitter/confused.png ":\")
Anyways, looking for any crits and critiques before I move on to my next prop.
Maya Viewport Screengrab:
Reference Image:
Textures at 50% res:
Anyways, looking for any crits and critiques before I move on to my next prop.
Maya Viewport Screengrab:
Reference Image:
Textures at 50% res:
Replies
Keep progressing,
You could add these tiny pieces of dirt to make it look a little bit closer to the reference.
On the other hand, the tri-count scares me a little bit.
While I am generally not a purist who tries to remove as many tris as possible, I see no reason why this manhole couldn't be a decal.
Simple, normal mapped plane (or even a parlax map, depending on the engine you would like to use) with an alpha channel would do just fine.
And yeah a 1024x1024 for something like this would be a bit insane.
I wanted to make this an actual prop, or mesh because I have seen it done before (Unreal 3) and nowadays I don't think it is too much to ask to have it as a separate piece and not just a decal.
I did agree with the tri count being a bit too high though, so I took out some bevels and it now sits at 342 tris, almost half of what it was.
I also took the maps down to 512 x 512 to better suit an in-game model.
Here's the new render, as well as a wireframe, as requested:
even then, the holes are so tiny that even in real life they'd probably just look black.
Unless this was for some front-end type of environment, where the manhole was an important piece to that environment, there's no way you'd need that kind of geometry you've added. The lip you've made for the outter trim is not needed at all and can be achieved by a normal map. Same for the 2 tiny holes. They'd be so small on screen, in-game, that you'd never (ever, really) notice that there's geometry showing their depth. I was going to write a bit about watching your texture scale when dealing with environments but instead I thought it would be better to ask you why you think a 512x512 is a better suit for an in-game model of a sewer cover.
that way you could drop the texture 1/4th and still retain the crispness with some smart avoidance of mirrored dirt spots, since the dirt is small enough.
Alternatively if the center logo didn't matter, you cut the texture in half or quarter it and still keep the same pixel density.
8 tris. 9 tris if you map the logo uniquely.
4 tris. 5 tris if you map the logo uniquely.
You could redesign the logo so it symmetrical too but it almost works as is.
If the logo was important you could do a another floating opacity mapped tri for the logo. There is probably enough unused space in the texture to handle that.
There isn't much of a difference between pushing 9 tris vs 5, but the texture savings is pretty big so it might be a good idea.
YES
I would add some grunge across the whole thing. You can't really do that well if you've got the texture mirrored twice.
edit- you know what? i'm goign to suggest to just keep it at 512. i love the little rough metal detail that you've got in the normal map, and there's no reason why this couldn't be 512 if it was part of some cinematic or something. fuck it, why does everything have to be lower rez, all the time?
Because it would be a small element of a large scene and therefore it should be 256x256 maximum size, especially if there are a few of these.
ps.
tyl3r, I forgot to say, great work!
Thanks for all the inputs and I will post the new version when it's done!
Why lower res? Because our appetites for micro detail on manhole covers have progressed but the current generation of consoles hasn't. I think low end PC's now push more polys and textures than the 360...
Look -- personally i don't understand the mentality of making random props-- i find it quite boring. but if you're going to make a manhole cover, and you want to make it high detail, that could technically be appropriate for the right scene -- and this guy CLEARLY wanted to make a detail manhole cover. I have no idea WHY hahaha but it's not inappropriate in the right context, so my opinion issssss fuckinhaveaterbuddy.
if this is for a large environment that you're building -- which i see absolutely no evidence for--??? yes, I agree, 512 is way too large. doesn't seem like that's the point though.
anyways, very nice manhole cover. In a next gen sewer game this would be awesome, just needs a glow map.:thumbup:
also: if this is meant to be practice for game art (i would guess) then try to keep your maps at a perfect square (256x256, 512x512) or make a cone to sit on top of the manhole cover and use that to take up the rest of the texture space... although god knows what will happen on this forum if you make a cone:poly122:
It now sits at 118 tris, which is way less than it was at the beginning, and yes I know it could be lower, but I wanted some depth, therefore no alpha on a plane.
The texture is now 256x512, and that is as low I could get it before it looked like a total blurry mess that no sharpen filter could fix :P
I'm happy with the outcome and of all the comments/critiques! Think I'll call this done unless there is a heap load of things wrong with it still. (I might make another pattern to fill out the texture to 512x512 with 2 sewer covers, but we will see.)