Hard Surface Stuff

scrawld

Hey everyone, I wanted post some stuff that I've been working on to see if I can get some feedback. I've been having problems with hard surface modelling and so started this for practice.

Here is what I have so far, followed by the reference used:



(from www.armchairgunshow.com)

Unfortunately, all the reff I've got for this gun are side on, so I've been using reff from similar guns for parts I can't make out. The parts I'm not so sure about are the front section, below the barrel and the section around the hammer.
I'm no gun expert, so if anyone has any advice it is greatly appreciated.

Thanks for taking a look.

EDIT: With them right next to each other I've just noticed some pretty obvious proportion/scale Issues. Lesson learned: Use image planes.

I should also mention I've just jumped ship from maya to max during the past few weeks, so if I ask any stupid questions or i'm going things about the long way, that'd be why!

NoltaN

Hey Scrawld,

I think its looking pretty good so far but like you've mentioned there are some proportion issues.

A. Should be wider when compared to ref.
B. Looks like these should be maybe twice the size.
C. Ignore this. Fixing A. fixes this.
D. The curve on the back of the handle is too steep.
E. This edge looks to sharp to me.
F. The trigger guard and trigger need to be a little larger. In relation to the handle it really looks off.
G. The reference looks more rounded off.
H. This screw is in the wrong place on the handle. Also its shape could be more noticeable.
I. This should be a little larger and there is more of a curve to the bottom of it. Are you planning to add the ring part at the bottom?


All in all its looking good so far just keep cranking away at it. Are you planning to make a game ready mesh as well? also are you going to be doing the engravings?

scrawld

Hey NoltaN, that was fast, and awesome crit to. Adding to this I've just put the reff into 3ds max and it appears I've made the handle huge! I shall correct that and the above at once.

I plan on making a low poly and baking the normals and the rest of it. I want to get it as close to a practical game asset as possible. I'm approaching it as a weapon you would see in first person (i.e very detailed). But seeing as its going to be a portfolio piece I want it to look good from all angles, not just what you'd see if used in game.

As for the engravings, yea, I do plan on doing them. Or at least giving it my best shot. May be not quite as complex as what is shown, but close enough that it doesn't look fake.

I'm thinking I'd make a set of alphas in Photoshop and then use a filter to convert them to normal maps and overlay them. If that doesn't work I should be able to take the alphas into zbrush and project the detail onto the actual model. But I don't think my computer can take all that so we'll see.

ty again.

scrawld

Here is a quick update with some pretty renders. This will probably it until I pick it up tomorrow. Cheers!

Kitteh

The proportions still look very off compared to your reference. You should always start your model by tracing over an orthographic reference photo.

scrawld

Here is an updated. I've pretty much gone back and remodelled the base to get it back in proportion. I still feel the grip is still out, but its correct to the reference. Any thoughts?

Thanks

Grimm_Wrecking

Those would be my suggestions, looking cool so far

scrawld

Hi Grimm thanks for the suggestions! I had left the things you labelled out because I wasn't sure what they were either, lol. I was planning on putting them in once I knew. Oh well, they're in now. Cheers!

Here is an update of the other side. I'm not sure about the shapes behind the barrel (no clue what they are or what they're called) or for the gap that the hammer fits in so I hazarded a guess. How much was I out? :poly122:

Racer445

Many of the edges look rather hard. Very hard edges usually don't bake down well to your normals, so you may want to soften them up.

Alberto Rdrgz

proportions are off man... the gun looks elongated.

Kitteh

seconding racer. Your normal map's hardly going to do anything with edges that hard. And your proportions are still off. Why don't you just trace over a reference image when you model?

scrawld

Hey guys, thanks for the crits.

@ Racer445, I was afraid of that. I've gone around and softened them up. I built a small section of the low poly and did a test bake and it seems OK now. Cheers for the tip :thumbup:

@ Alberto and Kitteh, I've gone back and check the proportions. Your right they we're
off. I don't know about elongated, but the I needed to bring the grip over a bit. I've also thinned it out to.




Cheers

scrawld

I've decided to move on and start building the low poly. I did a test bake and came up against a problem.

I've had it before and don't know how to over come it. Is it just a case for more polys, or is there another way around it?

I've tried separating the indents into a different smoothing group, but that didn't help. Same problem happened when baked in xnormal too. Anyone who can shed some light on the subject would be most helpful!

Cap Hotkill

Try making the cylinder flat, without the indents, and bake it. the normals can give all the details for that.

felipefrango

Out of curiosty, you're baking these in Max?

scrawld

@Cap Hotkill - thanks for the tip, I'll give it a try.

@felipefrango - yes.

bbob

First of all, great progess here!

As for max's render to texture, its a bit shit compared to other packages, I personally use xNormal for baking. For a more indepth explanation of why; check out this thread.

Rang3r1

You were right on putting the indents on another smoothing group, but then you need to separate the UV islands.

Also, try putting an edit normals modifer on the low with the normal map applied, that can help too.

drummer1075

nice magnum

scrawld

Thanks for the comments guys, sorry its taken to get back to you. Its been a busy week. After a bit of tweaking, I finally got a decent bake - this time in Maya.

bbob - I think this was it! thanks. I did try baking them in xnormal to, but got the same problem. Looks like Maya came out top, at least in this instance.

Rang3r1 - I did use separate UV islands when using another smoothing group, but I got some nasty seams. I didn't try using the edit normals modifier though, perhaps I'll give a whirl if the problem persists.

drummer1075 - thanks

SHEPEIRO

the problem you have is a single smoothing group across a greater than 90 degree angle, split the smoothing groups or chamfer the edge here (chamfers best IMO)

Harry

Racer445 wrote: »

Many of the edges look rather hard. Very hard edges usually don't bake down well to your normals, so you may want to soften them up.

OMG BUT UR RONG

but yeah, be very careful of proportions, the small trigger guard made the actual gun itself look massive. Trigger guards are important because theyre the most obvious scale reference (being invariably made to fit a finger, wheras grips dont necessarilly have to support a whole hand)

EarthQuake

SHEPEIRO wrote: »

the problem you have is a single smoothing group across a greater than 90 degree angle, split the smoothing groups or chamfer the edge here (chamfers best IMO)

With max's broken tangent basis splitting hard edges is probably the more reliable solution.

scrawld

Hello, thanks for the comments. Again, sorry It has taken a while to get back to you.

Shepeiro, thanks for the feedback. I had used the smooth modifier with auto-smooth set to 60, so a single smoothing group shouldn't have been the issue. Perhaps then chamfering is the answer - I'll give it a go, although I'd come to understand that chamfering to many edges makes laying out the UVs a bitch?

Harry, That never occurred to me. It seemed pretty obvious once you mentioned it. Thanks for the heads up. :poly136:

EarthQuake, I'm not sure what that is, heh. At a guess, are you referencing to errors created when splitting the UVs along a smoothed chamfered edge?

Here is the lowpoly as it is at the moment. I'd thought I better post it before I get to far ahead and start laying out the UVs. Any comments are welcome.

Thank you everyone.

ps. Is there any way to highlight n-gons in 3dsmax?

bbob

Using the search function:

http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=65985

Rhinokey

the teeny screw on the handle seems to have more segments than the larger objects such as barrel and cylinder.. at least around. seems a lot of this stuff could be deleted off the model work with just the nmap,, like the screw, circular indent on the handle. the tiny metal band on the front an back of the handle,

also seems theres some wasted polys unless they are specifically for mirroring uvs,, where you symmetry the model it looks like. also the lil screw in front of the trigger guard looks poly heavy

but over all nice looking gun

scrawld

Thanks for the crits Rhinokey, I've gone back over the low poly and removed some unnecessary bevels and waisted polys. I've also removed some of the loops left from mirroring the geometry, but I have left some in just to make it easier to UV. I have simplified the indent on the handle to.

Here is the latest bake. I might add a few more loops into the grip to make it look smoother; at the moment its quite jagged.


The current tri count stands at 3058, with a 2048 res normal map.


Cheers!

Snader

Could use a bit more optimization, but good going so far.

-the insets in the cylinder are rather icky looking atm, needs some more sides.
-front screw can just be a cylinder
-reduce one screw a bit so you can implement the other screw as well?
-does the middle loop on the cylinder do anything?

Most stuff is just floaters so shouldn't be too much effort.

scrawld

Hi all,

Thanks for your comments Snader, those were good calls. Much apprieated.

sorry this is a bit of a thread resurrection. I've been slowly working on this on and off, but have't posted in quite a while. I've moved on some what since my last post. Here it is now.





I'm still working on the wooden grip and screws, but I think its getting there. I'm having problem with the specular though. I finding it hard to look like metal and not white ceramic/plastic. Any comments and crits are much appreciated.

Here are the maps too:


Thanks for taking a look!

Lonewolf

the bake in the lastrender looks good but it might not be good ingame or realtime shader

u should select the drum and assign smooth at 45 then select the indents alone and assign again, (i think the 45 will be enough)

then bake