I'm pretty sure you could push the detail in your high poly more, you want it to bake down smaller details into your low poly. At the moment the HP and LP look almost identical. For example the bolts on the lock should have some high frequency details that you can carry over to your low poly version. Nice block out so work with that!
However you should really get into the practice of getting rid of unnecessary geometry, if you have edges and whatnot that don't contribute to the shape at all then they are completely useless.
Heres just a quick example to show you what i mean.
I understand you're doing this for a normal map, however the low poly never needs any of the construction edges that the high needs for smoothing.
thanks for the response guys! I wasn't really sure what to do as far as detail goes in some parts of it, I have been making it up as I go for the most part. It definitely feels a bit blank though, and ill see if i can give it a more personalized feeling.
and i will be sure to clean up those extra bits. thanks for your help!
Its really hard edged right now. I'd suggest one of two things.
Either soften the binding's edge up.
or personally I think that with the way the book looks overall, make the binding metal and add some hinges at each hard seam on the back. cheap and easy detail Make em a lil beefy as well, and then you can beef up the spike strips on the back/break up up a little, would look cool, and hurt!
i took your advice grimm and added some hinges. this texture is still a WIP, mostly just seeing what colors i like.
I have noticed a problem, it seems the spikes are always super dark and pick up no specularity no matter how bright i make them on my spec map. not really sure what the deal is with that, and it makes everything look rather funky i think.
here is another shot, in unreal
sweet book! yeah the hinges are for sure really cool looking on that. Keep it up! might i suggest some screws in those hinges? like spiked screws/bolts?....
Looking great! The texture shaped up nicely, however i think next time you could still push the geometry optimisation, you've got a bunch of useless geometry in there.
Looking good. It's time for some finer details. Maybe some engraving or jewels? Something like this knife? Or this sword?
It looks like you forced the look of specular highlights on the spikes by painting it into the diffuse. That will work but I think the problem is in the high poly model. The spikes are four sided with no roundness or chamfer between planes - or those details are so small that I can't see them. If you had some more geometry along those edges then the projected normal map would have something to catch the light there.
yeah man! one nice looking book you got there. I would agree with dlx on the edges that would need to have a chamfer/bevel on them... a good 45 degree angle normally to really help highlights to bounce off those edges to make it nicer eye candy. This of course would be done on the high poly model that you are baking from.
Replies
However you should really get into the practice of getting rid of unnecessary geometry, if you have edges and whatnot that don't contribute to the shape at all then they are completely useless.
Heres just a quick example to show you what i mean.
I understand you're doing this for a normal map, however the low poly never needs any of the construction edges that the high needs for smoothing.
and i will be sure to clean up those extra bits. thanks for your help!
Either soften the binding's edge up.
or personally I think that with the way the book looks overall, make the binding metal and add some hinges at each hard seam on the back. cheap and easy detail
I have noticed a problem, it seems the spikes are always super dark and pick up no specularity no matter how bright i make them on my spec map. not really sure what the deal is with that, and it makes everything look rather funky i think.
here is another shot, in unreal
wireframe
but edge flow stiil needs some redirection
It looks like you forced the look of specular highlights on the spikes by painting it into the diffuse. That will work but I think the problem is in the high poly model. The spikes are four sided with no roundness or chamfer between planes - or those details are so small that I can't see them. If you had some more geometry along those edges then the projected normal map would have something to catch the light there.