Colt Dragoon
triangle
Hey guys, been lurking for a while and I figured it was about time I posted something and try to get my art skills up to a new level.
This is a Colt Dragoon I've been working on, right now its sitting at 3559 tris. I was aiming for 3500, so its not too far off but I still want to optimize it a great deal.
Here is the high and low with freshly baked normal map (low displayed with the new 3point shader).
Wires
There are still some details I need to bake in and small errors to fix in PS (plus AO as well), but I believe I'm ready to move on to texturing.
This is a Colt Dragoon I've been working on, right now its sitting at 3559 tris. I was aiming for 3500, so its not too far off but I still want to optimize it a great deal.
Here is the high and low with freshly baked normal map (low displayed with the new 3point shader).
Wires
There are still some details I need to bake in and small errors to fix in PS (plus AO as well), but I believe I'm ready to move on to texturing.
Replies
@kaburan: Good call, heres my main ref
In the meantime here is the lowpoly AO, baked in max using scanline and light tracer
The handle is giving me some trouble though, I'm trying to get a worn look but still have it somewhat glossy and thats proving to be difficult. Also I've never done any sort of "engraving on metal" stuff so if anybody has any tips on that I would appreciate it! Of course any and all crits are welcome, those are just some specific areas I'm having trouble with.
Could you show your maps too?
@ dansher: Those are the wires for the low poly
@ djm6007: Thanks! I'm still playing around with the brass parts, not very happy with them at the moment. Will definitely see how they look with a bit more shine.
If you're interested in accuracy, the Dragoon had two different engravings on the cylinder during its run. The first one used only for a few years, is a battle scene depicting US soldiers fighting against indians. It was replaced with a scene of a stagecoach robbery that was more common since it was in production much longer. Your reference pic is an early Dragoon, with the soldiers/indians cylinder roll. Here are links to the two engravings if you are interested (they're a little hard to read on brass, but you can probably play with the levels to pull the detail out in PS):
http://fullsize.antiquegunroom.net/0550-05.jpg (indians)
http://fullsize.antiquegunroom.net/0550-03.jpg (stagecoach)
The 1860 Army replaced the Dragoon as Colt's primary .44 caliber firearm - it's not identical, but still fairly similar. If you want to see an one from any particular angles where it's hard to find references, like with hammer back or loading lever down, let me know and I'd be glad to take some for you.
@ dansher: yes, here is the highpoly with no turbosmooth
3670 Tris
2048 Diffuse, Normal, and specular
looks really nice, you should make that engraving gold so it pops out
Just a couple things:
Your spec could benefit from a little more variation/contrast I would say. Nothing too crazy though. Also some type of reflection (cubemap/realtime) on the metal would help it alot.
Also a 2048 texture I have to say, is pretty redonkulous. A 512 is more likely for a first person gun now a days. I'm not sure if they used 512s or 1024 on the guns in Reach, I can't remember. But 2048 maps are super expensive, so I never saw them on anything. For just a 2048 diffuse map, it was in the 2-3MB range or more I believe, which is ALOT, at least on the 360.
Keep it up!
Any reason why there is no AO on the spec? Why would the shadows be shiny?
The spec is the most important map and right now looks quite lazy. The biggest issue is that it's pretty much a simple cloud filter, and doesn't push the metal look at all. Here's a couple refs of the Colt SAA that may help you get a really nice look:
http://www.wisnersinc.com/additional_info/Colt%20SAA-S1.jpg
http://www.militarytrader.com/upload/images/Colt%20SAA%20Revolver.jpg
Notice how smooth it is, even though it's worn down a bit. Clouds on the spec tend to create a rough stone look that don't help the metal look. You can also notice that there are some smudgies and other details that only show up in the light, which is important to break up the surfaces. One thing in particular that these old guns have too are some rainbow lookin colors (you can really see it on the hammer of that second photo) that seems to be particular to that older metal. It's a cool effect and you could just add that kind of thing to a couple areas on the spec to give it some kind of color that isn't blue.
I hope that helps. It looks like you have a pretty solid bake and a good start to the diffuse, but the spec is really letting this asset down. Do continue though and really work on those materials!
A 2048 is certainly appropriate for something that is taking up a quarter of the screen all the time. Don't forget that these textures will be compressed and some of the maps (normal, spec and gloss in particular) can be sized down to save ram when needed. This isn't 2002 anymore and a 512 is far too small for something that takes up so much screen space.
@ MattLichy: Thanks, I will play around with the spec and see if I can't get some contrast in there.
@ Racer445: I actually completely forgot about the edge wear and AO on the spec, I will go back and fix that up. As for the spec, are you talking about the flats I posted earlier? The spec was pretty bad on that one and I changed it up quite a bit. I probably should have posted the current flats along with the last pics (which I will post now). I do have a cubemap on it, but I couldn't get it not to make the wood and brass super reflective and ugly so I have it set really low, you can see it slightly on the spheres next to the hammer as well as the brass on top of the handle. I tried to find a place to put a cubemap mask (or something) in the 3point shader, but I'm not even sure if that is a real thing.
Here are the flats as they are in the last pic, definitely let me know if you see anything thats killin' the texture.
It's looking good but way too much reliance on your normal map still. Your diffuse and spec map should still be doing most of the work.
Shitty paint over, just a upped contrast and addition of grease from the hands and where it would oxidize a bit with scratches in the grease and rust.
You asked "Why would the shadows be shiny?" well if an area is lit then there's not going to be any ambient occlusion there, just direct light. The spec map controls how much how much of that light is reflected.
With that said, if you are using an AO map to achieve a dirt effect in your diffuse, then AO in your spec makes sense to simulate that surface.
While that's technically correct, there's a lot more to how light works in the real world than in games, since our engines aren't that advanced yet. If they were, we'd be using all flat texture maps with no AO in any of them. But in games we still need to do hacks to make things look like they do in the real world, even if it's not correct.
Simply put, if you have AO in the diffuse but not in the spec, the shadows will catch light and it will look awful.
In addition, the link you posted requires a system that dynamically removes AO which was baked into a separate texture, which is something that we often can't afford due to memory constraints.
@ vcool: Agreed, I went ahead and made a cavity map from the normal, darkened it up quite a bit, and then set it to blend so the white areas wouldnt show on the diffuse. I think its showing up a little better now.
@ Thegodzero: Thanks for the paintover, I really appreciate it!
I've also added some rainbowy smudges like racer suggested, but I think it might be too subtle, let me know if I should kick it up a notch.
this is pretty good advice to follow.
I agree! Squeeze dem levels for a quick fix!