Hello Everyone I wanted to go ahead and create one thread because I am going to be making quite a bit of assets and I just wanted to keep em in one place for now. Please give me your C&C harsh or not I don't care I want to get everything correct lol.
To start it off I am working on a Kabar Knife. I love the style of the Kabar Fighting knives so I decided to go ahead and make one. Here is the High Poly. I am still going to take it into mudbox and stamp the name in the blade and do the rubber grip. But for now I kind of like it the way it is. I might do floating GEO for the name in max though I havn't decided yet.
Replies
About the text, I would do that in Photoshop later on. Just have a regular text layer, and run a Normal Map filter on that. That's the best way to go with something like that in my opinion.
@Bigjohn - Yea I was debating on what to do. I was going to just go ahead and try some text in max. If it doesn't work I am going to just do it in photoshop.
Anytime I do it to inset I use create poly in maya. its easier to optimize for me that way, which I've found important because even short words = an ass ton of polys to manage once add control edges and start beveling.
As for text in photoshop, yeah for speed and ease its unbeatable, but its not as cool as insetting it on the hp
I think the inset is fine, it'll make stripping a copy of the high for the low easier, if that is indeed your work flow XD, though I do think the edge might be a too tight for good baking.
Anyways here is a low poly shot. I think I am done. Not unless anyone wants to do any paintovers for the sake of correct topology lol. It is sitting at 348 polys right now. C&C welcome please.
*UPDATE* I just read BigJohns post and he already mentioned it.
But keep in mind that you have to split the uv shells in order to not get black edges at the smoothgroup borders.
Read this for more.
http://wiki.polycount.com/Normal%20Map#Smoothing_Groups_.26_Hard_Edges
Haha, exactly
Still tweaking things.
The same thing should happen on this knife, try to add some logic to your grunge and it will sell a lot better.
right now the metal looks very stony, probably due to all the noise you have on there, and the many normaled in bumps. metal is best defined as a smooth surface. weapons especially don't get dented and rough, as they are meant to be very strong and last a long time. instead, the coating wears off and you can add really, really cool unique specular detail to mimic that.
shiny things like blades work far better with a darker diffuse and bright(ish) spec. keep your materials smooth and really work that specular map! get some color in there! color and unique detail on the specular are both essential to sell materials.
it looks like you're making the plastic handle for it. currently you have a lot of odd mid size splotches on the specular and it's making it look rather low resolution. you can try mixing in some noise in there (mask it off in areas for instant wear) to get some fine detail, as well as some dirt caked on the indents. colorized duplicate AO works well for this.
i'm probably going to sound mean here, but it must be said. tape is a lazy way to add detail when your textures are too boring and undefined on their own. it's a cliche as much as tally marks and silly blue writing, and should be avoided whenever possible. when you have good looking materials, you don't need any of those cliches!