"I wanted the gun to tell a story."
polycounter lvl 11
This is my 5th gun i've created and this by far is the best. I sorta took my own crazy twist from racers tutorial and started texturing the gun to tell a story of a hard fight. The texture maps were painted at 4096 and the normals at 2048.
Its funny because after my first painting attempt:
I was going to ditch the project and call it quits for a bit. And then i decided to come back to it and pay attention to every scratch like it was the first.
And heres the new one, hand painted 100%
Heres the textures, i think this is the first time i nailed the spec map
And as you can see uv mapping isnt my strong side :poly141:
Its funny because after my first painting attempt:
I was going to ditch the project and call it quits for a bit. And then i decided to come back to it and pay attention to every scratch like it was the first.
And heres the new one, hand painted 100%
Heres the textures, i think this is the first time i nailed the spec map
And as you can see uv mapping isnt my strong side :poly141:
Replies
I am not sure what is happening with those normals, perhaps it's world-space or something, I do not know.
It doesn't look like there are normals on some parts of the weapon, IE the butt, the edges are very sharp. Always make good normals before moving on.
The texture is ok, I would say that it looks a little clowdy, subtulty is the key, I think the damage is overdone a bit but as it's your 5th texture it's fine.
Get your 6th done, the next will always surpass the last.
keep up improving
The butt i really didnt put so much attention to as this was planned to be an FPS weapon practice.
At the damage being overdone, i think the side without the fire selector is better than the side with it, but i was trying to portray a hard fight of tripping with the gun, dropping it, shooting people close up (blood on the silencer) etc etc etc
showing a single asset such as a weapon has one pure goal, showing a quality asset. telling a story works more for entire environments and some character work. someone looking at your portfolio is going to be more concerned with "can this guy make a nice looking asset that is easily readable". if you want to make an impact, then make the shit kick ass in every way, and don't do an AK, or an M4, or a weapon you would see in every other portfolio.
so ultimately to finish this weapon, you really need clean up your UVs. I'm confused on your comment of "I couldnt imagine doing it myself". Make the bake tangent space. Make a nice clean texture that can be read easily.
I didnt mess up the entire thing because i was unable to make it look clean, i messed it up because it makes it more interesting. In school people always asked me why i like to draw severed limbs with the bones sticking out of the flesh, and ask me if i have any problems. Of course i dont, i just think it looks more interesting when viewed as a whole.
I find tangent space normals more problematic and harder to work with compared to object space. And although i have 3+ years modeling experience, im new to texturing and uv mapping.
the marks on the ammo clip are cool, that i can understand to the point you are trying to make. everything else though is just simply too much man. you have to be able to understand that.
you have to be able to step back and detach yourself from the work you just did as your own and view it as everyone else would. how would joe shmoe see this in a game, and what would he think about it?
More importantly, if this was intended for scratching practice, then you just need more practice in creating better use of brushes, variations of stroke weights for scratching, and general logical placement.
Id have to agree with the texture needing to be toned down a bit, from the distance you cant even make out the scratches as scratches.
I forgot to re-save the diffuse right before i started taking pictures, the fore grip wasnt supposed to be clean:
Here was the bake at 4k triangles:
"want something done, DO IT YOURSELF" ¨(gary oldman in the 5th element)
Cry me a river. Their are some programs that can do it for you, but for the best, most practical, and logical results, you end up do it yourself, not giving up and letting allowing the results to be shmuck.
The textures are noisy. Sure, its worn and torn, but its over the top. Did he just take it and drag it against concrete? It doesnt make sence. Why did he put kill makes on the ammo caseing? Usualy in the heart of battle, thats a throu away part of the gun when you pull out to put another in to reload. How come the metal is so torn up but the rest of the gun seems fine?
The only character I see in this gun is the little marks on the ammo caseing. Everything else is typical gun, which doenst make it stand out. What did the operator of that gun do to make it unique and his alone?
Sadly you cant change topic titles on polycount, since the gun doesnt tell that much of a story id rather change it because it can be misleading.
This is basic and fundamental knowledge, without efficent unwrapping you will never be hired, focus on that first and u can strike it off ur list
Add some accessories, like rope, bandages, key chains, temporary fixes, mirrors e.t.c if you want more character
lol maybe the owner can write a diary of his main events on the grip.
"June 2006. Wife cheated on me with the gasman"
"June 2008. Wife cheated on me with my dad and brother in Spain"
"June 2009. Killed them and added the deaths to this gun"
like sam said above, work on the uv'ing. Even with a 2048 texture, it looks like you're using only about 50% of available space.
for the texture itself, you need to pay closer attention to how guns wear and tear in real life. I know I'm not perfect either and am always looking to perfect my process, but you gotta look at which areas would receive damage and why
First, the uvs are poor, and there is no excuse to not pack them yourself. It takes all of an hour for even the most complicated thing. Secondly, the texture size is laughable. I know for sure that you're not displaying it with a 1024, which should be the absolute max for a weapon. Period. maybe a 2048x1024 (the largest res gun in Crysis), but nothing more than that. This also ties in with what's been said, that you can use lower resolution textures if you pack the uvs correctly. Also, normals should be in tangent space for 90% of assets, if you research the difference, you'll find that you can't do a lot of thing with world space normals without getting weirdness in the lighting. I have heard of people swearing by world space normals, but I can't think of any game that uses them. I would also like to see a wireframe, 4k seems a bit excessive for this weapon. Lastly, I would just work on the textures; you don't have to tell a story, but there should be some logic behind it. Who is using this weapon? Why are they using this weapon (because it looks like it's beat to shit, not the best weapon for any kind of killer. You should really research not only real in use military weapons (i.e. ones that have years of battle) and even Czech homemade weapons. I've never seen anything in the military this beat up, or even out of all the crappy homemade guns. You have to think about it from an "operator" standpoint; your gun is the only thing keeping you alive, you're going to take care of it to some degree.
Although these photos are horribly out of focus, you can see the amount of damage a gun would normally take Scratched AK Guns aren't usually painted with spray paint, it takes ALOT to really scratch them like you have.
Food for thought.
on the subject of the UVs, hand packing them as tight as possible is a really fundamental skill that is required of any artist in this industry, its tedious and boring but you really need to be able to do it. right now this piece feels a bit rushed, like you wanted to get it over and done with. gotta make love to the art baby, take it out for dinner, massage it a whole lot, nibble its ear etc
I think some strategic heavy wear in some areas that would rub would sell the fact the gun has been used in an epic series of battles more than an overall level of grunge and deterioration. areas not so worn would give the texture contrast and balance it from the current look i think were its just really noisy.
areas that would rub or catch should be almost a smooth transition from painted metal to the raw metal underneath. scratches are only one way metal objects get deteriorated.
finally, in terms of texture size, 4096 is overkill. most console games these days still rareley use 2048's. having well packed uvs would probably have a 1024 look as good as that 4096 as it stands, just because of all the wasted texel space. someone once said to me "for every pixel of wasted texture space an angel loses its wings" haha
with some revisions this could turn out pimp, just apply what people here are saying and refine that spec to differentiate the various surface qualities and you should be laughin'
The comments about your UVs are right, you need to fix that before you put this in your portfolio or just never show anyone those UVs and don't make that mistake again. You need to manually unwrap your shells and then manually pack them.
You probably shouldn't put something you made following a tutorial in your portfolio as there are only two impressions you leave and neither are good.
1) Potential employers recognize your AK as being like all the other AKs people who followed the same tutorial made and won't take you seriously.
2) They don't realize its from a tutorial and think this is something you made using your own collection of skills and experience and then logically assume you can handle other tasks of similar difficulty. This would be disingenuous on your part.
Build something totally different and try to apply what you learned from the tutorial and then put that in your portfolio.
Magazines are the first thing that get dropped or lost in combat (other than spent brass, of course), so it made me wonder why it was made out of such an unusual material, and why he didn't keep his kill counts on, say, the wooden handgrip in front of the magazine well.
EDIT: Oh, you've been working on RAge you sly dog :P Well that may be the case there.
Right now there's a lot more important issues that need to be addressed.
theres a reason racer made it alot more subtle.
the gun must've been involved in some sort of battle vs sandpaper machine.
Racer445 the AK-47 god has just arrived.
In all seriousness, watch racer445's ak47 full tutorial set or maybe pester him with some questions?
I will not be held countable for any broken noses.
: )
Not being a 3D Artist I can hardly give any crits but I'd say keep at it...
Just think, in this case, of the word 'Minimal'
OS maps are definitely used in games, I don't think it's as low as 10% though.
http://wiki.polycount.com/Normal%20Map#Tangent-Space_vs._Object-Space
I know your supposed to go easy on the scratches, i purposely overdid it to bring out the scratches to make it look more torn up.
Snader, modern AK's have rubber foregrip handles sometimes.
Kewop, loloololol
Since everyone seems to think it was an accident to make it look like a gun from fallout or extremely overused, ill tone down the scratches tons and take of the blood and post a picture.
You say you want the weapon to tell a story? Look at Bioshock's weapons. The crossbow and grenade launcher always come to mind when thinking of how they were made - e.g. scavenged and cobbled together from things the denizens of Rapture found lying around; the fact that the frag grenades are made from discarded cans of tinned goods, that a major part of the crossbow firing mechanism is a ruler, and the drawstring is made of piano wire. This kind of thing adds story and character to a weapon - not inexplicable, over-the-top scratches.
Personally, I think it's great that you're trying to express some character and story in a weapon, something that's all too-often overlooked, but the story part of the idea seems more like an afterthought as opposed to a real design decision. Put some more definitive thought into the story you want to tell, and try to accept legitimate critiques more readily!
Here it is cleaned up:
It's just missing something... I'm not a 3D artist so I can't exactly tell you what but it needs just something. Feels alittle plain now.
Keep it up, mate.
basically the majoritry of comments here are on how it could look better, as right now its just not visually pleasing enough to be like wow! and with a bit of work and revisions it could look tight man.
Edit: just saw the update, lookin a lot better
Did you remove the red specular from the nose?
Id move those tally marks somewhere on the gun perhaps
The scrathes do look alot better. Dont know if im the only one, but maybe up the scratches just abit ? :P
Frell, if you want some pictures of a well-used AK, I can take some snapshots of my Saiga. It's been dropped and thrown and dragged through the woods and well-loved - should give you a good reference.
I'm going to offer some advice from my own hard-earned experience, and it's kind of on a different track than most of the rest of the crits here. This may come off as pretty blunt, but I promise you, if you want to get into the industry once you've tackled the skill aspects, this is critical.
Stop. Freakin'. Arguing.
Shut up.
Listen.
This is the voice of hard-earned experience speaking. PLEASE remember those three things.
When somebody takes the time to examine your work (which you've posted for critique), they're taking their time to offer you advice that they feel will improve your work, or they're trying to guide you away from things they know DON'T work. The WORST thing you can do is start jabbering away and arguing about why you did it that way or why you think it was a good idea or anything like that.
Another artist on the internet is going to see that and think "why did I waste my time? I want those five minutes of my life back", and that's probably the last time they're going to bother trying to help you. A potential employer is going to listen to about three seconds of that and immediately think, "this kid doesn't take direction. He has an attitude, he has his idea in his head, and that's what he's gonna do." If that person was thinking about hiring you before, they absolutely won't now. If, somehow, they ALREADY hired you - and it can occasionally happen - you will be packing up your desk very, very soon.
Until you have so much experience and seniority that you're the one making top-level art decisions as the Art Director, this business is about taking directions from somebody more experienced than you, nodding, smiling, and doing what they say. That's it. People who hem and haw and argue and go off on a tangent with their own ideas are a waste of time and money to an Art Director. They have an easy, one-size-fits-all fix for wastes of time and money, and it's called having HR shitcan you. This is not a union industry, and it is not an employee's labor market right now.
In this business you HAVE to learn to shut your mouth, listen, and try what a more experienced artist suggests. Even if you think it's dumb, or it won't work, or it won't look the way you wanted it to. Just get in the habit of doing it anyway. I guarantee that you will learn very quickly, your skills will improve, and if you do what's suggested, you may end up with what you were hoping for anyway.
How do I know these things? I've been there as a little noob artist. I have enough experience under my belt now to KNOW I don't know things, ask others for answers, keep my mouth shut (most of the time), listen to what they say, and try their suggestions. Here's the secret... doing that is how I got better. I have a long ways to go, but now I know what I need to learn and I'm much better at learning it. Most importantly, though, the people I ask are much more happy to teach me.
Please, for the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, take my advice and don't step in the same potholes.
The gun is slowly getting alot more boring
I know it may seem boring to you, but it's looking much better. Try looking at some references of the polymer pistol grips and foregrips used on Krinkovs, and try adding a depiction of that material to your textures. Just do the pistol grip first, focus on the diffuse and the spec color / power. The polymer they use has a very interesting look. Trying to match it will knock your textures up a notch and be a very good skill-builder.
Def work on your UV's, that's a must. If this is done to get into the industry, they will think 'oh god, I got to teach this guy how to pack his shit properly'
I also do not see any reason to have this all up at such a high res. I would cut all of your maps in half. 2048 is WAY more than anyone would use for a simple model like that. Most FPS weapons I have been seeing are 2048x1024 or 2048x2048 max and those were a hell of a lot more detailed.
Keep it up,
Gera
Tried to get that grip type look on the fore grip
Also to the people who are bringing up the point that i would not egt a job with my uvs etc, i know. I would like to say again that this is only my 5th gun and im still learning.
The best thing you can do is keep at it, and when something proves difficult, give it your best whack, and post up here instead of just changing that wood to rubber or whatever.
Polycount is not about measuring dick, its about helping each-other get better.
So please, for your own sake, can that ego and stop making excuses.