Sci-Fi Shovel Prop [WIP]

tyl3r

Hey all, i'm looking for some critique on my latest prop for the portfolio.

It's a Sci-Fi type shovel based on a concept by Steve Howarth.

I'm basically looking for the crit on my texturing... the lighting is not final, but I think it shows off the specular okay for now.

The color is not also permanent... I was also thinking of making it Yellow like a lot of power tools, or even a torquise blue / orange hybrid...



Specs:
2048 x 2048 DIF/SPEC/NRM Maps
2724 Tris

brandoom

Hey, looks pretty good Tyler.

Couple crits. I like the orange, but definitely try out the other colours you mentioned. I think the paint around the actual shovel part would be much more worn down than what it is. And perhaps a few more warning/caution stickers.

The tri count is good, but 2048 textures are overkill. 1024 should suffice. Perhaps add some more grunge, dirt, oil, around the model.

Looks good though, great start. Post your wires and textures to get some more crits on them.

tyl3r

Here are the texture flats which I forgot to post:

IchII3D

Thought I would be a bit critical and point out that your current way of unwrapping is very wasteful, Its a really good idea to get very optimal in your work flow as you will begin to break down things more easily. If that was a prop on a console for an environment in lets say... a first person shooter, I can't see it having more than a 512, probably even a 256. You could really go to town on that, I did a little bit of the obvious savings to show you. I hope it helps, people viewing your portfolio for jobs could get critical.

EDIT: Oh and generally float your logos and stickers, it means you can use them multiple times and keep fidelity without having to duplicate them on your texture. It also gives more freedom for reusing the texture if your tight on texture streaming.

Shogun3d

Not sure it makes sense to have the actual shovel blade painted, I think it would be more interesting to see it a darker metallic color. Nice details on your specular map, looking great!

tyl3r

IchII3D: Thanks for the pointers! I plan on taking this down to 1024x1024 for my final shot. The point you make about stickers is a good one to have them float, I will definitely remember this going forward! I do see where the UV map could be tighter and utilize overlapping UV's more. I did it quite a bit, but not nearly enough obviously.

kaburan: I like the idea of changing the blade to a dark metallic color, will definitely change that before the final screenshots.

wester

The only crit i have, and someone may have already said this, is i'd bump up that tertiary detail in the normal map. I can see you have it on an overlay, but raise the opacity, you can't see any of it on the finished model so it makes it pointless to have.

great shovel though. i was honestly hesitant to click on this post cause it's called "sci fi shovel"....but you definitely made me glad i did. great spec map detail too, i really need to take some pointers from that.

Braxer

Nice work!

My crits would be to add another color to it, maybe some kind of white stripes or something.
I don't really know what the shovel is meant to dig, but I suppose it's something hard, and if so, maybe you could add some stains from when the shovel "breaks" into the surface with force from the push. Also, you could add some kind of mud or wathever in the cracks and on the shovel plate

odium

My crits are god DAYMN we are lazy in the future if even a simple shovel is automated...