Help me improve as an artist!
HI Everyone,
Ive been a long time watcher of the threads here on pc but have never really posted. Ive finally decided to post because ive gotten stuck and want to improve. And also posting here will help keep me motivated So any crits and comments on my modeling or texturing would be great!
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af355/KennyA_2010/crate.jpg
the first image is of a low ploy crate that I made with procedural textures
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af355/KennyA_2010/cratewire.jpg
This is the wire frame.
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af355/KennyA_2010/lamp.jpg
This is a low poly version of a lamp im thinking about redoing.
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af355/KennyA_2010/polycounttest.jpg
This is a low poly rocket launcher I worked on. It sits at 1,416 polys.
Ive been a long time watcher of the threads here on pc but have never really posted. Ive finally decided to post because ive gotten stuck and want to improve. And also posting here will help keep me motivated So any crits and comments on my modeling or texturing would be great!
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af355/KennyA_2010/crate.jpg
the first image is of a low ploy crate that I made with procedural textures
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af355/KennyA_2010/cratewire.jpg
This is the wire frame.
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af355/KennyA_2010/lamp.jpg
This is a low poly version of a lamp im thinking about redoing.
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af355/KennyA_2010/polycounttest.jpg
This is a low poly rocket launcher I worked on. It sits at 1,416 polys.
Replies
Hope that helps
I'm not sure if what you posted is really enough to critique or help you move on. I honestly think one of the most essential skills for creating 3D art is observation. Id suggest undertaking a new project wherein you grab yourself some nice reference of an object and model it as best you can (posting your progress here). That way people can point out the differences between your model and the reference object. This is one of the best ways to improve your skills.
Context, I'm not sure what kind of game these would go into, what engine you would use or how important these objects are to the overall game. Without that info its kind of hard to give a critique.
Also make sure to count triangles not polys.
The crate:
- There is a lot of similarity in the texture, there doesn't seem to be a need to have it uniquely unwrapped?
- If you uniquely unwrap then it should probably have unique details.
- You could probably stack a few of the sides and up the pixel density of the texture without actually adjusting the actual texture dimensions. Or you could keep the pixel density the same and make the texture smaller.
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The pixel density between your crate and the floor/walls is off by quite a bit. It's a tough balancing act but you need to try and keep this consistent so you don't have ultra sharp, super defined objects sitting on big blurry messes.
I normally try to keep a 4 pixels to every 1 game unit, 4:1. That means you shouldn't just put a 1024 on everything, (especially small things), take into account the objects actual size in the final scene. If the object is a square plane and it measures 32x32 game units then you use a 128 texture.
Now having a bunch of textures that are all different sizes can be a bad thing, it can be messy to load and manage several different sizes of textures, potentially slowing the game down. So typically artists will gang a few smaller sheets together to fill out a typical sheet. Depending on the game that could be 512 or 1024 ect... So instead of one 1024 sheet for every crate, you have several crates on one 1024.
Pixel density is an important consideration when building assets, and you can see how context factors into the tech specs of an object.
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The lamp:
- I would increase the thickness of the wire cage and handle so it would hold up better at a distance.
- I'm not really sure why there is a cut out in the handle, even if it was on some real world ref it might be better to spend the tris on something else like a hinge for the handle.
- What kind of lamp is that? Oil, candle, electric? Oil lamps typically have a wick and some kind of oil reservoir because they burn they typically have some way to exhaust and take in air, fire in a vacuum doesn't last long.
- The texture doesn't seem complete, the inside piece seems likes its floating and anchored. A little bit of Ambient Occlusion around the base would be a good start on grounding it, but I think you need to research the design and come up with something that is a little more functional.
@artquest- Thank you for the critique. My original goal was to just post so stuff up here to get into the habit of posting on here so I could improve. And its still my main goal but I just wanted to post up some "finished" things to get some sort of critique. But I plan on posting wips so I can get critiques through the whole process and become better overall. Would you suggest getting as much reference of an object even if they are not the same? I appreciate your critques and will be posting up some wip soon.
@Vig- My goal for all my objects is to get them into UDK and have them lit in engine. Currently my only object in UDK is the crate. Thanks for the diagram I never knew that engines looked at tris and not polys so I will take that into consideration.
The Crate-
I plan on going back and fixing the texture to make it more unique. How would I go about stacking sides on my uv? What size would you suggest unwrapping the object at?, I believe its at 1024*1024. Currently my texturing abilities are my weakest point and its where I have the least knowledge. But your explanation on pixel density and texture size clicked. Because I never really knew why texture sizes where different. So I am to understand from what your saying is it all depends on the object and a bigger object requires a bigger texture size and vice versa for smaller objects? Also how would I go about stacking multiple objects onto one uv plain to save space?
The lamp-
The cuts in the lamp are because when I was creating the handle I had problems with the low poly and was forced to delete those faces because it was not looking right. I believe its an oil lamp. The reference is included. The texture is imcomplete because Ive been trying to work on painting textures. So if you have any advice or tutorials on painting metal textures that would be great. Also I dont really now how to create an AO so if there are any tutorials out there that you know of that would be great. Sorry for all the questions but I really appreciate the time and tips everyone put in and I will be posting my progress shortly.
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af355/KennyA_2010/tardis-ice-bucket.jpg
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af355/KennyA_2010/tardis-tennant.jpg
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af355/KennyA_2010/TARDIS2.jpg
Yep the objects size plays into it quite a bit. It also depends if the engine is optimized for power of 2 textures (UDK, Source almost every other game) or if it will take any size you throw at it, (Bungie and a handful of others).
With a 4:1 ratio (4 pixels to every game unit) if you're crate is 32x32 game units and one side of the create would be 4x32=128x128.
If each side has its own unique texture, that's 6 sides that need to be 128x128 which is 768x768 pixels. This isn't a "power of 2" texture size so you need to pick one that is. The nearest choices are 512 or 1024 but there's another problem, you can't arrange 6 squares into a square shape, so to get around that you can stack some pieces. Typically you stack the sides because they are similar and the top is a lid.
This is one of MANY possible options:
Each UV shell is 128x128, which works with the 4:1 ratio.
The whole thing is 256x256, a decent size that fits the power of 2 rule while still giving us quite a bit of unique texture to look at.
You can fit 16 other crates like this in a 1024 map.
If you use the same reasoning with your floor and wall sections (4:1) then you'll avoid a sharp box sitting in a blurry environment.
If you create a floor tile mesh that is 256x256 game units, that would make your floor texture 4x256=1024.
If you need it to cover more area, you copy the mesh a few times in the engine instead of making the mesh bigger and stretching the texture.
I'll kick things off, a lot of hardware like hardrives, RAM and video memory store data in power of 2 blocks of info.
This is the crate that I did, there's a side by side comparison of what a normal map will do and will not do. Left has a normal map, right does not although they look quite similar.
Probably the most noteworthy thing is that the diffuse map is going to carry the model in video games 80% of the way. The normal map only offers a slight bit of relief to accent the drawn geometry that is already there. That's why you should be starting with the diffuse map, and get some good looking material before you start adding a normal map into the mix.
While you may have games like Crysis which pretty much involve an artistic style where you snap a bunch of photographs and do some minimal texture editing, it's generally very good to learn to old method of rendering textures before they had all those wonderful engine shaders and complex lighting models.
http://www.3dtotal.com/team/Tutorials/texturing_metal/texturing_metal1.php
That tutorial is something I would highly recommend for anyone who needs to know the basics of creating a texture from scratch. While it's for metal, you can generally take any shading practices and toning techniques to the bank for 90% of the stuff you'll be doing. What I really admire about that tutorial in particular is that it teaches you how to create something from nothing, which is inherently a very useful skill when it comes to texturing.
@DOG-GY and Vig- I will try and get into the habit of using the power of two for textures just to have a good base. And the normal map/ diffuse was really just a test on quick planar mapping but I know my textures need work. Thanks for the info though.
Arcanox- Thanks for the tutorial, I greatly appreciate it! Ive been trying to learn how to "paint textures" and it looks like this will put me on the right path! If you know of any other tutorials feel free to send them my way!Thanks again,
Updates to come!