i grabbed a blueprint from blueprints.com...that's pretty much it.I created it based off the blueprint.What do you mean when you mention texture distortion?I used multi-sub object texturing and made the textures up.
alright not that bad, your high poly could be alot more detailed. And also u could use allot more of the UV space. i would spend a lot more time on your modelling make sure thats solid before u UV. You have learnt what you can from this model start on your next one and show more modeling break downs
@RJBonner I made the tank and created the UV through unwrapping in 3ds max.
@Super Happy Cow the model isn't for any game.I was just trying to improve my portfolio,fresh out of school.Any advice you can give on how I can avoid the same mistakes next time, or tutorials you can point me towards would be greatly appreciated.
it looks like i didn't provide enough texture space for the base of the tank and provide too much texture space for another aspect like the side metal piece( marked with blue X) is that right?I don't see any distortion in the unwrap however.
I had a hipoly, simply because I needed to work on baking from hipoly to low poly.I wanted to get into a habit of doing it.
I'll try to remember to post everything in minimal posts,my apologies.
High poly doesn't need to be unwrapped for baking to a low poly mesh.
I started off thinking I would make the low poly first but then my low poly ended up becoming my highpoly.I figured I'd unwrap it just in case I wanted to texture it at some later point.I didn't really know how the low poly model and bake would turn out.
The UVWs have quite a bit of room available for use. It's generally a better idea to place UVs right next to each other. Sometimes rotating them a bit or using some Tetris logic to fit them as tightly as possible is required.
For the UVWs, the scale should never be rectangles. It should always be perfect squares. The way to do this is to use the 'Relax' tool while in the UnwrapUVWs window. Right click while you have a part selected in edit poly mode and hit relax. That part will then immediately reset to exactly what that poly looks like in it's 3D form. No distortion, no skewing.
A Good reference could be something like this from someone else on this site:
For your render of the tank with textures on, you REALLY need to improve the lighting. Here, I have no idea where your normals are since there doesn't seem to be any shadow information.
Zoom in a bit to focus our attention on the tank, not the really low-res floor texture. Get out of isometric view and into a perspective camera so that the tank has more of a dynamic feel and set up your lighting so we can see more detail from your normal map; in your render, you might as well have no normal map at all.
Your textures are a copyright mess. Never just cut and paste images off the internet... Most professionals only use online images as a reference and they remake that 'by hand' (aka Photoshop painting). It prevents copyright issues.
Plus, when you do that, the image quality is extremely weird. The textures don't actually look like a tank's material. I have never seen that type of metal used on a tank. Ever. Try to replicate things like this:
You don't have to be as detailed, but it would really help make the tank look real. One of the comments was about how the textures look distorted... it's because it's heavily compressed and some of the UVWs are rectangles.
Keep the size ratio in check too. A small detail like the metal plate on the back of the tank should not need that much UVW space. What is most important on a tank is the main body. From the looks of your texture, the main body got maybe 30-40% of the map while parts of your tread and the wheels in the treads have up to 60%. That's just wrong and you can tell just by looking at your tank and seeing what appears largest.
It's a wonder how you got to 7222 polys. 7222 tris, maybe... but not polygons. You have way too much polys on the wheels, but you didn't post the wireframe shots so for all i know, all those squares (6 poly) and wedges (4 poly) aren't efficient enough. The roundness on the tank gears could have been allocated to the tread's shape or the cannon.
Also, another comment was why you had a highpoly. The reason he asked is because most of the time, when you have a highpoly model for normal maps, it looks something like this:
Those are highpolys that can become great normal maps for a low poly model. They add to the model's details and in the case of the floor panel, can be applied to a 2-poly plane and still look good... though they modeled the grating, which is unnecessary since they could have just replicated that in Photoshop easily to save time.
I don't understand how to improve my textures as I grab pictures of actual rust ,dirt, grunge metal and change the opacity , blend modes, use masking, and layer groups.I used the light maps for actual shadow detail.This is all pretty frustrating as it feels like i'm getting nowhere despite trying to implement what I keep reading up on.
There is a lot more to making your own textures than changing opacity and blend modes. You could also adjust levels, change the hues, sharpen, blur. It takes a good eye to see what references you use can be used and what cant. And sometimes you will use a texture you wouldn't think to use. Racer445 has a great tutorial on how to make and texture an AK47, and if I remember correctly he used fur to get the wood grain in the handle. PhilipK has some great tutorials on metal. http://www.philipk.net/tutorials.html
I'm not saying use these tutorials as is, but it's a good example of seeing on how to get good detail out of a small space. It gets frustrating, I was in that boat too.. but when it clicks, it clicks and everything makes sense. Just take our advice and be persistent and you will do rad. Maybe you might wanna start with something more simple. Like a wall and practice with that, then move on to something more complicated, like a tank. Gotta learn to walk before you can run!
It's not that you grabbed actual reference. It's the fact that the metals aren't appropriate for the tank. Look at the reference I sent you. That metal is not the same metal you used on the tank itself. Look at the grunge and how inappropriate it is. No tank looks like it's been constructed from the same materials as a flagpole or from industrial steel mill. It's also that you should never 'grab pictures' direct. Again, it's about using photoshop and -creating- textures. That makes your art look good, not someone else's picture.
As for your feelings of frustration, it's all about how you view things, but there is nothing I can do to help you feel more positive about things. You just graduated. You have a lot more time available to you to get a job and giving up is not the attitude for improvement or for landing a job. If you don't have faith in yourself, how is anyone else? A HR manager? A supervisor? A poster on some message board?
I recommend that you just follow whatever advice is given to you. Choosing what advice to follow is really for more experienced folk... sometimes just doing what you are told can help you improve because you'll end up doing things out of your comfort zone. It's all about practice and being proactive. Learn from your mistakes. When someone tells you your UVWs are disorderly, go back and work on them asap and then post it again. Someone then tells you it's improving but there are still issues, go back and fix the issues and repost again. Be aggressive about learning and it might help push that negativity away and give you a goal.. a quest... rather than letting the frustration get the better of you.
when u get frustrated, take a step back and chill! Get some fresh air, come back and tackle that bitch!
As said previously, the textures could be packed a tad better. There is definately room for improvement. When texturing tho, dont worry about the tiny details. Get the main picture 1st. Rust and dirt where they need to be and where it makes sense. unwrap things in such ways that it makes sense whenever you texture.
overall, its look good. It feels like a toy. Make it look like a tank!Give it more love!
alright I'll hold off on trying to make complicated stuff and focus on getting the simplistic things down first.I guess I'm trying to do too much too fast.Thanks all.
Don't worry too much about trying to do too much too fast. While you don't want to set impossible goals, if you work outside of your comfort zone you will grow much faster. Look at all the stuff you learned from this project! You got advice on UVs, textures, modeling, and several people are encouraging you not to give up! I guarantee you that your next tank will be loads better. I find that the first time I do anything, it's more of an exploration than anything else. I make loads of mistakes, and the model needs lots of improvement, and I certainly work to make it better; but man, the next time I make something like it, it's way better. Keep posting your stuff here, people will continue to help you out and you will continue to get better.
If you want to work on simple stuff, you should focus on chunks of your tank, and treat each part as if it were a single prop on its own. Make that part as good as you can, and then move on to the next part. Complicated stuff is really just a bunch of simpler stuff put together. Don't get discouraged!
Replies
you made the tank in 3d max or rendered the uv in 3d max. Sorry im a noob.
@Super Happy Cow the model isn't for any game.I was just trying to improve my portfolio,fresh out of school.Any advice you can give on how I can avoid the same mistakes next time, or tutorials you can point me towards would be greatly appreciated.
I'll try to remember to post everything in minimal posts,my apologies.
High poly doesn't need to be unwrapped for baking to a low poly mesh.
I started off thinking I would make the low poly first but then my low poly ended up becoming my highpoly.I figured I'd unwrap it just in case I wanted to texture it at some later point.I didn't really know how the low poly model and bake would turn out.
For the UVWs, the scale should never be rectangles. It should always be perfect squares. The way to do this is to use the 'Relax' tool while in the UnwrapUVWs window. Right click while you have a part selected in edit poly mode and hit relax. That part will then immediately reset to exactly what that poly looks like in it's 3D form. No distortion, no skewing.
A Good reference could be something like this from someone else on this site:
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1105968&postcount=14
For your render of the tank with textures on, you REALLY need to improve the lighting. Here, I have no idea where your normals are since there doesn't seem to be any shadow information.
Zoom in a bit to focus our attention on the tank, not the really low-res floor texture. Get out of isometric view and into a perspective camera so that the tank has more of a dynamic feel and set up your lighting so we can see more detail from your normal map; in your render, you might as well have no normal map at all.
Your textures are a copyright mess. Never just cut and paste images off the internet... Most professionals only use online images as a reference and they remake that 'by hand' (aka Photoshop painting). It prevents copyright issues.
Plus, when you do that, the image quality is extremely weird. The textures don't actually look like a tank's material. I have never seen that type of metal used on a tank. Ever. Try to replicate things like this:
http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:kPimmHUGZN4muM:http://albums.modelbrouwers.nl/coppermine/albums/userpics/10844/BILD0191.JPG&t=1
or
http://www.usmilitary.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/tank-and-military-armor-specialist.jpg
You don't have to be as detailed, but it would really help make the tank look real. One of the comments was about how the textures look distorted... it's because it's heavily compressed and some of the UVWs are rectangles.
Keep the size ratio in check too. A small detail like the metal plate on the back of the tank should not need that much UVW space. What is most important on a tank is the main body. From the looks of your texture, the main body got maybe 30-40% of the map while parts of your tread and the wheels in the treads have up to 60%. That's just wrong and you can tell just by looking at your tank and seeing what appears largest.
It's a wonder how you got to 7222 polys. 7222 tris, maybe... but not polygons. You have way too much polys on the wheels, but you didn't post the wireframe shots so for all i know, all those squares (6 poly) and wedges (4 poly) aren't efficient enough. The roundness on the tank gears could have been allocated to the tread's shape or the cannon.
Also, another comment was why you had a highpoly. The reason he asked is because most of the time, when you have a highpoly model for normal maps, it looks something like this:
http://i35.tinypic.com/2lc7a.jpg
or
http://stefan-morrell.com/SC_floorpanelHipoly.jpg
Those are highpolys that can become great normal maps for a low poly model. They add to the model's details and in the case of the floor panel, can be applied to a 2-poly plane and still look good... though they modeled the grating, which is unnecessary since they could have just replicated that in Photoshop easily to save time.
I'm not saying use these tutorials as is, but it's a good example of seeing on how to get good detail out of a small space. It gets frustrating, I was in that boat too.. but when it clicks, it clicks and everything makes sense. Just take our advice and be persistent and you will do rad. Maybe you might wanna start with something more simple. Like a wall and practice with that, then move on to something more complicated, like a tank. Gotta learn to walk before you can run!
As for your feelings of frustration, it's all about how you view things, but there is nothing I can do to help you feel more positive about things. You just graduated. You have a lot more time available to you to get a job and giving up is not the attitude for improvement or for landing a job. If you don't have faith in yourself, how is anyone else? A HR manager? A supervisor? A poster on some message board?
I recommend that you just follow whatever advice is given to you. Choosing what advice to follow is really for more experienced folk... sometimes just doing what you are told can help you improve because you'll end up doing things out of your comfort zone. It's all about practice and being proactive. Learn from your mistakes. When someone tells you your UVWs are disorderly, go back and work on them asap and then post it again. Someone then tells you it's improving but there are still issues, go back and fix the issues and repost again. Be aggressive about learning and it might help push that negativity away and give you a goal.. a quest... rather than letting the frustration get the better of you.
As said previously, the textures could be packed a tad better. There is definately room for improvement. When texturing tho, dont worry about the tiny details. Get the main picture 1st. Rust and dirt where they need to be and where it makes sense. unwrap things in such ways that it makes sense whenever you texture.
overall, its look good. It feels like a toy. Make it look like a tank!Give it more love!
If you want to work on simple stuff, you should focus on chunks of your tank, and treat each part as if it were a single prop on its own. Make that part as good as you can, and then move on to the next part. Complicated stuff is really just a bunch of simpler stuff put together. Don't get discouraged!