Game Art Props

Fr0stguard

Hi this is my thread where i will show all of the game props i have made and will make. any C&C are welcome to improve my models. I'm not good at texturing so I probrably won't texture any of the models. sorry about huge images.

1. Metal Beam
Polys:288
Tris:524

keres

That is way too high poly for a game. You should create a low poly version (which would be like 36 poly) and then bake a normal map for it.

Also, learn texturing. Real 3d artists are also 2d artists

Good luck with your endeavors.
-Tom

Fr0stguard

@Keres: The polycount isn't actually 288 for polys it got reduced cause when i looked at the polys there was the UDK collision mesh in it and a duplicate that I accidentaly made of the model. Also I don't know how to texture because i cant find any good texturing tutorials.

Rico

Fr0stguard wrote: »

Also I don't know how to texture because i cant find any good texturing tutorials.

Whaaaaa?? You're just not looking hard enough. There's plenty of them out there, try searching the PC wiki.

Also Eat3D has a couple of really great texturing DVD's.

LateWhiteRabbit

Yeah, 524 tris for a steel I-Beam is just way too many for a game asset. With good maps any heavily rectangular and mechanical piece like this will do just fine with far fewer polygons.

Oh, and telling us separate numbers for polygons and tris isn't necessary - we can do simple math to divide or multiply by two. ;P And you'll find most game artists refer to tris as polys, so when you hear someone say the limit is 2000 polys, etc. always assume they mean tris.

Do take the time to learn how to texture. As keres said, 3D art means knowing 2D art as well. You aren't going to be in many situations where someone else is going to be texturing your model for you, and even if you are (which will usually only happen when you are working as part of a company with huge development teams) you'll need to have experience texturing to learn how to lay out good UV sheets for your model so you don't drive the other artist crazy.

Keep posting and good luck.

EDIT:
Check out Philip's site for some good texturing and material tutorials as well.

Jeremy Tabor

it looks to me that this might already have a normal map applied, but it definitely would be helpful to see some wires. I say that it looks like its already been baked because those look like seams along the outer edges and those circular indents appear to flatten out as you look down the beam. Also i don't believe you could get such smooth circular shapes with only 524 tris.

This leads me to suggest a couple things.

First, re-baking your map with a little bit more of a bevel on those edges so that a little more of that inset is captured.

Then, on the subject of optimization, that map size has got to be huge due to the resolution of those insets, certainly not realistically warranted by a standard prop. If you were doing this just for practice, thats a different matter, but you're obviously concerning yourself with things little tri-limits so reducing your texture size is a must as well. In modern games, texture calls are still relatively taxing on the engine in comparison with the old geometry limitations of the past. In fact, even tho your 524 tris is laughably excessive for a prop of this nature, it probably wouldn't bog a modern engine down more than if it were 20 tris.

its all about how your processor handles the rendering of geometry, a process called batching. There is a thread on this somewhere in the Technical Talk forum which discusses this further and links to an Nvidia GDC document (i believe) on the whole process. Its really interesting if you get a chance to read it.

But anyway, I would definitely recommend going through the entire production process with each one of your models at least to you get a good handle on the whole process. Don't not do something because you're not good at it, lol. What kind of attitude is that!? you'll never improve!

But with all that said, good luck, and happy learning.

Fr0stguard

Thanks for the helpful things but sadly the model files has become corrupt and wont open and since its new i didnt back up a copy yet so it is lost. but here is a model i made a long time ago.

Power Generator
Polys: 56
Tris: 108
(Normals Only)


(Textured)