That normal map you posted is fine really, just needs some antialiasing(or resizing, which is the same thing really). A small amount of "wavyness" is totally ok, and looks better from a lot of angles. And yeah, the highpoly metal chunks needs to be larger than the wood parts, even at the smallest area(the low part of the bevel).
It looks like you have a seam on the right of the image there? Maybe just a blender issue, which again I dont think blender has a terribly accurate normals implementation, so it might be working viewing in Marmoset or something else.
That normal map you posted is fine really, just needs some antialiasing(or resizing, which is the same thing really). A small amount of "wavyness" is totally ok, and looks better from a lot of angles. And yeah, the highpoly metal chunks needs to be larger than the wood parts, even at the smallest area(the low part of the bevel).
It looks like you have a seam on the right of the image there? Maybe just a blender issue, which again I dont think blender has a terribly accurate normals implementation, so it might be working viewing in Marmoset or something else.
I fixed the seam. Blender seems to hiccup a lot when baking non-contiguous meshes that have geometry that is too close or intersecting. I don't know if that is inherent to Blender or all 3D software, but I've learned to work around it. My latest bake is very clean and has almost no distortion.
It's been a while, but I have rendered a cavity map with the tips given to me by Firebert. I also found a nifty method for generating realistic wood grain. Here's the result:
Next up is to add the bands and give this thing some wear and grime!
I love this thread, because it shows how someone really really really wants to learn. I think you are doing a good job. That barrell looks very good, and shows big improvement from what you originally had created.
my only 2 cents, is that your textures need a little more contrast. Try desaturating some parts, and highligthing edges and adding tiny subtle details. At the same time, try not to be too shy about it. I did a quick paint over to illustrate what i mean.
I feel mine came up a bit too dark, but im sure you will get the point.
I love this thread, because it shows how someone really really really wants to learn. I think you are doing a good job. That barrell looks very good, and shows big improvement from what you originally had created.
my only 2 cents, is that your textures need a little more contrast. Try desaturating some parts, and highligthing edges and adding tiny subtle details. At the same time, try not to be too shy about it. I did a quick paint over to illustrate what i mean.
*refer above for image*
I feel mine came up a bit too dark, but im sure you will get the point.
I like what you did with it. I have felt that something about it wasn't quite selling it and I think you might have hit on the issue.
As far as wanting to learn, you're right on the mark. Although I wasn't aware I was so transparent on that. I think about this stuff constantly. Some might even accuse me of being obsessed. Every time I look at another artist's work, I'm dying inside to know how they did it. I'm a very visual/tactile learner. Anyway, enough about me.
if you want the weathering to look realistic you need to check some reference, it just doesn't look like any barrel I've seen. There's no shame in using reference, it's just.. looking at how the real thing is.
I highly highly recommend gathering a bunch of pics of barrels which look like the thing you're trying to make, you'll get loads of good ideas trust me
You've made some great improvements but I think you can make a few more.
Keep in mind that dirt, damage, scratches and grime can easily overpower things and come off as just noisy. I like to equate damage to a voice in the crowd, if everyone is yelling the message just isn't getting out, if its only one person yelling then its probably not hard to hear them.
OR a little damage, grime scratches goes a long LONG way and you need some clean bits for that damage to contrast against and have any kind of an impact.
Crits:
- The metal doesn't seem to bite into the wood, the addition of the grunge comes off looking like shadow. It would help to paint some highlights on the wood where it meets the metal strap, to raise the wood up.
- Any grunge streaking you do should also run down the metal, it looks kind of weird if its running down just the wood.
- The colors in the metal seem a little too all over the place, evening those out could help.
- It would be good to give it an overall gradient, this would help account for dirt and muck splashing up on the bottom part when it rains, it would also help shade the barrel and help to keep focus on the upper part.
I agree with Ro about the reference. When people paint portraits do they not look at the subject and only imagine what they think the subject should look like? It's just kind of silly to not go look at something you're trying to recreate.
you seem to have over saturated you diffuse on the last update, i would tone it back a bit. also it also looks like you've applied a gradient blending layer on your wood diffuse, and because of your current setup, the gradient goes from pure black, to a desaturated "grey" to a fully saturated orange color. i would experiment with some other blending modes to achieve a more realistic blend from a dark brown, to a lighter brow. i would also try and create more contrast between the metal and wood, it looks like you've toned it back with the latest update.
The main problem I see here is still just not using reference, this last one looks like you just tried to match Mark's paintover, which I dont actually think was much of an improvement, too saturuated wood, strange "painted lighting" look where the top is bright and the bottom is way too dark.
You simply need to find a really cool reference, and break down what are the key points that make the material interesting. Then try to duplicate those effects. Do not be affraid to use photo source for your texture, as now it has a very simplified look that IMO doesn't work very well.
Choosing a reference is exceedingly important, it can not be overstated. It gives you a clear goal to work towards, and it makes it very easy for anyone who is critiquing your work to simply match it up to the concept/reference and see in a straight forward manner where you need to improve. Nobody gets extra credit for making things "how they imagine them" in their head, and in fact in a professional environment you should always have strict goals for artistic style and final outcome of the asset, so matching a reference is an essential skill to learn.
Your texture work thus far shows a clear lack of direction, and until you change your mentality on reference, you're going to be running in circles trying to improve.
I noticed that when you tried to make the texture used and grimy, you had too much in the way of symmetry. Break up the dirt and grime. Also you were lightening the areas near the spaces between the boards, when I think they should be darker.
This image also has rust, dirt, and wear on the wood around the metal rings. That really gives the impression that those rings have warped/moved with time and use, adding to the age of the object.
Everyone is mentioning finding references and I agree. I'm happy with your effort and willingness to listen to others. Continue until the end!
After taking taking advice on finding some reference, I took a new direction on the look of the barrel.
I based this barrel loosely on this one:
I tried to match the look of the wood grain and banding. I wasn't finding reference that matched what I was really thinking about, so I went with another that I found interesting. If you can see a way to make this barrel look old and worn I'd love to hear your tips.
Spec looks off on your wood, some random yellow spec there? In the reference the wood is dry and seems to have no specularity. Do not be afraid to have low/black values in your spec map, you're not "wasting" it if everything isn't shiny.
Wood pastern looks too large, the knots in the wood are too large compared to the ref, screwing with the perceived scale of the item. For the resolution of your texture, the wood also looks too blurry, a smaller scale wood texture and a little sharpen would likely help.
Spec on the black metal is too tight, in your reference its more of a matte sheen, not so glossy. A gloss map will be essential here, or since you only really have two material types, and one is very low/no spec, you can just adjust the shader value. I would tell you that the black metal is very boring and lacks any kick, but you're trying to match the ref here and that is very important, so telling you to change up the metal would be counter productive at this point.
I meant to write a little more about this, but what you have now is a base material. This is a good thing, every texture should start out with your base material, this is where you define basic colors, values and textures, from then you move onto wear and large details of interest, and then fine detail and final touch up pass. You're at stage 1 right now, which is good, because your earlier attempts were all over the place.
So now that you have a base, its important to take stock in how this sort of object would wear.
I like this is a refernce for the wear on the metal. It works well with the type of material you have now, and is subtle. What we see here are a few effects:
1. Distinct patterns of finish wear, its not rusted to shit, but some of the finish has worn down. Brighter in diffuse, and less reflective in the spec
2. A few of the edges have harsh sharp cuts out them, removing the paint entirely from the metal
3. Some overall dirt and stains, make sure this sort of stuff is done with restraint, when you just throw a dirt overlay texture all over the material it loses all affect, so there should be distinct patches of dirt and discoloring.
Some ideas for the wood:
This works better if you have a stained/laqured wood, but some finish wear:
this is a bit closer to your wood type:
[edit] shit screwed up the link here, blah
Dirt and dust around the metal bits, some specific stains, again dont throw stains everywhere, but a few clear, specific details will pop.
More stain ref
I'm having a hard time finding cool wear ref that really matches up to the type of wood you've chosen, I think with a stained/laqured wood you would have more options to play with, as you can vary the specular and do other fun stuff.
Here's my latest work on the texture. The spec on the wood is better now. It turns out I had some layer set to color burn from when I was experimenting with a varnished look. I also discovered the reason the spec was so blown out. I haven't added a gloss map so the material just uses the hardness setting for the specular on the main material. On the color, I remembered from the days I worked in a lumberyard that lumber tends to turn gray when exposed to rain and sun for a long time. So, it dawned upon me that the bottom of the barrel would get splashed from rain. Anyway, here's the result so far:
I'm not certain what I should do with the upper end of the barrel, if anything at all. Maybe I could come up with some stencil-style branding to stamp on there for kicks?
its nice to see that you are continuing to tweak and improve this model based on what everyone has been telling you, thats a great skill to have. keep it up, your getting close
The grime you have on the lower rings looks kinda splotchy. not sure what you're using to paint that detail in but try some grime brushes with more specific detail. qbrushes.net is a good source for some.
The grime you have on the lower rings looks kinda splotchy. not sure what you're using to paint that detail in but try some grime brushes with more specific detail. qbrushes.net is a good source for some.
Well, the appearance I was aiming for was that of dirt that had been splashed onto the barrel from rain pounding on the ground. Thanks for the link! Those are nice brushes.
Yeah qbrushes should have some nice dirt splash brushes i'm sure. Dirt splashes usually have some sort of direction just due to the way that the physics of the splash happen like this image:
Also there would probably be some more dirt apparent on the wood. Right now I am sort of getting the impression that is rust because it is so much more visible on the metal.
hehe, cool. Great improvement over the original post. I think now the wood would benefit from having the texture run through something like CrazyBump, and combined with the baked normals.
hehe, cool. Great improvement over the original post. I think now the wood would benefit from having the texture run through something like CrazyBump, and combined with the baked normals.
It does have baked normals. That's where the highlights on the band are coming from. There's no geometry defining the bands. Perhaps I should post a wireframe overlay?
Edit:
I totally missed your meaning. You mean to say that the wood grain should be added to the baked normals?
yeah, in CrazyBump there is a way to "mix" normals. There are other methods too that are a bit more hacky, like using an "overlay" or "hard light" layer in Photoshop to combine normal maps.
Can't have a game without a barrel/crate! It's looking good but the wood doesnt seem to have any normal detail. Not sure if thats intentional (havn't read the whole thread). But like Ninja said, pass it through CB and maybe it'll pop
Right, forgot the detail bump. Side note: does anyone know how the hardness map (aka gloss map) works in blender 2.5? I applied one in it's own slot, it doesn't seem to have any influence regardless of how a change it. The fall off of the hot spots are really tight and I want it to have a softer effect like in the reference. I can do it in the material settings, but that won't translate to a game engine.
Ok, the question is eating at me so I'll just ask. Is this a suitable game asset (polycount badge aside )?
I think it's almost at a pro level
Besides the previously mentioned wood bump, the spec on the metal could be higher (and maybe a bit lower on the wood), with more detail in the spec. Although it is a tired cliche, I think it could use some more grime.
Besides the previously mentioned wood bump, the spec on the metal could be higher (and maybe a bit lower on the wood), with more detail in the spec. Although it is a tired cliche, I think it could use some more grime.
Yeah, I'm not having much luck controlling the gloss between the metal and wood. I applied a map, but it doesn't have any real influence. The only thing I can do at the moment is turn the glossiness up or down over the entire object.
To spend a month on one model, just to improve is true dedication. It's absolutely astonishing how much this has improved, and it's amazing to see such a great community help someone along.
To spend a month on one model, just to improve is true dedication. It's absolutely astonishing how much this has improved, and it's amazing to see such a great community help someone along.
Definitely.
If only everyone in the field were like this, we'd all improve that much faster.
Great job Greevar. Keep going, really, you got it man.
Also, about getting the extra detail with Crazybump, you should definitely do that (lol)...
I learned myself, that after being completely done with my color map, spec, etc, that putting the finished color map into crazybump and getting SUBTLE normal information from it is a good idea to enhance the model's overall quality.
I stress the word SUBTLE, because you don't want it overtaking your primary normal map, you just want to compliment it with the new details you've given to your color map.
Also, do you know how to use xNormal? You can bake a curvature map and ambient occlusion map from your High Poly in there, and then combine the red channel of the curvature map with the ambient occlusion map in photoshop to produce some very nice effects, which are derived directly from your high poly.
If only everyone in the field were like this, we'd all improve that much faster.
Great job Greevar. Keep going, really, you got it man.
Also, about getting the extra detail with Crazybump, you should definitely do that (lol)...
I learned myself, that after being completely done with my color map, spec, etc, that putting the finished color map into crazybump and getting SUBTLE normal information from it is a good idea to enhance the model's overall quality.
I stress the word SUBTLE, because you don't want it overtaking your primary normal map, you just want to compliment it with the new details you've given to your color map.
Also, do you know how to use xNormal? You can bake a curvature map and ambient occlusion map from your High Poly in there, and then combine the red channel of the curvature map with the ambient occlusion map in photoshop to produce some very nice effects, which are derived directly from your high poly.
I have ADHD. It gives me an unnatural persistence.
I do have xNormal. I did add a cavity map and an AO map.
Yeah, I'm not having much luck controlling the gloss between the metal and wood. I applied a map, but it doesn't have any real influence. The only thing I can do at the moment is turn the glossiness up or down over the entire object.
Sounds like your shader isn't set up properly.
However, it shouldn't matter, your wood should have little-no spec at all, so you can simply tailor the gloss to metal. Again, if its unfinished wood, it would be very dry and have no reflection, if its a lacquered wood, it would be much more relfective. No need to assign random values just so you're not "wasting" the spec map.
However, it shouldn't matter, your wood should have little-no spec at all, so you can simply tailor the gloss to metal. Again, if its unfinished wood, it would be very dry and have no reflection, if its a lacquered wood, it would be much more relfective. No need to assign random values just so you're not "wasting" the spec map.
I have no problem controlling the color and intensity of the specular with maps. The size and falloff of the specular highlight is what refuses to work.
I have no problem controlling the color and intensity of the specular with maps. The size and falloff of the specular highlight is what refuses to work.
This is game art we're talking here, right? And in that case, just forget about blender and get it into a game engine (may I suggest UDK? ;D ). Yes, I know blender is somewhat in and of itself supposed to be a game engine, but why hassle with it, and not just get your assets into another well known engine that probably will utilize your gloss map correctly?
Consider it.
Perhaps in the future you can resolve the issue, but I say, move on!
This is game art we're talking here, right? And in that case, just forget about blender and get it into a game engine (may I suggest UDK? ;D ). Yes, I know blender is somewhat in and of itself supposed to be a game engine, but why hassle with it, and not just get your assets into another well known engine that probably will utilize your gloss map correctly?
Consider it.
Perhaps in the future you can resolve the issue, but I say, move on!
Yeah like I said over and over, too much spec on the wood. Its either dry aged wood, and simply not reflective, or its shiny lacquered wood, and much more reflective. Again do not be afraid to have black/very dark values in your spec, you're not going to be arrested by the spec map police. As it is now the values in the spec do not match up with the material you're trying to convey.
Right now the metal and wood have very similar specular values. The key to getting materials to read, and achieving pleasing material contrast is to key in on what physical properties make a material what it is, if you're just throwing the same value on everything, its not going to work well.
I feel like you misunderstood my last post. So, if you edit your spec in a common sense manner, ie: so things that are not reflective have little/no spec value, you can simply adjust the gloss value in the shader to get a good value on the metal, and disregard the wood, as it would have no effect.
Also, avoid a white background, you want a neutral color BG, ideally something close to the values of your texture. White will cause problems with bleeding when it mips down.
IMHO, You made yourself a professional quality barrel.
Any improvements at this point are just a series of minor details.
Your skills would greatly benefit from starting something new!
Thanks! I've seen your work, so your critique is high praise indeed. I'll have to think of what I want to tackle and master next. It gets a bit addictive though. Once you get going you just want to keep going.
Replies
I had to scale the inner edges of the rings a good distance away from the surface of all other objects to get a clean bake.
It looks like you have a seam on the right of the image there? Maybe just a blender issue, which again I dont think blender has a terribly accurate normals implementation, so it might be working viewing in Marmoset or something else.
I fixed the seam. Blender seems to hiccup a lot when baking non-contiguous meshes that have geometry that is too close or intersecting. I don't know if that is inherent to Blender or all 3D software, but I've learned to work around it. My latest bake is very clean and has almost no distortion.
It's been a while, but I have rendered a cavity map with the tips given to me by Firebert. I also found a nifty method for generating realistic wood grain. Here's the result:
Next up is to add the bands and give this thing some wear and grime!
I added some turbulence to the wood grain. I think it looks much better now.
I added the metal rings and gave it some weathering:
C&C?
my only 2 cents, is that your textures need a little more contrast. Try desaturating some parts, and highligthing edges and adding tiny subtle details. At the same time, try not to be too shy about it. I did a quick paint over to illustrate what i mean.
I feel mine came up a bit too dark, but im sure you will get the point.
I like what you did with it. I have felt that something about it wasn't quite selling it and I think you might have hit on the issue.
As far as wanting to learn, you're right on the mark. Although I wasn't aware I was so transparent on that. I think about this stuff constantly. Some might even accuse me of being obsessed. Every time I look at another artist's work, I'm dying inside to know how they did it. I'm a very visual/tactile learner. Anyway, enough about me.
I highly highly recommend gathering a bunch of pics of barrels which look like the thing you're trying to make, you'll get loads of good ideas trust me
You've made some great improvements but I think you can make a few more.
Keep in mind that dirt, damage, scratches and grime can easily overpower things and come off as just noisy. I like to equate damage to a voice in the crowd, if everyone is yelling the message just isn't getting out, if its only one person yelling then its probably not hard to hear them.
OR a little damage, grime scratches goes a long LONG way and you need some clean bits for that damage to contrast against and have any kind of an impact.
Crits:
- The metal doesn't seem to bite into the wood, the addition of the grunge comes off looking like shadow. It would help to paint some highlights on the wood where it meets the metal strap, to raise the wood up.
- Any grunge streaking you do should also run down the metal, it looks kind of weird if its running down just the wood.
- The colors in the metal seem a little too all over the place, evening those out could help.
- It would be good to give it an overall gradient, this would help account for dirt and muck splashing up on the bottom part when it rains, it would also help shade the barrel and help to keep focus on the upper part.
I agree with Ro about the reference. When people paint portraits do they not look at the subject and only imagine what they think the subject should look like? It's just kind of silly to not go look at something you're trying to recreate.
C&C welcome as always.
keep it up, your getting there
You simply need to find a really cool reference, and break down what are the key points that make the material interesting. Then try to duplicate those effects. Do not be affraid to use photo source for your texture, as now it has a very simplified look that IMO doesn't work very well.
Choosing a reference is exceedingly important, it can not be overstated. It gives you a clear goal to work towards, and it makes it very easy for anyone who is critiquing your work to simply match it up to the concept/reference and see in a straight forward manner where you need to improve. Nobody gets extra credit for making things "how they imagine them" in their head, and in fact in a professional environment you should always have strict goals for artistic style and final outcome of the asset, so matching a reference is an essential skill to learn.
Your texture work thus far shows a clear lack of direction, and until you change your mentality on reference, you're going to be running in circles trying to improve.
BTW:
Metal = Dark Diffuse + Blasted Specular/Reflection, with little to no gloss/spec power).
BTW remember about that Curvature map thingy from a couple pages ago?
This image also has rust, dirt, and wear on the wood around the metal rings. That really gives the impression that those rings have warped/moved with time and use, adding to the age of the object.
Everyone is mentioning finding references and I agree. I'm happy with your effort and willingness to listen to others. Continue until the end!
The curvature map is there. It's just doesn't stand out that much.
After taking taking advice on finding some reference, I took a new direction on the look of the barrel.
I based this barrel loosely on this one:
I tried to match the look of the wood grain and banding. I wasn't finding reference that matched what I was really thinking about, so I went with another that I found interesting. If you can see a way to make this barrel look old and worn I'd love to hear your tips.
Spec looks off on your wood, some random yellow spec there? In the reference the wood is dry and seems to have no specularity. Do not be afraid to have low/black values in your spec map, you're not "wasting" it if everything isn't shiny.
Wood pastern looks too large, the knots in the wood are too large compared to the ref, screwing with the perceived scale of the item. For the resolution of your texture, the wood also looks too blurry, a smaller scale wood texture and a little sharpen would likely help.
Spec on the black metal is too tight, in your reference its more of a matte sheen, not so glossy. A gloss map will be essential here, or since you only really have two material types, and one is very low/no spec, you can just adjust the shader value. I would tell you that the black metal is very boring and lacks any kick, but you're trying to match the ref here and that is very important, so telling you to change up the metal would be counter productive at this point.
I meant to write a little more about this, but what you have now is a base material. This is a good thing, every texture should start out with your base material, this is where you define basic colors, values and textures, from then you move onto wear and large details of interest, and then fine detail and final touch up pass. You're at stage 1 right now, which is good, because your earlier attempts were all over the place.
So now that you have a base, its important to take stock in how this sort of object would wear.
I like this is a refernce for the wear on the metal. It works well with the type of material you have now, and is subtle. What we see here are a few effects:
1. Distinct patterns of finish wear, its not rusted to shit, but some of the finish has worn down. Brighter in diffuse, and less reflective in the spec
2. A few of the edges have harsh sharp cuts out them, removing the paint entirely from the metal
3. Some overall dirt and stains, make sure this sort of stuff is done with restraint, when you just throw a dirt overlay texture all over the material it loses all affect, so there should be distinct patches of dirt and discoloring.
Some ideas for the wood:
This works better if you have a stained/laqured wood, but some finish wear:
this is a bit closer to your wood type:
[edit] shit screwed up the link here, blah
Dirt and dust around the metal bits, some specific stains, again dont throw stains everywhere, but a few clear, specific details will pop.
More stain ref
I'm having a hard time finding cool wear ref that really matches up to the type of wood you've chosen, I think with a stained/laqured wood you would have more options to play with, as you can vary the specular and do other fun stuff.
one thing to note, your ref barrel looks kinda CG to me.. work it a bit more towards EQs pics and you're sorted
I'm not certain what I should do with the upper end of the barrel, if anything at all. Maybe I could come up with some stencil-style branding to stamp on there for kicks?
Well, the appearance I was aiming for was that of dirt that had been splashed onto the barrel from rain pounding on the ground. Thanks for the link! Those are nice brushes.
Also there would probably be some more dirt apparent on the wood. Right now I am sort of getting the impression that is rust because it is so much more visible on the metal.
It does have baked normals. That's where the highlights on the band are coming from. There's no geometry defining the bands. Perhaps I should post a wireframe overlay?
Edit:
I totally missed your meaning. You mean to say that the wood grain should be added to the baked normals?
Right, forgot the detail bump. Side note: does anyone know how the hardness map (aka gloss map) works in blender 2.5? I applied one in it's own slot, it doesn't seem to have any influence regardless of how a change it. The fall off of the hot spots are really tight and I want it to have a softer effect like in the reference. I can do it in the material settings, but that won't translate to a game engine.
I think it's almost at a pro level
Besides the previously mentioned wood bump, the spec on the metal could be higher (and maybe a bit lower on the wood), with more detail in the spec. Although it is a tired cliche, I think it could use some more grime.
Yeah, I'm not having much luck controlling the gloss between the metal and wood. I applied a map, but it doesn't have any real influence. The only thing I can do at the moment is turn the glossiness up or down over the entire object.
Definitely.
If only everyone in the field were like this, we'd all improve that much faster.
Great job Greevar. Keep going, really, you got it man.
Also, about getting the extra detail with Crazybump, you should definitely do that (lol)...
I learned myself, that after being completely done with my color map, spec, etc, that putting the finished color map into crazybump and getting SUBTLE normal information from it is a good idea to enhance the model's overall quality.
I stress the word SUBTLE, because you don't want it overtaking your primary normal map, you just want to compliment it with the new details you've given to your color map.
Also, do you know how to use xNormal? You can bake a curvature map and ambient occlusion map from your High Poly in there, and then combine the red channel of the curvature map with the ambient occlusion map in photoshop to produce some very nice effects, which are derived directly from your high poly.
I have ADHD. It gives me an unnatural persistence.
I do have xNormal. I did add a cavity map and an AO map.
Sounds like your shader isn't set up properly.
However, it shouldn't matter, your wood should have little-no spec at all, so you can simply tailor the gloss to metal. Again, if its unfinished wood, it would be very dry and have no reflection, if its a lacquered wood, it would be much more relfective. No need to assign random values just so you're not "wasting" the spec map.
I have no problem controlling the color and intensity of the specular with maps. The size and falloff of the specular highlight is what refuses to work.
This is game art we're talking here, right? And in that case, just forget about blender and get it into a game engine (may I suggest UDK? ;D ). Yes, I know blender is somewhat in and of itself supposed to be a game engine, but why hassle with it, and not just get your assets into another well known engine that probably will utilize your gloss map correctly?
Consider it.
Perhaps in the future you can resolve the issue, but I say, move on!
I have Torque 3D pro, but I get you.
Diff:
Normal:
AO:
Right now the metal and wood have very similar specular values. The key to getting materials to read, and achieving pleasing material contrast is to key in on what physical properties make a material what it is, if you're just throwing the same value on everything, its not going to work well.
I feel like you misunderstood my last post. So, if you edit your spec in a common sense manner, ie: so things that are not reflective have little/no spec value, you can simply adjust the gloss value in the shader to get a good value on the metal, and disregard the wood, as it would have no effect.
Also, avoid a white background, you want a neutral color BG, ideally something close to the values of your texture. White will cause problems with bleeding when it mips down.
IMHO, You made yourself a professional quality barrel.
Any improvements at this point are just a series of minor details.
Your skills would greatly benefit from starting something new!
Thanks! I've seen your work, so your critique is high praise indeed. I'll have to think of what I want to tackle and master next. It gets a bit addictive though. Once you get going you just want to keep going.