They can be 90 degree angles if you make sure to divide each side of that 90 degree angle into different smoothing groups and separate UV isles afaik.
I myself am fiddling with a gun model at the moment to figure out exactly what to do as hard surface bakes are a lot less forgiving than organics. So don't take my word indiscriminately, I suggest you set up a couple of test bakes to figure out what needs doing where. Either that, or wait for a guru like EQ to set shit straight.. :P
Besides, I dont know how marmoset reads maya normals. I myself am using max and xoliuls awesome viewport shader.
They can be 90 degree angles if you make sure to divide each side of that 90 degree angle into different smoothing groups and separate UV isles afaik.
I myself am fiddling with a gun model at the moment to figure out exactly what to do as hard surface bakes are a lot less forgiving than organics. So don't take my word indiscriminately, I suggest you set up a couple of test bakes to figure out what needs doing where. Either that, or wait for a guru like EQ to set shit straight.. :P
Besides, I dont know how marmoset reads maya normals. I myself am using max and xoliuls awesome viewport shader.
Maya doesn't really have "smoothing groups" persay, you can soften or harden an edge, but there are no such groups that I know of, this has always made the big seperation for me between max and maya, i'll do some test bakes and see how things turn out
Thanks Phil, it was indeed sloppy in the beginning though but I knew I would have a fair amount of cleanup to be done due to the low resolution of the mesh that I could work with within zbrush
Maya doesn't really have "smoothing groups" persay, you can soften or harden an edge, but there are no such groups that I know of, this has always made the big seperation for me between max and maya, i'll do some test bakes and see how things turn out
I think the way Maya handles normals/hard edges and soft edges, is so much easier then Max way. In the end, it's the exact same info on the geometry.
As for 90 degrees angles being baked it wouldn't be a problem. As long as you HP have nice round edges so that at least a few pixels can be baked to the texture. When it comes to 90 degrees angles and lowpolys i usually make it a hard edge and split it in my UV map. Make a test bake and bake with the UVs split and one without. You'l see the results very quick.
I think the way Maya handles normals/hard edges and soft edges, is so much easier then Max way. In the end, it's the exact same info on the geometry.
As for 90 degrees angles being baked it wouldn't be a problem. As long as you HP have nice round edges so that at least a few pixels can be baked to the texture. When it comes to 90 degrees angles and lowpolys i usually make it a hard edge and split it in my UV map. Make a test bake and bake with the UVs split and one without. You'l see the results very quick.
Then, all this is also in the wiki (:
Ahh thank you, exactly what I needed to know I've been scouring the wiki the past few weeks and didn't come across that bit, sometimes it's more helpful to have a friend tell me
Hey everyone I finished the low and textured the flashlight, finished it up yesterday, sent it off, approved and finished!
Anyways i'm redoing my portfolio site entirely and wanting to start it off with this piece in total so I need tips for what angles to take shots of my work/how many beauty shots to take, I always have a hard time not showing off bits of my work like under this flashlight there is a screw that I want to show sooo bad but I know that's overboard.
Please lots of suggestions!
I am willing to continue working on the textures for this piece and will be fixing the bullet specular, then moving on to the overall texture. CC welcome!
Tri Count Limit was 1000, could only get it down to 1314 - but it was okay because I was so far under the limit for the gun itself.
I agree but the tri count kept me from doing anything of the sort, and on part of my agreement it states
[FONT="]Derrick Duckworth [/FONT][FONT="]retains the right to show rendered images of the model in their portfolio and website, but the artist agrees that he will not distribute, sale, or re-engineer the model for any reason, without the express written consent from ______________(removed company name)
does this mean I can't change it at all for my portfolio site without their consent?
[/FONT]
Yes. it does mean that. On the other hand, I don't see why they wouldn't consent. Heck after they see what modeled innards look like they might decide they want to use the higher-poly one as well.
Yes. it does mean that. On the other hand, I don't see why they wouldn't consent. Heck after they see what modeled innards look like they might decide they want to use the higher-poly one as well.
I'd let the normals handle the tiny crevice between the front and rear. I can't see all those polygons do anything with the silhouette, not even in http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/5043/flashlight1.jpg so it feels like a waste. You've also got a loop on the rear bottom that could be removed, and you could toss a bunch from the shapes in the orange circles.
I'd let the normals handle the tiny crevice between the front and rear. I can't see all those polygons do anything with the silhouette, not even in http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/5043/flashlight1.jpg so it feels like a waste. You've also got a loop on the rear bottom that could be removed, and you could toss a bunch from the shapes in the orange circles.
Hey Snader, I noticed a few of those when posting and mentioned that, however some of them I did not, and some of them aren't fixable the way you placed it, such as on the slidelock - which i moved away from the initial geo on the wire so you could see what I mean.
I'm not happy with the inside of the reflective surface and the glass in marmoset - any tips on that? Final tri count is 1556 on this one, i'm happy I went back and changed that - thanks for the suggestion bbob! And thanks everyone else for the compliments and crits!
Are you allowed to use multiple textures? I reckon a small simple (possible just cloud renders or some gradient stripes) reflection map or cubemap would work wonders. That, in combination with some high specularity and dark diffuse texture, should give a nice effect.
Also, I think you could make the small (infrared?) thingy look a bit better with some cheap texture tweaks. Check out the camera's on my oldphone for an example.
Are you allowed to use multiple textures? I reckon a small simple (possible just cloud renders or some gradient stripes) reflection map or cubemap would work wonders. That, in combination with some high specularity and dark diffuse texture, should give a nice effect.
Also, I think you could make the small (infrared?) thingy look a bit better with some cheap texture tweaks. Check out the camera's on my oldphone for an example.
On the cubemap/reflection map I think they are default on in marmoset but I couldn't get them to reflect clearly enough, I do like the subtle dent suggestion for sure though, all I had seen in other flashlights was some basic banding but i was sticking to the concept for the initial model.
However I got approval for use in my portfolio to change the model so I can use as many maps as I want, although I was already allowed to do so.
For the infrared (i think it's a laser but I don't know why it looks incandescent in the refs of it) could you clarify what the texture tweaks need to be? I darkened up the diffuse and brightened the spec on it trying to make it pop - but it's not supposed to be on because when it is it's red, so I just wanted it to look shiny but off the way it seems to be.
Right now your spec has pretty much the same info as the diffuse, just a bit lighter. What I did was use the diffuse map only to build the internal elements, and completely ignored the glass/plastic cover in the diffuse.
The specular is a rather complex map as it tries to trick the eye into believing there are separate elements. There's a base specular for the glass/plastic which is pretty straightforward. There's also a ring for the camera part and a small dot for the lens. In motion, these 2 small details look a wee bit different than the blackness around it, causing it to make it look like the camera/lens is floating in an empty space (which it sorta is IRL).
The LED flash (yellow thingy) also separates the plastic cover from the LED underneath it. Also, don't forget how a simple inner shadow/fake AO can imply depth and fake separated objects (look at the screen for instance). I don't think it's technically correct, but it looks good (IMO) and that's all that matters.
Here are the full maps:
In short:
-make the glass cover a simple flat color (not at 100% brightness, so you can brighten parts to imply depth behind the pane)
-paint most of the detail in the diffuse, paint only the objects behond the glass cover.
-don't bother too much about correctness, just about goodlookness. Painting in lighting and faking detail is fine.
On the low poly version of the flash light with innards could it not be done that the bulb is not extruded from the reflection dome and instead is a separate mesh that's just attached later because then you won't need tris there to connect the bulb to the dome.
I have seen people do this with keys on keyboards of example. An artist I know was working on an old computer to put into UDK and the verison that had tris linking the keys to the actual board produced some avoidable shading issues so what he did was separate the keys from the keyboard and just filled in the mesh underneath them with nice clean quad. The keys then just rested ontop and in engine it looked a lot better.
Phil, they call that solution 'floating geometry' and it's a good solution for a lot of examples. There's a good chance it'd work in this case too.
However. In this case it won't give any shading issues (I think) and it only costs about 8 triangles (which on a 8000 triangles gun isn't a big hit. And having floating geometry can (in rare occasions) cause some issues with z-fighting and lightmap issues.
Personally I'd use floating geo for the bulb too, though. It's a good solution and it would make things a bit easier with baking normalmaps I think.
Phil, they call that solution 'floating geometry' and it's a good solution for a lot of examples. There's a good chance it'd work in this case too.
However. In this case it won't give any shading issues (I think) and it only costs about 8 triangles (which on a 8000 triangles gun isn't a big hit. And having floating geometry can (in rare occasions) cause some issues with z-fighting and lightmap issues.
Personally I'd use floating geo for the bulb too, though. It's a good solution and it would make things a bit easier with baking normalmaps I think.
Thanks Snader for the clarification, I get what you mean now and will do that to my infrared/laser piece. And yeah for the floating geo it would work but i haven't had any issues with NM baking when using it this way since the high was also an extrusion, and as you said it would only save just a few tri's which just isn't worth the extra time it would take to change. A few more changes and i'm calling this one finished haha!
For anyone who is tired of this thread popping up, here is the end of it haha! I am calling this one done, i'll still take crits for future projects but I can't continue working on this one piece.
For the NM i did end up seperating the hard edges and moving them apart slightly, thanks to leaving room in the first place for bleeding i had room to easily move them slightly. This fixed all shading errors I was having trouble with before and was an easy solution.
I changed the Infrared piece and in moving light it actually looks great now!
The bullet has now changed in the maps and I am very happy with the results, thanks for the tip fletch! And of course thanks to bbob and sltr for their constant support! On to redoing my portfolio then up next is a cheytac .408 rifle
Replies
I myself am fiddling with a gun model at the moment to figure out exactly what to do as hard surface bakes are a lot less forgiving than organics. So don't take my word indiscriminately, I suggest you set up a couple of test bakes to figure out what needs doing where. Either that, or wait for a guru like EQ to set shit straight.. :P
Besides, I dont know how marmoset reads maya normals. I myself am using max and xoliuls awesome viewport shader.
Maya doesn't really have "smoothing groups" persay, you can soften or harden an edge, but there are no such groups that I know of, this has always made the big seperation for me between max and maya, i'll do some test bakes and see how things turn out
Thanks Phil, it was indeed sloppy in the beginning though but I knew I would have a fair amount of cleanup to be done due to the low resolution of the mesh that I could work with within zbrush
I think the way Maya handles normals/hard edges and soft edges, is so much easier then Max way. In the end, it's the exact same info on the geometry.
As for 90 degrees angles being baked it wouldn't be a problem. As long as you HP have nice round edges so that at least a few pixels can be baked to the texture. When it comes to 90 degrees angles and lowpolys i usually make it a hard edge and split it in my UV map. Make a test bake and bake with the UVs split and one without. You'l see the results very quick.
Then, all this is also in the wiki (:
Ahh thank you, exactly what I needed to know
Anyways i'm redoing my portfolio site entirely and wanting to start it off with this piece in total so I need tips for what angles to take shots of my work/how many beauty shots to take, I always have a hard time not showing off bits of my work like under this flashlight there is a screw that I want to show sooo bad but I know that's overboard.
Please lots of suggestions!
I am willing to continue working on the textures for this piece and will be fixing the bullet specular, then moving on to the overall texture. CC welcome!
Tri Count Limit was 1000, could only get it down to 1314 - but it was okay because I was so far under the limit for the gun itself.
Apart from that the bake looks really good
[FONT="]Derrick Duckworth [/FONT][FONT="]retains the right to show rendered images of the model in their portfolio and website, but the artist agrees that he will not distribute, sale, or re-engineer the model for any reason, without the express written consent from ______________(removed company name)
does this mean I can't change it at all for my portfolio site without their consent?
[/FONT]
Can you show wireframes of the flash?
Looking forward to what's next!
Good idea! I'll give that a shot!
Wires -
Wow gauss that's quite a compliment I really appreciate it!
Now that i've uploaded these I see a few spots on the bottom shot I could have eliminated a few more polys - whoops :icon15:
Hey Snader, I noticed a few of those when posting and mentioned that, however some of them I did not, and some of them aren't fixable the way you placed it, such as on the slidelock - which i moved away from the initial geo on the wire so you could see what I mean.
I'm not happy with the inside of the reflective surface and the glass in marmoset - any tips on that? Final tri count is 1556 on this one, i'm happy I went back and changed that - thanks for the suggestion bbob! And thanks everyone else for the compliments and crits!
You could also add some detail to the mirror, like 'flower petals' or some subtle dents.
Also, I think you could make the small (infrared?) thingy look a bit better with some cheap texture tweaks. Check out the camera's on my old phone for an example.
On the cubemap/reflection map I think they are default on in marmoset but I couldn't get them to reflect clearly enough, I do like the subtle dent suggestion for sure though, all I had seen in other flashlights was some basic banding but i was sticking to the concept for the initial model.
However I got approval for use in my portfolio to change the model so I can use as many maps as I want, although I was already allowed to do so.
For the infrared (i think it's a laser but I don't know why it looks incandescent in the refs of it) could you clarify what the texture tweaks need to be? I darkened up the diffuse and brightened the spec on it trying to make it pop - but it's not supposed to be on because when it is it's red, so I just wanted it to look shiny but off the way it seems to be.
The specular is a rather complex map as it tries to trick the eye into believing there are separate elements. There's a base specular for the glass/plastic which is pretty straightforward. There's also a ring for the camera part and a small dot for the lens. In motion, these 2 small details look a wee bit different than the blackness around it, causing it to make it look like the camera/lens is floating in an empty space (which it sorta is IRL).
The LED flash (yellow thingy) also separates the plastic cover from the LED underneath it. Also, don't forget how a simple inner shadow/fake AO can imply depth and fake separated objects (look at the screen for instance). I don't think it's technically correct, but it looks good (IMO) and that's all that matters.
Here are the full maps:
In short:
-make the glass cover a simple flat color (not at 100% brightness, so you can brighten parts to imply depth behind the pane)
-paint most of the detail in the diffuse, paint only the objects behond the glass cover.
-don't bother too much about correctness, just about goodlookness. Painting in lighting and faking detail is fine.
I have seen people do this with keys on keyboards of example. An artist I know was working on an old computer to put into UDK and the verison that had tris linking the keys to the actual board produced some avoidable shading issues so what he did was separate the keys from the keyboard and just filled in the mesh underneath them with nice clean quad. The keys then just rested ontop and in engine it looked a lot better.
However. In this case it won't give any shading issues (I think) and it only costs about 8 triangles (which on a 8000 triangles gun isn't a big hit. And having floating geometry can (in rare occasions) cause some issues with z-fighting and lightmap issues.
Personally I'd use floating geo for the bulb too, though. It's a good solution and it would make things a bit easier with baking normalmaps I think.
Thanks Snader for the clarification, I get what you mean now and will do that to my infrared/laser piece. And yeah for the floating geo it would work but i haven't had any issues with NM baking when using it this way since the high was also an extrusion, and as you said it would only save just a few tri's which just isn't worth the extra time it would take to change. A few more changes and i'm calling this one finished haha!
For the NM i did end up seperating the hard edges and moving them apart slightly, thanks to leaving room in the first place for bleeding i had room to easily move them slightly. This fixed all shading errors I was having trouble with before and was an easy solution.
I changed the Infrared piece and in moving light it actually looks great now!
The bullet has now changed in the maps and I am very happy with the results, thanks for the tip fletch! And of course thanks to bbob and sltr for their constant support! On to redoing my portfolio then up next is a cheytac .408 rifle