Worklog. BreaK-

BreaK-

Hi guys, after a long time from doing anything 2D or 3D I've decided to open up maya and photoshop again and do some work. Its been 4 years since I graduated university so I'm expecting to be massively rusty in both areas. My 3D work is much stronger than my 2D, so I'm hoping to improve in both areas but especially 2D, mostly through texture work.

Anyway, to ease myself in I thought I'd follow a couple of texturing tutorials and model something pretty basic, that would be easy to bake from high to low.

Heres what I've got.






Modelling

I made 2 different sized models, the one in the picture above is 500 tris and the picture below is 160 tris. I have no idea what the average tris count for a barrel is but I've done both anyway. (Im suspecting its probably more round the 80 - 100 tris count).

Texturing

Again I'm thinking most barrels use a 512x512 texture size in game, so I might go back and lower mine from a 1024x1024.

I've never attempted a Gloss map before so It may need some tweaking, I'm hoping you guys may be able to give me a few pointers on that. Im also not too happy with the spec, but I've messed about with it for a few hours and this is the best result. I think it looks ok in Marmoset anyway.

At the minute I think its done, but I'm sure you guys will give me some crit to get back working on this! I know its nothing compared with some of the wonderful art on this forum but I'm taking it slow and trying to get some basic skills down.

Cheers guys.

BreaK-

Ok, moving on from metal I want to practice concrete textures, and hopefully a little bit of ZBrush. I've never really used ZBrush so Its going to be a difficult learning experience.

I'm going to try and re-produce an assest from Crysis 2. Its one of the many concrete bollards that are littered around the city. It gives me chance to practice concrete texturing and lets me brush up on my metal too.

Heres the current High ---> Low bake.



I say current because I'd like to add detail to the concrete in ZBrush, but as a compete beginner at this Im struggling on the correct brushes/alphas to use.

Do you guys know of any tutorials that demonstrate this process? God ZBrush is hard!

Thanks!

jeremiah_bigley

You seem to have the high to low process down... And your texture isn't horrible... So I think you are off to a good start back from your break BreaK.

I don't think you really nailed the metal on your barrel. It came off closer to rubber or plastic. The spec and gloss are very weak for something that is supposed to be metal.

Your second piece seems to be coming along okay. I don't know that you needed those dents? Is the whole thing concrete? If not what parts are? And if this is more or less the final lowpoly (didn't say cast), then I don't see why you couldn't do your concrete details in photoshop via Crazybump, Xnormal filters, Nvidia filters, or nDo. If you are not changing the shape very much it is normal information you could create with the texturing. It is pretty easy to make concrete look like concrete.

To be honest... I think you are above these small props. I think you might choose a larger asset to test your skills on.

Keep up the good work man

BreaK-

Thanks Jeremiah. Honestly im not above small props...yet anyway. Im just wanting to find my feet a little before I delve into something bigger.

I see what you mean about the rubber looking metal. I'll have another pass at it. The spec does react nice, but the angle of the light needs to be facing the camera to get the metal to shine properly. It was my first time using Marmoset too, so I just used the "pavement" setting and that was that. I could maybe get a better shot by setting up a few lights. Something I'll learn for next time.

About the 2nd piece, yeah the dented piece is metal, as well as the 3 jutting out pieces. I want it to look like its been drove into a few times. (Trucks backing into it and the like). Might add some bullet holes too. I do have nDo so I'll give that a blast but I was thinking of taking chunks off the edges, so maybe its best to alter it in ZBrush?

I don't know, ZBrush would be a nice feather in my cap so to speak and I'm keane on learning it.

Thanks for your crit dude.

Also when using Gloss maps in Marmoset, do you know what channel to plug them into?

BreaK-

I've had a quick re-do of the Spec map. This is it without the Gloss map in marmoset.



Is this better? I think its an improvement.

ayoub44

great job now your barrel reading as well

BreaK-

Thanks ayoub44, though I'm not quite sure what you mean.

Ok so I have a fairly simple question.

This bollard I'm making is obviously made of concrete, but also has a large panel of metal running through it and I'm wondering what type of material to use. Blinn or Lambert? Im guessing if I use one or the other the spec & gloss maps will help seperate the 2 materials?

Oh and I'm still wondering what tab to plug my gloss map into in Marmoset?

Any help would be great guys.

Thanks again for your crit. I need you guys to help me improve.

BreaK-

Hi guys. I would like to achive a look kinda like this for the edges of my concrete.



So its fairly new built and modern, but had a few brushes with grenades, bullets and the like. Any ZBrush techniques handy to get this look?

Im struggling with Trim Dynamic and Planar Cut atm.

Computron

Those should get you most of the way there and then you could project an alpha to get the noisy bits.

RogerP

I would use the clay tool to build up the rough out of the crack and then use the noise modifier along with some Alphas to build up the noise and bits.

BreaK-

Ok guys I re-worked the Bollard. Heres just a screenie of the Normal Map applied.



I'm getting a couple strange shadows, but im guessing thats the model as they dont appear on the Normal. I think these will be pretty much hidden when a diffuse is added.

One problem I'm having is baking the AO. Im getting strange reactions when I try to transfer maps from the high to low. Heres a screenshot.



Any ideas as to what I'm doing wrong? Is there any other way of generating an Accurate AO?

Thanks in advance guys.

Rick_D

just to give you a heads up, the c2 barrier was split down the middle, re-used the end pieces and so on - your map has an incredible amount of wasted space,you don't need a 1024

BreaK-

Rick_D wrote: »

just to give you a heads up, the c2 barrier was split down the middle, re-used the end pieces and so on - your map has an incredible amount of wasted space,you don't need a 1024

Ah yeah, I can see the repeat now. Heh, I'll get on to that.

Apparently Maya 2011 has an issue with AO baking....great.

I've used XNormal to generate the AO but im not too happy with the results as yet. Getting seams in places. Never used it before so I guess it was a learning experience.

I would buy NDo2 if I wasn't so broke. That looks like an awesome program.

Heres what I've got so far. Just a new AO and Normal. Will begin work on the diffuse/spec/gloss tomorrow.



Crits more than welcome.

Thanks.

BreaK-

Any input guys?

Oniram

looks like the bolts or whatever those things are seem to be warped. you may want to adjust your projection cage to fix that.

jeremiah_bigley

Not really getting any input because there is not much to critique. You have an AO and a normal. Stuff looks clean...

Let see them textures you have been promising!

BreaK-

Oniram wrote: »

looks like the bolts or whatever those things are seem to be warped. you may want to adjust your projection cage to fix that.

Yeah man I see that. How do you go about doing this?

I've adjusted the cage as much as I can and still get the warping. Im baking from high to low in maya, is something like this better baked in XNormal?

I can't see how I can get rid of a little warping like this.

Any help would be awesome. Thanks.

Razorb

Post a screengrab of how the cage currently looks, maybe then people could help a bit easier : ).. i dont use maya but im sure it follows the same rules as max and so you probably just need to pull in your cage a bit more on the sides ; o, but yea POST more pics.

Either that or make a normal map for those in photoshop.. it would take about 30 seconds!

BreaK-

Heh, cheers Aaron. Hows life? Gaz btw.

I've pulled the cage in as far as it will go without it intruding into the model, and you're right I could do them in Photoshop, but I'm really trying to get the High/Low bakes down. I suppose creating a little detail like this it would be better/easier to use photoshop anyway?

I'll post more screens tomorrow when I've worked on this more. Day off work so I can hopefully get this thing done and move onto something else!

Thanks for your crit man!

BreaK-

Ok guys, seen as Maya has some kinda problem with baking the AO, I'm using XNormal.

First time I've used it so it may be the settings but I'm not getting great results.

Heres the AO. Its kinda patchy. Is this normal?

My settings.

I have closest if ray fails checked.
Edge Padding @ 22.
Bucket size @ 32.
AA is set to 4x.

Have you any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

TrevorJ

not positive but i think if you up the samples(default is 256, try 512) in the ... option box beside the word ambient occlusion, that should help, granted it will take near twice as long.

BreaK-

Hi guys wondering if you could help me out again.

Im getting strange results in XNormal when baking my normal map.

Heres a screen grab.



Any ideas what im doing wrong?

explodingseashells

90 degree angles. Either bevel the edge and rebake OR break it with hard edge/multiple smooth grps and seperate ur uvs along the same edge, then rebake.

BreaK-

explodingseashells wrote: »

90 degree angles. Either bevel the edge and rebake OR break it with hard edge/multiple smooth grps and seperate ur uvs along the same edge, then rebake.

Thanks man. Sorted.

BreaK-

Hiya chaps. I've decided to leave the USP alone for a while and model an M4A1.

So.... I initially started this to take my mind off the USP, but this is turning out a lot better than I thought and I'm making really good progress.

Not too bothered about getting it 10000000% accurate, but I am going for quite a high level of detail. Sooooooo any crits you guys have would be awesome.

Heres where I'm up to.

Struggling to get my head around modelling the main body of the rifle. (Mostly because either side of the body varies massively to its counterpart).



Are there any techniques I should be using to make this easier.

i.e. Model 1 half then the other?

Thanks again guys. Really appreciate your help.

BreaK-

Last update before bed.

Im becoming aware of the fact that there about 1000 different accesories for the M4A1, so atm it may be a mix and match of a few different aftermarket parts. (I'm just googling images).

As long as I can get a low poly bake at the end of this I honestly dont care what version of the M4 this is.

As always crits are welcome. No doubt I've missed loads.



Thanks

BreaK-

Hiya guys, as I've been playing a LOT of Battlefield recently I've been admiring some of their models in game. So I thought I'd have a bash at a simple asset. the shipping container.

Heres a little WIP. Got to add some details to the front door yet, but I just wanted to see if I had unwrapped the LP right.

Anyway I've ran into a small issue. Im not too sure if its the way I've unwrapped it, ot if theres too little/much edge padding on the bake, but im getting seems along the hard edges.

You can see here below.



Heres the Normal



Heres my UV's



Can you guys see where I've gone wrong. I'd love your help.

Thanks in advance. BreaK.

Impala88

i'd try just manually moving your UV vertes on those edges, it just seems that the UV islands are just a bit to big for the normal texture that they cover. Shrink them down vert by vert and it "should" fix it.

BreaK-

Impala88.

Thanks man, took your advice and moved the UV's around. Bit of a nightmare, surely there's an easier way.

Anyway it looks ok and im done with messing about with the UV's! Heres a little shot with a couple extra details on the door. Still have to add some screw/bolt details to the normal but ill do them in photoshop.



Thanks man.

BreaK-

Finished tweaking the normal and AO maps.

Heres a couple shots of where I'm at.

Front


Side


Rear


Its taken me too long to generate the normal map due to some wierd goings on. Thanks too all the people who helped me figure the problems out!

Now on to texture.

EDIT.

I realise 1400+ tris for an asset like this isn't considered low, but as its for my portfolio and more importantly texture/baking practice I didn't want the overall look of it to suffer.

BreaK-

Update.

Finished off adding small normal details in NDo, and moved onto the diffuse.

Just trying out some different colour & font combo's at the minute.

Would love some crit if you have any.



Thanks. BreaK-

BreaK-

Small update.

I'd love a bit of crit.

Thanks.

Computron

Please do yourself a favor and add some parralax to that crate, it will add SOOOOOO much. Also, you might want to loosen up the edges so the bevels won't alias out as easily.

BreaK-

Computron wrote: »

Please do yourself a favor and add some parralax to that crate, it will add SOOOOOO much. Also, you might want to loosen up the edges so the bevels won't alias out as easily.

Thanks man, yeah....I'm not too sure how to create/add parallax mapping yet. Can you link me any decent tutorials?

I've had a bash at creating one in XNormal, and applying it in Marmoset, but it looks crap and is stretching the textures.

Noob question here.

Black is -

and white is +???

Computron

you just RTT a height map (make sure to normalize the search distances before rendering, I think xnormal has some wierd feature for this), plug it in(IDK about Maroset), and show some pics!

Parallax will always stretch, the only way around that is to model it in which would not be a good idea for something like this unless your engine handels it better that way.

BreaK-

Computron wrote: »

you just RTT a height map (make sure to normalize the search distances before rendering, I think xnormal has some wierd feature for this), plug it in(IDK about Maroset), and show some pics!

Parallax will always stretch, the only way around that is to model it in which would not be a good idea for something like this unless your engine handels it better that way.

Thanks man. Had a play around and might have something that looks ok.

I'm no expert on how displacement maps should look, so I cant easily spot if anything's wrong with it!

Heres a couple more screenshots.

No Gloss or Spec maps yet.

Firstly a shot of where I am with wearing the paint down.



This is a shot of the model with the disp map applied.



Once again any crit would be welcomed.

Thanks. BreaK-

BreaK-

First pass with the spec map applied.

Computron

NICE!

Jet_Pilot

Can you post a wire frame for me?

BreaK-

Jet_Pilot wrote: »

Can you post a wire frame for me?

Here you are.



Probably a little too many supporting edges tbh, but because of all the indents being the same, and running along the entire length of the object I had to put them in to stop the normal warping.

Again, not as low as I could have got it, but I like the end result.

Computron

Show them flats.

BreaK-

Here you go.

Diffuse - Normal - Gloss - Specular

I've toned the specular down and added the gloss which gives a slightly more matt finish. Hopefully anyway.



Heres a final shot.



Let me know what you think guys, before I call this done.

Thanks. BreaK-

Computron

I think it looks great. the chipped and scratched parts might look cooler with a little higher specular.

BreaK-

Computron wrote: »

I think it looks great. the chipped and scratched parts might look cooler with a little higher specular.

Yeah I thought that, but I'm going for the matt look, soo I've tweaked it up a little more but not too much.

Here's the last shot. Would love a bit of feedback on the texture guys, being only the second metal texture I've done, I'd like to improve more with your help.

Here you go.





Thanks for your input computron.

Computron

It came together very well, what techniques did you use to make that scratched metal? The only thing I could add is maybe some more color?

Racer445

since you asked for my feedback...

the biggest problem is there's not enough basic material variation. look at your spec and gloss maps, there's really no variation because of the limited range (its all midtones) lack of color and the same cloudy overlay throughout.

for the range:
plan out your materials before you make them. by having a fair range of materials you will get some nice contrast. you've got 4 different materials here (main painted blue metal, bare metal, rubber seal, stickers) but they're not represented in the spec and gloss. specular and gloss maps are both utility maps so they should really have a good range of darks, lights, and mids to represent your materials properly. think about how the real materials act, try to translate that into your maps, then execute.

for lack of color:
this is partly due to your bland overlays, but it's important to remember that the reason why we have colored specular maps is not really for overall tint, but for variation. for instance, the bare metal underneath the blue paint just kinda blends in to the paint because it has the same tone and specularity. if you made the bare metal darker on the specular and gave it a different tone it would probably stand out more. color gives life to boring materials.

for the boring overlays:
all you have now is just a cloudy super generic overlay for every material. go check out photos of the real thing, figure out how it wears, and add some unique photos for each material. it's also important to translate this real wear into the appropriate maps, because some wear only affects the gloss and some only affects the spec, while others may effect the diffuse too. this is really just where common sense and thinking come into play... use your head and it shouldn't be too hard.

the other thing is that your paint scratches look blatantly hand painted. remember that things like paint either chip (grab those shapes from photos) or get scraped with varying opacity (use photos to mask the hand painted edge scrapes so they have variation between scraped and not scraped).

sorry if that didn't make a ton of sense but i am severely lacking sleep. hope it helps...?

BreaK-

Racer445 wrote: »

since you asked for my feedback...

the biggest problem is there's not enough basic material variation. look at your spec and gloss maps, there's really no variation because of the limited range (its all midtones) lack of color and the same cloudy overlay throughout.

for the range:
plan out your materials before you make them. by having a fair range of materials you will get some nice contrast. you've got 4 different materials here (main painted blue metal, bare metal, rubber seal, stickers) but they're not represented in the spec and gloss. specular and gloss maps are both utility maps so they should really have a good range of darks, lights, and mids to represent your materials properly. think about how the real materials act, try to translate that into your maps, then execute.

for lack of color:
this is partly due to your bland overlays, but it's important to remember that the reason why we have colored specular maps is not really for overall tint, but for variation. for instance, the bare metal underneath the blue paint just kinda blends in to the paint because it has the same tone and specularity. if you made the bare metal darker on the specular and gave it a different tone it would probably stand out more. color gives life to boring materials.

for the boring overlays:
all you have now is just a cloudy super generic overlay for every material. go check out photos of the real thing, figure out how it wears, and add some unique photos for each material. it's also important to translate this real wear into the appropriate maps, because some wear only affects the gloss and some only affects the spec, while others may effect the diffuse too. this is really just where common sense and thinking come into play... use your head and it shouldn't be too hard.

the other thing is that your paint scratches look blatantly hand painted. remember that things like paint either chip (grab those shapes from photos) or get scraped with varying opacity (use photos to mask the hand painted edge scrapes so they have variation between scraped and not scraped).

sorry if that didn't make a ton of sense but i am severely lacking sleep. hope it helps...?

thanks for your feedback.

Yeah I know I need to use photo reference in my textures. Like I said, its the second metal texture I've attempted, so I'm still learning what specular & gloss values do to the image when in engine.

I need to increase my photo library of metal textures too, or go out with my camera.

Im not too sure how exciting I can make a cargo container though. I'm going to attempt something a little more dynamic next I think.

Thanks for the feedback man. I'll put it to good use.

BreaK-

Ok had a quick mess with the diffuse and spec when I got in from work.

Better or worse guys? help me out.

Computron

definitely looks more interesting. flats.

BreaK-

Hi guys.

First attempt at this. I've created my site to store my folio on.

You can find it at www.break-art.com

Although I'm still updating it atm, could you tell me what you think of the layout.

I used Carbonmade to make it as Im rubbish and dont know how to create my own site from scratch. I've added a custom url though to make it seem a little more professional.

Ive added a WIP thread....is this a good idea?

Thanks!

Break.

Jessica Dinh

Cool, nice simple layout! Personally I wouldn't put wip work in my portfolio. Also that 'new' tag on the cargo crate looks kinda cheap, I'd take it off xD