[WIP] District 9 inspired weapon
polycounter lvl 14
Hey guys, I've been working and re-working this for a while now. Thought I'd drop it in here for some more views and crit.
Based on a concpet by JohnTheBomb at CGHub:
High-poly:
Low-poly:
The low-poly is sitting at 11,000 tris and is split into 5 meshes, two for triggers, one for the part that moves down and then the last for some fiddly bits at the back.
I've been stuck as to what add as geo and what to leave to the normal map. I've added in some of the detail as geo on the side because it affects the silhouette, but I've also added the detail at the front as geo because I didn't think a normal would be able to capture all that very well.
Based on a concpet by JohnTheBomb at CGHub:
High-poly:
Low-poly:
The low-poly is sitting at 11,000 tris and is split into 5 meshes, two for triggers, one for the part that moves down and then the last for some fiddly bits at the back.
I've been stuck as to what add as geo and what to leave to the normal map. I've added in some of the detail as geo on the side because it affects the silhouette, but I've also added the detail at the front as geo because I didn't think a normal would be able to capture all that very well.
Replies
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/21050664/district9Weapon/highPoly12.jpg
I'll do a nice render of it when it's all finished and stuff.
the black shape at the rear is actually the padding, it's just not really portrayed in the model.
(looks good by the way, apart from the shoulder area)
Thanks!
And I added a view finder.
I honestly don't know where I can join things without having crazy distortion. Any pointers would be useful.
Still not completely happy with the normal map. I'm getting odd seems on some of the edges. Will continue to try and get a better bake.
Here's a couple of images that show what is actually being baked. Red is main UV space, all others are then overlaying.
But yeah I definitely wanna look at the UVs again, especially how UVs have an affect on edges (I have odd edges like this). Any crit would be much appreciated.
The one way I know to fix that if you want to use those smoothing groups is to just break them apart on the UV. Most people seem to prefer using as few smoothing groups as possible however since they increase the amount of vertices in your model and instead chamfer hard edges on your low poly model so instead of a 90 degree turn you have a couple of 45 degree turns. I've also seen people move the edge just a tiny bit so that it's an 85 degree turn instead of 90 degrees but that sometimes looks dodgy.
If you straight up ignore the artifacts you get by not using smoothing groups or chamfering edges than those nasty looking artifacts will show up on your normal map.
This is what I was having when I baked and reset the cage and didn't use any kind of push or tweaking it (my low-poly covers the high-poly).
This is what I got when I reset the cage and used push by just 0.1. (Ignore the crazy stuff behind the main edges)
When you merge your LP together you are:
1. Making it a pleasure to texture
2. Optimizing UV space & better texture density
3. Less seams
Check out my first HP to LP work I did several months back, lots of good relevant information here from Perna and EQ
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=83091
So I've been trying to get some material definitions down first. These textures at the moment don't really have that well thought out scratches/used areas or build up of dirt. But I'm just trying to get the materials looking right at the moment... I know those things have an impact on how materials look. But... hey let's just look at my textures!
Diffuse
Spec
Gloss
So I'm trying to get a soft plastic for the main part, that grey blocky thing. The detail on those is meant to be a bare metal. The part at the top is meant to be a sort of gunmetal/steely type thing. The white thing at the back is meant to be the same as the gunmetal but with paint. And then some of that paint has been scratched off. Obviously there'd be some colour variation near the scratches, and generally on the paint, but for now...
Anywho, here's how I've actually set-up the materials for the gun, but I'm a little worried it's a bit hard to read:
Crit would be muuuuch appreciated.
Thanks!
Will obviously go through those stages once I've set-up all these. I've tried to plan ahead by having the bare metal present in the diffuse, spec and gloss that also matches the gun metal. So then I'll just be able to peel off what I want and it should match.
Anyway!
Glad I decided to try and get all the materials down before spending time localising things. Makes it easier for me to visualise stuff. Also I'm able to tell where things are off better (which there are a few things).
Busy day, not as much progress as I wanted.
If so, don't forget to overlay the AO in there as well
Just to address the issue of some stuff being modelled in, I did at one point have a lot of that detail modelled in. This low-poly has been remade about three times, each time to make it easier to texture and get a better normal result.
You can see how my first version on the second page of this thread.
And the second version on the first post of this thread.
I think some of the "blockiness" may be less obvious once I have the material definitions down and am able to start messing up the surface more and have better variation.
Also when you say a lot metal looks like stone, which metal do you mean? I agree with some of the metal looking slate-ish, but I'm not sure which parts you may be talking about.
And when you say make a more vivid specular, do you mean just brighter, or a brighter with more contrast?
Thanks for the feedback again dude, really want to get better at texturing before I move onto an environment.
Gonna start adding localised detail now.
I think that some of the metal parts would read a lot more like metal if you added some shiny scratches into them. Especially this area:
I can't really give you any particular tips on rubber texturing, go on Google and cgtextures and search for some rubber reference and try and replicate the texture and the colors, I think you can do it
http://www.nextgenhardsurface.com/index.php?pageid=racer445
Feedback is appreciated!
Also decided to cut out some of those unneeded polys near the guard.