So after spending the holiday's talking with studios and doing art tests here and there, I'm getting around to wrapping this thing up. Just finished the low poly, I need to finish packing the UV's and checking the smoothing groups, and it will be all ready to bake.
Question.. hard surface modeling generally leave you with a lot of uneven faces thanks to all the support edge loops, how do you go about preparing such a model for Zbrush without the sculpt getting all distorted looking?
I'm curious what a 1024 projected Dynamesh would do for this.
I'm doing a pseudo-symmetrical bake, Computron, seeing as how this is portfolio work, I'm going to be a tad indulgent and do some unique texturing across the whole model. Many of the smaller parts (caps, wires, pipes, gadgetry) is symmetrical, though - the stuff that nobody will see twice from any one angle - which works out great given the shape of the fighter.
Here are the UV's, I'm going to loosen them up a bit tomorrow morning, check all the smoothing groups, and get to baking this thing down.
Hard surface work with lots of UV islands is something you want to pad generously. You will avoid a lot of smoothing errors and seams if you do.
<- This
The amount of padding depends somewhat on how different the diffuse colors will be. However, for the just normals not getting messed up I would use a minimum of 8px on a 2048 (or 16 on a 4k texture). That should allow you to avoid errors for all the important mip stages. One trick I use to help with this is to create a low contrast checker texture in photoshop where each square is 8px (again only for 2k unwraps). Then I make that the UV editor background so I have a constant reference for what 8px looks like.
Thanks for the tips guys, I was planning on spending this morning to loosen up the UV's and give them some space, but I didn't realize it would need to be as much as 8 pixels. I'll spend some extra time sorting them out some more. That's a great idea, Alec, I've always just kind of eyeballed it without any major issues, but I've never done an asset with as many clusters as this one.
This is the first time I've heard of errors due to the spacing between UV islands. Do these issues only come up if you use mipmaps, or just in general?
You should always use mip-maps, they are on by default in most shaders. there are special cases with regards to things like alpha testing, but generally if you are baking any normals or special case maps, pad all of it very generously because the mip maps will cause smoothing errors.
At first it will seem like your losing a lot of resolution, but its worth the %20-%30 Texture space loss for the seamless normals.
The real hardship comes from packing the small UV islands that Raz has all throughout his UV sheet. If they are not super small, like sub-pixel baking, then you have to be pretty carefull.
Alec is being very humble and helpful, but I strongly suggest you check his 3d-Motive tutorials, especially the briefcase part 1. He goes over it in detail there and the Normal Baking tips and Tricks is a godsend.
This is the first time I've heard of errors due to the spacing between UV islands. Do these issues only come up if you use mipmaps, or just in general?
Textures on a 3d model are interpolated, which means it smooths between two pixels. The actual 'pixel' is a infinitely small point.
When you have two pixels next to each other that are radically different, it will gradate between them. When those pixels are different normal directions because they are from different smoothing groups/islands, you will get nasty seams.
It's best to have space and bake with high padding to ensure that the texel (which isn't quite up against the edge) interpolates with a similar pixel extending beyond the edge, or else you get weird shit happening. It's not such an issue for diffuse, etc, but its huge for normal maps, since that's not color information.
very nice realization of an already great concept! can't wait to see the final product.
also, great tip regarding the wirebundles. so easy it makes me kick my own shin for not having thought of it earlier (i usually copy/rotate renderable splines around a common point and adjust later) ;-)
Thanks for the info about the UV padding, I should probably experiment with this stuff at some point to learn more about it. I'll also check out that video you mentioned Computron.
Alright, threw it into UDK to test the first pass at baking, and so it's looking ok. I've got a few cylindrical issues to fix, and a couple other errors, the usual, but overall, I'm pretty pleased with the results. After a good nights sleep, and I finish another art test that's demanding to be finished, then I'll hit it again with a clear head and fix everything that needs retouching.
Now, I believe this is the part where someone from 3point comes in to write a lengthy treaty on how terribly horrible it all is, and the several dozen problems that need to be fixed, hehe.
Oh, and it's not the final version of the model, either, a lot of the geometry sharing UV space hasn't been placed yet.
If you are still looking for things to add in your kitbash, you should check out this site: http://www.revell.com/
It's filled with car, ship, plane, spaceship models... And there's a pdf instruction file with each model containing high details of the parts.
I looks like a lot of those details got baked in pretty nicely! I'm curious to see how you are going to handle those holes in your model though. Are they caused by backfacing geometry?
A lot of the holes are places I purposely didn't build on the low poly, it saves time and texture space with unwrapping and baking. I'll just pull a patch of mechanical polygons and place it behind to fill in the space. Some of the holes are also caused by places where there will be specific geometry sharing UV space that I haven't placed yet.
Its still packed a little tightly, but so far its pretty good! It's Baked in Max correct? Are you exporting with .FBX binormals and tangents and DX viewport enabled?
There's six pixels of padding, so that might make it look a bit tighter than it really is. I really spent a good hour giving the islands room to breath. And yep, I normally export with FBX and binormals/tangents checked, but I've never looked into DX viewport... it doesn't appear as either an import/export option in UDK or out of Max?
Right, I've always exported binormals and tangents without a problem, it was the DX viewport FBX options I wasn't familiar with.
Here are some better screens of bake + AO. A couple small errors to fix, then I'm going to bake out some maps that will help with separating materials, and be on to the texturing.
The bake came out well. One thing to be careful about- Right now it is reading as as scale model to me. When you do your final presentation captures make sure you avoid camera angles/fovs that exaggerate this. Also, I would avoid using DOF like you did on the highpoly images.
Alec, I'm planning on using this as the centerpiece for a scene, so I'm hoping to put it in a basic outdoor environment to give it some context. Hopefully that will fix any scale issues.
I see what you're saying about the wings, Paul, I'm going to try and give them some extra love in the texturing. I probably could have used more geometry on them, but the tri count was already getting a bit up there.
It's not. Y is flipped, right? I'm new to Marmoset, I figured it would be worth a try. but it's weird, I can rotate the sky/lights to render the normals perfectly, but it's never the lighting setup I want. Normals are great in Max and UDK though, which makes me happy. I was prepared for the worst while baking this thing, but it turned out to be pretty harmless.
Wow Dave I didn't see this when we interviewed you. Great stuff man. Glad to have you here with us. Hope you can find the time to finish off this puppy!
Phew. I haven't abandoned this thing, no worries! After months of struggling to get back into a daily grind of personal work, I'm getting close to finishing this project. A few more days and I'm hoping to put this bad boy to rest.
Wow Dave I didn't see this when we interviewed you. Great stuff man. Glad to have you here with us. Hope you can find the time to finish off this puppy!
Thanks Eric! I'm glad to finally being close to wrapping it up so I can start something new.
I must say that im fucking glad to see my concept art falling in such goods hands !
I can't tell you how I feel but thank you for this awesome 3d modeling !!! You sir are fucking good !
I'm gonna put your work on illustration and concept art forum !!!
Thanks man, I appreciate that! I didn't realize you posted here, I haven't checked been back to update in a couple months - but kudos to you on killer concepts to work from!
Alright, here's the nearly completed texturing update, screencapped from UDK.
Oh man, this is amazing. That unwrap makes my head hurt, it must've took forever. It's worth it though, this looks brilliant.
Also, great idea with the separate Max file full of useful objects, I think I'm gonna try that myself, especially if these are the kinds of results you can get from an asset packed with so much information.
Thanks, Computron! Here are some flats for you, for hanging around my topic for the many months I've dragged this thing out for. Clockwise: Diff, Norm, Refl/Gloss, and Spec. A lot of material doodads and whatnot in UDK as well.
I'm getting close to calling this thing finished, I did a little lighting setup, and I'm toodling around in photoshop now...
Looking sweet! Don't go overboard with the post processing, the model is strong enough to stand on its own.
I wonder if you should add a reflection mask on the glass where it meets the metal framing. It looks a little floaty there because it's not reflecting nearby surfaces.
Could I suggest a dash of colour? Maybe push the red stripes a little more? It's very drab-looking right now, though that of course might be the look you were going for. Absolutely lovely model either way!
Replies
15k seams cool with what you got
how much time so far u spent on it?
I spent about 2 full days on the low-poly, including unwrapping and smoothing groups. I'm trying to find time now for the bake.
I'm curious what a 1024 projected Dynamesh would do for this.
Are you doing a symmetrical bake? I am exited to see the final bake and texture-sheet/UVs.
Here are the UV's, I'm going to loosen them up a bit tomorrow morning, check all the smoothing groups, and get to baking this thing down.
Nicely packed my friend. and very nice low poly mesh!
<- This
The amount of padding depends somewhat on how different the diffuse colors will be. However, for the just normals not getting messed up I would use a minimum of 8px on a 2048 (or 16 on a 4k texture). That should allow you to avoid errors for all the important mip stages. One trick I use to help with this is to create a low contrast checker texture in photoshop where each square is 8px (again only for 2k unwraps). Then I make that the UV editor background so I have a constant reference for what 8px looks like.
At first it will seem like your losing a lot of resolution, but its worth the %20-%30 Texture space loss for the seamless normals.
The real hardship comes from packing the small UV islands that Raz has all throughout his UV sheet. If they are not super small, like sub-pixel baking, then you have to be pretty carefull.
Alec is being very humble and helpful, but I strongly suggest you check his 3d-Motive tutorials, especially the briefcase part 1. He goes over it in detail there and the Normal Baking tips and Tricks is a godsend.
Textures on a 3d model are interpolated, which means it smooths between two pixels. The actual 'pixel' is a infinitely small point.
When you have two pixels next to each other that are radically different, it will gradate between them. When those pixels are different normal directions because they are from different smoothing groups/islands, you will get nasty seams.
It's best to have space and bake with high padding to ensure that the texel (which isn't quite up against the edge) interpolates with a similar pixel extending beyond the edge, or else you get weird shit happening. It's not such an issue for diffuse, etc, but its huge for normal maps, since that's not color information.
also, great tip regarding the wirebundles. so easy it makes me kick my own shin for not having thought of it earlier (i usually copy/rotate renderable splines around a common point and adjust later) ;-)
+1
Now, I believe this is the part where someone from 3point comes in to write a lengthy treaty on how terribly horrible it all is, and the several dozen problems that need to be fixed, hehe.
Oh, and it's not the final version of the model, either, a lot of the geometry sharing UV space hasn't been placed yet.
If you are still looking for things to add in your kitbash, you should check out this site: http://www.revell.com/
It's filled with car, ship, plane, spaceship models... And there's a pdf instruction file with each model containing high details of the parts.
Here are some better screens of bake + AO. A couple small errors to fix, then I'm going to bake out some maps that will help with separating materials, and be on to the texturing.
You baked the normal's flawlessly.
Alec, I'm planning on using this as the centerpiece for a scene, so I'm hoping to put it in a basic outdoor environment to give it some context. Hopefully that will fix any scale issues.
I see what you're saying about the wings, Paul, I'm going to try and give them some extra love in the texturing. I probably could have used more geometry on them, but the tri count was already getting a bit up there.
Also of note, I dot believe marmoset's tangent basis is synced with 3ds Max.
I must say that im fucking glad to see my concept art falling in such goods hands !
I can't tell you how I feel but thank you for this awesome 3d modeling !!! You sir are fucking good !
I'm gonna put your work on illustration and concept art forum !!!
Get it 3D Printed!!!
:poly121::poly121:
bad ass
Thanks Eric! I'm glad to finally being close to wrapping it up so I can start something new.
Thanks man, I appreciate that! I didn't realize you posted here, I haven't checked been back to update in a couple months - but kudos to you on killer concepts to work from!
Alright, here's the nearly completed texturing update, screencapped from UDK.
Post flats!
Also, great idea with the separate Max file full of useful objects, I think I'm gonna try that myself, especially if these are the kinds of results you can get from an asset packed with so much information.
sweet avatar BTW.
I'm getting close to calling this thing finished, I did a little lighting setup, and I'm toodling around in photoshop now...
I wonder if you should add a reflection mask on the glass where it meets the metal framing. It looks a little floaty there because it's not reflecting nearby surfaces.
Very Impressive, dude!