Tri-Balled Racing Vehicle - How can I Impove it?
polycounter lvl 7
I hit a plateau with this vehicle I was working on. I've reached the point I get with all my models where I am not happy with how it looks yet I have no idea what to do to improve it.
Does anyone have any suggestions what I could do to make this look better? Feedback?
Ideally I'd like it to look at nice as something like this or this I just don't know what to do to get there.
Replies
Did you come up with the design yourself?
Making the glass slightly transparent with some sort of cockpit in the middle can help with that.
@SnaFuBAR: The two side glass panels open up like wings upwards as doors, but they don't -actually- do this because there's no interior and never will be. It's got three bumpers already, one on each ball, they're matte black and worn at the edges. I am not sure what you mean by body panel lines that I don't already have either but all the blue body panels(?) are all very clearly segmented into parts.
Here is a piece of the reference I was using but really I shouldn't show you guys this because you'll just get obsessed with it being exactly like the reference, which is not what I am making, I was just inspired by; not 1:1. I'm making my own vehicle here not someone else's.
Because at the moment it looks like its made only out of different colors of metal.
That's my problem, no matter what I do to the spec and gloss maps, I can't get any of it to look right. There are literally zero combinations of any value from black to white on both textures maps that result in a glossy pearlescent sheen like the windows and body of that reference art has. I just can't be done. What you see there is just the best approximation I could struggle out.
I just don't know what to do and that's why I'm here
Right, for starters, chuck that attitude out the window, you know it can be done, you just don't have the available information yet.
Now the glossy material you are trying to achieve can be broken down into the various qualities you want to get out of it. It needs to be flat and smooth. It needs to reflect the world. For extra marks it should have a pearlescent effect. Handily the first result for a real time car paint shader is forum favourite Xoliul, which you may already be using.
Before you get started think about what you are making. Use real world reference. Firstly, your material is very very rough. You have alot of noise in your spec map that break up the light. You want something very smooth with minimal detail. Maybe subtle discolourations such as oil stains. For your gloss map, the car body should be a mostly solid value that gives high glossiness.
Reflections can be done by loading up a cubemap into your Shader. The pearelscent effect I'm not so sure about. I've never made a car or this kind of material before but I'm betting if you google 'real-time pearlescent shader effect' or something similar you might have some luck.
Final tip - work out more precisely what you want in your work before asking for help. You will get more useful information from 'How do I get a glossy paint effect?' than 'WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS???'
When I make the textures look smooth with minimal detail I just get even more unhappy with how it looks, its bland at best, I don't want to make it look like its fresh off the production line. I WAS using real world reference, the one I posted was just for the modeling, the material reference were all real things from places like cgtextures google image, etc. It doesn't look the way it does because I want it to look that way, it looks that way because I'm an incompetent hack that no matter what I do it just won't look right.
"For your gloss map, the car body should be a mostly solid value that gives high glossiness." How do I do that? What value just gives high glossiness? I tried everything from white to black, none of them gave 'high glossiness.'
EDIT: I feel kinda dumb now because not only was the glossmap not actually ON in those images, it was also at the default value. I updated the top post and here with the new one:
I'm still not happy with it though, but at least now people should be able to tell the different materials appart.
Its a realtime shader...you can do pretty much the same shit in udk or unity (probably much more easily in udk unless you know how to write shaders.
I think you could benefit a lot from some cubemapped reflection...especially on the windows.
I'm not sold on the material for the body yet. I know you don't want it to look super clean, but it might be a good idea to remove the grunge, at least temporarily..until you can realy dial down what you wan't your materials to look like. Its tricky to do, but it will help you out in the long run.
Also, for the interior...it couldn't hurt to at least make a black silhouette and have slight transparency.
Then the spec map you're using looks like a big application of photoshop clouds,
If you're not adverse to spending a few bucks, I can really recommend the hardsurface texturing videos from 3dmotive.com, where he really gives a thorough insight about how to texture. He also does the same in the briefcase asset video.
Other than that, I think the overall design does not lend much believability and you've got large surfaces that are largely uninteresting. The image you posted you wanted it to look like has many more details that break up the surfaces.
That goes straight against your concept though, which has even less details than your model, and and incredibly smooth and clean surface.
Which leaves the question, which way do you want to take your model? Towards the concept or towards the mech you posted?
With all the grunge and stuff turned off it looks like something from Forza now which is not really what I had intended. This is more like an ATV not a sports car, it should be worn. That, and I don't really feel like I am making the model any better, just hiding the problems with fancy shaders. No interior on that yet ill try that next.
@Noodle, there's no photoshop coulds in there anywhere. The mech I posted I was mostly interested in how it was textured not modeled, it looked really nice, high detail was not necessarily where I meant with it. The metal etc everything looked believable, and not like shit like mine does.
Edit: Giving it an interior and opaque window didn't do a whole lot for it, with so much glossy fresnel you can hardly tell its even opaque at all.
If its more of an off road vehicle, i would work some of that into the design. simple things that would add a lot to it. Big head lamps, roll cage, maybe a wench (in case it get stuck in the mud), snorkel exhaust, windshield wipers, and if you are feeling really adventurous, expose the engine. google "baja beetle".
With the grunge, i would think about where the grunge would build up the most. (the wheel wells, front bumper, the underside) And what kind of grunge. mud, oil, and sand would be the most common for an ATV vehicle. and the trick would be getting the materials of each to stand out as different materials.
The normal map looks clean from what i can tell and the model's structure is sound, it just needs a few more design elements to convey what you were going for. hope this helps.
Something more like this everyone? Just a blockout before I put in the effort to make it look nice. Still working on the door handle, it will probably be normaled on to the hull rather then additional geo.
Added steps on the side and door handles to make it easiers looking to get inside, but most of all, bumper, large headlights, and a winch.
I think the gloss/spec on the car paint itself got toned down a little much though so I might bump that back up soon.
Try playing around with the scale of these to make them feel more fitting. Also think about adding some more geometry that will contribute to the silhouette and add some interesting shapes. For example, muffler, vents, spoiler(lol), fenders, pipes, tanks, more lights.. lots of things.
I like this though, defiantly has potential for a great piece. Keep working at it!
I saw this and for fun I did a super rough paintover to see if I could push the 'off-road' element. I thought I would post it here in case you'd find it useful. (It's really hard to paint correct perspective on this...)
That looks great, good job!