Scifi Crate

Animesh

Trying to improve my textures. All maps were created with Photoshop only.

Diffuse Map only


Normal, spec and AO maps only applied.


All Maps applied.


No textures

Jason Young

This suffers from many of the same things that were brought up in your art test thread. Mainly, the design doesn't tell us anything about what this crate is used for, how it functions, etc. I also have no real idea what materials it's supposed to be made from.

I would suggest working off existing high quality concepts to improve your texturing skills, and continue to push yourself conceptually as well.

Seirei

Hope these 3 things will help you further:

1. All of these pictures would've fit in one image.
2. I'm fairly sure a picture of a simple 6 sided box is fairly useless. Unless it has the wireframe and would show mistakes like the usage of too many loops on a plain surface or something like that.
3. Like it already was mentioned, you should maybe just ask yourself what this crate is made for and what materials were used to make it. Try to give it some sense.

jeremiah_bigley

if you are focusing on just textures you could post some flats for us. I don't know that the design looks very scifi.

Jesse Moody

You seriously just posted a picture of a cube and want feedback?

Umm? Try something a bit harder? Work on your materials (textures).

Do some tutorials.

Another person. Member since 2009? What have you been doing? Are you in school? Trying to do 3d for a career? How long have you been doing it?

AtlusZMH

You should go through the wiki (can be found at the link at the top of the page!) And look through tutorials focusing on the general workflow from High Poly > Low Poly > Unwrapping > Baking Normal maps > Texturing > realtime display (Marmoset, UDK, in-viewport shaders) and get the workflow down with simple assets. Model a super simple crate or treasure chest.

start out generic and nail the fundamentals before moving on to something more complex. This just looks like a crate with some fuzzy textures..

Next time, try to make a high-poly crate and bake normals maps instead of generating them with crazybump, ect.

Keep posting your work! Start a general WIP thread and keep updating it constantly! and ask questions!

gsokol

Like these guys already said..the crate is just a box with some random shapes..that definitely won't cut it.

Definitely go through the polycount wiki, try out some tutorials, etc...like everybody else is saying. Also, it would probably benefit you to try to base your models off of some concept art or something.

For an example of a badass Scifi crate, take a look at the thread Axios started recently: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=92740&highlight=phantasy+star

Also, when you post images, use the image tags, or the "insert image" button. Its nicer to have the picture show up in the thread instead of clicking the link.

Animesh

Thanks for the feedback.

Like stated above this is to work on my texturing. I placed a 6 sided cube to show you that the textures are faking the geometry which is used often when working in games.

I do not have the hardware capability to bake normal maps. I am working on a 2007 laptop with a low end video card. I'm using Maya 2011 but I can't use High Quality rendering. This is why I only use Photoshop to make a normal map.

For example:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRHSVTriE68&feature=plcp&context=C3980740UDOEgsToPDskJcoYw7Z4r9oxur0ZnNwdMJ"]UDK Tutorial 10-Creating Textures - YouTube[/ame]

Seirei

Well, not having the right hardware can be a problem, but I can't imagine that you couldn't even do a little crate.
Also the cube you've shown didn't realy show off anything close to what you're seeing in this tutorial here. Wich makes me wonder even more, if you have a detailed tutorial like this, why didn't you just try to recreate the texture he's showing there? This would've been a much more interesting texture.

Amadreaus

Your blog shows pieces that are baked, etc, so just go find that computer and do stuff there :P

Otherwise, just keep learning. It's obvious that you're in school. You have a couple of promising things to show. One thing I noticed is that your UV layout skills need work. Think efficiency and texel density when laying out your shells before you texture anything.

Tobbo

I have the feeling you're placing so many limits on yourself. Your worst critic is yourself. Believe in what you do. Take pride in your work, even a simple experiment.

Do you like art? It's hard to tell if you even take pride in your art work, or even care. I know you're experimenting with textures, but seriously you have squares and rectangles...

It has come to my attention based on your art test that you could be struggling with UV maps? You should go through some tutorials on the subject.

The UV maps on your blog have a lot of wasted space. Make it more compact. It's like a jigsaw puzzle trying to get all of the islands to fit. I would also try and make the islands bigger if you can. You will get more texture resolution that way.


Also your normal maps on your blog... I would take those grainy bumps out. It doesn't add more detail, it's really bringing the pieces down. It makes it all look like it's made out of stone.

gsokol

I placed a 6 sided cube to show you that the textures are faking the geometry which is used often when working in games.

Gotta say that your not really faking much. Photosourced normals aren't going to make a box look like not-a-box.

I do not have the hardware capability to bake normal maps. I am working on a 2007 laptop with a low end video card. I'm using Maya 2011 but I can't use High Quality rendering. This is why I only use Photoshop to make a normal map.

You should still be able to bake just fine. Baking is CPU intensive, not GPU. Also, if you use xnormal to bake instead of maya, it will be faster and wont slow down your computer as much.

Animesh

Baking is definitely an issue but every tutorial I have followed does not show the results without high quality rendering turned on. Unfortunately I do not have the video card to show high quality rendering.

Maya says: //Warning: High Quality Rendering mode is not supported by the graphics card. Switching to default rendering mode.

I'm following this tutorial:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hANTXvM4V0M"]Normal Mapping inside of Maya - YouTube[/ame]

These are the results:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Yz2mJvnPWuQ/TxyOqC2wMtI/AAAAAAAAAME/sH4YJFMFdKw/s1600/sampledNormals.png

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GQDDjNigJeU/TxyOqahjisI/AAAAAAAAAMQ/ufLCT7zVVaY/s1600/doorTest_NmlMap.png

zakhar2

Im assuming that you want your object to look like the one on the right instead of the one on the left. If this is the case, you have to make sure that you switch from bump map to tangent space normals when you are assigning your map. If you already have it set like this then the problem is being caused when you render, so switch to the maya hardware renderer or mental ray.

Animesh

Thanks Zakhar2!
That helped a lot I switched the filter type off and turned the bump options to Tangent Space, then I switched the rendering to Mentalray.

This is the result:

Animesh

Thanks for all the helps guys, with your help we finally figured out the problem. I had a feeling it was something technical. I will be posting my next project soon.

n88tr

wow so similar