reactor core.

Count Vader

Hi, this is an enviro piece I created based on this pretty cool concept: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8ETQycu3Nk4/Tte03ggjwfI/AAAAAAAABWc/11pgvJ8SSsM/s1600/reactor-core2.jpg

It is 10k polys. 2k normal/spec/diffuse/gloss. Something about it looks off to me and I can't place my finger on it. Anyways, any general critique'd be appreciated!

ambershee

Looks pretty spot-on to me. The only significant difference I can see is that in the concept, no light spills out, but that's really minor.

Count Vader

why thank you! and yea i though it would look a bit more dramatic with some light spills so i took that liberty with it

Blaisoid

on your version almost all surfaces have same level of glossiness and specularity while on concept there's more diversity.

for example on the concept those tubes look like shiny chrome while some plates look more matte.

also, while concept looks kinda unfinished, it has some traces of trims that your version doesn't have. combined with higher amount of dirt on your model it makes it look much more industrial than original design.

Count Vader

you are correct about the lack of spec variety, while i wasnt attempting to be super faithful to the concept that is one detail that got lost in my execution, i think i'll have to play with some of the spec/gloss levels to make them more dynamic.

but yea one the whole concept's wayyyy cleaner than what i have, i was just more using concept as a loose guide

ErichWK

Hey Count. This piece is done for Resistance 3 and I was actually the one who did the piece! IF you are interested you can compare my version from yours here. http://octomann.com/resistance3_two.html

Your version seems a bit stubby and what looks weird is that your version looks like Earthly silverish metal. When in fact it should be Alien Chimera Metal. So a little more green. Make sure it isn't painted metal I had to learn that the hard way. I had to stray off from the concept Geometry wise because This piece was for multiplayer and I had a low poly limit. Anyways, modeling looks spot on. But I'd adjust the color and the spec if I were you.

Count Vader

Nice! Never played resistance 3 so I had no idea where this was from haha. The stubiness of mine is due to not minding proportions as carefully as I probably should have. Your metal looks more believable than mine, getting believable spec on metal is still something I struggle with. What would you recommend I do to the spec to make it look better?
Also, what was the poly budget for yours?

ErichWK

I'd need to see your texture sheet before making any recommendations. But everything just looks..flat and like Tin, really.
Anyways these were done over a year ago and I do metal differently now..and I think better and less harsh. But this is what my spec looked like..



As far as diffuse, I had to push hard on the colors because if I remember correctly, we had some desaturating post effects. I can't remember. Maybe Jacob Norris could remind us if he is lurking the forums.



As you can tell..I didn't really do much. All I have is flat colors.. A grunge layer where I would paint dirt on it myself..a second grunge layer of a photosourced texture and my own metal I painted myself. I also duplicate that metal and use that for an underlay. Anyways. This is what my metal texture I painted looked like.



It's super harsh you can see..but Put as an overlay and drop down the opacity to around...40-70% you get some nice metal results. Some warms and cools and some harsh sharpness for the nice hyper detail that can be hard to achieve with photosourcing metal only.

I don't remember what limit they gave me, but it wasn't a lot. My model is at 5,588 tris.

Count Vader

Hmmn, Ok you have a lot more contrast in your spec map than I do, and I think that made mine looks really blown out. I've been playing around with the spec vs. diffuse today, for the upper part, attempting to make it looks more dynamic, as well as more readable since there was some noisiness in it I wasn't thrilled about. So this is what it looks like now (pretty meh):



This is my current spec:



And diffuse:



Thanks for your help! It's much appreciated

ErichWK

IT seems your diffuse is pretty flat. In terms of metal. Just seems like a flat color with dripping water grunge. I'd work on getting a better texture for metal. And boost those diffuse colors.

Count Vader

I see what you are saying. I intentionally made my diff deconstrated and flat because I wanted most of the detail to take place on the spec channel, but it didn't work out as well as I'd hoped haha. I'll try to make my diffuse more dynamic as well. Thanks for your feedback!

Lucas Annunziata

Daaaaamn, it ain't erry day that that the person who actually made the asset for the game can poke you in the right direction. Thanks for taking the time to share your workflow ErichWK.

Count Vader

Hell normally when I post on here I get a total of 0 feedback so it's especially appreciated that it's coming from a industry pro!

ErichWK

Haha.. No one has ever called me an industry pro before. ^_^ How else are we supposed to learn if no one critiques.

konstruct

You might want to try introducing a gloss map to help better differentiate between materials. Metal can be very diverse and a good gloss map can really help sell that notion.

Right now the whole object just feels like its has the same surface texture everywhere. Some of it looks like its supposed be painted metal, wet, chrome, or otherwise, which all have drastically different spec, and diffuse, and gloss map combinations.

Count Vader

Hmm, I do have a gloss map there, but it's just the inverse of the spec to help localize the highlights better. To be honest I'm still not sure how to effectively utilize gloss maps, as there's a pretty low amount of education the topic out there

edit: i was actually going for the look of its mostly all one type of metal, though I'm starting to see that it doesn't look that way at all.