My guide good 3D artz and stuff
ngon master
BEVEL EVERYTHING
SMOOTH EVERYTHING AT LEAST 3 OR 4 TIMES
Gotta have the normal or bump map intensity at like 20
SPEC EVERYWHERE, gotta have that intensity at 20 too.
Check board texture looks good on anything.
Don't forget the lenses flare. And glow, don't forget glow.
Oh and over use depth of field.
Poser is the best app for real artists.
Am I forgetting anything?
EDIT:
CRANK UP THE AO! Makes everything look real and stuff.
SMOOTH EVERYTHING AT LEAST 3 OR 4 TIMES
Gotta have the normal or bump map intensity at like 20
SPEC EVERYWHERE, gotta have that intensity at 20 too.
Check board texture looks good on anything.
Don't forget the lenses flare. And glow, don't forget glow.
Oh and over use depth of field.
Poser is the best app for real artists.
Am I forgetting anything?
EDIT:
CRANK UP THE AO! Makes everything look real and stuff.
Replies
That sounded a bit mathematical, damn you math textbook in front of me!
The more XYZ axis indicators in you viewport screengrab the better. It's a subtle but powerful way to say "LOOK HOW 3D THIS IS!"
It's important to render at low resolutions and enlarge the image in photoshop. This will save render time and besides, photoshop knows how to smooth out the artifacting because pixels.
You don't need photo source for textures that's what filters are for.
and for displaying said awesome work, be sure to have a nifty super cool background on your website, like galaxy stars or even better, flames to show how badass you are, it doenst need to tile properly either, just stretch it or tile it 25x and no one will know. and be sure to have lots of animated gifs (scaled up) to grab peoples attention! no need to thank me for my tips guys.
And you should use booleans whenever possible. No need to worry about the messy output, our computers can handle that :P
Normal maps should be a flat bluish color you need to paint out all those shading errors that look like colorful gradients.
never push a vertex, never move an edge, manipulate faces only. limit faces exclusively to quads, even in game models. if you have to use a triangle, make it as long as possible.
if you don't, then everything will look "too new"
i mean, look around you at the things you've owned for a few years. Do they look new? No, they look like they've spent several hard winters under a dripping pipe in an abandoned steel mill. Make everything look like that.
Everyone! polygons with fewer sides than 6 is for pussies, especially if it is a base mesh for subdivisions..
Check if the mental ray is on.
Check if your characters are set on right keys.
Check if T&L are on.
am I doing this right?
Set your AA filter blur very high, higher numbers are always better!!!
Use Orthographic camera's, shows more of your model!
Who gives a shit about speculars if you can use SKYLIGHT??!
...fuck that.
then right before you save, hit Alt + F4.
I thought these were all standard practice...
seriously screw you guys. I love my skylights.
ALL HAIL THE SHARPEN FILTER
Also when texturing use a lot of blood, blood splater everywhere lets you know this area is XTREAM!
Oh and even if you're not making a game set in Russia, having lots of nonsensical Cyrillic letters can do.
its the other way round. You should be using 2048x2048 for everything regardless of model size or detail, maybe even 4096x4096.
Never ever let anyone see your characters in anything other that a extremely rigid T-pose.
Don't stop z-brushing till everything is bumpy.
yeah, and if 1 2048x2048 doesn't do it, use multiple 2048s.
that photosourced knife gotta look nice for all those closeup pictures you're gonna be taking of it.
You don't have to retopo in zbrush. You can just make a unified skin and project the details. It's just as good because unified skins are all quads, and that's all that matters.
If you're a student working on your portfolio, make sure you include a dumpster and some barrels and crates and stuff because those are in every game, so you have to prove you can make them. Be sure to spend at least two weeks on each model though, to make it really good.
When you're making TurboSmooth stuff, make everything one contiguous mesh instead of cheating and using floaters. That's how the pros do it.
hah, noob.
in these times we use megatextures.
you know someone is going to run across this thread and believe every word of it is true. because..uh.. it is.
saving only slows down your workflow!
chamfer every edge.
no mater how shitty your diffuse putting a normal map.. of anything, will make it look "sweet"