WIP - heavy duty tires, crit needed
polycounter lvl 6
Hi guys, was wondering if I could get a quick crit on something. I've been working on Michelin XML tires used on military vehicles. I've finished the high poly and baked to low. Right now the low poly tire is sitting at 224 tris. Is that considered too high or do I need more geo to better suite the high res. I know if I throw 8 of these on a Stryker, the poly count will add up quick. Also, does anyone have any tips on eliminating texture seams between the tread and the sidewalls. After weathering, I usually have a seam that stands out like a sore thumb. I thought I read somewhere that I could import the tire into Zbrush and repair the seams in projection master?
I've gotten a little work done on the diffuse, but I'm not sure what to think about the side walls. These things get really dirty judging from the ref pics I've looked at, but something doesn't seem right. I'm a little happier with the direction the tread is going. Maybe adding a spec map and some dirt to the normal map would help a little.
High res
Low Poly
Low Poly w/ diffuse
I've gotten a little work done on the diffuse, but I'm not sure what to think about the side walls. These things get really dirty judging from the ref pics I've looked at, but something doesn't seem right. I'm a little happier with the direction the tread is going. Maybe adding a spec map and some dirt to the normal map would help a little.
High res
Low Poly
Low Poly w/ diffuse
Replies
maybe try an distribute the edges of the low to line up better with those knobby bits on the tire texture tho,
an the depth in your high poly is not showing in the normal map at all you will need to put that in the low to make that work out nearly as nice as your high poly,
bust it up to 300 or 350 if needed to make it look better
You can 2 things I guess...
1, make it a bit higher poly
2, hand paint your shadows in those wells to try and sell the depth some how (use a 70% hardness brush).
@Rhinokey - I know what you are saying about the edges lining up with the knobs. I had a brain fart and should have made my cylinder 18 sides since there are 18 main knobs. I'll work on a spec map and see what I can come up with.
@Titus & Prophecies - I think I'm definitely going to go for a higher poly version in addition to this one. Maybe this would be good for longer distances. Hmm hand painting shadows... not too sure how well I could pull that off as my texture painting ability blows.
http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/174/render5j.jpg
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/2815/render2z.jpg
I did this hand painted generator modular model piece a while ago, look at the pictures above. I wanted to show you how faking in depth by painting in the shadows can be quite convincing.
Saw your edit, looks 10x better. But I think your treads are going to cause you problems. How do you plan on countering that flatness?
Thanks! Honestly, I have no clue. Suggestions? The hand painted shadows you posted definitely are convincing. I think right now I'm going to bump the vehicle version of the tire up and include the center hub portion then go from there.
Now that I think about it, depending if this will be for an open wheel machine will depend on how much you have to sell the realism of the inner treads. If it is indeed open wheel you might have to hand paint the cracks. If the wheel well will be covering it then depending on the clearance from the wheel to the well will depend on how much you have to fix the inside treads.
Honestly, I didn't focus too much on the outer treads but those look pretty decent as is and I wouldn't worry too much about it.
Thanks about the generator :P I should also mention that I used no high->low baking on it either. So it is effective on cutting down time which I really needed haha.
@Rhinokey- I see what you're saying. I'll give the treads a slight taper. These aren't being done for any particular engine but I think I'll stay away from the paralax map, that's a bit over my head.
@Blenderhead- here's the UV layout, pretty much the same for both versions. I didn't focus on packing or anything as these will be going into another project.
These will be going into a different UV map. Everything is preliminary until I get the tires worked out decently.
Blenderhead, I can't really think of a more delicate way to put this, but what are you talking about? Given the geometry he's using, his mockup UVs look fine. It's the projections and low-poly geometry that are causing issues here.
Thanks! Here's another update. This time starting on the diffuse and spec. The spec between the rubber and the rim is pretty close. I thought on it for a while as to how much difference is there in spec between rubber and olive drab. So I gave the paint just a tad more than the rubber. I also included the dirt and grime in the spec which really toned things down even more. I tried keeping the dirt and grime in the grooves of the tread, with the tread itself being somewhat clean from pavement wear. I did scuff the actual tread with very low opacity light gray scratches and marks. Hopefully a little more tweaking and I can call this part done.