If you're new to it, and we don't say anything about errors you make, you'll repeat them, get used to them, and it'll be harder to unlearn. The new texture looks a lot nicer, but that's only after you got slapped in the face with the critique-glove.
You don't need to remind us you're new. You just need to accept critique gracefully.
bookmark it. write that shit on a sticky pad too and slap it on your monitor or somewhere nearby; that way you don't have to ask for it later if your hard drive crashes or any dog slop like that.
and if you already have this link and can't find anything cool to make out of all that reference available, then again, you have serious issues.
AND if you make an m4 for a portfolio piece......... i can't even type it... just don't. okay? just. don't.
bookmark it. write that shit on a sticky pad too and slap it on your monitor or somewhere nearby; that way you don't have to ask for it later if your hard drive crashes or any dog slop like that.
and if you already have this link and can't find anything cool to make out of all that reference available, then again, you have serious issues.
Oh thanks a ton, all i used was charts of call of duty weapons to decide.
Frell, Polycount is famous for it's No-BS-Crits. They get in there and tear your work apart. And now that I'm looking at the updated gun I can see you have improved.
It's like strong medicine, feels like shit(Might feel down about it, or take it personally) , but it ultimatley helps.
what you don't want is a bunch of people telling you stuff looks awesome when in reality it doesn't and needs some work. I mean, why did you post it? To get serious crits or pats on the back from strangers?
You should be happy all these people are spending their time to crit your stuff seriously. Remember, no one here owes you anything so be thankful you get anything.
I want this gun to be my very first portfolio piece so im really going to amp it up. So be brutal with the criticism again and ill do as much as i physically can to make it better.
My only problem right now is when i look at it, it looks very bare. But thats how the actual gun is. So i guess ill let the textures fix the bareness when i get there?
looks quite good. but as has been already said you really need to focus on the rounded edges. Also it's quite cool to lay your topology out quite evenly so you can smash it up a little bit in zbrush or mudbox (dents, dented edges, slight scratches,...). This might give your weapon this character you seem to seek.
looks quite good. but as has been already said you really need to focus on the rounded edges. Also it's quite cool to lay your topology out quite evenly so you can smash it up a little bit in zbrush or mudbox (dents, dented edges, slight scratches,...). This might give your weapon this character you seem to seek.
This time im just going for a nice normal gun, im mainly focused on practicing my uv mapping with this one.
As for the new gun, it looks good. Keep working on it though. Its like, good, but needs more for it to feel right. The gun is bare atm. Try adding a scope or some type of attachment to give it more life.
I haven't read through the thread so someone might of already said this...
The damage to the AK seems excessive and inconsistent. The body of the gun is highly damaged, but the high traffic areas like the tip of the barrel, the clip, where the hands hold the gun.
I can't seem to figure out why the clip and other metal pieces are showing up red-ish. The grip looks to be about the same color but made out of wood so the clip is wooden like the handle? Other than incorrect spec color assignment is there a reason for this?
The UV layout is chaotic and has too many seams.
Detail isn't just vomiting scratches and noise all over something. If you step back and squint do the forms read well or is it just a noisy mess?
Displaying a mostly black model on a mostly black background is kind of noobish. A neutral gray would work much better.White washes out details but provides a really strong silhouette (stronger than it needs to be). Black hides the silhouette and makes it hard to see details. So between the two extremes which background is best? Gray.
EDIT: Opps didn't read the last post, sorry about that. I'll remove the comments if you want.
Fixed everything suggested so far, i also got a crit from a friend saying that .45 ACP rounds aren't as small as i had made them, so i fixed those also
on the ump you're getting too detailed before you properly do the large shapes. i am guilty of this too a lot of times. make sure you really look over your reference photos before you start modeling something.
on the whole thing watch your edge thickness, as edges that are too thin will bake down poorly. this is especially true on a weapon that is mostly polymer like this one.
let's start at the front here. the end of the barrel (notice it has the twisty rifling inside of it) looks rather different from the one you have on there, and looks much more detailed. you can also see from that photo how different the sling mount looks too, in particular how soft and round it looks, reinforcing my statement regarding edge width.
on the front set here you can see how different the front sight looks to what you have modeled. it's shorter and wider. you can also see how the little silver bit with the serial number is a lot less tall than what you have modeled. there's an area that hinges by the magwell (where the mag is inserted) that you've neglected to model as well. the vent holes in the foregrip you have modeled as floating, but honestly i'd spend the time to model them into the main mesh. it'd really help give it some depth when it comes time to bake.
your vert grip is modeled as all one piece when in fact the bottom is awesome looking and screws to tighten it to the rail.
getting more towards the middle here, you can see how the indent on the magwell in fact goes inward rather than beveled out like you have modeled. make sure you always look at different angles when modeling things otherwise things like that happen. the trigger looks rather blocky in comparison to the real deal and the front of the grip has some weird smoothing. the real magazine has some cool cuts and stuff, and the text is placed differently.
lastly, the bolt release (shown here above the mag release lever) looks much more fleshed out and detailed than what you have. i'm not sure if you've finished this area or not but i figured it's worth a mention.
do show once you get the stock modeled. it seems you've got a decent base model here but you really need to observe your references super carefully and double check everything before calling it final and adding tiny details like text. i hope this helps.
Looking good on the UMP. Although it's been stressed a lot so far, this industry requires a really tough skin. Working for someone, your ideas and reasons may be just right out squashed because your art director wants it his way. You will receive critiques that will crush your ego and make you want to cry, and you gotta just keep trying to take the abuse and advice. The reason everyone is so harsh here is not because we're all just assholes, we are serious artists who've had this treatment ourselves, and gotten better for it. You gotta just try and not take it too personally and just try and listen, especially to those guys who are vets of the industry, they really are wanting to help.
Getting real feedback is a lot better than getting ignored (CGS) or praised (GA), that's one reason I really enjoy polycount, even though people can be rough/harsh sometimes.
lol i'd tell my opinion about the feedback here but i'd probably get slapped by a mod
I've found the critiques here to be much nicer than many art directors.
Learning to listen and follow suggestions here is very good experience for a studio where they're paying you to get it 90% right the first time, and want you to follow precise directions on how to take it the last 10%.
Ahh thanks, so now gun crits for the side with the ejection port and the stock. I have to the stock hinge but overall im content with the stock as is. Since im aiming for this to be a first person weapon, fine details on the stock probably aren't as needed as they are compared to the rest of the gun. I didnt smooth the middle support to the stock because its a very simple shape and smoothing something that thin and baking it could mess up the normals.
Top of the stock needs to be curved, not square like you've modeled it. Your flash hider (tip of the barrel) is also still too small and wrong. And like Racer said, your edges are all generally way too sharp to even show up in a normal map bake.
There's so much emptiness in that uvw map = texture space lost, you also probably want to straighten out your edges so u avoid any dodge looking AA..
Also the areas which will be seen most really should get much more texture room then the other crap, trying to keep everything consistent is alright.... but u want your most seen objects of the gun to have the most room so you can bring out the best detail without seeing pixelation.
Slight hijack - Racer, if you ever see a gun thread by me since i'm going to be starting my 3rd soon feel free to rip it apart, i'd rather 100% true crit then dolling it up to protect feelings, cause ultimately posting a WIP is getting feedback.. people seem to forget that.
While there is alot of wasted space in there, it's not as bad as you may think, Raider. You need to leave quite a bit of space between each part, to compensate for edge padding. If he is going for a 2k rez, that means a good 8-16px of padding you need. Yes, it could be squished together a bit more, but not THAT much more. Granted, that is a whole ton of parts you have there.
hmm from the looks of your map I'd say theres still too much emptiness. You want to pack that shit in tight, but also be mindful to leave a little bit of breathing room between uv islands.
Another thing, its quite alright if all your UV's are not uniform all over. which means its ok to scale up pieces if you have the room to spare (which you most certainly do)
As soon as everything is unwrapped and square, the first thing I ask myself are what are the most important sections of the model and which will be seen the most or come closest to the player. Answering these questions will help you determine best which pieces are a priority and which can receive less uv space.
So since we're focusing on guns here, the top of the reciever, front sight, and stock should be a priority since those will be seen up close in first person view. Next up I would say are the sides of the receiver and your magazine. Another good practice would be scale up small parts like triggers, safety latches and so forth since often times I find there will be room in the UV's, so why not put that space to good use?
this is not mine, but one of Earthquakes' normal bakes. He is one of the better weapon/hard surface artists in the community, and this should be more along the lines of what you would like to shoot for to give you an idea:
One thing that is very important with UVs, is to keep them straight. If your uvs are randomly rotate 7 degrees, you're going to need more resolution to represent straight-line type detail, which you have a lot of(a very good example of this is on the magazine). Think of it this way: you can represent a straight line in 2d with one row of pixels. You need 2-3 to represent an angle with the same sharpness.
And yeah, you can pack that tighter. When you get everything straightened out you'll find its easier to pack things together.
Work on fitting your large pieces together first, and then puzzle in the smaller peices into the open spaces created by some of the more akward shapes. I like to try my best to keep similar uv bits(ie parts close to each other in 3d) near each other in 2d as well, it makes texturing a lot easier.
[edit] Oh another tip, and this is just sort of how i work... But as i'm unwraping, i split off sections of the mesh and do the edge select-> auto unwrap stuff. And then i try to group that bit into a nice packable shape, a square or a rectangle or whatever makes the most sense. You'll get weird shapes sometimes, can't be helped, just need to be creative in how you jam one weird shape into another. So when i'm done unwrapping i have all these separate "groups" of uvs that i want to try to keep together and that sort of make sense together.
Prophecies: He has practically a 128 pixel boarder around his layout, about 8-16 pixels is optimal for 2k, as you say, but he's wayyyy over that.
this is not mine, but one of Earthquakes' normal bakes. He is one of the better weapon/hard surface artists in the community, and this should be more along the lines of what you would like to shoot for to give you an idea:
One thing to keep in mind here is that this was a 1024 or 2048, with 8-16 pixels padding and then scaled down here, so its not quite as tight as it looks, however i would say its a pretty good example.
Oh also, as far as the scaling stuff differently... I would be careful with this, i try to lay everything out, and then scale up the stuff you're going to see up-close in FPV, say scale up stuff that is in clear view 125%(usually the iron sight area) and 150% objects like an iron sight that will be zoomed in super close when doing the "sight" view ingame. Its important not to have say, the barrel at the front of the gun which will never be seen up close, have more detail than everything else.
Replies
You don't need to remind us you're new. You just need to accept critique gracefully.
Good.
http://www.pixagogo.com/DeicideNBF
bookmark it. write that shit on a sticky pad too and slap it on your monitor or somewhere nearby; that way you don't have to ask for it later if your hard drive crashes or any dog slop like that.
and if you already have this link and can't find anything cool to make out of all that reference available, then again, you have serious issues.
AND if you make an m4 for a portfolio piece......... i can't even type it... just don't. okay? just. don't.
http://gunpics.net/
http://world.guns.ru/
It's like strong medicine, feels like shit(Might feel down about it, or take it personally) , but it ultimatley helps.
You should be happy all these people are spending their time to crit your stuff seriously. Remember, no one here owes you anything so be thankful you get anything.
Keep at it. No one gets great over night.
Now to work on the other side.
I want this gun to be my very first portfolio piece so im really going to amp it up. So be brutal with the criticism again and ill do as much as i physically can to make it better.
My only problem right now is when i look at it, it looks very bare. But thats how the actual gun is. So i guess ill let the textures fix the bareness when i get there?
Good start.
I would start imagining doing it yourself
@canadian we already covered this, i see thats part of the workflow now and im going to do it on this gun
Ill bevel them, heres wires:
The peice is to demonstrate industry techniques and learn.
As for the new gun, it looks good. Keep working on it though. Its like, good, but needs more for it to feel right. The gun is bare atm. Try adding a scope or some type of attachment to give it more life.
And i was thinking of doing a red dot scope, but ill make it separate so i can have it on more than one gun.
- The damage to the AK seems excessive and inconsistent. The body of the gun is highly damaged, but the high traffic areas like the tip of the barrel, the clip, where the hands hold the gun.
- I can't seem to figure out why the clip and other metal pieces are showing up red-ish. The grip looks to be about the same color but made out of wood so the clip is wooden like the handle? Other than incorrect spec color assignment is there a reason for this?
- The UV layout is chaotic and has too many seams.
- Detail isn't just vomiting scratches and noise all over something. If you step back and squint do the forms read well or is it just a noisy mess?
- Displaying a mostly black model on a mostly black background is kind of noobish. A neutral gray would work much better.White washes out details but provides a really strong silhouette (stronger than it needs to be). Black hides the silhouette and makes it hard to see details. So between the two extremes which background is best? Gray.
EDIT: Opps didn't read the last post, sorry about that. I'll remove the comments if you want.on the whole thing watch your edge thickness, as edges that are too thin will bake down poorly. this is especially true on a weapon that is mostly polymer like this one.
let's start at the front here. the end of the barrel (notice it has the twisty rifling inside of it) looks rather different from the one you have on there, and looks much more detailed. you can also see from that photo how different the sling mount looks too, in particular how soft and round it looks, reinforcing my statement regarding edge width.
on the front set here you can see how different the front sight looks to what you have modeled. it's shorter and wider. you can also see how the little silver bit with the serial number is a lot less tall than what you have modeled. there's an area that hinges by the magwell (where the mag is inserted) that you've neglected to model as well. the vent holes in the foregrip you have modeled as floating, but honestly i'd spend the time to model them into the main mesh. it'd really help give it some depth when it comes time to bake.
your vert grip is modeled as all one piece when in fact the bottom is awesome looking and screws to tighten it to the rail.
getting more towards the middle here, you can see how the indent on the magwell in fact goes inward rather than beveled out like you have modeled. make sure you always look at different angles when modeling things otherwise things like that happen. the trigger looks rather blocky in comparison to the real deal and the front of the grip has some weird smoothing. the real magazine has some cool cuts and stuff, and the text is placed differently.
lastly, the bolt release (shown here above the mag release lever) looks much more fleshed out and detailed than what you have. i'm not sure if you've finished this area or not but i figured it's worth a mention.
do show once you get the stock modeled. it seems you've got a decent base model here but you really need to observe your references super carefully and double check everything before calling it final and adding tiny details like text. i hope this helps.
It might not always be the best, but compared to most of the interwebs it's a god send.
Maybe i should have posted my side reference:
Heres the improvements:
I've found the critiques here to be much nicer than many art directors.
Learning to listen and follow suggestions here is very good experience for a studio where they're paying you to get it 90% right the first time, and want you to follow precise directions on how to take it the last 10%.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=74489
And ill fix the stock
great constructive crits. Regarding floaters: Is that also working for AO baking?
@frell
you are doing nice progress. Keep it up!
Yup
Also the areas which will be seen most really should get much more texture room then the other crap, trying to keep everything consistent is alright.... but u want your most seen objects of the gun to have the most room so you can bring out the best detail without seeing pixelation.
Slight hijack - Racer, if you ever see a gun thread by me since i'm going to be starting my 3rd soon feel free to rip it apart, i'd rather 100% true crit then dolling it up to protect feelings, cause ultimately posting a WIP is getting feedback.. people seem to forget that.
Ill work on keeping it more equally spaced and straight next time. Where is the align/straighten tool?
Another thing, its quite alright if all your UV's are not uniform all over. which means its ok to scale up pieces if you have the room to spare (which you most certainly do)
As soon as everything is unwrapped and square, the first thing I ask myself are what are the most important sections of the model and which will be seen the most or come closest to the player. Answering these questions will help you determine best which pieces are a priority and which can receive less uv space.
So since we're focusing on guns here, the top of the reciever, front sight, and stock should be a priority since those will be seen up close in first person view. Next up I would say are the sides of the receiver and your magazine. Another good practice would be scale up small parts like triggers, safety latches and so forth since often times I find there will be room in the UV's, so why not put that space to good use?
this is not mine, but one of Earthquakes' normal bakes. He is one of the better weapon/hard surface artists in the community, and this should be more along the lines of what you would like to shoot for to give you an idea:
And yeah, you can pack that tighter. When you get everything straightened out you'll find its easier to pack things together.
Work on fitting your large pieces together first, and then puzzle in the smaller peices into the open spaces created by some of the more akward shapes. I like to try my best to keep similar uv bits(ie parts close to each other in 3d) near each other in 2d as well, it makes texturing a lot easier.
[edit] Oh another tip, and this is just sort of how i work... But as i'm unwraping, i split off sections of the mesh and do the edge select-> auto unwrap stuff. And then i try to group that bit into a nice packable shape, a square or a rectangle or whatever makes the most sense. You'll get weird shapes sometimes, can't be helped, just need to be creative in how you jam one weird shape into another. So when i'm done unwrapping i have all these separate "groups" of uvs that i want to try to keep together and that sort of make sense together.
Prophecies: He has practically a 128 pixel boarder around his layout, about 8-16 pixels is optimal for 2k, as you say, but he's wayyyy over that.
One thing to keep in mind here is that this was a 1024 or 2048, with 8-16 pixels padding and then scaled down here, so its not quite as tight as it looks, however i would say its a pretty good example.
Oh also, as far as the scaling stuff differently... I would be careful with this, i try to lay everything out, and then scale up the stuff you're going to see up-close in FPV, say scale up stuff that is in clear view 125%(usually the iron sight area) and 150% objects like an iron sight that will be zoomed in super close when doing the "sight" view ingame. Its important not to have say, the barrel at the front of the gun which will never be seen up close, have more detail than everything else.
http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryTextureCoordinates#First-Person_Weapon_UVs
Of course, feel free to edit