It's cool to say that when you don't know what he's talking about I guess
It's cool to just randomly post in peoples threads about useless stuff too I guess.
I'm pretty sure Snefer knows what the other guy was talking about, I will see how it looks at the end of the bakes and fix it or keep it indented. I know the real one is flush but it looks pretty bland from the FPS view with it flush. Granted it being flush is to assist the bullet as it enters the chamber when loaded. If made real this way they would just add more pins and springs to adjust for the indent this could also increase the caliber size as well. If more people complain I will add it to my list of things to fix and fix it up nice.
I welcome the crits thou, I'm not trying to sound like im against the person criting me on the size of the lower223 to the barrel. I appriciate things like that and keep them coming I will see what I can do. I need to wrap this thing up badly thou.
It's cool to just randomly post in peoples threads about useless stuff too I guess.
I'm pretty sure Snefer knows what the other guy was talking about, I will see how it looks at the end of the bakes and fix it or keep it indented. I know the real one is flush but it looks pretty bland from the FPS view with it flush. Granted it being flush is to assist the bullet as it enters the chamber when loaded. If made real this way they would just add more pins and springs to adjust for the indent this could also increase the caliber size as well. If more people complain I will add it to my list of things to fix and fix it up nice.
I welcome the crits thou, I'm not trying to sound like im against the person criting me on the size of the lower223 to the barrel. I appriciate things like that and keep them coming I will see what I can do. I need to wrap this thing up badly thou.
you clearly don't know too much about firearms design, but making things inaccurate on purpose is just dumb.
It's cool to say that when you don't know what he's talking about I guess
OR it makes sense to say that when you are running headfirst into the law of diminishing returns. The highpoly looks great. If he bakes it down, textures it nicely, no-one is gonna notice. There is a time when its better to let go. The thing is, people are only this picky about guns. Period. I mean, if this was a GUN forum, i would understand it, but its an art forum. Nothing else gets the same picky attention as guns, and I just dont understand why. If your goal is to grow as an artist, or get a job, making a gun to perfection, accuracywise, is not time well spent.
Also: I was saying that as a joke, since I know ryan, I just want him to finish the damn gun now But some people are real sensitive about their guns. :P
OR it makes sense to say that when you are running headfirst into the law of diminishing returns. The highpoly looks great. If he bakes it down, textures it nicely, no-one is gonna notice. There is a time when its better to let go. The thing is, people are only this picky about guns. Period. I mean, if this was a GUN forum, i would understand it, but its an art forum. Nothing else gets the same picky attention as guns, and I just dont understand why. If your goal is to grow as an artist, or get a job, making a gun to perfection, accuracywise, is not time well spent.
Also: I was saying that as a joke, since I know ryan, I just want him to finish the damn gun now But some people are real sensitive about their guns. :P
Sure, if you say so. But it's an area which will be very very noticable from first person perspective.
Nobody's asking for perfection, if that was the case the list of crits would be a lot longer - It just happens that this one is blatantly obvious to anyone familiar with the weapon (And i think it will actually look aesthetically worse as well)
If you wanna talk about wasting time, I think more time has been spent on this "herp derp gunwank" train of thought than it would take to just slide those faces out.
OR it makes sense to say that when you are running headfirst into the law of diminishing returns. The highpoly looks great. If he bakes it down, textures it nicely, no-one is gonna notice. There is a time when its better to let go. The thing is, people are only this picky about guns. Period. I mean, if this was a GUN forum, i would understand it, but its an art forum. Nothing else gets the same picky attention as guns, and I just dont understand why. If your goal is to grow as an artist, or get a job, making a gun to perfection, accuracywise, is not time well spent.
Also: I was saying that as a joke, since I know ryan, I just want him to finish the damn gun now But some people are real sensitive about their guns. :P
Couldn't disagree more. This is an art forum where people come to hone their craft. If you don't want to listen to people who know better than I don't know what to say, other than it's good to keep an open mind and remain humble. Yeah a lot of this stuff is very different in a production environment, but it's important while you're not in a production environment/timetable to learn to do things right as you can. Getting lazy about a personal project, or worse yet a portfolio piece is asking for trouble.
Now's the time to get it all zeroed in. Just look at Lonewolf's MP5 model--how many MP5 models (or M4s, for that matter) have you seen? As a portfolio reviewer, would you even bother looking at a picture of an M4 model unless it was really really nice? Don't shoot for "good enough, I guess" for models. And tell the little voice in the back of your head that says you can always go back and fix it later to shut up, because you won't.
Experienced artists (also portfolio reviewers) are far more picky about good anatomy than the equivalent gun guys are about guns, but far less inclined or in some cases able to give detailed crits. For the muscles tensing just so, the arch of the back, the ankle etc--it's very hard to explain to a less experienced artist how off they are because it's about the more experienced artist's perception--they really have to get in there with the paintover, with a good chance the person isn't going to listen anyway, so they don't bother.
Luckily for everyone, firearms and other manufactured items it's a whole lot more black and white: either your version of the gun looks like it should or it doesn't.
I've been coming here for 10 years and yeah, a lot of the posters have gotten a lot pickier about this stuff but that's a good thing, that's what you want. Don't slough it off. polycount didn't get its reputation, or the recent TF2 contest thing by doing assets up to about 95% and then coasting. We count many of the industry best artists as members because they sweat the small stuff. This has nothing to do with "diminishing returns." Aftermath asked for crits, and the great thing about polycount is that he'll probably keep getting them days after he's completed and stopped all work on the asset.
So back to the actual weapon model. It is very wrong but only in a lot of subtle ways--prey to what in engineering they call "tolerance stacking." By that I mean you get one little detail off. Fine, no big deal. Then you get another thing off, and then because that's not in place, something else, which was modeled in reference to the position of the second thing, is also off. Each individual component is only a little bit off, but taken together the whole thing is the total "stack" of all those inaccuracies, which adds up to being very wrong.
This model is prey to lot of tolerance stacking. Basically a lot of small widths/angles are off. Smaller details pretty hugely off, like the mag fence (the raised, rounded areas around the magazine release button). The aforementioned width difference between the upper and the lower is an oversight.
Widths/lengths all over the place are just a little bit off--I think it all looks like you spent maybe a little too much time modeled to be exactly like a photographic reference which was likely distorted. Be very careful of photographic refs, even of guns. You need them, study them, but ultimately use your own eye (combined with cold hard measurement numbers and diameters) to actually put the thing together and adjust. If I look at this M4 for too long it makes my head hurt because it's clearly close enough to be instantly recognizable, but then all the tolerance stacking just starts ringing alarm bells.
The last ref Kitteh posted and ones like it would be really helpful for manually adjusting the scaling of various elements on the model, if you were still so inclined. Otherwise yes, you can finish the model and it will be a perfectly good say 80-85% M4 model. But not a portfolio piece, and I think missing some of the at-times excessive rigor that makes a first project of this kind really worthwhile. Take the time to learn lessons while you have it.
The modeling is really clean as others have said and the details well put together, especially the rollmark engraving details. Looking forward to seeing more bakes.
You're missing a rear BUIS. It's pretty uncommon to use powered optics like an Eotech without backup ironsights (so that if your optic dies, you can use the BUIS and still be able to aim).
Also gonna back up gauss here and say that whilst it does recognisably look like an M4 ... there are glaring inaccuracies. Sure, most players wont notice if they saw it in a game, but out of that context it looks pretty generic. From the amount of praise this has gotten from a bunch of (in my eyes) highly respectable artists ... I really don't see what all the fuss is about. Is it a good model? Sure. It's nothing special (yet) though.
Thanks for the crits and feedback guys, I will be tweaking the model to fix these issues. Was part of me getting lazy and the other wanting to just be done with this gun already and move to a new project.
AR-15 M-4 Cad Data
Unfortunately I don't have the ability to open cad data anymore, so I can't tell you if its accurate or even the right files, but I got it off a gun forum and my virus software didn't go nuts so I figured its worth a shot.
Also there actually is an extremely minor difference between the upper and the lower's width where they meet (the lower being mm difference at the lip wider). They are not perfectly flush, you can feel the difference with your thumb. Though its very hard to see even at the angles where the edges catch light, but that could be differences from manufacturer to manufacturer. So I don't think anyone will cry if you make them flush.
Of course the truth for sure would lay in the CAD data :poly136:
Couldn't disagree more. This is an art forum where people come to hone their craft. If you don't want to listen to people who know better than I don't know what to say, other than it's good to keep an open mind and remain humble. Yeah a lot of this stuff is very different in a production environment, but it's important while you're not in a production environment/timetable to learn to do things right as you can. Getting lazy about a personal project, or worse yet a portfolio piece is asking for trouble.
Now's the time to get it all zeroed in. Just look at Lonewolf's MP5 model--how many MP5 models (or M4s, for that matter) have you seen? As a portfolio reviewer, would you even bother looking at a picture of an M4 model unless it was really really nice? Don't shoot for "good enough, I guess" for models. And tell the little voice in the back of your head that says you can always go back and fix it later to shut up, because you won't.
Experienced artists (also portfolio reviewers) are far more picky about good anatomy than the equivalent gun guys are about guns, but far less inclined or in some cases able to give detailed crits. For the muscles tensing just so, the arch of the back, the ankle etc--it's very hard to explain to a less experienced artist how off they are because it's about the more experienced artist's perception--they really have to get in there with the paintover, with a good chance the person isn't going to listen anyway, so they don't bother.
Luckily for everyone, firearms and other manufactured items it's a whole lot more black and white: either your version of the gun looks like it should or it doesn't.
I've been coming here for 10 years and yeah, a lot of the posters have gotten a lot pickier about this stuff but that's a good thing, that's what you want. Don't slough it off. polycount didn't get its reputation, or the recent TF2 contest thing by doing assets up to about 95% and then coasting. We count many of the industry best artists as members because they sweat the small stuff. This has nothing to do with "diminishing returns." Aftermath asked for crits, and the great thing about polycount is that he'll probably keep getting them days after he's completed and stopped all work on the asset.
So back to the actual weapon model. It is very wrong but only in a lot of subtle ways--prey to what in engineering they call "tolerance stacking." By that I mean you get one little detail off. Fine, no big deal. Then you get another thing off, and then because that's not in place, something else, which was modeled in reference to the position of the second thing, is also off. Each individual component is only a little bit off, but taken together the whole thing is the total "stack" of all those inaccuracies, which adds up to being very wrong.
This model is prey to lot of tolerance stacking. Basically a lot of small widths/angles are off. Smaller details pretty hugely off, like the mag fence (the raised, rounded areas around the magazine release button). The aforementioned width difference between the upper and the lower is an oversight.
Widths/lengths all over the place are just a little bit off--I think it all looks like you spent maybe a little too much time modeled to be exactly like a photographic reference which was likely distorted. Be very careful of photographic refs, even of guns. You need them, study them, but ultimately use your own eye (combined with cold hard measurement numbers and diameters) to actually put the thing together and adjust. If I look at this M4 for too long it makes my head hurt because it's clearly close enough to be instantly recognizable, but then all the tolerance stacking just starts ringing alarm bells.
The last ref Kitteh posted and ones like it would be really helpful for manually adjusting the scaling of various elements on the model, if you were still so inclined. Otherwise yes, you can finish the model and it will be a perfectly good say 80-85% M4 model. But not a portfolio piece, and I think missing some of the at-times excessive rigor that makes a first project of this kind really worthwhile. Take the time to learn lessons while you have it.
The modeling is really clean as others have said and the details well put together, especially the rollmark engraving details. Looking forward to seeing more bakes.
Comparing anatomy to gun details is fallacious because every person on earth knows what a properly proportioned person looks like, where as only murder object fetishists know the MM widths of every gun part.
The low and high are looking really good, looks like an imperialist weapon of death to me! I have full confidence if this was my fps weapon in a game, I'd left click the mouse and people on the other side would die.
I mean, it would be one thing if the OP expressed interest in making the gun 100% accurate, but it seems from his responses he's more interested in making a good next gen asset, and minor inaccuracies don't bother him much, which makes the gun nuts trying to brow beat him just annoying, not helpful.
All the gunnuts I've known have been masters at details, they've really taken time to look at how mechanical objects work, the parts that go together and so, it becomes what a good anatomy is to character artists, it's not all about guns, it's been vehicles, industrial machines etc.
Anyway, to OP: It looks really good! keep tweaking those details.
Just bake it. Personally, having worn a uniform and been issued this weapon, I could care less if the lower and upper don't meet up exactly.....I'm more interested in blasting Zombies and not running out of ammo...:)
Look at the renders, we arent quabbling pedantically over millimetres here - it is a very noticeable amount. Especially considering this is something which is gonna be taking up 1/4 of the screen.
I here what you're saying, but since the upper is considerably wider (at it's widest point and the FP angle hasn't been looked at yet...it's possible the lower won't even be seen...if that makes sense....
~ I showed this to my friend who spent 6 years in the army, and knows exactly how this weapon is supposed to look as he has held one, and knows how to reload it.
He made a really great point. I'm gonna quote him:
"When guns arent perfect in games, I don't really care as long as its cool and it makes sense. This gun isnt perfect, but he's making a game asset not a gun sim so I really couldn't care less that its not 'anatomically perfect'" It looks great.
While Jack's comparison isn't entirely apples to apples, as even a child has some basic understanding of anatomy and when a person "looks wrong", and knowing the inner workings of firearms takes a little more specific knowledge. He brings up a very important point, that any artist worth his salt is going to take that extra effort to be accurate no matter what the subject matter is, not just say "meh its a gun whatever, i'm above needing to do any research on something as un-important as this".
Defending this sort of attitude is akin to looking at a character with bad proportions, and saying "its got 2 arms 2 legs and a head, i'm sure it will walk around in the game, who cares?".
The whole thing is exacerbated by the fact that its pretty much the most common and popular weapon on the planet, and has been done to death in games so many times, so its basically pointless to even model one if you're not going to bother to model it accurately.
Now i will clarify, i dont think the gun is bad or extremely inaccurate, however there are some really basic proportional issues with it that should be fixed. Its sort of funny how offended people get when this is mentioned.
I've known a lot of very good character artists, who couldn't model a proper FPV weapon to save thier lives. Its pretty amusing that people tend to look down upon guys who do weapons and stuff, but the joke is on them. The guys doing weapons in your game are the ones who do the MAIN CHARACTER of any shooter, the asset you interact with, and see 99% of the game, its your gun, not any character models.
Whether or not the model is "good enough" is entirely up to Aftermath. I come to polycount for people to help me get better at my work, so I assume others want the same courtesy extended. I'll leave detailed critiques for the original artist but also for the many artists who pay attention to threads like these to try and learn something. I think that's always been one of the best sides to the community.
And yeah by no means did I mean a direct comparison of human anatomy and firearms . I was simply trying to express my own experience of having to study very hard at both, that it's easy to write anything off as being "good enough" if you haven't gotten into them.
Whenenver I look at the work I did only a few years ago I tend to cringe a little because all of the things that are so obviously wrong that I couldn't tell at the time. The value of an art community is (hopefully) surrounding yourself with people who are more experienced at a given type of art. I hope people realize that's where I'm coming from.
Comparing anatomy to gun details is fallacious because every person on earth knows what a properly proportioned person looks like, where as only murder object fetishists know the MM widths of every gun part.
I hope you remember this sentence the next time you undertake a model of a(n)
car
plane
building
object
and then I hope you keep it in mind when people critique your balls off for lack of accuracy
When you have 200+ high resolution images of the real item at your disposal there is no reason for it to be inaccurate.
Especially when you state in your original post that its intended to be a portfolio piece. Portfolio should hold your best work - not the work which you decided to not go the extra mile on.
Basically what's going on here is the people who don't know what's going on or what they're talking about are saying "it's fine! ignore the gun nerds! who cares?" while the people who actually have standards and an eye for quality are telling you to fix it
Yes it wont be noticed by 99% of consumers, but we're not consumers, we're artists, and if you dont expect to be held to a higher standard then you may be pursuing the wrong hobby.
It applies to every area of every art. If you were an environment artist who made ceilings too low or doors too thin, or door handles too high, or walls too thin, or broke walls open without revealing any underlying structure, you should be held to the same standard.
Yes, it's absolutely true, most people probably won't even think for half a second about a level of detail and care that is *missing,* but when it's there, it's there. The consumer might not know the nuts and bolts of exactly how everything works, but if you actually endeavour to give a fuck it shows in some soncsious or sub conscious way
I agree with everything said because everyone has a different opinion but the way everyone is making this sound it sounds impossible (not that it is) but for a beginner like me its kinda scary.. yes for art beasts like you guys you can make a tree look identical to the ref.but for us beginners crits and comments are what will help us to grow then its up to us to actually listen ore not you are the teachers and we are the students you guys lead us then its up to us to listen. what harry said is also very important if you simply cant make it look great after years of exp. then change hobby because that will mean that you don't give a rats ass about what you are doing. but not only us beginners make errors also many pros make errors its just a way to show that we are human. besides whats been said this also has to be a fun job and creative.
now most of you pros feel like you have the right to also make fun of us beginners because you are good at what you do but just remember maybe one day you will piss off the wrong motherfucker and you will end up paying but that's just if he is crazy.. besides all that
It's up to him how far he wants to take it. I don't see why people are jumping all over him, or maybe just the idea of being 100% accurate is something that they bust a nut over.
It's up to him how far he wants to take it. I don't see why people are jumping all over him,
I can only speak for myself really but it seems me and most other contributors to "jumping all over" it, only did so after the actual crits themselves were brushed off and in some cases even ridiculed. The term "gunwank" gets thrown around a lot, and even you yourself are suggesting that people must have some kind of deviant fetish or "bust a nut" over an artist caring half a shit about their subject of study. I think the irrational zealots are coming from the other side here.
or maybe just the idea of being 100% accurate is something that they bust a nut over.
Nobody asked for 100% accurate, as he said that's not what he's aiming for, but I will always stand by what i have said about the inaccuracy in this case actually being an eyesore. This kind of critique is equally applicable to a concept weapon, except when the actual object he's trying to portray is done so in that way, why leave it like that. You also gotta keep in mind a lot of actual FPS players are big into the weapons and accuracy. The proportions *need* to be fixed, as stated also, because at present the magazine looks like it's been skewed.
And rock bottom, you're totally fucking stoned out of your mind man. Nobody made fun of anybody, if you read through the crits youll certainly notice that the critics of the work are probably the ones displaying the best conduct and actually trying to help, whereas the other side are mostly chiming in with such useful gems along the lines of "let him do it how he wants it looks good" - Remind me why we post on art forums again? If it's to keep doing things the same way and repeating the same mistakes all our life... Why do we need input to reinforce that behaviour? why have a public forum of artists at all?
And you don't need to feel like you may as well give up just because you're a beginner. If anything, you should be taking note of how much effort these people are willing to go to to try to help a fellow artist ddevelop, i mean some of these posts would have taken several minutes of the author's lives to write, minutes which the "herp derp gunwank" crowd don't seem willing to invest in another's development.
I hope you remember this sentence the next time you undertake a model of a(n)
car
plane
building
object
and then I hope you keep it in mind when people critique your balls off for lack of accuracy
Except cars, commercial airplanes, and buildings all serve legitimate purposes and are much more common in the majority of people's minds than military weapons.
That and very few people other than car, architecture, and airplane freaks would notice the inaccuracy on objects if they were as comparable to this. No normal consumers know how many wheels are on the front of a 747, or how many exhaust pipes a 2009 VW beetle has.
What the gun nuts are confusing, is accuracy with quality. A weapon asset can be pleasing to look at, well made, and a good portfolio piece, without being accurate. If small things that normal people won't notice bother you so much to be making multiple care-posts trying to convince everyone of the wrongs befallen the ghost of Heckler and Koch for inaccurate gun modeling, you might want to seek help.
Except cars, commercial airplanes, and buildings all serve legitimate purposes
Sorry, but how is that relevant even in the slightest? Do you disagree for moralistic reasons? What if you were tasked to model a carved up body? would you just spray it with random brushes and paste some refs of uncooked steak because nobody will know any better? Or would you research the actual anatomy of a human and make sure bones and organs were in the right places?
If somebody asked you to write a screenplay containing a scene with some drug addicts brewing up some meth, would you just make them take whatever was under the sink and throw it in a frying pan cause nobody will know if it's authentic, or would you find out what the actual process is and work it into your writing because art mimics life?
That and very few people other than car, architecture, and airplane freaks would notice the inaccuracy on objects if they were as comparable to this. No normal consumers know how many wheels are on the front of a 747, or how many exhaust pipes a 2009 VW beetle has.
I've addressed this. People GENERALLY won't notice the absence of that level of consideration. But when it's there, it really shows. Anyone well versed in any kind of mechanical construction (as most hardsurface artists become through research) will be able to instantly tell the work of someone who actually understands what they're representing or just combines things they see superficially. So, answer A to this, is that while it might not be missed if its absence is taken for granted, this does not say, or even imply, that people wouldn't care if it WAS present. Answer B to this, is that you're currently on a game art forum, and we're game artists, not consumers. If the feedback one is seeking is "looks great dont change anything," maybe it's time for one to start posting on the call of duty forums.
If small things that normal people won't notice bother you so much to be making multiple care-posts trying to convince everyone of the wrongs befallen the ghost of Heckler and Koch for inaccurate gun modeling, you might want to seek help.
I dunno where people are pulling this kind of stuff from. To me it's just blatant strawmanning by trying as hard as possible to portray this school of thought as ridiculous and irrational. You should probably take notice that most the people who agree, are actually well respected weapon artists.
However, in light of all these comments, most of the "fuck it it's close enough" attitude is coming from people who all but stray away from doing mechanical/weaponry work. I'm starting to think it might be because they like to think they can just skip over to that kind of art without any effort or research, or that they're above it. Being fairly heavilly into both character art and hardsurface, while not overly great at either, I think I'm able to get a fairly balanced perspective.
Accurate or not the gun looks very good so far, especially the sight (really like this part). Personally, I've never stopped mid-game and say "that screw is not the right size!" Just focus on making it look good, whether that means more accuracy to the model or not.
LMAO model looks great. Gun freaks are an ENTIRELY different breed of people, so don't sweat it man. Can't wait for more!!!
P.S. I thought this was going to be something huge and controversial based on the amount of comments and quotes since my last visit to this thread, but it's a childish argument over a small detail. Ha. Made me laugh, just thought i should share that.
Move on kid. Take everything that is said and apply it to your next project, don't get stuck on one piece cause its only going to be discouraging. Looks solid. Finish it. Move on.
i just clicked on the last page of the thread, hoping to see the latest and greatest gun model...instead i see this argument, i read through a bit, went back a page, read through some more.....NOW the hype is great, and im expecting the ugliest god damn model ive ever seen....I go to page 2
OH
Nice gun
Great modeling man, looks great. hahaha. Must be funny to make a thread about your work, and everyones getting into a 3D philosophical debate haha. im staying out of it
However, in light of all these comments, most of the "fuck it it's close enough" attitude is coming from people who all but stray away from doing mechanical/weaponry work. I'm starting to think it might be because they like to think they can just skip over to that kind of art without any effort or research, or that they're above it. Being fairly heavilly into both character art and hardsurface, while not overly great at either, I think I'm able to get a fairly balanced perspective.
You should probably take notice that most the people who agree, are actually well respected weapon artists.
Yes, unlike me. I have never made any real-world guns for any well-known FPS games, nor do I make both characters/hardsurface art, so my perspective is probably shot to shit by now ^^ Seriously though. My comments, that sparked this whole debate, was not meant as a crotch-punch against hardcore weapon-perfectionists. I simply meant, that for Aftermath to get a balanced allround portfolio, he'd be better off finishing the gun, and make some more models, taking into account all the tricks and referencehunting-skills he learned from this model. Building an entry-level folio is an iterative process, and the worst thing that you can do is to get stuck, perfecting something, when iterating on your art and growing piece by piece is, imho, a much better approach.
Pushing something all the way is good. But when you are building an entry-level folio, I personally think that finishing stuff is key. Build something, listen to all the crique you can muster, fix that, then start a new project. Repeat until you get a job. That is my preferred way to improve. Anyway, I was just cheering Ryan on, I was not saying that to sound "cool" cause i dont know how to make a proper gun :P
Yes, unlike me. I have never made any real-world guns for any well-known FPS games, nor do I make both characters/hardsurface art, so my perspective is probably shot to shit by now ^^ Seriously though. My comments, that sparked this whole debate, was not meant as a crotch-punch against hardcore weapon-perfectionists. I simply meant, that for Aftermath to get a balanced allround portfolio, he'd be better off finishing the gun, and make some more models, taking into account all the tricks and referencehunting-skills he learned from this model. Building an entry-level folio is an iterative process, and the worst thing that you can do is to get stuck, perfecting something, when iterating on your art and growing piece by piece is, imho, a much better approach.
Pushing something all the way is good. But when you are building an entry-level folio, I personally think that finishing stuff is key. Build something, listen to all the crique you can muster, fix that, then start a new project. Repeat until you get a job. That is my preferred way to improve. Anyway, I was just cheering Ryan on, I was not saying that to sound "cool" cause i dont know how to make a proper gun :P
Building an entry-level folio is an iterative process, and the worst thing that you can do is to get stuck, perfecting something, when iterating on your art and growing piece by piece is, imho, a much better approach.
Pushing something all the way is good. But when you are building an entry-level folio, I personally think that finishing stuff is key. Build something, listen to all the crique you can muster, fix that, then start a new project. Repeat until you get a job. That is my preferred way to improve. Anyway, I was just cheering Ryan on, I was not saying that to sound "cool" cause i dont know how to make a proper gun :P
^ this
IMO, as long as it looks real good and close enough to the reference, it's totally fine. It will only be used in a videogame, not in a real world.
And man can never be accurate with something, only precise. That's why we build machines.
My comments, that sparked this whole debate, was not meant as a crotch-punch against hardcore weapon-perfectionists. I simply meant, that for Aftermath to get a balanced allround portfolio, he'd be better off finishing the gun, and make some more models, taking into account all the tricks and referencehunting-skills he learned from this model.
Then you have serious communication issues, is all I can say.
And yeah, as kitteh said, if you take a pic of the gun and a render of the model from the same angle, and view them side by side, if you can easilly see differences, then you've ballsed it up. It doesn't need to be millimetre accurate for that comparisin to work. I'd be interested to see the artist here take one or two of his refs and make a similar render to place them side by side. The magazine and foregrip in particular look ridiculous to anyone with a sense of scale, and the upper reciever was fucked but seems to have since been edited.
There are a myriad of other little things that are off, as has been mentioned a million times already, but again, he's made it clear he doesn't want millimetre accuracy so we're only pointing out the most obvious things which would be easilly noticable by the side-by-side "spot the difference" test.
Thanks for everyones comments and crits they are all welcomed and taken somewhat serious. I just want to point out that I don't get upset or mad over crits. I do my best to fix them and move on in a timely manor.
Instead of fixing the high I just took your crits and brought them into the low mesh. Tweaked the gaps and a few other things, here is some of my texture work this far. It is still very very early in the texture phase and only has a diffuse and some normals.
Im using the 3 point studios shader to display this model and textures in the viewport. The spec you see is just the default spec and there is no spec map yet.
Thanks for everyones crits and support. Let the games begin!! Fight!!
How are you making the Textures? are you baking piece by piece and then texturing them? its not easier to Bake everything and when your normals and AO maps are perfect texture the whole thing?
Replies
It's cool to say that when you don't know what he's talking about I guess
Thanks.
It's cool to just randomly post in peoples threads about useless stuff too I guess.
I'm pretty sure Snefer knows what the other guy was talking about, I will see how it looks at the end of the bakes and fix it or keep it indented. I know the real one is flush but it looks pretty bland from the FPS view with it flush. Granted it being flush is to assist the bullet as it enters the chamber when loaded. If made real this way they would just add more pins and springs to adjust for the indent this could also increase the caliber size as well. If more people complain I will add it to my list of things to fix and fix it up nice.
I welcome the crits thou, I'm not trying to sound like im against the person criting me on the size of the lower223 to the barrel. I appriciate things like that and keep them coming I will see what I can do. I need to wrap this thing up badly thou.
you clearly don't know too much about firearms design, but making things inaccurate on purpose is just dumb.
Look, it's flush:
Er, okay, if you enjoy the idea of a big shelf down the side of your model for some specific reason
Get those bakes done. If it looks really off. Fix it.
OR it makes sense to say that when you are running headfirst into the law of diminishing returns. The highpoly looks great. If he bakes it down, textures it nicely, no-one is gonna notice. There is a time when its better to let go. The thing is, people are only this picky about guns. Period. I mean, if this was a GUN forum, i would understand it, but its an art forum. Nothing else gets the same picky attention as guns, and I just dont understand why. If your goal is to grow as an artist, or get a job, making a gun to perfection, accuracywise, is not time well spent.
Also: I was saying that as a joke, since I know ryan, I just want him to finish the damn gun now
Sure, if you say so. But it's an area which will be very very noticable from first person perspective.
Nobody's asking for perfection, if that was the case the list of crits would be a lot longer - It just happens that this one is blatantly obvious to anyone familiar with the weapon (And i think it will actually look aesthetically worse as well)
If you wanna talk about wasting time, I think more time has been spent on this "herp derp gunwank" train of thought than it would take to just slide those faces out.
Couldn't disagree more. This is an art forum where people come to hone their craft. If you don't want to listen to people who know better than I don't know what to say, other than it's good to keep an open mind and remain humble. Yeah a lot of this stuff is very different in a production environment, but it's important while you're not in a production environment/timetable to learn to do things right as you can. Getting lazy about a personal project, or worse yet a portfolio piece is asking for trouble.
Now's the time to get it all zeroed in. Just look at Lonewolf's MP5 model--how many MP5 models (or M4s, for that matter) have you seen? As a portfolio reviewer, would you even bother looking at a picture of an M4 model unless it was really really nice? Don't shoot for "good enough, I guess" for models. And tell the little voice in the back of your head that says you can always go back and fix it later to shut up, because you won't.
Experienced artists (also portfolio reviewers) are far more picky about good anatomy than the equivalent gun guys are about guns, but far less inclined or in some cases able to give detailed crits. For the muscles tensing just so, the arch of the back, the ankle etc--it's very hard to explain to a less experienced artist how off they are because it's about the more experienced artist's perception--they really have to get in there with the paintover, with a good chance the person isn't going to listen anyway, so they don't bother.
Luckily for everyone, firearms and other manufactured items it's a whole lot more black and white: either your version of the gun looks like it should or it doesn't.
I've been coming here for 10 years and yeah, a lot of the posters have gotten a lot pickier about this stuff but that's a good thing, that's what you want. Don't slough it off. polycount didn't get its reputation, or the recent TF2 contest thing by doing assets up to about 95% and then coasting. We count many of the industry best artists as members because they sweat the small stuff. This has nothing to do with "diminishing returns." Aftermath asked for crits, and the great thing about polycount is that he'll probably keep getting them days after he's completed and stopped all work on the asset.
So back to the actual weapon model. It is very wrong but only in a lot of subtle ways--prey to what in engineering they call "tolerance stacking." By that I mean you get one little detail off. Fine, no big deal. Then you get another thing off, and then because that's not in place, something else, which was modeled in reference to the position of the second thing, is also off. Each individual component is only a little bit off, but taken together the whole thing is the total "stack" of all those inaccuracies, which adds up to being very wrong.
This model is prey to lot of tolerance stacking. Basically a lot of small widths/angles are off. Smaller details pretty hugely off, like the mag fence (the raised, rounded areas around the magazine release button). The aforementioned width difference between the upper and the lower is an oversight.
Widths/lengths all over the place are just a little bit off--I think it all looks like you spent maybe a little too much time modeled to be exactly like a photographic reference which was likely distorted. Be very careful of photographic refs, even of guns. You need them, study them, but ultimately use your own eye (combined with cold hard measurement numbers and diameters) to actually put the thing together and adjust. If I look at this M4 for too long it makes my head hurt because it's clearly close enough to be instantly recognizable, but then all the tolerance stacking just starts ringing alarm bells.
The last ref Kitteh posted and ones like it would be really helpful for manually adjusting the scaling of various elements on the model, if you were still so inclined. Otherwise yes, you can finish the model and it will be a perfectly good say 80-85% M4 model. But not a portfolio piece, and I think missing some of the at-times excessive rigor that makes a first project of this kind really worthwhile. Take the time to learn lessons while you have it.
The modeling is really clean as others have said and the details well put together, especially the rollmark engraving details. Looking forward to seeing more bakes.
Also gonna back up gauss here and say that whilst it does recognisably look like an M4 ... there are glaring inaccuracies. Sure, most players wont notice if they saw it in a game, but out of that context it looks pretty generic. From the amount of praise this has gotten from a bunch of (in my eyes) highly respectable artists ... I really don't see what all the fuss is about. Is it a good model? Sure. It's nothing special (yet) though.
Unfortunately I don't have the ability to open cad data anymore, so I can't tell you if its accurate or even the right files, but I got it off a gun forum and my virus software didn't go nuts so I figured its worth a shot.
Also there actually is an extremely minor difference between the upper and the lower's width where they meet (the lower being mm difference at the lip wider). They are not perfectly flush, you can feel the difference with your thumb. Though its very hard to see even at the angles where the edges catch light, but that could be differences from manufacturer to manufacturer. So I don't think anyone will cry if you make them flush.
Of course the truth for sure would lay in the CAD data :poly136:
Comparing anatomy to gun details is fallacious because every person on earth knows what a properly proportioned person looks like, where as only murder object fetishists know the MM widths of every gun part.
The low and high are looking really good, looks like an imperialist weapon of death to me! I have full confidence if this was my fps weapon in a game, I'd left click the mouse and people on the other side would die.
I mean, it would be one thing if the OP expressed interest in making the gun 100% accurate, but it seems from his responses he's more interested in making a good next gen asset, and minor inaccuracies don't bother him much, which makes the gun nuts trying to brow beat him just annoying, not helpful.
Anyway, to OP: It looks really good! keep tweaking those details.
Here's another pic from the web....
http://www.pixagogo.com/Photos/Albums/Photo.aspx?id=S4r8!hkun5WdTcN!8eLipJs6NhsZfwjd3uTrU6B9KYZQPDCLrTWPhSZEP6jmLJ7yig
I'd like to see it mocked up in game.
In the end it gets boiled down to how much people will like it that tried it in the fps, or in his folio.
He made a really great point. I'm gonna quote him:
"When guns arent perfect in games, I don't really care as long as its cool and it makes sense. This gun isnt perfect, but he's making a game asset not a gun sim so I really couldn't care less that its not 'anatomically perfect'" It looks great.
Defending this sort of attitude is akin to looking at a character with bad proportions, and saying "its got 2 arms 2 legs and a head, i'm sure it will walk around in the game, who cares?".
The whole thing is exacerbated by the fact that its pretty much the most common and popular weapon on the planet, and has been done to death in games so many times, so its basically pointless to even model one if you're not going to bother to model it accurately.
Now i will clarify, i dont think the gun is bad or extremely inaccurate, however there are some really basic proportional issues with it that should be fixed. Its sort of funny how offended people get when this is mentioned.
I've known a lot of very good character artists, who couldn't model a proper FPV weapon to save thier lives. Its pretty amusing that people tend to look down upon guys who do weapons and stuff, but the joke is on them. The guys doing weapons in your game are the ones who do the MAIN CHARACTER of any shooter, the asset you interact with, and see 99% of the game, its your gun, not any character models.
And yeah by no means did I mean a direct comparison of human anatomy and firearms
Whenenver I look at the work I did only a few years ago I tend to cringe a little because all of the things that are so obviously wrong that I couldn't tell at the time. The value of an art community is (hopefully) surrounding yourself with people who are more experienced at a given type of art. I hope people realize that's where I'm coming from.
car
plane
building
object
and then I hope you keep it in mind when people critique your balls off for lack of accuracy
Especially when you state in your original post that its intended to be a portfolio piece. Portfolio should hold your best work - not the work which you decided to not go the extra mile on.
That made me chuckle, you are correct, but it's still funny the way you put it.
It applies to every area of every art. If you were an environment artist who made ceilings too low or doors too thin, or door handles too high, or walls too thin, or broke walls open without revealing any underlying structure, you should be held to the same standard.
Yes, it's absolutely true, most people probably won't even think for half a second about a level of detail and care that is *missing,* but when it's there, it's there. The consumer might not know the nuts and bolts of exactly how everything works, but if you actually endeavour to give a fuck it shows in some soncsious or sub conscious way
now most of you pros feel like you have the right to also make fun of us beginners because you are good at what you do but just remember maybe one day you will piss off the wrong motherfucker and you will end up paying but that's just if he is crazy.. besides all that
i say the model looks good and fix the errors.
Nobody asked for 100% accurate, as he said that's not what he's aiming for, but I will always stand by what i have said about the inaccuracy in this case actually being an eyesore. This kind of critique is equally applicable to a concept weapon, except when the actual object he's trying to portray is done so in that way, why leave it like that. You also gotta keep in mind a lot of actual FPS players are big into the weapons and accuracy. The proportions *need* to be fixed, as stated also, because at present the magazine looks like it's been skewed.
And rock bottom, you're totally fucking stoned out of your mind man. Nobody made fun of anybody, if you read through the crits youll certainly notice that the critics of the work are probably the ones displaying the best conduct and actually trying to help, whereas the other side are mostly chiming in with such useful gems along the lines of "let him do it how he wants it looks good" - Remind me why we post on art forums again? If it's to keep doing things the same way and repeating the same mistakes all our life... Why do we need input to reinforce that behaviour? why have a public forum of artists at all?
And you don't need to feel like you may as well give up just because you're a beginner. If anything, you should be taking note of how much effort these people are willing to go to to try to help a fellow artist ddevelop, i mean some of these posts would have taken several minutes of the author's lives to write, minutes which the "herp derp gunwank" crowd don't seem willing to invest in another's development.
Except cars, commercial airplanes, and buildings all serve legitimate purposes and are much more common in the majority of people's minds than military weapons.
That and very few people other than car, architecture, and airplane freaks would notice the inaccuracy on objects if they were as comparable to this. No normal consumers know how many wheels are on the front of a 747, or how many exhaust pipes a 2009 VW beetle has.
What the gun nuts are confusing, is accuracy with quality. A weapon asset can be pleasing to look at, well made, and a good portfolio piece, without being accurate. If small things that normal people won't notice bother you so much to be making multiple care-posts trying to convince everyone of the wrongs befallen the ghost of Heckler and Koch for inaccurate gun modeling, you might want to seek help.
If somebody asked you to write a screenplay containing a scene with some drug addicts brewing up some meth, would you just make them take whatever was under the sink and throw it in a frying pan cause nobody will know if it's authentic, or would you find out what the actual process is and work it into your writing because art mimics life?
I've addressed this. People GENERALLY won't notice the absence of that level of consideration. But when it's there, it really shows. Anyone well versed in any kind of mechanical construction (as most hardsurface artists become through research) will be able to instantly tell the work of someone who actually understands what they're representing or just combines things they see superficially. So, answer A to this, is that while it might not be missed if its absence is taken for granted, this does not say, or even imply, that people wouldn't care if it WAS present. Answer B to this, is that you're currently on a game art forum, and we're game artists, not consumers. If the feedback one is seeking is "looks great dont change anything," maybe it's time for one to start posting on the call of duty forums.
I dunno where people are pulling this kind of stuff from. To me it's just blatant strawmanning by trying as hard as possible to portray this school of thought as ridiculous and irrational. You should probably take notice that most the people who agree, are actually well respected weapon artists.
However, in light of all these comments, most of the "fuck it it's close enough" attitude is coming from people who all but stray away from doing mechanical/weaponry work. I'm starting to think it might be because they like to think they can just skip over to that kind of art without any effort or research, or that they're above it. Being fairly heavilly into both character art and hardsurface, while not overly great at either, I think I'm able to get a fairly balanced perspective.
Accurate or not the gun looks very good so far, especially the sight (really like this part). Personally, I've never stopped mid-game and say "that screw is not the right size!" Just focus on making it look good, whether that means more accuracy to the model or not.
P.S. I thought this was going to be something huge and controversial based on the amount of comments and quotes since my last visit to this thread, but it's a childish argument over a small detail. Ha. Made me laugh, just thought i should share that.
OH
Nice gun
Great modeling man, looks great. hahaha. Must be funny to make a thread about your work, and everyones getting into a 3D philosophical debate haha. im staying out of it
Yes, unlike me. I have never made any real-world guns for any well-known FPS games, nor do I make both characters/hardsurface art, so my perspective is probably shot to shit by now ^^ Seriously though. My comments, that sparked this whole debate, was not meant as a crotch-punch against hardcore weapon-perfectionists. I simply meant, that for Aftermath to get a balanced allround portfolio, he'd be better off finishing the gun, and make some more models, taking into account all the tricks and referencehunting-skills he learned from this model. Building an entry-level folio is an iterative process, and the worst thing that you can do is to get stuck, perfecting something, when iterating on your art and growing piece by piece is, imho, a much better approach.
Pushing something all the way is good. But when you are building an entry-level folio, I personally think that finishing stuff is key. Build something, listen to all the crique you can muster, fix that, then start a new project. Repeat until you get a job. That is my preferred way to improve. Anyway, I was just cheering Ryan on, I was not saying that to sound "cool" cause i dont know how to make a proper gun :P
spot on .. spot on
^ this
IMO, as long as it looks real good and close enough to the reference, it's totally fine. It will only be used in a videogame, not in a real world.
And man can never be accurate with something, only precise. That's why we build machines.
But it's not close enough to the reference and it's inaccurate in a way that doesn't look real good. That's the issue.
Then you have serious communication issues, is all I can say.
And yeah, as kitteh said, if you take a pic of the gun and a render of the model from the same angle, and view them side by side, if you can easilly see differences, then you've ballsed it up. It doesn't need to be millimetre accurate for that comparisin to work. I'd be interested to see the artist here take one or two of his refs and make a similar render to place them side by side. The magazine and foregrip in particular look ridiculous to anyone with a sense of scale, and the upper reciever was fucked but seems to have since been edited.
There are a myriad of other little things that are off, as has been mentioned a million times already, but again, he's made it clear he doesn't want millimetre accuracy so we're only pointing out the most obvious things which would be easilly noticable by the side-by-side "spot the difference" test.
Instead of fixing the high I just took your crits and brought them into the low mesh. Tweaked the gaps and a few other things, here is some of my texture work this far. It is still very very early in the texture phase and only has a diffuse and some normals.
Im using the 3 point studios shader to display this model and textures in the viewport. The spec you see is just the default spec and there is no spec map yet.
Thanks for everyones crits and support. Let the games begin!! Fight!!
e/ your barrel length is outrageously long considering how short your foregrip is. That just looks all kinds of wrong