Help me to become a better 3D artist! :)
polycounter lvl 12
Hi everyone, I recently graduated from my game design course (a 1.1 BTW! 
), I now need to get better at creating 3D art and get a job as soon as possible somewhere here in the UK. My specialism is in organic modelling, primarily I want to become a character modeller as that's where my strenght will be once I get time to actually go make a character!
For the moment I'm helping to create low poly level models for Flaming Brain Studio's upcoming mod Praetorian Defiance. I'll be starting a personal project soon too which I hope will give me the chance to showcase my Zbrush skills. For now though here's my current model I'm creating for my mod team, the model is about 600 polys and has a texture res of 512X512, which might be dropped down to 256X256 yet, I'll have to see what the team thinks of it once it's finished. The screen is a seperate texture, this is because the screen will change in-game depending on what the level designers want to show at that time.
Here's the first update along with concept art (concept not created by me):
And heres my most recent update on the nearly finished diffuse texture for the device, I usually don't go much further than this texture wise, (I have a certain reluctance to push myself any further once I've got the general idea for the texture down) but I'd like to stop doing that and push myself and actually try and get a fully finished texture done for once! Admitedly I do use only the one photoshop brush for all my textures, probably not the best idea, I best start using more brushes! Any tips on how I could take this further would be appreciated, if there's something not working let me know, I'd really like to start getting better at creating textures!
Thanks
Steve
), I now need to get better at creating 3D art and get a job as soon as possible somewhere here in the UK. My specialism is in organic modelling, primarily I want to become a character modeller as that's where my strenght will be once I get time to actually go make a character!For the moment I'm helping to create low poly level models for Flaming Brain Studio's upcoming mod Praetorian Defiance. I'll be starting a personal project soon too which I hope will give me the chance to showcase my Zbrush skills. For now though here's my current model I'm creating for my mod team, the model is about 600 polys and has a texture res of 512X512, which might be dropped down to 256X256 yet, I'll have to see what the team thinks of it once it's finished. The screen is a seperate texture, this is because the screen will change in-game depending on what the level designers want to show at that time.
Here's the first update along with concept art (concept not created by me):
And heres my most recent update on the nearly finished diffuse texture for the device, I usually don't go much further than this texture wise, (I have a certain reluctance to push myself any further once I've got the general idea for the texture down) but I'd like to stop doing that and push myself and actually try and get a fully finished texture done for once! Admitedly I do use only the one photoshop brush for all my textures, probably not the best idea, I best start using more brushes! Any tips on how I could take this further would be appreciated, if there's something not working let me know, I'd really like to start getting better at creating textures!
Thanks
Steve
Replies
Suggest looking at Racer's painting metal tutorial and the other tuts he has on his site. Also look at some references for natural damage like rust etc.
The other thing is that the grunge seams a bit random, like on the screen if there was dirt on the screen someone would probably wipe it off.
And what kind of engine is this game on, is it only going to use a diffuse and no specular or normal?
Just wondering since it would be smart to show us those aswell:)
Stromberg90: It's going in the UDK editor, it'll probably have an AO map, normal, specular and diffuse. Yeah I'll think about correcting the amount of grunge on the screen, in general it is pretty random, the shown texture is still rough though for the moment, I'll start refining it soon.
woogity: Thanks for the crits, I was going to be adding the concentrated amounts of dirt around the corners and crevices of the model soon. I had stuck to the concept quite closely to begin with until I thought that the stand just wasn't working once made, it didn't look quite right to me so I changed it and the team liked it so I stuck with it. You really don't like it?! :poly122:
I'll hopefully have an update on this for tomorrow, in the meantime here's two other models I did before making this one, they're done with now but any crit's anyone has on these is much appreciated, thanks
Anyway I'll start by posting an update on the low poly base mesh, it's mostly there now except for the charater's boots, in the concept the character has buckles tying down his boot straps, any suggestions for how I might go about adding boot buckles over the straps? Keeping in mind this will be used as a playable character inside the UDK, I thought about just modelling them but judging from past experience of rigging something like this it does make stuff considerable more awkward! I've added a seperate screen of the boot and applied a different colour to the three different onjects that make up the boot just so you have an idea of how it's put together. Any help is most appreciated
A big thanks goes to the very talented Henry South of MPC studios for fixing the proportions of this character
Props to you for making the stuff.
See what I did thar? =]
you strayed quite abit from the reference tho. the shoes should be shorter and wider, the gloves should be much bigger and not disappear under the sleeves.
the pants look alot more like baggy pants on the reference .. the legs need to be much wider.
and those blue protector pad thingies on the thighs and shoulders should be quite a bit bigger, especially on the thighs.
i can't really see the face, but to me it seems like he looks much younger in the reference, could you post a close up of that area?
. Also id say your being a little too heavy handed with the texture in your normal maps. the double light looks really really bumpy.. as if its really taken a lot of physical damage in which case you'd expect the wires to be torn and the lights to be smashed. again id tone down the surface bumpyness
r_Fletch_r: thanks for the tip, yeah I used a diffuse to generate my normals.
Anyway here's an update on my computer terminal model, I've created a proxy model here, I'll now create a high poly from this and then generate the normals and an AO from them and apply it to the low poly.
The only way I have an idea of how to add details to the high poly is through using the "floating geometry" method. Any one know of another way to start adding details?
Thanks for any help!
I changed the head base mesh to one I downloaded from the gnomenology website, not sure why I just thought I'd use someone else's base mesh for once
Why? At this stage when your making your portfolio everything that you show should have been created by you unless its some sort of group project. Sure maybe in a production pipeline they might do it but thats for speed and they know what they're doing.
On a side note does anyone have any tips on how best to UV unwrap a cylindrical shaped (or in this case a five sided cable) in a clean way once it's been bent around? Hope that makes sense!
All c & c on the low poly and whatever else welcome and much appreciated
On a side note does any one have any good tips for UV unwrapping those loose wires I had on the low poly version? I couldn't get a clean UV layout with those, it might be because they're only 5 sided cylinders but I can't seem to get a clean UV layout for them, the best way I can see is to have a seam line at every bend in the wire, is that ok? Thanks
Try to present your high poly models in a better way. It just sells it better than just "sloppy" grey AO renders that almost disappear behind a gray background
It doesnt rly take much time but looks so much better and gets out more of the detail in the high poly mesh.
Day 1 was idea day, day 2 I had to model, unwrap, and texture this model and day 3 I rig and import the model into Unity.
Obviously with only a day to make a model from scratch it's not the best looking model in the world but considering everthing I had to do I'm quite pleased I was able to get it done in time. All c & c welcome
Reiro, thanks for the tip, the final presentation would be presented nicely, these are just thrown together to show progress. Plus I was told to show models on a 50/50 gray background, I only started doing that since, although yeah I think for high poly stuff I should make an exception, thanks
Job-wise:
The first thing that jumps out is your presentation.
If you're going to have presentation sheets, you don't want them to be messy/ scattered. Think compositionally. And it would be nice if you had some form of continuity throughout your sheets. A style-guide for placement.
More importantly, you need finished work. And by that, i mean fully finished work.
Zsculpts are nice, but at this point in the game, most people can sculpt. You should bring your stuff to completion. Show the sculpt, but show it in succession with a finished, textured, lit, baked, (preferably in-engine) model.
Your supersoaker and eye-light-thingies are easily your best/most attractive work (in my opinion).
Skill wise:
It looks like you've got all the core stuff down. But I think you should decide what you want to really demonstrate. Your textures do need work.
Of what you have here, the "high-poly" version of your console seems unnecessary, as looking at it, it seems that your subdivisions aren't really doing much. I feel like you could achieve the same result faster, and more efficiently by simply chamfering cubes to get slightly "rounded" edges if that's what you're going for.
I am a firm believer in high-poly work's value, but I think you should attempt a model that has more complicated shapes to show off an understanding of it.
As for your low poly, seems like you could optimize it more if you're using normals
natetheartist: Thanks for the feedback, I've become a bit lazy when it comes to presenting my work, thats very true, I'll give myself a kick and knock something new up properly, I have been meaning to.
I completely agree with you on the finished work, I havn't one finished piece on me yet, the closest things to being finished that I've posted here are the two you mentioned. Since graduating my main goal is to finally create some finished work, the engineer character above is to be my first finished piece so wish me luck!
Thanks for the paintover, I do lack knowledge in the shader area of 3D, i's still very new to me, your paintover is much appreciated
Usually I'd just set it to multiply inside of photoshop and place it over the diffuse texture...
A good rule of thumb for any low poly object is to only include details if they affect the silhouette. Right off the bat, the inset on the bottom circular piece can be taken out with absolutely no loss in form, and it will even allow you to have a perfectly smooth inset that is handled solely by the normal map. The screen and button areas show the same thing; those very slight extrusions will hardly even be noticed by someone playing the game.
Keep it up though, it took me a while to get to the point where I only included necessary details on the low poly model and just let the normal do its job. Nice asset none the less.
EDIT: Regarding the AO map, most people just use it as a base to start texturing (like you said overlaying it in photoshop). Something that I and many other members do is to just use the AO map as your diffuse until you get started on texturing, that way you can still see all the details that may not show up in the normal map alone.
For any one following the progress of this model thus far I'm aware I didn't make as much use of the normal map that I could have, but I didn't want to spend any more time than I already have going back and deleting a few polys so I just left the model as it was, it doesn't make a big difference for this model anyway and I now fully understand normal maps in time for my next model!
Anyway here it is
also for the dirt in general ask why you get dirt in a n area...you have dirt/rust on the under side seams too much maybe limit the rust to the base where the paint gets chipped by passers by and moisture from floor mopping or whatever allows it to build up
the screen would be cleaner but maybe oily hand prints... the grenral grim may build up like you have it but then it would be wiped off in certain areas leading to a much more interesting less "outlined" texture
Hope this helps
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=73852&highlight=making+specular
For now though heres the current model, with the specular map as well. C & c on the layout etc are welcome, thanks
What i realy would like to see is a "big" sceenshot of the lowpoly with only the normal map applied, cause right now i cant realy see what it's doing.
Post your maps individually at high resolution and post separate large images of your meshes. If you want to be a better 3D artist, let your work speak for itself.
Maps are at full resolution as well, they're low res but making them any bigger will pixelate them, point taken though, I'll post stuff individually if that helps everyone. Personally I thought the renders I had in my last update were easily readable, what would any one out there suggest I render at? I thought that since the maps are so low res rendering them at a really high value would be unnecessary.
Stromberg90 and DOG-GY: I'll post a screen of only the normal map applied tomorrow. Was my first normal map creating from a high res so I'd appreciate any feedback when I upload it.
Buck: Thanks, it is a little over worn, I'll tone it down, got a little carried away with the spec!
I'll tidy up the diffuse a little and tone down the scratches etc tomorrow. Thanks for all the comments again, much appreciated
That may be, but the presentation is loaded with poor design choices which you could easily correct. You've got alot of junk in the picture with your actual material taking up very little space. Lot's of logo's, large, distracting fonts, and other things that don't need to be there.
It's just a mess to look at and dosen't convey the idea that you really sat down and thought out a good way to present your work. You want your work to be getting the spotlight and everything else to be in the visual background, not popping out.
It makes no sense in adding it to WIP shots, and even on your final shots I'd keep it to a minimum. Plus, if your maps are 512 and 256 they're definitely not full size in those pictures.
felipefrango: the maps are full size, Polycount compresses the hell out of them, I'm not sure if I can get around that, I'm sure I've seen threads on here with bigger images displayed, anyone know how to get around that? I'm simply just pasting in the
I eased off on the amount of scratches and decreased the intensity of the specular as well so it looks less worn. I've worked a little on the screen as well, hope I've done ok, let me know what you think!
Also any crits on the normal map I posted above? Its my first normal map putting together, I know I could have made more use of it for this model, but I didn't quite fully understnd normal maps until after I'd built the model plus I think its time to move on from this model soon!
This is a skill I feel many artists lack these days.
For now though heres an update on my character model for the mod team I'm working for, this is what I had done just before my laptop went last week but I'll be starting on the sculpt again tonight. Wanted to post the current version here as I'm not really happy with the clothes at the moment, the folds and creases etc, would like to see what you guys think of it here, it's not at all the finished sculpt but I thought I'd check here before going further. I'll start working on the boots and other stuff in the meantime.
Jonathan Marshall: Thanks for your kind words, I'm not sure many here reading this thread would agree with you but thanks a lot! I aim to improve as much as I can over the next few months, I'm quite a noob still and have lots to learn so thanks for the encouragement!