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Help me to become a better 3D artist! :)

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G-Saviour18 polycounter lvl 12
Hi everyone, I recently graduated from my game design course (a 1.1 BTW! :D), 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):

UPDATE_03.jpg


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

UPDATE04.jpg

Replies

  • haiddasalami
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    haiddasalami polycounter lvl 14
    Right now it looks like you just photo sourced the textures and slapped them on. Try baking out an AO map to get some lighing in there or else it looks flat.

    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.
  • Stromberg90
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    Stromberg90 polycounter lvl 11
    One suggestion is start doing character stuff, but i guess you already know that ;)

    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:)
  • woogity
    agreed with the below you need to definatly pay more attention to refs and think about the details you place, i think it would be near impossible for there to be blood spatter on the underside of your computer terminal. also the grunge on the screen would definatly be more concentrated towards the edges, where there is an edge for it to build up in. Also, follow your concept! there is far more style to what you have in your concept, and it isn't followed too closely, the stand for the terminal is an entirely different shape than what you have it is much more organic, also the proportions of the terminal itself are pretty far off compared with the concept. keep working on what you have, if you get a chance i would definatly rework the base of it to follow the concept, and widen up the area by the card reader to match the concept.
  • G-Saviour18
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    G-Saviour18 polycounter lvl 12
    haiddasalami: Yeah I'll be creating a high poly of the model to bake out an AO map today. I havn't just thrown in the source photo's but yeah I agree I should go look up more ref's for rust etc. I'll go do that now!

    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 :)

    FBS11copy.jpg

    dr1.jpg
  • G-Saviour18
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    G-Saviour18 polycounter lvl 12
    Hi everyone, I've been struggling to remake the high poly for the computer terminal environment prop I posted recently so I decided rather than waste countless more hours on it I should start remaking the second character I ever made as I never quite finished it, and with college time constraints on me I never brought it to the standard it should have been brought to :)

    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 :)

    greg_remake01.jpg

    A big thanks goes to the very talented Henry South of MPC studios for fixing the proportions of this character :)
  • fearian
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    fearian greentooth
    can we see without the wireframe? its a bit thick over the face ;)
  • Taylor Hood
    Liking the environmental props dude. I like the design of the first one.
    Props to you for making the stuff.

    See what I did thar? =]
  • MoreDread
    i like tho model, good work so far.
    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?
  • r_fletch_r
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    r_fletch_r polycounter lvl 9
    Looking at your props you seem to be using your diffuse texture to derive a normal map. Diffuse gets turned into a height map using its luminance so dark areas get pushed in light areas get pushed out. Diffuse colour rarely has anything to do with the elevation of the details on a map. Your better off doing a greyscale map

    . 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
  • G-Saviour18
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    G-Saviour18 polycounter lvl 12
    Thanks for the comments people :) I'll post a closer view of the characters face soon.

    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?

    update08.jpg

    Thanks for any help!
  • G-Saviour18
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    G-Saviour18 polycounter lvl 12
    Hi everyone, just a quick update on my engineer character, I've just gotten the proportions in and now it's time to add some details in, just wanted to post a WIP here to see if anyone out there can offer some critique on the model so far. Havn't sculpted in a while and I'm still quite a ZBrush newb so feel free to suggest anything as I'll start sculpting detail in now :) The clothes have all been just loosely sculpted in for now, the next update on this character will have the clothes fully sculpted.

    update2.jpg

    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 ;)
  • haiddasalami
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    haiddasalami polycounter lvl 14
    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.
  • BlvdNights
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    BlvdNights polycounter lvl 8
    Really bad idea to use someone else's base mesh for your own portfolio stuff.
  • Bakayoukai
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    Bakayoukai polycounter lvl 8
    yah never use someone elses models and call it your work, that could be big trouble
  • G-Saviour18
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    G-Saviour18 polycounter lvl 12
    Yeah ok, point taken, I'll go back to my own mesh then :)
  • G-Saviour18
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    G-Saviour18 polycounter lvl 12
    I've decided to remake the stand that I created for the following model since I wasn't quite happy with my last attempt. This is the current low poly model, I plan to create a proxy model from this and then create a high poly from that to bake an AO and normal map.

    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!

    update.jpg

    All c & c on the low poly and whatever else welcome and much appreciated :)
  • G-Saviour18
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    G-Saviour18 polycounter lvl 12
    Hi, here's an update on the high poly model, didn't quite get it finished today, most of the lower half of the model is high poly now, the upper half is still low poly, I'll continue to work on it tonight and tomorrow so feel free to suggest anything while I'm still working on it, any details I can add to the high poly etc, thanks

    UPDATE6.jpg
  • G-Saviour18
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    G-Saviour18 polycounter lvl 12
    ok so heres the final update on the high poly, I'll tidy a couple of things up a little but ultimately this is the final version, I'll bake out the normals and AO once I tidy up the model a bit. In the meantime let me know what you think of it, I'll post a final update on this tomorrow along with the normals and AO map.

    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 icon_e_smile.gif

    UPDATE7.jpg
  • reiro
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    reiro polycounter lvl 10
    This is just a general note.
    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.
  • G-Saviour18
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    G-Saviour18 polycounter lvl 12
    Took part in a 3 day game jam this week, basically a few local developers get togther and try to have a game together within the 3 day time limit.

    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 :)

    OGREPREScopy.jpg

    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
  • Jedah
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    Jedah polycounter lvl 8
    You seem to have the same problem I had ( and still have - you can always get better ) when I first graduated a little while ago: You know how to model, but you need to get better at texturing because it's just not there. The only real way to remedy this is a constant cycle of study->practice->study->practice-> over and over etc. I would recommend you start by studying the Diffuse maps made by industry professionals on this site and see what you can pick up.
  • natetheartist
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    natetheartist polycounter lvl 9
    I agree with the above posts.

    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
    captureco.png
  • G-Saviour18
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    G-Saviour18 polycounter lvl 12
    Jedah: Yeah I agree with you, I can model, to be honest I never really finish my textures which is stupid since I just end up with a lot of mediocre looking models, I'm trying to break out of that habit and really start to focus on texturing. I have started looking at professional texture maps recently to understand how they're doing it, I think notably mine are very unfinished looking in comparison. Thanks though, I'll work on my textures :)

    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 :) I'll make sure to work on my textures too, thanks for the comment :)
  • G-Saviour18
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    G-Saviour18 polycounter lvl 12
    Just an update on the normal map, never baked normals from a high poly so if anyone see's any errors or anything like that please let me know! Also I've created an AO map, anyone know what channel I put this through inside 3DS Max for it to display on the model?

    Usually I'd just set it to multiply inside of photoshop and place it over the diffuse texture...

    ct_update7copy.jpg
  • Mike Yevin
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    Mike Yevin polycounter lvl 11
    It's looking like you still have a bunch of details on your low poly that can easily be taken out and handled by your normal map. Also, I can't tell because of the super small render size, but it looks like most of your details didn't even transfer from your high poly. A bigger render of just the low and high poly would clear this up.

    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.
  • G-Saviour18
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    G-Saviour18 polycounter lvl 12
    Thanks a lot for the comment, since my last update I realised all of the unnessary geometry that I included, that you just mentioned, I won't be making these mistakes anymore! I didn't fully understand the use of normal maps until today pretty much so thanks for explaining! :)
  • G-Saviour18
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    G-Saviour18 polycounter lvl 12
    Hi everyone, heres an update on the diffuse map for this model, it's about 75% there, just thought I'd post it here to see what you guys think of it so far, any suggestions etc are most welcome. Once the diffuse is done I'll then go generate the specular map for it and it should be ready for UDK then!

    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 :)

    WIPDIFFUSE.jpg
  • BlvdNights
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    BlvdNights polycounter lvl 8
    Waaayyyyy too much going on in your presentation page. I cant even look at the detail of the final mesh.
  • G-Saviour18
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    G-Saviour18 polycounter lvl 12
    The diffuse is complete, I'd appreciate any critique on it, so far I've created a normal, AO and glow map, all I've left to create now is the specular. Does anyone have any good advice or tips for creating one inside Photoshop? Any good links to tutorials are appreciated as well, couldn't find any thing good myself, thanks

    lkqnr.jpg
  • DOG-GY
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    DOG-GY polycounter lvl 12
    What I've noticed about AO on the diffuse is that nearly all companies tend to make the blank space the same brightness as the rest of the mesh. It's a bit harder to read when editing but probably a good idea seeing as mipmapping can easily result in bad bleeding with those dark colours you've got there.
  • SHEPEIRO
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    SHEPEIRO polycounter lvl 17
    dirt.. im geussing thats what the splodginess is (looks a little like camo on the main green metal) is way too generic. limit it to areas that would get it and it would look a lot better...
    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
  • vofff
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    vofff polycounter lvl 10
    Does anyone have any good advice or tips for creating one inside Photoshop? Any good links to tutorials are appreciated as well, couldn't find any thing good myself, thanks


    Hope this helps
    http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=73852&highlight=making+specular
  • G-Saviour18
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    G-Saviour18 polycounter lvl 12
    Hi guys, thanks for the comments, only saw your messages now so I carried on with finishing the model, I'll go back and consider some of the things you said such as the dirt build up etc.

    For now though heres the current model, with the specular map as well. C & c on the layout etc are welcome, thanks

    fRCp7.jpg

    X3ehK.jpg
  • Buck
    Maybe a bit too worn out? Hardly looks functional at this point.
  • Stromberg90
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    Stromberg90 polycounter lvl 11
    Buck: Second that.

    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.
  • DOG-GY
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    DOG-GY polycounter lvl 12
    It looks like a flat render to me.
  • danshewan
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    danshewan polycounter lvl 8
    If you want people to critique your work and take you seriously, stop presenting small images along with all that useless, extra crap. Nobody cares about signatures or which mod groups you belong to, and somebody else already commented on this. You might think it looks 'cool', but it doesn't - it looks like you're trying to either hide or compensate for the quality of your work with unnecessary presentation.

    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.
  • G-Saviour18
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    G-Saviour18 polycounter lvl 12
    danshewan: Thanks for the comment, the logo's etc are purely for promotional reasons, it never hurts to promote yourself and it would be silly to not add your signature to your work as the work can always be tracked back to the artist.

    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 :)
  • GoodDreams
    danshewan: Thanks for the comment, the logo's etc are purely for promotional reasons, it never hurts to promote yourself and it would be silly to not add your signature to your work as the work can always be tracked back to the artist.

    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.
  • felipefrango
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    felipefrango polycounter lvl 9
    danshewan: Thanks for the comment, the logo's etc are purely for promotional reasons, it never hurts to promote yourself and it would be silly to not add your signature to your work as the work can always be tracked back to the artist.

    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.
  • G-Saviour18
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    G-Saviour18 polycounter lvl 12
    Thanks guys, I agree I can cut back on the clutter of my presentation pages, I'll correct this in future updates.

    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 code from Photobucket at the moment. Either way if you check my deviant Art account you'll see the same images but uncompressed.
  • felipefrango
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    felipefrango polycounter lvl 9
    Hmmm, if you're using Photobucket then that's what's compressing it, not Polycount. They have strict dimension restrictions and will automatically downsize stuff usually making it look awful. I usually use other hosts like imagur.
  • G-Saviour18
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    G-Saviour18 polycounter lvl 12
    Thanks for the link, I've signed up ;)
  • G-Saviour18
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    G-Saviour18 polycounter lvl 12
    Heres the normals, I'm working on the diffuse at the moment, hopefully will have an update on that later today. Also the last few images I posted have been resized to their original size as well if anyone would now like to look them over now.

    Eh79d.jpg
  • G-Saviour18
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    G-Saviour18 polycounter lvl 12
    Ok, so heres the newly edited diffuse maps, I've tried to take in everything that people have said into account so let me know if I've fallen short or there is still stuff to be fixed. I've cleared up a lot of the dirt that was on it, particularly on the upper half of the model as some have pointed out.

    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!

    OSb2u.jpg

    kF8YX.jpg
  • Jonathan Marshall
    I like your stuff. Even your mechanical items have character, they draw your eyes to certain details.

    This is a skill I feel many artists lack these days.
  • G-Saviour18
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    G-Saviour18 polycounter lvl 12
    Hi everyone, been absent the past week because the charger to my laptop went and I couldn't get back to work until now. I'm going to work a little more on my computer terminal model and post a better presentation sheet of it soon.

    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.

    wNZt5.jpg

    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!
  • G-Saviour18
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    G-Saviour18 polycounter lvl 12
    Just a small update on the sculpt, sculpted a little on the boots, a little more on the clothes, c & c welcome

    5hDl7.jpg
  • G-Saviour18
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    G-Saviour18 polycounter lvl 12
    One more screen of the sculpt so far before I go refining it all and adding small details. Feedback is appreciated, personally I'm not too sure about the creases on the back of the character leading to the right under arm...

    IVXom.jpg
  • G-Saviour18
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    G-Saviour18 polycounter lvl 12
    Heres hoping this is better! I've gotten rid of the signature/ icon, large fonts, repetitive renders etc Added more relevent information such as my e-mail, and have made sure the actual work takes up more of the image. Please let me know if this is better! Thanks for all the comments so far ;)

    f4OLa.jpg
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