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Antique Cupboard

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Jessica Dinh polycounter lvl 10
Hello! These are my highpoly and lowpoly versions of a cupboard I did for my modeling class. Critique welcomed :)

Highpoly

cupboardhpoly.jpg
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cupboardhpoly02.jpg

Lowpoly

cupboardwireframe01.jpg

cupboardwireframe02.jpg

Thank you,
Jessica Dinh

Replies

  • SaferDan
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    SaferDan polycounter lvl 14
    Hello :) thats a pretty cupboard :)

    Have you baked it down yet? Would be awesome to see some colour on there!

    Can i see you reference picture?
  • Jessica Dinh
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    Jessica Dinh polycounter lvl 10
    Oh woops! Here's my reference image. And I am just about to bake it down :) kinda nervous haha.

    cupboardreference.jpg
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  • SaferDan
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    SaferDan polycounter lvl 14
    awesome its a pretty accurate replica :)

    im excited for the bake :)
  • Jessica Dinh
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    Jessica Dinh polycounter lvl 10
  • gauss
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    gauss polycounter lvl 18
    Yeah you're doing well by the ref, but may I specifically commend you for such an interesting, beautiful piece of furniture to model in the first place. Looking forward to seeing it develop! :)
  • Jessica Dinh
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    Jessica Dinh polycounter lvl 10
    Yes, I agree it's a really lovely piece! If all goes well, my model will be baked and textured by next week.
  • Rico
    Great work so far! Looking forward to your texture updates!
  • Jessica Dinh
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    Jessica Dinh polycounter lvl 10
    Thank you :] This is my first time texturing wood, so we shall see!
  • Snader
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    Snader polycounter lvl 15
    You're missing one of the horizontal beams at the drawers, and the top 3 small decoration blocks should be identical, while your middle one is different.
  • Jessica Dinh
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    Jessica Dinh polycounter lvl 10
    Oh my god, I totally didn't notice the missing middle beam! Thanks so much for pointing that out.
  • Jessica Dinh
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    Jessica Dinh polycounter lvl 10
    Alright, here is my model with a diffuse texture on it! I am about to create the specular map. This is a render in 3ds max btw, but by tonight I will have it in UDK. Critique welcomed!

    diffusemaxrender01.jpg

    diffusemaxrender.jpg

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    URL=http://img823.imageshack.us/i/diffusemaxrender02.jpg/]diffusemaxrender02.jpg[/URL]

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    diffusemaxrender03.jpg

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    diffusemaxrender04.jpg

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  • HughieDM
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    HughieDM polycounter lvl 7
    thats looking pretty good maybe a little too dirty(I know every one loves dirt but maybe a little too much). Unless you wanted this to look like it been through some ruff times. Also I think with those columns you might want to add a little bit of silhouette to it. Your also missing the black paint on the little details next to the drawers. and just being nit picky but I think your wood grain seems a bit large making the piece seem small.

    But over all good work
    Keep it up
    Hugh
  • Goat Justice
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    Goat Justice polycounter lvl 10
    Whats jumps out at me the most are the dark colored column things near the top. There's a weird seam in the texture on them. It could be a UV seam on the front rather than the back, a smoothing group thing, or just a screwy bake. Hard to tell without seeing the maps and Unwrap. Looking at the highpoly, This could also be a case where the highpoly has depressions cut in it without a bit of bevel in the walls of the trench. Lines like that look nice in renders of highpoly models, but they tend to bake into faint 1 pixel lines on the normal map and not light well. Slanting the groove sides or rounding the corners on the highpoly might give a better bake.

    Also, the reference photo has a lot more use of black paint on the details around the lower drawers. It really broke up all of the brown wood and added a nice sense of richness and detail to the original piece. I'd recommend including it in yours as well.

    From the top down shot of the front it looks like the texture density between the shelf like part, and the cabinet face behind it is pretty uneven. Its not too bad in this case and sort of a minor thing, but its something a lot of artist will look for when evaluating a piece. If its not easily fixed, you can render from angles that minimize it. Always a good idea to unwrap with a grid texture on, if you're not doing so already.

    That's a lot of crit... I don't mean to be harsh though. I actually really like this piece. There's a nice sense of history and uniqueness to it. I'll enjoy seeing it with a spec map to really bring out the normals. Also, post unwraps/maps. Its a lot easier to see whats going on in a piece with them.
  • Jessica Dinh
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    Jessica Dinh polycounter lvl 10
    HughieDM: Thanks so much for your critique! This is my fourth model, so I'm still trying to find a good sense of subtlety (hence my abuse of grime textures haha). Thanks for pointing it out so I can begin to understand what is too much. And yes, perhaps I simplified the columns a bit much - there I am also trying to learn how simple to make my low poly in comparison to my high poly. The reason why I am missing the black paint on the sides is an unfortunate mistake on my part and something that could have been fixed had I noticed it earlier - I had to re-model some of the pieces on this cupboard, re-uv, re-pack, re-bake, and in my haste I gave those legs like 2 times less uv space than they deserved :/ When I checked my model with a checker material it was very obvious!

    Thanks again! ^_^, Jessica
  • Jessica Dinh
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    Jessica Dinh polycounter lvl 10
    Goat Justice: Ah. I didn't notice 'till now! D: That is actually a UV seam I forgot to move to the back. Man it's obvious now haha.

    Anyway, I'm glad you like my piece! :D I do use a grid texture, but I was unwrapping a little sloppily for this piece :/ next time I will slow down.

    Here are my unwraps and maps:

    Normal Map:

    cupboard1024nrm.jpg

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    Diffuse Map:

    cupboardtexture08.jpg

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    Specular Map:

    cupboardspec.jpg

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    Bump Map (before being placed in CrazyBump)

    cupboardbmp01.jpg

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    Normal Map with Bump Map overlay on top:

    cupboard1024nrmbmp.jpg

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    UVW Sheet:

    cupboarduvw01.jpg

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    Now I have a few things to say about my maps here. This is my second time creating a specular map, and the first time I have created one for a dielectric object. I read some tutorials on how to make them and I kindof just took a stab ahaha. I am about to put it into UDK, so I don't really know what it looks like yet, but if anyone sees that it is glaringly wrong, or that there is anything wrong with it at all, please let me know.

    Bump Map: I am having a VERY hard time with the bump map. It is just too crazy intense, and it could be that I just need to learn more about CrazyBump, or it could be that my desaturated bump image is just wrong. This is my first bump map, so if anyone sees anything wrong, also kindly let me know :)

    Thanks!
    Jessica
  • Thegodzero
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    Thegodzero polycounter lvl 18
    What you did there with the normal map... DO NOT DO!!!!

    The wear that comes with age like that would be in the spec map. Sure some tiny divots from being hit by objects but that's all. But those are not needed to get the effect that you posted as your reference. What you need to do is pull back some of the wear on the diffuse and spend a few days working JUST on the spec map. Also make a gloss map, it will help with changing the fall off of the spec that comes when something is less polished in one area vs another.

    Really tone down the edge highlighting in the diffuse, its killing the prop. render out a good AO map for this thing and add that as a multiply at %50 opacity. Pull back the yellow aged layer. Pump up the wood grain layers intensity so that the contrast really pops. Wear down the saturation in layer above that in spots that might have gotten too much sun over the years. (not too much)

    For the spec map kill the blue! you can add some of that back in later, but only a little. Rite now your values are all the same. sure one area is blue and the painted areas are black but they are both the same value. you need WAY more contrast in something like this. Really invest time into this map. Bring in the AO as well in here, and crank up the edge highlighting (again not too much) Have wear that's ONLY in the spec channel so that it breaks up the lighting better.

    Your bump map, you could use that as a base for where to start on the gloss map. Make sure you have details that are different from the spec map so that this map can be of more use. The wood that just stained should get some age variation showing up as value changes (slight)in this map. The painted parts should be very bright so that the spec fall of is nice and tight. Where as the wood stained areas should be a bit wider, then even wider yet in the placed where its been aged the most.

    Oh and get a better wood grain texture that is meant for this type of wood. And break up the orientation of the wood by how it would be constructed. All you need is the wood grain rotated 90 and to mask out sections that you don't want going that direction.
  • Jessica Dinh
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    Jessica Dinh polycounter lvl 10
    Oh wow . . . haha ok I've got a lot to work on. Thank you for the critique, it's helped me to understand a little more :]
  • Jessica Dinh
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    Jessica Dinh polycounter lvl 10
    Alright, here's my asset so far in UDK! I was able to fix my bump/normal map (which was quite a wreck before critique from Thegodzero). Subtlety is key, it seems!

    udkcupboardfront.jpg

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    udkcupboardperspective.jpg

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    udkcupboardside.jpg

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    udkcupboardwormseye.jpg

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    Oh, also I made sure to take down the sharpen a bit on my diffuse texture. It was kindof obvious :/

    New and improved bump and normal maps:

    cupboard1024nrmandbmp01.jpg

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    cupboarddesatbmp.jpg

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  • Wiktor
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    Wiktor polycounter lvl 11
    NOW we're talking! That's a huge step in the right direction! Keep it up!
  • Elith2
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    Elith2 polycounter lvl 9
    Thats looking really nice.

    Now this is just me nit picking over what is a pretty model but...

    The detailing on the far left and right of the drawers seems to be suffering a little compared to the rest of the detail on your model, it looks like the normal map is almost pixelating? I might be wrong though.

    But yes very pretty i look forward to seeing updates.
  • Andrew Mackie
    I really like this piece. You have done an excellent job with it! You modeled it perfectly to the ref.
  • Jessica Dinh
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    Jessica Dinh polycounter lvl 10
    Thanks guys! Yeah Ellth2, those details beside the drawers didn't receive enough uv space before I baked. My bad :/ haha
  • Elith2
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    Elith2 polycounter lvl 9
    Ah well we live and learn :P you will know for next time. honestly had a uni project last year and i had just started using normals, i wanted to bang my head against a wall the ammount of times i re positioned all my UV's and bake all my normals again because i had given something too little UV space, or went to far and gave it far too much.

    As i said, really, it was nit picking at what is a good model :) look forward to seeing more of your work.
  • Jessica Dinh
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    Jessica Dinh polycounter lvl 10
    Yay! In about a week and a half I will have a new high poly prop up. Still searching around for something to make - ideally it will be one of my friends' prop concepts :D
  • HughieDM
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    HughieDM polycounter lvl 7
    over all great job cant wait to see the next piece
  • Elith2
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    Elith2 polycounter lvl 9
    Awesome, get the concept posted up as soon as you can so we can see what you will be making next :)
  • Goat Justice
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    Goat Justice polycounter lvl 10
    Those UDK renders look very nice. The spec as well as the dark painted areas of the model really pop well in them.

    Some critique for future models:

    There are a lot of areas where similar features are mapped twice in the Unwrap, or where large areas of UV space seem taken up by surfaces that are inside the model. You can get a lot more detail from your texture if these spaces are put to productive use.

    in particular things like the sides of the cupboard, which can never both be seen at the same time, can share texture space.

    One trick I like to use is creating strips across the bottom of my texture for anything that can be treated as a trim. Since the strips of trim tile horizontally, I can create any length of that trim anywhere i need it. The remaining space can be devoted to more unique details.

    Its always good to wring the most mileage you can out of your texture memory. :)

    All in all a very cool piece. Keep up the good work.
  • Jessica Dinh
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    Jessica Dinh polycounter lvl 10
    Hi Goat Justice, thanks for your insight on optimizing texture space! I do have a question about the hidden surfaces I can delete though: in order to delete some of those covered up or hidden surfaces I may have to create a few more edges and connections on the piece- which will increase my tri count. Is that generally considered worth it if I can give myself some more room on my texture page?
  • EMC3D
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    EMC3D polycounter lvl 14
    Hi Goat Justice, thanks for your insight on optimizing texture space! I do have a question about the hidden surfaces I can delete though: in order to delete some of those covered up or hidden surfaces I may have to create a few more edges and connections on the piece- which will increase my tri count. Is that generally considered worth it if I can give myself some more room on my texture page?


    If you're never gonna see it, delete it (unless you want to keep a hard edge) don't be afraid to float geometry inside other geometry, don't worry about connecting everything into one mesh in a contiguous piece of geometry.

    I'm a sucker for anything textured from wood, so I really like it, very good prop :).
  • Goat Justice
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    Goat Justice polycounter lvl 10
    Usually I'm in favor of a slight increase in poly count (maybe up to 10-15% for a prop more for architecture) if it can save me space, memory, and time in texturing. Even compressed, textures are nearly always more memory heavy than models.

    As an example, a model I made recently for work had about 20,000 tris and used a tiled 1024 texture. Here's how the filesizes broke down.

    Exported Model: 320 Kb
    Diffuse texture (RGB no alpha): 683 Kb
    Normal with greyscale spec in the alpha: 1366 Kb

    As you can see the very high poly model is still pretty small compared to the textures. So a little waste in the polycount can be preferable to losing the use of some of that precious texture memory. Also more and more the number of polys in a model are less important that the number of different models being rendered in a scene. Its a balancing act for sure, and it can depend on things like which engine you're working in and what sort of platform you're developing for.

    The more efficient you can be, the more you can get away with using smaller textures, or cram even more detail into large maps if you have the luxury. It also helps optimization proof your textures, so when things start getting down-sized to get the frame rate up your models will still look good.

    For the hell of it I outlined the spaces the don't seem to be doing much in green. It adds up to a good bit of space. especially when you consider that it is unused in all maps; diffuse, normal, and spec.

    example_image.jpg

    For portfolio work the first priority is to look awesome, though, and most artists I've seen use pretty large textures for folio stuff. Showing that you made the most of that space is always a good idea. :)
  • Jessica Dinh
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    Jessica Dinh polycounter lvl 10
    Thanks guys - I didn't realize texture space was so precious! Now I won't hesitate to add a handful more tris if it means I can squeeze in some more info on my maps. Thanks for the paintover Goat Justice - not until now do I see how much space I really wasted!! haha
  • Jessica Dinh
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    Jessica Dinh polycounter lvl 10
    Also, I will add that I am open to ideas for what to model next. I am specifically interested in modeling a concept this time, but google images are alright too. I've already done a telephone, a candelabra, and a teapot (the theme I've picked for this class is antique, but if it's cool enough, I'll do anything, antique or not) I'd like to do another piece that will test my high poly/normal mapping skills, so something that is not too heavily silhouette-based. It should be human sized or smaller, not too much larger than that. No guns.

    So yeah! If anyone has suggestions, (or even their own concepts they'd like me to tryy XD) let me know!
  • Skamberin
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    Skamberin polycounter lvl 14
    Nice seeing the progress on the cupboard :) Great progress so far!

    As for suggestions on what to model next, maybe an antique clock of sorts?
    antique%20clock_544.jpg

    or maybe one of those grandfather clocks?

    in any case, looking forward to updates and good luck!
  • Jessica Dinh
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    Jessica Dinh polycounter lvl 10
    Hey that's a great idea! XD I chose this one:

    clockreference.jpg

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  • SaferDan
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    SaferDan polycounter lvl 14
    awesome job on the cupboard :) it is awesome!
  • Jessica Dinh
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    Jessica Dinh polycounter lvl 10
  • Jessica Dinh
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    Jessica Dinh polycounter lvl 10
    Aaand, just for fun:

    shoooooot.jpg

    Messin' around in my simple lit scene haha - I haven't learned how to add collision yet, so it took about 15 or 20 tries to get a printscreen of this before I fell through the floor XD
  • 00Zero
    lookin cool. orange is a bit too saturated i think. other than that, it looks good.

    for the next prop, try to be more efficient with the unwrapping and baking. dont have 100% unique unwrap. share some parts.
  • Jessica Dinh
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    Jessica Dinh polycounter lvl 10
    Yes, for sure I will be more efficient with my textures :) Thanks!
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