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Colt Whitneyville Hartford Dragoon - Crits/Advice Plz

Bon
Hi everyone. To be frank I am new to forums and usually lurk in the background but I thought I would join as recommended by 'Cap'. My apologies in advance for any noob behaviour.

I have just returned from a long stint of travelling and feel I have lost alot of confidence with my 3D after no access to a computer. I set a project on my return inspired from the book 'Blood Meridian' by Cormac McCarthy (author of 'No Country for Old Men').

The gang used the pistol below, a Colt Whitneyville - Hartford Dragoon. After searching for ref material I stumbled upon Cap's model and gave him an email looking for advice which led me to here.

Caps' Dragoon:
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=73019

My main reference picture:
rev11v.jpg

With my version I would like to include the elaborate engravings and the crafted handle.

Unfortunately I am still an amateur to texturing, this is about where I get fuzzy on what the best workflow is so any pointers would be appreciated, my plan is model the grip engraving in ZBrush (test below had to scrap it as I redid my uv's) and use xnormal/nDo to make the motif??

The model has been made in 3DS Max and is 8674 tris. More than I would like but I am eager to move on. The pieces are seperate so it can be animated or dismantled.

Cheers!

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dragoonuvfinal2.jpg
gripze.jpg

Replies

  • Bon
    I've scoured the forums and the net to find out if it is possible to flip/mirror faces and overlap them in order to save on UVW space and time texturing.

    For example I would like to texture the hammer but to save time I would flip/mirror one side horizontally on the map and lay it directly on top to occupy exactly the same space as the uv below.

    There seems to be alot of finger wagging at inverted faces and no one advocating it. Will I encounter problems later on if I follow this path?
  • Der Hollander
    Mirroring geometry is fine, just be sure to flip the normals right-side out when you duplicate the pieces, and stacking UVs is a great way to make your UV sheet more efficient and allow for more detail.
  • Bon
    Mate I know it is noobish of me but Im not fully understanding. I drew a diagram of what I meant, so if I did this then I would be okay...?

    mirrorflip.jpg

    What I am not understanding is when you say 'be sure to flip the normals right side out when you duplicate the pieces'. Do appreciate the help so kudos to you :)
  • Kitteh
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    Kitteh polycounter lvl 18
    Some accuracy issues. Nobody ever seems to realize that almost all 1800s revolver frames taper towards the front (wider at the rear, narrower at the front). There should also be some subtle curvature across the width of it all at the back (where the hammer is). The grip should also taper such that it's wider at the bottom than the top.

    And yeah, unless you're baking object-space normals, your UV layout is stupid. If parts are symmetrical, both halves should share the same UV space.

    4b362e37bc509edde3771df73d02285a.jpg

    aa188bc79b098a7e4995f100d12f96d7.jpg

    67dcf2d1434adb072ee9f83a326075f9.jpg
  • Der Hollander
    As long as your UV shells are exactly alike, that should work just fine, the only thing that will happen by flipping your UVs is it will read the information "backwards".
    And yeah, unless you're baking object-space normals, your UV layout is stupid. If parts are symmetrical, both halves should share the same UV space
    You know, being polite is generally more helpful.

    What I was referring to it to let the computer make to make sure that they're stacked properly by deleting one half of whatever you want to mirror, so that you only have one copy of each unique UV shell, then duplicate the object and mirror the geometry. When you duplicate the geometry, the UV shell will stack in the exact same place as the original, and that way when you go to do things like bake AO or normal passes, you don't have your software go bonkers on you and make a mess of the bakes.

    I can show you what I mean with a project of mine that stacks duplicated pieces. On the UV Sheet, anything that's purple or that is marked with green is a stacked UV by way of a duplicated mesh.
    UVHelp01.jpg

    Anyway, hope this helps, Bon
  • Bon
    @ Kitteh - Ta for the details mate, I've changed the grip to be wide at the base slightly, and there is more of a curve where the trigger guard meets the grip. To late to taper it further without wrecking the geometry, I say further as it has a very slight taper, but I didn't make it strong enough, there is a slight curvature under the cylinder, following the tapered area if that was where you were tryng to explain.

    @ Der Hollander - Cheers for your patience explaining that, I understand now. That's a good technique to know, I will use that tomorrow. Glad that I can use this it's going to significantly increase the space I need :)
  • Jungsik
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    Jungsik polycounter lvl 6
    awesome reference pictures <_< good luck hehe its comin along nice
  • Bon
    Uvw map updated, hopefully the last I see of that for a while. Should be able to get lost of details on the places that need it now.

    dragoonuvshadedwseams.jpg
  • killingpeople
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    killingpeople polycounter lvl 18
    These new UVs are greatly improved! Nice job!
  • CrackRockSteady
    As far as the engravings go, I think using CrazyBump or nDo should work fine for you. I did a similar revolver not long ago (1851 Navy), I finished a standard/unengraved texture and was about halfway through working on an engraved version. I unfortunately lost the .psd and .max files during a reformat, but I was basically tracing some engravings from reference onto my texture and making the rest up by hand, and using CrazyBump to generate the normals. If your photo reference matches your UVs really well you may be able to just run the photos through CrazyBump, but none of the stuff I used ever matched well enough to just lay it on wholesale.
  • Kitteh
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    Kitteh polycounter lvl 18
    Bon wrote: »
    Uvw map updated, hopefully the last I see of that for a while. Should be able to get lost of details on the places that need it now.

    dragoonuvshadedwseams.jpg

    Couple of texel density issues really stand out to me. You've made the side of the frame very high res, which is good, but then the cup behind the cylinder is like, half the resolution, which will look bad because it's right in the player's face in first person view. Same with the back of the cylinder. Have you looked at your model with a checker material to make sure your texel density is even?
  • Mark Dygert
    One more thing about stacking UV's. When you bake you'll want to offset all but one of the pieces one tile to the left, right, top or bottom.
    3dguru_2.jpg

    A quick way to do that in 3dsmax is to, click #1, and in #2 type 1.0, hit enter and toggle off #1. This will move whatever you have selected over one unit/tile to the right.
    UnwrapUVWCoords.jpg
  • ErichWK
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    ErichWK polycounter lvl 12
    Hey Vig, out of curiosity what does offsetting the stacked UVs 1 pixel do? I never heard of doing that before.
  • Grimm_Wrecking
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    Grimm_Wrecking polycounter lvl 8
    Not vig, but :D I suspect he means move it over to 1:2 from 0:1 as in a whole sheet over.

    It keeps from baking ontop of itself. If its not moved to the next sheet it'll just bake the doubles ontop of itself which, well, is interesting...
  • mystichobo
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    mystichobo polycounter lvl 12
    Not vig, but :D I suspect he means move it over to 1:2 from 0:1 as in a whole sheet over.

    It keeps from baking ontop of itself. If its not moved to the next sheet it'll just bake the doubles ontop of itself which, well, is interesting...

    So thats why my normals have been all screwed over :P
  • ErichWK
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    ErichWK polycounter lvl 12
    Ooooh. Man. I TOTALLY misread that. Yea yea. haha, Vig and Grimm are 10000% right. I thought you meant 1 pixel, and I was thinking to myself "man.. did I miss some great secret in normal map baking??"
  • Bon
    Cheers lads, problem is I am baking in Zbrush. What do I do then? Did some tests and they look arite, it's only for the grip engraving in ZB.

    @ RockSteady: Aye mate that is the plan, I did some tests with nDo and it's a nifty little number that, will need further testing tho to get it right. Been gathering a load of ref images of gun engraving, there are some amazing pieces out there! Will be really excited to get onto that stage, but I reckon it is going to get very fiddly and very stressful... cant wait!!

    What is the opinion on workflow with engraving?
    - Do the normal first then the diffuse
    or
    - the diffuse then the normal?

    That is assuming I use nDo/crazybump/xnormal....

    Also, which would everyone recommend?

    Thanks for the comments all :)
  • Bon
    Been a lil while since my last post, but finally got some time to finish the grip, will bake out the normal tonight. Then get that onto the model for tests tomorrow. I know it is a strange design but I wanted to create a pretty good replica of what was on the grip in the reference above. Let me know what you think.

    My questions still stand, see above ^^^, cheers all.

    gripfinalmodel.jpg
  • Bon
    @ Kitteh: I am sorry mate, I have been reading past your post and only noticed it today. Crap, you are right there, It may be ok, but I can see it heading to problems most likely. I am assuming you mean the green bit first then the red as shaded below? The red should be alright I reckon but the green... well... bugger lol.

    texel.jpg
  • Kitteh
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    Kitteh polycounter lvl 18
    Bon wrote: »
    @ Kitteh: I am sorry mate, I have been reading past your post and only noticed it today. Crap, you are right there, It may be ok, but I can see it heading to problems most likely. I am assuming you mean the green bit first then the red as shaded below? The red should be alright I reckon but the green... well... bugger lol.

    texel.jpg

    yeah, those parts are right in the player's face but scaled too small on your UV.
  • Bon
    I rushed out a quick test of the normal for the grip in Max, appears to have come out alright.

    Though how can I be sure what setting (if any) needs to be changed for the channel direction? i.e. swap red green, flip red, flip green etc.

    gripnormal01.jpg
  • Bon
    It's been a while since my last post. I have managed to get around to continuing this project.

    I've included the normal map for the model so far, this was painted in photoshop and created using nDo, many thanks to teddybergsman for a great script and all his hard work.

    There are numerous accuracies but please shout them out, if it is geometry related to be honest I won't change it at this late stage.

    I've popped in a half finished diffuse for the grip, I am aiming for an antique ivory look. For those who are interested the diffuse texture was originally a zmaterial which filled the cavity's in the sculpt with a dark colour. I then baked this out to photoshop and painted over the top. As I said it is half finished but I wanted to get some feedback on its' directon.

    The girl is not my drawing, I found this sketch in Google by Charlene Chua and felt it would be cool to deveop it further. Bunged it into PS and developed the line work.

    One concern I have is the fact I shot myself in the foot by putting the screws on the normal map, yet doubling up the UV's on eachother to conserve space. Getting good detail but the screws are identical both sides. Any ideas? I was thinking about either going back to the modelled screws (not keen as the poly count shoots up) or creating alpha planes for the screws, that way I can model the screw head on place it on top of the texture, which in this case would be the tip of the bolt, being smaller than the head it will hide behind it. Bad/Good idea?

    test110511.jpg
    test110511perspback.jpg
    test110511persptop.jpg
    testgrip.jpg
    testgrip2.jpg
  • Cooljay
    :O Wow I'm easily amazed here. I like the detail put here, but the angelic white color is kind of distracting though.
  • Pedro Amorim
    th eproblem with the model is that you only made the normal map for thembossed stuff on the handle and then did the engravings on the metal.what i would like to see would be the hipoly for the whole model so that those sharp angles would not be seen. cause you know. that's thewhole point of making hipolies
  • Bon
    Cooljay: Cheers bud, aye the white is just what PS changed the void to when I converted the diffuse for the grip to a .jpeg, just a place holder for the texture ;)

    Pedro: Aye mate, I did have a bash a couple of days ago to try to achieve this but I feel out of touch with modelling in max, I can't remember how to bake out normals either. Can you recommend a tutorial for max normal baking settings?

    I do agree with you on this, it does look strange with the sharp edges. I was trying to look for a script to speed up the process which could make cuts around all edges / selected edges so that the smooth applied would be controlled, couldn't find anything that worked though. I will give it another go as I am not happy with it either. If you can recommend a time saving method of doing this I am all ears.
  • Cooljay
    Oh okay. Keep up the good work dude.
  • Bon
    Question: When making the Hi poly model does it matter about the uvw map? Can I delete faces, move verts etc? Is it only the low poly uvw map that matters when I bake the HI to LO normal? My guess would be it doesn't matter as it is projection isn't it??? Better to know now than later.
  • Bon
    Did some research and it is as I thought (check out this great tutorial on normal map baking in 3DS Max Baking Normal Maps), it just relies on the projection of the hi poly and the low poly uvw map. Started making the hi poly. Going to take a while, any tips on hi poly modelling/baking in Max would be appreciated.
  • Bon
    Some rough renders of the diffuse and normal map using 3 point light setup. The brass and ivory are wip and still need alot of work but I feel the metal is nearing a finish. Still requires the hipoly bake.

    Perspective
    Side1
    Side2
    Back
    Under1
    Under2
    Top
  • Bon
    Realtime Xoliul shader with diffuse, norm, spec and gloss applied. Still gotta do something about a highpoly for the sharp edges.

    grabfinal2.jpg
  • Kitteh
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    Kitteh polycounter lvl 18
    the white edges absolutely do not belong on the brass, brass doesn't wear like that

    also they're way too uniform and plentiful on the dark metal. grip is crazy bright too

    also your normal map seems to be making the sides of everything look indented, I've never seen that in any refs even of engraved Colts and it looks odd
  • n88tr
  • Kitteh
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    Kitteh polycounter lvl 18
    n88tr wrote: »
    agree with pedro

    que?
  • Bon
    Cheers Kitteh, thanks for the crit mate, i'll hava a go at tackling those points.

    Here's another shot with standard shader settings. Just the one light in this, think the lights were making the edges brighter, this should give a better indication

    I'm not sure which area you are pointing to when you say the normal seems to be making the side of everything look indented. If it is the embossed borders you are refering then I am going to tone those down, they are appearing to jut out too far.

    grabfinal3.jpg
  • Kitteh
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    Kitteh polycounter lvl 18
    now the grip looks good but the metal is way too dark
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    Just combine the last 2

    CYda7.jpg
  • Bon
    Made a few adjustments to all the maps, took the normal intensity down slightly on some areas. Increased the brightness slightly, reckon it should be brighter or is it cool how it is?

    grabfinal4.jpg
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    I still can't see any of the details on the metal without zooming in, it really needs more specular, even cast iron has more of a highlight than that
  • Bon
    Some reason I can't make a screen grab any more with the script on Xoliul's page. It will grab at the standard size but if I try to manipulate that size to something larger it makes the grab a grey model. Any ideas? It has affected all the earlier saves as well.

    Aside form that here's a screendump with some changes to the spec map. The grab above was with no scene lights just the default light. The one below is with the 3 omnis just like the one a few posts above with the glaring grip. I have toned down the fresnel effect for this one. Is this more of what you meant?

    grabf.jpg
  • Oniram
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    Oniram polycounter lvl 17
    that script was updated.

    http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/grabviewport-2-1

    and spec for the metal still really needs a push
  • Bon
    Mate that is just what I needed your a star! Ta very much.
    Still has the problem every now and again, not quite narrowed it down as to how. It does disable AO if I open the grab script, then I re-enable it and try to save an image out, the model will appear in the window as grey. Annoying.

    Upped the spec;

    grab2r.jpg
  • Bon
    Im calling it a day on this one. Here is the final shot with post effects applied.

    gunje.jpg
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