Modeled my first gun, now I'm left with questions.
polycounter lvl 11
Hello everyone.
Couple months ago I started modeling an M4. At the time when I started my high poly model, I knew little to nothing about the process of normal mapping, big mistake! When I was just about to finish up my high poly I started to study up on normal mapping and quickly realized I dug myself into a giant ass hole. After fiddling with my model for awhile, and then trying to build a low poly version of the gun from scratch, I was left with a mess and here I am now. I have a couple of questions.
1.) First off, let me say my model is intended for fps use. With that being said...what am I leaving for the normal map? It seems like anything I left for the normal to take care of would end up looking really bad on the gun, and really obvious it is baked on there. It got to the point where I ended up just modeling everything in the low poly and pretty much just leaving engraved text, scratches, etc etc for the normal. If this was a world/third person model, it would of been awesome, but from first person....ugh.
I guess I just don't know what to model and what to bake. I know that is always dependent on what your modeling for, but as far as making guns for an fps it seems like a normal map becomes useful only for small details?
2.) I modeled my high poly smooth (does that make sense? I use maya...and pushed 3!) As long as your model as plenty of geometry, it makes your model nice and smooth. Now when I started my low poly, I was having a hard time getting those nice smooth areas without having to dump loads of geo on it. Is there a way to smooth a low poly without it turning into a lump of wet clay? I tried doing some research and I keep seeing 'smoothing groups' pop up, but I cant seem to find any specific information.
I looked up some guns in Modern Warfare 3 and they look really smooth. Do they just have a lot of geo in the right places, or are they using some black secret magic to smooth their low polys?
Sorry for the ramble/wall of text, I just want to know this before I start another gun
Couple months ago I started modeling an M4. At the time when I started my high poly model, I knew little to nothing about the process of normal mapping, big mistake! When I was just about to finish up my high poly I started to study up on normal mapping and quickly realized I dug myself into a giant ass hole. After fiddling with my model for awhile, and then trying to build a low poly version of the gun from scratch, I was left with a mess and here I am now. I have a couple of questions.
1.) First off, let me say my model is intended for fps use. With that being said...what am I leaving for the normal map? It seems like anything I left for the normal to take care of would end up looking really bad on the gun, and really obvious it is baked on there. It got to the point where I ended up just modeling everything in the low poly and pretty much just leaving engraved text, scratches, etc etc for the normal. If this was a world/third person model, it would of been awesome, but from first person....ugh.
I guess I just don't know what to model and what to bake. I know that is always dependent on what your modeling for, but as far as making guns for an fps it seems like a normal map becomes useful only for small details?
2.) I modeled my high poly smooth (does that make sense? I use maya...and pushed 3!) As long as your model as plenty of geometry, it makes your model nice and smooth. Now when I started my low poly, I was having a hard time getting those nice smooth areas without having to dump loads of geo on it. Is there a way to smooth a low poly without it turning into a lump of wet clay? I tried doing some research and I keep seeing 'smoothing groups' pop up, but I cant seem to find any specific information.
I looked up some guns in Modern Warfare 3 and they look really smooth. Do they just have a lot of geo in the right places, or are they using some black secret magic to smooth their low polys?
Sorry for the ramble/wall of text, I just want to know this before I start another gun
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Whoa....Whoooa.....Whoooooaa...Whoa. Sooo....a human did this?