[WIP] RPG-7

Darkleopard · Dec 2012

So I've been working on a couple projects, including a darksiders arch which i started a thread on here for but then totally got distracted with this little project

I have just finished school in which we learnt maya for 2 years, and i decided i wanted to learn 3ds max, so this is my first gun,my first max model and my first high poly hard surface model ever. I am fairly pleased with how its turned out, Ive made sure to watch how tight my edges are, and I'm about to start my low poly version

I have a couple questions for the low poly. For tubes, would you say 6-8 sides is best? Ive also been trying to figure out what i should be aiming for poly count wise.

Any help is appreciated!

Bek · Dec 2012

your images are broken, try imgur:

http://imgur.com/

Darkleopard · Dec 2012

Oh woops, i had moved them to a new library folder in photobucket after i posted them on accident. Should be working now!

RedRogueXIII · Dec 2012

For the cylinder of that size and detail, 8-6 sides is very low and the final result will have very noticeable hard edges. I'd suggest something along 16-24 sides for the main tube, and have decreasing side counts for details that are seen less or from very slight angles (small screws, holes ). The exception would be details seen from close up (such as screws right in the player's face from a aim down sight view which would benefit from above average side count). But it all depends on the usage of the asset and the amount of screen space and time it has, (ex. A third person asset only used by distant enemies for a few seconds would be fine with 8-6 sides for the main tube and could get away with being made out of primitives.)

Model seems fine, but one nitpick I have with the ironsight (it's a bit hard to pick out fine detail there) is that the rear sight appears not to have any aiming notches.
Reference
The rear iron sight is made out of two pieces, the ladder and a piece that can be adjusted up and down to account for gravity at a distance. On the latter piece there is a center notch that is used to align with the front sight post to aim the thing. It's rather minor but I'd just like to point it out.

Darkleopard · Dec 2012

Ah thank you for the reference. This was the one i was using. It doesn't appear to have this notch visible, at least form this side.

After looking up more pictures i can see that it does indeed have that notch, i just missed it. I'll add it in soon! Thanks so much for the feedback.

Still working on the low poly. right now, hopefully it should be done soon

Darkleopard · Dec 2012

So i'm learning a lot about what i should have done when building the high poly. I have about 30 sides for my main tube when i want 24. Is there any modifiers or ways to remove 6 edges while maintaining the spacing between them all so they are even?

Im guessing i'll just have to remake it, but since im new to max i wanted to ask just in case.

Darkleopard · Dec 2012

So i have almost completed the low poly for the RPG and its rocket. Feedback would be appreciated. This is my first time doing high>poly on a object like this.

I feel i may have taken to many poly's off the main tube and the bands and left them on the warhead, but im not sure if this will be noticeable enough after texturing.

Any advice would be awesome.

Darkleopard · Dec 2012

So due to the website being down for some reason this got missed. Id really like some feedback on the low poly if anyone can spare the time

KartoonHead · Dec 2012

Very few of those screws really need to be there, you'll never see them, and most are counter-sunk anyway, so it's a no-brainer to just leave them for the bakes. Think about what will and what won't be visible in-game. The trigger area has allsorts of problems going on at the moment.

Lots of places require optimisation - the trigger has large amounts of geo on a flat surface which is pointless (think silhouette). You've not capped your cylinders properly either, you shouldn't leave a vert in the middle, it adds nothing and wastes polys. Just go over it some more.

Darkleopard · Dec 2012

Thanks for the feedback! I will take another look at those areas.

Is there a particular 'best' way to optimize circle endings?

Bek · Dec 2012

Instead of having a vert in the center, join the vertices horizontally or vertically.

Darkleopard · Dec 2012

So i went back and removed a lot of the screws that probably wouldn't be seen and optimized the ends of the others.

Time to learn unwrapping in max!

FractaL · Dec 2012

Hey man is this the tutorial from cgtuts? When you're doing retopo for lowpoly, do you just delete edge loops? What is your workflow for that?

Im curious as to how to retopo hardsurface models, esp if they have edges that curve when going through turbosmooth. eg. take a cube, turbo smooth it, how do you retopo that?

respawnrt · Dec 2012

^Ain't that like a sphere, man ?

Assuming you put some edges in the cube(before turbo) just make a new one and apply a bevel with one iteration(that sort of matches your curvature) and there's your retopo

FractaL · Dec 2012

respawnrt wrote: »

^Ain't that like a sphere, man ? Assuming you put some edges in the cube(before turbo) just make a new one and apply a bevel with one iteration(that sort of matches your curvature) and there's your retopo

I forgot to mention putting support edges on hehe.
I don't do a lot of hardsurface high poly stuff, but I'm gonna have to start for my new environment! I've been doing low poly stuff for like 6 months straight + other art.

Thanks for explaining!

Darkleopard · Dec 2012

Yeah this is the cg tuts one. Because i had never used max or done hard surface before i figured it would be good to teach me quickly.

Basically some parts are turbo smoothed and some are manually smoothed with bevels. For the turbo smoothed ones you just delete the turbo smooth modifier and then remove all the support edges. For the beveled ones i ended up manually deleting the bevel which was silly.

Next time i will make copies of the low poly before i bevel to save all the time it took and it make everything more accurate. This has been probably the biggest lesson Ive learn't in this process so far

[WIP] RPG-7

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