[WIP] Newbie piece - Steyr Aug

hamzaaa · Oct 2012

Hey folks,

I am finally starting another (my 2nd) own model project. I was gone for quite a while after creating the old cashbox . This time I want to further increase my modeling skill and take this as an exercise. Yes, it's a weapon and probably the 10000th Steyr Aug you have seen, but I would love to get some crits, tips whatsoever, go!

Here is the inital blockout:

More to come!

hamzaaa · Oct 2012

lol I am such a newb, I am already stuck trying to model this part for an hour not knowing how to pull it off....

a little help or paintover would be rad.

hamzaaa · Oct 2012

A small update. I reworked my blockout and started high polying. I am not really satisfied, this piece is very smooth and wavy, maybe not the best piece for a newbie like me but I will do my very best

Crits or Hints (!!) wanted

GragGunslinger · Oct 2012

Not a bad start for sure, your use of edge protection to get the shapes you're looking for is rough, but you have the right idea for sure!

the best thing I can tell you is to really look at how these guns were constructed and try and replicate that method when you model them, so if something was built in 2 parts, then model it in 2 parts, you'll find it's a lot easier to get your peices looking right that way.

As for your shape, your blockout is pretty clsoe to your concept, but I can't see it all completely... and as for your sub-d mesh, try and soften up your edges around the middle so you have more curves and blending shapes, otherwise it will look way too blocky.

Good luck!

hamzaaa · Oct 2012

Thanks for the tips Grag! I started from an earlier state and reworked the upper part, later I will start hardening the other parts. I am not really sure how to get the hole working well and why is my viewport showing triangulated faceted faces when looking at the unsmoothed model? ^^

I am thankful for all help I can get!

GragGunslinger · Nov 2012

Your smothing groups on those faces are messed up, or aren't applied at all. So try assigning smoothing groups to those areas.

It's looking pretty good so far, remember to go from large details to small details, so you don't wind up bunching up too many edges

hamzaaa · Nov 2012

Another WIP Shot. Don't look too close because there is some pinching here and there because I need MOAR GEO!!! Any crits?

hamzaaa · Nov 2012

It's been some time, I started doing some drawing and sketching practice lately, but hey here have another wip shot!

I had to remodel some parts and there are still pinching problems and so on but I will tackle them later on

hamzaaa · Nov 2012

Finally I got more time to model on that piece. Finished the magazine, the magazine ejection and the trigger. Also I punshed in some screwholes and build some screws. Those are slotted, they were a pain to model although they are very simple. Does anyone know a good way to model them? I know I could have floated the holes + the screws but I wanted to practice cutting holes. I am not really sure if this is the right way to cut for rounded surfaces, but the smoothing looks decent so I left it.

hamzaaa · Nov 2012

Another update, there are still some problem areas but right now I am focussing on getting everything progressed. Crits welcome as always

wirrexx · Nov 2012

i love the fact that you keep on trying even though some parts are hard. That's the diffrence between some people. I love what you've got so far. Try to keep the edges consistens. Some edges are to sharp, try to ease them up a bit so you can bake it without trouble

Goot piece so far

hamzaaa · Nov 2012

Thank you wirrex! Comments like yours always raise my spirit and let me do my best and learn everything I can

Yeah after I have progressed a little further and starting to fine tune I will double check everything again including edge widths.

AlexCatMasterSupreme · Nov 2012

Keep going man.

stxtch · Nov 2012

Hell yea! Keep on truckin

hamzaaa · Nov 2012

Made some more progress today. I still forget to use MOAR GEO when it comes to extruding from cylinder so I have some pinching here and there. Maybe I will fix it later but it is really small so maybe I just leave it and take the experience for my next model

hamzaaa · Dec 2012

Made some more progress the last days. I think I will finish the Highpoly in the next days. I still have to double check the edge widths (especially at the attachment clamp) and add some little screws and get the pinching sorted out.

fragfest2012 · Dec 2012

Looks great! I hope your final low poly mag is not that high poly as that one wireframe. What are you aiming for in terms of poly count and texture res?

perkins · Dec 2012

lol.. Newbie piece!! :poly142: Awesome work so far!

AlexCatMasterSupreme · Dec 2012

Nice man

hamzaaa · Dec 2012

Hehe well, I consider myself a newbie, since this is only the second model I am making complete start to finish. Surely I did and am still doing tutorials and stuff

Regarding Tricount, I don't really know what I should be aiming for. What do you think? And textures I am also unsure. What are like "standard" texture sizes for FPS weapons?

Aga22 · Dec 2012

1024x1024 should be enough i believe... very nice work so far mate!

Bek · Dec 2012

It totally depends on what you're going to use it for. If you don't have a specific game / engine in mind (just making it for the prac or for the portfolio) then might as well make the textures at a larger resolution - you can always scale them down later. 4096x4096 should give you plenty of room to step down later on.

Again for tri count it totally depends, you could use anything from 15k to 2k (at a rough guess). Just use as much geo as you need to get a good silhouette. Optimising UV's is probably the most important step of optimisation so don't worry about tri counts too much. If you want more detailed info: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=50588

Awesome progress in this thread btw, keep it up!

hamzaaa · Dec 2012

I added a cable to the flashlight and some fixations:

Also I want to model the duct tape around the grip as seen here:

I started sculpting that in Zbrush but I am new to the app and this is my first sculpt ever. I need advise!

cookedpeanut · Dec 2012

Are you trolling us? That is some nifty hard surface work you've got going on there - loving the tape, looks awesome!
Keep chuggin on...

reverendK · Dec 2012

I'd get the folds in the tape to be a bit sharper, especially as they fall away from the underlying shape. Also, the pre-zbrush shot doesn't have the tape wrapping around. It looks like you changed that for the sculpt but I just want to make sure you intend to have it go all the way around the grip.

Pedro Amorim · Dec 2012

you should considereing swithing the torch and all those bits to the left side. so its visible in FPView

hamzaaa · Dec 2012

@cookedpeanut: No! Not trolling at all! You can look at my folio www.b3d.frechi.de that's all I got so far! So I take your comment as an honor, thanks!

@reverendK: Yeah I will totally get back to that tape again, I am not totally happy yet. Yep the tape is wrapped all around, the pre-zbrush screen is a little older where I was just laying it out.

@Pedro: Killer tip! I will make sure to do that, I was just stuck to the reference that I totally forgot about the FPS perspective ^^

Bek · Dec 2012

Pinch brush should help sharpen those folds, be careful with it though as it can mess up topology if used sporadically. Vertex book has some sculpting tips and tricks too if you want to check it out.

hamzaaa · Dec 2012

Hey thanks for the reminder Bek, I will definitely look into that.

mospheric · Dec 2012

Your last Max render looks pretty. Mind sharing what you did to get a good render?

hamzaaa · Dec 2012

Sure. I used mental ray to render this and I didn't use a specific setup just 1 to 16 samples per pixel, for the filter type I used Mitchell (can be found under the Renderer tab in the Render Setup). The most important part is the shader I used. It seems a little cheesy but it can be downloaded out of the box, I think it is sufficient for previews, look at this thread all credits to SyncViewS. 1920 x 1080 resolution and saved it out as a .tga, adjusted it a little in Photoshop and saved it as a jpeg from there.

hamzaaa · Dec 2012

So I call the tape done. The sculpt isn't great but I am quite happy with it, in the FPS view it will be pretty small anyways. Have a look at the Max import. Zbrush's decimation Master is a great plugin! My initial sculpt was 1.7 million polys and I got it down to 100k polys.

Next steps are finalizing the high poly and starting with the low poly... the fun is over

mospheric · Dec 2012

Thanks for the link Hamzaa! This model is looking great to me. Can't wait to see the bakes.

hamzaaa · Dec 2012

Ok I will call the high poly done, there are still things which aren't great but I have to move and get the low poly going..

BenHenry · Dec 2012

Dang! nice work mate.

hamzaaa · Dec 2012

So I started with the low, I took the main body first to just melt it down and test unwrap it. What I realise is, that I have massive problems figuring out how to unwrap this thing. Any help? Here is how I got it down so far:

I tried to unwrap it as a whole first which didn't work out, next I tried to cut off the handle which was kinda strange too.. I don't know how to approach this I am so damn unexperienced with low poly and unwrap >_>
And any tips on melting it down even further?

hamzaaa · Dec 2012

Sorry for my initial whine xD
I moved on a little and made a little progress. At this stage comments are super important!

The Lone Penguin · Dec 2012

Solid start you have there. I do want to point out that your magazine and magazine well are way too thick. Should be a quick/easy fix. Here's a shot that might give you a better idea of the width of the mag/well
http://www.gunpundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/steyr-aug-media-day-2010.jpg

Also the "waffle" pattern on the magazine is a little too large/prominent. Trying pulling it in some to make it a little more subtle.

hamzaaa · Dec 2012

@PenGuin1362: Damn! I thought no one would notice the proportional mismatches. I really honour it. I will try to fix but honestly if I can't fix it quickly I will just leave it. As this is my second model I was a little too careless with the blockout and I had those issues right from the start. Lesson learned

hamzaaa · Dec 2012

Hooray just finished a testbake for the magazine. I am pretty happy with it. It is currently at around 1200 verts (must be more cause max doesnt calculate splits). I think it could be optimized more:

Fozwroth · Dec 2012

Highpoly looking very Tasty!

nao bake moarz!

hamzaaa · Dec 2012

@Fozwroth: Thanks mate! Yeah, didn't have much time during the holidays but I will go on the next days and will upload more bakes

AlexCatMasterSupreme · Dec 2012

I really admire you for working this hard and sticking with this. I would love to see you put the same amount of effort and work into texturing it, and you'll have a beast portfolio piece.

hamzaaa · Dec 2012

@AlexCatMasterSupreme: Thanks mate, comments like yours always lift me up! Yeah, I hope I can bring along the textures nicely. With texturing I am even more newbie as with modelling, but surely I will post my process to get feedback

acreativebox · Dec 2012

Get out of here man! Second model ever?! *crying myself to sleep*

Nah but seriously impressive work! Truly inspiring! Are you attending a school and if so, what school? Looking forward to seeing your portfolio grow!

hamzaaa · Dec 2012

@acreativebox: Don't cry please

I didn't write that note to brag or state that I am a natural or something. I just wanted the people to know that I am not very experienced and that they crit and comment my work in a way I can understand.
Thanks for your comment! I was studying Digital Media, but the course hadn't much to do with 3D, I pretty much teach it myself with tutorials and a lot of trial and error.

acreativebox · Dec 2012

Haha 'twas just a joke mate

I didn't get the sense that you were bragging, no worries

Once again, it really looks great. Looking forward to seeing it all come together with textures. Have you spied out dDo (www.quixel.se)? A brilliant tool that I believe suits this type of model perfectly. However - there is not much actual "get down and dirty" work with it. It sort of manages on itself :P Although I am very much for that type of tool I think it would be good to atleast learn the basics before considering automatizing your workflow.

Best regards

hamzaaa · Dec 2012

Hehe, yeah I didn't feel offended ^^
Thanks mate! Yes I am aware of Quixel's tools. I think I will definitely give them a shot.

Benton · Dec 2012

Get out of here dude, this looks amazing so far

hamzaaa · Dec 2012

@Benton: Thanks mate!

hamzaaa · Jan 2013

Finally I escaped the grasp of the holidays and did another small bake test. Have a look!

[WIP] Newbie piece - Steyr Aug

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