Sci-fi Gun

Atramorth · Jan 2013

Hi everyone, this is my first post here on polycount.
I was browsing the forum when I came up with a page of interesting weapon designs from Blaisoid and decided to give it a go.
It is my first try at weapons, as I usually have modeled hp cars and vehicles in the past.
I would like to do also a low poly version of this asset since i want to learn lp and baking techniques but never had a real chance before.

This is what I came up with for the hp till now :poly108:

Bek · Jan 2013

Your edges are currently too tight - when making a high poly for baking, you make the edges softer than they usually appear to get better results from the baked normal map. See http://wiki.polycount.com/NormalMap#Modeling_The_High-Poly_Mesh for a better explanation.

Atramorth · Jan 2013

Thanks for the advice, I'll adjust my edges right away.

pappete · Jan 2013

look awesome!...cant wait for lowpoly !

respawnrt · Jan 2013

You have a lot of 90 angles there, you should have made them slightly sloped so the normal map gets them and a lot more bevel width as well

Atramorth · Jan 2013

Roger that, thx for the tips

Blaisoid · Jan 2013

The main problem that i see is that flat extruded feel that your model has.
trigger guard is as thick as the grip and grip itself has really sharp edges and distinguishable sides. because of that it looks uncomfortable to hold and design feels more cheap.
that horizontal piece with 3 convex stripes also is 100% flat while on concept it's slightly bulky.

Other than that it's a nice interpretation, and most of design issues come from the concept itself rather than you modeling anything wrong.
keep it up!

tristanCarter · Jan 2013

I agree with Blasoid. The grip of your model is hard edged. I have yet to encounter a handgun, rifle, or other firearm that isn't a gentle curve around the grip where your fingers and the base of your thumb wrap around. In addition trigger guards typically have a taper on the outer rim. Right now, the grip could never be held properly by a person. Like others have said you should go in and give a softer edge to almost all the 90 degree angles on your model. None of those will bake out properly and they will create some pretty bad aliasing on the low poly as you get further and further away. You want to have tight rounded edges.

While you certainly want to follow Blaisoid's concept, you should go out and grab reference images of actual pistol grips and follow similar contours across your grip.

Zyloh · Jan 2013

I wish I knew how to render out images like this. If you care to share with me..

I am quite the noob when it comes to rendering out a nice image. I have been playing around with marmoset but am not sure how to get the clean white model with the white backround such as this.

Atramorth · Jan 2013

Thx all for the feedback, i already started to smooth every edge.
I'm really bad with weapon as I'm not an expert of the genre, I will do my best to fix the grip.
Week-end is approaching, don't know how much time I'll have to work on this but I'll do my best to upload new picture as soon as possible.

@Zyloh I'm bad with render too, i used Keyshot for this, I just imported the obj and clicked render xD

Paul Pepera · Jan 2013

That concept is very weak. I'd suggest finding something better to practice modeling on. You need functionality in your designs - nothing in that design reads as being functional. It's just a mess of random shapes and diagonal lines that scream 'desperate sci-fi'. Look at real world reference.

Atramorth · Jan 2013

I'm really bad on weapon and how they work, i just chose this concept for practicing low poly skill since i never baked a normal map before and it seemed an easy concept to do. As I said I come from a veichle background but I'm very interested in game assets and low poly in general, so I'm really willing to learn as much as I can.
This will definetly not be my last weapon and I'll try to choose something more functional next time.
Tanks for the comment, it is always good to receive critiques from experienced people in the industry.

Pierceton · Jan 2013

If I gave you a picture of a weapon that I drew do you think that you could make it into a 3D model?

Atramorth · Jan 2013

Hi Pierceton I sent you a pm

Atramorth · Jan 2013

This is a quick update on the project, I smoothed pretty much all edges and prepared the mesh for a (hopefully) good normal map.
Now it is time to start the retopology, here is the first question, is it better to use my initial low poly model or should i use topogun to redo the whole gun as a single mesh?

Sci-fi Gun

Replies