Modeling in those cracks and breaks is unnecessary. It is a wasteful use of polygons. Most of that can be painted in. The idea behind lowpoly is to show the gist of the shape. Think more in terms of silhouette, not detail.
There is plenty of info on this with Polycount Wiki.
The long thin triangles are also not efficient and the square grid like shape created by the polygons on the studs and center piece won't allow the light to be read correctly.
I'm getting an error message from PC wiki right now, so i can't give you an example.
In that case you might think about embedding an alpha plane within a larger hole. Not sure if anyone has done that here before. I think they usually model missing and broken slabs of wood being held by a brace.
Personally, I wouldn't have cut those 4 smaller nubbins into the shield mesh. "float" them instead. You'll have cleaner geo on the shield face.
While that is true it will be harder to get a clean bake if you break the mesh up in separate pieces. So I'd recommend keeping it as one single unified mesh.
[Edit] Here's a quick paintover with how I'd recommend you to unwrap the mesh:
As you can see you could save a few polys by removing wasted polygons that won't affect the silhouette. You should place mark sharp edges at the sharp angles (70+ degrees or so) and then also place UV seams at the same edges (always place UV seams on sharp edges). Doing this should result in a cleaner normal bake.
I decided to check out the Skyrim Iron shield. Should I follow their example or not? Seems to contradict some of the advice here regarding hard edges and long triangles. Thanks.
Edit: Also I'm curious to the purpose of the small loop of polygons that runs round the inside edge of the shield rim? They don't have it around the outside edges.
I decided to do a test to see if it is or isn't possible to get a clean bake from floating the large bolts and here is the result (I also used it as an excuse to try out DDO). I went a little higher on the bolt tricount, I sort of rushed the low poly.
I did do an exploded bake - I moved the bolt on the high poly & low poly away from the board for the baking.
Yeah, that is certainly a viable method but how would you generate the AO for the intersecting pieces? I've tried generating lowpoly AO with xNormals simple AO tool (and just loading the lowpoly in both the LP and HP slots), tried baking it in Blender and Knald. As far as I remember only Knald gave somewhat reasonable result (re: un-faceted) but it wasn't that great either. How you would solve this problem, Justin?
I'll probably try floating the bolt things and the handle then. I'm still interested in what people think of the skyrim shield as example? It seems to do a lot of things that I'm being advised against!
Long triangles can cause smoothing problems sometimes, but on a flat piece like the backside of that shield it won't matter. Same thing goes for poles (vertices with a lot edges attached to it).
The reason for using hard edges is that if your baker isn't completely synced with the renderer it should look reasonable. But if you're skipping hard edges altogether it will be more important that the normalmap is correct and any tangent diversions will be more apparent. Also if you're using hard edges you'll get a "flatter" normalmap with less gradients which means that when it gets compressed you'll get less artifacts because of a low resolution and/or color compression (DDS).
So while you certainly can follow their example, I would still advise against it.
Also remember that just because something shipped in a game that doesn't mean it's always a shining example of how to do things 100% correctly. :P We've all shipped assets we're not particularly proud of...
Yeah, that is certainly a viable method but how would you generate the AO for the intersecting pieces? I've tried generating lowpoly AO with xNormals simple AO tool (and just loading the lowpoly in both the LP and HP slots), tried baking it in Blender and Knald. As far as I remember only Knald gave somewhat reasonable result (re: un-faceted) but it wasn't that great either. How you would solve this problem, Justin?
I just baked the AO in max and tweaked it in photoshop - the space on the board underneath the bolt was blank so I filled it in to prevent any bleeding.
Can someone explain to me what kind of topology I should be using for the domes as someone earlier said my previous topology wouldn't work properly? Although Justin seems to have used more or less the same in his example, as far as I can tell.
So I've been playing around with the low poly and baking all evening and I've ended up with this:
I ended up adding loops round some of the sharp edges as it seemed to be the only way to get a clean bake but I dunno if this is a normal thing to do:
I know that it might not have been strictly necessary to model the rim and centre piece but I tried doing them with just the normal map and it looked a bit too flat for my liking.
Maybe, but I'm making the call that it's worth the extra polygons, especially as it will be seen in first person. Well I guess you won't really see the front, but still!
It might not look great but it does what it's supposed to do which is just extending out the pixels outside of the UV-islands. Try scaling down the texture a few times and you'll see that it still looks like it should.
There were a plug-in floating around that resulted in nicer looking results where the padding got blurred.
If you worry about presenting the textures and making them look good, you could just multiply a black and white image showing your islands on top for the presentation shots (maybe just a flat blue for the normal map). That way it would be easier to tell how your UV-layout looks as well as how optimized it is.
Does anyone know why the XNormal padding is giving such bad results?
you might want to rotate the islands with wooden boards so the indentations between the boards run vertically or horizontally. pixels are arranged in rows so you should try and have lines laid out to follow them to prevent jaggy edges. this is probably the cause of the jaggy line seen in your previous image > http://i.imgur.com/6nm1zBX.png
the image below illustrates my point
Looks pretty good, but I think you need to work on your material definition more. The metals need some stronger and glossier specular (might need a bit darker diffuse too). Right now the metal almost look like it could be rock.
If you don't have access to Photoshop any more just download GIMP instead. I think that support PSD so you should be able to just pick your work right up again. It won't support dDo, but one shouldn't be overly dependent on a single tool anyway (not saying that you are).
There are ways to add padding in photoshop using layer masks and the minimize/maximize functions in the filter subpallet.
Another, albeight less exacting, way of doing it is to select the texture all the way up to the edges of your UV's (so the edges you want a border on), then invert your mask, and manually go around the edges painting in general colors of the texture.
Obviously the second one is slower, less exacting, and doesn't work for normals, but if you're desperate...
So I'm messing around with this shield in Sketchfab and Verold but I'm finding it impossible to get it to look how it looks in marmoset. Seems the diffuse is way too dark and the specular doesn't apply in the same way. Anyone got any tips for better consistency across renderers?
I'd really like to have an interactive version on my portfolio but at the moment it just looks terrible compared to the marmoset stills.
Toolbag uses image based lighting (IBL) which means that in most cases you'll get some amount of lighting from all directions. I haven't used Sketchfab or Verold but after some quick readeing up I found out that Sketchfab doesn't use IBL and it doesn't look like Verold does either. This means that they will just use regular lights which often times will mean that you don't get as much light as easily. You should be able make a similar effect by just using a lot of lights of varying intensity around the model.
The good news however is that IBL is an important part in PBL (physically based lighting) which is the future so it'll only become more and more pervasive.
Here it is in Verold with some texture tweaks. Specular doesn't pop as much as it does in marmoset but that's as far as it would go!
[VEROLD]52370ca63da3530200000266[/VEROLD]
Going to stop fiddling with it now though and get some presentation shots so I can move onto something else.
Edit: Oh, does anyone know how sketchfab supports gloss maps? Should it be in the alpha of the spec or do I apply it separately in the "shininess" slot?
Seems that everyone and their mother is making those shields now! So I thought I'd try design my own. This is the basic design for it so far.
Gonna go for an enchanted/magic vibe with it, will do some kind of misty/icy particle effect emitting from the eyes. Not sure if I want an actual skull or if I'll make it metal. Feel like the metal plate the skull is on top of needs some kind of detailing.
Use AO for this: on the lightest areas paint with some yellowish color, in darker desaturated brown, then use some bone texture, mix it + cavity. You can also try copy blue channel from Normal map, and use it with some blending option of layer.
Replies
There is plenty of info on this with Polycount Wiki.
The long thin triangles are also not efficient and the square grid like shape created by the polygons on the studs and center piece won't allow the light to be read correctly.
I'm getting an error message from PC wiki right now, so i can't give you an example.
[Edit] Here's a quick paintover with how I'd recommend you to unwrap the mesh:
As you can see you could save a few polys by removing wasted polygons that won't affect the silhouette. You should place mark sharp edges at the sharp angles (70+ degrees or so) and then also place UV seams at the same edges (always place UV seams on sharp edges). Doing this should result in a cleaner normal bake.
Edit: Also I'm curious to the purpose of the small loop of polygons that runs round the inside edge of the shield rim? They don't have it around the outside edges.
I did do an exploded bake - I moved the bolt on the high poly & low poly away from the board for the baking.
The reason for using hard edges is that if your baker isn't completely synced with the renderer it should look reasonable. But if you're skipping hard edges altogether it will be more important that the normalmap is correct and any tangent diversions will be more apparent. Also if you're using hard edges you'll get a "flatter" normalmap with less gradients which means that when it gets compressed you'll get less artifacts because of a low resolution and/or color compression (DDS).
So while you certainly can follow their example, I would still advise against it.
I just baked the AO in max and tweaked it in photoshop - the space on the board underneath the bolt was blank so I filled it in to prevent any bleeding.
I ended up adding loops round some of the sharp edges as it seemed to be the only way to get a clean bake but I dunno if this is a normal thing to do:
I know that it might not have been strictly necessary to model the rim and centre piece but I tried doing them with just the normal map and it looked a bit too flat for my liking.
There were a plug-in floating around that resulted in nicer looking results where the padding got blurred.
If you worry about presenting the textures and making them look good, you could just multiply a black and white image showing your islands on top for the presentation shots (maybe just a flat blue for the normal map). That way it would be easier to tell how your UV-layout looks as well as how optimized it is.
the image below illustrates my point
I'll be sure to rotate the UVs for the final bakes.
1974 Tris
If you don't have access to Photoshop any more just download GIMP instead. I think that support PSD so you should be able to just pick your work right up again. It won't support dDo, but one shouldn't be overly dependent on a single tool anyway (not saying that you are).
Another, albeight less exacting, way of doing it is to select the texture all the way up to the edges of your UV's (so the edges you want a border on), then invert your mask, and manually go around the edges painting in general colors of the texture.
Obviously the second one is slower, less exacting, and doesn't work for normals, but if you're desperate...
so its less obvious.
In what ways? First time using it so not clued up on the tells.
I'd really like to have an interactive version on my portfolio but at the moment it just looks terrible compared to the marmoset stills.
The good news however is that IBL is an important part in PBL (physically based lighting) which is the future so it'll only become more and more pervasive.
[VEROLD]52370ca63da3530200000266[/VEROLD]
Going to stop fiddling with it now though and get some presentation shots so I can move onto something else.
Edit: Oh, does anyone know how sketchfab supports gloss maps? Should it be in the alpha of the spec or do I apply it separately in the "shininess" slot?
Gonna go for an enchanted/magic vibe with it, will do some kind of misty/icy particle effect emitting from the eyes. Not sure if I want an actual skull or if I'll make it metal. Feel like the metal plate the skull is on top of needs some kind of detailing.