Deadspace Door
polycounter lvl 14
High poly for my latest is ready to share. The concept was taken from "The Art of Deadspace" book. Maya 2014. At first I wasn't going to SubD much, but then I realized the major curves needed it. most of it is SubD, but not entirely. Any comments welcome. Thanks
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I'm not positive of what is being referred to here. In the image above I "sloped" some of the 90 degree angles for a better normal averaging (red lines). I'm guessing that the two above comments might be referring to some edges being to rounded (green lines). I'm not sure how to think or respond so I'll think aloud. I suppose when I do high poly models I simply create and worry about optimizing once it's done (this phase). I felt adding a nice bevel edge made a few areas look better so I did so. Maybe I could in some cases leave the bevel in the low poly (is that really so bad in the year 2014? I don't want my portfolio look like yesterday's consoles). Maybe I felt like since they are so small that you wouldn't notice from the appropriate distance (In other words match the outer silhouette and hope the bevel would be strong enough to bake on top)? Then again this is why I didn't want to Subdivide in the first place ... now it might be too "soft". Thoughts? Thanks
I believe they are referring to how this will look when baked. Unless you don't plan on baking it? You can still achieve a sharp look in your model, with subdivision. Loosen up the edges, and apply a material with a specular level and some glossiness highlights. This will allow your edges, to still look sharp, in your view port grabs.
Making your edges soft, is not a bad thing. Almost all recent gen games you have played or seen work for, uses this method in their work flow. It is a matter of playing around with the model and testing it on a low poly, to see how tight to make the edges.
Also, instead of extruding the details straight up, make them come out at an angle. This way your normal's will be able to reproduce the details you want in your low poly.
Update: a couple saved increments ago the layouts are still there so I'm importing/exporting. This will save me 2/3 or a little more of the re-work. I vaguely remember there was a moment when I was confused looking at the UV editor and it was white with edges all the sudden.
I would make sure that you haven't created another UV set by accident.
Also fully agree with posters above, you need to loosen some of those edges otherwise they will not show properly in your bakes.
Thanks. I checked but I didn't make another UV set. I never figured it out but thanks anyway. One strange thing I'm dealing with now is some of my UV islands are flipped while others aren't. As a 3ds Max user for several years I'm used to having the ease of a symmetry modifier take care of this. I'm guessing I must have done a duplicate special for some parts and a regular duplicate for the ones that aren't flipped. My only concern is whether it matters? If not I'll just leave it alone. For now I don't believe it will be terribly bad to leave the non-flipped overlapped islands all within 0-1 space as if to paint on them separately. Technically I suppose you could clone anything that is already UVed and simply move it around the UV editor, however I'm not sure if there is any reason it would cause issue outside the 0-1 space. I don't see how but I figured I'd ask for an affirmation on this. thanks
Also I did make a few changes to some a of the bevels to the best of my knowledge. My thinking was to make the high and low poly models match as closely as possible. I suppose there is an issue of being too close.
I have a normal map in place but am getting strange artifacts. There are black outlines on the high poly details and also a pixelated "texture" of sorts with hard warbly lines across most of the surface. I applied a blur and there was no change in the problem so it isn't the normal. I also changed the file size and there was no change in the problem. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
I baked in Maya in several steps via layers for each piece, then combined them in Photoshop.
I downloaded Unity for the first time last night and have to say I'm blown away by how simple and intuitive it is. It seems the pixelated, wavy artifacts were Maya viewport related because they are gone in Unity. At this point I'm guessing I have a debacle of channel direction issues. I baked these things in several pieces via layer sets. Not using 3ds Max but Maya I must not be aware of some sort of proper procedure of mirroring. I will continue searching for the answers but is there a link someone can post or simply explain how to mirror for a proper Maya bake? How should you duplicate to flip properly? This is assuming that I have in fact actually figured the issue out ... which is still a guess. Thanks you.
Mirror your uv's
2. Half of these things could be floaters
3. use more UV space
4. Bevel your high poly edges on parts that won't read well so the light has something to catch on.
5. Add more depth because there the whole model is very flat, try and think of ways to avoid the boxy flat look, that's the hardest par. You really could lower the polycount on a lot of this stuff.
6. Overall a lot of the details are very random and the overall peice lacks cohesion design wise.
7. How does it open? also are you going off a concept? Personally I think until you've gotten a lot of these points ingrained in your mind I would try going off of concepts that teach them so you learn by doing.
Sorry if it sounds harsh I just don't have a lot of time really to type stuff so I'm getting right to it.
Not harsh at all. I'm glad you commented. Here are my thoughts:
1) What I did was I modeled half a piece, UVed it, did either duplicate or duplicate special (I can't remember which ones were which, I remember having an issue with an instance not combining with its original so I deleted it and duplicated "regular" to combine), took the flipped or Mirrored UV and flipped it to "blue", then moved it into place and welded them. Is this wrong? A few pieces are outside 0-1 space but most of these need a unique painting across both sides. The work I used here is clearly missing something sine it didn't work right. Only one side baked and then I duplicated the normal pieces in PS, finding out the hard way that you apparently need to invert both channels in PS when you do this.
2) Not sure what that means. They are individual objects if thats what you mean (I have around 33 layers)
3) I'll think about that again but I'm not sure. in my research on Polycount I've seen a lot of knowledgable people say its right leave pieces "upright" and to keep pieces in close proximity to know what is what. Anyone else on that?
4) This needs a whole other post to get post to get to the bottom of which I will post soon.
5,6,7) Not sure how it is flat. Thoughts welcome. I mentioned in the first post the concept is based on something in the art of DeadSpace but I didn't post a pic yet (see below). In my research and direct comments to me I'm hearing to keep details in the polycount if it keeps the silhouette.
Again, all thoughts welcome.
edit:.
OK, here we are. I've been told multiple times that my edges aren't beveled enough. Here are some closer pics to show what I have. I did make a rounds through and made the bevels bigger at one point. Admittedly the bevels aren't all the same size. "G" and "I" are admittedly very sharp but I feel that "C" is very well beveled now. My thinking was that I've had such a nightmarish times trying to get normals to bake "at all" because of not having the silhouettes line up. I've researched and researched and tried and tried to bake well and it almost never happens. In my experience, unless you have the silhouettes line up as close as possible, you get issues. This leads me to tighten it up as much as possible. Now, maybe I'm going too far in the opposite extreme now. Am I even understanding the complaint enough? Are there specific pics above that are more issues than others? I feel like the details of "G" are so small that it isn't really possible to make big round edges without destroying the top planes and reducing it to a blob. Am I just staring at them too close and not seeing the macro for the micro? Should I maybe zoom out when checking them? Am I thinking correctly? OK, there it is. Make any sense where I'm coming from? Thank you
Thanks.
Here is another go around at beveling the edges. I hope this is better. I think my attitude was that the model needed to be as tight for the portfolio as possible (as well as making the low and high close together as mentioned before). I suppose the point is simply to make a bake, not a modeling still for a gallery.
I did finally figure out (I think) the mirroring issue. It was in the HIGH poly not the low poly. My high meshes were mostly instances and where there were instances, the normal didn't bake. I assume this is a regular thing? Maybe this is the equivalent to having a symmetry modifier on, but forgetting to collapse it? I'm still working out a few Maya kinks.
thanks
(sigh of relief at the moment the normal finally works). So yeah the instance of the high poly was the issue. Here is the normal on the low poly. I'll probably clean up a few crevices on the main piece tomorrow, but for the most part I think it looks good from straight on ... which is good because its a door!
are these really floaters like separate objects/panels floating above the base geo? Because they look like insets cut into your main geometry.
http://wiki.polycount.com/SubdivisionSurfaceModeling?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=subd_floatingpanelinglines.jpg
This pic should hopefully clarify. The "main piece" as I call it has major crevices that are inset and one of the outer-lock pieces. The rest, including all the bottom pieces, are floating. I made the bottom parts in separate pieces because it was easier that way, and made for an easier selection set bake. As for the main piece, they were center stage enough to bevel the bottom end fading to the "floor", it's easier to paint in Photoshop on it when you can see the edges up against the insets, and it had hard crevices anyway for the bake. I've asked before about this and heard confirmation that the current tri-count limits won't be broken by a few more added this way. I didn't inset to a floor on the outer-lock pieces because they need to animate (theoretically).
Here's the basic idea for the texture. I will Photoshop "a bit" before calling it done. No spec yet.
Here's the official link to the finished piece. Thanks everyone. I did most of the painting in Mudbox and will likely continue doing so. I also picked up Unity "lightning fast" and will continue using it as well. This was the first time I managed to use all Maya for modeling, UVs and baking. Any final thoughts are welcome.
Thanks! Good to hear. :poly121:
I'm resurrecting this thread a couple months later. I have studied PBR, installed UE4 and am now doing my first PBR work ever. My primary concern at this point is of course, material definition. It needs to be clear what you are looking at. Above is my starting point. I usually don't get good results by starting with a photo texture and manipulating it in Photoshop, so this time I will try to paint masks for tiling photos. I'm really not sure how I will pull off the cracked paint at the moment. I'll post another update soon.
Update from Mudbox on the base color. Am I doing better at defining the materials? Can you tell its chipping paint with some dirt?
Thanks. Anyone else with thoughts on the matter? What I did was take textures of paint chips, then converted them to Mudbox stencils in Photoshop. Below are the bigger and smaller stencils I made, with the original image of the smaller one. I'm thinking maybe the larger one looks more like cracks in concrete because for lacking depth information. Maybe the smaller one is better?
Here is a screenshot I found from Deadspace which features chipped paint. I'm thinking the depth information of the chips appearing to move forward with shadowing underneath is the issue:
http://omelete.uol.com.br/images/galerias/Dead-Space-3/deadspace3_04_07demarco2013.jpg
Below I quickly painted through the smaller stencil on a bigger scale and with color. I think its at least cleaner than having two different ones. I will next trying painting more depth into it:
Two more updates. The top one is the texture from before with more work done to it, while the lower one is a new texture with a different type of chipped paint look. Preference?
http://www.lonewolf3d.com/images/Hawken/Hawken_mech_M06_textured_lonewolf_front.jpg
Thanks. I feel like moving the destruction around helped quite a bit. I have a base layer in Mudbox underneath a rust layer and a dirt layer. I'm still painting through a stencil for the rust, while using a stamp brush for the dirt while erasing the edges to refine its shape.
Does it look more defined now?
Thanks. I'm working on the metal color. Admittedly a good amount of material definition with metal will come from the roughness, but I don't want to lose opportunity here to make it look right in the color as well. It will be a true metal indicated with a metalness map, however I feel it would be out of place with the rest of the door if it looked pristine. How do you feel its coming along? Does it look like the color of metal? Can you tell it's metal?
The roughness will be made next in Photoshop. :poly009:
What makes it look weird is that it's cracked everywhere, the chipped parts are evenly spaced. I think it would look much better if you only had hints of chipped metal here and there, that's a nice way to sell an idea without getting too busy. Here's a quick n dirty PO:
One issue is I feel that in Mudbox its hard to get a strong hard edge grunge shape going, so I relied on a stencil I made. That resulted in everything looking evenly shaped. Also I noticed today some chipped painted metal in real life. The effect can be quite simple without the need to place several shades of rust color underneath with complicated edges surrounding it. Lesson learned is that you don't need to careful define the edges until you have to basic shape down first.
@billymcguffin @Parth: I'll start previewing with Unreal 4. This is my first time with PBR.
Thanks
Edit: I realize now that I wasn't saving my stamps correctly for Mudbox, which was causing my edges to paint softly.
Small update in Unreal 4 with a new metalness map (roughness is a constant around.5).
I will post a new rust/paint run through soon.
Edit: I did paint the center-piece with the brown details again (refer to the old version on the first page if curious). Now that i'm using Unreal 4 I could easily see how I would need to have modeled and baked details on it for the light to reflect well off there. I thought about it, contemplated what it even was, then decided to scrap it, leaving it as gray metal in the center.
Here's the latest rust. dirt and metal. I'm still not sure about those outermost arms (I can't tell what the material is in the concept). I don't like metal on metal there, but I don't know how to balance the composition color-wise. Possibly a different colored metal (if I can find the reference to justify) or another paint object. Also I still plan to add some of the streaking down the green-blue paint tomorrow. Roughness map will be started tomorrow as well.
Better or worse? Good, bad, OK, ugly? Can you tell what the materials are? Are they defined? I'm not stopping until its good. Thanks
First pass on gloss map.
Second pass on the gloss, more updates to the color and metalness.
1) Is the color better?
2) The metalness ... are the faded dirt areas good or bad? I gave fuzzy dirt sitting on metal. I understand that metalness is usually binary, but can technically have a "fade". I'm not sure how mine is standing up at the moment but I'm guessing it needs changed.
3) The gloss details came out too thick, but I feel its a step in the right direction.
4) I think I should reduce the dirt build up on top of the lowest metal pieces.
5) I'm working at 4096 and reduced to 1024 for the post.
Any thoughts? Thanks
Make the metal darker in the color map.
I'm not decided on the final colors yet. I'll consider that
OK, here's a serious update.
1) I recognized the way the metalness was working. Having fuzzy dirt in there was resulting in unwanted brush shapes on the material that looked like unnatural sheets of dirt. Therefore, I simplified the metalness and used the gloss to capture the dirt.
2) It was still too randomly busy so the gloss was simplified. I remade the scratches on the gloss as well.
3) The metal color is darker and simplified, based on what I've observed from other peoples works with PBR.
4) I had reflective metal underneath the paint on the arms, while oxidized rust under the blue and white paint, so I switched the arms to rust.
5) I had dirt unnaturally in places as if I was painting AO, so I took quite a bit of random dirt out.
6) Pretty sold on the color choices at this point unless anyone wants to comment otherwise.
At this point I've done a lot of editing and am very curious as to what people think. How is the material definition? Are the textures reading well? Does it make sense? How is the use of the PBR textures? What should I focus on moving forward? Do you like it? Is it good? Is it bad?
IBL. There's no reflection on your metal.
I don't use UE4, so I don't really know what to tell you here, but it seems like something is off there. Do you need to do something?
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Rendering/LightingAndShadows/ReflectionEnvironment/index.html
Perhaps this. Don't... take my word on that, though.
Rust is oxidized metal which reflects as a non-metal.
I'm aware of that. I do see (what could be) some little dings and scratches in the texture which could reflect as a metal, though. Not too sure.
Any artistic advise about the render setup? I've heard very mixed opinions on this matter. This just a prop so I'm thinking a dark gray background, an image reflecting. How do I make the presentation effective, not boring? Obviously I don't have an environment to reflect so I will need to simply get the right image. Are there cube maps or HDRs available online somewhere? I was thinking if nothing else the Unreal library has free scenes that I could borrow a cube map from. I did one cubemap in UDK before but the result wasn't stellar. Thanks
http://www.hdrlabs.com/sibl/archive.html
http://www.hdrlabs.com/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.pl?board=images