Here is the early high poly base mesh:
I had some trouble adding the grooves to the front and back of the grip. Modeling them in high poly version with support loops added way to many loops, and booleans and projections in zbrush had bad results. In the end I modeled the grooves in the high poly and used creasing which worked out really well.
I feel like right now the texturing is a weak point. The material definition isn't quite there and the scratches you've got on the magazine and the gun don't make much sense and really break the realism of the gun, it looks quite obviously stamped on. I'm also confused as to why the finger prints are so bright. It looks like where the finger prints are, the metal beneath the parkerized layer is showing through. That doesn't make much sense to me. If the idea is that the fingerprints have worn through the parkerized layer of the steel, how is it that it is so concentrated in those spots, and there aren't other fingerprints on the gun?
If you simply have the prints as so bright because you are trying to make it look like they are oily or something, it's not doing the job right now. Really the prints should have a few raised spots on the normal map and in the albedo be kind of marked like its dirty, but they shouldn't cause this great contrast with the rest of the gun.
sgtscience, this is just a question, don't take it the wrong way, but have you ever owned a gun or had a lot of experience handling them? It doesn't appear so, which is fine, but if you had more experience around them I think it would show in the texture more. The gun should have the parkerized steel wearing in areas that commonly rub together, where a bulk of the cleaning of the gun takes place, and where the weapon might have been dropped or slid across a surface or something. You can't get a very good idea of where this would be really unless you have handled the gun you are making or have handled several guns in general. Perhaps you should look into buying or borrowing one, or looking at a lot of photos of used guns. The only reason I would know where the wear should be is because my time in the military. Otherwise I would be making the same mistakes.
Yes, texturing is not my strongest point. Trying to work on it. The finger prints are bright because of the lighting which is reflecting off them. I'm not sure what the roughness value of finger grease is. That might help. I just used a value that looked similar in reference shots. I tried examining finger grease on a surface myself, and it only looked like it contributed to roughness of the surface. Here are a couple of shots where the lighting is more indirect and not shining off the fingerprints, which I think might help here.
I have never owned or used a gun. I think some experience there would help, yes.
Here are some reference shots that I used to help define where the scratches and hand grease is:
scratches on the front
scratches around the slide release
grease on slide and grip
fingerprints on slide
grease on slide and scratches on dis-assembly lever
scratches where frame and counterweight connect
grease on counterweight
finger print on frame near trigger guard
scratches and grease on the dis-assembly lever, scratches on the slide at the top of the serration and just behind it, acratch on the extracter
these scratches on the magazine might look better. I can't find the reference I used for those scratches.
Pretty much all of the details I did were based off of reference photos. To be sure, most of the photos I found did not have grease marks like that on the slide, but I thought it was an interesting and different feature, like someone was trying to pull the slide back from there. I dunno, maybe I should tone it down a bit? Work on the lighting in the renders?
Replies
the rest of the gun is 21,719
So 11 bullets, 10 in the mag and one in the chamber is 27,808
I need some better concrete :P
I also updated the smudge marks with fingerprints which helps I think
I had some trouble adding the grooves to the front and back of the grip. Modeling them in high poly version with support loops added way to many loops, and booleans and projections in zbrush had bad results. In the end I modeled the grooves in the high poly and used creasing which worked out really well.
If you simply have the prints as so bright because you are trying to make it look like they are oily or something, it's not doing the job right now. Really the prints should have a few raised spots on the normal map and in the albedo be kind of marked like its dirty, but they shouldn't cause this great contrast with the rest of the gun.
sgtscience, this is just a question, don't take it the wrong way, but have you ever owned a gun or had a lot of experience handling them? It doesn't appear so, which is fine, but if you had more experience around them I think it would show in the texture more. The gun should have the parkerized steel wearing in areas that commonly rub together, where a bulk of the cleaning of the gun takes place, and where the weapon might have been dropped or slid across a surface or something. You can't get a very good idea of where this would be really unless you have handled the gun you are making or have handled several guns in general. Perhaps you should look into buying or borrowing one, or looking at a lot of photos of used guns. The only reason I would know where the wear should be is because my time in the military. Otherwise I would be making the same mistakes.
Yes, texturing is not my strongest point. Trying to work on it. The finger prints are bright because of the lighting which is reflecting off them. I'm not sure what the roughness value of finger grease is. That might help. I just used a value that looked similar in reference shots. I tried examining finger grease on a surface myself, and it only looked like it contributed to roughness of the surface. Here are a couple of shots where the lighting is more indirect and not shining off the fingerprints, which I think might help here.
I have never owned or used a gun. I think some experience there would help, yes.
Here are some reference shots that I used to help define where the scratches and hand grease is:
scratches on the front
scratches around the slide release
grease on slide and grip
fingerprints on slide
grease on slide and scratches on dis-assembly lever
scratches where frame and counterweight connect
grease on counterweight
finger print on frame near trigger guard
scratches and grease on the dis-assembly lever, scratches on the slide at the top of the serration and just behind it, acratch on the extracter
these scratches on the magazine might look better. I can't find the reference I used for those scratches.
Pretty much all of the details I did were based off of reference photos. To be sure, most of the photos I found did not have grease marks like that on the slide, but I thought it was an interesting and different feature, like someone was trying to pull the slide back from there. I dunno, maybe I should tone it down a bit? Work on the lighting in the renders?