T-70 X-Wing Retrospective
polycounter lvl 10
Hello! Here's a breakdown of my latest project. The primary focus was to try and learn the substance painter pipeline, as I'd not had a chance to use it much at work.
Here's some shots of the final results:
More here https://www.artstation.com/artwork/LwBYR
Some WIP shots:
I try to keep notes as I work, to help me learn from my mistakes. So here is some useful(?) information to my past self to help them improve!
1. Don't make something too complicated when trying to learn a new software. It's better to make something small well, than a lot of average!
2. Measure twice, cut once. I did try to get some scale reference, but spent forever tweaking things by eye. There are still some issues that I decided to live with, but hopefully not so much that they ruin the overall look.
3. Don't forget to turn on backface culling. I had a baking issue in substance that was baffling me for ages until I realised the faces were inverted in Max. Dur.
4. Turbosmooth with isoline display gave me funny artifacts. I never realised (and still don't quite believe) that turning off isoline display on my turbosmoothed high poly, fixed this baking issue in SP. I always thought it was just a visualisation thing in max, but I guess not.
5. Set small goals to finish big projects. Thinking about the overall project and ambition is fun and useful, but keep yourself grounded and focus on a simple goal. Set small goals, so you have a focus when you sit down to study.
6. Probably plan better. Maybe even make...a spreadsheet. As this was a personal thing, I approached it a bit more abstractly, but I think more structured planning helps give a sense of progress and help you focus on small goals (as mentioned).
7. Greebles! Is a fun word. One of the things I was most interested in regarding substance painter, was how much work I would need to put in the high poly vs bits that I could stamp and draw on using height alphas. For example, I first made the panel lines in painter, but found the lack of accuracy and consistency made it a bit too difficult to adjust cleanly, so I went back to model them. I think I'll find a better balance as I work with SP more, but anything small and repetitive is a good candidate for greebling...
8. Dissect smart materials. I learnt a lot for picking apart existing\substance share materials to see what each layer contributed.
9. Something, something MG Mask Editor. I found the mask editor to the most flexible tool in SP's arsenal. I managed to get most of the results I was looking for with a bit of tweaking.
10. I am a master of self distraction when studying at home. I have weaned myself off background video watching when doing studies, as I found it often becomes just watching and not doing. If I really don't want to study, I will try and give myself at least 15 'good' minutes of effort. If, after that, I still have no focus then I will give myself a break.
11. Get a procrastination pad. My new thing to help me focus is to write down whatever my distracting idea was in a pad. Although you could say this is a distraction in itself, I've found it's enough to satisfy my brain into letting go of whatever dumb thing it wanted to do. It's also interesting to look at retrospectively, as the passage of time often made me realise this were not essential pursuits.
Think that's about it. Hopefully this collection of words helps someone, enjoy your artings!
Here's some shots of the final results:
More here https://www.artstation.com/artwork/LwBYR
Some WIP shots:
I try to keep notes as I work, to help me learn from my mistakes. So here is some useful(?) information to my past self to help them improve!
1. Don't make something too complicated when trying to learn a new software. It's better to make something small well, than a lot of average!
2. Measure twice, cut once. I did try to get some scale reference, but spent forever tweaking things by eye. There are still some issues that I decided to live with, but hopefully not so much that they ruin the overall look.
3. Don't forget to turn on backface culling. I had a baking issue in substance that was baffling me for ages until I realised the faces were inverted in Max. Dur.
4. Turbosmooth with isoline display gave me funny artifacts. I never realised (and still don't quite believe) that turning off isoline display on my turbosmoothed high poly, fixed this baking issue in SP. I always thought it was just a visualisation thing in max, but I guess not.
5. Set small goals to finish big projects. Thinking about the overall project and ambition is fun and useful, but keep yourself grounded and focus on a simple goal. Set small goals, so you have a focus when you sit down to study.
6. Probably plan better. Maybe even make...a spreadsheet. As this was a personal thing, I approached it a bit more abstractly, but I think more structured planning helps give a sense of progress and help you focus on small goals (as mentioned).
7. Greebles! Is a fun word. One of the things I was most interested in regarding substance painter, was how much work I would need to put in the high poly vs bits that I could stamp and draw on using height alphas. For example, I first made the panel lines in painter, but found the lack of accuracy and consistency made it a bit too difficult to adjust cleanly, so I went back to model them. I think I'll find a better balance as I work with SP more, but anything small and repetitive is a good candidate for greebling...
8. Dissect smart materials. I learnt a lot for picking apart existing\substance share materials to see what each layer contributed.
9. Something, something MG Mask Editor. I found the mask editor to the most flexible tool in SP's arsenal. I managed to get most of the results I was looking for with a bit of tweaking.
10. I am a master of self distraction when studying at home. I have weaned myself off background video watching when doing studies, as I found it often becomes just watching and not doing. If I really don't want to study, I will try and give myself at least 15 'good' minutes of effort. If, after that, I still have no focus then I will give myself a break.
11. Get a procrastination pad. My new thing to help me focus is to write down whatever my distracting idea was in a pad. Although you could say this is a distraction in itself, I've found it's enough to satisfy my brain into letting go of whatever dumb thing it wanted to do. It's also interesting to look at retrospectively, as the passage of time often made me realise this were not essential pursuits.
Think that's about it. Hopefully this collection of words helps someone, enjoy your artings!
Replies
I also like the 11. points you pointed out, it's always good to stand up to a challenge and learn something out of it