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Vickers Machine Gun Hard Surface Practice WIP

Nattyoop92
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Nattyoop92 node
Hi PolyCount, first time poster here. Been doing 3D now for about a year. Just working on a personal project to improve my hard surface modelling. I am modelling a Vickers Mk.1 .303 Machine gun, It will eventually be complete with tripod, ammunition crate and link and a water jerry can. Half way through now and thought I'd keep you guys up to date.

Heres where I am at so far criticism is always welcome, only way to get better!!



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  • Zodd
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    Zodd polycounter lvl 11
    Hey, nice work

    Is this high poly ? because if it is there are some things you may want to pay attention to get the piece to shine.
    In some cases on the big cylindrical barrel the edges may be too sharp for normal map to pick them up (may be sharp on other places too, just in general keep an eye out for those kind of things.

    Other than that nice work :)
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  • defragger
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    defragger sublime tool
    High-poly usually doesn´t have visible smoothing group edges. This looks more like the low-poly.
    Let us know if you want to bake this down or what your plans are with this mesh so we can give useful advice.
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  • Nattyoop92
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    Nattyoop92 node
    Hey, so at the moment that's going to be the high poly, haven't put the turbo smooth on there yet which is why the edges are quite hard, I'm building it up as well go, once if put the turbo smooth on and finished be high I'll stick another WIP up, thanks for the feedback though guys :) 
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  • Nattyoop92
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    Nattyoop92 node
    defragger said:
    High-poly usually doesn´t have visible smoothing group edges. This looks more like the low-poly.
    Let us know if you want to bake this down or what your plans are with this mesh so we can give useful advice.
    So the plan is going to be to high poly model and then bake down to a low poly model to a game ready spec. Aiming for no more than about 10k tris.

    Here's where I'm at after putting a turbo smooth and control loops in, softened the edges up somewhat.


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  • Nattyoop92
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    Nattyoop92 node
    Time for another update, finished the high poly for the gun and the tripod, now its time to make the low poly and bake before I move onto the ammunition belt and box.


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  • Nattyoop92
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    Nattyoop92 node
    Just finished modelling the ammunition belt this morning, to speed things up, I modeled a single link and then used the spacing tool along a spline that I drew into the scene into an ammunition box (yet to be modeled) to copy it, welding the stray edges around the curves of the belt.

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  • Nattyoop92
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    Nattyoop92 node
    I have finally finished the High Poly for all of the meshes, I have kept the ammo belt, ammo tin, gun and tripod as separate meshes and they will each have their own textures. I will now take the high poly models and strip the polys down to try and bring it down to the threshold of under 10,000 tris or as close as possible to this amount.

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  • Nattyoop92
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    Nattyoop92 node
    Below is a high-low poly comparison, the low poly is in blue. I have managed to get the low poly down to under 35k, this includes the box, tripod belt and gun. The gun itself is down to 14k which is close to my 10K target, after baking and texturing I will see if there are area I can shave off some extra tris I will remove some more tris from the handles on the ammunition tin as they are still quite high poly for such a small detail in scene especially considering the tin will only have a 512x512 texture sheet.

    The next step will be moving back to the high poly as I feel there are areas that could be improved by the addition of some floating geometry to create seams and weld points on the flat surfaces of the sides of the gun and on the tripod. Once that's done it will be onto unwrapping and texturing.


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  • Nattyoop92
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    Nattyoop92 node
    Below is a render of the LP MG with wires so you can see how it is done, currently the ammunition belt is still relatively high poly and I am trying to work out how to cut down the tri count without sacrificing silhouette.

    In the mean time I will move on to unwrapping the model ready for some baking and texturing.



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  • Nattyoop92
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    Nattyoop92 node
    Hi Polycount, its been a while but I have been trying to get to grips with substance painter for Normal map baking. The issue I was having was that the normal map was projecting onto other parts of the mesh no matter how small I made the cage. After some video tutorials and a sudden epiphany, I realised that I needed to break the mesh down into component parts (eg. separating the sight from the rail). This stopped the different parts of the meshes projecting through and onto other surfaces. 

    Once I had worked this out and played with some of the settings in Substance Painter I managed to get quite a high quality bake which I am quite happy to go forward with and begin texturing. Any criticism is welcome as always.



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  • Nattyoop92
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    Nattyoop92 node
    So having moved onto texturing, I have begun a preliminary pass on the gun having followed some substance tutorials and trying to keep as much of the texturing as possible procedural. There will be certain elements that I will need to texture using photoshop.


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  • Doxturtle
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    Doxturtle polycounter lvl 8
    Nice progress, look forward to seeing the texturing finished :)
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  • Tectonic
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    Tectonic polycounter lvl 10
    the grain on the wood is looking a little extreme. but otherwise gorgeous!
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  • Nattyoop92
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    Nattyoop92 node
    Tectonic said:
    the grain on the wood is looking a little extreme. but otherwise gorgeous!
    Thanks for the feedback, dialled back the depth on it, still think I could go shallower with it as well.

    Below is the 99% complete texturing for the gun and all parts. The only issue that is visible so far is the end of the ammunition belt which has not unwrapped correctly I will go back into 3DS Max and adjust that, once that is complete I think I'll be just about ready to finish this off and put it on Artstation.



     

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  • Felixenfeu
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    Felixenfeu polycounter lvl 10
    Nice progress. If you work the presentation/lighting a bit more it could make a neat piece of porfolio. Doesn't do your model justice atm.
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  • Nattyoop92
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    Nattyoop92 node
    Felixenfeu said:
    Nice progress. If you work the presentation/lighting a bit more it could make a neat piece of porfolio. Doesn't do your model justice atm.
    Thanks, I do agree though, those were IRay renders from Substance. Once, I'm happy with the model I want to take it into UE4.

    Have you got any tips beyond a simple 3 point lighting set up to make it pop or a bit more interesting??
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  • Felixenfeu
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    Felixenfeu polycounter lvl 10
    Yes, don't make 3 point lighting setup :P 

    Lighting in life, cinema and games is so much more than that.  Can be one light like 10 lights. Play a bit with it, do a few different variant , don't be afraid to try colors, try to create constrast, either in strenght, softness or colors. 

    Spend some time on https://film-grab.com/ . Look at other successful artists and how they present stuff, emulate other people lighting until you are confortable creating your own.

    Your goal is making your asset obvious and eye-grabbing.  3-point lighting is a good start, gives your key light and rim light, but don't be afraid to play a little. 
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