[WIP] Aircraft altimeter

nikita_nomad · Jun 30 2025

Hi community. I started to work on a simple asset for practise and to learn a few things here and there. The main goal for this project tho is to learn painter. So will eventialy texture it there. Refs below

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/bf/pgnd7evf2q3g.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/rt/sbawtne6zdn9.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/vd/xpp01tqt03w2.png

Here are some early stages as well. Thanks.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/8p/k74euls36n7m.jpg

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/ey/o7conu7osyyc.jpg

nikita_nomad · Jul 1 2025

A bit more progress. Getting some details in.

Łukasz · Jul 7 2025

looks promising, it might be cool to have such edge damage on the edges of screws' drive recesses as well - where it could be damaged by screwdriver
In general if object is not supposed to look heavily worn I'd try to keep edgwear rather subtle and non-uniform - just accents here and there rather than along whole edges, looks quite nice so far

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/go/lp9oi9utjdtp.png

nikita_nomad · Jul 7 2025

Hi Lukasz, thanks for reply and actually great idea. I'll go back and sculpt bit more. In general this was meant to be a test project to learn painter and also learn workflow for high to low poly. Still learning, but really enjoying, although not easy to figure it out on my own

and I think I will go for a more old/worn asset rather then new looking

kosh3d · Jul 8 2025

@nikita_nomad very nice! Small projects like that are ideal for learning. I noticed that your model is missing the really big bevel on the back of the altimeter

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/84/1s2prg2stnvx.jpg

nikita_nomad · Jul 8 2025

Thanks, yeah, I've decided not to follow the reference that much, as it's really a practice piece. For me is more important to learn the workflow and steps. Actually can you guys advice if I'm doing it correct by creating a very low low poly?..or shoud I try to add more bevels to edges and a more consistent wires also..

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/li/q3t1m920lomi.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/ye/tjmz6m1e5y53.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/34/yipncwaefyqx.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/g0/q1t77o9l3bii.png

nikita_nomad · Jul 8 2025

I was watching a tutorial from one guy and he said it only makes sense to add geometry that adds to the silhoutte.. but the wireframe does feel overly simplified in that case...thanks

kosh3d · Jul 8 2025

nikita_nomad said:

I was watching a tutorial from one guy and he said it only makes sense to add geometry that adds to the silhoutte.. but the wireframe does feel overly simplified in that case...thanks

This is correct, lowpoly wireframes for games should be, well, lowpoly. There is no point in having edgeloops that add nothing to the mesh. I have a breakdown of one of my projects here on polycount where I go into detail what's important for a lowpoly, you can check it out here

Your lowpoly has a density mismatch between cylindrical shapes. The tiny cylinder in the center of the dial has almost the same amount of segments like your body cylinder, which does not make any sense. In the same key, the holes in the corners have only 8 sides which is very low and results in visible facetting. Same goes for the cylindrical shapes on the back as well. The "quadgrid" screws inside the dial are also way too highpoly. The strip on the back also seems to be super dense and could have been optimized a lot more.

Otherwise it looks pretty good!

nikita_nomad · Jul 9 2025

Hi kosh3d, thanks for advice and for the link. It's really really usefull to me! I will probably screenshot it to be honest. I want to learn a good workflow and have a bit of planned approach every time I start a project. Also want to get somewhat ok portfolio to be able to look for any jobs(freelance, part time, doesn't matter really). But because I'm yet to work it all out I find myself jumping up and down the project. With this one I completely agree on all your points. I will go back to the low poly and redo some of it, need to get rid of the fasceting, reduce count on the smallest parts and then see what else needs attention.

Łukasz · Jul 9 2025

my 2 cents on the bake - it would be good to have visible hole around the knobs, intersecting geometry always gives the cg-look, a round reccess baked from HP onto flat LP may do the trick

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/bm/csn2pdaeaolc.png

Also I'd recommend having a look at this article with lots of hints (it's focused on weapons but a lot of that applies to any prop):
https://piratportfolio.com/fpp_eng/

nikita_nomad · Jul 10 2025

Thanks for the link Lukasz, I will save it also. Did you mean to do like an intrusion in the mesh, boolean for example?

Łukasz · Jul 13 2025

Yes, I think could be a either a boolean cut or something like a gasket - anything what hides geometry clipping through a plane

nikita_nomad · Jul 13 2025

I think I can actually try to add it lkater in substance, alpha with just height maybe. Instead of adding more geo..what do you think? i am also reworking the mesh, changing back of big cilinder to match the reference more, fixing some faceting and just general clean up. Will post more screenshots as soon as

nikita_nomad · Jul 14 2025

I have reworked the big shape and added some extra wear on the screw as suggested. Looks better now, thanks

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/02/1c1siq46ecwy.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/f6/uv3msf02aam4.png

nikita_nomad · Jul 15 2025

Bit more progress, UV's are done(I think). Will do some test bakes soon.

nikita_nomad · Jul 24 2025

I've done some minor changes/improvements on the low poly and baked some maps as well. Bear in mind it's first time I do this, so any advice and comments are very much appreciated. Thanks

Łukasz · Aug 2 2025

looks solid, I wonder why are there 3 big round islands on the uv layout though, looks like you need only one of them. Also you might consider removing geometry that is overalpped by another piece of geometry to save some uv space inside the big islands (at cost of higher vertex count due to new cuts) although I'm not sure whether the gain from it would be significant (but generally in modern engines triscount is not as big problem as texutres size so I'd rather save pixels than vertices

)

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/hq/rg2eww9i3p5e.png

nikita_nomad · Aug 2 2025

Oh yeah, thanks for input. We'll the hidden geo doesn't make a difference as it's only a couple of faces. And those round islands are actually 2 sides of the glass, which will be in front of the altimeter face, it will have transparent, a bit dirty material eventually. But I wasn't sure if I could have it as just a round plane or like this, as a very thin cylinder..

Łukasz · Aug 2 2025

I see, one sided glass should work. If you need to have two pieces that are the same you can stack them on UV layout to reuse the same texture space and get bigger islands when packing

Eric Chadwick · Aug 2 2025

When rendering in a real-time renderer, only the nearest side of the glass will be rendered.

And if you want to render the same single-sided glass in a non-realtime pathtracer, they will by default render both sides of every single-sided mesh anyway. The one thing you lose with single-sided glass in a pathtracer is if you want thicker glass in the middle... then you'll want a bulged-cylinder for the glass mesh.

Eric Chadwick · Aug 2 2025

Another important thing is most texture baking tools will treat glass as a solid surface, so an ambient occlusion bake will just be black inside there. So either hide the glass when baking AO, or find a baker that ignores glass.

nikita_nomad · 7:23AM

Thanks for all the info guys. I think I would prefer to have a thicker glass, I am planning to use Marmoset to render it. I'll see how it goes, a bit of trial and error now. I do also have that glass bit on a different texture set, so I think it should work, I'll just skip the ao map on it..

[WIP] Aircraft altimeter

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