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Weapon Shop Demo Reel Project

Hello fellow polycounters!

My name is Daniel Kaltenbach (my user name is derived from my bad luck with dice games...specifically Risk) and I will be graduating from school in the middle of October. I have from now until then to get my demo reel done and out in the industry, so I need to hit the ground running.

I'm posting here to get feedback and critiques and as a place to ask questions when I hit the inevitable roadblocks. Please be as honest and harsh as necessary.

Without further ado, here is my first update:


AxeOneProgress.jpg

The next step, to be done today, will be to UV map the low poly and then create the normal and occlusion maps.

I will be doing 5-6 more weapons and placing them into a weapon shop (hopefully I'll get that 5 hour modeling time down a little lower...no idea what industry standard is on a weapon like this...anyone?).

The concept for the weapon shop is this (also from Mythic's concept art page):


mythicWeaponShop.jpg

Anyways, fire away with the crits, and I'll get back to work. Hopefully I'll have another update before I leave class today.

Replies

  • Asherr
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    Asherr polycounter lvl 18
    you could probably spend 5 minutes optimizing and halve the number of polies in the low poly model with no real loss to the form.
  • cursedDice
    2500k Tris was my limit when starting the low poly. I guess I stopped the optimizing a little soon because I got below my limit...you really think halving the tri's is possible without losing the silhouette? I guess I'll see how it goes. cool.gif

    I will try and optimize a little more and post the update later. Thanks for the reply.
  • Marine
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    Marine polycounter lvl 19
    the squiggly bits on the axe head are way too thin on your high poly
  • cursedDice
    Could you elaborate on what you mean by squiggly bits? Can't tell what part of the model you are talking about.
  • Steve Schulze
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    Steve Schulze polycounter lvl 18
    The Tzeentch eye decoration radiating outwards on the blade is what he means. I think it looks ok, but you'd probably want to add the iris to the eye.
  • almighty_gir
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    almighty_gir ngon master
    when you're optimising the low poly mesh, remember that since you're gonna be normalmapping it, and you've already got your high poly model. you don't need to keep it in quads. the axe head itself could be made with about 15 triangles at most, you could stick to a 6 sided cylinder for the stick, and lose a lot of the horisontal loops as they re un-nececary (be creative with every triangle/vertex).

    as poop said in the first tutorial i ever watched "if a vertex isn't defining a shape, you don't need it".
  • mikebart
    you could add in those nicks on the blade to the high poly, infact you could add them to the lowpoy too because they would define a shape aswell
  • cursedDice
    Thanks for the advice guys, I appreciate the ideas and suggestions.

    I have been struggling with getting clean normal maps out of this, but its made me go back and rework and optimize the low-poly, re-UV it (hopefully better, I'll post that for crits with the next update), and has overall made me rethink my approach. This will also let me make some changes that have been suggested that will make it better in the end.

    Updates for will come at the end of the day. Thanks for ideas and critics everyone.
  • blankslatejoe
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    blankslatejoe polycounter lvl 19
    nice high poly axe--but you'd never find a 2 thousand poly weapon like that in any game--even weapons that call for a 2k budget will be using that budget in the silhouette..here youre using the budget in a lot of the details. It's well done though, you obviously know the tools well...

    A better low poly version chopped to 200-600 polys would make more sense. Try putting a 100%selfilluminated black material on the object so that you can't see any shading or wires...thatll help you see what polygons are not pulling their weight.

    anyway, thats knowledge that comes with experience. its still pretty obvious you know the tools, and if you can crank out a bunch of pieces with a similar level of quality (and kickbutt textures) it wont take you long to find a job.
  • Joseph Silverman
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    Joseph Silverman polycounter lvl 17
    Not to derail the thread, but what about a First Person viewport weapon, Joe? I'd think putting some tri into detail and form would make sense, wouldn't it? Not trying to argue with you, just curious on your thoughts.
  • cursedDice
    I guess I should clarify what I am going for here with these weapons.

    This is not for a game like Titan Quest, where the axe would take up, at most, 1/10 the screen if the player zoomed in.

    This is for a game like Oblivion or the likes where the axe could take up half the screen easily if the player is in first person mode. The final models and textures will be shown in the Unreal Engine 3, where they will be showcased and take up a good portion of the screen.

    With that said, I am going to knock the triangle count down about a 1,000 tris or so...maybe less depending on feedback with the end goal of the piece in mind.

    Thanks again for the ideas and feedback, I look forward to hearing what people's estimates for triangle counts on weapons in games like Oblivion and Unreal 3 are (texture map sizes as well).
  • blankslatejoe
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    blankslatejoe polycounter lvl 19
    no worries suprore---in my post when I said 'even weapons that call for a 2k budget...blah blah' I was referring to exactly that situation.

    If you look at those weapons, the polies STILL go to the silhouette--not much is wasted on inner detail that won't break the silhouette much--a little, to get shadow detail from it and depth, of course, but for the most part all those polies are used to create the form. in theory, a lot of the inner depth detail should be coming from the normal map.

    A wasted poly is still a wasted poly, whether its on a 200 poly model or a 2000 poly model. smile.gif
  • blankslatejoe
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    blankslatejoe polycounter lvl 19
    cursedice-id be curious about that too. unreals moreso than oblivion. oblivions dont look super-high to me.

    the more important thing i wanted to comment on wasnt really the polycount (perhaps the 200-600 suggestion was a little harsh now I think more about it--theres a good amount of detail of silhouette info to convey in the design)--it was more so the optimization itself--the places where you're still spending the polies that you don't need to.you seem pretty skilled--I'm sure you'll be able to get that puppy down quite a bit with some shaving, but if you want and specific feedback on the optimization just ask!
  • Sage
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    Sage polycounter lvl 19
    I like the progress so far, it's looking good. I hate the low poly though since it has to many wasted tris. I made a low poly model of the axe to show what I think Blackslate Joe is trying to point out. The model has 962 tris, and it has that many because I modeled everything. A bit of that could be normal mapped since it's really small details. I had the modeled done at around 550 tris before I added the extra detail. I'll take this image down if it bugs you. smile.gif I can't wait to see this textured.

    Alex

    m_axe_w01.jpg
  • cursedDice
    Hey everyone! Missed my planned update due to hardware and internet issues...when I got back up and running I realized my files were cluttered and unorganized (and this is just the start of the project), and as this project progresses, it'll be more important to keep everything neat and organized.

    So I cleaned house, and then redid my low Poly, based on suggestions, and that quick mock up Sage did for me (thanks for that man, helped me quite a bit...if anyone wants to do paint-overs or do quick models as examples, I don't mind...it'll help me learn)

    Here is the new low-Poly.

    newLowPolyAxe.jpg

    So here is my question going into UVing this low poly: Should I add an extra edge split to the blade and spiked handle guard right down the middle so I can mirror the UVs and save texture space?

    Thanks for the comments everyone. I'll update with UV layout and some normal map tests next.
  • almighty_gir
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    almighty_gir ngon master
    you can mirror the uv's anyway, just have the top and bottom "planes" un-mirrored.
  • thnom
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    thnom polycounter lvl 18
    The handle bit that goes out- where it joins the rest of the handle; you have the half cylinder bits meeting in the middle - snap those to one of the sides, is a bit of wasted polies - but I'm guessing you've done it on both tops and bottoms.
  • JKMakowka
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    JKMakowka polycounter lvl 18
    Much better lowpoly version, but still plenty to optimize.

    I would loose the three small extra loops on the round "bump" right under the blade, that small rim at those "turn-around" spikes, those extra loops at the very top and bottom of the staff and the vertex in the middel of the radial tris at the "grip thing".

    Basicly think about how many pixels it will take even in closeup shots on the screen, and everything below the size of a pixel is wasted polygons.
    AND also think about the size of the texels the normalmap is "projecting" onto the mesh, everything below that size will not really be visiable due to how the light is rendered.

    Oh and I wouldn't use such long thin quads like Sage did in the grip... they usually lead to vertex lightning artifacts, even though that is probably much less important when a normal-map is rendered (uhh question to the experts: is there actually any vertex lightning rendered at all in modern normalmapped games?)
  • cursedDice
    Ok, small update, just looking for crits on my UV layout...I know there is always more optimizing to be done!

    axeUV.jpg

    I'm going to start attempting the normal map baking now, hopefully I'll have some to show soon...and I am %100 positive I'll have questions at that point.
  • blankslatejoe
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    blankslatejoe polycounter lvl 19
    MUCH nicer low poly :-)

    jkm pointed out a lot of the things you can still do to chop it ever further, particularly those rims on the shaft near the underside of the blade.

    other things-- on the flat top/bottom of the handle; there looks like there's a floating radial vert in the middle (where the shaft intersects). that vert can be collapsed to one side or the other, changing the flow of the lines, but saving a few more polies--quite a few since it looks like you could make that same change in several places.
    Personally I think you can get away with having the handle just be a few long polies--anytime the axe is REALLY close to the screen that's the part that will be covered by the hand/off screen.

    There's also a few edges on the flat of the blade itself that you could collapse down, but that's a bit more of a crucial area, so its personal preference.

    All in all, what you have now is conservative enough to keep going--its a LOT more realistic. Its nice to see you can take feedback well and work with it. :-)

    "is there actually any vertex lightning rendered at all in modern normalmapped games"
    I'm no expert, but yea, I think so. Depending on the engine, some will still mix vertex lighting with normal mapping. I don't think they do it on the same surface though...itll be a mix of vertex on terrain and normals on objects or whatever.
  • Sage
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    Sage polycounter lvl 19
    Jk my model is actually one water tight mesh, would it still have vertex lighting issues? The main reason I did that was to make a point, about how such a high polycount to make this model wasn't needed to model almost everything. wink.gif

    CursedDice I like your uv layout very nice. There is a lot of detail on the spikey bits, which I would model with a 3 sided cylinder instead of four like I did for my example, but I would try an normal map those bits on the flat plane with alpha. The thing is polies are easier to render than textures, so it may not be worth using alphas, in this case I think the polies are better though since they don't eat up as much of your texture. You may be able to mirror some of the spikes as well. The thing is looking much better though. Glad I was able to help.

    Alex
  • cursedDice
    Ok, so here is the normal map for the blade and shaft part (I did them separately and comped them back together in PS).

    I used xNormal for the creation of these. I've been fighting getting clean edges (the RED outlined areas) as well as getting rid of the 'squigglies' on the shaft (the green outlined area).

    testNorm.jpg

    Any ideas on these? This is the first time I've normal mapped something 'complex' and could use any help or advice!
  • JKMakowka
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    JKMakowka polycounter lvl 18
    [ QUOTE ]
    Jk my model is actually one water tight mesh, would it still have vertex lighting issues? The main reason I did that was to make a point, about how such a high polycount to make this model wasn't needed to model almost everything. wink.gif

    [/ QUOTE ]

    The vertex lightning problem I ment is more or less unrelated to the "waterthightness" problem. Think about how the vertex lightning is calculated (please correct me if I am wrong on exact technical terms):
    Basicly a gradient is applyed to every triangle that is calculated from the light that hits it's three vertexes, so if there is a pretty harsh light difference between the top and the bottom of you axe staff it gets averaged out over the entire length, and the longer the triangle is the more likely it is to result in a bad looking gradient.
    And it's even worse in a game angine than the viewport of your application since all quads are transferred to triangles thus the benefit of quads (that they have a unified vertexlightning for both tris) is lost and vertexlightning artifacts are even more apparent.

    But I think this doesn't effect normalmapped models since they aren't vertex lit.
  • Tulkamir
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    Tulkamir polycounter lvl 18
    Yea, the whole vertex lighting on long tris isn't a problem with normal maps. I still usually take em out cause they just feel wrong, but they don't cause any problems (atleast in the engine we use at work).
  • cursedDice
    Hey everyone, I'm back. Still working on trouble shooting the baking process on my axe...but decided to start on the next item in the weapon shop...the Dwarf shield (concept from Mythic again).

    dwarfComp.jpg

    So the final normal and ambient occlusion bakes won't be onto a grid like it is here...but this was just to show something. Anyways, let me know what you think, thanks for viewing!
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