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Omg a crate???

I did this for more texture practice. If you have seen my threads around here, this is what I am working hard and heavy on. I did this in about two days. 30 minutes on the model and the rest trying to create a good texture. I know the texture is mirrored on all sides, including the top, but the top looked weird flat shaded Grey with the rest colored/textured lol.

I used a 1024x1024 texture map with a normal map. Also I tried to be color aware, and use colors that would pop against each other. Also as you can tell these crates have not been inside a nice temperature controlled area.

Anyway enough blahblah here it is.

fce-crates-copy.jpg

What you think?

Replies

  • Kawe
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    Kawe polycounter lvl 8
    normal map? where?
  • EarthQuake
    why is your crate made of... rusty metal... wood planks?
  • oobersli
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    oobersli polycounter lvl 17
    way toooooo many tri's for a crate like this. even if its practice it just seems silly. An inset and bevel is all you need on each side. The panelling should be faked with a normal map... which i can't see on the model right now. if your going to use a 1024 then make more sides rather than just one.
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    Yea, EQ as pointed it out before, whats the crate supposed to be made of? the texture suggests metal while the model is built like a wooden crate. also, the individual boards modeled in are rather unnecessary they could be normal mapped in as they are not effecting the silhouette.

    Finally the texture itself....the rust looks kinda tossed on, think about where water would pool and form rust. The texture size is could definitiley be a 512x512 it appears blurry in the render at 1024, so it could definatley use a sharpening pass. I would also bake some AO into it too help add some depth and show the form better. hope these comments dont seem to harsh, just trying to help mate!
  • Quokimbo
    Damnit, I fail again...

    I have tried baking AO maps, and every time they come out all artifact-ish. Someone told me, make sure all of your UV's are not over lapping. I did that and got another artifact-ish AO.

    I was thinking about doing 4 1024's and shrinking them down to 512's to make 4 sides, well 3 sides, and a top.

    On creating a normal map, i tried to create one using the crate above, I got a box with vertical lines in it, I applied it to a 2D plane, and it looked nothing like the box I had modeled out. This is what I tried to do...http://www.citiesxl.com/images/stories/blog/General/winner08.jpg - How does that happen?

    This stuff is going to be the end of me! I am going to have like a brain explosion cause I keep reading trying it, and get nothing, read some more try some more and blah...

    Well back to the drawing boards.

    I will work with this and update soon! :)

    Thanks everyone!
  • Kawe
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    Kawe polycounter lvl 8
    Uhm, you should try to do one thing at a time. I'd suggest skipping normal maps and AO until you get everything else right.
  • EvilPixills
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    EvilPixills polygon
    Yeah you could def put those planks in the normal map. As for AO, i've heard people tell me that nothing can be overlapping, including geometry? dunno if you tried that yet or not.
  • Quokimbo
    Kawe wrote: »
    Uhm, you should try to do one thing at a time. I'd suggest skipping normal maps and AO until you get everything else right.

    So what should I work on instead of trying to do all of this at once?

    I have one more semester, and I am trying to be as good as I can be, By learning normal maps, spec maps, good texture mapping, and modeling. What should I focus on? Just texturing and modeling? Because if I go back and re-texture this I will get a bunch of replies saying...well look up at the posts lol.

    It is two in the afternoon and I have done nothing but work on this lmfao. No breakfast lunch or drink...just work hahahaha I am going to eat lunch.
    EarthQuake wrote: »
    why is your crate made of... rusty metal... wood planks?

    rusty metal :(
  • Kawe
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    Kawe polycounter lvl 8
    well, if you really want to take this crate making seriously and do everything at once then try to imagine how you should go about doing it.

    first find yourself some references and STUDY them. yes, it is a simple crate but obviously you have failed at making it a believable crate so you should take your time and study real crates... save the images to your hdd and keep them in a folder so you can easily look at them again once you get unsure on how they look. yes, I am serious... one of the harder things in graphics is to know how things ACTUALLY look and not what you THINK they look like.

    do that.. post in this thread about your findings and tell us exactly what you did wrong when you tried to replicate a crate. after that you should know where to start.. if you don't then search the forums for "workflow" and see if you can find something. that should tell you where to go next. if you can't find anything then ask here again and I bet someone will point you in the right direction.

    but ya... no use starting over if you don't even know what went wrong and how you should fix it. that's like banging your head against the wall.
  • SHEPEIRO
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    SHEPEIRO polycounter lvl 17
    by my calculations you could get the EXACT same shape out of 172 tris, thats without going into all the other things suggested by others

    edit- thought that might not be that usefull so i whipped this up in a minute or two (148 tris damn my calculations are crap)

    crate.jpg
  • SHEPEIRO
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    SHEPEIRO polycounter lvl 17
    hahaha just realised the extra support down each side is where the missing tris are
  • Quokimbo
    SHEPEIRO wrote: »
    by my calculations you could get the EXACT same shape out of 172 tris, thats without going into all the other things suggested by others

    edit- thought that might not be that usefull so i whipped this up in a minute or two (148 tris damn my calculations are crap)

    My original box was like that as well, and I have gotten comments on my edges look so sharp you can cut yourself on them, so I beveled most of my edges. I only used a 2 segment bevel, so things did not go TOO crazy, but still put it up there at a grand. How do you have 90 degree egdes, but make them look not so sharp? soften normal edges? something with the normal or AO map?
    Kawe wrote: »
    but ya... no use starting over if you don't even know what went wrong and how you should fix it. that's like banging your head against the wall.

    Maybe that is what is making me go nucking futs!! Will do what you suggested and will be back! :)

    Thanks again all!
  • SHEPEIRO
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    SHEPEIRO polycounter lvl 17
    if you want softer edges, bevel the outside 12 edges only (1 segment is all thats needed), the interior edges on the indent can all be pulled in a bit, and the edges on the supports can be pushed out, this will get rid of any 90 degree angles. (32 extra tris)

    to tell you the truth that normal mapping on your crate isnt doing anything, and you could still cut yourself with it. if your gonna use a normal ma put some bumps and dents along the edges (in the HP) so that the normals are actually doing something
  • Quokimbo
    SHEPEIRO wrote: »
    if you want softer edges, bevel the outside 12 edges only (1 segment is all thats needed), the interior edges on the indent can all be pulled in a bit, and the edges on the supports can be pushed out, this will get rid of any 90 degree angles. (32 extra tris)

    to tell you the truth that normal mapping on your crate isnt doing anything, and you could still cut yourself with it. if your gonna use a normal ma put some bumps and dents along the edges (in the HP) so that the normals are actually doing something

    Thanks!

    ALSO: bevel the outside edges with 1 segment, and about the supports...

    instead of being squared make the trapazoidish...I think got you.
  • Kawe
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    Kawe polycounter lvl 8
    Ok, here's the deal. You won't be able to create the perfect model EVER in your lifetime and you'll keep on having to learn. It may sound obvious BUT the whole point is that you shouldn't try to do everything at once cause it is really hard to learn that way.

    What you should start with depends on your interests really. What do you FEEL like starting with? You won't learn anything if you don't feel like learning it :) Personally I think you should pick what you think you suck the most at cause that's the thing you probably need the improve on the most. From what I gather from this model you need to learn how to UV map basic primitive shapes (cubes, spheres and cylinders) in every possible way and learn their pros and cons. After that you should probably texture these primitives using said UVs and try to make them as interesting without normal maps and what not... start with a smaller texture like 128x128 or 256x256 and see how much you can squeeze out of it.

    See.. this is where my whole problem was. I thought I could just make everything look good magically with some normal map and AO bakes that would magically pop into my face. But it is really not that easy.

    Now, don't just do what I suggested... am I right? Is there any other way to do it? What do you want to do? What's your end goal? And most importantly... did you figure out how to improve your crate?
  • Quokimbo
    new-boxes.jpg

    I restarted the crate from scratch, and this is only the geometry. I have no started texturing this yet, but will shortly. I chopped it down to 316 or 314 tri's. I know I could normal map the indention's, but do not know how(I may try a couple of things later this evening.). Would a 314-316 polygon crate be to much for a game? Also I found some good reference pictures I will use to try to get a better texture.
  • cholden
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    cholden polycounter lvl 18
    I don't understand this crate. How does it work? You should use some sort of concept. In fact, quit dickin' around and make one of these:
    http://images.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&q=shipping+container&revid=433142651&sa=X&oi=revisions_inline&resnum=0&ct=broad-revision&cd=1
  • bounchfx
    it depends on the crates, but hell, with normal maps these days a lot of simple crates shouldn't be any more than a box
  • Quokimbo
    cholden wrote: »
    I don't understand this crate. How does it work? You should use some sort of concept. In fact, quit dickin' around and make one of these:
    http://images.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&q=shipping+container&revid=433142651&sa=X&oi=revisions_inline&resnum=0&ct=broad-revision&cd=1

    Holy shit I was using the wrong search. I kept looking up storage containers and got nothing like that. Not storage container, but shipping containers.

    THANK YOU!!
  • Joao Sapiro
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    Joao Sapiro sublime tool
    jesus , all this for a crate ?
  • odium
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    odium polycounter lvl 18
    Why are you modeling that much detail...? Just let the normal map take care of it, thats what its there for...
  • Quokimbo
    Johny wrote: »
    jesus , all this for a crate ?

    By the time it is finished it SHOULD be one bad ass looking crate yeah? :)
    odium wrote: »
    Why are you modeling that much detail...? Just let the normal map take care of it, thats what its there for...

    That is what I am trying to learn...different techniques to get a good looking normal map. My normal maps now look like poop.
  • odium
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    odium polycounter lvl 18
    The first step to learning, is to "listen". So listen to what people are saying yeah?

    This crate could look pretty much the same with just 12 polygons. You dont need anything else. Also, your texture is pretty bad and it looks like a 256 resized up to 1024. That doesnt need to be 1024, at all. TBH your texture source isn't heping you much at all either, so ditch that and try and go for one thats more universal.
  • Quokimbo
    No normal maps, just geometry and texture. 2 lights as well...Also I know I could probably take the texture down to a 512 and it would look the same right?

    crates-copy.jpg

    Any better?

    ADDED: I think I might have found something out. I just started playing around with this baking stuff. and I baked a texture map that had the shadows in them and everything. Well here is my result. The box on the left is the 314 tri one and the one on the right is only 12 tri's. I am not sure what I am doing but I think I am going in to the correct direction! Sp now if I figure out how to bake my geometry into a normal map, it should REALLY give it the illusion that it is recessing. Right now it is just differences in color that make it look that way. Man it is coming along slowly but surely! I am so exciteD!!!

    omg-copy.jpg
  • Reich
    Well anytime you downrez a texture you are going to loose some of it's quality. More so on some then others. If it is a tiling texture you wont loose as much resolution as something with unique UV space.

    You seem to have unique UV space so you would loose some resolution. Best thing to do is try it and see what it looks like. Ina game it would probably be a 256 or 512.

    Now you have seemed to go towards a metal crate, so start learning spec if you really want it to pull off as metal.

    also you should think of where this crate is worn, add some dirt on the bottom, some scratches on the edges where it would get knocked around the most ect.
  • Lee3dee
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    Lee3dee polycounter lvl 18
    take a look through the crate thread
    http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=55240

    to see what other people have created :D
  • Quokimbo
    Reich wrote: »
    also you should think of where this crate is worn, add some dirt on the bottom, some scratches on the edges where it would get knocked around the most ect.

    I just went out for about an hour and a half with my camera and ipod walking around taking pictures of rust and scratches in metal, and all kinds of things! I was walking through alleys looking at(not in) dumpsters and the police were watching me. Kind of nerve racking but I was not doing anything wrong. It is probably how I look lmfao.
    Lee3dee wrote: »
    take a look through the crate thread
    http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=55240

    to see what other people have created :D

    It is what inspired me to crate one haha :poly111:, but I want to learn new things along the way. You know? lol
  • Mark Dygert
    - You could downsize it to 256 or 128 and it would be fine.

    - The amount of visual noise is way too much, its over kill.

    - Flat metal scratches applied to an uneven surface... It helps to have your wear and tear make sense. Some would be more protected then others.

    - Baking in the shadows will fight with the lighting in the scene. Only bake the lighting in when you KNOW the object AND the light will never change. 90% of the time the only shadow info you bake in is Ambient Occlusion. Hard shadows like what you have can be very bad.
  • Quokimbo
    Vig wrote: »
    - You could downsize it to 256 or 128 and it would be fine.

    - The amount of visual noise is way too much, its over kill.

    - Flat metal scratches applied to an uneven surface... It helps to have your wear and tear make sense. Some would be more protected then others.

    - Baking in the shadows will fight with the lighting in the scene. Only bake the lighting in when you KNOW the object AND the light will never change. 90% of the time the only shadow info you bake in is Ambient Occlusion. Hard shadows like what you have can be very bad.

    1. In industry if you are told to use a 256x256 could you start with a 1024 get it looking good and then downsize? Or should I start with the size dictated?

    2. I tried to soften them up in the screen below. Any better?

    3. I tried to put more rust around the corners, along with softening some of the inside details...Also tried to dirty up along the bottom.

    4. So baking is something that comes way late in the creation process?

    Also the below crates are still the 314 tri's not the 12 tri cube lol.

    boxes-copy.jpg

    WTF is that line above the FCE? I need to fix that lol...
  • oobersli
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    oobersli polycounter lvl 17
    get reference of a crate.. post it here then try to mimic the reference as close as possible. best advice I can give right now.
  • SHEPEIRO
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    SHEPEIRO polycounter lvl 17
    1- yes and no
    it is best to work in the native resolution IMO but and its a very big but, in the industry if your making a prop, you dont want to have to make it twice, working at double res stops this from happening so much as you can always down size, not up-size.
    2- personnaly im not very keen, more detail that follows the form would help, atm the texture seams very independant of the shapes
    3- rust needs a hard edge, and dirt is very rarely black
    4- nope- its generally in the first quarter or third for me
  • Quokimbo
    This is the one I found I liked the most...It even turns into an office or something?

    illy.jpg

    I will work on this Monday.
  • PixelGoat
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    PixelGoat polycounter lvl 12
    I think you should use some more ref, that doesn´t really look like any crate I´ve ever seen :(

    Also, listen to what people are saying and let a normalmap take care those indentations(is that a word?).

    Will save you a pooload of triangles and probably look better. if you make a highpoly and bake it down to the lowpoly that is :)
  • Michael Knubben
    It seems a few people in here think normalmaps are the best thing since sex. You realise that normalmaps can't occlude, so anything as deeply indented as what he's got wouldn't look right on a flat plane? Ofcourse, he could use parralax, but that's another texture map, which are -unless I'm mistaken, in which case: tell me- a lot more expensive to use than a handful of polygons. You wouldn't need to go quite so bevel-crazy either, if you're baking from a highpoly (so you get some nice highlight-catching smooth edges)

    edit: eeh, that sounded a bit preachy, eh? 'you lot and your normalmaps, pah!'. Oops.
  • SHEPEIRO
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    SHEPEIRO polycounter lvl 17
    hehe- pea- parrelex are much more expensive than normal maps in terms of draw, but in memory can be done with just an alpha in the norm so only a third more, and in my experience are not very good at hard non-organic tecky surfaces
  • Kawe
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    Kawe polycounter lvl 8
    Stop trying to do something you don't understand. The key is to understand what you are doing. What you are doing right now is just guessing. Now... guessing isn't bad but you don't even know what you are guessing at and what the results mean.

    I'd suggest finding some free models and look at how they are done. Or load up a game editor and check out their models and textures.

    Also leave that bake button alone.

    Also start out easy. Just texture a 6 sided cube (12tris) with only a diffuse map. I mean if you can't even do that I don't know how you are supposed to do it with two more maps.
  • fullofclovers
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    fullofclovers polygon
    I gotta agree with Kawe. I don't know if its that your being too ambitious beyond your skill level or what. Its not that its a bad thing to be ambitious, but you need a better understanding of the fundamentals.

    I had a look through your work and it all looks like you fudged your way through it. You come off not that well knowledged of the proper techniques and procedures to accomplish what it is you want to create and it shows in your work. First and foremost you need to truely understand the how and whys of creating digital content and then apply those principles.

    I'm not at all trying to get you upset. Just offering advice. I know it can be a bit discourageing to hear that you need more work. Really put in the time to become a better artist. It will show if you do.
  • Mark Dygert
    Yeah pea's got a point. Its to the point that parallax would be needed and its too expensive on such a throw away item. A few more polys would work best. Its better to add a few verts to get a good shape then it is to add expensive shaders.
  • chrismaddox3d
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