Prop-a-Day
polycounter lvl 12
Working on a portfolio is tough, I'm always motivated to model but I never know what it is I want to model! I decided that I'm going to bite the bullet, and model some props.. One prop every day (or close to it, I do have a life :P) for the next few weeks. I figure that I can post my day's events here, so everyone can watch my progress. Hopefully by the end of it I'll have a few good props, that I can put together in a scene for my portfolio.
So I'm kicking off today with a dumpster. I think the edges are a bit sharp in places, especially on the high poly, but I think I'm fairly happy with it.
High Poly
Low Poly
So I'm kicking off today with a dumpster. I think the edges are a bit sharp in places, especially on the high poly, but I think I'm fairly happy with it.
High Poly
Low Poly
Replies
- Alot of your overlays for grit and dirt on the texture go acrros whole unconnected parts on the structure which makes it look like an obvious overlay. Like the white spot on the lid and the rust on the indentions on the body,although it can be justified for the rust since rust drips. Make a few different overlays of grit and add masks to all of them in photoshop and make selections of different part of the dumpster and fill them in so the detail from one overlay does not run across all parts of a model whixh kills the realisim.
- Secondly edge higlights and scratchs on the corners and edges,if its a painted trash dumpster it will have its bumps and bruises which will expose the metal under the paint. Do it very subtlely so it does not seem painted on and helps crispen up the details like so.
See how the red paint has come off the sides of the box where it would be bumped and dropped? Like that on your dumpster. Highlights could even be rust. Edge highlights on lid too.
- some drippage overlays from certain areas would give it a nice rained on many times look,maybe under that metal ridge below the lid.
- As for your straight edges,well a little trick that works for me is in photoshop its a filter called liquify. It lets you move the details and slightly or even majorly distort them without blurring the details out,usually after make an object tha has too straight edges i do that. After you do the liquify i press and option called "save mesh" which saves all of the liquify details you have made and apply them to your details on your normal and spec so it all matches.
Good start so far,keep at it.
Also, if you keep modellnig props to a theme, your going to have a nice cohesive set of props that will wool even better on your portfolio!
Tommorow's model is going to be really simple because I won't have much time due to work. If I have time left I will fix up the dumpster's texture a little bit to make it pop a bit more.
Oh, and while I'm posting.. If anybody has any cool suggestions for props, tell me. If I like them, or they'll be good practice, I'll do it!
/edit @Fearian I'm going for a bit of an urban theme atm, so hopefully at the end it will all come together.
Good luck.
Depends on the prop though, simple props do take like 3-4 hours. Which is why i suggest that you dont bind yourself TOO much to "one model a day" limitation. Maybe you could do one in 2 days.or heck, maybe even 3. It also depends on how many hours does your "day" have though lol
Ive always had more ofun making environments rather than props for them first
Good luck though, the dumpster looks pretty dandy
If you must time constrain yourself that much id at least give 2 days even for simple props...therefore you can finish it,post it up,sleep (while the polycount vultures tear it apart
However yeah I don't agree with doing a prop a day routine unless its old school work (diffuse only painted stuff) and not next gen since the time constraint is just to much to make anything decent.
Good luck anyway!.
john
Also, I'm not limiting myself to one day, I think Prop-a-Day just sounds cool, and is a good safe limit. If I have something that requires more time than that, or I have a day which I cannot work on (most weekends for eample) I won't be stressing to complete things. It's all just a guide for fast, simple objects to improve my art. It isn't all going into my folio.
That said, it's really cool to see you taking on something like this. Best of luck!
I don't like it at all, but I figured I'd post it anyway.
As I said yesterday, I didn't have as much time today so I wanted to keep it simplish, you can't get much simpler than a sculpted cube. The main reason why I did this though, is because I'm quite new to sculpting, doing a wrecked concrete cube thing is good practice for sculpting and texturing.
High Res:
Low Res + Texture:
I don't mind the High Poly too much, it's much better than anything else like this that I've sculpted in Mudbox, anything solid I sculpt comes out looking like melting butter. Practice makes perfect anyways, hence why I'm doing what I'm doing.
The Low poly annoys me greatly, I can't seem to shake the seams. The craters look like a moon rock or something. I don't like it, But I thought I'd post my progress anyway.
In reply to all your comments, I totally forgot the wheels on the dumpster! I would have put them in if I'd thought of it, I don't think it's the end of the world though, as I've seen dumpsters without wheels before. I should also mention again that the day a model thing is not set in concrete, If I need more time I will allow for it. If I'm doing something a bit more complex, I will allow for the extra day or so to do it. I'm trying to keep the props simple though, even simpler on days I don't have much time. I am doing this mostly for practice.
Anyway, hopefully tommorow is a bit better for me.
But i approve of the setting of a clear time-budget and theme for filling a portfolio decently fast without getting lazy.
I'm keen to start though!
As I said yesterday, Today is a two parter.. I actually think I'll take everybody's advice and do 1 prop every 2 days; one day for the high poly, and day two for texturing, with the lowpoly and UV mapping somewhere inbetween.
Anyway, today I have a Butterfly Knife to show off. It's nothing too ornate, I just wanted to practice some more complicated hard surfaces, such as the blade. I've had alot of fun doing this, I did alot of research on how these things work so this could be animated if I wanted. I'm quite happy with it.
also, its important to think about how you build up the texture
where is dirt going to stick, where will these scratches occure, or rust,
is an object going to rust in the midle of a flat surface, or more around edges, or how does it look close to the ground compared to other spots..
study those, so you do not have a random texture, but something that makes sense
good luck man,
I'm taking the advice of alot of you guys and putting a bit more effort into the texture on this one, so It's taking a bit longer. I've never tried to texture stainless steel before and it's proving a bit of a challenge. I still need to work on the handle, but because I'm about to go to sleep, I thought I'd post my progress on the blade and have you guys pick it apart.
Quick Render..
Thoughts?
But if you wanted the knife to look like it has been used somewhat, usually knives show that they've been scratched, but also resharpened and the area near the blade worn more.
I think I should be doing a texture a day, instead of bothering to model.. My texturing skills are woeful.