Looks like almost the whole thing is one solid mesh? ARE YOU INSANE?! :P why not place all those small details as floaters ontop? If I'm wrong then I appologize :)
I'm making some progress. My workflow usually consists of starting the low poly like this. I have floaters to help me visualize what the end product will look like.
yeah, i was thinking of modelling it in, but at the depth it is the top of the magazine clips through the indents, so i left it. if the bake doesn't go well, ill redo it with more important floaters modeled in.
raul: Thanks :) Another update, closing in on the finish line for the highpoly now. Please come with critics and suggestions :) "I know i forgot to turn off turn of shadows for some of the floaters ;)"
Nice, didn't know about that Neox. Could the same result be achieved if I made a material mask for the floaters, and manually gaussian blurred that in Photoshop, or is there any visual difference with Maya's way?
Can you show a screenshot of what you mean by waviness? For the floating geometry, does your cage fully cover the floating elements? Are the floaters selected in the highpoly mesh list in RTT?
oh, something I always do is change the "H" shortcut from "select from scene" to the "selection floater" I don't know why the two exist and select from scene is the default because it's just a shittier version of the selection floater. The selection floater has the same features but it takes up less screenspace, uses text…
Thanks for the help, I just figured that out by fiddling with things. I'm still not sure how to apply said shader to only certain geometry like my floaters. But are you saying if I turn off the background layer the floaters will still render in the AO bake but won't cast shadows? So what is the issue with Modo's AO baking?…
Turned out good! Yeah next time try with floaters on both sides. The most important thing is that you acctually finished this piece from start to finish! =) And hopefully learned a bit from it!
hookay so done with the basic shapes for the high poly all the pieces are turbosmoothed up and now i just add some more details and floaters Uploaded with ImageShack.us edit: better render