there is no real clean rule, it walways depends on your final output
considering your avatar is the style you are aiming for, you could actually approach it in a lot less standard way to achieve higher resolution textures
check the GuiltyGear XRD talks on that topic.
but yeah, the first thing i would do. apply one checke material and make sure all your assets have essentially the same texture resolution / texel density.
then you can puzzle those really quickly into on 0-1 space and see how pixelated it looks. is it acceptable? then you are good. Is it not? Then think about what you can do
you could for instance make the head bigger as it's a huge focus on your character. or the hands if first person is your goal. the arms and hands could also be their own sheet (like udim) to offset the load of the rest of the character in first person view etc.
you could certainly straighten your UVs more to be able to stack them better. the hands eat a ton of UVspace. a lot on that first sheet is so wobbly, if you straigten things some more you can gain some resolution, in exchange for slightly more stretching. Depending on the case.
you could take a look at ripped game content on platforms such as sketchfab. there are tons of overwatch assets for instance, including stuff i wouldnt be allowed to share myself. buzt there you have all that data and can analyze it.
Been a while, but since this is what I've been doing the past years, I should post too! Thanks for starting the thread.
My family bought a 1950 Icelandic timber house, and I'm doing all the renovations myself. This included teaching myself the icelandic plumbing system (which includes a low pressure radiator loop for heating as we get hot water as a service), electricity, and the icelandic window system, which is a very mature design based off decades of building wooden windows in the snowy and freezing island I call home. The last major update to the window system was from 1986 when I was 5.
The house had 20 windows, and we're adding 6, and all the windows have trim. We live on the same street as the major glass cutter, and they create the double panes for me, which I build the frame and opening bits for and then install. I'm also replacing the corrugated metal siding, a unique residential siding to Iceland from our early building boom in the 1900s, 1910s, and 1920s, where we arranged a trade between England who was producing this new product - sheep for corrugated metal. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-23/the-history-of-reykjavik-s-iron-and-wood-homes (read more here)
Trim was used to social signal the builders wealth. As someone who has now made 9 sets of trim with more to come, the hours add up, and normally need to be paid for when procuring a craftsman. Wood was all imported, and our tradesmen have always had strong unions and good wages. The wealthiest families paid to have elaborate trim created for their houses. Here is an example that probably took 20x the hours per trim set mine does.
Window trim is used to cover the seam between siding and window, the siding is near impenetrable, important for Iceland's brutal precipitation, likewise the window itself, but the border between? got to cover that. The trim serves that purpose, channeling the water away from the seams where it could get behind the metal siding. This is the original trim of the house, basic and functional, with as little wood as possible for cost savings.
The original design in 3d. I started every object as a box primitive corresponding to an off the shelf timber size, and then subtracted, keeping in mind I'd be making many multiples and advanced cuts would take much longer.
The main element of trim I wanted to have more facets for catching the light, and a bit of bulk so as not to rot away (thin wooden pieces don't last long in Icelandic weather) I have a 4 step plan with all table saw settings to be able to make lots of trim at once.
Now some window porn.
I've wanted a garden window since I learned of their existence. Buying one is about 4-5 thousand USD, but I made mine for under 500$ in materials (all windows about half the cost is the glass, which has icelandic labor cost built in)
The supports under are custom made by our other neighbors, a steel manufacture, from my design. The double scissor truss uses 2 beams at 30 and 60 degrees pinned in the middle instead of a single unit at 45 degrees. The half eyelets are to hang lanterns or potted plants.
This is our bedroom window, it started as two smaller windows and I built a tall thin one for the middle space and raised the height for a window wall. The outer trim is a single piece for upper and one for lower sill.
view from inside
Two sides of the house done. Currently I'm building my 3 largest windows yet, one with a single door, and one with double french doors, and the doors themselves are white oak whereas the rest are all from pine. I dimensioned the oak from raw planks using only hand planes.
This unit is 2,4 meters wide by 2 meters tall, the opening is 140cm wide with both doors open, with no center post.
I'm assembling them now, but the stain and lacquer effect I'm doing. I use a red stain, then clear two part epoxy lacquer.
Please notice my shapely calves, from hoofing the lumber home via foot as apposed to penis replacement, I mean truck.
Overall the topology routing around the major forms is well structured but the undulations in the shape is an issue. There's a lot of stray edge loops coming off some of those cut outs and this disrupts the segment spacing that controls the smoothing behavior of the curvature along the sides.
Dissolving some of these extraneous edge loops and connecting the corners of the cut outs to the nearest geometry segment may resolve some of the shape issues along the bottom and near the tail boom. Any left over triangles or n-gons that aren't causing major smoothing issues should be fine and can be left as is.
The basic shapes should generally be defined at a lower mesh density and the edge segments of the block out should be positioned to act as support loops for any intersecting shapes. Once the basic shape is correct it should be a fairly straightforward process of increasing the density of the base mesh to support any intersecting shapes.
Below is a basic example of what this type of block out process can look like. Start with the basic shapes and establish the topology layout then use modifiers to add features and support loops while adjusting the base mesh to match the shapes in the reference images. Clean up the mesh and make any final adjustments to the major forms then apply a reasonable amount of subdivision to evenly increase the geometry to support adding additional surface features.
Another option for the block out would be to outline the shapes with curves, match the segment counts and loft the geometry. There's a lot of different ways to approach modeling this kind of shape and the previous page has a few relevant discussions: Udjani shared a link to a video that covers adding details with a limited amount of cage mesh geometry and Sacboi shared a link to an excellent article about class A surfacing for vehicle models.
To recap:
The surface quality of the starting shapes tends to have a large impact on the mesh's overall appearance so it's important to have a solid base before adding details. It looks like the underlying mesh is good so try optimizing the geometry by dissolving some of the extraneous edge loops and see if that improves the smoothing behavior of the curvature along the sides of the model.
The underlying shapes are fairly simple and the shrink wrapping process may be adding a lot of unnecessary complexity. Try blocking out the shapes and using the existing geometry as support for the cut out. Even a basic mesh like this can support some fairly tight edges.
Here's a basic overview of what this process could look like. Trim and extrude a cube sphere to generate the starting shape. Add a support loop near the cut out. Use an inset operation to outline the shape and dissolve the last arc segment at the end of the shape then join the corner vertices to resolve the n-gon and add a support loop near the base of the corner. Use a bevel / chamfer modifier, controlled by edge weights, to generate the support loops. (Use arc miter to generate the proper support loop geometry in the corners.)
This type of topology layout should support both wide and narrow edge widths. How sharp the shape transitions need to be will depend entirely on the player's view distance. A couple of pages back there's another discussion that covers a similar shape in greater detail. The same topology strategy can also be used when attaching curved segments to flat shapes.
To recap:
Player's average viewing distance should be used as a benchmark for determining the appropriate edge width. Offsetting shape intersections allows the underlying geometry to be used as support without introducing severe deformation on curved surfaces.
Hi, first time here, wanted to try following a stylised concept in unreal so I've been working on the blockout for a few days. This is my progress with the models so far.
I know we have at least a few woodworkers on the boards, so let's see what you're working on or have made! Woodworking, home improvement projects, 3D printing, really anything you're making in the real world goes in this thread. Shots of your shop, new tools, etc, are also fair game.
Here's a side table I finished recently. It's made out of walnut and maple.
And here's a jig I put together to more safely and accurately do pattern routing. This piece is part of the leg assembling I'm making for some more side tables. The extra blocks around the workpiece keep the router perfectly level, which reduces cutting errors. It also gives a more stable platform so I can take slower/more precise cuts. It's a lot safer than doing it on the table router too. Everything is stuck down with double-sided tape so it can be repurposed later.
Here are some stacks of wood that are acclimating for future projects. There's a forestry service nearby that has really good prices on hardwood. They have limited supply, but it's all local/sustainably harvested. Much of this wood likely came down in the derecho storm that hit Iowa this fall.
Hi Guys, this is my final render, I learned a lot about the pipeline and I'd like to know your opnion about it, modeling, lighting and render. Here is my artistation with more images. Thank you
@thomasp I acctually took your advice and wrote them through twitter (twitter shaming) AND they freaking answered me 1000 times faster and they are looking into the whole thing!