Harbor Buoy

[lewist]

This is the high poly of a harbor buoy I've been working on for a few days now. I'll be starting the low poly soon, but I really wanted to post this up for some critiques beforehand. Right now I'm thinking of adding more bolts and possibility throwing it into a sculpting program to do some minor scratches or barnacles.

http://i1188.photobucket.com/albums/z412/lewist3D/lewisBuoyCritique_1.jpg

http://i1188.photobucket.com/albums/z412/lewist3D/lewisBuoyCritique_2.jpg

[Tea Monster]

Looks pretty good. Yeah, I'd get it into a sculpting program and put some dings or similar on there. The two I googled seemed to be much the worse for wear - mostly very heavy rusting under the water line.

I was certain that there would be some weld marks on those eyelets, but no :(

[lewist]

Finished up the low poly geometry - it's currently 7,756 triangles, which is probably a little excessive. I still need to go back and do some sculpting on the high-poly like Tea Monster suggested. As for now, it's time to do some unwrapping so I bake it later.

http://i1188.photobucket.com/albums/z412/lewist3D/lewisBuoyWires.jpg

http://i1188.photobucket.com/albums/z412/lewist3D/lewisBuoyCritique_3LowPoly-1.jpg

[LMP]

That low poly might work for a highest level LOD? I guess it depends how close you're going to get to it, if you'll be climbing on it, that's probably ok...

[Snader]

I'd say nearly 8K is quite a lot excessive. Everything depends heavily on how it will be viewed in the game, but I think you can cut this in half easily.

[SaferDan]

Yeah 8K is loads! You can cut back so much here!

It looks awesome though :)

[lewist]

I finally had a chance to work on this again! To everyone who said 8k is too much, you all are very, very correct. :) Here's the final, unwrapped version which currently stands at around 4k.

http://i1188.photobucket.com/albums/z412/lewist3D/buoy4k.jpg

Unfortunately, I've hit a bit of snag. I'm familiar with normals maps and baking from a higher poly mesh, but I've not had a lot of practice. Basically, the only detail I need to grab are the bolts and the indention that wraps around the base from the high poly. What's the best way to approach this? Baking the entire object? Should I try to hide all other parts of the mesh but what I want to bake? Should I just bake those details to a plane and just photoshop it?

[jackalope]

Low poly is looking good tim. Sorry i cant help you with the normal map baking. Maybe someone with more experience knows something?

[xXm0RpH3usXx]

me neither, but as i had to model 2 bouyes for work just a few weeks ago i know u are missing parts...
those bouyes have some fancy stuffo n top of them to show wther they mark the north/east/west/south side of the danger area they are depicting (does that make sense at all, if not i'll try to get my old references somewhere)