Try to avoid solid white bg, its harsh on the eyes. You have a ton of loops that are doing nothing. You should work on learning sub-d and using turbosmooth
As far as the gun, i would concentrate more on the shape before moving on like
Stock should be more rounded and its a separate piece from the receiver
The ejection port is not the right shape as in the reference
The pump is not the correct shape, it should be more rounded
The very tip of the pump should be connected to the top barrel
The shape seems nice, the stock/handle area (the bit at the back) could do with a bit of work. Probably pulling down some of the bottom loops to make it more curved and less boxy.
i think you would be better studying reference a bit more and working toward a good solid low poly mesh with a better topology(i'm roughly guessing this could be fit for purpose at around 2-3k polys).
if its any help, cRA5H in this thread http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=138341&page=2 has linked to a stubby shotgun mesh you could download and study. You'll see by the pic its similar.
If you're spending polys on the end cap of the barrel, why not make it a tube instead of a cylinder?
The smoothing of the end of the magazine tube is just wrong. It's beveled, not round, and there's no reason to have more than a single cap segment.
In general, it's best to selectively apply smoothing. Flat objects (e.g. the front sight) don't benefit at all from the extra polygons, and even for curved surfaces, different objects require different levels of smoothing.
You're also modeling things as a solid piece that have no business being together. I know you want to move on, but the high poly will have the most influence on your final model than any other pass. Model things as they appear in real life. i.e. Barrel *tube* with a front sight post fastened on. Apply that line of thinking to every piece you model ever.
Also, you're width looks off. You may be focusing to much on the reference image side view. Keep looking at all angles to get all the proportions right.
Stock looks way better. Take your time and flesh things out better too. You'll be happy you did.
I've watched the tutorial, it's amazing btw, and I have questions, when we are modeling the high poly model we don't need to worry about turbosmoothing + smooth groups? And we don't need to worry about the polygon count? And he use lots of supporting edges, is this right or bad habit?
It looks like there might be some shading errors on your stock? Also, the trigger guard and metal piece that fastens the pump to the barrel are extremely thick.
I'd really consider finding a pump shotgun and deciding to model as close to whatever reference you decide; millenia chose an M37 Ithaca shogun. A couple weeks ago I did a realistic take on a stylized concept, using a Mossberg 500 for as much realism as I could.
A huge amount of what's lacking is how this functions. Why are there no grooves in the pump? When I'm a badass Navy Seal and I've just come out of the water and pump my shogun, but it's smooth and my hands are slippery? That thing's useless. You need more ergonomics. And ergonomics usually add visual interest. Also think of it this way: shotguns are <half> designed to be able to be easily disassembled by joe-shmo for transporting/ cleaning and <half> designed to be only disassembled by a gunsmith and his exotic tools. So a pump shotgun will always have a cap on the end of the pump so it can be disassembled, and that cap will always have grooves for easy twisting; like the cap of a bottle of soda. Inversely, the frame of the shotgun will always have tiny holes for a gunsmith's tools. Next is the story telling aspect; shotguns are fairly inexpensive and therefore are customized quite frequently. Is the barrel sawed off? Add some gnarly saw cuts and make the end of the barrel's cylinder slightly imperfect. Has the wooden stock been replaced with a plastic or rubberized pistol grip for easier concealment/ maneuverability? Or maybe the wooden grip has been sawed off as well and there's an awkward wooden stump? Maybe that wood is old, rotten, cracked or splintery? In my shotgun project, the wooden grip was destroyed and the metal frame was wrapped in cardboard and duct tape. If you want to add a heat shield, those have nice, unique bolts at the end that will add more visual variety to the model. Or those ammo racks for easy access to more shells?
I think you need more reference images of what you are making. It looks like a Mossberg 500 variant, so start there. Find images of all the parts from as many angles as you can get. To echo sunkist, try to make this a functioning object. It has many parts that move, and interact. Example, where is the pump arm? There is nothing connecting the forearm (pump) to the bolt carrier. The ring clamp on 500 barrels are soldered, effectively making the ring mount, and barrel one piece. You have a large gap between the barrel and clamp. Also, for some reason I see this so often and always have to comment on it, the magazine tube is WAY too scrawny. Entire shotshells have to fit inside that. The magazine tube needs to be the same diameter as the chamber side of the barrel, or it would never work. The bottom of the reciever is not flat, it is curved. Not as much as the top of the receiver, but it is indeed curved.
Finally, the ejection port; cut that center section out and put a bolt carrier in there. There are other things too, but lets get the first group resolved first and then worry about the nitpicking later. You can make a good model, just study the references closely.
Hey guys, i'm having a trouble baking the normal map, those parts are smoothed on high poly model but there they are messy, anyone have an ideia what may cause this?
I'm not 100% sure, but it might be happening because you don't have enough edge loops on your low poly to get a smooth bake. Try adding more loops to the curved parts of the low poly model.
Anyone knows what are those colors?? I've searched on google and nothing useful showed up
I've done the baking over and over again(recreated the projection too), and it still looks the same
Are you baking in max or xNormal? It looks like some of those colors are from edge padding. I've never baked in max but I think xNormal defaults to 8px of padding? What that means is that when the camera is further from te object, some engines will auto-downsize the maps. The padding just ensures that the normal map stays accurate within the UV shells.
If those colors are within the UV shells, then you have some warping going on with your normal. That's a result of you not exploding the different parts of the shotgun so the cage is picking up different meshes and registering the normals in whatever direction is in the cage. I dunno. Hard concept to explain. Just seperate all the pieces of the shotgun far enough away so that the cage doesn't intersect any of the other pieces.
The last bit is to just inspect how it looks on the model. If it's within the UV shells but the shells are covered up by other pieces, it's not worth fixing. Normal maps are tricky like that; not the kind of thing you can just inspect on the texture sheet.
Did you set up the cage properly? Looks like the results of a Ray miss - happens when the cage doesn't encompass both the low and high poly in some places.
Also, did you triangulate the model before baking? Normally it works with quads and ngons as well, but I often get very messy cages if I haven't triangulated the mesh first.
Test it out in engine. If you can't see any shading errors then you're golden. Although I think exploding the meshes and rebaking is the safest bet, to get a real nice bake.
Now here is the Normalmap, the AO and one picture of a render done in marmoset 2
One question guys, why the render is so much better in marmoset? in max it looks so much inferior, even when realistic is turned on.
Since you have marmoset,why not just load your textures there? When you update them from photoshop (or whatever editor you are using) they auto-update.
1. with all the high poly shots I keep thinking that it shows the quality of it better if there is some highlight info on the material, which wasn't there until you put it in Marmoset.
2. general advice with the normal, check your smoothing groups, makes sure the edges of both meshes are close up to each other, make sure it is a good resolution, tangents aren't flipped (you used Max so they probably aren't), push the cage out just enough, and above all else it really helps to bake via explosion or selection sets, rather than baking it all in one piece.
Hey guys, what you think about the texture? I'm following the M37Ithaca tutorial pretty slowly because I've never textured anything, it's taking so long to do simple things haha
Textures are really flat atm, but you're making good progress. Study texture sheets of metal textures from some of the pros around here for ideas about how to add material definition. It's a big subject and takes time getting used to so don't get impatient. Study and work this texture thoroughly, then move on to your next project.
looks like youve just started the diffuse texturing and a lot of the scratches are in odd patterns and not in places that would actually get scratched and probably too big and thick. keep refering back to that reference, youve got a way to go still, really define the materials properly with roughness and metal and it will pop! keep at it!
The greaty majority of the scratch are in the specular map so I don't get why they still appear when light isn't hitting them directly, anyone knows how?is it the light of marmoset doing this?
I'd really recommend that you stop scratching right now and try to define your materials. Is your stock wood? Polymer plastic? Rubberized? Is your barrel blued metal? Parkerized metal? Like the previous poster suggested, define your materials.
Replies
As far as the gun, i would concentrate more on the shape before moving on like
Stock should be more rounded and its a separate piece from the receiver
The ejection port is not the right shape as in the reference
The pump is not the correct shape, it should be more rounded
The very tip of the pump should be connected to the top barrel
There are screws and hardware missing
[IMG][/img]
For demonstration purpose is it better if I put a black background?
if its any help, cRA5H in this thread http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=138341&page=2 has linked to a stubby shotgun mesh you could download and study. You'll see by the pic its similar.
This is turbosmoothed.
Polys: 27.640 Tris: 27.694
@Donofdon
Oh thx, i'll study this when I get to low polly!
The smoothing of the end of the magazine tube is just wrong. It's beveled, not round, and there's no reason to have more than a single cap segment.
In general, it's best to selectively apply smoothing. Flat objects (e.g. the front sight) don't benefit at all from the extra polygons, and even for curved surfaces, different objects require different levels of smoothing.
Also, you're width looks off. You may be focusing to much on the reference image side view. Keep looking at all angles to get all the proportions right.
Stock looks way better. Take your time and flesh things out better too. You'll be happy you did.
Now I did some changes and turbosmoothed with groups.
Polys are now at: 8.832 and Tris: 8.886
watch this, its a very similar model to yours and will teach you a lot hopefully.
Tris: 2496
It looks like there might be some shading errors on your stock? Also, the trigger guard and metal piece that fastens the pump to the barrel are extremely thick.
I'd really consider finding a pump shotgun and deciding to model as close to whatever reference you decide; millenia chose an M37 Ithaca shogun. A couple weeks ago I did a realistic take on a stylized concept, using a Mossberg 500 for as much realism as I could.
A huge amount of what's lacking is how this functions. Why are there no grooves in the pump? When I'm a badass Navy Seal and I've just come out of the water and pump my shogun, but it's smooth and my hands are slippery? That thing's useless. You need more ergonomics. And ergonomics usually add visual interest. Also think of it this way: shotguns are <half> designed to be able to be easily disassembled by joe-shmo for transporting/ cleaning and <half> designed to be only disassembled by a gunsmith and his exotic tools. So a pump shotgun will always have a cap on the end of the pump so it can be disassembled, and that cap will always have grooves for easy twisting; like the cap of a bottle of soda. Inversely, the frame of the shotgun will always have tiny holes for a gunsmith's tools. Next is the story telling aspect; shotguns are fairly inexpensive and therefore are customized quite frequently. Is the barrel sawed off? Add some gnarly saw cuts and make the end of the barrel's cylinder slightly imperfect. Has the wooden stock been replaced with a plastic or rubberized pistol grip for easier concealment/ maneuverability? Or maybe the wooden grip has been sawed off as well and there's an awkward wooden stump? Maybe that wood is old, rotten, cracked or splintery? In my shotgun project, the wooden grip was destroyed and the metal frame was wrapped in cardboard and duct tape. If you want to add a heat shield, those have nice, unique bolts at the end that will add more visual variety to the model. Or those ammo racks for easy access to more shells?
The stock and the pump will be rubberized, i'll do it in the texture and the normal map. For now i'm planning to do as if it's a new weapon.
Little update: remade the pumper on high poly and added a little detail to the stock
Finally, the ejection port; cut that center section out and put a bolt carrier in there. There are other things too, but lets get the first group resolved first and then worry about the nitpicking later. You can make a good model, just study the references closely.
Thx for the feedback, I'll look those parts!
Any C&C is welcomed
I've done the baking over and over again(recreated the projection too), and it still looks the same
If those colors are within the UV shells, then you have some warping going on with your normal. That's a result of you not exploding the different parts of the shotgun so the cage is picking up different meshes and registering the normals in whatever direction is in the cage. I dunno. Hard concept to explain. Just seperate all the pieces of the shotgun far enough away so that the cage doesn't intersect any of the other pieces.
The last bit is to just inspect how it looks on the model. If it's within the UV shells but the shells are covered up by other pieces, it's not worth fixing. Normal maps are tricky like that; not the kind of thing you can just inspect on the texture sheet.
Also, did you triangulate the model before baking? Normally it works with quads and ngons as well, but I often get very messy cages if I haven't triangulated the mesh first.
Try this: [ame="
Thx for the really cool tutorial man!
Now here is the Normalmap, the AO and one picture of a render done in marmoset 2
One question guys, why the render is so much better in marmoset? in max it looks so much inferior, even when realistic is turned on.
Short answer, better shaders.
slighty longer answer, better lighting. in Max, lighting is linked to camera. In Marmoset, it's the skybox
2. general advice with the normal, check your smoothing groups, makes sure the edges of both meshes are close up to each other, make sure it is a good resolution, tangents aren't flipped (you used Max so they probably aren't), push the cage out just enough, and above all else it really helps to bake via explosion or selection sets, rather than baking it all in one piece.
Thanks man, really appreciate the advice.
Hey guys, what you think about the texture? I'm following the M37Ithaca tutorial pretty slowly because I've never textured anything, it's taking so long to do simple things haha
Thanks man!
Little Update to texture.