Grusti's progress thread

Grusti · Mar 2014

That moment has come!
I want to be better and I decided I must have a feedback from people who better in some cases than I am.
So, if you have some advice, tips, funny stories tell me and I'll be very grateful.
Any advice would be great! Crit, crit and more crit )))

Grusti · Mar 2014

For my first model I choose concept by Rook D.

At this moment I have this ...

[SKETCHFAB]b19ccd28fe994000b60f4b18df8e7340[/SKETCHFAB]

Feedback would be very appreciated

Greenmutze · Mar 2014

the model looks good so far. will you also make a high poly ?

Grusti · Mar 2014

Thx you! Yes, of course

Grusti · Mar 2014

Low poly Done!

[SKETCHFAB]16540626f849419fb68646f19be9e1d5[/SKETCHFAB]

luge · Mar 2014

can you post some screens/renders of the model for us? because me, and probably a few others, can not view the models.

Grusti · Mar 2014

Some screenshots for you guys

luge · Mar 2014

its looking really good. You have a bunch of areas where you can reduce geo and still retain your silhouette by collapsing edges and removing some that are unnecessary. the definition is good for a low poly aside from that fact. by the looks of it though, you have started to add support edges for a high-poly, but they are too tight with the way they are set-up. Heres a quick paintover of spots i'm talking about:

When you bake all this down, it will not bake very well.

Grusti · Mar 2014

hmmm ... Now I start thinking it's not very low poly))
Thanks for your comments I will try fix some issue and start doing high poly

Joost · Mar 2014

Most people start with a high poly first and then move on to a low poly.

I wouldn't optimize your low poly yet. Use this as a base to start your high poly and then derive your final low poly from that. You'll probably have to re-adjust the shape of your low poly to match the high poly. And it's a lot easier to make a high poly if you still have all your edge loops.

luge · Mar 2014

yeah, hes right on that, worst case, just make a copy of the low-poly so you have something work with when the high-poly is done, or completely retop... when it comes to that its really what you find is more comfortable. but its best to keep all edge loops for now while you build the high poly in order to make it easier instead of having to connect edges together because of incomplete ones.

Bek · Mar 2014

Currently the model seems more like a blockout than either low or high; which isn't really a bad thing. From here you can do as luge says and make the high/low based from this blockout (As Ben Bolton does in his g56 video, which has a lot of good information you will benefit from: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=128414 )

You've got a lot of floating/intersecting geo; for your lowpoly I would suggest merging those pieces. Here are some reasons for/against: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=117017

And just some stuff I noticed from the concept (which isn't yours but you should still think about) : How does the bolt work when it isn't in line with the barrel? Why is the bolt handle on the left side?

Hope that helps.

DWalker · Mar 2014

The bolt and especially the cover over the bolt don't seem quite right. If you look closely at the concept, you can notice that the cover is more of a rounded octagon than a cylinder. The rear of the bolt should be simpler - just a cylinder tapering in a single segment; the extrusion in yours isn't in the concept.

Many of the other shapes follow the rounded-octagon shape, most notably the barrel and the upper stock.

The various dimples - the pink cylinders in your model, dark gray in the concept - are also overly complex and don't have quite the right shape. The should angle into a ledge, run for a short bit, then angle back to the original height; the cup itself is straight. You can (and probably should) smooth the edges on either side of the ledge, but this can probably exist only in the normal map/high-poly.

Also, don't forget the scope; it's kind of important for sniper rifles...

As far as the bolt being on the left, keep in mind that there are left-eye dominant people; not all shooters are rightys.

Also, you're assuming that the rifle fires bullets; to me, it looks more like a laser than a traditional rifle.

The yellow portions on the concept sketch almost look emissive - most notably those on the barrel and above the fore-grip.

Your yellow portion's shape isn't right; it's too thick and misses the cutouts of the concept. Overall, I'd say that you're probably better off eliminating the geometry there and just handling it in the normal map/high-poly where you can accurately model the complex shape.

The fore-grip is another of those rounded octagons, rather than the cylinders you have. There really are very few cylindrical shapes on this design - the bolt, the scope, and the pistol grip and bottom of the stock are about the only major parts that are round...

Grusti · Mar 2014

OMG! So much information!

Grusti · Mar 2014

@komaokc @luge - Thanks for advice guys!

@Bek - About floating/intersecting geo - I will definitely do that. and thx for the links! I was think about the bolt ... Maybe just throw him away and place the scope on his spot?

@DWalker - I will try my best to fix some parts) Thank you for extended tip!

Grusti · Apr 2014

Some progress shots!

Grusti · Apr 2014

Since my last update I made:
*Lowpoly
*Unwrapping
*Prepared mesh for bake!

Some Multi/sub fun!

Joost · Apr 2014

It's looking good! I'd check out this thread for your low poly. http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=117017

Grusti · Apr 2014

Grusti · Apr 2014

Grusti · Apr 2014

I learned soooooooo much from this model ... and I want more

Bek · Apr 2014

Some feedback / thoughts:

Generally speaking don't render with a black background; aim for a dark grey like Polycount's background colour.
The DDO texture presentation isn't that practical if you want people to critique your textures / uving
I would avoid using the detail presets in legacy dDo. They can be helpful for minor things, but for the gritty details you should be using photo overlays (with a lot of thought as to how and where wear accumulates, rather than just sticking some grunge on and calling it done). You can of course hand paint scratches, smudges and other details.
Dilation/Edge padding. You can see bleeding of the black wasted space in your texture on the edges of your map. This will get worse as the textures mip.
How much of this is mirrored in the textures? Did you find, when texturing, the location of any seams made areas difficult to paint? Could you have rearranged/mirrored any pieces to save space / make texturing easier? That is something you'll want to consider for your next project, as it is something you can only comprehend having gone through the whole model/unwrap/texture process.
Material definition. dDo is excellent at quickly blocking in base material values, so you can see what works and spend more time on hand painted details, rather than tweaking D/S/G independently, which is a monotonous task. Currently I'm not sure what materials this weapon is made out of, it might help for the next project to have some recognizable steel parts that you can have recognisable wear, tear and stains on.
How did you go about handling texel density? Ideally you want to keep it consistent, as inconsistencies are much more noticeable than an overall lower density. I can see the strange sort of cheek-pad area on this rifle seems to have a lower density than other parts, which is a mistake as it is quite close to the camera in the first person view you posted.
Another note about the legacy dDo wear is that it looks quite repetitive and fake. You could have manually masked out some areas to add some variety to their placement. A lot of the presets also work as a 'show seams' button, since they can't magically tile and tend to gather around uv borders. Use them sparingly, if at all. Some polycounters with excellent textures share their flats which are well worth looking at, some that come to mind are Milennia, Pat JS and Ben Bolton (pc username Amsterdam Hilton Hotel, search for his stuff if you're interested), although disturbingly his portfolio has been offline for a month or so.
With PBR being the fancy new thing everyone is getting excited about, you'll want to have a look at the fantastic resources posted by the Marmoset team, which covers pbr theory + practicals, and they also have some general texturing advice. If you have TB2 there's a diving helmet scene from Earthquake you can download somewhere; you might find it helpful to see the files and how they behave yourself. Here are the links:

http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-theory
http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-practice
And an older tutorial still of great value:
http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/materials

one quick point is that we're moving away from including baked light in the diffuse (albedo), as this isn't realistic. You'll have noticed legacy ddo loves to add AO to your diffuse and specular by default.
If you want crits of your lowpoly, you're going to have to post wireframes. Larger cylinders require more geometry to appear as round as smaller ones, so give appropriate geo based on their scale, rather than just using the same number of sides for all.
Is nDo part of your workflow? There is a free older version which is just a photoshop script on the net somewhere.

DWalker wrote: »

As far as the bolt being on the left, keep in mind that there are left-eye dominant people; not all shooters are rightys.

Yeah, I'm left eye dominant; I just wanted to make sure these things were being considered (not that one is necessarily right or wrong).

Grusti · Apr 2014

I must share more love to my textures...
Thx for your words

Grusti's progress thread

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