Colt Python Snub Nose

imb3nt · Feb 2013

Greetings Adventurers.

I've been working on this .357 mag for a little while and figured I should post some progress to try and get some feedback / insight.

Here is the low poly with a basic diffuse, normals and spec/gloss.

Wires.

Low poly with AO / Normals.

This is the high poly minus some surface details added to the grip in zbrush.

I'm still currently working on adding a few smaller details like the emblem on the grip, rotating pivot for the cylinder (not sure it's proper name) and the etched details across the weapon.

I got sidetracked trying to figure out some shading errors that are occurring on the edges of the body. In the first screenshot it makes the polished metal almost looked brushed. I think it might be the lack of hard edges in the bake since the errors start happening on the control edges I added but any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

theSixtyEight · Feb 2013

looks good, but man get rid of that chromatic aberations

Christian Nordgren · Feb 2013

I somewhat disagree with Paul. If it makes the piece look better: use it. But you could make it weaker.The chromatic aberation adds image grain which makes stuff interesting but you shouldn't take it away only if it makes your piece cooler.

same goes for: godrays, bloom, saturation and etc

maxivz · Feb 2013

I would use chromatic aberration as a final presentation tool, but still i would take exactlly the same screen without it so we can focus on the model itself. The model looks really good but i cant give any advices on the materials or textures as they are all blured up by the aberration thing

imb3nt · Feb 2013

Good point, thanks for the input guys. I start trying things out in Marmoset and get stuck on something I think looks cool before the model is even finished. Here is the same lighting setup with no post processing.

I'll be doing some tests when I get in from work to hopefully correct the shading issues I mentioned previously.

imb3nt · Mar 2013

Here's a better shot of the problems I'm running into.

You can see those shading errors are occurring right where I added my control edges. I've never had this problem in the past so if anyone has run into this before, let me know.

I'm going back through now removing the control edges and I'm going to try baking with smoothing groups and different UV islands.

maxivz · Mar 2013

make sure the low poly smothing groups match the one the cage uses, break the 90 degress angles on the smothing groups and textures

imb3nt · Mar 2013

Woo!

I managed to fix the shading errors over the weekend. Previously I had everything on 1 smoothing group and some control edges to take care of the harsh corners. This weekend I added new smoothing groups defining the hard edges and re-unwapped everything to give every group enough padding so they wouldn't get fussy. ALSO, what I think might have been causing other problems was the way I was using xNormal to bake. In the past I've always used the ray distance calculator to adjust the cage for me and have had pretty good luck. This time I went into the 3d previewer and manually adjusted the cage to each element and the bake turned out SUPER clean. Below are some screens of that and a little dDo wear and tear. I'm thinking about picking up nDo to make the text a little sharper than they are currently... next on the list is sculpting something up to put in the emblem on the grip, some bullets and more subtle details.

Removing the control edges put me just under 3k tris but that'll get bumped up a bit once I add some bullets.

*beware, images are pretty huge*

C&C welcome!

Thanks!

pixelpatron · Mar 2013

"She's a beaut Clark"

imb3nt · Mar 2013

Thanks!

imb3nt · Mar 2013

I've spent the better part of the weekend buttoning up little details that have been on my to-do list for a while. Here are some final renders. C&C still definitely welcome. Thanks!

Mellon3D · Mar 2013

So AWESOME!!!

JoshWilkinson · Mar 2013

This came out very, very nice. But I worry that some of your final renders have a severe amount of foreshortening that's kind of distracting. Particularly the third and fourth of these guys.

BradMyers82 · Mar 2013

Saw this over at the what are you working on thread. Really awesome job, man! The only critique I have is a very minor one. The scratches on the metal by the horse emblem (above the pistol grip) looks off to me. Its sorta like dots and stuff. I would just remove that detail entirely and leave the rest as is, or possibly play around with a more dramatic scratch detail there or better yet a oil smudge or something. Anyway, everything about it looked so perfect to me except that one point, so I thought I would mention. Great Job!

Lonewolf · Mar 2013

looks pretty cool man
i like the renders

Harbinger · Mar 2013

Looks pretty good! I think adding some dirt and grunge, or a hint of AO, to some areas would help "ground" the different mechanical pieces together. Forgive me if my gun terminology is off, but the area that sticks out to me the most is behind the cylinder, in front of the hammer.

Arthur Ramazanov · Mar 2013

Very cool

Oniram · Mar 2013

looks awesome. love the materials!

Colditz · Mar 2013

Like :thumbup:

lloyd · Mar 2013

Nice renders! what are you showing these in?

also can we see some textures?

imb3nt · Mar 2013

Thanks everyone for taking the time to stop by and give some feedback!

@lloyd - Thanks! The renders were taken in Marmoset Toolbag, my favorite rendering solution

. I'll post some textures up when I get in from work.

@Harbinger - I agree totally. I was trying out some new methods on this model to get the cleanest bake possible and ended up baking most of the parts of the gun separately. I see what you mean on the cylinder release. Since I didn't bake the gun completely assembled things seem kinda floaty, so I'll get on that and post some updates. I'm thinking it'll help out quite a bit. Thanks for the input!

@BradMyers82 - The more I look at the model the more I see what you mean. I was going for a cleaner yet very used look and those even pock marks kinda bug me the more I look at it. I think I'll clean up most of it and maybe add a brushed detail to the spec and see how that looks. I've watched a ton of youtube videos showing the gun but yesterday I watched a repair tutorial that showed how to sand and buff out dings, and more importantly how it looks afterwords with the very subtle brushed metal look. Either way I'll post some updates as I play around with this. Thanks!

@BringMeASunkist - Thanks! I kinda noticed that too. I don't think I'll put those in my portfolio. I'll probably try out rendering in UDK or maybe Cryengine since I would probably have more control over the FOV and camera settings. I suppose I should probably do some research and see if that is possible in Toolbag too. Maybe the solution is just zooming out further and rendering larger images. We shall see.

@everyone - Thanks again for the kind words.

I'll have some updates in the near future.

Cheers!

imb3nt · Mar 2013

Here's the maps used.

DWalker · Mar 2013

The texture for the sights doesn't fit the rest of the weapon. They both have a plastic look, when they are really painted metal (a subtle noise effect in the bump map helps sell the painted look.)

JoshWilkinson · Mar 2013

Hey the foreshortening on the gun is as simple as adjusting the "Feild of view" settings in the render tab. Do you have any experience in photography? Higher field of view means more narrow lens and more foreshortening; inverse for lower FOVs.

imb3nt · Mar 2013

Awesome! Crazy I never noticed that before. Thanks!

imb3nt · Mar 2013

13 mb .gif incoming!

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/220214/Screens/CP360.gif

Hopefully I'll free up some time to sit down and make some corrections here pretty soon. The more I look at the normal error on the cylinder, the more it bugs me... so I might crack it open and redo that too.

But first I'll get the AO on the small parts, polish out some of the divots and retexture the iron sights.

I'm pretty happy with the model as it stands but the whole point of me starting this one was to push myself and hone some skills along the way.

Thanks again BringMeASunkist, for some reason it was stuck in my head that FOV was a locked value. Makes me want to go back and re-render some old models.

razz · Mar 2013

That's a nice .gif! The model looks really great. I also like it that you went for a new looking gun, instead of a weathered, used one with scratches all over the place, which I think is the easy way out.
It looks amazing!

Colt Python Snub Nose

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