Hi guys,

Just thought I'd post some work I've done here to get some feedback and criticism.

Here's a scifi-ish rifle I have "completed" a couple of months ago. I know it's not perfect and I could have done better. I hope fellow polycounters here will take some time to point me in the right direction

Here's the beauty shots:



Hi-Poly model:



and construction shots:




I'm having problems getting the normal map to pop a little bit more... I think I might have overused the AO for the diffuse texture. How would you guys approach this?

Your texturing is interesting. Lots of color values and gradients with some sort of busy detail under it all. Still a cool model, and I kinda fancy the diffuse. To better address your "normal needing to pop more" problem, let's see them flats.

Nice tri count too. Hell, I'd say get that gun uprezzed to around 3-4k tris and make it really nice. "next gen" yo! XD

is that noise in your diffuse intentional?

@SouthpawSid: Thanks for the feedback! I wanted to spend more polys on it but I was making it for a platformer (where 809 might still be a little overkill :P) I wouldn't mind going back in and might a higher poly version though.
A friend of mine tells me it looks a bit Borderlands-ish in style. It is a bit my fault, I was going for something a bit more realistic but I might have overused the AO and colour, making it a little bit more cartoony.

@Salman_fas: It was intentional. I wanted to give it a little bit more grit. I know I should have taken the time and draw in scratch marks and grit but I had to move on to something else so I make a quick grit layer in photoshop and masked it here and there.

Here's the gun with (1) Normal only and (2) Normal + Diffuse (Without Spec)

(1)

(2)


As you can see it seems to lose a large amount of detail from the normal map after I shove in my diffuse.

A good spec map is really key to making the normal map pop with metal materials. Can we see your spec map?

yeah the reason your normal maps isn't popping is because of lack of specularity.

Here's the specmap:



But I'm wondering, does it also kill the effects of the normal maps if your diffuse is too dark?

"But I'm wondering, does it also kill the effects of the normal maps if your diffuse is too dark?"

yes. depending on your games lighting engine. but any engine with physically correct lighting it would. Diffuse or albedo tells the engine how much diffuse light bounces off the surface and enters the camera. if you make your diffuse very dark then you limit the lightings range significantly unless you have specular... and no material in the real world is black...very dark granted but not black, as black is the complete lack of light.
Im mostly a lighting artist and do have to have this conversation alot with artists. large black objects can really fuck with a games light adaption if your running in HDR as the game will try to adjust to the pure black (physically incorrect) object over brightening the scene.

anyway grumble aside- i think it would be wise to re-do your diffuse starting with block colours, and really tone down the use of AO bake as that looks way too strong. and yeah same for spec...i find its sometimes better to work on spec without the diffsuse (just normals amd spec) this should allow you to really get the materials feeling right befor adding the diffuse which IMO should always just be treated as a colour filter