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SMG_Sexy
August 12, 2011 - 11:36pm
- 10689 reads
So ive been workin on this for the past month or so. After working out a few kinks with the original concept artist, it was underway in no time. It was super fun to work on this gun. its the first "military-esque" gun ive done so far, and its neat to see something like this with and w/out attachments. 
so here comes the wall of images.
Concept (By Eliott Lilly):
Game-Res specs:
Tri Count - 8.6k
Textures: x2 (4096 x 2048) - Diffuse/Spec/Gloss/Normal
I remember this on Polycount
Awesome job, man!
Promoted
awesome work .........
fantastic! Great detail! Only crit is the muzzle...too many faces to justify from the position of the gun. You don't really need to model in the twist IMO. Other than that it's flawless!
thanks everyone.
@jakejohnson. i had been trying to figure out what to do with that for a while, and the twist was the best solution. using just a cylinder made it look super sketchy. and as a port piece, i try to avoid that. making a cylinder wouldve only saved about 300 triangles, so its not too big a deal.
Sounds goo to me. Coming from a background in tech art as well, I cringe at the render passes just for this one asset, and not just because its large, but because its a dynamic asset with potential bones for animation. lol maybe create a game rez version to tickle some employers funny bones. haha in the end it really doesn't matter but it's something to think about when doing port pieces you plan on having a team of art/tech artists viewing for a job. But I'm just a stickler really nice work man.
Geometry isn't that big of an issue anymore with the newer game engines. Its materials and fx that are the main concern. I personally think this is great, and while its a tad heavier than some games, it still would work perfectly in a game like Crysis 2 or BF3.
Once again, great job
-Jeremy-
Not speaking about geo, but why add geo where no camera is ever going to view? Anywho, If I'm looking at it right, Diffuse 1st pass, spec 2nd pass, gloss 3rd pass, normal 4th pass. That's a hefty render count for a dynamic asset, unless your spec is in the alpha channel and your gloss is part of your spec.
I actually think a lot of the "LP Game Art" I've seen on this forum is too low. Texture bakes can't make up for things that just look too flat and angular. I personally believe that games like Call of Duty and Gears of War rely too heavily on textures. Also, things like free cameras, game saves, game films, and machinima really mean that the new "next gen" needs to have a better focus on this going forward. Since Halo 3, games really can't afford to not have these features. All this amounts to higher geometry than what we have seen over the last 3 years or so. With cameras being able to go just about anywhere and up close for high detail and micro bumps and micro detail textures, objects need attention to all sides. IMHO
Great work Oniram. I will say that I think 4096 is over doing it though.
-Jason
@jakejohnson.. i understood pretty much 0% of what was said with that 1st pass thing..
Now not to be rude but this is inaccurate... "Not speaking about geo, but why add geo where no camera is ever going to view?" In any fps or tps it that supports multiplayer the muzzle would be viewed... What if their was any form of sniping... Wouldn't the first thing u prob see if you go a body shot be the muzzle... You might not see it as the player but other players would... Also most computers don't lag cause of polygon count it typically the special effects and textures... I have seen huge difference in performance by lowering texture resolution over polygon count...
generally.. i budgeted myself based off of a next-gen quality gun. The muzzles in Brink were roughly 500 triangles.. as were mine. the gun isnt even 9k so there would never be any lag because of it. period.
so i just decided to take the gun into UDK. just as a static mesh. i made 1024 copies (totaling in 1025). the 1025th was a really big one above all the others which i shot and made all of them collide into each other. only then, did my framerate dip.
That's one sexy submachine gun! Love the work you put in those textures, nice specs and the saturation is just right imo. Only thing slightly (very slightly!) bugging me is the sight attachment as it looks like a really flat textures used for it, on both sides. Could've used a bit more attention there, but really, that's all I can think off after spinning it around for a couple of minutes Awesome work and well worth a spotlight 
And about the geo vs. texture discussion, I'd like to point out (@ Anonymous) while special FX and textures/shaders are indeed becoming more the bottlenecks in nextgen games, most FPS use 2 different models for the guns. One for the player itsef (the first person version) and one for the other players to see (3rd person). The latter one having less detail and geometry ofcourse.
Anyway, just my 2 cents
@ BadKarma - I agree that the process of having a super high LOD for first person and a high for regular game play has been the norm for going on 12 years but that is old tech. From my perspective it's just force of habit, a comfort zone for many developers to not fix what isn't broken in this regard. My argument above about cameras fits in here as well. I'm going to talk about Halo again so just bear with me because it's what I know. I know for a fact that in Halo Reach, artists only made the super high first person version of any asset. The Reach engine has a feature called Impostering which is different from LODs. The Reach SDK auto creates different levels of blob geometry with with averaged vertex coloring until you get within a certain distance. This can be throttled globally or by object name within the engine itself giving artists more time and freedom with the assets themselves resulting in higher quality and productivity. As artists, I think its time to start pushing back against the programers to force them out of their comfort zones. Or try to get a job at a company that employs it's own game engine instead of buying one. These companies are the ones pushing the envelope.
Agreed on all those points mrsdoublefire! Like in any other industry, crossing borders and leaving a certain comfort zone as you described, is definitely needed to improve existing techniques or create and apply new ones.
I do not have extensive experience yet in the area of LODs, other than some in UDK, Unity and CryEngine, so thanks for the info on Reach Most auto-LODs that I've experienced so far didn't come out the way I wanted, so Impostering seems like a huge time safer indeed. I don't think there's a public SDK for it, right? Just Forge for map creation? Also curious now how Frostbite 2 might handle weaponry nowadays...
Ah well, I guess in the end it all depends on the engine and what the designers have in mind with the assets and cinematics. Thanks for the insight!
Unfortunately, no. There is no public SDK for the current Halo engine. The point I am really trying to hit home is not to burden yourself with the constraints of what has passed and what you think UDK will allow you to do and just try to make the best quality assets you can. I think studios want UDK experience more for the fact that you are experienced in the work flow of asset creation and implementation on an engine.
It's a balancing act I know.
@Anonymous - Recent games have been adding model and character viewers so gamers can look at the models from all angles. Its no longer a static view. Even games like Crysis and Crysis 2 have implemented things such as the gun modification menu. Imagine having a detailed design such as Oniram's twisted nozzle. But bake it to a flat surface and then view it using the gun mod menu in Crysis. All I can say is.... lame sauce. Just with that slight angle change, you could really see how something like that could become very noticeable. A few extra hundred tris to make sure that didn't happen isn't going to kill your performance.
And truthfully, its for portfolio, so the same rules of a strict polycount don't apply here. Yes, you want to have a reasonable number to get the employer's attention, but portfolio is always about pushing the limits. I personally create my content so it will work only on an extremely high end PC when I am doing portfolio. Then if the employer wants it down graded, Its not an issue. But you really need to keep in mind that you are trying to impress people with beautiful work. I mean common, everyone knew Crysis couldn't be run well unless you had a beast machine. Did that make the game a failure? No, it made it more desirable. So just because your polycount is built more towards high end standards doesn't mean you need to down grade it. The item(s) still functions, just requires a bit more power.
-Jeremy-
well i'm glad I got a discussion going.
Again, I wasn't huffing about the geo count...just a suggestion in the beginning comment. My main "FYI" was the texture count/resolution. For a game, not portfolio, I would never never never allow a single weapon to have a 4kx2k texture with spec glss and normals at the same res. I guarantee 100% of the time if you are at a studio and hand in a weapon for review, you WILL get it tossed back to you. The TAs will get on your butt for it again and again. Trust me it's true.
And a 9k weapon is the same on the GPU as a 10/15k weapon.
@Oniram )this is a really dumbed down explanation) Every time there is a new texture on an asset (diffuse, spec, normal, gloss, paralax etc.) it's thrown into a render buffer and creates a pass...much like compositing in a movie. Each render pass takes time on the GPU and memory for the frame buffer because every frame has to be rendered. (40-60 FPS) with 1 asset having 4 passes with a 4kx2k texture. Now imagine an entire environment with 100s of textures...ever unique texture (sometimes ever instanced textures) must me sent to the Render buffer and GPU. When you are on a project that you get in over your head with optimization to meet a Min spec, an artist learns to be careful. haha
I think this makes my point for my suggestion for a Level/Env Optimization DVD, it's a HUGE part of the industry and on Mobile it's even worse.
Awesome job man, I really like it 
@jakejohnson: ok yeah i hear ya. in a production sense i would probably have this as a 2048x1024 and a 1024x512 instead of 2 4kx2k. and id have the gloss in the alpha of the spec and the alpha in the alpha of the diffuse.
It is very Accurate,
Excellent
thx temraz.
finally got some screens, ill have more later as i mess with lighting and shader settings. since i recently bought the 3point shader id like to pretty much redo the shader setup on this so i can get a fresh perspective with complete textures.
Great model. love the detail and the textures look really good. I don't have any comment other than how did you get that awesome grey mat? looks really good... Is it possible for you to say how you made it? or where you found it? thanks...
Keep up the awesome work... looks really good
@enrico: i imagine you're talking about the high poly shots? i grabbed that material off of polycount about a year ago.
Very Impressive... ;)
Yummy. Great work
Great work, I really enjoy the textures. One thing I would like to see though is a little more dirt right where the hands are gripping the gun. Very small, but it could add a little more punch too it. But yeah awesome.
You damn right that is sexy! Really great stuff here.
-Jeremy-
www.jeremybaldwin3d.com