The random model thread!

[JAL]

What does it do? Does it plug into anything or does it just float?

It plugs into the floor, it's the top of a tank with coolant water for a reactor.

Nothing like in a real nuclear reactor, but the player has to be able to jump in so that's why I made it like that.

[Pomperi]

I think your clean version and your dirty version looks very much the same. The dirty version feels very "overlayed", which looks very unrealistic. Dirt rarely sinks into the material and blends that way; it rather covers the surface and creeps into the creases. You can also use these properties to bring out the shape of your model, by letting it define where the different parts meet and to break up boring areas with unique details and gradients. I did a little paint-over to show what I mean:

My example might be a bit exaggerated for this case, but I think you get the point

[JAL]

Thanks a lot Pomperi, some excellent tips. As you already noticed, the dirty one was made basicly by slapping some grunge brushes on top of the clean one.

I do appriciate the paint-over, it gives me some ideas how to improve it .

Didn't know you were in the Decadence team (I'm making this for a Decadence contributor/custom map).

Is there any good tutorials you can point me at on creating rust/dirty surfaces?

[Pomperi]

Haha sweet!

My best tip for painting rusty surfaces is probably to stick with photo textures and using layer masks to get it in the right spots and with proper opacity. There isn't really any photoshop hax for it, just play around with photos, masks and blending modes and a little custom brushing to get some nice variation to it. Just make sure you put it in the right places (where it makes sense and adds definition to your model) and make sure the scale is right on your material, then you can go crazy. If you're going for a Decadence-look we used mostly a hand-painted base which we blended in photo materials to, and then added further detail and style by simply painting on top of the textures with a gentle brushing. If you wanna take a closer look to one of my psd's for a typical texture I made for Decadence, check this one: http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=e22f ... b9a8902bda.

Cheers!

[Acumen]

thanks for your comments, guys

had another go at the tf2-models today

if anyone knows a tutorial about using splines the proper way for the tubes and spiral on the model, I'd be sooo thankful

its always so messy when i use it, and sometimes it gives just horrible results

anyways, thats why the tubes are a bit blocky - made them by hand ^^

edit: again this model was "very" inspired by the original tf2 models - so don't blame me, it's just for practise and fun :roll:

[KoKo5oVaR]

It looks really cool acumen, you nailed it, i like how you did different colors for the keypad .

Personally, i use splines too to do cables / tubes with the render in viewport option on. (3dsmax i assume)

I do that with a bezier curve to have a lot of subdivisions, i collapse it's modifier pile into an edit poly, and then optimize the mesh by selecting the edges with loop selection and delete them with CTRL + BACKSPACE ( or add some by chamfering a loop).

Never really had a problem

[Acumen]

hm, right, the line tool works fine for the cables !

but um, let me tell you a little story, mister !

yesterday i spent lots of time figuring out how to do that spiral - and the thing was - i fought my way through the internet searching for some tips on how the helix stuff works...

cause i had found the "renderable" and "display render mesh" options but i couldn't figure out how i could decrease the height segments - it was too hipoly for my model...

so what i did was extruded a cylinder primitive along the helix spline, which often resulted in weird objects. sometimes it was alright but rotated in a weird way and i couldn't figure out how that could be stopped - then it was extruded quite deformed - it was really annoying.

and that's why i didn't even think about doing the cables/tubes with the line tool...

thanks, for giving me the the right hint again !!

but still, if you should know how to get the helix problem solved, you'd be my hero of the rest of the year

it just has too many height segments (something like 42), which i don't know how to change, so it adapts to my low poly model

[Nysuatro]

Thanks for the psd Pomperi. I learned a lot of it.

But for what is the glow in the corrugationlayer ? I see the effect but i can't image what

you reason was to do this.

And are those creases from a photo, or did you paint those ?

And could you say something about your way of approaching a texture like this?

You way of thinking when texturing ...

[Nysuatro]

Somebody has a sollution for these bad schadowes ?

EDIT : excuse me for the bad link

The pictire is just a render from 3ds max.

[hessi]

ehm posting urls from that www.game-artist.net forum requires that we are logged in there...

you should also specify application/engine etc.

[-HP-]

Try using mentalray or something.

But why would you need shadows? The mesh isn't even textured.

Also, you can always import the mesh into an engine, for better view of the materials!

But, if you insist on using max's viewport, then I suggest using a DX shader, like Doylles shader over at Game-artists

[Buddy]

If you're using Shadowmaps then increase the shadowmap resolution and/or play around with bias. The object might be also really small.

[Acumen]

tried some modular modelling today, not sure if that makes sense in the end, but it was fun doing these parts ^^

i also have all the elements made with only one and not the double connecting pieces

[Jenn0_Bing]

That looks like a nice set of props Acumen, pipes are one of those tings i havent found a comfortable way of doing yet .

Here's some shots of my work I'm doing for Uni, it's for a first year assignment and I've got to model a house for a VR environment to help people undergoing "shoulder rehabilitation". This is the most complete room so far.

Ive never really played with lighting a scene before so any comments on that would be cool, i didn't make it too bright because it isn't the focus of the marking for this particular assignment (the kitchen is).

[Nysuatro]

Its a bit empty. Maybe some extra props to make it more interesting ?

Small update of my lowpolyscene