P90

[operative x]

 

[Wrath]

I'm new here but I'm guessing the first thing they'll say is "wireframe" so get a wireframe pic .

 

[The Dark Elf]

nope im gonna break from the norm about seeing wireframes and start asking for fully textured stuff hehe

As mentioned in a convo with random.hero, about unseen polys and removing them for use elsewhere in the model. You could plan ahead to only show the one side of the gun, delete a bunch of poly's from the other side which wont be seen anyway and then use them to help smooth out some area's on the side you will see

It looks ok though, I mean, their not the easiest kind of weapon to build, some weird curves in it which look a bitch to get right without using many poly's... I'd probably build a high res model, textured, normal mapped and so on. Then bake all that only a low poly version to match but with hidden poly's deleted and used to smooth out some area's. You'll probably get really good results then. Thats probably how I would do it

there are some things in the model which don't quite match the weapon.. like the bit at the front, which sticks downwards, its a bit thicker than the one in the photo. But I'll wait until I see it fully textured, or smoothed, before I comment cause thats how it would look in the game and textures hide multitudes of sins and can turn bad models into good ones and the other way around of course

 

[crabcakes66]

hmm.. .....if this is supposed to be a first person model for hl2.....then it needs quite alot of work..........

if its a low poly 3rd person stand in....it might be ok with a few changes


the red arrows point to areas that dont match up with the original gun.....

the top site especialy, it seems far to tall.

 

[operative x]

Originally posted by Fenric1138
unseen polys and removing them for use elsewhere in the model. You could plan ahead to only show the one side of the gun, delete a bunch of poly's from the other side which wont be seen anyway and then use them to help smooth out some area's on the side you will see

Fenric: Thats exactly what it did for this gun, beleive me this is as low as it goes for this gun:/
And about the normalmapping stuff i plan on doing that once i move from milkshape to lightwave and download that normal map plugin for it. But until then im left with this $25 program
crabcakes66: And yes i know the top part is a little off but its nearly impossible to get a good reference pic that shows the top peice at a decent resolution. Some of the other pieces you were talkig about like that small piece looks too big, its really not but milkshape3d has a really weird viewing lens, its kinda fish eyed so you reaaly cant get a good look at it:/

EDIT: Do you guys think the poly count is too big?

 

[The Dark Elf]

Originally posted by operative x
Fenric: Thats exactly what it did for this gun, beleive me this is as low as it goes for this gun:/
And about the normalmapping stuff i plan on doing that once i move from milkshape to lightwave and download that normal map plugin for it. But until then im left with this $25 program

If your getting Lightwave, save up and buy Evasion3D's microwave. Marvin's plugin is great for normal maps. But microwave will handle all the baking itself, with tons of useful options and save you having to use the included surface baker that comes with Lightwave (which is a bit iffy at best)

 

[random.hero]

Fen, hes done what i was talking about, make it, then delete unseen faces.

Op X, Fenric is talking about 'planning ahead'. he means make a model of one side, using your polygon limit. i would just be a little scared incase some more of the gun was needed to be seen after the anims are done

its definitely not too high. if anything, its too low. your other model, the ragin bull, its only a handgun, not as easy to recognize small details on, this is larger, and could do with maybe a few more polys. the raging bull had about 2800 polys if i remember correct, this is 'more important' so should have around less than the raging bull, but more than this.

i personally aim for 2000 polys for all gun models, thats what Valve said all of their 'view' models were. (god knows what that means)

 

[operative x]

It looks bad now, but, wait till i learn normal mapping and i make a high poly version and map it to this thing and then it will look 10x better. BTW the raging bull has 1140 now.

 

[The Dark Elf]

Originally posted by random.hero
Fen, hes done what i was talking about, make it, then delete unseen faces.

Op X, Fenric is talking about 'planning ahead'. he means make a model of one side, using your polygon limit. i would just be a little scared incase some more of the gun was needed to be seen after the anims are done

If its a symmetrical model its less scary if what you mention happens with the animation sequences and deciding you need those polys afterall. Just a case of copy/paste/weld most of the time anyway.. To be totally sure though I'd be saving incremental versions, so I'd always have some version, however old, that has the poly's I was needing. Or even save a separate collection of incremental files. Where their poly's aren't removed atall (as a backup while removing while modeling, JUST incase something did go wrong and the model was screwed) These days I've just got into the habit of almost always saving after doing anything, so I can have a directory with hundreds of versions of a model from start to finish. Their mostly useless really, but you never know with Hard Drives, and sometimes going far back to early on can save lots of time even if its a case of losing a lot of work since, or with saving even, I'm sure we've all had applications crash -while- saving, and that just plain sucks

Course, this only applies to the low poly version. The high poly version isn't limited in any way, and its better to have that in full (comes in handy for showing off aswell as the texture/normal baking). THEN do the poly deleting on a low poly version as you build it up around the high poly one which will be acting as a 3D template for you. Easier to work with than images found on the net, and better for approximating where poly's should and shouldn't go and what can and can't be done with a normal map and so on. I know it comes across as a lot of work, but those high poly versions are very useful (and if their really good and original, you can go sell them on Turbosquid and make a bit of cash for yourself )

I'd probably not recommend using poly reducing plugins/programs though, their cool but when every polygon counts on a game model I think you'd get far better work doing it manually, even for beginners, its not only great practice (if a little daunting) but even newbies will stand a good chance of a better quality object doing it themselves. the plugins will just make a best guess but not really take certain things into account, so those cool curves you might want to keep, might turn out really nasty - their fine for other things, like turning a two mil poly to a 20k one cause there's little damage to be seen, just not great for game models where every poly counts and its right infront of you where you can't hide mistakes (though their ok for LOD versions, IF they retain the UV mapping, cause those are too far away to see the mistakes so your safe).

Most can screw up UV maps, and with a low poly plugin reduced model, where the poly's follow an algorythm and not always the contors of your model, UV mapping is about as much fun as watching BBC1 on a Saturday evening. (and trust me thats bad, I did it once, I only got out of rehab last month )

 

[Mr. Coffee]

Originally posted by random.hero
i personally aim for 2000 polys for all gun models, thats what Valve said all of their 'view' models were. (god knows what that means)

I believe view models include the hand models as well, so you might want to factor that into your polygon budget.