[Vehicle] Scania P-93 [WIP]

[munky91]

This is the Scania P-93 truck. Haven't worked on it too much yet, but I am currently creating a high poly version to use for baking a normal map. I've never baked a normal map before so hopefully it doesn't take me too many tries to get it right. The vehicle:


Progress 6/1/10:


Progress 6/13/10:

[Salmonella]

nice start, but I think is better to make the lowpoly first, check all proportions, details etc then increase the polycount, otherwise every change will be a pain

furthermore i think its easier to add detail rather than remove it form the mesh, anyway good work keep at it.

hey, one last thing, post the direct links for pics, this thumbsnail takes forever to open and pops 3 windows!

[J.F.Leusch69]

i fixed the images link

keep it up!

[pleym]

Looks nice, scream out if you need more ref photos, specs and that kid of stuff;p

[Z-trooper]

nice start, but I think is better to make the lowpoly first, check all proportions, details etc then increase the polycount, otherwise every change will be a pain

I'm not sure I agree. Turning low polys in to high polys never look as good as those steamlined to be high poly imho.
But yeah, I always block out the proportions and dimensions to check if everything is alright, before I begin on the high poly version.


@ munky, if you want to bake from a high poly, the model needs to be smoothed or the detail will hardly show up - best case scenario it is either there or not there.

I've quickly tried to illustrate it here:

[Rhino]

Z-trooper;1357560']@ munky, if you want to bake from a high poly, the model needs to be smoothed or the detail will hardly show up - best case scenario it is either there or not there.

I've quickly tried to illustrate it here:

http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/2348/bakingg.jpg

Better still would be something like this if I'm not wrong? small slant will leave a much better projection in the normal?

[Z-trooper]

Nope, if you want to make it better make the corner 'chamfers' have a larger radius.

The example I quickly drew up was not very detailed.

[Rhino]

humm rgr, will keep that in mind thou pretty sure a tut I read ages ago said otherwise.

[Z-trooper]

Well it all depends on what effect you want, but realism, you want softer and rounded edges, not fucked geometry

If it is unclear I'll make a proper tut on it some day, for now just trust me

[munky91]

Learning about baking normals, did some tests to see how it might come out.

By munky91 at 2010-06-07
Part #2 looks alright, but #1 doesn't look deep enough. Also there is noise all over the object from the normal map, and I have no idea why.

[Z-trooper]

Depth is hard to achieve. Obviously you can make the groove deeper on the high poly, or you can increase the softness of the high poly - giving it a larger gradient to look deeper over. An AO map baked from the high poly helps a lot too.

#2. I suspect that it is the compression of the normal map format. I assume you bake to .tga? try removing the checker in the box "compress".

[munky91]

Hm, compress was unchecked. And 16 bit vs 24 bit didn't seem to do anything. Only other options are alpha-split and pre-multiplied alpha, but those probably don't have anything to do with it.
Exporting as bmp gets rid of the noise, I could just do that. BMP has no compression right?

[Z-trooper]

Correct. Sounds weird though. Will research it, as I remember having this issue some time ago - and now I've obviously forgotten what it was about.

EDIT: seems it was a 16bit issue. I was stupid back then and forgot to change back the setting from 16bit. These days I have it set on 32 bit just to make sure hehe

[munky91]

Work continues, got the proportions better, adding more details. Got a job working at a restaurant this week too, I feel like this is the busiest summer I've ever had. New pic in first post.

[AquaticPenguin]

For normal mapping I found this was quite useful. AO map will probably get the depth that the normal map can't achieve. Alternatively texturing some highlights in places might work.

Just curious, in bf2 am I right in thinking normal maps are only used when textures are set max? Does this mean it's best to use a mixture of smoothing groups + normal maps for details, since on lower settings a fully smoothed model + normal map would produce artifacts.

Anyway /derail

EDIT: actually I forgot to mention - Bloody nice model so far, keep up the good work

[andy1123]

nice one

[Gore]

oh yeah baby, scania rocks.

[pleym]

Any progress here munky91? "long time no see"

[munky91]

Not recently, need to get in the modeling groove. I need to make a schedule to help get myself motivated before the summer flies right by me.

[Zulnex]

Very nice work. Keep it up.