Ugac - Prop 102 - Ultimate Crate/barrel - James Kaufeldt

[JamesMK]

OK, here's the sketch:

http://web.telia.com/~u48039569/ugac_crate/crate-sketch.jpg

Your everyday tactical nuke storage locker. Punch in the access code on the keypad on the front, and the whole sidepanel slides open like a drawer (to the left) and reveals some sort of BFG :D

Details and colours are bound to change, but the sketch hopefully clarifies my intentions.

[Archetype]

No fluffy bunnies inside ?
gah :\

[ArYeS]

OMG Thats my PC box :)
j0k3

Great design buddy, keep it up and good luck

[Supervlieg]

Nice sketch. This one looks interesting.

[JamesMK]

Voutlooz - 'fraid not on the bunny issue... but I thought I could incorporate a bunny in the logo on the front of the box perhaps...

ArYes - Maybe it's one of those sick mod cases :D

Supervlieg - Hm, hope it will be. I like the idea of just making one single thing without having to worry about environments and so on...

[DimitrisLiatsos]

Hey wabbit....neat concept on crate ...maybe if it's a bit shorter it looks more techy ....:bounce: ...spontaneous thought of a headless nut...to another..errr...nut

[JamesMK]

...maybe if it's a bit shorter it looks more techy ....
Good thinking - would make it look more compact and flak-proof too.

[JamesMK]

Got started on the modeling....

Still in quad-mode so to speak - and I assume that's how one would do it to preserve one's sanity.... quads while modeling, then careful triangulation once once the model is mostly done? Like I said in my initial post, I've never done game models before :D Oh, and I've split the mesh a bit too, to avoid unnecessary polygons... considering this will be a static mesh, non-deforming, that would be an OK approach too?

Anyways... it's mostly done modeling-wise, aside from adjustments and tweaking...

Next step would be some optimisations, followed by triangulation and clean-up... then onwards to unwrapping...

Current state:

http://web.telia.com/~u48039569/ugac_crate/state_14.jpg

The steps leading to the current state (I left the cube out, you've seen cubes before)

http://web.telia.com/~u48039569/ugac_crate/modeling1.jpg

Looks like I'm going to have about 300 tris left over for the weapon inside.





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[Supervlieg]

Good start. The mesh looks nice and clean. Cant wait to see the weapon.

You wont have to triangulate (quads are polies too!), but be sure to count tri's for your final polycount.

One thing though, will the backside of the crate be as interesting to look at as the other sides?

Rock on!

[HellBoy]

WoW

can't believe you're that far with this awesome prop

I like it, especially that you got some tris left

good one :thumbsup:

[JamesMK]

M'kay... well, no, the backside is not going to be very interesting - thinking along the lines of Doom3, this one would probably be standing with it's backside against a wall somewhere anyway, so I've spent my polys on the other sides instead.

Weaponwise... decision: A really silly looking, chubby bomb - classic stylee :D

http://web.telia.com/~u48039569/ugac_crate/state_15.jpg

Now only 45 tris left unused... I'll see while texturing the other bits if I can come up with something to use them for. If not, this will end up at 955 triangles.

I want to move as fast as possible on this one, so I will probably move on to textures now... or rather tomorrow, after a good night's sleep and some other duties.

As far as textures go, it looks like I'll have to be a bit creative in terms of variable UV scaling :hmm:


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[Synthesizer]

Wow, you work fast. I love the look of it, especially the little chubby bomb:)

[hanzo]

JamesMK nice one man, great effert put into the design,

PS can't wait to see the textures and shading

[Swizzle]

Dude, it's a giant coffee machine with a bomb! That's bordering on awesome territory. Add the textures and you'll be there.

[Supervlieg]

Nice! Maybe use the 45 polies left to give the little bomb some kind of detailing. Like a control panel or maybe a little propellor or detonator on top of the bomb. Or some rails/claws that hold the bomb in place on a wild ride.

[flyingP]

it's a giant coffee machine with a bomb!

Wahahaha now there's an idea, a morning wake up with kick......I suggest going into production with that one James :D

[JamesMK]

Mwaahaahaa! It's maybe a thermos-nuclear device :D OK... that was really bad...

Anyways, Supervlieg, good ideas - I've added a little detonator on top and a rudimentary control panel, and now there's only 12 tris unused. I've decided to settle for that, and I'm adjusting phong angles and breaking edges now, so soon the time will come for texturing.

Stay tuned...

[thesuit]

It's actually one of the coolest I've seen so far and one of the only ones modelled already! :surprised
Keep it coming! and leave us the unexperienced some chance lol

[PixelRod]

Looking Great. Good Job!!!

[JamesMK]

Glad you like it, guys.

Got the darn thing unwrapped and a decent UV-layout. Since I can't paint to save my life, I have to find another way to make the textures... Decided to model a flat high-resolution version based on my UVs, then render that out for the textures. That obviously makes it easy to render normal maps as well.

I went a bit nuts with the deliberate overlapping UVs in the first attempt, so I had redo the mapping a bit... Still some major overlapping going on (mostly left-right symmetry based) in order to conserve texture space as far as possible.

As you can see in the images below, I still haven't decided what colour scheme to go for yet, but I've settled for the typically detailed tech style, and already built the most prominent bits of the crate surface.

A touch of ambient occlusion baked into the colour channel goes a long way for starters, and the normal map does the rest. With colouring and some nice specmap on later, I think this thing might be able to take off.

http://web.telia.com/~u48039569/ugac_crate/mapping_started.jpg




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[JamesMK]

Just an update on the progress....

Here's what the normal map looks like at this very point:

http://web.telia.com/~u48039569/ugac_crate/currentnormalmap.jpg

Aaaaand here's a quickie test render (added shadow here too since most decent game engines seem to support that these days):

http://web.telia.com/~u48039569/ugac_crate/currentstate.jpg



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[Pyrotechnic]

:eek: It's amazing what normal maps can do, that's :buttrock:

[Geta-Ve]

:eek: It's amazing what normal maps can do, that's :buttrock:

It's not what normal maps can do for you, but what YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR NORMAL MAPS

*cheeeerrrsss*

:p Great render man!

[Supervlieg]

Thats looking more and more like the ultimate crate. Keep it rolling!

[ReBootedOne]

Totally uber-slick!
I love it!
It's a totally awesome, classy, and yet still simple design scheme... And I love your lil' chubby bomb, too.:D

Awesome one!

Those textures are :eek: as well!

-eric

[JamesMK]

Thanks for your comments, duuuudes...

Last one for today - straight render above and the current colour map below.

http://web.telia.com/~u48039569/ugac_crate/render_normal3.jpg




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[HellBoy]

wooow, thats cool, y'know the machine seems to be off, no power but anyway waay cool

[DimitrisLiatsos]

It's not what normal maps can do for you, but what YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR NORMAL MAPS

*cheeeerrrsss*

:p Great render man!



Ditto on both remarks...

[Geta-Ve]

DL - :D

James, the yellow middle metal part (wow say that 5 times fast) has the grain going downwards/vertically, I would make it go horizontally.. because think if this big hunkin piece of metal was cut from...er... metal, it would probably be done lying down with lasers or a sand/water blaster or something similar which would result in the grain going horizontally (at least i think so..

edit: btw, ya you need to get some glowing lights on that baby! oh and you got a good doom3 vibe going on.. I seen this one custom doom3 case mod that reminds me of your model.. or perhaps that should be the other way around.....

well either way.. great job so far!

[JamesMK]

Geta-Ve - Good point about the grain direction... while I don't really buy the technical explanation :p it still looks better going the other way.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OK, I decided I've already spent too much time on this, and I wanted to do it as fast as possible, so I've just finished it up... admittedly there could be more work done on the textures, but I think I have learned a few lessons while working on this anyway, so - mission accomplished.

I understand there's some sort of final submission thread coming up later, but in the meantime I'll post my deliverables here as an official "I'm-effing-done-now" statement :D

First up, the four rendered views:

http://web.telia.com/~u48039569/ugac_crate/submit/render_four-up.jpg


And next - the wires:

http://web.telia.com/~u48039569/ugac_crate/submit/wire_four-up.jpg

The colourmap:

http://web.telia.com/~u48039569/ugac_crate/submit/final_colour.jpg

The normalmap:

http://web.telia.com/~u48039569/ugac_crate/submit/final_normal.jpg

Aaaaaaaand, the specmap

http://web.telia.com/~u48039569/ugac_crate/submit/final_specular.jpg





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[Miak]

Beautiful work!! Love the mapping :thumbsup:

[cg_sprite]

damm n blast, and ive just entered this too. love this create look very nice indeed.

would love to get my object up to this standard but it wont even be able to lick the boots of this one.

good work.

[naenae]

wow!! good stuff man!! .. a real fast worker too... real impressive..

i starting to look real ultimate now all colored..

question.. did u paint the normal map or u actually made a higher res model.. hmm... i'm kinda new on all these normal mapping stuff... please educate me.. :D *bow*

okie... back to work for me!!

[JamesMK]

question.. did u paint the normal map or u actually made a higher res model.. hmm... i'm kinda new on all these normal mapping stuff... please educate me.. :D *bow*
Glad you like it - and yes, I actually made a higher res model and rendered it out with a normals shader thingy. I built the high-res version (about 50.000 polys, roughly 100.000 triangles) using the UV-template as a guide, and just rendered it with a frontal camera.

Usually you would make your low res mesh, map some clean UVs on that, then build a high-res copy of it and finally bake the normals using something like Nvidia Melody or the ATI Normalmapper, but I didn't really plan ahead on that bit, so my UVs were not clean enough (didn't even try, but since I had a lot of UV overlaps, I was pretty sure that the bake procedure would fail.... so I went for the brute force manual labour method :D ) I've attached a perspective view of the high-res stuff here:

[naenae]

thanks man... i really wanna try normal mapping now... sound alittle complicate, but very interesting... and top of all... it look too cool!! http://cgtalk.com/images/smilies/buttrock.gif

[Squibbit]

well, that's just sweet, looks like a winner, James!


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[Swizzle]

Excellent work! Between this, Supervlieg's bio-barrel, and a few of the other ones, I don't think I stand a chance. Great all-around. :thumbsup:

[flyingP]

yes but what's the coffee like? :)

[hanzo]

JamesMK excellent on the normal mapping, and creative technique.. I'm going to use it sometime :)..




CROWDS WE HAVE A WINNER! HAHAHA

PS: I think i will join this comp after all, how much time is left? BLAA I go and check my self...

[Archetype]

DL - :D

James, the yellow middle metal part (wow say that 5 times fast) has the grain going downwards/vertically, I would make it go horizontally.. because think if this big hunkin piece of metal was cut from...er... metal, it would probably be done lying down with lasers or a sand/water blaster or something similar which would result in the grain going horizontally (at least i think so..

stuff

well either way.. great job so far!

so verry true :)

if u didnt beat me to it i would have said the same

[pit]

and rendered it out with a normals shader thingy.

Hi James,

Looks great !

Just have to ask which "normals shader thingy" you used?! And where to get it? Per Anders´, DiTools or ?!

Cheers

[JamesMK]

Just have to ask which "normals shader thingy" you used?! And where to get it? Per Anders´, DiTools or ?!
I used the NLIN shader to generate the tangent map. According to the readme it should be available @ http://www.franks-planet.de but I'm getting a time-out... A search might reveal alternate locations. For the actual normal-mapping in the render, you'd have to use something like ParaNormal.

[aphexx]

hey james, this box is a blast !
i think its most evil suppository i ever saw haha ;)
perhaps you like to make a small turnaround ani to see the normals and specs in action?
:D

[JamesMK]

perhaps you like to make a small turnaround ani to see the normals and specs in action?
:D
Made a Quicktime object VR movie instead:
http://web.telia.com/~u48040664/crateobject.mov

[aphexx]

thx. that was fast. but are also normal maps rendered in this vr movie? seems to be pretty plain, isnt it?

[JamesMK]

thx. that was fast. but are also normal maps rendered in this vr movie? seems to be pretty plain, isnt it?
They are, but they end up being pretty subtle with the flat default light, high compression and low resolution... I made another one first which showed them off better, but the file ended up being 15 megs, so I couldn't be bothered posting that :D

[Supervlieg]

Nice movie you got there.

Just a though from looking at the crate. Maybe it could use a contrast color, like some red or blue striping to break up the greyishness.

[pit]

I used the NLIN shader to generate the tangent map. According to the readme it should be available @ http://www.franks-planet.de but I'm getting a time-out... A search might reveal alternate locations. For the actual normal-mapping in the render, you'd have to use something like ParaNormal.


:thumbsup:

Cool - thanks a lot!

Ps: Didn´t get a time-out on the site.

[Dargon]

Hey James!

Nice work BTW

I was wondering what you used to make that quicktime VR thingy? I'd like to make one for mine when I get to that stage...

[JamesMK]

Supervlieg - Yeah, good point. It looks a little colourless right now... but I've already called it, so I'm not touching it again :D

Pit - Goody!

Dargon - Well, the QT VR is really easy in my case, since Cinema 4D supports that output format natively... I just set a few params and hit render. Have honestly no idea how to do it elsewhere, but since the format as such is basically just a movie anyway with a few extra bits set in the QT header (just guessing here) I wouldn't be surprised if there are plugins for whatever app you're using that can handle it.

[ODoul]

Wicked cool. I want to be just like you when I grow up. :thumbsup: Wait, I am grown up. Shit!

[JamesMK]

Wait, I am grown up. Shit!
lol - I came to the same conclusion myself a couple of days ago. Really sucks, doesn't it?

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