Game Art week Ten

Week Ten of the Sentry gun project I finally finished modelling the high poly version of my turret. I copied the whole of the low poly turret in 3Ds Max and renamed as high poly, I then started adding details to the copied model, such as screws, chamfered edges, fish scales etc. While modelling the high poly version I made sure all the details had sloped edges, so that when they are baked to normals, the details will show up more, rather than a straight edge that won't show up looking straight on it. During the week, I ran into some problems, such as the model of the fish head I used for the low poly model was in triangles, rather than quads making the model look bumpy. This happened as the low poly head was originally in quads as I had strip modelled it using planes. However it had too many polys to fit within the project limit, so I used the pro optimiser modifier to reduce the topology, which is when the quads of my mesh turned into triangles. Fortunately I had an earlier save of my fish head model as quads, therefore I could import this into my current scene in 3Ds Max and use this quaded head as the high poly version, which would smooth out the low poly version when the normals have been baked.

After I had finished modeling my high poly version of the turret, I decided to import the head into Zbrush to paint some extra details as it was looking a bit flat. I built up the eyebrow shape and cheeks, also added some pipe shapes down the top of the head and under the jaw. when finished I exported it and reimported the head to 3Ds Max.

High poly turret, 3D Max render back perspective.

High poly turret, 3Ds Max render front perspective. 

 Now that both the low poly and high poly models were finished, I could now begin unwrapping the low poly version. I began with the fish head using a cylindrical unwrap and relaxing it to smooth out the shape, The body I used a pelt unwrap and for most of the remaining model I used a pelt unwrap while adding seams. I also used a quick unwrap, then detached seams to relax them for most objects that were square.