Winchester 1873

[SilverStar]

Greetings all! First off, I'm sorry if this is on the wrong board; new guy here. Anyhow, my name is Ross, I'm 22 and have been teaching myself 3DS Max 2008 and PhotoShop CS2 for about 3 or 4 years now. Unfortunately though, I haven't taken it as seriously as I should have; so my skill aren't quite up to par with the fine folks here. I hope to start changing that . Anyhow, what I have here is a Winchester 1873 intended for UDK. This is the first time I've made a Normal map (thanks to the awesome tutorial found on these forums) and a Specular map, so I could probably use quite a lot of critique on those. Thanks in advance for your constructive criticisms!

[Polygoblin]

Thats a pretty solid first attempt at normal and spec mapping. Looks good, you just need more of it. The bake is fine (and so are the UVs, btw), but you could do with a bunch more detail on the high res mesh. For that, just refer back to your reference, and make sure to grab every detail you see. The chamber and action area is where I would suggest to start adding detail.
Some added variation to your spec could help make it pop. Try to avoid using solid colors, as it will translate to an unnaturally reflective surface (for a gun, at least). Using SUBTLE overlays of grain and various textures will help bring it to life
Also would like to mention that you have some unneeded edge loops in there that could be optimized. Not really a big deal (because of your low polycount), but its still a bit wasteful.

Great work so far, and keep at it!

[SilverStar]

Thanks a lot for the tips, I'll get to fixing everything you mentioned as soon as I get some free time . Btw, the Base Model in the pic is not my high poly; I forgot to put it in when putting that together. This is my high poly:

10,678 Polys
21,356 Tris
10,811 Verts


I also have a somewhat random question for anyone who might know. When modeling for a game engine, should I be more worried about my Poly or Tri count in the Max viewport? I never really knew for sure. Thanks again for the great advise!

[thanez]

Not that it really matters as long as you stay below ridiculous amounts, but you should worry about your tricount, as some filetypes/engines triangulate everything anyways.
I would focus more on the use of specular if I were you. It looks like its just flat grey without any texture or variation on the flat parts. This will make it reflect poorly, and it seems like you baked on some lighting there, which I just don't understand why.

edit: on your specular and normals, you have some red parts, that indicate your cage doesn't fully envelop the highpoly model. this will create rendering errors, so you should probably rebake those if you care about this piece :]

[Latka X-treme]

As long as it is a first attempt, it looks nice. My overall critics would be only 2 words: 'too clean'.
If I were you I'd get back to the texture and add some details to it. For example, the metal needs some scratches along the edges, probably some dirt and maybe a little rust (chewed by time as I sometimes say). Also the wood needs a more woodish texture with some extra lines.
For some reason I don't like the specular, but it's probably because the glossiness is on a way too low amount. It makes it look like the lights are decontrasting and desaturating the whole model.
Sorry if I wrote it too seriously, just give this model another go at least for the textures