Michigan Central Station V2

[JMChristopher]

Originally Posted by ChrisSchweiger

Simply amazing work.

One quick question: Could you explain how you go about reducing that many polygons and what your thought process is when deciding what edges to remove. For example, are you just randomly selecting certain edges and removing them, or is their some other trick of the trade.

There are a few things I keep in mind when reducing. Does it add to the silhouette of the mesh? If not, then i remove it. When i originally made this, i wasn't sure how much detail needed to be added, so some spots have more detail than others even if they are in higher places. So the second thing I keep in mind is distance from the camera. I may not put this in a game engine as that could take a really long time, but I think of the detail necessary for a player walking around. Things at ground level need more detail, but things like the ceiling and the damaged sills (in the picture) are fare enough away that they don't need super detail. I will post some examples of individual pieces of you would like.

Geometry is looking ace.

My only small crit is the textures on your palette and crate. The palette wood doesn't quite look like oak/hardwood, which takes away from the believability a bit. I think it's mostly the deep grain in the NM. Hardwoods, especially rough cut, typically get what little surface texture they have from the saw blade & cracks/checks than from a wood grain > picture. Maybe this is too nit-picky...

Also, seeing them side by side with the nicely worn barrel and columns, they look too clean. I know it's renovation, so they'd technically be new-ish, but a bit more wear could be nice in my opinion.

Overall it's looking seriously awesome. Can't wait to see progress.

I agree, it looks too new it doesn't look like it belongs in such a run down building. There are going to be several texture variations for the columns so that will be taken care of also.

as long as you're sticking to a budget then all is good.

not sure if you've thought about doing stuff in a slightly different method to help save some tris. you can keep the shape in your arches by turning them into a cap that covers a low poly plane behind it. below is a pic of what I mean. At the mo i think you're true meshing everything in, which is completely valid, but if it's costing you lots of tris to do that then it becomes quite inefficient.

That's a great Idea. I will change that. The saving from that would be very little compared to the rubble and wires, but every bit helps.


Like I said, I think there are some things that could be reduced further, but I may not have to do that yet.

Over all, thanks for the comments, I will have more shots later today.

Edit: didn't mean to double post, I just got up Sry.

[TheCorey]

You should optimize your UV space. The sqaure pilar for example has 4 of the same sides. All of which use their own UV space. Some part also look like you have just auto UV-ed them.

The textures still hold up well though.

[JMChristopher]

Alright, update for today:
here is one section of wall I am working on(ignore the mess of wires in the reference) I need to tear down the current fake marble tile i have now and add a more accurate, lower poly version. Doing the exposed plaster clumps could be fun. I think some of it can be done with a texture but other parts may need to be modeled. Another thing to note: the station was always changing, I have enough reference but it is always a little different, so it would be silly to try and reproduce every different detail in the various areas of this station. I am going to try to make things as "instanceable" as possible. I also want to mention that my goal is to make it detailed enough that a virtual real time walk through could be done.

You should optimize your UV space. The sqaure pilar for example has 4 of the same sides. All of which use their own UV space. Some part also look like you have just auto UV-ed them.

The textures still hold up well though.

That will be done. Short explaination: the stuff I have now was just done quick as an example. There will be so many little peices that optimization will be the fun part. I suppose I need to set a texture limit on this project. What do you guys think would be a reasonable one? Im thinking maybe 10 2k^2 textures or is that a bit much?

Thanks again for the critiques guys, keep them coming.

[JMChristopher]

Alright, here is another update, just about have that wall section done.



I think the plaster chunks are a bit much, I could probably halve the amount of detail in them and handle the rest with a texture.

[mr_flibble]

yeh, they kinda look like someone has chucked wet paper towels at the wall, like you used to in school (not that i ever got involved in such activities...cough). being rendered plaster they would have a flat surface, but a jagged edge.

keep up the hard work

[JMChristopher]

Instances are awesome for things like plaster and rubble. Make one, place it where ever you need, then remove some detail if poly counts are too high. I removed some underside polygons form some rubble meshes and that saved me 5k polys! I will change the plaster chunks to be flatter. Here is a pic of the area I have been working on today: The ticket booth:

[JMChristopher]

Another small update: