I made a barrel...

[IchII3D]

For which Engine - Current Generation
Current Polycount - 236 Triangles
Max Polycount - 300-400
Texture Size - 512x512-TXT 512x512-NRM 512x512-SPEC
Description of background information on piece - Its a model for a set in my final year project animation. I want to have a barrel and box for my portfolio.
Where are you looking to receive criticism - Everywhere, this is going to be on my portfilo and I want you to rip it to shreds. I'm looking for deep advice on specificly how to improve my difuse, specular and normal maps.
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[joukejan]

Looking good, but now these days you can use more segments on the barrel, verticaly.

[IchII3D]

Originally Posted by joukejan

Looking good, but now these days you can use more segments on the barrel, verticaly.

Just curious, but how many would you recommend? I'm typically still using 6-8 for pipes and 10-12 for barrels.... Infact... I think I will up the segments. Gives me 30minutes

NOTE: I noticed problems with the projected normal map with low segments, I'm guessing more segments would solve that :P

[BloodRobot]

May I recommend you make the diffuse a little less pink! Also the "ribs" seem too large. The animation thing is very cool!

[Talon]

Not bad, but rust isn't shiny - should be very dark in the spec, not lighter :P

You might want to introduce more detail and contrast into your spec map. Stuff that wouldn't neccessarily show up too much on the diffuse (a bit more grunge, maybe some spills of liquid that's dried up but has dulled the paint's shine, etc...).

Those streaks beneath the ribs also sort of vanish at the edges of the texture. It could look kind of odd to see both end quite so exactly when looking at that side of it. Might be an idea to let them wrap around and just be continuous.

[IchII3D]

Okies, first line of changes. I just changed the polygon count of the barrel and upped it to 556 with 22sides, I probably would aim for around 18-20 now for current generation of games. Need to remember I can push things a little more these days. I'm really suprised how much a few more polygons a bit more detail on the high polygon model has really made it stand out.

I just read your feedback Talon and Blood, its my first time attempting a proper specular, really need to remember to notice things like rust and remove it. I remember to remove the oil stain thingy from the normal... but still forgot those little details. I will try make some changes now but got some friends coming over for a relaxing movie night so might expect the next update tomorrow.

Oh and about the colour I get what ya mean. One major thing that I didn't like was the fact its all one colour. I really need to add a label or some stickers to break up the colour more.

FEEDBACK FEEDBACK FEEDBACK!

EDIT: Oh and the view, I recorded a 100 frame animation of my lighting rig spinning around in the viewport then just captured it with Camtasia (screen recording tool, I used it for video tutorials) Then simple tried as hard as I could to start the recording at frame 0 and top it at frame 100, made a few mistakes and made crops on each side to make sure it looped. Then I just rendered it out as a GIF in the custom production options. I made it 6frames per second using 256 colours and it came out at just under 1mb, not bad

EDIT2: The pinkness might be because I'm using a Red, Green, Blue light system with a Yellow one angled above. It helps see what your model looks like in different lighting colours while still maintaining a typical sun colour.

[Talon]

Aaaalso, looking at your normals there, it could do with some micro detail. Maybe some painted or dusty noisey sort of surface stuck ontop of the normal map (but only very slightly - you don't want to drown it in noise).

Looks a bit blobby and all macro detail at the moment.

[IchII3D]

Okies I restructed the rims to make them thinner and repositioned the nosel at the top as it was kind of on the side of a polygon and looked funky at an angle. I didn't put the difuse on for the moment as I need to make changes to it. They won't take long but the next update I do I want to get some feedback on my redone specular, normal and defuse.

Here is the new model with a high polygon normal map and ambient occlusion on it.

I think I get what you mean about micro detail. I'm using a 512x512 texture though, will it still be possible do you think?

[Talon]

Aye, more than possible. If you put a tiiiny bit in the diffuse, too, it should help it appear a bit sharper, too (as generated normal maps tend to end up being a bit more blobby than the height maps they're made from).

[IchII3D]

Originally Posted by Talon

Aye, more than possible. If you put a tiiiny bit in the diffuse, too, it should help it appear a bit sharper, too (as generated normal maps tend to end up being a bit more blobby than the height maps they're made from).

Ahhh I see, I think next time I run my normal map through crazy bump I will make sure I fine tune the settings more to really try and push out the fine details. Will also give the whole difuse a run around of little touches here and there, little bits of leaking oil from the cap etc...

Time to call it a day today though, but back to work tomorrow. Thanks to everyone for your help. I will update it tomorrow see how it comes out. Its looking much better because of all the feedback though, thanks to everyone so far