Input needed on Weapon Model

[thepuglife 30]

I am currently modelling an ADM UIC 10a rifle

 

I was wondering if someone with experience in weapon modelling could give me their input regarding the level of detail I should go into for the hand guard

 

pics of hand guard blockout: http://imgur.com/a/k52hp

 

Currently, I feel as if there is too much geometry wrapped up in the hand guard and was wondering if I should just reduce the geometry of the holes already present or remove the holes that really serve no purpose all together (such as those right below the top picatinny rails).

 

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks in advance, 

ThePugLife

 

 

 

 

 

[veles-zv 176]

i hope this is your High polygon and not your Game ready model, so instead of killing yourself making 32 sided holes or what not just go with simple 16 sided cutouts instead and use turbo smooth for increasing the detail and then bake it on to your game ready model. also i see some ngons right in the middle as well i dont know if that because of the picture or your mesh. 

 

Ps with 3ds max, I hate it now since ive starting learning blender its a much better option and its free with all the tools you need. 

 

That weapon maybe nice and your model sure is, however i just wanted to tell that it is a civilian rifle not a military rifle no hard feeling its just that I have a pet peeves against tacticool  weapons in mil sims and some people dont know the difference between civilian gear and military issued and so they make M16 pack yet they add non military issued accessorized  m16  with magpul plastic instead of a m16a3 or m4 commando. 

 

if you want any more help just ask me im  usually ready to help.

[thepuglife 30]

Thank you for your response!

 

This is just the block out state of the model and therefore the entire thing consists of ngons, all of which will be dealt with when i move to the high poly.

 

But what is your opinion of the holes I have circled here, you think they are worth even having on the model as I'm contemplating removing them all together.

 

I am aware that its a civilian rifle and thats honestly why I chose it. Its different from your run of the mill M4/sr25/m110, which already exist in Arma in numerous mods, all of which being high quality with no reason to redo them.

[da12thMonkey 1943]

I think the top gas-tube vent holes are worth having.

But for any of those holes I personally wouldn't want them having more than 10 sides. Maybe up to 16 sides for the larger M-LOK type holes or vents or whatever they are, if 10 or 12 didn't look like it was round enough.

 

I'd say if you were to get rid of any of the holes and rely solely on normal mapping, it would be for these ones:

 

Mainly because the barrel occludes looking through those small holes anyway, and there's that countersink bevel around the hole that'd add a lot more polygons if you tried to model the bevel. The countersink would actually probably be the more visible feature of those holes when viewed in first person. More than the bored-out hole in the middle.

 

e.g Broke's custom AR-15: http://files.gamebanana.com/img/ss/models/528fbee9ccd62.jpg

http://gamebanana.com/models/3278

[veles-zv 176]

Thank you for your response!

 

This is just the block out state of the model and therefore the entire thing consists of ngons, all of which will be dealt with when i move to the high poly.

 

But what is your opinion of the holes I have circled here, you think they are worth even having on the model as I'm contemplating removing them all together.

 

I am aware that its a civilian rifle and thats honestly why I chose it. Its different from your run of the mill M4/sr25/m110, which already exist in Arma in numerous mods, all of which being high quality with no reason to redo them.

it really depends If you look at most game ready meshs you can see that these cut outs are just done with normal's maps which is a very quick way of adding detail that people will not see that much it also decrease the amount of polygons you need drastically. for instance most models of such as the SVD Dragunov RHS mod, Arma 2 SVD, Ro2 SVT 40, Ro2 MP 44 or what ever they call it will use normal maps to create faux detail which will give the illusion of there being a hole in the rifle. however normal maps will not work well for the rest of the hand guard.  PPSH 41 with low polygon game ready model with barrel gaurd which has real geometry { http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/groups/1/4/3541/thumb_620x2000/PPSh-41.jpeg} SVD with real geometry cutout holes however its not cut all the way through for some reason { https://sketchfab.com/models/141b93cd4611460c93d4352d64066eb7 } and here is a model with bakes normal maps cutouts for the hand guards. { https://sketchfab.com/models/fca62aea034b42739cad10cc624fa948 } as you can see with the model looking in typical first person view you cannot really see that it is real gemetry or a fake. smaller details such as those holes in your model which you pointed out would be better to just bake them on the low poly model with floating geometry... here is a good youtuber which works in 3ds max which can be later used for the much better 3d program also known as blender.    

[thepuglife 30]

*delete* 

[thepuglife 30]

I think the top gas-tube vent holes are worth having.

But for any of those holes I personally wouldn't want them having more than 10 sides. Maybe up to 16 sides for the larger M-LOK type holes or vents or whatever they are, if 10 or 12 didn't look like it was round enough.

 

I'd say if you were to get rid of any of the holes and rely solely on normal mapping, it would be for these ones:

 

Mainly because the barrel occludes looking through those small holes anyway, and there's that countersink bevel around the hole that'd add a lot more polygons if you tried to model the bevel. The countersink would actually probably be the more visible feature of those holes when viewed in first person. More than the bored-out hole in the middle.

Ill definitely give this a go, thank you!

 

 

it really depends If you look at most game ready meshs you can see that these cut outs are just done with normal's maps which is a very quick way of adding detail that people will not see that much it also decrease the amount of polygons you need drastically. for instance most models of such as the SVD Dragunov RHS mod, Arma 2 SVD, Ro2 SVT 40, Ro2 MP 44 or what ever they call it will use normal maps to create faux detail which will give the illusion of there being a hole in the rifle. however normal maps will not work well for the rest of the hand guard.  PPSH 41 with low polygon game ready model with barrel gaurd which has real geometry { http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/groups/1/4/3541/thumb_620x2000/PPSh-41.jpeg} SVD with real geometry cutout holes however its not cut all the way through for some reason { https://sketchfab.com/models/141b93cd4611460c93d4352d64066eb7 } and here is a model with bakes normal maps cutouts for the hand guards. { https://sketchfab.com/models/fca62aea034b42739cad10cc624fa948 } as you can see with the model looking in typical first person view you cannot really see that it is real gemetry or a fake. smaller details such as those holes in your model which you pointed out would be better to just bake them on the low poly model with floating geometry... here is a good youtuber which works in 3ds max which can be later used for the much better 3d program also known as blender.    

Ill leave the holes to the normal maps, thank you!

[PuFu 4600]

here is a good youtuber which works in 3ds max which can be later used for the much better 3d program also known as blender

you are pushing it pretty far with "the much better 3d program"

[thepuglife 30]

I have finally found time to finish the block out of the rifle, here are some pics: http://imgur.com/a/k52hp

 

What do you think about the proportions, given that this is a .308 caliber rifle?

Any input would be awesome!

[x3kj 1247]

Is the barrel/rail supposed to be the ingame model? Because that is imo too much polygons spend for the roundness of the barrel and railsystem. I would advise to optimize that (keep the high detail for the Highpoly model) There are some other areas where vertices/ edges do not contribute to the geometry - as a general rule, every edge or vertice should contribute to the shape of the ingame-model (=low poly model). If it doesn't you should remove it for optimization for it (unless there is a specific need for a certain edgeflow). For the Highpoly model used only for baking, you should keep the "straight lines", as smoothing can otherwise be problematic.

Highest weapon detail for A3 vanilla weapons is somewhere in the 10k tris count (go into viewport options and change stat display to tris instead of polys - cause polys are often lower and thus fool you).

 

Other then that it looks pretty good, good job.

[thepuglife 30]

I started work on the High Poly recently and I am looking for feedback (edge tightness, etc.)

 

Max Viewport Images: http://imgur.com/a/Lpl8X

Quick Renders: http://imgur.com/a/JoTkH (edit: seems as if these images are blurry)