[Weapon] Flak 18 (8.8 cm) [WIP](WW2)

[Adriaan]

Although the texture space allotment thing is mainly important for handheld weapons, it does apply to other objects as well yeah. It's as you said, just make sure not to vary the density too highly over parts.

Make sure to keep enough and equal spacing between UV pieces too. Like Spush said, you want it to be tightly packed to maximize detail, but try to avoid pieces near-bordering each other where possible since that causes texture bleed.

Nice work so far and gl with packing!

[Ratface]

Quick question (although I am sure I already know the answer XD), is it better to manually pack the parts, or to use the Pack UVs tool under the tools bar? At the moment I will do it manually, just because, I'm sure thats a better way, especially when it comes to texturing.

[lucky.BOY]

Manually

[Tim270]

A few things:
It looks like stretching on the uvs on the 'cone' thing the gun sits on, watch out for that, you can fix it by using the relax tool in the uvw editor.

The rear leg looks like it has about half the uv space the other legs have - it will be very noticeable ingame like that, try to keep overlapping as many uvs as you can and try to keep similar size parts at roughly the same ration of uv space.

Other than that you are doing a good job, keep it up!

[Ratface]

Awesome guys, thanks!

I will be cleaning up the UVs and packing them this week, I have a feeling that will be all I can get done but I'll be sure to update with questions/ the packed UV map within a week

[Ratface]

Quick question regarding overlapping. All these faces will be using just a basic tan/ grey color (depending on color scheme) when textures are applied. Will this be fine to have so many overlapped because it will be just the base color (with very small details, scratches, etc)? Thanks.

[Rhino]

not if any AO or any other baking is involved no.

[Tim270]

It kind of depends, you could move them off during the AO bake(like you have to for any overlapping uvs for baking anything) and it will bake fine, but you will only get the AO for the uv shell you left there. So you could, but you may as well give them their own space.

[Rhino]

Ye, while you can leave them out of the AO bake, it will show up like a saw thumb if any of the parts are in deep shadow area, then have no shadow on these parts, or visa versa.

[Ratface]

Sounds good! Separate they go

[Ratface]

Ok, here is my first attempt at packing. I know there is room for improvement, but let me know how this looks!

To show what things are overlapped:


What the UV map will be (little bit of red, I don't want to fix it, very small section ):


The model UV mapped:

[lucky.BOY]

I have only theoretical knowledge about this, but you should consider this anyway


These bits seem to have fewer space on UV then others, try to give them a bit more.


You have loads of dead space inside clusters, you need to fill them with smaller clusters, some ideas are sketched there.


Oh and i scanned some photos of the thing from a magazine i bought the other day, it may have some pictures you didnt saw yet... Only about one or two of them is actual flak 18, but they might help anyway..




Note they aparently painted a white ring on the barrel for each tank they destroyed.

http://i.imgur.com/ed1Ql.png
http://i.imgur.com/Ne5y0.png
http://i.imgur.com/O0Tqa.png

cheers.

[Rhino]

Ye you have a lot of empty space you can easily fill up with better packing, lucky has a few good suggestions there. With better packing you can then increase the rez of all the UVs, or just some.

You basically need to look at your empty space and think what can fit in there.

Also some of your UVs are pretty damn close together, should look into spreading them out more: https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f189-m ... eding.html

[Ratface]

Awesome, thanks for the references and ideas lucky!

And rhino, that was a good read! many thanks

I'll spend several hours through the next few days redoing things and I'll repost shortly, many thanks people ^^

[AfterDune]

You're making very good progess anyway, keep it up man, I like it .

[Ratface]

Ok, second attempt. I think it looks better (personally), however this is fairly difficult for me, it's a like a giant damn puzzle and I suck at puzzles

[motherdear]

A good way to test your uv is to make an AO bake and see if there is any stretching etc. on the model, what I always do if I am in doubt about my packing. You will also see bleed on the texture when you zoom out, giving you an idea of where to increase the edge distances.

[Ratface]

Ok, I am going to try that. What I I have so far with my AO bake is . . . not very good

I'm going to play around a little bit with it and post it up. Sometime next week I will also see if i can get help from my teacher or someone in person to help too. For now, I leave you with a sexy pic

[motherdear]

When baking an AO stick a completely white material onto the item you are baking and then have a general lightsource in the scene. That way you can see the shadows with your eye without having to filter them from the grey color
For showing off grey is fine though

[Ratface]

Just as a quick update, I've been super busy with school and work the last few weeks that I haven't had much time if any to work on the UVing, LODs, or the destroyed model yet. I'm off after next monday, so I'll pick up on the project again soon!