[Weapon] Geballte Ladung 3kg [WIP](WW2)

[3===SPECTER===3]

Hey Striker well done on the Geballte so far always glad to see a new weapon for project Normandy.

I know that for me personally packing UVs was a pain in the *** I can't give you any tips as I'm still a beginner myself but I'm sure Doc, lucky and rhino have that covered

But with this weapon I think you have a huge benefit in the fact that it has already been done in Battlefield. This gives you the ability to look at the weapon you're making and see how a more experienced artist has already laid it out and learn from it. (this is what I would do anyway ) Forgotten Hope obviously has some great game artists on their team and I'm sure you know about Knoffhoff's 3kg Geballte Ladung. Looking at the UVs in .max they're not the best ever but I'd say they provide a good starting point and some good ideas for how to pack and layout the shapes in this weapon.


You can have a look for yourself if you have FH2 and the PoE2 tools installed on your computer.

I'm not saying to copy the weapon obviously, but I think it's a good starting point and learning experience to study an existing model of your weapon and see what it does 'well' and what it does 'not so well' and learn from it.

I apologize if this has all been suggested before but I couldn't find a mention of it in the thread. Ik we're all aware of FH2, I just thought it'd be beneficial if you haven't looked at this weapon before and maybe it could help you as you move forward. This is about all the advice I can give on the model so I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in I can probably comment more on the texture when it comes to that. Good luck on this

[M_Striker]

Hey Specter, thanks for the tip and comments! I've been following your FMK mine thread as well, awesome work likewise . I'll take a closer look at the FH2 Uvs.

[M_Striker]

So this is what I've come up with packing wise so far. A couple of questions though.

1. When I scale certain faces, if they're a part of the same object I should be scaling them all uniformly right to keep their texel density all within the same proportion?

2. You can notice that the box itself takes up most of the square whereas the fuse is crammed into the corner there, should I be making the fuse faces larger? and again, if I do, all the fuse faces uniformly larger? In the FH2 UV the fuse takes up a large part of the map.

[Gracler]

Overall id say you should scale everything uniformly but especially if it is sharing the same texture space.

However I think you can scale things a bit differently whenever they are not sharing the same texture space, but don't overdo it or it will show in the final result that the texture is of very different resolution.

So the conclusion is if the fuse have a different texture than the box then yes you can scale it differently.

Edit: are you making a new texture or are you using the one from above? because then you need to make the uv fit the texture precisely and then you can't scale it freely.

[M_Striker]

Well I'm definitely not using the forgotten hope 2 texture if that's what you mean, because as far as I'm concerned that's a big no no. I plan to try and make my own texture once this is done.

[Doc.Pock]

you shouldnt use other peoples work at all. so make your own and try to minimise unused space.
(tip/trick)
render UV template with black BG. put in PS, in histogram check number of pixels. select all the black faces, check number of selected pixels, then selceted/all is the percent of texture youre not using

[Gracler]

Yea of-course you cant use others work, but I didn't know if you had permissions for it.

(tip/trick)
render UV template with black BG. put in PS, in histogram check number of pixels. select all the black faces, check number of selected pixels, then selceted/all is the percent of texture youre not using

And why do you need a percentage? a simple visual inspection would suffice for something like this.

[lucky.BOY]

I would break the UVs on blue lines. The bottom face I would scale down as shown by the gren rectangle, to save some space. It will be hradly seen ingame.

Im not sure how big texture this can get ingame. Id say 512x512, but i dont know. 1024x1024 seems like too big for such a thing. Maybe 1024x512?

The fuse texures you can scale up, but only to use up free space that you cant fit your other clusters in.

Cant you UV the burning cord so it has straight UVs, btw? It will be hard to fit this shape anywhere.

A tip on UVing the fuse:

A quick tip for UVing those stepped circular shapes, I see you got quite a bit of wasted space there.

This is similar to your fuse:


Now, how to go about UVing those flat faces. Firstly, you can do them all at once, it will save you a few clicks and they will surely be on the same spot in UVW space.



Then I move the back face away, and simply scale down the middle cluster a bit and scale up the other clusters considerably, to get good gaps there. This will make the whole circle bigger, but it wont leave you any wasted space inside it.



EDIT: Since youve already scaled it down, I wouldnt re-Unwrap it, just pack it similarily to what I have here.

Oh and try to keep clusters from particular parts of the model close to each other, it makes texturing much easier, especially if you are not the one who textures it. I like to keep a save of the scene just before I started packing, with clusters grouped together by parts, and always return to that save when re-packing, this stops me from unnecesarily srambling the clusters over and over.

EDIT: One thing i forgot to mention is that you need to leave enough space between your clusters for padding. This should be 6 pixels. Best way to ensure you have it is to render UVW template with solid color only, no seams etc, then select that color in photoshop and grow your selection by 6 pixels. Ideally the selection bounderies shouldnt touch each other anywhere.
Now, you cant really do this until you know what resolution will the texture be, and in what resolution should you render the UV template, so best figure that out first

[M_Striker]

Alright followed your advice and came up with this.

[CTRifle]

If that pic is when youve already expanded the "border" area so you dont get bleeding, I would suggest packing it a little bit tighter. The texture should be 512x512, so might as well try to get as much detail as you can on the page. And its a box, so why don't you connect some of the faces that way you can get even scratches on an edge instead of doing it twice if you get what I mean. and if you do it this way, the pixel bleeding isnt as much to manage.

[M_Striker]

If that pic is when youve already expanded the "border" area so you dont get bleeding, I would suggest packing it a little bit tighter. The texture should be 512x512, so might as well try to get as much detail as you can on the page. And its a box, so why don't you connect some of the faces that way you can get even scratches on an edge instead of doing it twice if you get what I mean. and if you do it this way, the pixel bleeding isnt as much to manage.

I'm not understanding the first part of your post. I should pack it tighter? Then won't I get more bleed? I understand you have to find a balance between getting the most space out of the sheet as possible while keeping reasonable gaps in between to prevent bleeding. That's what I tried to do.

And then could someone explain stitching to me? Obviously you pointed out the pros of doing so, but what are the cons? I had it stitched above before Lucky suggested I separate the faces. Just wondering what the meaning behind all of it is. Thanks for the help!

[CTRifle]

Alright, with regards to pixel bleeding, I always put a little color passed the UV map lines to be safe. But imo youre new UV is just a little far apart, its not a major thing, but up to you. Right now you have tons of space.

What I meant about the faces is, especially for the bigger faces (the sides) if you leave them stitched together, itll make a "smoother" texture as itll have more of a flow.

I don't really see any cons to stitching faces together unless they are sperate materials or colors. That would just make more workf or yourself.