Ambient Occlusion

I have forgotten to mention about something that Dean showed me to try out on my models and this was to generate an ambient occlusion. An ambient occlusion is baked into the diffuse map and gives the diffuse map alot more depth i have found this to be very effective on my models. At first Dean showed me how to generate an occlusion map in 3DS Max, however after learning about this type of technique X-Normal also can generate them. Having tried out both of them i decided to use X-Normal as this seemed to give me better results. After X-Normal generates the occlusion maps it is copied and pasted into the Photoshop file and the layer is either changed to Overlay or Multiply i found that certain diffuse maps i made got better results. Here are those Ambient Occlusion maps on their own;

Head and Body Ambient Occlusions

Assault Rifle Ambient Occlusion

Mini Gun Ambient Occlusion

Hoverbike Ambient Occlusion

Here is an example of my Hoverbike texture with a Ambient Occlusion present and one without it, as you can see there is a massive difference between the two of them.

Start of the Mini Gun Texture

I have been busy working away on the Mini Gun texture applying the same technique i used to create the Assault Rifle i have managed to get quite a good texture built in a matter of a few days.

Here is how i built up the Mini gun texture slowly adding textures as i go and at the same time i tend to do a quick render back in 3DS Max to ensure that the new pieces of texture applied look OK when rendered out.

Here's flat colours where applied to the model:

I then started to darken up the whole gun as the first base colour was to light i wanted my weapons to look battle scarred and used.

As i went along i built up little details here and there to help me visualise how the finished texture would look. Here i have applied little bolts to the magazine clips and main barrel chambers.

I wanted all my model to have a similar theme and look so whilst creating my textures i had to ensure that i was keeping consistent with the Assault rifle.

I eventually got to the point were i could add more decals and extra detail into the model i was particularly pleased with the decal i added on the side of the main gun barrel chamber i think it works really well. The whole model was starting to come to life and look more realistic i was happy with the last few days work.

Whilst creating the Mini Gun texture i managed to hold of a copy of V-Ray a renderer i had seen people use on the Internet. I wanted to experiment with V-Ray because in the back of mind i was thinking ahead and about when i come to doing my final renders of the models. It was interesting to see how V-Ray worked i liked the way the shadows where cast in the scenes, however i was not sure if i would use V-Ray as a final renderer or not.

Some quick adjustments are needed to the Assault Rifle

Before i carried on with my texturing of the Assault Rifle i decided to get some feedback off John. He was fine with how the diffuse was coming along, however there was some issues he had with the overall shape and functionality of the weapon.

The below images should explain what was needed to change, the scope sight needed to be brought forward in order for the character to properly look down the sight correctly. The magazine clip should be made longer in length for easier access when changing magazine clips & the ridges on the barrel should be removed as they would only get in the way in combat.

With this now in place i was able to carry on creating the texture for the Assault rifle after several hours work i eventually came up with with this design.

For now i am going to leave this Assault Rifle as it is as i am sure that there will be minor changes to the gun later on but i was pleased with my days work and it was time to move onto the Mini Gun.

Start of the Assault Rifle Texture

Today i have been making a start on the Assault rifle diffuse at first i started to experiment with different colours until i was happy with a base colour i wouldn't bother attempting to add any real detail today was just a foundation.

With this in place I'm hoping to have the Assault Rifle diffuse completed by the end of tomorrow fingers crossed.

Looking at other Weapons

I thought i should mention at this point that i am a massive Gears of War fan so with this in mind i wanted and also keeping in mind that i was building these mods for the Unreal community i collected lots of reference material to help me along with my texturing. Here are some of the pictures i collected whilst doing my research.

And so on with texturing the weapons.....

An exceutive decision has been made

After going to college today i have decided that i am not going to use Z-Brush to create the panels for the character. Dean kindly showed me how to use a plug-in for photoshop that is free to download that can generate normal maps from using the diffuse map that will be created. This plugin once installed can be found under Filter>NIVIDIA Tools>NormalMapFilter

Dean showed me a demonstration of this in college and it seems very easy to use with great results. This is really going to help me manage my time better as well as spending all that time in Z-Brush has set me back hopefully this will speed the whole process up now.

You can find this free plug-in at:

http://developer.nvidia.com/object/photoshop_dds_plugins.html