M1897 Riot Shotgun

[xC4RN4G3x]

This gun isn't finished yet, but...i need some advice. I'm serious. Ok, so far the gun looks alright except for the PUMP. In the real gun there are little nitches or indents for grip on the pump but i thought modeling that would be a waste of polys. I also need some advice on the bottom of the gun where the shotgun shells go into. I'm somewhat lost at the moment and I was planning on just putting a rectangular indent with no other specific detail. Any other comments on what I should add would be awesome. Right now its about 2100 poly un-optimized. I got about 500+ poly to spare.

 

[WAR_Nuker]

try using bump mapping (i think thats the term im looking for) for the texture on the grip, so that it just looks like there are grooves, though there really arent. why dont you look up pics on google for reference? or even a book? im positive there are plenty. i once owned a 3000 page book of every known handgun, machine gun, rifle, etc. before the 1980s. im sure you can find a nice reference.

 

[xC4RN4G3x]

hmmm ok thanx. but one question. lets say if my models ends up to be less than 2k polys...then do you think i should add the grooves? There really isnt anything else to add, unless i missed something. i think the only place that would require more detail is the gun butt. I dont really know if that would be an effective use of polygons...

 

[WAR_Nuker]

im just saying you dont have to make the grooves. you may do as you please. but im sure you can put your spare polys to better use, like making your rounds rounder...and smoother. your call my man.

 

[xC4RN4G3x]

hmmm...those cylinders(for the barrel) are 10 sided. Hold on let me smooth this out and then see what needs more detail. this might take a while. sorry.

 

[koondrad]

Just make the grooves on the skin.

 

[xC4RN4G3x]

Yeah I was thinking about doing that and then doing that "bumpmap" thing. But...now that my model is only 1857 polygons...I can add quite a bit more. I doubt that my model will be under 3k poly if I did add the grooves so i've decided to use the rest of my polys to clean up my model. i encountered some smoothgroup problems...and i don't really know how to fix them. look at the renders below and you will notice how some parts are really messed up.
PS: I've included two clay renders. yay!

 

[xC4RN4G3x]

yeah..ran out of space to upload. clay renders took me forever to make, and they weren't even that satisfying.
PS: m1897renderi.jpg was done with a skylight, the rest were done with an omni.

 

[WAR_Nuker]

that looks a HELL of a lot better. my god. one thing though. make the trigger guard thinner. i cant really see the trigger that well so i dunno if that should be thinner either.

 

[Ti133700N]

You don't need to add details till you get more than 2k polys. The lower, the better, so if you can texture the details instead of modeling it, go for it. Also you can use bump maps and normal maps so, don't hesitate to use em, they improve the quality of the models greatly.

 

[xC4RN4G3x]

alright...thinner trigger guard. so ti1337, do you think i should leave the model at 1800 poly? don't you think i could like enhance the model in any way with the possible polys i have left?
oh yeah...i was hoping one of you guys could help me fix that smoothing problem in m1897renderii.jpg(the gun butt).

 

[crackhead]

anoth great model needs work though. your trigger gaurd is way to thick

 

[WAR_Nuker]

gun butt looks fine to me in that pic. are you talking about the high contrast of shading?

 

[xC4RN4G3x]

i dont know..there is like a black line...it makes me really mad when i see that.

 

[xC4RN4G3x]

clay rendering takes forever...i feel like falling asleep. i just smoothed out my desert eagle and its taking FOREVER to render. this is seriously annoying.

 

[Ti133700N]

Im not sure what you are talking about...the black line...?

This is a very good trick for ya to detect smoothing groups errors and vertices that have not been merged togeter but should.

Go into the material editor and in the properties of the material you use, up the specular level to something like 90. In the perspective viewport, rotate the view and look at the model, if you see a nice flow of bright white, then it's because those parts are smooth, if you see something wrong, just change the smoothing groups. You can also select all the veretices and press the merge button with a very very low value. If the number of vertices after the merge is lower than before then it's because some vertices were not merged. This can cause some faces to look wierd when smoothed.

Hope this helps

 

[xC4RN4G3x]

ok i just saved that with notepad so i dont forget how to do it. thanx

 

[WAR_Nuker]

odds are that little black line you are talking about wont be as defined in-game.

 

[xC4RN4G3x]

wow...that just feels like a huge burden was taken off me. those black lines were always in the back of my mind. haha wow now i can laugh

 

[WAR_Nuker]

well when you see something rendered in 3d studio, i think there is only one light present to illuminate your model. so in order for your model to look like that in game, there would only need to be one light in the map (at least the room) present. and youd also have to stand at that precise angle to get that little line. im sure youll be forgiven for your sins. actually you know whos gun models also do that? the ones valve made. try it. make a map with 1 bright light and look at the pistol or something.

 

[xC4RN4G3x]

hmmm..what if i have really bad luck and they appear when the guy is just holding it? haha just messing (hopefully they wont). how do i look at valve's models?
uh question: when u guys said the trigger guard is too thich, do u mean like length or...(what the hell am i saying? how do u know what my length is?)....um....could u like tell me which direction? is it too thick as in width or length(i know it makes no sense). could you plz post a picture?

 

[WAR_Nuker]

how do you look at valves models? launch half life 2 and play the game.

dont want to post a pic. the thickness is fine. its just too wide across the....width of the gun. imagine if you stick your finger in it. itd be mighty uncomfortable considering how wide the guard is. you wouldnt be able to bend your finger freely. right now it looks like if you did stick your finger in it entirely, youd only see about half of your finger coming out the other side.

 

[xC4RN4G3x]

oh i see, thanx

 

[xC4RN4G3x]

well...look at the picture below. that looks pretty thick too. but my models probably a lot thicker. yeah let me shorten it.

 

[Sir Phoenixx]

You can get rid of some polygons by making the grip and front of the protrusion under the buttstock have less sides. The grip has like 20+ sides, way more then needed, while the barrel, pump, etc. are only about 8 sided.

 

[xC4RN4G3x]

well considering that this model is 1800 poly....i dont really know if i want to take any more out. the barrel/pump are ten sided, and i think i know what ur talking about. the grip actually has like 22 sides i believe, but later on(the main part of the butt), it gets reduced to 10ish i think. I just needed the circular shape for starting the butt, then later it ended up like any other rifle butt. besides taking out, do u have any recommendations about what to add in?

 

[mindless_moder]

i agree with tile dont strive to get a good poly amount as long as you have the form and the right amount of details it doesnt matter ...dont stretch the limits of the engine they like to boast 2k for weapons and 6k for player models when in relaity if you had these in a mod ur servers would lag 24/7.
little tip: dont focus on the handles of your models youve put a lot of time into smoothing out the handle and the butt when it wont be seen ingame ...in fps view and in 3rd person your going to use a really lowpoly version anyway ...focus on necessary details in the front and use bump maps or texturing wherver aplicable. always focus on optimising it might not look good untextured but some of the best game developers work this way. (hope phoenix agrees with me on that )
as for adding stuff i dont think so it looks fine to me you should spend less time on adding details and more on learning how to unrap and skin so far youve modeled 3 models and have unwrapped none ...i think there are way too mayn people who lay so much emphasis on modeling that they tend to forget about unwrapping and texturing which leads to a whole lot of mods with brilliant models but no skinners to texture them.
edit: also form the looks of things it seems that you could benefit from a good three point lighting tutorial that skylight technique u use seems to give you bad render times. i personaly have my own light rig that i use on all my models so what you should do is either get the e-ligh script for max or make ur own light rig from a tut or experiment and then save it in a max file then whever you ned it go to file>merge and merge all the lights into ur scene ...

 

[xC4RN4G3x]

wow that file merge idea seems like a real time saver. now thats something really useful. thanx mindless
and if your could point me in the right direction(ahem), then maybe i could learn how to unwrap/skin.

 

[Ti133700N]

Yea the file merge is a good idea. Personnaly, I select the skylight and the plane and go into the display tab and press the hide selected button. Then when I want to render I press the Unhide all button and im ready to render.

I dunno why it takes you so much time to render, it should take longer than normal omni lights but when I render a 800x600 image it doesn't take more than 2.5 minutes.

 

[xC4RN4G3x]

sometimes it takes me 4-5 minutes....i'm not even joking. but most of the time the renders are worth it(except this gun). it makes the gun look like x100 better. lol

 

[Sir Phoenixx]

always focus on optimising it might not look good untextured but some of the best game developers work this way. (hope phoenix agrees with me on that )

Even though that's fine (HL2 weapons are around 2000-3000), you should always try to optomize it as much as possible without removing (too much) noticeable detail.

If you can get away with less polygons, sides, etc., then go for it. The smaller and/or further away something is, the less sides/detail it needs (in the model). For something like the cocking lever on the MP5, you can get away with making it 6 sided, with a scope on a sniper rifle you'd give it 12 or 16, depending on how wide and close it is, normal gun barrels can be 8 sided, etc.

Also, unless it's a large barrel like on an M203, then it really doesn't need to be hollowed out.