This is an on-going thread documenting my progress through the 2021 Collab Project.
And here it is: the octagon version according to Vadims advice
actuelly less tris-I forgot to delete a face.
I like this version. Looks very similar to the conceptart I guess
Great work Mona, looks like you're ready for sculpting your high rez :)
Very clean and accurate work! Great job mmonaloren ! Can't wait to see your sculpting interpretation! :)
week 2 Day 3/4-practice sculpting
thats my result so far. Took some time to get used to sculping. Fortunately, Kent demonstrated the lantern in the stream. Got problems with the holder and has to start all over. In addition, details are still missing.
But overall I am very happy. Slowly get a feel for the brushes. But now I need a break first.
There is still a lot to be done
hardly anything to see on the screenshot-hmm-and I thought it could be too much
Nice start but I think you may be to cautious with your brush strokes. Try to use the scrape brush with more strength to get beter contrast in your geometry.
Thank you for your advice lucky. Very helpful. I think you are right. I was little bit too carefully the first time.
It looks like this at the moment.
week2-day 5 - more sculpting
Kent said at some point in the stream the brush shouldn´t be too strong and in the normal map course is recommended to exaggerate scultping for a clear normal map.
The challenge would be to find the working middle way and to be constant in the details.
I tried to simulate rust at some edges with the voronoi. I kind of like that ;).At the body I also bended the glass frame a little bit, and rust of course.
More noticeable this time, I guess? Is this enough?
At the handle I ran into another problem. See next post.
week2- day 5 -little troubleshoting
I always run into problems with ugly distortions expecially on the handle.
I did this part several times, smooth brush did´t help, I relaxed the edges by hand and try a lot more, but nothing worked.
It was strange because the density on the edges are similar e.g to the top part and also Kent did not have this problem in the stream.
only one example
Yesterday was a discussion about normal maps and distortion etc. in the wip-thread of @lexicolopolis . At this time I still haven´t seen any conjunction with my distortion problem. But there had to be one. Something that made Kent different. After sleeping some hours I finally had the idea.
I have made a test unwrapping on the Low-Poly parts. Not very clean and final, only as a test.
Copy the Low-Poly to made the High-Poly part.
So my dirty UV-Map was copied too. The seams were also not set cleanly and there were some issues.
And the distortions are exactly where I set these nasty seams.
Could be so easy. So, I delete the Seams and UV map from the High-Poly and hopefully it will work now.
First tests are promising.
Totally forgot that there were these test unwrapping. Was so concentrated on sculpting ;)
Should have much more time to practice all the sculpt. But I am running out of time today. There is a deadline;)
However I will try my best to get a decent result. I have a lot of fun sculpting the lantern.
To me it looks like it could be one of these things: an extra edge that is hiding under the real edge, some other geometric issue on seam, sharp edges not being in optimal places, smooth vertex being set at too low an angle. Those are my guesses anyway. :D
Yes -it was an overall nasty unwrapp and bad setting of seems e.g. sharp edges in the wrong place and missing edge in the loop.
As I said I had completely forgotten about it. Short way - simple delete ;) Time is precious - haha.
Looks beter already, maybe breaking up the edges of the top even more, I still have the feeling I'm looking at a wireframe if you know what mean. Maybe putting some deep dents in the edges.
Homework Submission - Week 2 - lantern
@theluthier
This was an intersting and exiting week of sculpting. I had a lot of fun. But now I´m running out of time and I have to call it finished.
At least for this week. There is a lot to improve.
First I tried to get familar with the behavior of the brushes (and working with graphic pen of course).
Then I used the voronoi, scrape and crease in these order part by part of the lantern.
I also used the voronoi to simulate rust. Mostly in the edges.
I had a lot of respect for the details, and did these steps at the end.
I had some trouble with distortions but could solve most of it and I am not so happy with the glass and will definitely change it.
There is so much more I could do and need much more practice, but for now, I am happy to got it to this point.
(Note:made changes in the meantime -see screen on next post, and syn. with GoogleDrive)
I have changed something on my lantern body. The glass frames are slightly larger and the glass surfaces less structured like a honeycomb but sligtly wavy.
I didn't like the structure.
I made a new brush and use a Wood Texture with Band-Pattern.
Now it looks more like my own old windows from our old shed;)
( sync. with GoogleDrive)
Week 3-Day 1 / cleaning to match Low/Hig Versions + UV`s
Because I changed the high-version little bit, expecially the body part, I had to fix some parts.
Unwrapping works perfectly.Thank you Kent for the hints and tricks in the streams. Helped me a lot, because earlier I struggled bit with these handle part. I tried AverageIslandScale but was not so satisfied with the result. I tweaked some parts a little bit for more space on the UV.
Now I was curious how the normal map will work. Only the top part so far.
1024px Normal- top part (scaled down)
and some bake-tests: 512px / 1024px / 4096px / 4096px scaled down to 1024px with interpoloation none
Interesting: 4096px has a more sensitiv behavior with the ray distance...I guess because of the pixel density
But I am not sure if it is really a better result with the scaled down one.
Have to do some more test, if I have the time. Also I want to try to bake the normals with cage.
These tests are great, I'm really digging the native 1024 bake. Not sure what's going on with the 4k, like you said there some weird sensitivity to it. Can't wait to see how your normals with cage tests turn out.
week3-Day 2 / normal map day
1. had to optimized my UV´s,for more space at the edges.
2. I probably should change the interpolation to cubic while scaling.
Someone told me that he scaled down in two steps. 8k- to 4k to 1k to get a decent result.
Haven´t tried it, but interesting idea.
3. I find this course very helpful for normal map baking. Normal Map Baking for Games
Now I found this: 5 Must Know Tips
partly the same tips but especially interesting: " Problem 3: Which file format / settings are best to use to save the bump / normal maps externally? "
There is a comparison of the file sizes with explanation
(all examples are for a 1024 x 1024 texture size)
8 bit png = 117 KB
16 bit png (default 15% compression) = 1,080 KB
16 bit png (0% compression) = 6,156 KB
16 bit png (100% compression) = 792 KB
32 bit (Full float) OpenEXR (no codec) = 12,305 KB (Largest!)
32 bit (Full float) OpenEXR (Zip lossless codec) = 4,350 KB (Smallest lossless option)
32 bit (Full float) OpenEXR (Pxr24 lossy codec) = 637 KB (Smallest lossy option! Not including 8 bit)
Kent said we should save the NORMAL maps as 16bit png / seems that the compression could make a differnce in file size.
Now I`ll see how far I can get together. Despite testing, I have to have finished normal maps at some point ;)
Some more cleaner tests:
Each Image bake with 32 bit float/save as 16 bit png
1024px
4k to 1 k /interpolation cubic
8k to 1 k /interpolation cubic
https://gyazo.com/c548bfc4a62684c51ab29c4992dd0fe2
same with normal map setup on lowpoly modell
https://gyazo.com/ed2a5663239f755a0ec3e83a6e9bc68a
cleaner with bake with higher resolution and scaling down imho. Little bit more timeconsuming but perhaps it is worth it.
Your sculpt turned out beautifully mmonaloren! I'm so happy to read that you enjoyed the process. Sculpting will always be one of my favorite 3D tasks.
No constructive criticism from me. Just keep doing what you're doing 👍
Cage baking / top only
both 4k normal map images scaled down to 1024px
the second normal map ist baked with cage
Hardly to see on the screenshot but now there is a difference- have a look to the lower edges
Normal Map and top-part / second one with cage
https://gyazo.com/79c2f9f977de3aaab0ef5e5d2edb83d5
https://gyazo.com/065223633d9fba3b331f0884132b217f
I had the idea to work with several UV maps;).
But for now I stop testing and bake my normals.
week 3-Day 3 / Normal Map and Cavity
1. New UV Map
2. Baking Normal: I baked with Cage and high resolution(without the body-part)
Had some issues on every part but all could be solved.
With the exeption of the body.I was a bit too strong with sculpting and now there is a problem with normal baking.
Would take too much time to correct all these tiny things and the mesh wouldn´t be cleaner.
So I decided to redo the sculpt part of the lantern body.
3. Cavity Map with Dirty Paint Vertex
Same. Issues on every part.
Noticed the "Dirt-Only"-button in the settings of vertex paint.
I used it for the handle part, because it is soo flat that there were almost no contrast.
There is also a setting " Blure Iteration". Set it to 2 just for testing. Seems there is a little bit more contrast now.
Some annoying behavior cost me a lot of time to resolve.
Often I saw no baking-result. Tried a lot, check all setting again.
Solution: the image texture had to be reloaded in the image editor. thanks for that ;)
The lantern-body-part isn´t bake so far. I redo the whole part.
This is my result. Perhaps I bake some maps again. Depends on the result of the node-setup.
And I really hope I can finished it soon, because I can no longer ignore my home and garden ;)
Update: Okay - just saw a mistake on the UV (grmpffff). Bake again!!