UPDATE: Decided to take the criticisms I received - like 3 months later - and improve the materials and lighting. I think it really "pops" more now.
Well this certainly took a while. Been pretty much glued to my PC for 4 days (would've had this up yesterday but I noticed some misplaced materials during the animation so I had to redo it) but I get the feeling this is more normal than I think. Whilst I do think this is an improvement over my last project it has its problems, the biggest being topologically (that's a word now) speaking this thing is a mess, the subsurf modifiers helped a lot though and I converted as many N-gons to tris as I could (which to my limited understanding is the lesser of two evils). Also other stuff like the triggers not being symmetrical ('cause I'm so inexperienced I didn't think to model everything both Joy-Cons share and then use a mirror modifier haha) and the Joy-Cons being waaaay too shiny. I think however my overall modeling, shading and lighting skills are better, if only some by a tad.
Quite proud of this now but seeing as I've only been properly doing this whole Blender thing for a couple months I hope to look back eventually and really see the improvements I've made. Criticisms and solutions to them are as always appreciated, I know I really need to start the modeling learning flow and the shader forge but does anyone know if there's any advanced lighting courses on here? Don't think I've seen any. Either way thanks for having a look and I hope you like it.
I think you could brighten up the scene a bit. Otherwise the geometry looks good to me of what I can see.
n3b Thanks for the feedback! That's definitely a good idea about the book, I've been watching videos about good lighting and I've noticed some of the courses here do incorporate some more intermediate lighting tips but maybe the book will be my best bet, I'll certainly have a look. Posted this to Reddit and someone suggested I make the screen an emission type which I also agree with, nice to hear the topology didn't ruin it as well. Appreciate the feedback!
Not bad! honestly from a geometry standpoint from what I can see from the animation the biggest issue, as you mentioned, are the triggers. But honestly the model looks good! From what I can see the messy topology isn't reflected at all in the animation when it comes to how the light interacts with your model. In regards to lighting I'm not sure if CG cookie provides pro lighting tips, but If you think of it, you could probably find a book about product lighting that photographers use and get tips from that. You wouldn't find CG specific technical stuff but you'll be able to learn about placement, terminology and the like. Then you can explore blender and see how to implement those concepts.
thecabbagedetective *liked it
nuked Why ta very much, glad you liked. Definitely the most time I've put into a project thus far so glad it paid off.
Wow, I think it looks great. It's nice and accurate. Good job!