Comments - M@ty

@Mr.Sugar - do check your inbox and forward on to anyone relevant. I'm interested.

Cheers,

Just finished my new TF2 submission, in time for the holiday season!
Do have a look!
Steamcommunity.com

:)

Awesome update guyshhz!

Wish I had more time to help you guys out again :(, bit too busy at work currently on Transformers, and with married life!!

Fabster, get in touch, man :).

Blame me for aircraft - I'm doing some of them :).

Soon! They're coming :)

It will - my landlord got Sky + HD and multiroom installed - only they didn't tell me and they didn't know to get more ASDL filters - so my net has been down ALL week. Going to have to buy some this weekend. :(

On lunch at work atm :).

Steadily :).

'Soon'!

Get it today, get some practice in!

Get to work on some new modellings stuff this weekend for the UDK release, woop! :)

Good start!

The geometry distribution isn't quite even in places - the cylindrical objects on the back have several segments to them that you can remove - the saved polygons could be put elsewhere like on the tracks.

When making a new cylinder, adjust the Height Segments to 0 in the modifier panel.

Its looking good! Lots of detail already :).

Next steps I'd suggest would be to look at how the scpe attached to the picatinny rail, the scope should be mounted on both sides of the rail, not down its centre.

I'd also adjust the hinges on the eyepiece covers, they're floating currently :).

Keep us posted!

Newsletter has been postponed to a bi-monthly September & October Edition I shall put together this weekend. It'll be twice as awesome, twice as art-filled and action-packed!

Great work! I'd love to see this textured, as with the right diffuse map and a really effective specular map this could look pretty epic :).

Wah-hoo! Got mah beta invites :).

Thanks!

Use google - you only really need one or two side photos to get scale, the rest should be photos from any and every angle you can get :).

Some examples:
Onpointsupply.com
Famous-guns.com

Have the new beta invites gone out yet? Still anxiously waiting for mine!

Its looking good - I'd google some more refence pictures though because the ejection port is a litle more detailed and asymmetrical.

I, as a rule of thumb, never start modelling something without over 50 reference photographs and researching what I'm modelling - better product in the end :).

(I'm doing this from memory so might not be exact menu options, so use your intuition)
Press F10
General tab (the default one when the box opens)
It should list options for Frames - Single, Range, All etc. Select the range of frames you want to output

Scroll down to 'Output' and find a place to save your video, save it as something like .AVI, .MOV or .WMV (if you export to JPGs, you will have to compile them into a video somewhere else). Change the Settings to what you want for that file.

Hit Render :).

Aye - newsletter should be coming this week or next - little busy at the moment (buying a new car and working a 40/hr week plus other committments).

Will be sure to cover some good tips :)

Baking, whether with ngons, tris or quads doesn't change the output. The problems you had were likely smoothing group issues or duplicate faces or verts, or even normals issues.

I've been modelling for over 10 years - I've worked on all sorts of products from achitectural visualisation, through to low-poly and high-poly game art. So please take my advice, and Cryrid's too.

If you look at any low-poly game models, in particular, hard surface models, you will find triangles. Quads and edge loops only need to be maintained under two circumstances: subdividing and deformation (animation). If you can keep your assets as low on triangle count as possible, it will look favourably on you. Post this work on -any- 3D forums and you'll get similar feedback :).

7 tris may not appear to be a lot - but I could easily knock your model down by at least 200 tris without loss of detail. 200 is a lot.

Here's an exmaple of how I mean:
There's 100 triangle difference in that alone :).

Matts.omgmonkeylol.com

Actually, he's right. :) and triangles are fine!

In low polygon models where you're not subdividing and wont deform under animation, you don't strictly need edge loops in there. You can remove the centre seam along the top, and most of the ones on the sides of the metal top section.

I'm at work at the moment, and busy tonight, but if you're not sure how I mean I can put an example up tomorrow :).

A "max" is relative :). 2,200 more polys, but provided performance is saved elsewhere in the scene (be it one less character), all should be fine!

Great work!

@Wird

Not true. Lighting and Rendering are their own disciplines within the industry - modelling is not a requirement - and his lighting is pretty good so far :).

For the win :)!

Interview is up! Go take a read and a look! (Not authed yet, so might not appear right-away).

Have to get on with the weekend now - newsletter should be up tomorrow evening :).

If the engine supports normal mapping (and most do), you can do away with the grip texture on the pistol grip :).

What engine is it for?

Its good - you might want to look at the back of the slide though, should look more like this one:
Img.redwolfairsoft.com
Also: Farm3.static.flickr.com
(different model on second pic, but you get the idea)

Front:
Casg.pl

He's one of France's best new talents - we'll be interviewing him for Staurday's newsletter! :)

He is rather good, isn't he?

Yep! He used to work on mods some years back - and he's got a job offer at Dreamwork's he'll be starting soon.

He's proof that modding is a great place to start!

That's fair enough! :) Don't be afriad to differ from concepts if the end product will be better!

Good concept and lots of detail - fantastic work!

As always, will endeavour to give some positive critique! :-

The picatinny rail up top - looks good, but the EO Tech sight should match the rail like a male/female connection, rather than mounted with dedicated mounts. This reference picture should help:
Gunshopfinder.com

EOTech should also be larger, or you may want to swap it for a Doctor Red Dot Sight, which is better for pistols:
Huntercustoms.com

I also checked out the alternative render on your profile, maybe add some detail to the back-end of the slide so its not plain, here's an example:
Guns4u.info

Maybe widen the magazine a tad too - other than that, looking fantastic, keep up the work!

Just a head's-up to everyone: I plan to bring back the monthly newsletter - for good this time! It will be posted up on Saturday and will include the best art through July posted up on here - next month's will include August's best so start getting your models, scenes and textures completed in-time!

Pleaso also PM me if there's any 3D art-related news from elsewhere you feel deserves a mention and we'll try and squeeze is into the newsletter.

Have fun!