FPS Weapon

The final project for 3D modelling was to design a gun in 3DSMax with AO Normal and specular maps that worked in a poly limit and under a strict timeline.

I find myself fascinated by weapons (As dangerous a fascination it may be), so I feel I am in my element.

When coming up with a design, I decided to look at mainly assault rifles from various places; video games, real life and film. Because of the nature of the assault rifle, there isn't much that can be done to really go into how one works internally, and so it is all about how they look from the outside.

Some machine gun, machine pistol and marksman rifle designs were used, but this was for variety's sake; assault rifles generally follow three patterns; the AK, the FAMAS and the AR-15. Naturally, this is a general guideline made purely for where things go on the weapon.

When designing my own, I felt it important to look into how weapons work, and found this pretty handy giude to the inner workings of an assault weapon. The diagrams are flash files, so a URL is provided instead. The one linked is the one used in the final weapon design: http://science.howstuffworks.com/machine-gun7.htm 

In regards to what I was to come up with, I decided to use a mix of the designs present here and some that were not, eventually filtering out designs that were not as good or that I didn't like:

Here, some elements from the FN F2000, P90, Thompson SMG, AS Val (Carbine variant of the VSS) and the Borderlands part design went into these. However, the designs were either too close to a real weapon or just didn't feel right. After some deliberation, I made this. It has been exploded to show individual shapes and material guidelines. 

Modelling this was not difficult, merely involving taking the unexploded version then placing the image as a plane texture in 3DSMax and following it with the create tool. Individual components were created piece by piece, some duplicated to speed up production time. After an exhaustive process of adding supporting geometry and then adding what the Swift Loop tool would not make, the high poly model was complete, complete with select fire, assembly screws and picatinny rail! 

Removing the TurboSmooth modifiers, screws and filling the barrel in brought it under 6,000 tris.

UV mapping was next, which was a tedious process to say the least. However, it was completed with a reasonable amount of space used, displayed here as an Ambient Occlusion render: 

Then came projecting the high poly mesh onto the low poly to make a normal map. After several attempts and cage resets, the normal map was made. The indented text on the shroud and indents for the select fire decals were taken from the diffuse texture.

The diffuse texture was made with various custom techniques used to imitate metal and plastic. 

Next came the specular. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be any difference made by this map, but it was good to have for posterity's sake. 

Once these were all applied, they were placed into Marmoset and configured to render. This was the result! 

SDK texturing; week 1

We were tasked to decorate a chosen SDK with a hand-painted texture.

Among the models we could use, I chose The Outlander. This model was one of the only realistically proportioned humans of the ones available, and I wanted to try organic texturing.

The model seems to be inspired by characters from such games as Gears of War (and by extension UT3). Here is the model without textures.

The amount of detail varies from part to part, depending on where it is on the model; for example the chest armour is fairly detailed, whilst the hip pouches are not.

When coming up with a general idea for my texture, I considered what kind of environment this character would be in based on their appearance. Considering the armour doesn't have a right arm and his hair is exposed, it's hardly likely that this character lives in anywhere cold (unless he's just hardcore like that).

There's also the original textures to consider. The original textures had a desert aesthetic to them (being made of beige and brown shades) and I wanted to deviate from this to avoid any similarities with the palette.


Instead, I opted for a more urban look, something that is a contrast to the colour scheme the author used, but one that could still make sense.

To start the texture, I used the ambient occlusion render to give me a sense of depth in conjunction with the UV map. Whilst most of this will have to be erased when I start to use other colours, it is a quick way of producing the primer layer. It can also help to distinguish decals which may have been made to work with the mesh but would have increased the amount of tris.

I repeated this for all three and then started experimenting with which colours would look good next to it. I tried various hues and found a shade of orange to work well with the blue.

The general colour scheme is coming together, but there are still two things wrong: The texture is too bland with just two tones, and the details are only there because of the AO map, which I cannot use in the texture.

To fix the two-toned palette, I loaded up Photoshop CS5 and made a camouflage texture using a plugin. The colours I chose would reflect the shade of blue I used for the base coat, but still leave plenty of difference.

As I said above, I think the author may have made these details from what he may have wanted to sculpt, but couldn't because of poly/ tricount issues. Not only that, but the details of what could be reinforced materials makes sense for the armour has made. Because of this, I have made my texture with some of these details in mind. This is the texture after adding gray highlights to some parts of the amour, along with black outlines to give the texture a cel-shaded effect.

Some parts have been drawn in according to the AO map, but are being treated as paint decals applied instead of being seperate faces like they seem to be on the AO map.

Camouflage was then applied along with shading to finish the torso model.

Practicing alpha channels

The assignment was to create a planar map with an alpha channel.

The Targa image was made from multiple images from CGTextures.

 They were then highlighted in the Alpha channel and applied to a plane.

Sword and Shield design and Creation

The assignment was to brainstorm, design, sculpt and texture two swords and shields.

The design for the sword and shield was influenced by a mood board that has a variety of weapons and shields of different types. 

The first design was based on the stereotypical sword and shield design seen in the middle ages. This shape is basic enough to resemble a sword and be easier to make in 3DSMax.

This sword is based on a combination of the Roman Gladius and the stereotypical Claymore.

The second design was based on a more obscure weapon not pictured above -  the Tonfa. This blunt weapon was designed to be a versatile defensive and offensive weapon that would allow the wielder to change how it was held extremely quickly, allowing them to catch weapons, strike opponents or protect their thumb/ forearms.

The shield was made in a similar style to a Mobile Suit Gundam shield. The simplistic design is a simple one to make, but can have a different style applied to it.

The first sword was made by altering basic primitive shapes, the blade taking little work to get into shape.

The hilt was a similar affair; a box that had a bend modifier applied then collapsed, and the X axes faces scaled down to create the points.

The grip and pommel were made with cylinder primitives which were manipulated to a more realistic shape. They were not attached to make UV mapping easier.

The shield is a simple box primitive that had its faces divided.

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The tonfa grip and 'hilt' were made from cylinder and box primitives respectively.

The tonfa blades are made the same way, but with some faces bridged to give the blade a smaller frame. One was completed then duplicated and mirrored.

The shield was made from a box model that was extruded and scaled multiple times to achieve the shape I needed.

The UV maps were made to be as close to the faces' dimensions as possible.

When the textures were applied, they required a little work to match the geometry properly.

When rendered with Ambient occlusion: