GAS MASK
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This was an assignment for my Advanced Lighting Techniques class. The class is oddly named IMO as it's taught by a game modeler who's emphasis is on the high to low poly process, which of course includes texture painting. That's all beside the point really. This was the last assignment for the class and it was fun to make since it was a moderately complex hard-surface/organic object.
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Here's a pic of the original reference image of the gas mask. I presented a few objects to the professor and this is what he chose for me to do. It's nice that it's such a high rez image, it made modeling out certain details a little easier (the image on my hdd is at least twice this size.) I honestly wasn't too excited about doing the gas mask to begin with, as I just kinda felt that either a. it's probably something that's a bit overdone and or b. it doesn't have the most exciting textures. I did end up getting into the modeling of it though, and I had a good time making it.
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I was taught, and have learned to appreciate the concept of doing research on an object before I begin modeling it. A critical part to this is obviously finding extra images to help see the item in question from multiple angles. Along with this is the idea that understanding the general workings of whatever it is I'm modeling better helps me to actually, and more accurately, construct the object. Knowing why something is what it is and what it's doing eliminates the mystery and prevents something from just becoming a "widget".
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These are images of the general progress of the model. I started by downloading and importing a base mesh head from Zbrush central. I did this because I wanted the mask to be formed around a head; it generally worked well as a thing by which to sculpt around. Being that this object goes around a head, I followed general practices used in modeling heads after getting the vent and lenses in. It seemed to work out well; the only difficult part for the rubber mask bit was around the nose where I had to tighten it up a bit.
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In hind sight, after having been given some tips on constructing the helmet, I realize that not starting with a geosphere instead of a regular sphere was a mistake. I made the regular sphere work, but it ended up not being as efficient and a bit more troublesome to work with in general.
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The tubing coming out of the vent was an interesting bit. It was a spline that I generated with a Neil Blevins script (the wire bundler from the soulburn scripts packet.) The hole required to have the tubing going through the vent proved to be really troublesome, so I just stuck the tube through the geometry. I suppose it's a bit cheap, but I didn't want to resort to collapsing the geo and boolean-ing ... I'm still not really happy with that bit...
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I made the strap bit with a plane extruded out manually with a shell modifier applied. That was a fun part to work with. The straps connecting it to the helmet were also another fun bit to implement, and it was interesting to actually look at real straps like that to understand how fabric weaves in and out of it; I wanted to get it right so looking at real reference was critical.
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When the whole mask was "done" I got critiques and refined some more. The main areas of contention were the nose and some of the scale of different parts. The turn around up top shows the final adjustments. Overall it was an entertaining object to build.
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These were some presentation renders I generated for the high poly of the mask before I moved onto the low. These renders were made before I'd received the critiques mentioned above, so some of the things, like the nose and such weren't fixed yet. My goal with these was simply to try to demonstrate a part of the process that I felt most comfortable with, and therefore felt the necessity to go above and beyond a bit to show this part off.
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After completing the high poly modeling, the low poly process was next. The general layout of the object is the same, and I approached 'low-polying' it in the same order as the high, but of course it was a totally different process of modeling. I was given a max tri count of 3500 for this piece (I've been told that going over just a few tris isn't a terrible sin, so that's accounting for the other 46...) I think all in all the low poly process was fun and I got the mesh down to a reasonable state that held the silhouette well.
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This was only the second piece I had ever gone through the process of high to low poly for. It was far more complex than the other, and proved more challenging for sure (still fun though). I didn't realize till much later, that I'd made a mistake in the way I'd laid out my UVs for this object. It caused my normals to capture oddly, and there ended up being a bad seam down the middle of several pieces. Feel free to view the maps below.
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Check out this rotation movie of the low poly if you like. Ultimately, I'm not very happy with how the textures for the low poly came out. I grasped the technicalities behind effectively optimizing a mesh with good topology, and the general practices behind casting normals and such well, but the texture painting process is a very fine art, in my opinion. There seem to be lots of shortcuts and handy tricks that save lots of time, otherwise it's a tedious hand-painting endeavor. With that said, I do believe that given the opportunity I could get practice and end up developing the skills behind said tasks more thoroughly.
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I would, however like to thank a couple of people. I got lots of little tips here and there from several people, but ultimately the bulk of my knowledge for the low poly process and texture painting for it came from my friend Jerimiah Bigley (check out his website, he's a very talented guy.) He was very patient with me in helping me understand the nuances and qwerks of it all. Also, another friend of mine, Brandonn Fricks, was quite helpful when I bugged him with problems of the process.
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In the end this is a better hi-poly piece. I think my skills are better shown, as of now, in that department, if for no other reason than being able to construct a given object and then being able to light and stage it well. If I had my druthers about this piece, I'd go back in and apply some nice shaders to it all to make the hi-poly really start to shine as a realistic asset. Again, I still think I'd get much better at the low-poly process were I given the opportunity and necessity to do so.
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