Below I have also attached some images of my wireframes, for any feedback on the meshes.

Very nice meshes, you clearly mastered edge flow.

Your wire frames look much better than the mesh would with materials on, I think that you should do some hand painting in Zbrush along the lines to emphasize the lines, so that there is a hint to the edge flow in the materials.

Iron man's arm looks like there was no consideration for anatomy, although as you verified it's a older model.

Only the light saber and Rifle look game ready. The race car is in need of cleaning, just removing and merging some edge loops, before use. Iron man needs a full retopology.

I think My main issue is that I don't fully understand what polygon budget would be used in certain situations. How high can you do with a 3rd Person Hero character, 3rd and 1st person weapons and environments filler props?

Poly budget changes per game type, however the idea is to use as little polygons you can while getting as smooth a model as you can.

Don't bother asking poly counts, remember that games made now are intended to be released in a few years time, who knows what it will be then.

The best way to get a poly budget for your model, is to rip a model from the newest top release in that genre, then add 25% to the poly count and use it as your budget.

One thing you will find from ripping models like this, is that games use a lot lower models than you would have expected.

A example is the The Witcher 3, most models average out 35 000 polygons, when they could have made them all at around 45 000. A other interesting thing is that Geralt sword's first LOD exceeded most buildings in polycount.

@Scouting Ninja

I will give this a go. Just adding some subtle highlights on the most prominent edges to give them a little more pop ?
I do agree with what your saying with Iron Man, that model is in desperate need of a poly reduction, there are some details I really could have done with normal maps. However, as mentioned, it is an older model and I had no idea how to get accurate bakes, granted I still don't, but i feel like I am closer to getting good bakes now than I was back then.

In terms of the poly counts, I did manage to source a model of Lara Croft from the latest Tomb Raider, and that model had 100k Tris, but I am unsure if that is a game play model or cinematic model, although, I would be more inclined to believe it is for in game cinematic rather than actual gameplay.



I did also have a play around with the material on the gun. I went in an adjusted the metalness ad roughness values within Quixel for now to see how it would affect the materials. I feel like it now looks a little better but still not 100% there. Can't seem to get the dirt to look like it has built up on the model. The normal information is there, its just not that intense, so maybe just play around with the intensity ?

Looks much better, your dust also has more depth now that there is reflection to compare with.

I do agree with what your saying with Iron Man, that model is in desperate need of a poly reduction, there are some details I really could have done with normal maps. However, as mentioned, it is an older model and I had no idea how to get accurate bakes, granted I still don't, but i feel like I am closer to getting good bakes now than I was back then.

Xnormal use to have a manual with it that also explained the general baking guides, don't know if the new one includes it.

The way your normal maps are now is good for modern games.

In terms of the poly counts, I did manage to source a model of Lara Croft from the latest Tomb Raider, and that model had 100k Tris, but I am unsure if that is a game play model or cinematic model, although, I would be more inclined to believe it is for in game cinematic rather than actual gameplay.

The largest batch at the moment of all engines, at 66k. Most engines have max batches of 52k-56k a model of a 100k would literally be two models, that is definitely the cinematic model, probably using a body part LOD for cutscenes.

I did also have a play around with the material on the gun. I went in an adjusted the metalness ad roughness values within Quixel for now to see how it would affect the materials. I feel like it now looks a little better but still not 100% there. Can't seem to get the dirt to look like it has built up on the model. The normal information is there, its just not that intense, so maybe just play around with the intensity ?

When making dirt or dust I like to brush it on. When you brush dirt use a smaller brush on the roughness map than the albedo. Dust unlike fat doesn't upset the light bounce instantly, instead only where dust is cluster does it really change the way the light bounces.

The dust you have covers the whole weapon, breaking contrast. Maybe if you have less dust it would be more noticeable.

The dust on the barrel looks correct now.

*double post sorry*

@Scouting Ninja

I will defiantly give Xnormal a download and will pay about with it. Right now I have been using Mudbox for my bakes, and it has working out fairly well. Much better than the mental ray bakes i got in Maya.

I never knew about the batches in engines. so that information is so helpful.


In the future, i will be use to take more care when applying weathering effects such as dust to objects, to give a more accurate representation of what would actually happen.

Thanks again :-D

wow, impressive stuff. way out of my league. Well done.

Done a quick prop of some British Traffic lights. Kept the poly count low, but I could probably go lower to be honest.

But I feel like I have more interesting and defined materials, hopefully.

what does a normal do and an RMA, I assume a normal adjusts the amount of light being reflected? does RMA determine what wavelength is reflected more?

Done a quick prop of some British Traffic lights. Kept the poly count low, but I could probably go lower to be honest.

Very nice work. The poly count is what I would expect from a AAA game, no need to go lower.

The material on this one is very nice- the materials are starting to reach the level of the mesh- with a model like this is best to keep it bland so the lights stand out if you add them.

A other thing about a piece like this, don't focus too much time on making it look good on it's own. If every small model in a scene is eye catching, it creates a type of noise effect, with the viewers eyes not having any rest points.

what does a normal do and an RMA, I assume a normal adjusts the amount of light being reflected? does RMA determine what wavelength is reflected more?

The normals in a mesh determine how light is shown. A normal map allows the artist to change the way light acts, often bending light to show detail that isn't really there; like a illusion.

RMA is the roughness map (how rough a surface looks), the metallic map (how metal the object is) and the AO map (A fake- yet effective- way of calculating ambient light).

The maps are BW images, allowing a artist to store them as a single RGB image.

Using the Albedo, roughness, metal and AO map a artist can make very realistic and responsive materials for games.

Very nice work. The poly count is what I would expect from a AAA game, no need to go lower. The material on this one is very nice- the materials are starting to reach the level of the mesh- with a model like this is best to keep it bland so the lights stand out if you add them