Unwrapping Problem

[xgamer468]

Hi guys, i hope this is in the right category, first time posting here. So im just trying get started in modding. As im quite happy with the helmet model i made, i ran into some problems unwrapping the UVs.

I was trying to unwrap the tubing but well... didnt really work out. I already tried relaxing it and setting seams to all of the littlle rinng things (they are still connected on the back)
http://i.imgur.com/lt51WHF.png here is what im talking about.

And also im at a 150k polys now, would you say thats to high poly? or am i good?

Oh and also what i forgot, can i just leave the few 90 degree angles i have or do i need to chamfer them? Or is it good to just rework them with PS on the normals?

Edited January 27, 2016 by xgamer468

[Junnari]

I can't help with the unwrapping issue as I personally use Blender, but the polycount is quite high, especially if it's spent into tubing that could also be achieved with normal maps. I haven't yet worked on armor pieces, but most of the guns I've imported have been around 7-11k tris. If you want to see what kind of polys the armors use, simply extract some meshes and check their polycount in max, this should give you some idea on how much the vanilla meshes have polys.

[xgamer468]

yeah i wanted to do that but wasnt sure if the effect of a normal map would be quite the same as when i make it actual geometry. Those pieces stand out quite a bit. And that leads to my last question with the 90 degree angles, do you know how to handle these?
i know that the vanilla mesh has a much lower count but its also by far not as complex, so ill never be able to get it to that count. There is actually a lmap with quite a bit of deatil on the other side and an oxygen mask under the glass and i just wont get under a 100k i think

And im not sure how different unwrapping uvs is in blender but do you know if its possible to do the normals for the tubs without having to redo all the uvs that ive done so far?

Edited January 27, 2016 by xgamer468

[Junnari]

The effect of using normal map instead of adding more polygons won't be the same as complex mesh will always give more realistic result, but it won't really look too much different yet is far more resource friendly to render in game. You can see the difference between low-poly mesh, subdivided high-poly mesh and low-poly mesh with 1k*1k normal map below:

 

http://i.imgur.com/4V8na5Y.png

 

Higher resolution images:

http://i61.tinypic.com/2u6mb7d.jpg

http://i61.tinypic.com/2c0jsz.png

http://i59.tinypic.com/11bkroj.jpg

 

The first and last ones have 650 polys, the middle one 123k. Apart from minor reduction in detail, the difference can be usually only seen in the edges of the mesh which cannot be smoothed with normal maps, but are slightly faded by anti-aliasing.

 

 

Even as most of the vanilla headgear might be less complex than your helmet, they still are at completely different level in regards of the polycount. For example, if I'd combine the vanilla flight helmet and gas mask, the combination would have about 4500 triangles, which is about 65 times less than your helmet (assuming your polys were counted as quad) but with pretty much equal complexity. Although your helmet wouldn't be used by every NPC, it still would slow the game more than it likely would be worth for a single helmet.

 

Having straight 90 degree edges isn't necessarily wrong, but in some cases you might want to add a edge loop or similar to have two 45 degree edges instead, especially if the object you are making has slightly rounded edges.

 

The normal map doesn't affect the UV map as it's simply just a texture that tells the engine which direction the surface of the mesh is pointing, so you won't need to redo a UV-map to generate a normal map. Basically how you get a normal map is that you make two versions of the mesh, low-poly and high-poly (this can be easily done by simplifying high-poly model or by adding more details to low-poly). You then make UV-map for the low-poly, and bake the surface data of the high-poly model into the texture which is then used as normal map. The normal map can also be made by hand with Photoshop or similar by painting the parts which you want to appear higher and lower and then converting this into a normal map.

Edited January 27, 2016 by Junnari

[xgamer468]

Alright i guess then ill make a low poly version, im pretty sure i can find a lot of stuff that i can get rid of, thanks for the help! here is a pic of the whole thing btw: http://i.imgur.com/iBRpAVJ.png

I know that Normal maps dont really affect UVs, but when i make a low poly version, id obviously have to redo them, thats what i wanted to say.

 

In which cases would i have to do that? i mean there currently arent too many 90 degree edges anyway, how do i know that i need to do it or not?

 

Thanks a lot for taking the time btw, its not easy getting started with this without having really any experience in any kind of modding or moddeling, so thanks a lot!

[vashts1985]

way too many triangles in that tube. like other said use bake maps for that.

 

try to flatten map on the tube. other than that, you want to have max auto generate uv coordinates when creating a complex shape like that.

[Junnari]

Yeah, it's hard to modify the mesh without affecting the UV-maps, so if you're making the model low-poly, you'll pretty certainly need to remake the UV-map as well.

 

It mostly depends just on what is the intended use of the model, if there's any benefit or loss from having the edges more rounded, and whether the benefits overcome the loss. For example, if you are making some simple assets for mobile game, you want to keep the polycount as low as possible, and even if you'd make them more detailed with rounded edges, this would be hardly noticed due the small resolution and screen. Another example is LOD (level of detail) models that are used to add more details in the distance. They work fairly simply: once the player is far enough, the default model is replaced with less detailed version that is lighter to render. However due the distance the difference isn't as apparent as the model is represented by lower amount of pixels, making details unrecognizable anyway. This can be used in tiers with the quality dropping in steps so that the difference between LOD and default models isn't as apparent.

 

In the case with the box in the rear of the helmet, you can pretty safely round the edges as this shouldn't add too many polys, but makes it appear more detailed if previewed closer.

[xgamer468]

Alright i guess then ill make a low poly version, im pretty sure i can find a lot of stuff that i can get rid of, thanks for the help! here is a pic of the whole thing btw: http://i.imgur.com/iBRpAVJ.png

I know that Normal maps dont really affect UVs, but when i make a low poly version, id obviously have to redo them, thats what i wanted to say.

 

In which cases would i have to do that? i mean there currently arent too many 90 degree edges anyway, how do i know that i need to do it or not?

 

Thanks a lot for taking the time btw, its not easy getting started with this without having really any experience in any kind of modding or moddeling, so thanks a lot!

Meaning i wouldnt even have to do the annyoing work of setting all the seams? how do i do that?

[xgamer468]

Yeah, it's hard to modify the mesh without affecting the UV-maps, so if you're making the model low-poly, you'll pretty certainly need to remake the UV-map as well.

 

It mostly depends just on what is the intended use of the model, if there's any benefit or loss from having the edges more rounded, and whether the benefits overcome the loss. For example, if you are making some simple assets for mobile game, you want to keep the polycount as low as possible, and even if you'd make them more detailed with rounded edges, this would be hardly noticed due the small resolution and screen. Another example is LOD (level of detail) models that are used to add more details in the distance. They work fairly simply: once the player is far enough, the default model is replaced with less detailed version that is lighter to render. However due the distance the difference isn't as apparent as the model is represented by lower amount of pixels, making details unrecognizable anyway. This can be used in tiers with the quality dropping in steps so that the difference between LOD and default models isn't as apparent.

 

In the case with the box in the rear of the helmet, you can pretty safely round the edges as this shouldn't add too many polys, but makes it appear more detailed if previewed closer.

Alright, i guess its really only the box and the lamp anyway so it shouldnt be a too big deal, thanks!