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Hi,
I'm working on a shi-fi videogame, but I'm not very good with 3D models.
I can do most of the models I need (props, simple weapons, forniture, etc.) but I'm having troubles designing (and making) one of the most important models: The spaceship around which the whole plot revolves…
Unfortunately I have zero budget to hire a professional, do someone of you have some free time to give me some tips or to fix my models? Thank you very much!
Which kind of help are you looking for? Adding more detail? Making it look more (or less) realistic? Is it low poly? Adding colors? How this asset will be used? Will the player see the ship from the outside (space walk for maintenance, for example), or it's just a prop for some cutscenes, and will not be looked closely? The game has space combat? Does the game take place inside the ship?
In summary, give us more info about your game and what is your goal for this ship, so we can understand better what needs to change and how to help.
For some help with how to help us help you, show us the art style you're going for.
If you don't have any concept art images for that, then go grab a few images of a game or games that have the art style you're trying to implement.
If you can't find examples of the art style you're attempting, then get a few images with parts similar to what you're going for with the parts we should be looking at. Like, “This is the texture and lighting detail level I'm looking for, but with simpler models.”
In general though, if you want more interesting models, then you might consider varying the types of shapes you're using. Like the three shapes you're using for the “wings” and middle are all the same, maybe try changing the back of the “wings” to be larger than the middle and front while trying to keep the shapes matching. Or maybe changing the middle shape to be different than the “wings”. Also consider using more than one color of paint, like making red highlights to contrast against the black.
The problem with giving advice on art assets, is that without knowing where you want to get to, it's hard to give any kind of advice that's not general.
Thank you guys. I'll try to explain myself the best I can. It will probably be a very long answer.
TerraSkilll said:
In summary, give us more info about your game and what is your goal for this ship, so we can understand better what needs to change and how to help.
The ship will not be controllable in the beginning of the game, but it will be after the main quest is completed. Actually the core of the game is not controlling ships or doing space battles, but rather what happens on the ground or inside the ships. There are some parts in which this happens, but is not a core feature. You can get more infos about the game here.
For this reason there are scenes in which you can see the ship from the bottom. And, since you're free to move around, it definitely needs a better level of detail:
So what I wish to improve is:
DavinCreed said:
For some help with how to help us help you, show us the art style you're going for.
The best representation of concept art is the isometric image I posted on the OP. I know, it kinda lacks details… but I should try to draw a better one! In the meanwhile, here are some art styles I want to emulate.
As for what concerns the skin of the spaceship (to reconnect with the other reply), I'm looking for something that resemble this, the Normandy SR2 from Mass Effect:
I know it is a very different style, but I wish I could make a texture like this. With two colors (red and black) or, better, three colors (white, red and black, similarly to the Normandy).
About the shape… well, I already made the interior and placed all the rooms it needed to be functional (dormitories, restaurant, bathrooms, etc.), so it needs to be coherent with this:
So I can come up with something like this:
This is a very defined model and I'm not going to ask anybody to make it for me, it would be a very large amount of work. But, if you want, you can PM me and I will send you the model I've made. So you can examine it and “correct” it, like teachers does with students.
In case anyone wants to partecipate to game development, we can discuss about it in PM too, it would be great!
I don't have much time right now so I'm going to give you something quick.
Two major things I notice between your examples and your ship are some of the things I already mentioned. You need to think about shape variation and color contrasts. In both of the example images you provided, you can see shape variation in that neither of them are made up of only basic rectangles. And both have at least two tones of paint. This helps give them them interesting variations. Even if the small texture details were removed from the examples, they'd still be interesting ships to look at.
To implement something like that on your ship without redoing the entire thing, maybe add a shell of a different color around the “wings” like you see in the second example image. Maybe also slant the “wings” top and bottom planes a little to give it a similar look to the second image, that should still allow all the interior design you presented.
Also, add a few extra things not in the design that make sense, like extra space between the walls and maybe a little extra for the external walls that you can use to bevel the general shape to make it a little more interesting. And maybe you might want to add a little more beef to the engines to add more shape to those and make them a little bulkier than the rest of the ship and/or make the engines a little more cylindrical to add some shape variation.
Based on what I can see it's mostly a texture issue… You can take some pretty basic looking meshes and texture them with decals, stamps, and so forth with the help of a normal map, then render out some nice looking assets. The problem with your mesh is that is so flat and the colors are dull.
I use a bit of a different workflow for ships. I create the basic structure, then a ton of parts and kit bash them together while using boolean operations and so forth in a very artistically free environment not worrying about technical details (topology, edge flow, ect…) as this allows me to be more free. Then I manually retopologize the mesh for clean geometry and then move onto the texturing phase.
The only advice I can give you is look at a mesh that inspires you, and try to model it side by side. You'll find a lot of meshes are not as dense and wild as they appear, but the texturing work makes the mesh come to life.
I re-made the model with a much better UV mapping and a chubby 8K texture.
Now it looks a bit better from a low distance:
The shape is not amazing but I kept myself quite low with vertex count (9000 vertexes) so I can add some extra details What do you think? What could I improve?
The two tones, I think, make it look a lot more interesting. I think anything that's left would be in the textures and detailing, especially if you don't want to use more geometry.
