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Assault Rifle - M16 (Weapon 1)
The first weapon I had to tackle was the M16. This gun was the first one on my list which was also my hardest and the reason for this was because I had never modelled a gun before in this style. I looked at some tutorials of people modelling guns to help me get a better understanding of how to get started. After seeing one tutorial by split modeling I immediately got started with mine. I saw a technique straight away with this gun being split down into different models which is exactly what I did with mine. This helped me create the clean look on my gun rather than struggling and making it all one object.
Tutorial M16
My M16
UV Unwrapping
UV Unwrapping
After modelling the M16 I started with the UV unwrapping and texturing process of the model which I found simple and a breeze. Below Are some screenshots to showcase how I went about UV unwrapping this model. Underneath is a quick guide on how I UV unwrapped the stock part of the gun. This UV process will be the same process for every section of the gun. I started out creating a UV map for this piece, when I did that I started the four steps that are required to complete this. First step, was to cut all the outer edges around the model which would create the UV shells. When that was done, the second step was to select each UV shell to make sure they were all separated. The final two steps were to unfold each UV shell and lay them out in the UV map. A quick method to lay them out neatly was clicking ctrl + L which would fit them all into the UV square as shown in the final layout.
On the Right is the final look of the Unwrapped M16. Each part was completed the same way as I did with the stock. As each part was unwrapped in their own UV map, I had to combine them all into one UV map. This meant that I would have to select the whole object, go into UV editor, hold right click and select UV shell. I then had to click CTRL + L to align them all neatly in the UV square to get to this final look.
After creating the model of the gun and unwrapping it, I noticed some features on the gun that I had missed out. The first major one was the bumps on the hand guard as well as the extrudes on the mag. These features were important as it gives the model more shape and high details. To tackle this I decided to try baking the model for the first time. I had no clue on how to approach this so I looked into some tutorial videos before I started to get better knowledge on this area.
Adding Detail
The videos below were the two that I managed to help me make a start with my model. The one on the left helped me understand that I needed two models, one being a low poly model and the other being a high poly model. The video on the right helped me understand how to bake the model in substance painter and to bake the high details on the low poly mesh.
The first step I worked on was duplicating the low poly model to start with the high poly modelling. The details I focused on for the high poly was the hand guard and the mag. These were two key features I wanted without adding more faces to my gun. I made start on creating the details and first up was the hand guard.
The first step to creating the high poly hand guard was duplicating the one from the low poly gun. I then put in some swift loops around the cylinder. I would then select the correct faces shown from a reference image I helped myself with for step two which I then extruded in to create the indents for the third and final step of this process.
Moving onto the second piece I would start with the mag. This model required a similar process as the hand guard. The first step was to create the swift loops aligned to a reference image which I then moved onto the second step which was selecting the faces which I then extruded in for the final step which showcases the final preview of this piece of the gun.
Baking
After I added the details to the high poly gun, I started work on bake the two models together in substance painter. To do this I opened up substance painter and clicked on the croissant. This took me to a baking screen, to which I tweaked some settings. The first step I did was making sure that the quality of output was high enough which I set to 2k. The next step was to import the high poly which I clicked on a file icon as shown below which I then moved onto baking into the low poly mesh. This was done by clicking the blue bake button which then results into the final look below. Although this doesn't look as 3D as when extruded in I think it works much better and still gives off the look as if it has been extruded in.
Texturing
When the baking of the gun was complete, it was time for me to texture the gun. The process of texturing the gun was simple to do and didn't cause me any problems. The first step to creating the textures was to organize them into different categories as shown on the left. By clicking the folder icon on the right of the image I broke the gun down into different parts which were the handgrip, the body of the gun, the magazine, stock and handle and finally the attachments. This meant that I could give each part a separate material so the gun is not all one material.
When I organized the separate parts I had to make sure that the parts were assigned to each folder. To do this process I would drag a material into the folder and hold down right click on the mouse which I would then click the add black mask option. The third image along showcases four icons, these icons are shown on the far left of the software which I would then click on the bottom icon with the outline of the square. This icon allows me to then select specific parts on my model as shown on the far right image.
From the process above, I started work on adding the materials to my gun. The images on the left are the before look with base materials and the ones in the middle are the after looks with the scratch details. To create these small details, such as rust and scratches, it was the same process as the above. I made sure to add a base colour to each part of my gun such as metal, iron, plastic as shown on the left two images. To add the details I would drag in a new material to the selected folder, in this case it would be the Body folder for these screenshots. I would hold down right click to select the option of adding a black mask. I would move over to the materials to add a smart mask which allows me to choose if I want scratches or dusty looks. I chose a scratch look which I dragged over to the folder with the material in and then I would adjust some details to spread the look across more of the gun or less of the gun. I could also choose if I wanted to make the scratches more noticeable or not.
How did it go?
As a whole I think this model turned out way better than I expected. I say this as I haven't had the experience in modelling guns before so this was a new challenge for me. I struggled getting started but found my rhythm towards the middle of the process after watching a few videos. I kept up to date with all my references that I gathered in Miro to help me get the most details out of each attachment. The texturing process was another success in this model as I continued to further check my miro board to help me get the right materials and colours for the gun to get it as most accurate as I could.
Any Problems?
I hadn't come across any problems when I was modelling this gun until I got to the stage of UV unwrapping as this started an occurring problem all the way to the end of the process. I found UV unwrapping a difficult challenge as I have never done this on my own before because usually I use the automatic unwrap. This time was the real deal as I had to do it all myself. To help me get through this part of my gun I asked for some help from one of my tutors to give me a better understand of what I need to do. They helped me unwrap half of the gun to show me how it works and what I need to do. With the brilliant help I got and the showcase of what needs to be done I was left to finish the rest on my own with the tutor near by to help me if I have any problems. I seemed to have got the hang of it and continued my way through to the texturing side.
Further Problems..
The texturing process was starting to get underway and the first thing I noticed when adding textures were some parts not getting any notice. To understand what the real problem was, I asked for some help from a tutor to see if they knew what my problem was and if there was a solution. After some talk, I found out that the problem was the textures weren't loading which made the parts of my gun just show black, which didn't occur in big places just small areas like near my scope.
Solutions..?
After finding out what the problem was from my tutor, they gave me some solutions to try out to see if that could solve my problem. The first one I checked was to make sure that my UV's weren't overlapping each other in the UV map. This could cause issues when I bake the model as the UV shells would bake over each other which create some distorted look on the final bake. As this solution didn't fix my problem my tutor had mentioned that the issue wasn't really noticeable on the object and to just leave it as there were no other solution they could think of.
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