Final model show case in unreal 4

These screen shots above are my final renders of my laser rifle within my Unreal4 scene.
I tried adding as much clutter in the scene as possible in order to make it feel like the rifle has just been dropped there within a post apocalyptic world and is just gathering rust, dust and wear and tear.
If I had the ability to do so, I would of been really interested in modding my rifle into fallout 4 and using that to show case my model, a little bit over ambitious I'll admit, but it would of been a really effective way of displaying it. Especially as fallout 4 has a building system within it that would allow me to pose my laser rifle.

I am very pleased with my final outcome of my model however, I think I have really captured the over all post apocalypse feel with the weapon after putting it through quixel and applying the materials to it, it really started to take its shape. Now with those materials applied to my low poly within an unreal scene, its really brought out its true form. I would say however that im slightly disapointed with how the metal has come out on the rifle, comparing it to the screen shots I took from the quixel renders it seems a lot more darker than that one, but im certain thats due to my lighting settings within the engine so I completely accept that.

importing model into unreal 4

Above is a screen shot of both my high and low poly model after being imported into unreal engine 4. with all materials applied. To begin this process of importing I first exported both upper and lower part of the model as FBX files. From there I was able to import these two models into the assets folder within unreal4. What i noticed immediately within unreal was how the models would snap together if I moved one or the other, so this made connecting the two models a very easy process. 

I have shown the process of connecting the nodes that where required in order to create the right materials above. I firstly only used one lambert material during this process but I soon found that the two models required their own lambert material in order for them to display correctly. After re-exporting the bottom model with a new lambert I worked on importing the maps that i needed into the node editor and linking them up to the appropriate nodes.

I've now began working on creating my scene within unreal4 ready to display my laser rifle in an aesthetically pleasing way. I really want to try and recreate the post apocalyptic feel that you get within the fallout games with this scene, so there will be a lot of rust, a lot of rock and hopefully some chard skeletons?

Applying materials using Quixel

The Above screen shots are of my low poly model, imported into Quixel with my normal map applied. These images show the first stage that my upper model was in before I began applying quixels smart materials. It was great however to see the full effects of the baking process form the high poly too low poly, it was a fulfilling feeling when they matched up as well as they did. 

In this image above you can how my colour ID map effects my model. Essentially on this model, each colour will be assigned a different material, and so it's an easy way for me to apply the rusted metal next too the green barrel and micro fusion cell. I was happy too see how the writing that I applied to the colour ID map came out on the model, as it isn't noticeably distorted and it's all in the right places. 

After applying the Quixels smart materials, using my colour ID as a navigation, you can see above the outcome of the finished upper part of the rifle. What I like most about the model at this stage is how effected the colour ID was, especially with the writing and symbols on the left side of the gun. I simply applied a coloured paint texture too the text part of my colour ID and it really came out like it was written in the gun 200 years ago! (That's what I was going for)

These images are of the lower part of the model after I had imported it into Quixel the same way I did with the upper part. 

Originally I hadn't intended on adding a colour ID map to the lower part of the model, I originally just had one material that covered the whole bottom model, as going by reference, it is all the same material anyway. However, after rendering it out with one material i decided it looked a bit boring and repetitive, so I created a quick colour Id map for the lower model too in order to apply separated rusted steel materials to each part.

The final out come of all materials applied  too the lower model really enforced by decision to create a colour id map in my opinion. Where as I once had one type of rusted steel covering the whole model, I now have a variation of four which made it look far more interesting.

Applying normal maps and materials

(colour ID map for top low poly model)

(Alberdo for top low poly model)

(Gloss for top low poly model)

(Revised normal map for top low poly model)

(Specular map for top low poly model)

(Alberdo for bottom low poly)

(gloss for bottom low poly)

(Revised normal map for bottom low poly)

(Specular map for bottom low poly)

UV unwrap and normal maps

Here is my lower part of the low poly rifle that I UV unwrapped ready to put into Xnormal. The process of unwrapping my UV's took a lot longer than I originally thought it would so I am very glad that earlier on in the project, I decided to cut my model into two, as I am pretty sure unwrapping the model as a whole would of been a far lengthier process. 

It did work out very well with this piece however, as each part that unwrapped is essentially a different part of the bottom of the rifle. I've managed to cut the UV's up into five parts, the trigger in the bottom right, the butt of the gun just above it, the under barrel rod next too that, the pieces that attaches the butt of the gun too the handle and then I managed to connect the rifles handle to the reload mechanism in one pieces too the left, which managed to be quite an efficient way to display the UV's

After unwrapping my UV's efficiently I was able too export the model as an OBJ and import it into Xnormal along with the OBJ of my high poly version of the bottom piece of the gun into Xnormal, in order to bake my high poly mesh onto my low poly mesh.

 I began this process by firstly ensuring the high poly was within the high poly section, and of course the low poly with in the low. After this I did a test process, setting the resolution to 1024 instead of 4096, I was then able to bake my meshes.

Completed Low Poly model

After completing my high poly model and giving it some wear and tear in Zbrush, i was able to export the model back into Maya so that I could begin work on my low poly model. At the stage of exporting however, I had decided that it would be far easier for me to export the model into two pieces, dividing it into by the upper half of the gun and the lower half, making the baking process later on down the line a lot easier for myself. For display purposes however, in these screen shots I have put the two halves together to show what the low poly looks like in its full form.

The process of creating this low poly model began with setting my high poly model as a live surface and quad drawing out the low poly over the top of it. I began the quad drawing on the center most mass of the model where the long rectangle barrel is situated, this was an easy starting point as it was a very simple shape to draw around. From this stage however, I found it a lot more intuitive using the extrude edge tool more than I did the quad draw tool. With the high poly still set to live surface, extruding the edges meant that they would still stick to the model underneath and so I could map out my low poly model much quicker than I could with the quad draw tool. 

Because of how detailed my high poly model was, what with the wire on top, micro-fusion cell situated within the gun(Cylinder on left side of gun) and especially the front and back of the rifle where the slight fins are situated, I found it quite difficult to create these lower detail polys around these parts. The front and back of the barrel was the part that I struggled with the most and that was because I really wasn't sure how much detail to put into my modeling here as it was the part in the high poly that I spent the most time on ensuring that it looked exactly like my reference, however in the end I trusted my judgement and I am pretty happy with how my low poly turned out, I just hope that it bakes well with the high poly model now in the next stage.

As you can see in the top left hand corner of these screen shots, my final poly count of tri's for the low poly model came to 11067, where as you can see in my previous posts that the poly count of tri's for my high poly model was 117561, and that was before I exported it into Zbrush and subdivided it, so the poly count has been substantially reduced in this model, meaning that it will be pretty well optimized when it comes to putting in engine.

High resolution laser rifle model - Zbrush

At this stage of my project I had finished my high poly model of my Fallout Laser Rifle in fallout too a point where I had modeled ever piece of detail within Maya, parts that could of been done within Zbrush such as screws and bolts I even decided to do in Maya, thinking that it would make my life easier down the line. I don't belive I was wrong in this decision as it saved me having to do it later on down the line, however I will admit that I might of saved a lot of time if I had decided to simply add the screws and bolts in Zbrush using alphas.
Because of the decision I made earlier on to complete most detail within maya, I firstly struggled to think about what I could actually gain from importing my high poly model into zbrush, so after some brain storming I thought that it may be a good idea to give me laser rifle so brutal wear and tear marks, in attempt to make it actually look like its survived for 200+ years through a nuclear blast and through fire fight after the war, in other words, how a laser rifle should really look when you pick it up in Fallout 4.   

I started the process of this wear and tear by considering what changes could be made to the laser rifle, to what parts of the gun and why. So my first idea was that the rifle may have deflected some projectiles in its time within the world, if the other person was using a laser rifle and shot at this laser rifle, I considered that it would perhaps meld the steal frame slightly, and so I began warping the steal slightly around the front of the guns barrel in order to mimic the effect that the wielder of the laser rifle may of had spot of luck and deflected a round from another laser rifle with the front of the gun, melding the metal around the barrel slightly due to the highly intense heat that the laser beams give off (enough to turn enemies into ash within the fallout games). 

After moving from the front of the gun I decided to add a few dents to all around the weapon, taking into consideration that the weapon may of been used on some occasions to parry off a melee attack from a super mutants sledge hammer some time, for example anyway. Even just dropping the gun and its general scuffs and chips that it would gain from being in duty for over 200 years and still being used post apocalypse. I focused on creating a lot of scratches and chips with in the steal around the handle of the rifle as I considered here that solderers wielding the weapon wearing power armor  may over time damage the gun with the giant steel gloves that they wear with the armor.
Lastly I added patches of rust spread over most of the rifle, focusing mainly on parts that had already been damaged and the adding some around things like screws and bolts to give it a more realistic rustic effect.

I am definitely happy with the final outcome of my zbrush model, and i'm glad that I did decide to add the details that I did in the program and not just go straight onto the next stage with my highly detailed model. I feel like because of the extra attention I gave the model in Zbrush, it stands out a bit more from the reference that I used but in a good way as I giving it that extra bit of personal touch that makes it appear, almost more realistic in my opinion. Perhaps later on down the line, it would be interesting to mod this rifle into fallout 4 and see how it fits in. (Or maybe i'm being over ambitious)