Final revisit of texturing body within quixel suite

As you can see in the above screen shots, I resolved a lot of the issues that I stated I had with my texture sheets in my last post. I got rid of the gaps that where left behind in some parts of the albedo and I also made sure that the colours where all just the way that I wanted them to be, to match the references that I had been using from the beginning of my projects. I also carried through with my idea of making the red paint appear as if it had scratched off more and underneath was the same sandy colour. 

 After a closer look back at the models I was using for reference, I realized also that the broadside battlesuit often has a lot of white markings painted onto the armor, for decoration. So I installed a tau font into photoshop and started creating small words that I could put around the armor, and intricate lines where also added to match the reference pieces. 

 I however ran into an unfortunate problem at this stage though. After reaching this stage of completion and exporting my materials from the quixel suite, I decided to clean up my hardrive to organize my file structure a bit more, deleting old test materials and out dated files. During this process I accidentally managed to delete the materials that I had previously exported. Fortunately for me, I was able to load of my project in quixel, back to a save point before I had applied the decals to my armor.

This then only meant that I had to reapply the white decal detail to my model, So I decided that this time around I was going to be a lot more careful with the process, as I noticed that some of the decals that I applied to my albedo material came out slightly distorted when applied the model.

Below are screen shots of the final material's that I exported after accidentally deleting the first ones.

Albedo

AO

Colour ID map, re worked again so that there where no colour's that had baked through where they shouldnt of, like what had happened with my initial attempt. I found that that was the problem with the top of the gauss cannon, all I had to do was fill in the colour where it was missing and it fixed the issue. For some reason this didn't work for the other texture issues that I showed earlier on however, so to fix those issues I simply layered over the parts that needed adjusting on the albedo material. 

Gloss

Creating the normal maps and the AO was a Long process as I had to bake a few objects at a time to avoid any issues where one object would end up baking on to another. meaning that I had to group up some of the objects that where furthest away from eachother, like I would bake the feet and the torso at the same time for instance.

Some editing was required of the normal maps latter on within photoshop as well, to get rid of a few mistakes that would of been easier sorted it out within photoshop rather than xnormal. I did however have to split up some objects into two pieces, for instance the bottom half of the arms had to be split into two objects as it was obscuring the bake, making parts of the arm bake onto other pieces of the body.

Specular

Unwrapped UV's
My UV snapshot was very useful during the editing process of my materials within photoshop. I used it to overlay all the materials that I had to edit so that there wouldn't be any distortion when I applied them to the model. It was patriotically useful when working over my albedo material. This time around, I over layed the uv's so that when I was applying the decals to the armor they would line up much better with the uv's so that they wouldn't distort.

Above are the screenshots of the the final outcome of my model with all its materials applied within quixel. Im far happier with this iteration that the previous one that I lost my files for. I'm glad that I had to come back as it meant this time around I noticed my mistakes with applying the details on top of the albedo the first time around within photoshop, meaning I had a better quality outcome this time.

First attempt at full model texture

There are noticeable mistakes with the textures on this model at this stage. I will have to go back and look for where the problem lies within the maps and fix them within photoshop.

I'm not particularly happy with the colour of my model at this stage either, now looking back at it I think that it needs to be a lot darker, the sandy colour needs to be a lot more brown and the reds need to be a lot more of a burgundy colour, but I can also go back and change this. I do however like the scratched paint effect, it may be something that I play around with a bit more, perhaps making it appear that the red paint is flaking off more and you can see the sand colour underneath

Above are a few screenshots of some key errors that I found within my models textures, for some reason after applying textures to my colour Id maps, I was left with these strange gaps within my texture sheets where no texture was being applied. The only fix I found for this was too layer over the albedo within photoshop to block out the grey parts where the models base texture was coming through. You can see how I have attempted this with the middle screen shots on the leg armor, I've not done a very good job here however so I think next time I come back to this process I will be have to take more care with how I fill in these parts.

Post map clean up test

Having realized after my first test that I hadn't smoothed a lot of the edges of my low poly model, I went back into maya and this. Now after having another attempt at texturing within quixel, it turned out a lot better, especially around the back where there is a lot of intricate detail. 

Cleaned up the normals and AO around the back, to make the inside area a lot smoother looking

Ensured that the colour ID wasn't over lapping in this area, so now the bottom colleration is seperate as it should be. 

Colour Id Process and work around process

To make the process of creating my materials inside of quixel easier, I knew that I would need to create a colour ID map. Where as what I would usally do to make my colour ID map is take my UV snapshot into photoshop and colour over the top of it, that was going to be a lot of work for me to have to do for all of these objects so instead I decided that I would do it inside of zbrush, by colouring in the parts of the model that would be a seperate material and exporting them as OBJ's with that colour attached. 

So what I firstly had to do, was take the high poly model that I had created before it had been taken into zbrush, and split apart the uv's of the object. This isn't something I would usually have to do with my high poly object as it is a lot more work unwrapping a high poly object than it is to unwrap a low poly object. But I had to do this process so that when I imported these objects into zbrush to be colourised I would be able to auto group the object from UV's and the color from polygroups.

Colour ID within zbrush

Unfortunately for me however, this process was going to have to take much longer. As for some reason, when i was auto colouring my objects from poly groups, parts of the colour would bleed into another colour meaning that there was no hard edges of colour though out my whole object which would be a huge problem later on when applying my materials to the colours.

To work around this I had to endure a lengthy process inside of zbrush. What I essentially had to do was split apart my objects into there poly groups. So that there would be an object for each poly group. The shoulder instead of being one object would now be made of four separate objects for instance, as there would be four different poly groups on that shoulder. With these parts of my objects now separated, I could fill that part of the object with the colour that I needed, and this would then mean that there would be no other object for the colour to bleed into. 

After I filled the seperate objects with colour, I could then merge them all together to create the whole orignal object like it would of been before, only this time all the colours where confined to their own poly group and not bleading into any of the others. This was a tedious work around to have to apply to each of my objects seperatley as it took up way more time than what it would of originally taken, which was annoying but it was definetly something I had to do in order to get the level of detail that I needed.

Layering Colour ID maps within photoshop

After exporting the objects as OBJ's with the colour data that they now had on them, I then baked these colour ID objects onto my low poly objects. I did however have to bake them all separately as, for an example, the colour from parts of the arm where baking onto the torso, essentially putting parts of colour on there that shouldn't be there at all. So I had to bake all the parts individually and then piece them all together within photoshop.

Fixing issues with colour maps

Despite baking them all individually however, there where still some slight mistakes that needed to be fixed where parts of the same object had baked onto wrong parts that later on down the line would mean that the textures would all be looking obscure. so with maya open on one screen and photoshop open on the other with a UV snapshot overlaying my colour maps, I was able to match up the uv's across the two pieces of software to ensure that I was putting colour in the right areas and removing it from where it shouldn't be. 

Final Completed colour ID map after layering process

Colour ID map rendered in quixel on torso. 

Below are some screenshots of my first test of applying materials to my torso object inside of quixel after applying my colour ID maps. 

Im glad that I did this test run rather than jump straight in and begin applying all the work that I wanted to put into it as I noticed that there where quite a lot of mistakes with my colour ID map for my torso that had to be fixed before I carried on.

No only that, but there where also some mistakes with my AO map and my Normal map that also created some obscurities on my object. As you can see in the screenshot above, the pipes on the back had baked onto the sides of the torso making it look really jagged, where as that part should be smooth instead, So i will need to go into photoshop and edit my maps a bit.

There was also a slight problem with the grill at the front. The colour ID had been baked onto the gril where it shouldnt of been, so i will have to remove this part inside of the colour ID map in photoshop.

Despite the mistakes, this test has shown that overall, all my maps work pretty well on this model. The mistakes that I will be fixing will only make the materials looks better and more realistic.

Finished tau head

After completing all the low poly pieces for my models body I decided that it was time to revisit the head model as it wasn't completed the last time I tested it in quixel.

As you can see below, I followed up on what I said I would do with my low poly model and used the high poly zbrush model of my head that I created as a live surface in maya and modeled my low poly model around that, so now the previously far more humanoid low poly face has a far more gaunt look, with a flat nose. This now means that when I bake my high poly model onto this there wont be any obscurities. 

Bellow Is my first attempt at creating the head again within quixel. This time I got it much closer to how I wanted the final piece to look. A noticeable error at this stage though was that I had forgotten to smooth the eye on my low poly object, so when I baked my models together in Xnormal it put some detail onto the eyes that shouldn't be there. Other than that Im pretty happy with how the head looks at this point, but as you will see below after I smoothed out the eyes and brought my head back into quixel I decided to make some aesthetic changes to the textures.

Bellow are some screen shots of my final materials that where created from my finished iteration of the tau's head that I created in quixel. The final outcome can be seen right at the bottom of this post.

Albedo

During the process of creating my materials in quixel, I decided to add a few details to my albedo within photoshop. I layered over some pupils on top of the eyes, added some decals to the communication device and also added the red spot on the forehead of the tau, as from looking at some reference of the tau, some of there race have this marking and I thought it would add more character to my model.

AO

Colour ID

Gloss

Specular

Normal maps

Unwrapped UV's

Complete rendered head within quixel

Im really happy with the final out come of my models head. The materials I have chosen on this final model are for more accurate in my opinion. The second test that I did made the face look far too shiny so this time I found a material that had a more matt finish too it which i Thought looked really good as it brings out the battle scars on him a bit more. These materials are now ready to be put on to my low poly head when im posing my model.

Finalized low poly model high poly model comparison (Pre Zbrush touch up)

Here awesome screen shots of my final model all pieced together within maya. Since my last post I have completed the torso and went on to creating the jet pack that the broadside has on his back. This model is not my final high poly model, as this model is made up of the parts that i will be exporting all separately into zbrush in order to add some details like battle scars, dents and burns.

Fortunately, I wont have to do to much extra work in zbrush as I have made my life a little easier by adding all the bevels and grooves in this model during my modeling process in maya rather than in zbrush. As this model is quite mechanical and hard surface I figured I would have a far easier time doing something like that in maya than in zbrush, and because of this it looks a lot more realistic. 

The final poly count for this stage of the model was high but it needed to be at this in order for me to gain all the detail that I have created already before even putting my objects into zbrush. 

Somewhat jumping the gun a bit, bellow are some screenshots of my final low poly model.

I realize that I have skipped the whole process of screen shooting and evaluating my process of creating my low poly model. But at this stage of the project, I really just wanted to see my model come together. Quad drawing over the top of all my individual objects was a long and tedious process enough, without having to screen shot it along the way, but never the less here it is.

As I stated before, the process for creating this model was quite long winded and tedious. Before going into creating my low poly, I debated whether I should quad draw a lot of pieces into one object rather than separate ones like I had done before with my high poly piece. But in the end I decided that taking the long way around would be the better option again, as when baking my objects later on in xnormal, I will have an easier time picking out 'LowpolyLeftGunArm' and 'HighPolyLeftGunArm' for instance instead of 'LowPolyLeftArm' as a whole object, it also means that later on I wont have too much trouble with objects baking on to each other. 

As i've not had access to Zbrush at home, and can only access it in university, I decided to use the high poly model that I already created to quad draw over the top of, as the shapes are going to be exactly the same after exporting them from zbrush later on anyway, they will just have a few scratches and wear and tear on them. So using my high poly model I created in maya as a live surface worked well enough. 

I'm happy with the final out come of my low poly model at this stage. I have brought down the poly count a significant amount compared to the original high poly that I created. It is still quite a high poly count for a low poly model granted, but I'm taking into consideration that this model is made of a lot of pieces and because of this it is really difficult to get the poly count below anything lower that 20k