Josh Morgan Next Gen Blog

So today I managed to fix one side of the dagger when it is baked as before it used to get these thick black lines when the Hi-Poly would get baked onto the low-poly which would show on the normal map as well as errors. As you can see on the normal map above it leaves weird colours on certain polys when it is baked down which create these black lines. To fix the issues I had on one side of the dagger I just deleted the poly and then bridged the hole in which when i baked it down again it had no black lines on it anymore. However I still don't understand these errors when it comes to it because I have checked to see if it has overlaying polys or if it has some hidden vertices. After looking around the model using the wire-frame mode I couldn't find any hidden vertices, so I have no idea why it is creating these errors but I will hopefully be able to fix the rest of the model and then be able to texture it.

Since the last post the group has managed to fix the communication issues we had by coming together and having a group meeting in which we discussed the issues we have been having as a group and making sure we sorted them as soon as possible because we are not that far away from the deadline for this project so this is the time where we can't really have anyone doing just nothing as we need to get the environment done. We made sure everyone has a job to do. My personal update is that after we had the team meeting I have managed to figure out what is needing to be done and what I personally have to do in this project, so now that I know what I need to do I have sorted the issue of me feeling like I was getting left behind as some of the group continued to just do the project themselves instead of communicating with the rest of us to get this fixed. I have still been modeling a few models to go into the environment in which yesterday and today I have been working on some machiner...

So today I have been trying to get the High to low poly bake to work but so far my normal map that comes out of it doesn't look right, the first was using surface normals and the second was using geometry normals. This is the first two attempts of normal maps that I attempted myself using the powerpoint slide Matt gave us to help us in learning how to create normal maps. Surface Normal Map: Geometry Normal Map: For my first two attempts it wasn't too bad but I need to find out why it comes out so weird in the normal map with the colour. After last week it seemed that I was still getting black mars appear on the model when trying to bake the high poly onto the low poly which I still couldn't figure out. I don't know if it has anything to do with the UV itself or an error between the models when they try and bake.

We are a few months into the project and I am still enjoying it I like the concept of the project and how we want it to look in the end of the project. So from my last update on the synoptic project not a lot of things have changed as far as communication goes it still seems like only two people are working on the project primarily and the rest of us are being pretty much left behind as far as updates on the project goes. I am still continuing to make models but trying to keep the models so they look similar to the others. As far as my personal development goes I believe I go do with trying a lot more to UV unwrap as it will help when another member of our group is texturing the objects however I would I also need to help in texturing if it is going to help in my development in modeling skills as I am still not that good at texturing.

So I have both my high poly and my low poly models finished and today I spent my morning UV unwrapping the sword in which I have had a few issues especially with some of the poly because they are in awkward on the model so trying to stitch them up so it comes out right has taken more time than expected. This is the UV mid way through unwrapping the model:   This is the UV finished: Next week I need to have the high poly baked onto the low poly and hopefully will move onto texturing the model. Next part I did was to UV unwrap the sheathe for the dagger which was a lot more simple and a lot easier to do after finishing the dagger UV.

So today I have finished my low poly model and have been trying to make the high poly model in Mudbox but after I retopologize the model it leaves some very weird polys especially on the blade of the dagger itself. So what I am going to do is just make the high poly in Maya and then when it comes to next week I am going to ask Matt for help in learning how to bake the high poly onto the low poly because so far I haven't really looked into high-low poly baking. So my plan for this week is just to get the high poly done and then when it comes to the next session next week I will hopefully get the high-low poly bake done and then if I can I will try and get the UV finished and hopefully textured. So this week I managed to finish off my low poly and then I have also UV unwrapped the model so when I get to creating the high poly it will already be unwrapped so I can attempt to texture it later down the line. This is the UV for the dagger so far: Over the holidays I am planning...