Mask (WIP)

[Cid Ferringer]

I'm in the process of making a mask, it's my first attempt at baking and texturing, which will be a challenge.
The base mesh is pretty much done, now I just have to figure out how to engrave it and color it. I'll probably try some sculpting.

It's very plain looking at the moment, most of the detail will come from the normal and diffuse..



Any tips and critique is welcome

[Cid Ferringer]

So.. after much hassle trying to bake the normals..
I think I'm making progress..

There is a bit of ugliness in the shading though. It's much better than what it used to be, but ugly nonetheless..
I'm wondering what I can do about it, if I can do anything about it other than adding more geometry..



The Workshop article says the Tris limit is at 5000 for goggles, which is the slot I assume masks go. But  I'm nowhere near that, I just went with the average size of faces of the character model, it felt wasteful to go any higher..

[Cid Ferringer]

Progress!





Still too messy, but I'm getting a better feel for the sculpting tools.

[Patched Wizard]

Salute for your work. I look forward to the fruits of your labor and the next project you put your hands to.

[DJ Logicalia]

Looks really nice

[Maestro Eraclea]

really nice!
Looking forward to it.

[Cid Ferringer]

Thanks!
I'm not sure when I'll be able to finish this.
Right now I'm just testing the waters.

Spent two hours messing around with the diffuse and specular maps..



There is an ugly seam in the middle, because I baked from the highpoly and it used the modified UVs. Need to correct that.
I'm probably gonna redo all the sculpting and make it more elegant and less messy and random, but for now I'm done.

I might cover up the eyes with something because it looks kinda goofy when there is no AO from the mask on the face..
I also might revise the whole plain shape of the mask, maybe I'll make a scary face.

Another idea is to add some battle damage, like torn of pieces and notches, to break up the symmetry..

[ShadedExalt]

IDEA (That involves a lot of work, but is really cool)

1. Gunner Version- Pitted and scarred, maybe some bullet holes, blackened/gunpowder dusted on the bottom from the blast of guns

2. Engi Version- Steam blasted, blood stained (from knocking the skulls of powder monkeys 'oil' stained, dents

3. Pilot Version- Windworn, pockmarked, larger eyeholes, scratched up, general wear and tear.

This would probably be a ton of work, but it's an idea

[Dr Pantaleon]

Fantastic, I like it! Right now it looks like it should reach higher up the forehead, but I guess that's mainly because the character doesn't have a hair/hat? How does the mask work with headwear, any overlapping?

[Richard LeMoon]

When you bake your normals, make sure your low and high poly both have the mirror applied. Then select the new half of the low poly and shrink the UV of just that half to a small corner. Does not really matter where, it just has to be there. Then bake. After baking, you can delete the mirrored part of the mask again, and you will have a perfect normalmap with no visible seams.

[Cid Ferringer]

@ShadedExalt, definitely interesting ideas, but I see this as captains mask mainly. Leaning towards the evil villain kind.

@Richard
 That makes perfect sense, not sure why I didn't think about it..

At least I know everything that's required now, baking the AO, baking normals, baking light, baking a dirt map, putting it all together in photoshop for the diffuse.

I overestimated the texture sizes though, I was so sure it was 1024, but the limit is 512. So if I take this and shrink it down it's gonna look kinda blurry.
Although, right now I'm wasting half of the space for the backside of the mask which is barely even seen.

With the amount of work required, I'm gonna have to start from scratch with the sculpting anyways, especially since this was just a rough first draft.
I think I'm just gonna go with a mask that doesn't cover the entire face to ease the workload.

It doesn't go well with some of the hats, I'm not sure if it has to fit all the hats?
I could always make it go closer to the forehead.





TL;DR, gonna revamp it into something smaller, more manageable, to solve clipping and texture size issues.