Inyri

Don't know about you, but I'd be really hard pressed to charge enough and put out enough work to make more money selling mods or mod material than I make at my day job. That's why the term "starving artist" exists.

Off-topic discussion has been split off into this thread. Please continue that discussion there and keep this thread clean. Thanks.

Split from this thread. Feel free to continue.

Maybe you should clarify what you define as "a glassy look". Do you mean you're expecting it to be transparent, or just shiny? Regardless, your screenshot is WAY too small to be of any real use. Without knowing what your base texture looks like it's also very difficult to tell if your shader isn't working, or if it's working perfectly and you're just using the wrong shader.

I'm just going to point out that the solution to the "mod policy" is to provide the mesh, take the money, and let the recipient get it in-game themselves. Moot workaround, since nobody'd have the patience to learn to rig a model if they don't have the patience to learn to make it. Also, I take it you think artists should give away paintings and sculptures for the cost of the paint or clay, based upon your reasoning?

Fuck you all. Wait, what is this thread about?

The default chrome tex used in the shader makes metal look totally unrealistic.

I did try mapping a couple of times but I just felt too limited by radiant to do what I really wanted so I never got into it. Figured it was better to focus on what I was good at and what I enjoyed.

Oh god, how did I get mentioned in a thread on mapping? Hahaha.

Worked more on it tonight. Will be done soon. Ish. ME3 N7 Valiant (click to view in 3D)

I'm thinking it has less to do with the shader and more to do with the textures you're using for the shader. If the specular map is sharp, you're going to get a metallic look. If it's a little more blurry, and lighter altogether, you'll get a more plastic look. In my opinion, a spec map and a very slight environment map will give the best results for a plastic sheen. You'd need a custom env map though -- don't use the regular chrome one from the assets. That looks awful on EVERYTHING.

You can't just up the texture resolution and have it magically be crisper -- it doesn't work that way. In fact it would likely get more blurry because it would have to add pixels itself, unless I retextured the whole thing which isn't going to be happening, believe me. The resolution it's at is the resolution it's going to stay at. Next model we can try a higher resolution map. To be honest, as I said, if I had mirrored pieces 512 would've been just fine. The actual texture from Mass Effect 3 is only 512.

More updates. Still going slow, but I'm determined to finish. And because I haven't posted it in a while... I picked 512x512 because that's what the ingame texture is, but I didn't take into consideration that Bioware mirrored almost everything and I didn't so my textures are effectively at a much smaller resolution. Oops, but on the other hand this is turning out to be a very helpful challenge for me.

Also, updated render of the geth with the gun. 8)

Slow but steady. The last bits are going to be the boring part, so they're taking longer.

You lie about all of this, Caelum.

What version of 3ds Max are you using? The later versions have much more powerful UV Mapping tools and I wouldn't want to make you a tutorial for a version with options you can't make use of. I have 7 (weaker tools) and 2012 (stronger tools). If you want to send me the hilt I'll show you some simple ways to do it in either version (or both).

Did some more work on the part covering the barrels:

I work in customer service. I think I'm the only one who insists on ignoring all the scripting we get haha. I hate sounding canned.

No it's not, it's the one I made. Myself. Without porting a god damn thing haha.

You'd probably just getting a canned customer service response anyway.

E-mail existed four years ago, so I expect he located an e-mail address that was either for (or he believed it to be for) someone at LucasArts, and sent an e-mail to said address. We had been in contact with LA in the past for JKFiles. They used to actually respond. No so much anymore.

I would hope it looks better in-game, because right now it just looks like the contrast is cranked way up which should not inherently equal higher quality.

It sure is.

Random bump. This is what the geth looks like when it's rendered (albeit by a total amateur, lol).