The camera was an interesting project, one in which I started using a bunch of new techniques and tools to try and push my work to a new level of quality. Personally, I think the asset turned out quite well; and the process was quite interesting.
The mesh
Wireframe view of the camera model.
At only 3,531 polygons, this camera model is fairly lightweight, while maintaining a high degree of accuracy and smoothness in curved areas. Instead, the vast majority of the detail comes from the normal map (which is to be expected of a game asset).
The Normal Map
Creating of the normal map was a bit different than usual, at least for me. Instead of using a high poly model with sculpted details, I instead used Quixel's "NDO" tool. This tool allows for the creation of normal map details using simple black and white masks, and then assigning parameters to the masks (indent or extrusion, curvature, etc.). This turned out to be quite an efficient method of normal map creation, since I could see the changes to normal map being applied to the low-poly mesh in real-time, as opposed to requiring lengthy normal map bakes when using a high poly mesh.
The normal map created in DDO.
As you can see, just even with only some details added via the normal map, the asset gains a large amount of definition. However, this is only the beginning; the asset gains many more details when materials are added via Quixel's "DDO".
The Materials
Using the normal map created in "NDO", as well as a baked Ambient Occlusion map, I used Quixel's "DDO" tool to create the materials needed: In this case 19 materials were used, along with a large selection of custom masks and layers.
The diffuse, gloss, spec and normal maps from DDO, and how they appear on the model.
Here you can see the materials used for the asset, and how they appear on the actual mesh. Of course, all the materials are pointless if there's no way to render them.
Rendering
Instead of using the built in "3DO" renderer that Quixel comes with, I decided to switch back to Marmoset's "Toolbag 2"; a program I had experimented with in the past, but never really went into that much detail with. This was a good chance to really improve my experience with it: and I think it turned out well.
The final render.
The final render uses a fairly standard setup: there are 4 lights (and 2 ambient 'sky' lights), all of the 'lighting' effects have been turned on, and the reflections are calculated using the 'GGX' BRDF type. In addition, the textures have been down-sampled to 2048x2048 (from the original 4096x4096 in 'DDO'); while not necessarily needed, it was interesting to see what could be done with relatively small texture sizes (compared to some game's 4k and even 8k texture sets). The final image was rendered at 7680x4320 (8K) and then down-sampled to 1080p to ensure a clean final image. This was probably entirely unnecessary, but it was nice to see that such excessive resolutions could be rendered without any real problems.
I hope you enjoyed this breakdown. I'll be posting my next one fairly shortly, focusing on my new CryEngine forest scene.