Beauty Shots: As i have used Quixel's Ddo to help me texture the Drum roller i have found that the materials in the beauty shots rendered in the 3Do previewer are closer to my inteded outcome than in marmoset 2, yet it has problems with alpha channels and the opacity map.
I shall display both starting with 3Do.
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |
Additional Screenshots:
In order for me to bake decent Normals fo such a complex object i needed to create a high poly version of the Drum Roller first before i begin my Low poly. This Proved to be quite a challenge that i must admit i underestimated. The task of creating the tyre was the most important of all the high poly modelling as it was the Foundation of my high poly bake as it is the most noticeable part of the Vehicle and the one in which would sell to the viewer that it is a high poly model.
With that said it took me a while to make and with a little guidance from my peers (Jonah - Thanks dude) in order for me to createthe high poly Tyre tread.
Process is as follows:
Create the basic pattern of diamonds and contrain that to vector points.
shape the unqie areas of the tread
a trial and error process of getting the lip of the tyre to the same curve when bent into the position conforming to the blockout tyre
using a series of bend modifiers and repositioning the gizmo and centre of the bend. a Balance of limit effect bending.
Turbosmooth final wheel.
Conclusion:
To conclude, there has been a number of hurdles and setbacks that i have encountered during this project. i know illness is no excuse but im just stating what happened, i have lost a few days of possible work time but i felt i have managed to offset it slightly by working flat out after recovery. In terms of modelling i felt that i had taken longer than i needed to to hash out the high poly model, i had to rework certain areas that encountered problems. However i had taken the time to make sure my base for the high poly was as clean as possible before turbosmoothing which saved me some time when creating the low poly as i only needed to remove control loops. There has been times when i had to create new geometry as i had slacked when creating the high poly. such as the interior
During this project i have learned using Xnormals to bake my Normal and mabient occlusion maps and the learned the difficulty such a process proved to be the first time. However using exploson baking i was able to achieve semi decent results from the programme wich only needed a few touch ups in photoshops in areas where there was artifacting. This proved to be pretty easy.
When it came to texturing i used Quixel suite's Ddo which helped me to speed up my workflow in texturing. i found this part rather bitter sweet, as much as i enjoy texturing i can't say i like the buggyness of quixel's Ddo which has hindered me slightly as it kept crashing, Luckily i've learned from last years mistakes and keep a backup of the Ddo project on another hard drive every hour.
I was going to use substance painter however as it was close to the deadline i could ill afford time spent learning a new programme's UI and workflow. However it is a texturing tool I am eager to get my teeth stuck into!
Improvements for the future:
-Time management has been a key thing that would have improved the overall outcome, as i have said i had spent a long time on the high poly modelling stage, i could have skipped some parts of the high poly modelling and ignored some areas which benefited little from high poly modelling. This is where i have to become less picky and noodley about small things that i end up forgetting about the big picture.
-Adding Character to the prop would have improved the overall design of the drum roller, Accenting the asset would have created a more visually interesting piece as opposed to a generic looking heavy construction vehicle. with such a high budget in triangles and in texture space it would undoubtably used as a hero asset in a level so creating that eye catching factor and reaffirm the theme is importance if you are going to spend the time and effort for one asset.
-There are a few things missing from the model, again this is referring back to my issue with focussing on small the details, that i have regrettably forgot about, such as the front scraper, a few bolts here and there and hinges. Whether these would have greatly benefited the overall look of the model I am unsure, but it annoys me that i have overlooked them.
-Creating the optimal UV space is difficult and time consuming by hand, however i could have fit more texture density into the model if were to overlap an reuse texture space. Because i used Ipackthat, it generated me a quick, however suboptimal UV layout. Creating it by hand however would be time consuming and as i said i could not afford that luxury so i had to make do.