How to create models in XSI and other 3D applications and make them work in Battlefront 1 & 2. Post models, tips for application usage and share anything XSI, 3DMax, SketchUp, etc.
Clean-up the tris on the non sub-divided Ronto, and make it all from quads if you can. It'll sub-divide better with out the messy sections near the shoulders and other joints. You should also take the time to model in more detail to the model, or use the revised bash mesh as a sculpting cage in ZBrush/Mudbox to create skin details and other organic details. From there you can bake down a normal map to use with a much lower poly model.
Currently you're adding way too many polygons for something as simple and not needed as smoothing curves on the mesh. Next-Gen games themselves rarely exceed 8-16 sides per rounded edge (FPS view weapons and vehicle tires can have more) and rely on texture work and the shader stack to make up for it.
3D Sculpt Workflow
Cage/Base Mesh-> UV Cage/Base Mesh-> Import as .obj into ZBrush/Mudbox-> Sculpt in detail-> Import Back into XSI/3DSMax/Maya-> Make Low-poly Model focusing on major shapes-> UV Lowpoly-> Bake Hi-poly normals down to Low-Poly
From there you can bake an AO map from both the hi and low poly, composite them in Photoshop/GIMP, then use both the normal map and composite AO map to make the detail texture. Usually the normal map generated from the hi-poly contains all the details seen so it cuts down on texture making time and it'll match up completely with the normal map itself then.
Same basic workflow also applies to weapons and hard-surface modeling, but in most of those cases the Hi-poly is made completely in the 3D app via Sub-Divisional modeling in which a base mesh is made, then a Sub-D Poly Mesh is made from it or a Sub-D refinement is run on it (Turbosmooth in 3DS Max).
it came right outa my head non-cannon model
actually DarthRogueKnight asked me for a chopped down DC-15 a looong time ago, I used it ingame and never thought it looked quite right, so I revisited it and added new stuff.
Oh, in case Fluffy was asking about ingame use, not inspiration for the model, it could be a rifle with 2 fire modes: semi-auto sniper, or heavy repeater.
Maveritchell wrote:He did say it was just a base texture.
True, I just gave a suggestion how i'ld finish it.
I think it looks not bad at all. You can always improve it with a occl.-map for example, but it's just a weapon, i think it looks good Nice job on the model in anyway unrelated to the texture, btw