feintx’s submission — APOCALYPTIC WEAPONS: 3D PROP CHALLENGE

Low Poly

The total tri count for this gun is 42.9k tris, which is quite high for the size of the gun, however, giving silhouette to some pieces such as the screws, or not baking down the copper wire wrapped around the stock of the gun was done on purpose for a better result due to being a particularly visible or interesting part of the gun or very visible in the FPS view.

UVs

As for the internals, these were modelled pretty basic as they are visible when the magazine isn't in the gun and I have scaled the UV shells for these and other select areas down as well as mirroring some spots for better texel density.

Baking

I exploded my mesh into separate pieces so AO would work if the stock was folded or not, if the gun was disassembled etc.

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Stats:
Tri Count: 42.9k
Texture Map: 1x 4k Map @ 97.6 px/cm avg

High Poly

This stage included getting all of the details on the blockout pieces, slight adjustments, polishing, the welds and damage pass.

I also experimented with 2 rig types, settling on the simple 2 bone setup and automatic weight painting. This would allow me to compress my spring by moving a handle allowing for the full and empty mag to be easily adjusted while also rigged later down the line.

Blockout

I experimented with both top down, and side-to-side magazine types, even setting up a quick animation of the mag moving in order to more accurately judge if the change in function outweighs the change in silhouette from the initial design.

While I really liked the idea and even the opportunity to animate this to highlight the unique change - the silhouette, unfortunately, was just not appealing and so I stuck with the original magazine style.

Here are some examples of the changes I attempted while blocking out:

Reference Gathering

At this stage I wanted to explore what could be added or changed about the weapon while keeping it grounded and similar to the original source photograph that I was inspired by.

An idea I considered was to utilise a top down and gravity fed magazine which meant I would need to move the iron sights similar to the Bren LMG. This would eliminate the struggle to figure out how to get the magazine to function in a more traditional way. There was also the idea of a side-to-side magazine like the bastard from Metro Exodus.

I had also discovered someone who drilled a hole into their gun and stuck a swivel stud screw and even a paper clip with elastic bands to hold it the front sight in place. This is perfect for the project as it's a DIY method using easy to find resources.

Unfortunately in the High Poly stage I was pushing the capabilities of ZBrush too much and ended up losing 4 days worth of work due to crashes / save corruption which meant I was unable to have this asset completed in time for this competition, in the future if I am going to commit to a challenge I will plan my time from the very start, despite this it was great fun to work on this project and I will definitely be finishing it up shortly.

Name: Max Trim a.k.a Feint
I have read the terms and conditions and and am eligible for prizes.

For this project I have been heavily inspired by this scrap metal Skorpion SMG I found on Pinterest a while back. I will be taking some liberties to turn this from a simply decorative prop from real-life into a functioning gun made by a survivor with shoddy skills and knowledge. No signs of bullets around? Better than nothing...

I have decided that instead of using an air compressed system for this weapon, the survivor came across the remains of a Skorpion, of which the frame had been rendered useless from battle and had extracted the internals, which is what prompted them to make this design of all things.

I have chosen to create this asset because the model itself isn't overly complex and it allows me to progress through the stages of asset creation in a shorter timespan which aligns with this challenge, and my University workload while also giving me practise with makeshift weaponry including welds.