Here are the results for the first bake test. Quite a bit of small errors on both normal and ambient occlusion maps, I guess I'll have to add some geometry to the lowpoly just for the bake to get rid of those smoothing errors(as well as some color bleeding at UV edges, but that can be easily remedied later on).

Stahlhagel: I don't know if you realized, but that's not the realtime model. That's my 160 000+ polygon model that I'm going to use for normal map baking(which I'm still practicing).

Seems like cutting down the low poly to 2k tris is not quite possible without losing too much of the silhouette. What I have now is a bit over 3k tris(3020 tris, but I'm still working on it), which I guess is a bit high. I could lose the vents on the sides and let the normal map deal with those, but I don't know if it will look good or not(I already removed all the greebles from the right side of the gun). I'll experiment a little and see what I can come up with.

Edit: If I'll leave the vents in the front to the normal map the tri count for the low poly comes down to 2560 tris.

Some extra detail thrown in, still mirrored:

It's been a while and I'm busier than ever, but I managed to squeeze in a bit of modeling practice to get back into game.

So here's my heavily work in progress plasma pistol highpoly after three hours of modeling:


Mirroring is on, so some stuff is on both sides that's supposed to be only visible on the other, I'll fix this later.

Ken Jiang: This mod is currently in open beta, only thing you need to do is go to the download page and get the mod files there and the updates.

You can't model prop models with Hammer, you can only make BSP brushes and displacement surfaces(and of course place entities). I'm using Blender 3D to model my stuff, but others use different programs like Milkshape 3D, 3D Studio Max, Maya, Lightwave, XSI, etc.

It looks smoother because there's more than 10x the amount of polygons than before. I used subsurfs and edge creasing to get some smoothness in there, it's going to be helpful once I start fighting with the whole baking process again. I'll have to see how low I can go with the lowpoly, but I'm hoping to get the closest LOD level to somewhere between 3000 and 5000 tris.

Been a bit busy with life and other things, but here's the current version of the high poly(around 120k tris):

Still missing bits and pieces, but slowly getting there. 

  The beer keg is probably for Promethium or whatever it was that they use to fuel things in WH40k universe. There are two exhaust pipes that I haven't modeled in yet. Check last page for the link to my reference images.

Anyways here's to nights progress:

I managed to put a bit of time aside to work on this one again:


Mostly posting to keep myself focused.

Yes, a couple of close up LoD levels could work. I'll look into that once I get this generator finished or close to being finished.

Farseer: As I wrote before this model is going to be the highpoly where I'm going to bake the normals to the lowpoly, so the tri-count isn't actually an issue as of yet(but it's around 2700ish).

Since it has been way too quiet on this forum I decided to steal away some time for a bit of modeling. This will eventually become a highpoly model of that generator a couple of posts up and ultimately some day a generator prop model for mappers to use. Now if only I'd find the rest of my files... I might even try and have a go for the pylons as well. There's an alpha plane trick they used to use for wheels in old games that might work with some of that detail, but that's a model for another time.

Here's your problem:
Error opening c:\program files\steam\steamapps\shortrounduk\sourcesdk\bin\ep1\Files\Steam\steamapps\shortrounduk\sourcesdk\bin\ep1\files\steam\steamapps\sourcemods\ex\mapsrc\ex_complex.vmf

Worldcraft/Hammer is for some reason trying to search for the .vmf from a wrong path. So check your paths again.

One dirty method for finding leaks in maps is to use the big block method. Just cover your map with a brush block in an area where you think your leak might be. If your map compiles OK, make the block smaller and recompile. Do this until you've found your leak. Also it is a good idea to avoid the very edges of the mapping area(the edges of the grid) while mapping.

Did the no holes version:


And at some point I'll probably try doing something like this(the generator): http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/perdef.htm

But before that I'll need to finish changes on the crate.