Damaged Pillar

These are the silhouettes I created before I began modeling. I considered a range of simple and more exotic designs. At first I wanted to create a sci-fi themed pillar, but after problems modeling some of the more complex designs I decided on a simpler and interesting silhouette. In the end I picked #5!



The above pillars were three variations of a model I created. Originally I wanted to create a diverse range of varied damage from weather to erosion. As these models already took long enough to make on their own I instead decided to choose just one and take it forward to bake and texture.

After deciding on the third pillar due to the less extreme damage and more organic chips and cracks, I baked it within xNormal to get a normal map and an ambient occlusion map. Due to problems with the UVing of this model, I ran into some pretty horrible results from my bakes!

I tried multiple settings to resolve the problem but to no avail. I even tried re-uving the model completely however this only made the problems I encountered worse!

At this point I decided it may be an issue with the mesh itself so I started over with a similar design (below) yet a more blockier appearance (it actually looks like it could stand as well!). Overall, the bakes came out much better on this model than the previous with only a few errors in the mesh itself. I textured the model in substance painter and experimented with masking and layers to try and vary some of the damage. I mainly wanted to give the impression that the pillar had been weathered and eroded from the elements rather than completely decimated like my early iterations. For critique I feel like I could have taken the damage a little further and spiced up my normals a little more as well.

Using an emmisive map I added a very sci-fi/fantasy-Esq rim light around the metal beam which worked nicely enough. If I were to improve this, I would paint around the edge of where the emmisive map touches the metal to bleed the glow a little more.

In all though i'm happy with the outcome as I have learned a lot in the making of this asset which has definitely given me an alternate view on asset creation! I will take most of what I have learned from this project and apply it to the next - a time machine!

Damaged Pillar - 2094 tris

albedo

Ambient Occlusion

Emmisive

Metallic

Normal

Roughness

UV