Konishoruko Rokuoh-Sha Type 89

Join us for this voyage into crafting a highly detailed, realistic WWII camera rifle with Geremia Merzari. We dive into his creation process from modelling and sculpting in Blender, ZBrush and Houdini, texturing with Substance Painter, Substance Designer and Photoshop as well as presentation tips in Marmoset Toolbag. Geremia also shares his texturing tips and tricks for weapon art!

Intro

Hi! I’m Geremia Merzari and I am looking for a job in both environment and prop art! I’m from Italy and I just started learning 3D a couple of years ago, when I started studying game art at Howest – Digital Arts and Entertainment. I come from a different background, my studies before weren’t focused on game art or anything related to 3d. I was finishing up my master’s in Literature and Translation at UCL in London. It was right about the time I was wrapping up my final dissertation when I started watching some YouTube videos about visual effects and 3D modelling.

I’ve always been interested in visual effects growing up, I remember I used to record my friends and add powers and VFX to them in After Effects. I then started learning and experimenting with different programs and fell in love with this world immediately. I loved how I could convey a short story by creating an environment or a prop, make some interesting renders and by doing that I could make the viewer think about what’s going on and convey my message to them.

Since then, I’ve joined 3D related servers on Discord, one of which being Experience Points, especially since I got caught into one of their tutorials made by Ben Keeling ‘Authoring Props For Games’. This is where I first encountered how important storytelling is when creating even very small props.

In this article I’m going to show you how I’ve created the Konishoruko Rokuoh-Sha Type 89, an old Japanese camera-rifle from WWII, and what I’ve learnt along the way. The tools I used are Blender (modelling), Houdini (polish the mid poly and get the high poly), ZBrush (subtle sculpting pass) Substance Designer (pattern creation), Substance Painter (texturing), Marmoset Toolbag (baking and rendering)

Rendering

When it comes to rendering, I try to keep everything as simple as possible and follow an organized and specific workflow made out of very simple but important steps:

First thing I do is to set up the Marmoset scene. I first create a new camera, adjust the field of view values – I tend to have a very low field of view to avoid distortion with a quite high number of mm, around 250.

Second, I set up my viewport – I use a solid colour as the background, I usually use white as the background colour to bring all the focus towards the prop. Although, I do experiment with different colour combinations when it comes to baking and showcasing the high poly.

Third, I start implementing a very simple 3 light setup. Without the influence of the skylight, I can clearly give purpose to each light and see how they affect the quality of the render and if they give justice to the texturing work. One thing that I really don’t want in this phase is to flatten out the values and materials, I want to show all the hard work. To have a better idea of how the final render will look, I then proceed to split the viewport vertically or horizontally, I duplicate the camera with the correct settings and enable Safe Frame to avoid any extra negative space, and use it as my final camera, so I don’t accidentally move it. In the meanwhile, in the other viewport I’m free to move around rotate things and move the lights.

Post Production

As final step, once I’m happy with how the render is looking, I create a new post processing profile, I add some contrast with curves, adjust the brightness and clarity. Additionally, I add some subtle colour aberration, I add sharpen and a subtle vignette to the render. Once I’m happy with my post process profile, I save it and apply it to the other renders as well – and I adjust the lights if necessary. From there the only thing left to do disable the denoiser and export the render.

Presentation

I did quite a few attempts to have brighter colours and match different lighting set ups with contrasting colours. I did some test renders, but I did decide in the end to keep the presentation as clear and readable as possible. As you can see from the example below, I feel like this kind of very strong and contrasting set up was taking the attention away from the actual textures.

I have a lot of closeups shots on my ArtStation post, I’ve spent plenty of time manually painting, tweaking, and adjusting the textures – I did put a lot of effort and love in each brushstroke, so since the beginning I knew I wanted to highlight that. Therefore, I tried to include all the best parts and the ones I spent the post time on in the post, I did have 4/5 extra renders that I decided to remove from the post because it was getting a bit to lengthy otherwise. I’ve also decided which parts were going to be rendered form very close up so during the modelling phase I’ve intentionally added extra loops to certain spots of the rifle – especially the barrel, the frame counter, and the scope base. I’ve put extra time adding details to those areas, but generally I would say that the time spent adding details was for all the surface of the prop. I wanted to add uniqueness to every part of it, with the idea in mind that someone that is interested in the prop can zoom in in any random part of the camera and notice very little details that were intentionally added with love.

Camera Settings

I adjust to my preference few options in the camera settings. First of all, I like to have a low field of view, with a value between 5 and 15. For what concerns the mm usually I keep those at around 250. Additionally, once the lighting is done, I like to enable Depth of Field and by using the picker tool, I can quickly test different versions of the shots with the depth of field. Then, to adjust the intensity I play with the slider for the mm.

Workflow

Modelling wise, the rifle was made in Blender. Starting from a blockout until after adjusting proportions and including the details I got a solid mid poly version of it. Where from there I can get both the high and the low poly version of the rifle.

One of the goals of this project was to introduce Houdini in the high poly creation. So I’ve created this simple HDA (Houdini Digital Asset) where the only thing to do is to input the mesh in Houdini and with a single click I get a few seconds later the high poly version of it. Once that is done, I did a very minor damaging pass on the metal lever along the rifle in ZBrush.

Learning Houdini

I’m a beginner when it comes to Houdini, but I do enjoy finding ways to make small and simple tools that can speed up your pipeline. If you want to know more about it I highly recommend Simon Verstraete, he dives into techniques and workflows that involve Houdini for game art. Very interesting content!

Texturing

To make my textures interesting, the first thing I do is search for more specific references. I do several rounds of this; for instance, one time I search for “Rusty Japanese Camera Rifle,” and another time I look for a dusty one, etc. By the end of the process, I am left with a plethora of options, ideas, and inspiration for the details I want to include in my version of the camera.

Once I have all the references, I start analysing which ones could become useful and effective stencils. I collect and export the suitable ones from PureRef and send them to HitPaw Enhancer, where I can upscale the resolution of the pictures to get crisper results in the stencils later. Once that is done, I quickly create the stencil in Photoshop.

Substance Painter Layering

When it comes to creating the material, my process is straightforward. I build the material as it was constructed in real life. For example, for painted metal, I start with a metal material as the base and then add a base layer for the painted metal. This part is mostly procedural, but I add a paint layer for each new variation and adjust it by hand to make it look more believable and less procedural.

Once that is done, I start with the localization stage – here, I build up details such as grime, dirt, rust, scratches, etc. Everything here is done 95% by hand using stencils that I’ve created with my PureRef board.

After completing that stage, I do a post-processing pass on top of the layers. I use the curvature map on passthrough to enhance the shapes and a subtle sharpening layer to make the details pop more. Additionally, I tweak the albedo and roughness maps with levels to get some extra interest in the maps.

Substance Designer

The main pattern of the coating of the rifle was done in Designer. The graph is extremely basic and it involves just two nodes.

I couldn’t figure out how to achieve this kind of pattern in Painter, so I decided to reach out to Ben Wilson for advice. He immediately suggested experimenting with the Reaction Diffusion node in Designer and feeding it different grunge maps. I quickly discovered that a simple Clouds 2 map was ideal for the desired pattern. I then exported it and imported it into Painter.

Paint Peeling Effect

For the peeling effect, I first started gathering resources and information online and I found these videos very useful and helped me understand how the system works. The first one is by Wes McDermott and the second one is by Pilgrim.

The way mine works is by saving the peeling mask with an anchor point and using the histogram shift in combination with levels and warp.

Details In Texturing Or Details In High Poly?

Majority of the details were done in the high poly, especially considering this project as a portfolio project I did try to go the extra mile for better quality, although some minor screws and bolts have been stamped with a customs stencil as a normal detail in Painter.

Texturing Workflow

As mentioned before, my texturing workflow is very straightforward, which helps keep everything tidy and organized in my head. Additionally, extensive use of anchor points has made my textures look very detailed and believable.

I usually start by painting the detail with a stencil. Sometimes, I even exaggerate the intensity to create a clearer mask that I can utilize later. After that, I save the mask I used to paint the detail in an anchor point. From there, I add colour and roughness variation by duplicating the layer, changing the base colour, and applying some procedural variation along with a minor hand-painted pass for believability. I find this approach very useful, especially when it comes to dust in the corners, where you typically have a more opaque, stain-like shape and the presence of thicker and denser dots.

To better illustrate this, I found a dust grunge map through a quick Google search.

It’s from Adobe Stock, and it’s a perfect example of what I mentioned above, here you can notice those stains like shapes in blue and in red the dots.

Once the initial mask is created, it’s easier to get these different kinds of variation in the dust build up, by simply adding colour and roughness variation layers and manually adding in unique and similar details on top with stencils.

Here is a simple example I found of dust build up on a part of the rifle. As you can see, I have the starting point layer in red where I created and saved the mask with an anchor. Then, I apply some variation on the outer part of the mask. In green, I show a technique I learned from Arvid Schneider’s YouTube channel, where he has multiple videos about starting out in Substance Painter. The technique consists of adding your fill layer with the anchor first, then blurring it out a bit. On top of that, add another fill layer with the same anchor, but change the mode to Inverse Subtract. In my case, I use Subtract instead because it gave me a better result.

In blue and yellow you can see the two main variations I was talking about earlier, the stain like component and the dots one.

One of the goals that I add towards the end for this project was to have a silhouette shot where a soldier is holding my rifle. Therefore, after reading the breakdown article by Louis Squara, I was fully inspired and quickly started looking for free soldier models online and for posing references. With the help of Naoman Ahmad, I was able to get the pose in Marmoset, adjust the lighting to fit the shot and created the shader for the mannequin soldier.

Once the shader is set up, you can change the albedo to achieve any look you might want.

Areas To Grow As An Artist

I’m always striving to become a better artist. I spend my free time searching for new techniques and workflows, and I work on many personal projects. I will be releasing something completely new soon! I love getting involved in the community, especially on Discord servers. I highly recommend this, as it helps create meaningful connections!

Artistic Preference

I started out doing a lot of very realistic projects, but I recently had the chance to work on a set of stylized props in ZBrush, and I found that a lot of fun. Since then, I have started getting more into stylized art and appreciating elements such as silhouette, colours, and dynamism. I've been really fascinated and captivated by stylized art, so I keep collecting new data and adding it to a stylized art dedicated page on Notion. I am still not 100% sure which style is my ultimate favourite, but I enjoy working on both.

Feedback

I started asking for feedback in all of the 3d discord server I was in, EXP, DiNusty, 3DFT – and by time keep on trying to become more independent and analyse the reference myself to understand what’s wrong. Usually I keep on doing that until I reach a point where I’m stuck and I don’t know how to make it better, so then I have a few trusted friends that I directly ask feedback to. Feedback is so fundemantal. It’s what helps you get that final extra 5% and really boost your project.