"Tower of Power"

This project was my latest study I did into Physical Based Shaders. I have been trying to get my skills as close to industry standard as I possible. With this project I wanted to make a simple prop that had a diverse amount of materials. I thought that I was making a pretty simple Prop but as I delved further into its materials and modeling I soon learned that this prop wasn't as simple as I thought. I started out looking up photos of different mobile light towers and found one I liked. I got a much reference on the light tower as I could find. From those pictures and Diagrams I thought about if this prop was in the a game and how much of it would a player see and how much Geo info would a player need to have to see the Light Towers form. I thought about what stood out most, what was not needed, what could be done in texture/normals, what could be repeated, and what could be done in overlapping uv's. After the first initial phase of modeling I decided baking the door panels, the vents, the smaller hinges, along with the tire tread, the wheels and the bolts which would still render enough Geo info for the prop to look good in-game. After Modeling, uving, and baking the basic maps for the Light Tower I started to work on separating the different materials in my mind. I started separating material's into different categories based on how smooth to rough the surface would be. Then I started on the reflectivity of each of those categories of materials. After I got down each material's roughness and the reflectivity I then started working on the Diffuse map. After I got all that done I went in and added rust and different grunge layers. I learned that within one model/prop can be hundreds of different materials that all acted different with light. I really got down the differences in reflectivity, roughness, and Geo management.