I was messing around with phong and trying to make a skin like it "should".
I'm not telling my secret yet ;)

I made some recordings which show it a bit nicer like how it really looks.
And I must say I'm quite pleased!
I still got some tweaking to do I guess, but personally I think it turned out quite well.

The model uses phong, and I made this skin this way that you don't see shiny parts when they don't need to shine.
I reskinned the default texture.
The default textures use highlights because they don't use any (reflecting) shaders, so thats why they "painted" it on it.

So with my modified skin it doesnt "shine" on default, but only when it has to so when light is shining on it, and only THEN you see the highlights.

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/2113/barcdrealisticshinedb5.png

Don't be shy, gimme some comments :D
Especially you Wile, I'd love to read what you think about it.

I will work on other weapon skins, and will show them soon.
Can't wait to work on em.


EDIT:
I think I'll make the shinyness a bit more global.
But keep in mind that game models/textures cannot have the realistic feel, what ever you do.
You can get close though, especially now the advanced shadertechnology is getting better, but still.

So sometime I think it's better to do a bit "to much", but it only works in some cases.

looks good too me, alot better than alot of the phonged wepaons that have it all over the gun including the wood, which i dont like.

Wood such as on a gun reflects naturally, please do include the wood on it too. For those that say it doesn't look good, when done properly, it can look fantastic:

http://image.fpsbanana.com/ss/srends/15789.jpg (in particular the one on the right)

http://image.fpsbanana.com/ss/skins/13765a.jpg

Yes, I realise that is a different engine, but its the same end effect. That's why I also refer you to this:

http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/9739/d4yb3.jpg

Still, your work on the metal looks well made, I certainly look forward to seeing the end product.

wow I love the top right pic and the bottom left one.

Update:
http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/5088/animationpreview1dt3.gif

Man, phong's a :tnp::tnp::tnp::tnp::tnp: :p

Another update:

I made a video so you can see how it looks ingame.
I almost worked my brains out, so you better like it! :P
I know that it "shines" to much, I am working on it.
This is also a HIRES reskin of the default skin.

Let me know what you think.

EDIT2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvH2akHYA9k

video dont work

Originally posted by DayofDfeat123
video dont work
Fixed, check my post again.
I might do another upload somewhere, where you can see a better quality version.

The metal looks good, but as you said a little bright. However, I feel that the complete lack of lighting change on the wood while the metal is highlighted makes the whole thing look awful (harsh, but you want honest opinions, right?). The wood needs to have a natural (but certainly not as strong as on the metal) light reflection to it to make the whole thing work.

However, there is a mild reflective shine on the wood in the gif that is not present on the video. That's the kind of effect you should be after.

Originally posted by S@bre
The metal looks good, but as you said a little bright. However, I feel that the complete lack of lighting change on the wood while the metal is highlighted makes the whole thing look awful (harsh, but you want honest opinions, right?). The wood needs to have a natural (but certainly not as strong as on the metal) light reflection to it to make the whole thing work.

However, there is a mild reflective shine on the wood in the gif that is not present on the video. That's the kind of effect you should be after.
True, first the animation on the gif is another version.
But somehow if I only set a very tiny part of the wood visible in the alpha of the normalmap it shows on the whole wood part that's what I made the wood part 100% transparent, and I don't like it either.

But I will work on it till it's perfect ;)

Looks very promising. It is a bit too bright, but still, very nice. Keep up the good work!

Originally posted by straybullet
Looks very promising. It is a bit too bright, but still, very nice. Keep up the good work!
Thanks, I messed around a bit with phong today and I think I got a nice(er) version on the way, but I'll test it out tomorrow ingame....must..suppress...skin..addiction...

Looks good, but I agree with Sabre as well. The wood needs some shine too.

I'm looking forward to this release.:)

well I know you have a new version out, but from the video here was my impression.....

It looks like it is nickel-plated instead of parkerized. I'm not sure what combination of things caused me to think this is what I saw, but none-the-less that was my first impression when looking at it.

Maybe make the metal area less silvery, maybe tone down the normal map alpha channel a couple of shades darker (thereby reducing the effect), maybe increse the exponent map a couple shades brighter (to make the light diffusion less broad and instead more pinpointed)......

I dunno which one would really be the answer..... I can tell you don't get disheartened, that Garand phong I did for eSkwaad's Garand skin actually took me as long as doing a regular skin would. It's a LOT of trial and error.

Originally posted by Wile E Coyote
[...]It's a LOT of trial and error
Yep and that's why I make/show some different versions.
I know that this one from the video is a bit to bright, I am just triying some different posibilities with phong/normalmaps/alpha, and sometimes it's good to go "extreme", because I personally learn more from the mistakes I make.

If I made all my skins (incl. phong) the same way, well I don't really learn anything new, and I want it to be "perfect" if I don't make em perfect already ;)

I have seen some skins with phong and they are just made CHEAP.
Everyone can do that.
To make normalmaps just load the original texture load the nvidia normal plugin and voila, normalmap in 2 seconds, but does it look good?
Well sometimes it does sometimes it doesnt.

You want your skin to shine nicely well just turn up the contrast of the original texture and use that as alpha channel for your normalmap or basetexture.

It couldn't be easier, but does it actually look good or even better?

With my BAR reskin I might not even use a normalmap or maybe just a little bumpyness or at least make my own "bumps", cause the model itself has some good details and for some parts I might even make it look worse.

End of speech :P

Yeah, way to shiney, looks like it's made out of some type of UFO super metal or something

Hope it improves though

Phong is very easy to setup correctly achieving the right look should not take long

You still working on this?:D

Originally posted by Guyver
You still working on this?:D
Well not currenty.
I came to a point where I went another direction of phong and got kinda stuck so it slowly faded away.

But still I most like the first version though.
I'll see if I can work from that idea.