On the left is Ratchet from Transformers Prime. On the right is Ratchet from the fan film Transformers Prime: Galvatron's Revenge?Why does the right look so...cheap? I don't think it's JUST missing details or flat textures (except where the torso meets the neck for some reason), though it sure does not help.It's got to be something in the materials, then? My first thought would be the lack of AO or self shadows, especially the . On the other hand, there are some moments that do show SOME self-shadowing. Either that or I don't really know the difference between AO and self-shadowing
>>1004027Bad lighting
>>1004027My teacher would always complain about not having bravel in the edges and how real life doesn’t have sharp corners. This is what he is talking about.
>>1004027The fanmade model is lower quality, but that's not a big deal here. The lighting is just worse, partly because it's not ray traced and partly because it's just not good.
>>1004027lightning that doesnt set the correct mood + poor framing/compositionyou can have all the rendering power in the world but still do jackshit if you dont know how to use it properly
>>1004042I think there is SOME ray tracing going on. You can see his cheekguards reflected off of his face, and you can see some of the blue reflected off of the shiny parts of his shoulder armor.I also should point out, though this picture doesn't show it that well, the fan film goes overboard with bloom with eyes and glowing bits, and especially the gold parts of two other characters
Took a quick look, looks like they just had janky lighting on all the interior scenes. The exteriors are mostly fine cause there's an hdri with a bit of variation, anything where they were relying on their own lights looks super flat. Like compare the difference in spec between these 2 random shots
>>1004091Doesn't look like they have any maps to add imperfections, The models in Prime had scratch marks and paint chips, as can be seen with the picture of Ratchet in the OP.
>>1004097Yeah, that's what I meant by flat textures. It's more apparent with Bulkhead. In the show proper, almost every edge on his body is "lined" with scratches
>>1004097>>1004105Still, that wouldn't have much to do with the way the light hits and stuff like that...right?
>>1004118Nah wouldn't have that much of an effect. They do have a bit of breakup but for characters like this where they're completely metal, 95% of the look would come from reflections and lighting. If you try to overcompensate with grunge you end up on the other end of the scale with babby's first substance painter materials, and it'd make the forms read even worse. If you have marmoset toolbag you can try playing around with a sphere and just tweaking the roughness / metalness values with different HDRIs, there's not really much more to this sort of metal
