12" Vinyl Record

Overview

This 3D model is a digital recreation of a real 12-inch vinyl record. It was designed with both visual realism and customizability in mind, making it suitable for product renders, animations, and interactive applications.

Modelling Process

To achieve the realistic look of vinyl grooves, the model was created using a high-poly to low-poly baking workflow:

1. High-Poly Model
   A detailed version of the record surface was modelled to accurately replicate the fine circular grooves found on real vinyl.
2. Low-Poly Model
   A simplified cylindrical version of the record was created for optimal performance in real-time applications.
3. Normal Map Baking
   The high-resolution details were baked into a normal map, transferring the appearance of the grooves to the low-poly surface without increasing polygon count.
4. UV Unwrapping
   To avoid moiré banding artifacts (which can appear when circular details are displayed on a pixel grid), the UVs were unwrapped and straightened. This causes the grooves to appear as straight/ jagged lines in the texture, but they display perfectly circular on the model itself.

Customizability

The vinyl record model was built with modularity in mind. Each major component has its own dedicated material and texture set:

• Vinyl disc
• Inner paper sleeve
• Outer sleeve (album cover)

This setup allows for easy replacement of album artwork, label designs, and textures.

Note: In most game workflows, multiple surfaces would typically share a single material for performance reasons.

If you wish to optimize the model for such use, you can bake all materials into a single texture set. This requires:

• Creating an additional UV layout
• Unwrapping all parts to the new UV map
• Rebaking the existing textures into one set

If you need guidance with this process, feel free to reach out.

Texturing

All textures were created using Substance Painter and follow PBR (Physically Based Rendering) standards for realistic surface response under various lighting conditions.

Naming Conventions

The included files follow a consistent and industry-standard naming scheme: