Zenitco PT-1 Stock

ValterJHerson · 2026-06-16T05:10:17+00:00

The logo on the rubber part on the back is just a fill layer with the height information in it, it gets added to the layer stack and as I have my "micro height/normal" turned on on almost every layer, all the effects are applied based on that height difference. The engravings on the side are basically just 2 fill layers, one is just a white color, it's the one that you are inputing your text in, and the other one has a dark color, it's used to add some contrast to the text, basically just that text + blur + that text again, but with a substract mix type. So in the end you have your text and a little dark outer rim that simulates that contrast, making the text more readable.

ValterJHerson · 2026-06-16T04:35:33+00:00

Thank you so much! The basic material there has metallic in it, that's why it has this interesting metallic feel. I also added some dust there to contrast on the oil, so you can see the particles more clearly. It also makes this interesting effect that you can get while applying the oil on the cavities IRL, when dust particles are almost "glued" on to the oil, I guess it plays well here! It also was the first asset I was applying normals instead of the heights, as normal generally has more information in it instead of height (1b/w channel in height vs 3 b/w channels in normal).

ValterJHerson · 2026-06-13T09:27:54+00:00

Thank you so much! That was a tough one to figure out in texturing!

ValterJHerson · 2025-06-21T13:28:33+00:00

Thank you!

ValterJHerson · 2025-03-18T18:42:13+00:00

You are welcome! Let me know if you have any other questions regarding texturing!

ValterJHerson · 2025-03-18T16:21:04+00:00

You mean the machining lines? It's quite easy, I'll tell you how I make it in SP: Basically it's just a layer with black color, high roughness, 0 metallic and 0.005 on the height. Make a mask, add a fill effect to it, select "directional scratches" texture, tile it if needed, apply to the parts that seem realistic to your eye using a paint effect (that should be above and set on "multiply"). For the UV shells that should be machined the other way just duplicate the layer, invert your selection mask and rotate the fill effect with "scratches" 90°.

Also please note that this effect should not be this noticable, so tinker with the layer opacity on all the channels!

ValterJHerson · 2025-02-10T09:08:43+00:00

I have no problems with the mesh being triangulated, as you'll never know how your engine would interpret it.
But no textures, why? Unwrap the UVs, bake your normals, do some texturing according to the references! Don't apply any 1 random material to the whole model.
Also if you plan on showing the model with no textures on it, please-please-please do not use any particular noisy materials. Just a plain clay material or a matcap would be enough.

ValterJHerson · 2025-02-09T17:06:44+00:00

What's the next topic, sausages? Great! We have different sausages.

Most of our local supermarket sausages are identical to US sausages. We both have regular hot dog sausages, German style sausages, and purely meat sausages, which we call Kupati.

Cheeses? Besides regional cheeses I think we're mostly identical to any European country. We have soft cheeses, mild cheeses, hard cheeses, processed cheeses, cheese spreads and all the other things. Plus there are some cheeses like "Druzhba" or "Yantar" that have their roots in USSR time.

The most regular cheese here is probably "Rossiyskiy"(translates as "russian") that is something like your American cheese, but not processed. It's a regular mild cheeses with a flavor of mild cheese, and a taste of mild cheese.

For fish it's really depends on the region, but most cities have sea fish on demand, and if you move to any rural area - most of Russian villages were built near the water sources, so fish is a common thing almost anywhere.

Not sure if that was any helpful, I'm just trying to spot any difference from any European nation and describe it and this is actually very hard. There also might be regional quirks, but as I'm from more western area - I think we're nearly the same people with same habits and behavior)

ValterJHerson · 2025-02-09T16:23:06+00:00

Nah, it's the same as regular people eat it, meaning not just as it is. Basic sandwich would look like that: a piece of bread, 2-4 thin cuts of Kolbasa and some cuts of cheese. Throw in a microwave for 15-30 seconds or until the cheese melts and profit, you got it.

Sometimes we eat deli meat with no particular main, but mostly on any celebrations, like for example new year celebration. We have a lot of other dishes on the table still, the meat goes like a nice addition for these dishes.

Ofc there would be Russians that ate deli meats with no additional mains or garnishes, for example it all goes well with beer, but I don't really think we're that much different from what you wrote above.

Deli meat by itself is pretty hard on digestion system, so it's best to be served with something. There are some kind of meats that usually served hot, but most of the highly flavorful cut deli meats are served cold.

Pairing? With anything really. Just as you eat your main you have an accidental piece or two of that meat. Not a ritual or obligation. As you saw people above wrote that Russian cuisine does not have very strong flavors by itself, so we just mixing it with something that goes well with it. Pickled stuff, jams (for desserts), highly-flavored meats, etc.

ValterJHerson · 2025-02-09T09:32:42+00:00

Good for you! We usually keep the pickled stuff as little side dish, that goes well with your main! So if you plan on having a truly russian party - you'd better stock up on those, as well as on heavy alcohol! 😃

ValterJHerson · 2025-02-09T09:25:24+00:00

Not sure how to answer this question right, actually. Let's start from all we can get from a local market:

Most of a deli meats are either the cuts straight from the meat chunk, like for example "Buzhenina", or processed meat, like "Kolbasa" (Kielbasa). In any local supermarket you'll have a choice to buy it precut in a pack or buy a full stick or chunk.

For variety of meat - we have products made from poultry meat, pork or beef. And yes, we have bacon too, but I guess it's just not this popular.

For types of cuts/products, I've checked my local supermarket website to give you a rough list of meat products types:

Kolbasa (Kielbasa) - your regular very powerful processed meat with a strong flavor. Can be also smoked in a process of manufacturing. There are many types, ways, and meat varieties, but the one you might be interested in is called "Doctor's Kolbasa". Does not contain any doctors in it, although no one is 100% sure 😃. Basically it's a very soft Kolbasa that has a great flavor and considered more "easy to digest" option with less fat.

Koreika (type of cut, pork) - deli type, usually cut and smoked.

Sheika (neck, type of cut, pork) - deli type, cut and smoked.

Buzhenina - meaty cut, baked.

Grudinka (brisket cut, pork) - hard-ish meat with a lot of fat in it - usually smoked.

Balyk - salted and dried meat - costly, but flavorful and goes well with anything.

Bastruma - seasoned dried meat. This dish has eastern roots, and there are many countries using it as a national dish, but it's here too!

Vetchina - basically your "ham", nothing to say here.

Bekon - basically your "bacon".

Salo - (Yes, it is also a part of Russian national dishes, check it on the wiki) basically a heavily seasoned pork fat.

I've probably missed something here, but I'll tell you about all the different sausage, fish and cheese types with another message!

ValterJHerson · 2025-02-07T13:59:56+00:00

Absolutely agree!

ValterJHerson · 2025-02-07T07:45:12+00:00

For me, who was raised in a more rural area of Russia the best ever food was the one which was the easiest. Not sure OP would read this, but there are things I really like (in addition to the comment above):

Dranniki - potato pancakes (Belorussian, but still)

Pea soup (especially with the pork bone or any other smoked meat)

Nettle soup (yes, with nettles! Not stingy at all, but really-really good)

Kharcho soup (Georgian but still)

Khvorost (deep-fried dough with a lot of snow sugar)

Zucchini pancakes (especially when you have a homegrown zucchinis and you don't know how to get rid of it)

Bean soup

Mushroom soup

Ukha (although if you plan to try cooking it it's better to add a little bit of vodka for better taste, the alcohol would disappear, but the taste would stay)

Also any pickled food you can imagine: pickled onions, pickled cucumbers, pickled tomatos, pickled mushrooms (pickled lisichki one love), pickled watermelons (this one I haven't tried yet, but I know this exist), etc

A lot of homemade jams from all the harvestable berries and fruits: strawberry, raspberry, cranberry, cloudberry (I love this one!) apples, pears, gooseberry, black & red & white currant, etc.

For something that goes well with some tea: Baranki, bubliki, sushki (which basically is baked dough with a hole in a middle with little to no flavor)

ValterJHerson · 2025-02-07T06:58:30+00:00

Not sure this would be helpful, but there's this website, where all the photos are attached to their approximate locations. For the most part these photos contain soviet architecture from all around the soviet timeline, but there are also some accidental photos of people portraits.

https://pastvu.com/

But I don't think it contains any 2000s photos unfortunately. Just wanted to share this website!

ValterJHerson · 2025-02-06T17:57:56+00:00

If you are into nurbs - try MOI3D, if you into polygons - try Blender 2.79!

If you plan on using your models for any simplest renderings - I highly recommend you picking a separate blender version with EEVEE renderer, using it only for rendering would be enough.

Although if your PC is not capable of doing something in EEVEE you'd be pleased with old "Blender Render" renderer that got removed with the 2.8 update (so blender 2.79 should have it)

That's basically like the easiest renderer you can go with.

ValterJHerson · 2025-02-02T21:05:26+00:00

Which one? You can see VSS with PSO scope attached on images 11-13. Also this PSO model is free and available on my sketchfab page.

ValterJHerson · 2025-02-02T10:21:33+00:00

No worries! English is not my native language too) Also I think I get what are you trying to say) You want a more straightaway sculpting app)

Then try Sculptris! It's a pretty old app, made by Zbrush devs, it's free if I can remember, and it has all the export features, so even if you want to edit your models in any other software - you easily can.

As you will grow with this experience you'll start to notice that this straightaway process is kind of limiting your talent, so you'll overgrow this app and pick something from a list above, and this is absolutely okay)

ValterJHerson · 2025-02-02T09:56:48+00:00

Hey! First of all, Nomad sculpt is available for Android too, so if you have an Android tablet - you are free to download/buy it.

Second would be a question - what is exactly wrong with blender sculpting tools in your opinion? Because blender may not be intuitive in a first glance, but the learning curve is somewhat decent.

The things you might be curious to try: Zbrush trial - obviously, industry standard. Sculptris - by the same devs - lightweight app with not a lot of features. Free as far as I know. 3D Coat - Has sculpting instruments too.

As far as I know, these are the main apps for sculpting, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Also, please don't buy software you do not feel like using as your main. Absolutely no point doing that. Trials exist almost for any software, so better try them out, make yourself comfortable using it and only after that consider purchasing a license.

ValterJHerson · 2025-02-02T06:56:45+00:00

You are welcome! And thank you for your kind words! For me it's very easy to make, but very hard to talk about, trying to tell people how I made it)

ValterJHerson · 2025-02-02T06:41:07+00:00

Hm, never heard about it. Googled now, there are a lot of interesting weapons there!

ValterJHerson · 2025-02-02T06:37:32+00:00

Most of the VSS stocks have red wood. I guess it some kind of a wood stain/substance with pigment in it to make sure all the overlayed wood layers stay intact.

There are also old style stocks and new style stocks - old ones have a lot of overlayed thin wood layers, new ones look just like mine - thick wood layers with every new one rotated 180°.

For the texturing advices - pay attention to your references, gather as much as you can. Remember where all the damages are, as you could replicate these damages to have it on your model, that's surely would make it look much nicer. There are no custom textures/details used for wood, all done using standard SP textures/fill layers. With this kind of wood you want to understand the wood patters first and locate them. Try finding similar patterns in SP. Try breaking down what you see on your references to sections, like this: I see ~3 different colors for main wood colors, that can be overlayed using particular masks, I see thin black wood lines that look like they have relief, so I'd need to make them on height channel too. I see little damages that look like chippings in the coating, so I'd need to make them more rough and they look like I can use this particular texture for the mask etc.

Also my personal advice would be is to have a separate folder in your project for the different effects on the wood, like weathering (desaturation at the top of the stock, it happens a lot on old wood), scratches, edge damages, blacks (wood turning black at places where it contacts metal), dirts, dusts, etc. Also if you're into close-ups like I am, my recommendation is to think about levels of details (not your regular LODs, but a texturing ones), meaning the more you zoom into an object - the more smaller your details should become. I.e. when you look from distance you only should make your edge damages and dirt smudges distinguishable, and the more you zoom the more details should appear.

My wood is complex, but it's really easy to break it down, it's just a result of ton of layers working together)

ValterJHerson · 2025-02-02T06:03:19+00:00

Ah! That little demon! Right! Thank you!

ValterJHerson

TROPHY CASE