At 40,000 Tris so far I will probably redo the Fur around the neck and right shoulder. And redo the scale skirt mesh I like the Roughness and metallic settings but I need to adjust the textures on the horn, I don't think it matches with the body yet
Decided to hop into this challenge as well. Chose to model the second concept because I really like the design and really want to sculpt all that fur/hair (even though retopo's probably going to be a nightmare. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ) Started a couple days ago so still blocking everything out / building all the forms out. Already feel like I need to make the hands/feet bigger...
Hey guys, I am not sure if I will have time to finish this or not but I've wanted to do one of these forever so I figure no time better than now. These concepts are totally different style from anything I've done so I think that's a good challenge for me.
I am going to do the heavy viking guy - first concept. Just cause nobody else has chose him yet.
The first thing I want to do to get started is make my plan. Because I am short on time I need to maximize the amount of time I have to iterate on the design - I want to honor the concept as well as possible. So I have to be careful not to spend too long noodling with the sculpt in a fruitless way.
Because the concept is very blocky and angular, I think I can build 90% of this model in Maya. I think I can keep it relatively low poly. Because the concept has a nice simple style to the color and lighting, I think almightgir's cell shader in Toolbag will fit the bill perfectly.
So the first thing I like to do is get my whole pipeline setup and verified. I don't want any surprises. What I'll do first is use Daz studio quickly get out a base mesh that is roughly the right proportions. I send this over to Toolbag where I will make my final renders. I want to get the shader setup so that as I am working on my model I can keep checking it out under the same conditions it will be rendered in. I find that working on gray sculpts in zbrush or texturing in Substance Painter is always misleading. So it's better to iterate with the model in it's final render engine the whole time.
So I know what the shader is going to look like and within just a few minutes Daz studio has given me a base mesh I can start from. Now I'll return this posed mesh to the A pose and take it into Maya. I'll build a new, extremely low topology over the Daz model. The concept kind of looks like one of those Asaro head style things where the body planes are greatly reduced. That is great - a low poly model should work well to reproduce that in 3d.
Once I get the new base mesh blocked out I will go ahead and setup UV's and transfer the albedo texture from the Daz mesh to my new mesh. That's just so that as I am tweaking and working on the model, I have a bit of color on it and I can keep checking it in Toolbag. I want to keep it as close to finished at all times as I possibly can.
Once I have the visible upper body portion of the model satisfactory, I won't go straight into finishing the modeling. First I will go through the rest of the pipeline - texturing and rendering. I want to discover if there is any surprises before doing all that modeling work. Maybe the way I make angles on the model will play important role in the way the shader will display things? Maybe I'll need to go higher poly than I expect. Who knows what problems I might face, so I think finishing a vertical slice of the model will be a good plan.
So in a nutshell my plan is:
Low poly, angular, and blocky mesh
Render in Toolbag 4 with AlmightyGirs cell shader
Minimal materials with probably only an albedo map
Complete a vertical slice of the model first before modeling all the clothing and gear
I also want to make some "improvements" on the original concept. Just my opinion of course, but I think the contrast between the materials isn't as interesting as it could be. I like the shapes but I will take a little liberty with the colors and values. We'll see if I do better or fuck it all up, but this isn't a job so I think it's a good time to push boundaries and have some fun.
Update:
A couple more hours work. New topology.
Some sculpting and polypaint.
The highest subdivision level right now is 40k verts. I might need to go
up one more for where the muscles tie in together because it's so
exaggerated, but maybe I'll just send the mesh back to maya and retopo
so the low geo follows those contours more. May be easier to get those polished edges if the topology is working with me.
@Pinkfox You nailed it, the renders are looking dope and you've been crazy fast on this project !
It took me forever but I'm starting to have a decent mid/high poly, it still needs some cleaning. I wanted the handle to be big and blocky and along the process it became quite wide. It made the transition between the handle and the metal butt of the rifle look weird and I had to make two more iterations before finding something good enough. Here's how it looks right now.
@Mahelix Nice progress, that looks really clean! And yeah I chosed the "pull the lever and the shell jumps out because steampunk" approach
Recently uploaded this old fan art based on a door in the game Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch! A small animation can be found here: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/zOWkzd