Try to crisp up the textures a bit, you can still see brush strokes where in the reference toxic posted, every brush stroke hints at the shape of the object or some sort of light reflection. The shoulder pads and the back cannon are good, just try to bring everything else to that level if you can. But it's so close to the deadline I would suggest that you just submit it, and keep working on it after the contest is over for your portfolio.
P.S. I still can't tell what that thing is in his mouth... you might be better off just removing it, because it makes him look strange ;/
Also be sure to check your compression settings in PS when you save for web... your final image looks compressed to death. For the final entry, make sure quality is set to 100%.
If the beauty shot looks muddy, I'd have to conjecture it's a mix of my texture resolution at the face, etc and Marmoset's export resolution and whatever resizing I did.
Possible thing to fix, though it's probably not a big deal - looks like there is some overlay or something on his face that doesn't extend through the padding by the symmetry line (i.e., there is a noticeable line at the UV border). This looks like it occurs in a couple areas but the face is the most noticeable. Since this isn't going to need to mip it won't make a difference, but it might be worth fixing just as a presentation thing, since you'd have to fix it on a game-ready model.
Well, I DO have the Sharpen feature in Marmoset, so I bump that on, and everything looks crisper! Problem is I think this might be cheating since it's post-op.
@KyleJesen: Hey! You worked on Unchained! Wow, seriously, you guys did wicked work in terms of the art. It was ridiculous! Not sure how that game turned out though . . .
Would anyone be interested in getting the SDK to this? I have the Maya project folder compressed and ready to go (sans textures, but has a rough rig and model only version).
@KyleJesen: Hey! You worked on Unchained! Wow, seriously, you guys did wicked work in terms of the art. It was ridiculous! Not sure how that game turned out though . . .
Thanks. Our art team worked hard on that. Most of us were still learning how to model and texture at the time, but I think it turned out decently. I wish I knew as much about modeling and texturing back then as I do now. As for where the game ended up, I'm not sure. I heard it did well during its show, but we didn't really hear anything about it after that.
I see you've worked on Blink. That game was looking really cool. It even grabbed peoples' attention on the net. We had some people from LCAD working on that game as well. Must have been a great team experience.
Yeah, the games for 491 are kinda short lived USUALLY. Some go commercial, but a lot of the teams try to just aim it as "Get people jobs" projects.
Naw, for Blink, I was only there officially for three months doing really early pre-vis. They switched gears by the end of the summer. Project was out of my league once the superstars from LCAD and Gnomon showed up.
"Greetings from Blizzard Entertainments World of Warcraft development team and University Relations representatives!
Thank you for participating in the World of Warcraft Student Art Contest. We appreciate your hard work and your interest in Blizzard Entertainment.
Judging for the contest has concluded. Ultimately, your submission was not selected for the prize pool. However, the World of Warcraft team asked us to share some feedback directly from Tamara, an Artist on World of Warcraft:
Hi Brian. Thank you for participating in the World of Warcraft Student Art Contest. This contest was very important to us, so we felt it necessary to give constructive feedback to all of the students who took the time and put in the hard work to participate.
I like complexity of this character! Its really interesting to see all these details on him with the Blood Elf design vibe. All those pouches, tools, and the scroll work great for creating a cool silhouette and identifying which class you were going for.
I also like how polygons were applied on this mesh, its pretty neat. I would only point out the long polys on the weapon / cannon. Its better to avoid them in future and try to keep the wireframe more even. UV layout looks really good. Its great optimization, no space wasted at all. Optimization is a very important skill for videogame artists, no doubt this entry shows it.
I have some minor suggestions about your texture. Its too contrasty and dark (almost black) in some places. For example, the back part of legs and lower part of character are so dark, it looks really flat. Avoid painting pitch-black shadows. It muddies things up too much. Use cold tints for shadows from main color material. I would also suggest treating metals in different manner, with sharp, small highlights. It would read metallic so much better that way.
Overall its very interesting character with its own story and class / profession, which I really like. Keep at it and thanks again for your submission!
-Tamara Bakhlycheva (Character Artist, World of Warcraft)
We hope you find this feedback helpful as you move forward with your education. If you have any questions for the University Relations team, please feel free to use this email address. We wish you all the best, and thank you again for participating!
Take care,"
your presentation quality kinda low compared to the rest of your work. mostly its about jpg compression ruining whole image, but background/text could use some work. i'm not suggesting anything fancy, just more accurate
I think you did a good job following the critiques. I think that the textures look alot better now that they are less contrast and clearer.
I have read through the thread and it was nice to read and look at the progression, although one thing i dont understand though is why you were so adamant on keeping that rocket cigar which look so huge in his mouth. With that being said nice job though on the rest.
Its also a shame we cant see other submissions from the contest.
Type in Ariel Fain and/or Old Crow, one of the winning submissions. She's from LCAD, bunch of bosses from there and I've had a pleasure working with a lot of them.
Replies
Here is another persons entry. Texture painting in hers is much more fully realized.
http://aquadark.tumblr.com/post/40512001818
@toxic_h20: You're freaking me out! T_T What can you see that needs polishing, specifically?
P.S. I still can't tell what that thing is in his mouth... you might be better off just removing it, because it makes him look strange ;/
Also be sure to check your compression settings in PS when you save for web... your final image looks compressed to death. For the final entry, make sure quality is set to 100%.
Best of luck on your submission. This has come a long way since you started it.
EDIT: Submission sent. Palma ut Deus.
Hopefully it looks crisper, Artquest. It's been kinda hard to paint those in T_T. And this is with the Sharpen filter from Marmoset applied.
Agreed! This has come a long way. Good job on the final!
Thanks. Our art team worked hard on that. Most of us were still learning how to model and texture at the time, but I think it turned out decently. I wish I knew as much about modeling and texturing back then as I do now. As for where the game ended up, I'm not sure. I heard it did well during its show, but we didn't really hear anything about it after that.
I see you've worked on Blink. That game was looking really cool. It even grabbed peoples' attention on the net. We had some people from LCAD working on that game as well. Must have been a great team experience.
Naw, for Blink, I was only there officially for three months doing really early pre-vis. They switched gears by the end of the summer. Project was out of my league once the superstars from LCAD and Gnomon showed up.
"Greetings from Blizzard Entertainments World of Warcraft development team and University Relations representatives!
Thank you for participating in the World of Warcraft Student Art Contest. We appreciate your hard work and your interest in Blizzard Entertainment.
Judging for the contest has concluded. Ultimately, your submission was not selected for the prize pool. However, the World of Warcraft team asked us to share some feedback directly from Tamara, an Artist on World of Warcraft:
Hi Brian. Thank you for participating in the World of Warcraft Student Art Contest. This contest was very important to us, so we felt it necessary to give constructive feedback to all of the students who took the time and put in the hard work to participate.
I like complexity of this character! Its really interesting to see all these details on him with the Blood Elf design vibe. All those pouches, tools, and the scroll work great for creating a cool silhouette and identifying which class you were going for.
I also like how polygons were applied on this mesh, its pretty neat. I would only point out the long polys on the weapon / cannon. Its better to avoid them in future and try to keep the wireframe more even. UV layout looks really good. Its great optimization, no space wasted at all. Optimization is a very important skill for videogame artists, no doubt this entry shows it.
I have some minor suggestions about your texture. Its too contrasty and dark (almost black) in some places. For example, the back part of legs and lower part of character are so dark, it looks really flat. Avoid painting pitch-black shadows. It muddies things up too much. Use cold tints for shadows from main color material. I would also suggest treating metals in different manner, with sharp, small highlights. It would read metallic so much better that way.
Overall its very interesting character with its own story and class / profession, which I really like. Keep at it and thanks again for your submission!
-Tamara Bakhlycheva (Character Artist, World of Warcraft)
We hope you find this feedback helpful as you move forward with your education. If you have any questions for the University Relations team, please feel free to use this email address. We wish you all the best, and thank you again for participating!
Take care,"
Dangnabit
And I'll post a downloadable SDK of the model sans textures if anyone wants to play with it.
Does anyone think I did right by it?
I have read through the thread and it was nice to read and look at the progression, although one thing i dont understand though is why you were so adamant on keeping that rocket cigar which look so huge in his mouth. With that being said nice job though on the rest.
Its also a shame we cant see other submissions from the contest.