Female Character critique please

rogermein1

Hi

I've been working on a new female character that I'd like to get some feedback on. The character is meant to be a goth with occult overtones, hence her body is covered with mystic tattoos. I'm basically looking to see if anyone can spot deficiencies/things in my model.

Here is the main still image:



Here are the various camera shots and wireframe images to show the breakdown:





and the zbrush model:



and the texture maps:




Software used included 3DS Max, ZBrush, Mudbox and Photoshop for final composites. Any critiques would be appreciated, especially things that I can improve. Thanks in advance!

praetus

Overall I think it looks good but visually there is a whole lot going on with those tattoos. It makes it hard for my eyes to rest as I can't find a focal point due to all the noise. Also, since tattoos are under the skin, they physically bump the skin out a little bit (whether or not you'd want a very slight bit of info in the normals) but they also tend to have a different specular intensity since light doesn't pass through the ink the same way. While there is still the top layer of skin, you don't have the same SSS.

rogermein1

Hi Praetus

Thanks for the reply. I agree that the tattoos can be jarring. I've been thinking of diluting their intensity a bit. You make a good point about the ink bumping out of the skin slightly. I will have to look into adding those details into the normal map.

Thanks again for your help!

rogermein

Add3r

Yeah there is a LOT going on with the tattoos, and unless she was recently tatted, I think they should be worn and washed out a tad bit here and there. Also, once again, if she wasn't tatted recently, the tattoos will have that notorious greening effect, which I think would bring this a step further in believablility. Rarely do you see a tattoo perfectly black such as this. Awesome work on the model itself though! I think with some diffuse work, this could be pretty damn awesome Tons of character, from the pose, textures, normals/spec, etc.

rogermein1

Hi Add3r

Thanks! Will definitely take your advice about the tattoos and make the more worn and washed out. The tats are mostly green but I think the lighting effect makes them a more harsher black than it actually is. Will need to check up on that.

Thanks again!

rogermein1

Hi, just an update on the WIP:



I've adjusted the character's posture and hands to give her a more natural Contrapposto posture.

I've also reduced the intensity of the tattoos as Praetus and Add3r correctly pointed out that the ink fades naturally with skin. Finally adjusted the lighting and skin hue slightly to get more muscle definition.

Any advice on the current WIP is welcome. Thanks.

Shiniku

I really like the sculpt, but the texture is too much for me. It's very busy, and does a good job of hiding that nice sculpt.

Also, I would say you have way too much AO/lighting baked into the diffuse and specular texture. It's really not necessary for a model of this rez with a nice normal map, and just makes her look really muddy/dirty IMO.

almighty_gir

the screenshot i enjoyed the most, was the wireframe, because the silouhette is awesome. but the wireframe is actually LESS noisy, and is easier to read, than the textures.

the textures are really bad (in my opinion) man... they totally kill the piece for me. the tattoo's are all over the place, and just too difficult to get a good read on the character.

rogermein1

Hi Guys

Thanks for the comments. These are really insightful to what other people think:

@ Shinku

I think you're right about the overbaking. I wanted to capture the muscle tone detail and ended extending too much of it giving her a dirty look. I will have to tone down the skin.

@ almighty_gir

Yeah, I get the feeling most people don't really like the tattoos. And I'm woefully inadequate in making them realistic as you have observed. I do wish to keep some sort of body tattoo design, as that was my initial inspiration for designing this character. Perhaps I should scale down the number of tattoos, fix up the arm so the ink doesn't look like a complete riot and see if that improves the feel. Perhaps that might make the look less chaotic.

Thanks everyone again for your insight. I needed to hear this.

praetus

It isn't the quality or realism of the tattoos that is killing it, it is the shear number of them. With any piece there should be an area that directs your eye. With the tattoos there is so much noise and direction that my eyes are looking all over your model but they're not coming to rest on any focal point.

If you have the tattoos on a separate layer I would love to see a version of this character thats clean to start off with. then you can try adding a few tattoos here and there that add to the character without being overbearing.

vavavoom

i took a good look at your model and there may be a problem.

i think the big problem i have with your model is... that i'm envious of your skill... especially texturing... hoho!

if i could get my model to look as good at that, i would be over the moon!

can't really crit or comment on any technical stuff as my skill and knowledge of such things is way way down at the bottom there somewhere.

i'd just like to say i think it's awesome work and am eagerly watching it progress

Shiniku

Yeah, just reduce the number of tattoos. Not even by that much necessarily. The tattoos aren't the only reason it looks so busy either - the texture of the skin looks very grainy and rough, the patterns on the fabric are all very bold and contrasty. Some of this can be toned down to almost flat-colors and your diffuse. Let your spec and normals do some of the work when it comes to showing all of that fine detail.

bigphun

Here is your problem as I see it, on your UV map the head is much bigger than the torso but the line weight of the tattoos is about the same on both.

Somehow you need to get the line weights to match on both, but thats going to be hard since your UV's do not scale.

Chris Kuhner

Hoping to not repeat what others have already said too much; but, I think the tattoos would be less of an issue if the spec on the skin was toned down a bit more. Also, there are some odd colors happening within the skin that almost reminds me of Photoshop's Color Burn. Last thing for the skin, is your lighter colors tend to become a bit chalky and there's a grainy quality to the overall skin that is taking away from the look I think you're going for.

Try reducing the intensity of your spec while making its color the opposite of the skin itself. Her face has so much character to it and the overall design could look great if the material definition was specified a bit better.

Ace-Angel

I don't know why people keep on saying Tattoo's fade out later, it's not a hard rule at all and very dependent on both skin and artstyle you wanted in the first place from the tattoo artist.

Here is how it works, you ink yourself, tattoo at the start is pretty dark, but that's because your skin is all rashy and red, skin starts 'cooling' off and your body builds back the surface, and your ink looks slightly less contrasted but here is the catch. Your ink will stay dark, if that was the original intent and you get a second inking on the design, but if you want faded hues, for something like daylight sunset picture, then the first ink will stay.

You can literally get pitch-black inks on your bodies if you wish, it doesn't need to be faded at all if you don't want it to.

The only hard exception to this 'rule' is if you're a hairy person and shave alot, your constant growth of hair will wear the ink in the long run, you will get a 'speckled' look to it.

However, what you need to consider is this happens over long period of years, this girl looks like she's late twenties and non-hairy, so I really doubt her ink would be worn out to the level that is shown in the image, especially if she got her ink only a few years back, it wouldn't make sense. Her previous ink looked much better, maybe just speckle it where needed and adjust the contrast, but don't wear it out like at the bottom.

Lastly, tattoo also has it's own scattering rules, and fresnel's around the edges from the eye in some cases for white skin, while black skin won't, but that's a whole different story.

Secondly, her skin looks really weird, it's look like she's Pyramid Heads sister or something, and has rust on her body. Try to either keep the skin realistic looking or hand-painted, don't mush the two, especially since I can see some strong shadows and highlights painted in her diffuse map, try to avoid those, or if you're going to paint them in, try and stylize it instead, kinda like what pixar does with their textures.

Also, her body looks like she has freckles, which is sexy in it's own right, but places on the body that are stressed, like her kneecaps or fat, like her boobs won't have freckles, and they don't converge only in the cavities.

Lastly, try and make a proper Spec map. It currently looks like your used your Normal Map to generate them, but forgot to flip the G channel, so they came out wrong. Try and instead bake an AO and Cavity and use those instead.

Also, don't forget to put in your Diffuse details in your Spec, especially since tattoo will be a negative color, and depending on the render engine you are using, you will want White spec for you skin and leather type materials.

Which reminds me, also pending on the type of rendered you're using, use some proper materials/shaders to define the item.

Lastly, I'm not sure what is going on with your details on the model, her right leg (left) has a chainmail that look too detailed, vs her other leg which doesn't have the quality but still has the same space on the UV's.

While at it, check her other leg, her details are digging into the skin, even your HP sculpt has this issue, was that a mistake you forgot about? If possible, try extracting the leg, correcting the issue, and baking it like that, so you can get real depth to the normal map, because right now it look like it's digging in her skin and grafted on.

Cheers.

rogermein1

Hi Guys

Wow, thanks everyone for the advice. I'm glad so many people have something to suggest:

@Praetus: Yep, I get what you're saying. The eye definitely needs to settle on something. Thinking back to Jack from ME2, even with her assortment of tattoos, they didn't obscure her focal points. Will have to take some tips from that.

@vavavoom: Thanks! Hopefully, I can make it look even better with everyone's help .

@Shiniku: Yeah, I'm currently in the midst of revamping her entire tattoo set. Hopefully these will accentuate her figure and not make her skin look like a warzone.

@bigphun: I'm probably going to do away with the majority of tattoos on her face, but any left behind I will definitely reduce the intensity like you said.

@Chris Khuner:

Yeah, you got me. I did go overboard with the overlays in photoshop . Will do as you suggested and reduce the intensity of her spec.

@ Ace-Angel:

Haha, I like the pyramid head analogy. Hopefully she isn't that ugly . I think you're explanation about the tattoo intensity and her age makes a lot of sense and that it's largely up to the designer's prerogative.

Her right leg is meant to have pantyhose, her left is meant to have a leather stocking...I guess it came out pretty horribly. And you're right, some of the detail is digging out and out of place. I will have to fix that along with the specular maps like you suggested.

Thank you again everyone for your help. I really appreciate everyone's input.

rogermein1

Hi Guys

After taking time to look at everyone's advice, I've gone and done an overhaul on all the character's textures. I've revamped her tattoo set now to look more traditional and toned down their intensity. I've also redone her skin to decrease the AO burn. Finally I changed her legs to look like punk clothing:



Hopefully these textures look better than my last revision and the eye can actually settle on a focal point. Any comments on the new one is welcome. Thanks.

Dan!

this new version is such a vast improvement over the first. What a great example of taking crits well and following through-Good job

SA_22

Dan! wrote: »

this new version is such a vast improvement over the first. What a great example of taking crits well and following through-Good job

^^^!!! :thumbup:

Tits

MASSIVE improvement, congratulation it's looking pretty sick!

rogermein1

Thanks guys! Just goes to show how important it is to get feedback from everyone .