Here is a little wisdom for others who are working on Morphling. For my set I rely heavily on the scrolling detail map that runs in the U+ direction. To get a good control over the flow I upgraded my checker UV checking texture to some fancy arrows, that give me a hint where the U direction is on the model. The length of the arrows shows the flow speed, so by adjusting the arrow length I can have different scrolling speeds on the model, while keeping the default detailmap. Here is a pic of what Im working with.
The set is coming along nicely btw, some minor texture adjustments, rigging, and promo stuff, and its done. Promotion wont be easy since the items look very static whitout the detail texture running. A GIF maybe? We'll see...
I tried downloading the mesh but I only see 1 UV layout. It looks like the entire body is a solid island. I can't imagine how animating the UV in one direction would give the arrows you picture following the curve of the body. Is there a second UV that I'm not seeing? How do you preview the detail map?
I tried downloading the mesh but I only see 1 UV layout. It looks like the entire body is a solid island. I can't imagine how animating the UV in one direction would give the arrows you picture following the curve of the body. Is there a second UV that I'm not seeing? How do you preview the detail map?
Nice work BTW
The detail map can only be viewed after the import. Its stored in the dota files for that specific hero. I couldnt even testit in the SFM SDK.
And for the arrows, here is a little example:
I wanted the detail texture to run in a spiral. I separated the whirlpool into three islands and distorted their UVs to point in the U direction. This is ofc not a relaxed state at all, and not really good for holding a detailed texture, but since in this case its mainly just a variation of different shades of blue thats not a problem. The same goes for the original Morphling model. Its UVs are compressed along the U axis, and the spiral part of his body is aligned in the U direction, similar to my whirlpool.
So this is going to be a big post, didn't register before and it took a while before the first post got approved so lots of pictures inbound.
I wanted to stay somewhat close to kunkkas original weapon but still add something to it, concepting isn't my strongest point by any means but it was something to start from at least.
After finishing my block in i felt that the guard needed something more, especially the upper part of it. Didn't feel interesting enough.
After that it was on to sculpting, first time I really tried to make something in Zbrush (specially hard surface stuff) so I'm still somewhat happy with the results. While sculpting i also decided to not do the blade there as i couldn't make it look good. Ended up making it with simple hard surface modelling instead.
After that it was a lot of poking around with the textures and badly baked normals, also mask 1 & 2 are really confusing
Think I'm going to make a promo for it as well and call it finished (for now), was a fun 2 weeks of semi serious work though.
In the end I'm happy with what I made, specially since it's my first dota 2 item so far. Hope to make more!
I really wish morphling's budget is a bit higher, especially the misc slot. I was going to make water serpent/snake pet swirling around his body up to his head and a pair of fish wings but there is no way to fit it in
So I have a small sketch up of Invoker that I did. The concept and art is pretty simple and basic, but I wanted to get a vibe of him being a mysterious mage who didn't want his true power revealed. (ex: Ghost walk) Although his lore tells of his brazen appearance and nature he also has a darker and mystical side to him. I was thinking a color scheme based on either a Quas combo, (white and blueish) or a dark royal purple. I really wanted to go black or something as well if possible.
Anyways, long story short does anyone or would anyone have the skills or talents to realize this in game/workshop? I would be willing to do very detailed drawings to help realize the look.
Items: -
- A hat wrapped in linens with runes written on the cloth.
- A cloak and scarf combo for the back with runes written on the cloth.
- bracer spot wrapped in cloth with runes on them hanging off and floating in the air.
Im not quite sure i linked everything as needed. Looks pretty wack on my end, but im not really sure whats wrong. Anyway, Im done with my set for this month. I still need to make a video, but since the local server test doesnt work for Morphling for some reason, it might not showcase the best part, the animated textures.
I finally got back to working on it. Decided to go with a rock instead of a crystal for a bunch of reasons: better contrast, makes more sense and I couldn't get the crystal to look right.
I'm going to start working on the masks tomorrow (plus some fixing on the low poly model).
Nature's Prophet is a carry and I wanted him to have a more confident armor set. Big shoulders, tall horns, spear staff, etc.- all say I am carry hear me port out when i can not win :poly124: .
If any promo artist are interested- hit me up . If not , I will give it a go myself. Any comments are welcomed.
Color base on the NP set. A few things to tweak (blue runes near branches on shoulder need to be moved, beard mirrored obviously, staff etc.) but it's almost there.
Sculpting like a madman at the moment, haha.
mihalceanu: Thanks for the tip. I just checked out your submissions to DOTA 2 on Steam. Wow. Impressive work man. 118 submissions in under a year is amazing.
Any plans for next month? I guess there are some more heroes that fit into the oldie but goodie category. Or the four-legged thing? They were pretty underrepresented this month.
Tamarin : thank you
jimanjr : the staff looks way better ,but I would make the background on the preview picture like the one from ingame , now its too intense imo .
mihalceanu: Thanks! I'll do the touchups tonight, plus some screenshots from the actual gameplay and probably a short movie with some loadout animations.
A few notes:
I was pretty disappointed with the masks not showing much improvement until I tried to tone down the diffuse a little (especially on the wood). I'm still not getting quite the effect I wanted (for example more highlights on the leaves), but I'm ok with it as it is.
I discovered that it's possible to take advantage of alpha test. Useful on the leaves to give them a rounder look with less polygons. Wish I knew this sooner when I could take advantage of it in the initial design (some small branches, maybe little patches of grass through the cracks, etc.). This alpha test thing might not be available for all heroes... not entirely sure.
I found something that made my life WAY easier, especially when authoring shader masks. Ctrl + Shift + V in Photoshop (Paste in place)! This should be a default!
@Prophet9
I think you're approaching this the wrong way, a seam like that looks way worse than having it a bit rounded off. Smoothing groups aren't there to define edges in the final model, they are there to control the face normals which in turn controls the normal maps. Therefore, if you want a planar look to it, you gotta sculpt it more planar and then work with your smoothing ground to bake a good normal map. The normal map gets baked according to the underlying face normal so by changing the smoothing groups afterwards, you're basically breaking your normal map.
@tvidotto :
What about the idea to do heroes non picked for this month competition?
Drow sven etc .. Could be cool.
I like the idea to do items for the most played heroes for the internationnal.
Batrider
lifestealer
visage
magnus
( a lot of them don't have cosmetic yet )
@tvidotto :
What about the idea to do heroes non picked for this month competition?
Drow sven etc .. Could be cool.
I like the idea to do items for the most played heroes for the internationnal.
Batrider
lifestealer
visage
magnus
( a lot of them don't have cosmetic yet )
The real issue is if they are in the import/hero requirement pool. I don't think drow is a good idea as she already gets 2-3 good sets on the workshop every month, its just obvious valve doesn't want to add for her again just yet.
Visage, Life Stealer and Magnus aren't in import or submission.
@Prophet9
I think you're approaching this the wrong way, a seam like that looks way worse than having it a bit rounded off. Smoothing groups aren't there to define edges in the final model, they are there to control the face normals which in turn controls the normal maps. Therefore, if you want a planar look to it, you gotta sculpt it more planar and then work with your smoothing ground to bake a good normal map. The normal map gets baked according to the underlying face normal so by changing the smoothing groups afterwards, you're basically breaking your normal map.
you might wanna crank up your custom graphic settings for dota2, maybe even just for the shot, add antialias and such. looks better, there is a post about that on the last couple of pages in the dota2 workshop trhead
Replies
The set is coming along nicely btw, some minor texture adjustments, rigging, and promo stuff, and its done. Promotion wont be easy since the items look very static whitout the detail texture running. A GIF maybe? We'll see...
btw, i posted on reddit about this month, i hope it can bring more people to follow the progress =]
http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/1gwlt5/polycount_dota_2_monthly_workshop_competition_now/
I tried downloading the mesh but I only see 1 UV layout. It looks like the entire body is a solid island. I can't imagine how animating the UV in one direction would give the arrows you picture following the curve of the body. Is there a second UV that I'm not seeing? How do you preview the detail map?
Nice work BTW
The detail map can only be viewed after the import. Its stored in the dota files for that specific hero. I couldnt even testit in the SFM SDK.
And for the arrows, here is a little example:
I wanted the detail texture to run in a spiral. I separated the whirlpool into three islands and distorted their UVs to point in the U direction. This is ofc not a relaxed state at all, and not really good for holding a detailed texture, but since in this case its mainly just a variation of different shades of blue thats not a problem. The same goes for the original Morphling model. Its UVs are compressed along the U axis, and the spiral part of his body is aligned in the U direction, similar to my whirlpool.
i really really wanna see this whirlpool in action, seems super cool
After finishing my block in i felt that the guard needed something more, especially the upper part of it. Didn't feel interesting enough.
After that it was on to sculpting, first time I really tried to make something in Zbrush (specially hard surface stuff) so I'm still somewhat happy with the results. While sculpting i also decided to not do the blade there as i couldn't make it look good. Ended up making it with simple hard surface modelling instead.
After that it was a lot of poking around with the textures and badly baked normals, also mask 1 & 2 are really confusing
Think I'm going to make a promo for it as well and call it finished (for now), was a fun 2 weeks of semi serious work though.
In the end I'm happy with what I made, specially since it's my first dota 2 item so far. Hope to make more!
Thats great! Thx man!
Anyways, long story short does anyone or would anyone have the skills or talents to realize this in game/workshop? I would be willing to do very detailed drawings to help realize the look.
Items: -
- A hat wrapped in linens with runes written on the cloth.
- A cloak and scarf combo for the back with runes written on the cloth.
- bracer spot wrapped in cloth with runes on them hanging off and floating in the air.
Attached is sketch. Any takers?
Savage Riptide by DUSK
Hope you guys enjoy it
[URL="http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=155465296"]/COLOR][COLOR=#0000BB]IMG[/COLOR][COLOR=#007700
Im not quite sure i linked everything as needed. Looks pretty wack on my end, but im not really sure whats wrong. Anyway, Im done with my set for this month. I still need to make a video, but since the local server test doesnt work for Morphling for some reason, it might not showcase the best part, the animated textures.
I finally got back to working on it. Decided to go with a rock instead of a crystal for a bunch of reasons: better contrast, makes more sense and I couldn't get the crystal to look right.
I'm going to start working on the masks tomorrow (plus some fixing on the low poly model).
Nature's Prophet is a carry and I wanted him to have a more confident armor set. Big shoulders, tall horns, spear staff, etc.- all say I am carry hear me port out when i can not win :poly124: .
If any promo artist are interested- hit me up . If not , I will give it a go myself. Any comments are welcomed.
Thanks.
Color base on the NP set. A few things to tweak (blue runes near branches on shoulder need to be moved, beard mirrored obviously, staff etc.) but it's almost there.
Sculpting like a madman at the moment, haha.
jimanjr - that is looking much better!
Wow, those textures look incredibly high res in game. Would you mind posting an image of the texture flats ?
Kunkka Entry:
VITAMIN C DEFICIENCY by Tamarin
EDIT: Smaller thumb
jimanjr : the staff looks way better ,but I would make the background on the preview picture like the one from ingame , now its too intense imo .
A few notes:
I was pretty disappointed with the masks not showing much improvement until I tried to tone down the diffuse a little (especially on the wood). I'm still not getting quite the effect I wanted (for example more highlights on the leaves), but I'm ok with it as it is.
I discovered that it's possible to take advantage of alpha test. Useful on the leaves to give them a rounder look with less polygons. Wish I knew this sooner when I could take advantage of it in the initial design (some small branches, maybe little patches of grass through the cracks, etc.). This alpha test thing might not be available for all heroes... not entirely sure.
I found something that made my life WAY easier, especially when authoring shader masks. Ctrl + Shift + V in Photoshop (Paste in place)! This should be a default!
updated there
sorry for the delay guys, getting married takes time =]
about the finished entries, plz guys, dont forget that is the smaller thumbnail, the one that appears on your workshop page, like this one
any other suggestion of heroes?
Disruptor, Axe, and Warlock.
Congratulations Tvdotto..! Best wishes for a happy life with the wife!
I won't be able to finish my kunkka set for this month i guess, might post a late sub..!
This is Guitar Riff #1:
And an in game shot:
What's with the seams on the horns? That definitely need a fixin'
Rams horns were referenced - many have defined planes to them (not round). It's not a seam, but a smoothing group to make the edge.
I think you're approaching this the wrong way, a seam like that looks way worse than having it a bit rounded off. Smoothing groups aren't there to define edges in the final model, they are there to control the face normals which in turn controls the normal maps. Therefore, if you want a planar look to it, you gotta sculpt it more planar and then work with your smoothing ground to bake a good normal map. The normal map gets baked according to the underlying face normal so by changing the smoothing groups afterwards, you're basically breaking your normal map.
Vocious Aeon by Konras
Grats to all that finished their items/sets on time this month
What about the idea to do heroes non picked for this month competition?
Drow sven etc .. Could be cool.
I like the idea to do items for the most played heroes for the internationnal.
Batrider
lifestealer
visage
magnus
( a lot of them don't have cosmetic yet
Visage, Life Stealer and Magnus aren't in import or submission.
Thanks for that. You're absolutely right.
Here is a new shot with fixed horns:
Cheers!
we have 3 more almost there but couldn't finish em