Murloc

Boozebeard

Final piece

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I've been working on this murloc on and off. I was wondering how I should go about doing the eyes? Is it ok just painting the texture on like this with this art style or should I try and make them a bit more anatomically correct ie flattening the iris and putting a lens on top? It looks a bit weird just painted over the sphere, especially from in front.

Any other texture tips appreciated also, first time really hand painting something.

Brian "Panda" Choi

Are you trying to conform it to the Blizzard style at all?

Boozebeard

Not really but if you think there's something specific to their style that I could use I'm happy to hear it.

Brian "Panda" Choi

Just keep in mind strong silhouette and chunkiness. At least, that's how I view their general aesthetic, as relatively thing the arms and legs of a murloc are.

If you have the tri space, just make the eyes separate floating geo. Same for the cornea.

I'd also bake out a directional light map for the whole character, so you have an easier time with the values.

If you're going for the resolution of an upper res WoW asset, keeping the eyes contiguous with the mesh makes sense.

Boozebeard

Decided to do a test with the more realistic eye model. Definitely think it looks a lot better.

Boozebeard

can anyone help me with Normal map seams where I have stacked UV's?



That's what happens in marmoset. The normal maps were baked in xNormal and that tangent space is set as such in marmoset.

87roach

Wow.

Great picture!

Sorry, I don't know how to help you, but I had to comment haha

Spiffy

Try splitting the edges where the seams are and re bake.

pior

Something like this can happen when only half of the lowpoly model is being used when baking (since the ray direction for the vertices located on the mirror line becomes slanted in that case).

You could try a bake with the full lowpoly model loaded (if that's not the case already). If that's indeed what you have been doing, I would suggest you to directly contact both the Marmoset and Xnormal guys to get the problem sorted, as it is in their best interest to have the two programs properly synchronized.

SveinY

Try to change the tangent space back to marmoset and then back to xnormal it worked for me. If not try suggestions above.

Goeddy

have you been using a cage for baking? if not, thats probably the solution.

Boozebeard

Thanks for all the responses. Sounds like the problem is probably what pior mentioned, as I did bake with only half the model and I am using a cage. Thanks guys.

Bonus Murloc booty for you all!

skodone

i would add some spots and miscoloration to the body to make it more varying.

i also prefer the more realistic eye it looks quite cool!

Boozebeard

Just wanted to say that rebaking the normal map with the whole mesh 100% fixed the normal map errors so thanks a bunch.

I'll defo start adding some speckling or something soon.

Boozebeard

Hi. I just finished this off so thought I'd share.

DWalker

I'd expect his skin to be glossy - either just damp or slimy - and his mouth even more so.

His basic skin texture could use some love. I'd always seen murlocs as fish-men rather than frog men, so his skin should have a scaled appearance; use bumps & warts if you want him to be an amphibian... The rectangular blocks in the stripes feel artificial. Look closely at the stripes on a real fish and you'll notice that the edges aren't sharp lines, and that there are no square shapes. I think it'd be better as a solid stripe, but if you want to keep them then I'd change them to more of a pill-shape. (Similar to the dots in the tail of this li'l guy:)


His spines could also use some blending; right now, the orange just stop abruptly and they look stuck-on. A simple gradient like those use on his hands & feet would work.