Heroes of the Storm: Tracer

TomGT

**Updated as of 1 June 2016**

Hey guys! Doing an update to my previous Tracer model here. Thank you for the feedback. I was also followed up with a lengthy critique from Phill Gonzales of the Heroes of the Storm team which was incredible!

Two months later I revisited my work and did a makeover. Took out polys and managed to refine her figure. The hair was the area of most change as I redid them with planes and more anime hair gel.

Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/8vbAw









Previous Iteration (8 October 2015)

Beauty: http://i.imgur.com/vw4cjVZ.png

Construction: http://i.imgur.com/iL54EhP.png

Color Variations:  http://i.imgur.com/hzgEzX3.png

Comparison: http://i.imgur.com/VYGGiB0.png



Images of my old Tracer (19 July 2015)

Poster: http://i.imgur.com/GDtWjhK.png

Beauty: http://i.imgur.com/EU8pNSv.png

Construction http://i.imgur.com/xXrzPc9.png

Sculpt: http://i.imgur.com/BuIdKzb.png

Color: Varations: http://i.imgur.com/uYH5Eq8.png

Alternate Poster: http://i.imgur.com/XHj5HBm.png

Brian "Panda" Choi

Nice, solid stuff all around! Would it be possible to scale the pistols up a tad more? It'll help put more emphasis on her hands in the silhouette.

TomGT

Thanks Brian! I'll try giving it a play around. Originally I had it bigger but the official figurine and Overwatch screenshots made me think it should be smaller.

Though for Heroes of the Storm, I agree bigger is definitely better! Easy tweak.

Renaud Galand

SO GOOD! Really awesome job overall :-)

TomGT

Renaud Galand wrote: »

SO GOOD! Really awesome job overall :-)

Oh my god!! From the guy who modelled Tracer himself! Thanks Renaud, big fan of your work!

Shadowstep

Looks great, but I have a few nitpicks.

Diffuse/spec/emis maps are 1024x1024, normal map is 512x512.

From my own research, Heroes doesn't use alpha maps, so you can't have her goggles be geometry. You could cheat the transparent effect by painting directly onto her skin.

You should have an emis (glow) map for the blue glowy bits. Don't worry about being wasteful, since Valla's emis map is just for her eyes and the tip of the crossbow bolt.

Other heroes have one finger on the texture, with all the finger UVs overlapping. Similarly, some of the straps could be overlapped.

You also have "empty" space on the leather jacket where it's shadowed. Other heroes don't really have that. Without a model viewer on hand, I can't tell you if Blizz artists would opt to have the entire jacket painted without those shadows, or if they would avoid overlapping geometry altogether.

Lastly, don't be afraid to cut into that extra texture space a little bit. That's mostly for Master skins, or variant skins that add extra armor or whatnot. Arthas' base skin actually has the Lich King helmet there, opening up the possibility for his helmetless Death Knight skin.

Stinkfoot

I love it, the only comment i'd have is that most of the heroes from HOTS, have their main attrubutes exaggerated a bit, probably to make their elements a bit more recognisable from the RTS view. ( If i'm off somehwere here just ignore me I would've increased the size of her charactaristic elements a bit, like the guns and the chestpiece.

But this is just nitpicking, awesome stuff!

slosh

This looks great man. Any reason you left all that empty space in the texture?

TomGT

@slosh: Thanks man! I think Shadowstep summarized it well. But basically the standard hero skins tend to have empty space on the top right corner, since later on they'll add new mesh and thus new UVs for their 'Master' or premium skins; all while using the same texture space.

At one point I was considering to do a Master version of her as well but I decided not to midway, as it was taking longer for me to finish her standard look.

@Shadowstep: Thank you for your feedback! That's some very specific commentary!

That is interesting. I could have sworn I've seen alpha maps, but maybe I've got them wrong. I can vaguely remember right now without being able to check the files, that Martian Gazlowe has glass on his helmet. I'll need to double check.

You are correct with the texture maps! I can easily adjust that. My normals are actually the correct size but I forgot to state it in the construction sheet. I also carelessly left out the emiss map Thanks for the reminder.

Yeah the shadowed jacket parts I wasn't sure of when I was modelling. I could have easily saved UV space by deleting the faces, but I'm not entirely sure about it as it would've complicated my geometry. I actually messaged some of their 3D artists to see what they would've done.

I might have been too focused on the restrictions when I was UVing as I did plan on a Master Skin, but decided to cut it since it didn't feel like it was worth the effort.

Really appreciate the feedback man, glad to know someone here speaks the Blizzard modding language too!

@Stinkfoot: Thank you! yes I definitely agree on the size increase and exaggerated proportions. I think I might do some top down composite renders to test out how she might look like in-game.

MadGunslinger

Awesome work! Keep it up!

Dethling

Really Awesome work!
Showed your video to a friend and "What Blizz announced a Overwatch Hero for Heroes?" oO

But was Brian & Stinkfoot said is a good point, the Pistols are a little small.
Keep in mind that a Heroes player will see her from top-down view and the weapon are an important part of the silhouette.

Rav3

You did great job! Really nice looking model, looking forward to see more keep it up!

Neox

really solid work

i think the biggest weakness is her expression, both in her facial expression, which is awefully neutral, and her stance which could also be much more dynamic.

one question tho, whats that extra texturespace for?

RocketBryan

Oh man, that's a pretty neat idea to bust those characters out for the Heroes of the Storm scale. I can't think of a reason why they wouldn't eventually add them all in, so it's interesting to see others already running with the ball. Really solid work, mate!

Neox wrote: »

one question tho, whats that extra texturespace for?

I'm gonna hazard a guess that it would be in anticipation of the various purchasable skins that would be available for that character. Not super sure it's really necessary for a fan-piece like this, but it's cool to see artists consider the actual pipeline involved that during the creation process.

TomGT

@MadGunslinger: Hey thanks! Appreciate it.

@Dethling: Haha I got a similar reaction when I linked it to a friend. The gun size is definitely better scaled up.

@Neox: Thanks for the feedback man! Yeah as Rocket Brian and others have hinted, its something Blizzard does for their Heroes of the Storm characters.

I could have easily bypassed it since its fan art, but I've been modding for their games for too long that I didn't mind respecting their optimization decisions.

@Rocket Brian: Thanks! I'm sure some stuff is already brewing in-house, just gotta wait till Blizzcon for the big reveal. I can only hope my art nudged them to do it asap!

Lukitscherie

A bit dumb but I just want to say I'm in love with that low poly topology : p It's so clean and simple.

TomGT

Quick adjustment to the pistols. I've already replaced my images with the newer ones but here is a before and after comparison.





@Lukitscherie: Thank you! Good to know the topology was done right.

Shadowstep

TomGT wrote: »

I could have sworn I've seen alpha maps, but maybe I've got them wrong. I can vaguely remember right now without being able to check the files, that Martian Gazlowe has glass on his helmet. I'll need to double check.

I double checked, and it looks like Blizzard uses multiple materials/shaders to do transparency stuff. For example, on Murky's master skin, the bubble appears to be using some effect similar to hot air balloons in WoW. So Tracer's goggles can be transparent. I'm not sure if you'd have to move the goggle gradient to a separate texture or not.

giakaama

Nice one, do you care for sharing the workflow ? Did you do the highpoly first then retopo or did the lowpoly and then the high poly just for small details ?

TomGT

Hey guys! Doing an update to my previous Tracer model here. Thank you for the feedback. I was also followed up with a lengthy critique from Phill Gonzales of the Heroes of the Storm team which was incredible!

Two months later I revisited my work and did a makeover. Took out polys and managed to refine her figure. The hair was the area of most change as I redid them with planes and more anime hair gel.

I'll update these images into my original post.

SwdPwnzDggr

Awesome work! I love this idea, I was thinking about doing a custom skin for an existing character sometime soon, might poke in here and reference some stuff if I get around to it.

TomGT

@giakaama:

I always block out with a low poly first, getting all the detail and topology somewhat in before I refine them in Zbrush. Most people start from Zbrush with dynamesh but I personally like a detailed low poly blockout for more control.

Once sculpted in Zbrush, I do the usual retopo/unwrap routine in Maya. I texture with 3DCoat and Photoshop. And then I render with Marmoset/Mental Ray depending on what suits the project.

Hope that gives you some insight to my workflow!

@SwdPwnzDggr:

Thanks! If anything you should definitely look at the Hots models that Blizz's artists have uploaded to Artstation. You get to see details that are not very visible in game.