Hermit- Character WIP

inttruth

Hello, I've been blocking this project out for some time now, and I wanted to share my progress on it.
Hermit is by Shen YH on Artstation. Here is the original concept:


And here's my progress so far.








I may change the flow of his cloak so its not so close to his legs. Any comments or critiques are appreciated!

KaiserKloud

I like the design! 

inttruth

Thank you @KaiserKloud

I think I am done with the sculpt! I would love some C&C. Here are the pics, sorry I had to split them up because my computer screen doesn't give a lot of detail when I try to frame the entire body:





I'm gonna start decimating subtools to push into Maya soon. Thank you for your time!

dGreenberg

That high poly sculpt is looking awesome, @inttruth! His face looks nice and chiseled, and the clothing is going to look great once you get that drapery going on. My only critique would be to make the legs just a tiny bit longer (starting from above the boots, and including the open cloak at the sides). The character is already very elegant and lanky but it'd be cool to push it just a little further, in my opinion. This is kind of what I mean:



I was also wondering how you were planning on approaching the little wispy tassels on the sleeves and belt area. Right now it looks like the only pieces that could use a little attention, but that might not be needed if you were going to use hair cards or an IMM brush or something later on. Either way both the concept that high poly is looking great, so I hope you keep posting updates on it! Good luck moving forward.

inttruth

dGreenberg said:

That high poly sculpt is looking awesome, @inttruth! His face looks nice and chiseled, and the clothing is going to look great once you get that drapery going on. My only critique would be to make the legs just a tiny bit longer (starting from above the boots, and including the open cloak at the sides). The character is already very elegant and lanky but it'd be cool to push it just a little further, in my opinion. This is kind of what I mean:



I was also wondering how you were planning on approaching the little wispy tassels on the sleeves and belt area. Right now it looks like the only pieces that could use a little attention, but that might not be needed if you were going to use hair cards or an IMM brush or something later on. Either way both the concept that high poly is looking great, so I hope you keep posting updates on it! Good luck moving forward.

@dGreenberg
Thank you!! I hadn't thought of making him taller, and it does look like it adds a little more to his elegance lol!
and oh yes! the ends of the tassels and his hair are going to be hair/feather cards, those are just stand ins for now! thank you so much! i will see what I can do with his height

inttruth

started and almost finished with the low poly topology!
he's sitting at 36,094 tris right now, and that's subject to change because i'm placing hair cards too

i would like feedback on whether i should make his overcoat lowpoly feed into the blue part underneath it, and make the overcoat double sided (check the last picture)
i'm trying to avoid having a double sided overcoat because i'm not the best rigger in the world, and when i begin to rig him, i don't want it to be a nightmare. would love feedback for this part before i begin UV'ing

this is his topology so far:






any comments, advice, or critique are appreciated! thank you!

inttruth

Also placed some haircards for his head, for the first round of textures. Gonna start UVs pretty soon! also any C&C is appreciated!

PraxisPixels

This is looking great! I'm excited to see this textured up. I feel like this would really pop with the bake + some hand painted detailing. 

dGreenberg

Do you think you're going to get some fabric simulation going for the robe? I'm not sure how the rig would work, but hopefully it won't cause you too many problems. The hair cards are looking great though and it'll be awesome to see some of the textures on there!

inttruth

@PraxisPixels thank you so much!

@dGreenberg
I'm not sure how to implement fabric sim or anything like that, i'm just gonna try to rig it the best I can lol and i was able to lengthen his legs! that helped out a lot! thank you

inttruth

Hello again! I've started texturing, and I need some advice/direction.
I want this to be a realistic texture piece (or at least as realistic as I can get), and clothing textures are something I'm struggling with. Here's what I have so far:


I've been trying to get the coat to look like cloth, but it doesn't read that well until you look up close


I've also tried making the jacket kinda like silk? and the cloth around his boots silk too, but I'm not sure if it looks right:



I've been trying to stick to the concept as closely as I can, but I don't know if I should keep the jacket and top part of his boots silk, so I've been playing around with some patterns, which read more like regular cotton cloth (the first one is just silk again):


I changed the roughness and metallic features on the patterns to make them a little shiny, but I am not sure if I should deviate from the concept that much. I would really appreciate any feedback, so please tell me your thoughts! Thank you!

inttruth

Bumping to get some feedback this week!

dGreenberg

I wish I could offer some decent help when it comes to realistic textures but I still have a lot to learn with that kind of thing as well. I think studying the materials like you're doing now is the best way to go. Maybe checking out games with a similar look for what you're going for could help break things down further.

The silk version of the shirt looks very nice and clean, but I think version 2 is a little more interesting for its roughness / gloss. If you're going for more of a cotton look it might need to be scaled down even further to look more cotton-y. Looking forward to seeing how you approach those textures! Good luck!

inttruth

@dGreenberg its a-ok! i knew these textures were going to take me a bit to work on, but you've been a great help already! 
a friend of mine suggested looking at the casual outfits from dynasty warriors 9, and they are more or less what i'm trying to achieve! 




so im thinking i should bring out more of the lines/hairball patterns in the long coat+sleeves and make the shiny parts stand out more from the cloth on the top jacket
at least that's what i'll try to aim for xD 

inttruth

Hello again!
I'm done with texturing everything, and i wanted to update. any last minute advice would be great! im gonna move onto attempting to rig him tomorrow lol! Thank you!

slosh

This looks great!  I think the texture could benefit from some subtle gradients.  Maybe the skin around the horns could use some color or darkness to ground the horns a bit more.  Also, the the thickness of the upper portion of the sleeves looks really thick.  The trim almost reads like metal or plastic.  In the concept, it looks much thinner.

jaker3278

i really enjoyed working thought this thread, very elegant work. Good luck with the rigging. 

inttruth

@slosh @jaker3278 thank you both very much!
i will add some gradients to the cloth parts, and i think i can squeeze the sleeves' inner part closer so it's not so thick, hopefully i wont ruin the texture. and adding some darkness around the horn/skin junction is a good idea too! i will try to implement that as well
thank you for the advice!!

inttruth

I made some texture changes to his clothes and skin around the horns! i learned how to make gifs to show the difference lol:



I added a greyscale gradient map that was taken from the position map i baked in Substance Painter and overlayed it and dimmed it over the base color map:


They are very subtle changes, but it looks a little better i think! I could not change the thickness of his sleeves though, unfortunately.
Gonna try to rig and pose him now! Thank you all for your help!

dGreenberg

That's a great improvement with the updated gradients and shadows. Glad to see how the hair cards turned out as well. Can't wait to see how the lighting setup and the rig turn out!

Nuclear Angel

The gradients did a lot to push him further, but I think you could add some sublte color variation in to your textures though. His face right now has only one skin tone, there should be some reds or yellows and other subtle color shifts in his skin. This image is a very extreme one but it is a good base to bring more life in to your skin, http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KUXEFrecG6Y/UNqQfQBDHyI/AAAAAAAABkI/9SNoOBKe0Gc/s1600/colorzones.jpg
And here is an image showing the color zones of the face.  http://78.media.tumblr.com/82181df6330fcb3655a2e40c6c43287a/tumblr_n5rwiolDKK1ryleeco1_500.png
I think you can do some similar things to your clothes, just to make them pop a bit more, as the are really clean now. But great job so far, this will be ace with a cool light setup and good pose!

inttruth

@dGreenberg thanks so much! I'm gonna look at a few marmoset lighting tutorials bc my setups are usually bad lol!

@Nuclear Angel thank you for the advice! i do have the color zones on his face, but i set them to a very low opacity in Sub Painter, i could bring them out a bit more though. and maybe i'll do one more pass on the clothes as you suggested

Thank you both very much!

inttruth

Hey guys! Getting closer to wrapping this up!

i wanted to showing two different lighting methods I tried for this guy. The first one is a regular three point light setup, and the second one I kinda followed a tutorial on lighting. I like the second one more, but if anyone has any suggestions let me know!

thank you!

dGreenberg

Yeah the second lighting setup has my vote. I'd even say try getting some more rim lights on the right side of the character to bring them out a little further, but that might also just be my own preference!

If you haven't had a chance or are still playing around with some lighting setups, I really got a lot out of Xavier's Character Materials and Rendering Workshop (Session 7 is more focused on lighting). Rodrigo Gonçalves also did a great breakdown for his Blacksmith during the Artstation: Ancient Civilizations challenge that really helped me out. 

Things look awesome, and good luck with the final stretch! 

inttruth

Thanks @dGreenberg! i didn't see this post in time though x.x but I did look at a bunch of other people's examples. i hope it looks ok lol

i have completed this project finally! I have some pics to show if you guys are interested! I also have a marmoset viewer on my artstation here!





ToT gonna take a break after this guy lol 
thank you to everyone who helped me and gave me advice! I really appreciate it!