Mobile Armour Pilot

Ged

Im making this guy for a university module. I plan on making a low poly normal mapped model. Ive never made a high poly character model in max before so this should be interesting, I'll try and keep the final model well below 5000 polys...but I am still a bit of a noob. Heres my concept for now. Proportions are a bit off...meh



theres a screenshot of the model coming soon. Dominance war has inspired me, so sad I cant enter with all this uni work to do.

Ged

Heres the High poly so far. Ive got no idea how I could make all the little holes and details neatly(I dont want to mess with booleans) I know I still have to work on the overall proportions. Critique welcome.

Por@szek

Nice start. IMO boolean in high poly is the best way, after that u can clean mesh if some errors appear. In other way it will cost u a lot of time. Of course if u won't zbrush it.
Keep it up, looks promising.

IceWolve

I hate cleaning up after booleans.. Just do the way others do it, make a low pole mesh and just subdivide it. that way if you want vent holes or something just extrude square parts inward and then the subdivide or meshsmooth or what ever you use smooths it out. No messy clean ups.

Ghostscape

In 3ds Max you can use ProBooleans and have it generate a properly tesselated, fully quad mesh, which is FREAKIN' AWESOME.

I would avoid booleans for the most part but ProBooleans is totally sweet

fritz

if i'm not mistaken....probooleans is max 9 only.

nevermind...i didn't realize it was an extension.

Joseph Silverman

[ QUOTE ]
Heres the High poly so far. Ive got no idea how I could make all the little holes and details neatly

[/ QUOTE ]

If you're rendering for a normal map, a lot can be handled by separate floating pieces.

Ged

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Heres the High poly so far. Ive got no idea how I could make all the little holes and details neatly

[/ QUOTE ]

If you're rendering for a normal map, a lot can be handled by separate floating pieces.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hey thanks people, I am using this for a normal map so Ive got a lot of seperate floating parts at the moment, Im not too keen on subdiving most of the parts as I loose some of the sharpness and shape of the armour.

I will probably use booleans in the end cause this is only for a normal map anyway. The wires will look like spaghetti but hey it will probably bake the map I want.

another question..what effect do smoothing groups have on the normal map render to texture, will it look strange if I dont have meshsmooth or a lot of subdivisions?

IceWolve

With subdividing you can keep sharpness by adding an extra loop real close to the edge you want sharp, and as with the shape of the armor, you need to sculpt it where it looks right subdivided but a little big and bulking before

Ged

I am familiar with the method but with the way Ive made this model it might not look too good. Does anyone know what the smoothing groups will look like when normal mapped?

Ive just tried using nurbs subdivision on the whole model and it looks alright I guess, anyway heres the highpoly so far. Im thinking of taking it into mudbox and getting some details on it and adjusting the overall shape a bit :P

Ged

Ive done about 80% of the low poly, its for animation so can anyone give me advice, will it animate as it is now or should I make some changes? Ive also gotta add some extra polys here and there to bring out the forms of the highpoly underneath.

Japhir

it's looking great so far, if you want to learn about good limb deformation you should check out this image from poopinmymouth's website, i found it very usefull:
keep it up!

Ged

oooOO Ive seen people do that kind of modelling before but now it makes sense, Ill just have to weld together some vertexes

Ged

Gotta make some decisions about colour? which one do you think?

Japhir

I like the second one best, he looks a bit stealthy and worn

Jaco

I like the last one

TheFrog4u

I like the first.. haha.. now, its up to you :P

Ged

First part of the Normal Map is done, Im thinking of adding more details in PS or bodypaint. The model came out quite low poly, only 1222 polys, I think I shouldve added more to get a better normal map. Right now his middle fingers and belt are a mess and Im not sure how well he will deform when I animate him. This is my first normal mapped character so Im learning lots.

Ged

Texture work is well under way. Still lots of tweaking and details to be done. What do you think? colours?

Also Im using a bump map on top of the normal map for extra details but its looking a bit messy(especially the shoulders) is this a bad idea?

Ged

hmm no one is replying, I hope thats cause its going alright...
anyway heres the latest, a screenshot from the max perspective window. Oh and I forgot to say it also has an emissive map. Anyway Im not limited to a polycount or map limit for this university assignment so Im just having fun.

Jaco

It's looking good, the colours are nice. Make his waist a bit thinner, the torso doesn't have that triangle shape seen in your concept. He should look a bit more elegant, sleeker and more pilot like .
Also the boots are too boxy, they look like bread loaves, not a good idea for a pilot.
Keep it up!

Ged

yeah I agree, I wish I had added more polys and made a better cage to start with but I will see what I can do with what Ive got

Zephranthes

Very cool model, but I think you might want to change the name. He doesn't look like a pilot at all, just some armored futuristic soldier.

aesir

You can cut more polys into the model anytime you wont. It wont screw up the UVs.

Ged

[ QUOTE ]
You can cut more polys into the model anytime you wont. It wont screw up the UVs.

[/ QUOTE ]

really?? Ive never tried that...I was too scared lol it is hard to tell what might happen when I try things.

Another thing...I didnt want him to look to much like a traditional pilot as this guy basicly drives a mech...so I was thinking evangelion meets quake4 sorta thing

Ged

I fixed up the proportions as much as I could and today Ive just finished rigging him(very pathetic bones but they work).So heres the model and the textures, I went all out on the texturing cause its only for university and theres not limitations on polys or textures .

Jaco

Nice! The render is a bit dark though, it hides some of your work. The boots are still very boxy as well. Also it doesn't look like you've put that much detail into your specular map, it looks like it's pure grey except for the visor, add some brighter and darker spots representing grease (oil smears or something), dirt etc. ( I assume the bottom left one is the specular? If it isn't, then ignore me)

fritz

i believe that is his reflective mask

Ged

Thanks,yeah I think you are looking at the reflective mask Jaco cause the specular is up the top right. The render has got automatic exposure on it and was darkened by that but I found the darker more colourful render also made the work look more intense.

as for the boxy shoes, thats just my noob lowpoly skills showing hehe. This is my first normal mapped character.

Jaco

Oh , thought that was your bump map

Ged

haha I actually did do a bump map now you mention it, but I decided that it was pretty useless in the end as the normal map did the best job.

Steve Schulze

You can combine a bump map with a normal map using the Nvidia Photoshop plugin so that you can get those subtle details as well as the ones you have in your normal map.
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/photoshop_dds_plugins.html

Ged

Thanks jackablade Im looking into doing that, I installed the plugin just yesterday.