StarCraft 2 Protos Sheild [WIP] - Crits/Com Welcome/Wanted

Autocon

Hello Polycounters. Im Autocon, new to posting on the forums but having been reading all the great info many of you have been posting for a while.

Student of Art Institute San Diego, CA and always trying to improve and heard geat things about comments given to classmates that always helped them improve so I thought I would do the same.

Anyway I was saw this concept of a this shield, belt buckle or building thing(not sure exactly what it was meant to be) on the SC2 website and I thought it would make a cool shield that I could model edit into World of Warcraft. Since I wanted to use it as a WoW model I kept it around the same tri count as other weapons in game. Checked out about 5 diffrent weapons and they all ranged in Tri count around 1k, this was the adv for more detailed models. Tryed to keep this in that range and ended up with 709 tri count. Going to use a 515x512 for the texture as most of the new more detailed weapons use this it seemed.

Would love some harsh crits/comments. I honestly dont care if you think my work sucks and you are brutally honest with me. Only way I will learn if people are honest with you. To many times in school most comments from other students is "its good or it looks nice" for everyone's work since there your friends its hard to tell if its actually good or if your totally doing something wrong. I am guilty of this too though during class.

Sorry for the TLDR post Anywhere here are some different views of the model and the concept art from Starcraft2.com. Thanks for all crits/comments and I will try to keep this updated, just need to get a new wacom so I can get some color on this

Kawe

the middle of the shields that are sticking out could prolly lose some polys without losing much, if any, definition.

otherwise there isn't much to comment on since blizzard work is about texture work imo.

Yozora

yea people in class are generally too nice and dont know how to tell someone their work sucks in front of them...

but you havent really given much to critique about anyway... like kawe said, that edge loop in the middle of those 3 shields probably doesnt need to be there and im not quite sure what those extra edges on the sides of the shields (in the central area) are for either.

Kawe

Ya, and even if you want the extra definition around there you don't need to make it a complete loop around. Having lots of loops is easy to work with but for final stuff you should try terminating them if you don't need them.

Need as in:
- Deformation
- Vertex lighting
- Definition
- UV Mirroring

did I forget something?

zerafian

I like the concept...done by blizzard, I suppose there arent mayn that wouldnt though.

Only thing I see from first glance is a few extra polys on the outter leaves of the shield.

I could definetly see a cool animation with this. the holder, gives it a quick, firm single shake, then the three outter leaves extend and the center triangle enlarges slightly by a sheet of material coming out from behind it.

DInusty

this is gonna be a great texture practice for you, also agree that it could lose some polys in the center and also on the outer area without loosing much of its shape. keep it up and learn a lot from it, im also from an art institute and if you want to get better your gonna have to take it into your own hands because they wont offer much in those aspects. ill be watching this one.

Autocon

Thanks for all the constructive feedback. Normally would have just left it the way it was because it wasnt to high poly and the form looked good but I went back with your suggestions and was able to drop off 200 tris bring it to 511 And it still kept its form and slight curve it had on the outer shields.

Going to try and get it UVed tonnight so I can start texturing it after my full day of saturday class (never any fun : /)

Here is a little updated pic

Proxzee

The groove around the center triangle is unnecessary. That kind of stuff can be detailed in with bump and normal maps.

Autocon

Yes that is true but this mainly was for fun and as a test to texture an item in the blizzard style way of not using bumb/normal and still give it the impression that there is some 3D to do. Wanted this to more or less just be a test at how well I can get just a texture to display the look of 3D without doing it the easy way of using a normal/bump map.

Not trying to do the whole "OMG LOOK BLIZZARD I CAN DO STUFF LIKE YOU HEIR ME!" either. Mainly just for fun a good texture practice.

Yozora

I still dont see a reason for those 2 triangles to the left and right of those shields

and if this is purely texture painting practice then maybe you should of posted when you actually textured it

kymbyli

This may be great practice but its not worth putting in a portfolio IMO. Studios are looking for people who can concept and making a item from an existing game doesn't show that you can either think for yourself or that you can do the other thing that most studios ask for, realism. Taking something from the real world would have been more of an asset to you. Most studios use normal mapping so you are best showing that over using Blizzards 'painted' style.