Home 3D Art Showcase & Critiques

Mystique

MoP
polycounter lvl 18
Offline / Send Message
MoP polycounter lvl 18
OK, so this was my entry for the GameArtisans.org Comicon Challenge. It's been a while since I posted anything finished in here (I'm not counting DomWar4).

The deadline for this contest is actually Monday, but I'm going away tomorrow for 4 days, so I had to get it finished tonight.

The textures and rig are incredibly rushed. The skinning is pretty dodgy but it holds up enough for these simple poses. The textures were all done in 2 nights (about 6-8 hours in total).

It's quite obvious especially on the flesh that I've had to rush this. But I wanted to submit something, even if it's not to the quality I know I can achieve. Maybe I'll revisit the texture in a week or two.

Thumbnail for the contest:
thumbnail.jpg

The concept was simply Mystique, in an ancient Egyptian style. No particular reason. Concept art image here.

Construction shot here. I hit 10,000 triangles on the button. Highpoly is about 2.5 million.


Beauty shot:
beauty.jpg


Presentation (front/back image):
presentation.jpg


Textures (clockwise from top left - diffuse, normals, emissive, specular. Not shown are gloss, reflectivity and opacity):
textures.jpg

No time for a base or anything... I kinda wanted to do something Frazetta-style but again, maybe I'll come back to that later if I feel like it.

Feel free to critique. As I say, I may come back to it later to tweak stuff. Please don't mention the fact that the flesh is blurry and lumpy and has no colour variation, I know that already :)

Cheers!

Replies

  • jerry
    I love everything except the feel of the skin. It comes off like a matte material when i would expect a more slimy/shiny/mutant skin. Rest is top notch though :)
  • Soccerman18
    Offline / Send Message
    Soccerman18 polycounter lvl 18
    Giant pizza cutter?

    Looks great, the concept is awsome.
  • 00Zero
    niccee. very cool. i like the slight bulge in the belly. gives it a nice layer of fat underneath. the shapes are really nice. (aka her byoobs rock)

    i agree with jerry about the skin shader. feels like it needs a tighter spec. right now it looks like she has blue powder all over her (like makeup almost) because of the little specks of flakes
  • conte
    Offline / Send Message
    conte polycounter lvl 18
    top quality, i esp like highpoly model. so clean.
    great one, Paul!
  • conte
    Offline / Send Message
    conte polycounter lvl 18
    could you give us a wire shot from backside?
  • MoP
    Offline / Send Message
    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    DKK wrote: »
    Nice work, But did you know they extended the deadline till the 31st?

    Haha, you're kidding? Dammit, I already submitted my finals, no going back now :(
    I should probably have checked that ... I did read over the brief/rules again last night but didn't notice the deadline change :(

    Edit: That's just silly, the extension post was in the General Discussion forum on GA.org, and not in the Challenges forum (where everyone's entries are)... also it wasn't visible anywhere on the main page. Bah. Dunno if I can be bothered to try and get someone to allow me to re-upload finals now.
  • Belltann
    Offline / Send Message
    Belltann polycounter lvl 17
    Really nice hip-area. Good shapes. I allways struggle with that part to get them female enough.
  • Rumkugel
    Offline / Send Message
    Rumkugel polycounter lvl 14
    Nice Model MoP.
    Atm only the textures bother me. They don´t have a lot of punch, especially the skin, like the other said.

    the "crust-patches" look pretty equal in hue and spec value, compared to the mystique from the movies:

    http://www.acidemic.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/mystique.jpg


    eventually give the spec map a bit noise, so it gets the bit sprinkly effect, and tighten the spec a bit on the bare skin parts.
  • MoP
    Offline / Send Message
    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    Yep, all valid crits, and like I said in the original post, it's stuff I would have done if I had more time. Most of the texturing was done last night in a terrible rush.

    I wish I had found out about the deadline extension earlier, haha!

    If I wanted to do this properly, I'd do the "scale" effects on the skin in ZBrush and bake it all out. It's harder to control the results of the NVidia filter, and it takes longer. A nice alpha and lazymouse in ZBrush would make all those patterns a quick job indeed, and would mean I could paint across UV seams.

    I might even do a complete polypainted texture when I get back, and use ZMapper to get some extra detail in there, I have a feeling it would come out looking a lot nicer.
  • wester
    Offline / Send Message
    wester polycounter lvl 13
    I really like her concept with the cloth over her chest. That would have looked really cool.

    I love the idea too. Very nice bakes and textures. I really loved this competition too, so many good pieces came out of it.
  • moose
    Offline / Send Message
    moose polycount sponsor
    I agree with the skin comments, feel she could have a bit more "shine" to here, and maybe a slight definition of surface between scales & flesh, either by way of some skin SSS shader, or other fall-off type deals on her.

    The form of the body is really solid, really strong forms. Only exception i'd think would be the hands. The knuckles all seem to "fall in a line," when the hand bones should slightly vary in length some. I notice it more in the front-on shot, with her hand holding the dagger.

    one trick you could try to add some slight variation and "body" would be to add a 50% gray layer @ overlay and put color noise in it. Set that bad boy to like 2 or 3%, duplicate it, flip it H and V, blur it, and set it to 4 or 5%. It is very subtle, but adds some really nice variation and has a weird way of making surfaces feel more cohesive.

    I think you may be restricting yourself a little much with the cloth as well, with the darks added in there. Keep it flat & even! let the lighting and normals do the work!!!

    Should try some complimentary colors in the skin/flesh stuff in spots. not sure how well it'd come out, but could have some cool effects in thinner skin areas.

    cool stuff mang, cant really tell the texture was done in a night, but could definitely push some more with it in the future. The gold, metals & leather came out great!
  • P442
    Offline / Send Message
    P442 polycounter lvl 8
    mystiques got some junk in the trunk
    really digging the jewelry too, 'cept her necklace seems a bit "flat"
  • MoP
    Offline / Send Message
    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    Awesome tips Moose, I will try that stuff out when I get back. I really want to make this model a good example of what I can actually do. About the knuckles - I think it's mainly the quick rig's fault - it's hard to tell in the construction shot but they do actually curve round, I think I just placed the finger bones badly so they deform from strange places :(
    Also there's a large amount of space between each finger that I need to sort out in the lowpoly.

    P442: Ueah, it's just mapped onto a plane, and the texture is just solid colour fills, heh. :( If the budget was larger I'd have modelled it out but I had to just make it an alpha plane to hit the 10,000 mark.
  • conte
    Offline / Send Message
    conte polycounter lvl 18
    Paul, could you make screenshot of lowpoly hair with normals?
    i really wondering how you did them work so neat.
  • Renaud Galand
    Offline / Send Message
    Renaud Galand polycounter lvl 19
    I think it's looking very cool MoP ! Technically well executed and the first pose just sell it ! We are all agree about the rushed textures, but I'm sure you'll take another pass on it when you have time :-)

    For your next try, I'd work a bit more on the presentation as well. Try to maybe separate the character more from the background. It's maybe my screen, but everything is "blending together" a bit to much from here. She also deserves a cool little padestal! and some subtle smoking/post effect stuff, you know ;)

    good work !
  • SyncViewS
    Offline / Send Message
    SyncViewS polycounter lvl 13
    Hey MoP, really good work. I'm amazed at how you could make her look natural in figure and pose. The hips, thighs and bum look perfect (oh well, I'll be taken for a pervert...). I mean, that's always a troublesome area for a female character, and yours deforms very well too.

    Don't know if I'm asking something that shouldn't ever be requested, if that's the case, disregard it, but could you please show a wire with the rig? It would be much appreciated, since I end up to employ a lot of stretching bones to make it look right and skinning becomes a very long process.

    Thank you and good luck for the competition!
  • morte
    Hey mangood work, but it is really alcking the final touch, i persobnally think that you should send priv to FredH on gameartistans and describe your situation, you vegat strong arguments, cause the note about extensionwas really tricky to find tbh, and as you already said.
  • MoP
    Offline / Send Message
    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    OK so I got Fred to unlock my submission. I added a base, tweaked the textures and poses, and resubmitted tonight. I've updated the images at the top with the new finals. Hopefully the base adds a little something.

    I am still not happy with the texture on her skin. I didn't spend long enough tweaking it (spent half of the extra time on making the base, tweaking the render setup, fixing skinning weights and stuff).
    Partly because I was scared to open the PSD, it's not hugely organised since most of it was rushed, and my computer is really starting to show its age now, it can barely handle a 2048x2048 PSD with a hundred or so layers. Really chugging and slow, took about 2-3 minutes just to save the file... and redraw is dreadfully slow too. I need to buy a new PC.

    I took a screengrab of the shaders I was using to preview (Crazybutcher's port of Brice's BRDF shader, with a couple of minor tweaks of my own), again my PC showing its age - I don't have a shader model 3.0 card, so I can only display one light in the viewport, and couldn't get the viewport shadows working for this shader either.

    maxgrab.jpg

    So yeah. I may re-revisit this model once I upgrade to a computer that will handle all this stuff without limiting me or frustrating me immensely.

    Cheers for all the feedback so far, it's dead on for the most part, and I'm well aware I didn't cover it all in my updates, which is a pity. Once again I'm certain I can do better than this... just a matter of time which I don't have right now :(

    'Night!
  • moose
    Offline / Send Message
    moose polycount sponsor
    the area from the knee to the toes in that shot is really hot man, i love how the specular hits the top of the foot, and plays vs the leather straps. its subtle, but really shows the difference of surfaces.

    Did you pull the hair spec back some too? looks softer & nice.

    cool finished piece, glad you took a lil time to get back to it, every little bit helps ;) I know what you mean about the huge textures too, but knowing how and where you took a little too much leniency with your layers will help you use less next time!
  • conte
    Offline / Send Message
    conte polycounter lvl 18
    first class work, Paul.
    those renders in updated first post are top notch. good luck!
  • Snowfly
    Offline / Send Message
    Snowfly polycounter lvl 18
    Hey mop, shame about the shadows and lights not working out, but the craftsmanship is really coming through in this piece. I like how picked out the specular is, it really complements the details. The mini-env is gorgeous, and you have a really good palette. I kinda wish there were more contrast in the face, and you'd cheated a little by softening the flow around the eyes..but this is one sexy piece, congrats.
  • Swizzle
    Offline / Send Message
    Swizzle polycounter lvl 15
    Hot stuff, MoP. I really like how it came out. I kind of wish you'd given the scales a touch more spec to make them really pop, but the shader still looks great.
  • killingpeople
    Offline / Send Message
    killingpeople polycounter lvl 18
    the gray/brown background is just a shame. but, MoP, you've become one of my favorite game artists. very nice work as always.
  • woogity
    great work sir, turned out very nice, like the classically themed set <its realy more than a pedistal>


    -Woog
  • Thegodzero
    Offline / Send Message
    Thegodzero polycounter lvl 18
    Very classy and well executed just as i would expect from you. Well done!
  • nrek
    Offline / Send Message
    nrek polycounter lvl 14
    Beautiful finish MoP! Not only do you have one of the sexiest entries, you probably have by far the best base :). If you do ever come back to work on this for shits and giggles I think adding some color variation to the skin would make a huge difference. Maybe add some light blue-violet around all the scales and have it feather out into the blue so it blends the scales into the skin. Kind of like a scab, its dark red/brown/black in the center but the surrounding skin is also slightly affected and has more of a red color to it. Anyway man, its a terrific piece and I hope you can look past some of the rough edges and really be proud of what you created :).
  • chademond
  • MoP
    Offline / Send Message
    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    Swizzle wrote: »
    Hot stuff, MoP. I really like how it came out. I kind of wish you'd given the scales a touch more spec to make them really pop, but the shader still looks great.

    Cheers Swizzle, your guy came out really well too :)
    Actually I started out having more spec on the scales, but since their diffuse was darker, the overall effect ended up making her skin look really uniform (darker diffuse + lighter spec = similar end result), so I toned down the spec in order to pop the contrast. On reflection it might have been better to just up the spec amount on ALL of the skin to get a bit more shine anyway. Now that I look at some stills, Rebecca Romijn was really quite shiny in the movies.
    the gray/brown background is just a shame.
    Hah, yes, totally agree. I tried gradients, flat fills, all sorts of colours and shades and just couldn't find anything which worked well :(
    It was always too light or too dark, too saturated or too grey, or just weird. I dunno what I was playing at. Ideally I think I'd have modelled some more scenery and had a subtle stone wall texture in the background, I think that'd have worked best. Oh well.

    Cheers for the crits and feedback everyone. Good solid stuff :)
  • okno
    Nice work MoP, I like the little golden skulls. Nice work on the base.

    Btw what graphics card do you have on your pc? I don't have shader model 3.0 either (Geforce 4200), but I'm going to upgrade to a GeForce 7600 (because I only have a ye olde AGP slot).
  • MoP
    Offline / Send Message
    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    okno: I have a 7900 GS... right now if you can afford it I wouldn't settle for anything less than an 8800 - if you go for the 7 series it will be outdated as soon as you've bought it.

    I haven't done any animation in a long time (and I was never very good at it), so I thought I should get some practise in! :)

    Quick test animation tonight - VERY WIP!
    http://www.greveson.co.uk/comicon/mystique_walk_wip_01.avi
    1.4mb, XViD codec.

    Just viewport animation preview with shader and default light.
    Known issues:
    - Arms are jerky, not smooth
    - Toes aren't animated
    - Hands haven't been touched
    - Cloth hasn't been touched
    - Pelvis motion needs more "pop" on hitting the ground, too smooth right now

    I thought it might be worth putting up for now though. Any other issues people notice? Will probably post an update tomorrow night.
  • kite
    Offline / Send Message
    kite polycounter lvl 17
    that looks great Mop, don't know if you're still looking for crits now its done but aside from wanting a little more pop in the skin there's maybe a bit much colour variance in the column and floor? might suit being a little flatter like the jar finish. Top work all round, nice start on the animation too!
  • Renaud Galand
    Offline / Send Message
    Renaud Galand polycounter lvl 19
    I like the start on the animation ! And it's nice to see the shader "in motion".

    I'd be curious to see the character rendered using mental and/or marmoset :) I think it deserves it !

    great job !
  • poopinmymouth
    Offline / Send Message
    poopinmymouth polycounter lvl 19
    About the background. You had some nice dof going, so you could have easily grabbed a quick sand colored desert scene and used the lens blur filter to get some matching dof to it. I'd have kept it really high key with barely any contrast to it, like a washed out sun lit look.

    My biggest crit is that the face is too dark in the diffuse map, she kind of gets lost. If the eyes weren't so bright, it might be ok, but the eye has too much trouble adjusting from that bright intensity to then take in the dark intensities. I'd probably dim the eyes a tad, and brighten the face diffuse a bit.

    Excellent work though.

    *edit* something like this: http://www.poopinmymouth.com/net/pcount/mop_mystique_po.jpg Though I would have arranged the lights a little differently to work with this setup. I basically tried to emulate some blueish shade hitting her lower half, and some brighter warm sun hitting the upper half. I would have used a tight spot on just the face, arranged in a broad portrait angle, and also used a hot warm rim to help pull in the outdoor/egyptian theme.
  • MoP
    Offline / Send Message
    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    Good suggestions guys. Thanks for the paintover Ben, I will bear those points in mind for future work.

    Just for fun I have started an alternate texture - just a basic egyptian lady!

    Updated the animation and showing the new texture, 1mb XVid file:

    Be aware, NSFW, boobs!
    http://www.greveson.co.uk/comicon/mystique_walk_wip_03.avi
  • kite
    Offline / Send Message
    kite polycounter lvl 17
    she looks great Mop, really like the new skin texture!
  • b1ll
    Offline / Send Message
    b1ll polycounter lvl 18
  • robioto
    Offline / Send Message
    robioto polycounter lvl 18
    That is a very nice skin texture. Nice overlap and poses on the hands too.
  • s0id3
    Offline / Send Message
    s0id3 polycounter lvl 8
    Hey MoP animations looking pretty good, but I think her heads to bop a little and some axis movement going on.
  • Hazardous
    Offline / Send Message
    Hazardous polycounter lvl 12
    Dude that animation is looking promising, i also like the new texture! Great shader too!!
  • Firebert
    Offline / Send Message
    Firebert polycounter lvl 15
    love, love, love the animation cycle. nice rhythm going on with the movements. it seems a tad fast (she is walking in platforms) and could use a little more sultry attitude, not much, but just a itty bitty tad, but if you slow it down a tick it may take care of that because right now she really has a good attitude with the cycle.
  • Kevin Johnstone
    Offline / Send Message
    Kevin Johnstone polycounter lvl 18
    You know, I'm unsure that her diffuse issues can be made to work while remaining faithful to the original (albeit with your egyptian stylising on top) like you've tried to do.... because the original, the movie version certainly, well it didnt really work either :)

    I remember seeing the hipoly model before and it was badass but matching the diffuse is problematic because in the movie they got around it by its animation revealing its porcupine like surface and thus explaining why when static it was so dark as to be near unreadable.

    The movie also placed her in dark scenes or with rim lighting often so we could pick out her forms, so you background scene being lit like a nighttime scene may be an option.
    Soft lantern bounce light with the the moon providing your rim and ambient light on the blue end of the spectrum to complement the blues of the characters skin tones.

    Good luck man, this is a tough one, but not I think through your own efforts as much as through trying to be too respectful to a flawed source!
Sign In or Register to comment.