Crash coursing a character

Lazerus Reborn

Well its been about three months since i last touched 3ds max so while ive got free time, i thought i'd build a character from scratch. Its not finished, i have'nt even touched his face or boots but this is what ive got so far.






Im no pro that much is obvious, so i was hoping to get some feedback on general improvements to the poly flow. Also if at all someone could point me to a nice aphla plane hair and clothes tut' or even show there workflow on it, it would be greatly appreicated.

Cheers'
-Laz

low odor

what up man..it's a cool start. The Positive is that you started. Jumping in and modeling is the best thing you can do in the beginning. You can read all the tuts and posts on Polycount, but it always comes down to just doing it.

Now about your model. I would check out this link on the Polycount wiki. Then compare. See where you think you could make improvements.

http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryCharacterModeling?highlight=(\bCategoryCharacter\b)

I would also compare your workflow. Are you making this character for sculpting, or just a straight up low-poly?

keep at it

Lazerus Reborn

Thanks for the good read low odor
Ive always been a lowpoly artist i just like the clean OCD of it all so i barely pass the 2-4k boundary with my media. It alows me focus more time on handpainting the texture (which has always been a fav' of mine) and creating a reasonable topology.

I could do with alot of practice in normal mapping though, in the good few years ive been playing ive only ever made a few normal maps to my characters and ive never really touched upon 'next gen'

Also triangles are a bain in my life aswell, i think theres six which i cant ditch without adding more poly loops -____-"

Ill see how far i can get with this guy anyway, its always fun to see how much you can fail

Rockley Bonner

Arms are too long and palms are too large. The rest ill chalk up to being unfinished. This model can be adjusted quite a bit still and I would refrain from exporting it unless you like polishing turds.

low odor

I wouldn't worry about the anatomy at all...if you want the arms to be that big..and the palms to be that large...I say go for it. I think the forms within the structure are more important than the scale in relation to other bits of anatomy...course that is a whole other discussion...it's pretty obvious you are not trying to create an anatomical study..it's also pretty obvious you're still working on it...so yeah

just keep practicing man..you only fail when you stop learning.



there are some cool base meshes on the wiki, with some solid topology...download them..study them....even bring them in the sece with this model and compare.

Lazerus Reborn

Thanks for the crits guys, ill try loading the base mesh next to mine to see the poly flow difference.

Head shape and fod' still needs more work, but its getting there slowly



Ill reproportion the hands aswell since they look off now that i shrunk the arms. Ive got the usual symmerty seam which il ditch when i collapse it all again when i do the final tweaks.

New year tommorow so ill most likly be hitting town with girlfriend so i probably wont update for two or three days

Have a good one guys !

Lazerus Reborn

Well the last mesh tweaks are done.

1850 polys'
3560 tris'
1882 verts'





The hair is a mix between plane extrudes and solid 4 tri spikes. It came out surprisingly well, so im happy. I also deleted the hidden faces below the hair as i kept a solid plane base so it covers it

Anybody got any crit's before i move onto Uvmapping+texturing?

Psyk0

-The mesh could be optimized
The loops on the abdomen serve no purpose
The boots have too many polys compared to the rest (feet are rarely the main point of focus)
The face loops do not represent planes well enough for the amount you have spent
The ears don't need that much geo (also suffers from bunched up polys)

-The shoulder area looks dislocated
-Cloth on the shoulder should conform to the surface underneath (it's gonna look weird when he's in a default pose)
-Joints need support loops for animation
-Proportions are a bit unbalanced (his lower legs are massive compared to the body's side view)
-You need to spread out your edges to represent form instead of bunching them up together (the back suffers from this)

Lazerus Reborn

Thanks for the crit Psyk0, Ill revise the mesh more and knock off a few edge loops.

I take it by support loops for animation, you mean another poly loop ethier side of the joint?

Ill repost a new version tonight.

Lazerus Reborn

Revision;
1543 polies
2943 tris
1592 verts




Added the support loops and rearranged the other loops. Can you see any parts i can further optimise ?

Cheers.

Psyk0

Yup that's better,

To check for redundant polys, apply a 100% black material, this will help you focus on the silhouette, then you'll see which polys can be taken out (inside the silhouette) and redistribute some of them to round out the silhouette in places that are too blocky.

Check out Bobo's work = top notch exemples of efficient poly usage:
http://www.bobotheseal.com/personal_art.htm

As for joints, here's a helpful guide to get started:
http://www.pig-brain.com/tut02/tut02_01.htm