Dirk the Daring

Der Hollander

Will be posting updates on the first page, as well as in the thread.



[Original Post]
I was going to tackle a Doctor Who sculpt during summer break, but I found this strange calling to do one of the best heroes ever, Dirk the Daring from Dragon's Lair.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4546341/Dirk/191770-dirk_large.gif

I'm attempting to keep a lot of the same stylistic focus as Don Bluth's drawings, but since I'm converting it into 3D, I made a decision to keep it simple, along the lines of TF2's visuals. I've been using the model sheet for reference for the sculpt so far, but I don't exactly feel like posting a 2k sized image unless someone feels it would help.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4546341/Dirk/DirkWiP03.png
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4546341/Dirk/DirkWiP04.png

I've still got a ways to go, and I could always use more feedback on my projects. Next steps are: add in the backpack and scabbard, then retoplogize and clean up the sculpt before moving into low poly.

In particular, I could use some information about preserving sculpted detail after retopologizing in zBrush (I don't have a whole lot of experience).

Cheers!

Fink

This is looking good man, the waist might be a little too extreme.

BelgianBoolean

This looking amazing mate. Even when you showed earlier stuff on FB, I got pretty excited. The arms are throwing me off a bit though, I'd push the style and exaggerate a wee a bit more. Also, mind showing the elbows?

Der Hollander

@ BelgianBoolean, these be the elbows. I think you're right about pushing it a bit more.

@ Fink, He has a really extreme waist... think I should sill tone it back, though?

n88tr

his feet are huge like megamans
gonna make those flippers smaller?

Cooljay

This is neat, Dirk Daring was an interesting character.

Der Hollander

I've been plugging along on the character, just finished up retopologizing all the organic bits in zBrush, so the high poly is basically done, minus any adjustments anyone sees.

Der Hollander

Been a bit since I posted an update, during that time, I built a low poly of Dirk, did an unwrap, and wrastled his normal maps into shape.

He weighs in at 8483 tris and is currently sporting his normal map, and an AO+Cavity bake. I've got some cleanup yet on his AO bake, but progress is happening.



Any feedback or suggestions to make him more sexy would be greatly appreciated.

Der Hollander

Got the normal map finally worked out, redid my AO completely, and finally got to working on the diffuse pass. I'm pretty satisfied with the face, so I just need to put in the color detail onto the hand, continue my cleanup, and keep cracking. Any crits or suggestions much appreciated.

Also posted wires for wire posting sake.

n88tr

are those textures or just shaders you put on the model?

Der Hollander

So far, just a normal map and diffuse map, combined with Xoliul's viewportshader. I haven't laid in much else aside from the face in terms of color, though.

Der Hollander

Wrapped up the diffuse and added Spec and Gloss maps, if anyone's got any suggestions for fine-tuning, would love to hear them. I like the way he looks, but I'm sure there's room for improvement.

gavku

He's getting there man, I'd say just concentrate on trying to nail the same fluid lines from the animated version. I think he should be curvier ie: even tweak his backpack so it has nice tapered curves to it. Maybe try drawing some lines over your screengrabs. I did a version of this guy awhile ago he has some tricky shapes.

...remove some of the darkness from his texture too especially around his eyes.

Ikosan

I think your ao and cavity map is adding too much black to the diffuse texture making him feel dirty greyed out. Are you applying the ao/cavity as a multiply layer in photoshop? if so try using the ao as a hue saturation layer mask and moving the shadows to a darker more saturated version of the base colour.

Der Hollander

Thanks for the feedback, at the moment I've only got the time to adjust the AO, took me a bit to get the masking to work, but it really improved the texture. I'll keep that technique in mind for later projects.

Fink

This is looking baller as tits yo.

Der Hollander

So, it's been at least a couple weeks since I posted any updates, so I'll just give the short version.

Wrapped up the textures, threw a very terribly made CAT rig ( I CAT, I just suck at rigging) and posed, tweaked vertices, built 2 bases, and built a sword. The entire scene weighs in at 9655 tris, with 8123 for character, 942 for the base, and 203 for the sword. Granted, these aren't the most fantabulous tri counts, but I approached the project in mind of making a solid piece first, optimization took a back seat.

Textures:
Dirk- 1k Diff, Spec, Normal, Gloss
Base- 512 Diff, Spec, Normal
Sword- 256 Diff, Spec


I used the realtime Depth of field trick, which unfortunately won't work with the grabviewport script, so the sword is pretty jagged. Final render will just be high-res.

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