My character model I'd like feedback on
polycounter lvl 5
Hello everyone, I'm a college student studying game art. It's been a few months since I've finished my basic 3d and character design classes and I've been practicing making characters but I never quite liked how they turned out. I think this model I'm posting here is somewhat decent and I'd like some feedback so I can improve on this and future models. The textures are mostly flat colors for now and I'll get working on them soon. However, I always thought textures were my weakest point. All I do is color everything flat and then use a transparent brush with no hardness to paint the different shades. I've been looking for tutorials to help me in this part but I haven't found any that would help me.
Replies
As for some help with the texture painting - the polycount wiki has some very useful stuff. and after a second of digging there you can find super helpful links like this - http://www.gameartisans.org/gamecon/tutorials/tut_2.htm
Anatomically speaking yeah she looks alright, looks like you're going for a stylized girl in her early teens? Her brow does look a bit funky/heavy, but that might be a style choice.
Geometry-wise your poly distribution is pretty rough. Like those folds in the skirt you could just do in the texture instead of with geometry. The hands are super dense. Are those alpha cards for the boot laces? You can get rid of that bevel on the boot soles. Pull some edge loops out from around her eyes and mouth. Put that geometry into smoothing out those goggles and adding a bit more geometry into her shoulders so they'll deform better. Reduce her ears and personally I'd make her more of a continuous mesh instead of the separate pieces you have - it can help with texturing as well as rigging and animation down the road.
Hope that helps a bit.
Also, everything s33th said.
Also, me too, everything s33th said.
Well, I got a bit carried away on this one. Don't take any of this as gospel, just suggestions.
The shoulder layout I'd carry all the way around the shoulder so each of those loops remains separate from the others for deformation purposes.
The torso area was to smooth out the sort of blocky forms you had in the chest and back.
The mouth and eye I'd pull out the loops that aren't contributing much to the form. I added an extra line coming from the corner of the mouth. This is really helpful when animating/rigging so even when her mouth is wide open she'll still maintain that crease at the corner of her lips.
Added a bit more at the outer corner of her eye so when it's time to animate she can squint a bit.
For further reading - http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryTopology
General rule of thumb when to use alpha. Things that alter the silhouette and would take far more geometry to model than to use transparency - like hair, or if you added a frilly edge to her skirt. In the case of the shoe laces though they're such a minor detail and don't break up the silhouette that it would be better just to texture them onto the model.
...and that's the end of my novel. It's definitely getting there... and this way you'll be ahead of the game when you get to your rigging/animation courses.
So far, thanks for all of your help s33th and Dirigible.
I believe the change to the color scheme of her costume is a vast improvement! :thumbup: When I first viewed the images it was the first thing I wanted to mention. Good call.
Before you continue with textures you may want to take a bit of time to look up some reference images for her clothing. I highly suggest doing some clothing and fold studies. Think about what materials she's wearing and find reference images on them. Images of leather boots, cotton shirts, denim, glass goggles, etc.
What texture style are you shooting for? Strictly hand-painted, semi-realism, etc? Try collecting references of already textured characters that are done in the same sort of texturing style you are going for.
I know it's at a very early stage, but would you mind posting your texture flats so we can take a look?
Here's a couple links/info I've found super helpful about color, materials, and painting:
http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm - uber painting tut
http://www.manufato.com/?p=902 - material/spec tut
http://wiki.polycount.com/TexturingTutorials - polycount texture wiki
I'm going for hand-painted right now, though I wouldn't mind learning realistic painting later on. And thanks for the tips and links, I'll try to improve as much as I can.
The fingers don't need to be fanned out, they could be brought together with minimal stretching in areas where it doesn't matter. It would also mean that the UV seams have similar colors on their boarders which will help keep the background color from bleeding into the viewable area on the model. Better packing, better seams, win, win.
Straightening out the purple strips and other semi-straight pieces will allow you to paint on them easier as well as pack better with minimal stretching.
I was looking at other diffuse maps to kind of get an idea of what to straighten out.
One thing you could try doing is painting over a screenshot of your model as if it were a 2d image, then see how you could adapt that into your textures.