W.I.P. Female Character

Sanro · Aug 2013

Hey guys, first thread here in Polycount!

This is my first ever human character model and sculpt, so I'm sort of diving straight into the deep end with high aims. I was suggested to post my work here after posting in the "What are you working on" thread so here it goes.

ysalex wrote: »

I think the base anatomy model needs quite a bit of work before you clothe her. Right now nothing is sitting properly, and her legs/arms appear as sticks shootin out from under bed sheets.

Might be a good idea also to start a wip thread in P&p to get some targeted feedback.

I'm afraid I dont have a base anatomy sculpt to show as the skin parts that aren't on show have been deleted for smoother running in Zbrush... :poly122:

Any feedback or critics are more than welcome

Edit: The pants are meant to be baggy, but need to be a lot more defined in shape to show it as ysalex pointed out. I will start re-working the major forms and leave detailing out for a while, if anyone can spot specific areas that need to be re-worked please let me know!

Peace

vincentvangeel · Aug 2013

It is starting to look good.
The shoes do give me a very flat feeling on the top though.
Looking forward to seeing more of it.

ysalex · Aug 2013

At this point I'd suggest starting over, at least starting over for now with the anatomy model. If the pieces aren't there, it will be very hard for you to get the proportions correct, and that is where you need to start.

Try making up a base model on a low level of detail, say 1 or 2 subdivisions, 1 or 2 thousand poly's max, and post what you get. That's the easiest way to start, and looking at that is the easiest way for us to help.

Sanro · Aug 2013

vincentvangeel wrote: »

It is starting to look good.
The shoes do give me a very flat feeling on the top though.
Looking forward to seeing more of it.

Thanks! I'll keep it in mind when I go back to do the clothes

ysalex wrote: »

At this point I'd suggest starting over, at least starting over for now with the anatomy model. If the pieces aren't there, it will be very hard for you to get the proportions correct, and that is where you need to start.

Try making up a base model on a low level of detail, say 1 or 2 subdivisions, 1 or 2 thousand poly's max, and post what you get. That's the easiest way to start, and looking at that is the easiest way for us to help.

Noted - I recreated the body that was underneath the clothes, this is what it looks like underneath:

Now to look at references and try and fix the anatomy - she is meant to be skinny but I can see how certain areas still don't look right

PolyDom · Aug 2013

You should throw up some references for us to see if you are going for a more stylized model, and if so its a pretty good start

Sanro · Aug 2013

PolyDom wrote: »

You should throw up some references for us to see if you are going for a more stylized model, and if so its a pretty good start

Hey thanks for taking the time to stop by. On the original sculpt I rarely looked at references and if I did it was obviously in not too much detail. I gathered some references to use, but its meant to be realistic, if not about 1.5 in a scale of 1-10, 1 being exact human replica 10 being completely cartoon/ stylised

My character will be a bit taller than those in the images but from what I can see the proportions seem to stay fairly regular so I've tried to adapt them a bit. Here is my current update on the anatomy model:

The main changes are adding thickness to the side pose which I think has improved it a lot, as well as lowering the breasts, adding a bit of arm size, tweaking the hips a bit and defining the rib cage a bit more, can you guys see anything else thats wrong? She has lost a bit of slimness but I don't mind at all.

I'll also look into getting some good anatomy books / videos as I've heard them recommended many times

Thanks again guys

Sanro · Aug 2013

Double post

BradMyers82 · Aug 2013

Hey dude, I think you should reconsider doing a stylized character because I honestly don't feel you are ready for that yet, no offense. The thing is a good stylized character actually is solidly based in reality, so you have to have a good understanding of real life anatomy in order to pull it off well. I would argue that it can actually be more difficult to do stylized than realistic depending on the particular project.
That said, you need to beef her up a lot still. Just keep working on it till she looks like a real person and be honest with yourself. Find some good artists (ysalex is one) that have done female sculpts and use there work as a measure of the quality you are aiming for. Keep at it dude, and be aggressive with your changes. Good luck!

KristaW · Aug 2013

Hey Sanro!

First off, drop crotch pants! I freakin' love drop crotch pants, ha ha. So I just had to post a comment.

I think you have gotten a little bit closer with your newer anatomy but I think there is still some noticeable things that, stylized or not, come off as unappealing. I took your side render and your side reference. Then I just outlined your reference and pushed that over to your render and that way you can easily see where it does not match the reference. Keep in mind that the reference has perspective though so you might want to take another render with perspective turned on to see the difference more accurately.

Keep it going! Would love to see the finished improved version with freakin' drop crotch pants

Sanro · Aug 2013

BradMyers82 wrote: »

Hey dude, I think you should reconsider doing a stylized character because I honestly don't feel you are ready for that yet, no offense. The thing is a good stylized character actually is solidly based in reality, so you have to have a good understanding of real life anatomy in order to pull it off well. I would argue that it can actually be more difficult to do stylized than realistic depending on the particular project.
That said, you need to beef her up a lot still. Just keep working on it till she looks like a real person and be honest with yourself. Find some good artists (ysalex is one) that have done female sculpts and use there work as a measure of the quality you are aiming for. Keep at it dude, and be aggressive with your changes. Good luck!

WIll do, I've been going through anatomy threads like mad and I think I've done some progress! Thanks for the tips

KristaW wrote: »

Hey Sanro!

First off, drop crotch pants! I freakin' love drop crotch pants, ha ha. So I just had to post a comment.

I think you have gotten a little bit closer with your newer anatomy but I think there is still some noticeable things that, stylized or not, come off as unappealing. I took your side render and your side reference. Then I just outlined your reference and pushed that over to your render and that way you can easily see where it does not match the reference. Keep in mind that the reference has perspective though so you might want to take another render with perspective turned on to see the difference more accurately.

Keep it going! Would love to see the finished improved version with freakin' drop crotch pants

Can't get enough of them

They crotch pants are definitely going to be in the final, no matter how long this takes to finish!

Thanks a lot for the awesome paint over, I should have pointed out it wasn't aiming for an exact replica of the reference, but it helped a lot to realize how much I had to stop focusing on small details and move onto bigger shapes.

Here is an update on the current anatomy progress, I'm much, much happier with how it is now compared to how it was originally, I really did slack a lot on working the anatomy out.

However it still feels unnatural but I'm not sure if that's me not being used to the pose?

Feet aren't detailed as they will have boots over them but I did try to get the shape. The hands feel a bit stiff and still need a bit of minor tweaking

Brian "Panda" Choi · Aug 2013

Relax her shoulders. Have a bit of gesture to her T pose even if it is a T pose. Keep things a bit loose.

Sanro · Aug 2013

JadeEyePanda wrote: »

Relax her shoulders. Have a bit of gesture to her T pose even if it is a T pose. Keep things a bit loose.

Thanks for the tips!

amile duan wrote: »

Good model,but do more work on her trousers.

The clothes / outfit is getting completely re-done!

And here is the latest anatomy progress, with very small modifications, going to start working on the outfit now with some modifications to the previous design, I'm thinking of some tribal / sci-fi mix up, see what comes out from the blockout

I have a small question regarding workflow that after doing my research I still dont quite get, if anyone could quickly clear it up it would be much appreciated! It's regarding splitting up a subtool for detailing, for this example we can assume the nude model wont have any clothes on so:

1. Create the main anatomical shapes (current state)
2. Split it into different polygroups, group split into subtools
3. Subdivide for finer details like skin pores
4. Decimate the high poly import to maya/3ds max
5. Create a lower res mesh
6. UV the lower res

here is where i get confused...

7. Use Subtool master to merge all the subtools back together
8. Use Xnormal to bake dem maps

Wouldn't merging all the subtools back together make you lose all those fine details due to the lower polycount? Or do you have to create UV shelves for each body part, and map those areas separately with each subtool as a separate OBJ, then combine them in photoshop? I'm not experienced with normal map creation so I'm confused as to which method works best, without having borders between the bodyparts being obvious

EDIT: The main reason for asking this is that when i use the BPR render inside Zbrush the subtool breaks become really apparent and I wasn't sure if those would show while baking the maps if they werent welded together

W.I.P. Female Character

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