The BRAWL² Tournament Challenge has been announced!
It starts May 12, and ends Sept 12. Let's see what you got!
https://polycount.com/discussion/237047/the-brawl²-tournament
It starts May 12, and ends Sept 12. Let's see what you got!
https://polycount.com/discussion/237047/the-brawl²-tournament
Best Of
Re: Marmoset vs Blender EEVEE for portfolio renders?
just tossing my .02's, (for me) its having to learn how to do all the things marmoset does in blender, the material coding stuff like the channel default cube(youtuber) does, i really got comfortable with drag drop play with numbers. Now-a-days even more so, time is valuable and i suppose i am getting stubborn in my ways and hope one day, marmoset becomes its own, "Epyc Engine" and i didn't put my time into it wastefully, to just switch over to blender...
iam717
1 ·
Re: Marmoset vs Blender EEVEE for portfolio renders?
It is for sure convenience.
Toolbag has an Integrated sbsar importer.Blender has an officially from Adobe created sbsar importer but you need to login into Adobes forum/account to download it.
Toolbag allows an easy export for showing your 3D scene on webpages/portfolio.
If it´s for general portfolio purposes and you just want to show a great result: use whatever you want.
If you want to concentrate on the artist side, using Realtime Rendering solutions like Blenders Eevee as well as Toolbag are great and can bring you very far on their own.
Remember thou, Realtime Renderers are not Game Engines.
A couple years back, I extensively used Toolbag and was allured by the back then existing Marmoset Toolbag to Unreal Importer.
Thought I struck gold with this shortcut and could just concentrate on Toolbag, hone my skills there and simply I/O entire scene setups into Unreal.
Thought I struck gold with this shortcut and could just concentrate on Toolbag, hone my skills there and simply I/O entire scene setups into Unreal.
My goal was to make a game. That taken shortcut with Toolbag substituting (lacking) knowledge in Unreal was resulting in straight up disaster. Great learning experience but still a Use case disaster. I failed to grasp why my stuff didn´t look like the carefully crafted Toolbag Scene and not knowing how to fix occurred visual discrepancies between Toolbag vs Unreal.
Avoid the temptation to compensate a lack of knowledge with just using a real time renderer and relying on automation/translation tools to bring that data into the game engine of your choice.
Avoid the temptation to compensate a lack of knowledge with just using a real time renderer and relying on automation/translation tools to bring that data into the game engine of your choice.
If you want to show more than cool renders/clips and highlight additional skills - pick the right tool - the game engine you want the data to actually be in.
When a competition encourages you to use Realtime renderers then use what is to your liking with the set challenge rules.
When a competition encourages you to use Realtime renderers then use what is to your liking with the set challenge rules.
It all comes down and depends on the use case. Eevee is excellent and Toolbag is a great tool depending on how and what you utilize it for.
myclay
1 ·
Re: Star Wars Outlaws: Character design was the least of this games problems.
“If you engage with bad-faith people, there’s no nuance and no
possibility of real dialogue. So all we can do is make the best game
possible.”
So if this is the kind of quote to cause a knee-jerk reaction, pearl-clutching and an instant emotional need to rebuttal, then you're the exact kind of person they are talking about. They are holding up a mirror and showing your reflection, it's not their fault you don't like what you see.
With that, I think it's the perfect quote to sum up this thread. I really do thank people who have been trying to bring in nuanced discussions and points, they are giving a lot to think about and genuinely are insightful. However they seem to be glossed over or ignored by OP, as the same points are being brought up over and over, like a broken record and in bad faith. Even though myself and others have given a ton of explanations as to various possibilities why things could be, but are ultimately unknown without being on the dev team. Attempts to foster positive discussion with them haven't gone anywhere either.
Alemja
2 ·
Re: Star Wars Outlaws: Character design was the least of this games problems.
NikhilR said:Going through Kay's backstory, I thought to explain her facial transformation as an adult as a result of a lifestyle.
Ubisoft does say that she had a hard life of petty crime and the years were not kind.
I though maybe she had an additiction, like gambling alongside dependency on meth or heroin that altered her facial features significantly and also explains her broken nose in street fights. (fighting off drug dealers and debt collecting bounty hunters)
https://www.gatewayfoundation.org/blog/effects-substance-abuse-appearance/
But this perspective doesn't fit because of Nix who she finds as a child and atleast its suggested that they were never apart at any point though if you've seen homeless people with pets, its very evident how well cared for their pets are so maybe that situation applies here (though not all of them has addictions and Kay wasn't homeless, just living in the attic of a seedy bar)
Considering the emphasis on her broken nose, she doesn't take on any visual cosmetic damage in melee fights in the game and is super strong but can't move bodies or carry guns up ladders and Nix is invincible and never targeted by enemies.
Maybe all this is just the gameplay design team being out of sync with the character design team, or a conscious design choice that no one on the team can talk about because "they don't want to engage with bad faith gamers and are convinced in their ability to make the best game possible"
Generally when the audience has to fill in these gaps to explain their suspension of disbelief it could indicate a design oversight.
Then again Ubisoft isn't Naughty Dog and Star Wars Outlaws isn't Last of Us.
And there was considerable controversy on Abby's character design as well and how if backstory, environment and lifestyle provided for a convincing portrayal of her character.
It's not a transformation though, is it? She didn't really transform; she just got older and has a broken nose. Most of her facial features are the same as her younger model, just thinner because she's older.
There are multiple good reasons for her not to take cosmetic damage in fights.
- It means that's more models and textures you to add. That takes time and money on a game that was already expensive.
- For that effort and cost, you get only a small return.
- Stuff like visible cuts and bruises isn't all that Star Warsy. The only time you see those in Star Wars films, really, is if it's for a plot reason, like Luke losing his arm, the meta stuff that required him to get beaten up at the start of Empire Strikes Back, etc. You don't really see characters get regular injures like a bloody nose or bruises in regular action in the main films.
I don't see how your suspension of disbelief should be stretched by "she looks slightly different as an adult to when she was a kid" but the entire setting is fine.
That "she must've been on drugs" thing....Do you watch Mauler or any of his types, by any chance? Gives me the same vibes as those guys insisting Rey's backstory should've been a lot more desperate and rapey because how could a woman possible have been alone and had a rough backstory without being a victim...
That sounds more like falling into the Reality is Unrealistic trap. People don't look just like small versions of their adult selves. But people are used to media that basically does make them look that way, for the sake of being convenient and easier to recognise. I don't think it's a failing that she looks a bit different when she's younger. That's just how youth is. Especially with the amount of fat in the face that disappears as we age. And that aside, the whole thing is still pretty much a nitpick.NikhilR said:Thanks for taking the time for this analysis, your handwriting is a bit difficult to read in places but I did get the gist of what you were meaning to convey.
The reason I made the comparison was more for a overall general look, like if you held the comparison at a distance, where do you see a more ideal progression simply based on this image.
To make a more precise definitive analysis based on paintovers you would need to line the images up, though in this case its not just about whether a round jaw could turn more square ot a cheeks bones can become more pronounced because genetics,
is how when the audience looks at the presentation as a first impression are they required to suspend disbelief and more importantly has the game taken care to address a possible oversight/discrepency.
When you point to genetics as a cause and then say that these changes are natural that is still suggesting that she missed out on the genetic lottery.
NikhilR said:The emphasis in both Ubisoft and EA's case is that "make the best game possible" the difference being that ubisoft's seems dismissive of feedback and EA's is more diplomatic.
That and EA can afford to be since they release newer iterations of the product every year. I don't know if Ubisoft fully addressed the consequences of their character design not being well received on future sequels.
Like in ubisoft's case, I'm not really sure what Kay will look like in a sequel, or if Ubisoft even cares about genuine feedback about her face to make a change.
Will she fix her broken nose? Will she get plastic surgery to infiltrate the crimson dawn?
Will palpatine seduce her to the dark side?
The challenge in game dev is that dev's can say precious little about feedback positive or negative because of the risk to their employment, but it is important to address feedback without getting consumed in the broader culture war on beauty standards and stereotypes.
Why should they engage with that criticism when it's 99% bad faith, gamergate shite? Most of the backlash to Kay Vess' appearance is just from culture war bastards who are using it as a point in their crusade claiming that there's some campaign on behind the scenes to make women in western games "ugly" or "mannish". (Read: realistically rendered and flawed and based on actual women instead of idealised, close-to-sex-doll standards).
There you go again with the troll comments. Do you want to be taken as someone who's commenting in good faith or not?
Rima
1 ·
Re: Star Wars Outlaws: Character design was the least of this games problems.
Well, it's not designed to show them alone. After all, if you draw over it you're still hiding a bit of the original thing you're trying to make a point about. It's more like "go back and look at these parts in the original image you posted". I thought using lines that way would highlight them a little better than just a load of arrows alone. Ideally, I'd just have it as a layer you can toggle, but I don't think Polycount has anything like that, so highlighting the marching parts is about as much as can be done, I think.pior said:Not to be too dismissive but ... to be fair, diagrams like the above end up doing the opposite of what was intended IMHO. Such wireframe redline paintovers are fantastic in order to explain changes to be performed on a design or model ("please make the nose follow a plane more like this") ; but they achieve close to nothing when used to demonstrate a likeness match between a photo and a 3D model. It's a bit like how some people pretend that this or that person looks attractive because of some magical golden ratio diagram ... while in reality said magical diagram is just a crude wireframe mask that can be be retrofitted onto anyone.
Rima
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Re: Star Wars Outlaws: Character design was the least of this games problems.
Rima said:I have too much free time today. Behold.Stop drinking the Kool-Aid and use your eyes and your mind. There are some minor differences, yeah, like the shape of the young Kay's eyebrows, but that's pretty petty. All in all, it's a good match. Her features are similar. They look like they can be the same person years apart. It's good work. I gained an appreciation for the work of the artists who created these models by looking closely at them. Why didn't you? Kay looks like her actress. Just a bit thinner and more tired, and with a marginally longer chin. That's it. It's not a big deal, or a conspiracy.I don't know why you're still going on, really. And if you want to be taken seriously, why would you pepper your supposedly legitimate constructive criticism with daft jokes about her looking like Palpatine or whatever? And the whole "it's just my humour, it's not my fault if some people are offended" line has worn very thin.
Thats (among others) another great post and analysis.
And the Nose? easy!
The cartilaginous framework and growth changes + depending how she lives + simply aging means a differently shaped nose can easily happen. Like Fighting for example... and healing a broken nose. (okay that one is easy)
Dorsal humps can also happen due to genetics, where the persons genetics code has a tendency to develop the bump thru-out the years + inner working structure of the nose.
I feel like many Books especially meant for Artists have grossly oversimplified Anatomy knowledge in the pursuit to make it easy enough to understand in a sitting while completely missing out on all the beautiful variations which humanity holds.
myclay
1 ·
Re: The Bi-Monthly Environment Art Challenge | September - October (92)
This is nice work, fast too. I think to really bring it to the next level you can put a little more dirt and grunge into the paint, you already threw in the scruffs and scratches so some grunge can really add variation to the paint.Paxwort said:Wanted some nice prop work for my portfolio, so I had a go at this. I'm sorry I don't have progress pics, I kinda just knocked it out in a productive haze.For a lot of the little details, I experimented with a transferred-normals decal-ish approach that Christopher3D recently featured on his channel, I have to say it works pretty well. Especially for the little ridges in the handles - it would have been a mess to build them into the mesh, and the alternative was to do it entirely in normals (requiring further tedious materials work).
Vixen98
1 ·
Re: Star Wars Outlaws: Character design was the least of this games problems.
Not to be too dismissive but ... to be fair, diagrams like the above end up doing the opposite of what was intended IMHO. Such wireframe redline paintovers are fantastic in order to explain changes to be performed on a design or model ("please make the nose follow a plane more like this") ; but they achieve close to nothing when used to demonstrate a likeness match between a photo and a 3D model. It's a bit like how some people pretend that this or that person looks attractive because of some magical golden ratio diagram ... while in reality said magical diagram is just a crude wireframe mask that can be be retrofitted onto anyone.
Of course Nik is borderline trolling here but it is still true that it takes a strong art director with full faith in themselves and their art team in order to dismiss a "hmmm perhaps we shouldn't make this character too attractive" comment that someone from outside the art team and who's never picked up a pencil in their entire life may eventually make during a meeting. In that regard film (with real actors) and games are really quite different.
Also, I personally believe that working with a specific actress/model and "tweaking her face here and there" (if that's actually what happened) is quite disrespectful, and a sign of a lack of humility towards the incredible subtleties of human anatomy. But hey, who knows what actually went down. Some shots looks fantastic, while others do look somewhat odd. Yet had the cutscenes been "storyboard-style" stills or motion graphics, no one would have noticed anything.
Overall and despite the amazing amount of work that goes into it, this high-fidelity look just looks exhausting to me - probably precisely because of the absurd amount of time and ressources these assets take to develop, and because of how easily things can break - like AO glitching out and not filling up nostrils properly, wasting the work of a talented character team just because someone from tech insisted that "shadows shouldn't be painted in" ; or some animation retargeting affecting the shape of a mouth or jawline just a bit too strongly. Increased processing power is playing a dirty trick on us here, since there is no more room left for interpretation or "filling in the blanks".
All that said, the game looks very impressive - characters and environments alike.
All that said, the game looks very impressive - characters and environments alike.
pior
4 ·
Re: The Bi-Monthly Environment Art Challenge | September - October (92)
kwagner said:@Pep_mepla I'm making a kind of mid-poly model to get all the individual pieces I need, then I'll take that into ZBrush. Are you doing your scene in Unreal? Do you block it out directly in Unreal or do you make the blockout pieces in the modeling software and import?Here's my mid-poly. Slowed down a lot last week and didn't get as much done as I wanted because l i f e. Just need the gold pieces and it'll be ready for ZBrush.
Also, I'm moving over to Blender from being a Maya user of 15 years, so if anyone has tips/tricks/tutorial videos for softening/hardening edges please let me know. I can't find a whole lot online that does what I need without odd shading...
Ahhh I get you so much, life always getting in the way XD
But keep it up, you are doing great! I like to do my grayboxing in blender, and transfer it to Unreal. I'm not too comfortable with unreal's BSP brushes.
Here is how it is going now.
Pep_mepla
5 ·