its just that the dota engine is reading the green channel from the normal map reverse to compared nearly all other tools. so if u want to archieve the max effect u need 2 normals, one with greenchannel upside and one with greenchannel downsided.
or u create the marketing renders ect first and then simply reverse the green channel after
And what is most confusing about dota normals is that on the technical page there is false information as well:
"The "_normal" texture should be 24-bit and use the 3dsmax format(red channel is left; green is up; blue is top). If you aren't creating a custom normal map, use a flat normal color (128,128,255)."
Its not true, normal for ingame should have green down). Also source files that you will download from tech page are also normal green-up but if you decompile game files there will be normals green-down. All this make it just confusing I guess.
Maya student version is non commercial so your not allowed to earn money on your projects with it, neither can Valve but if the item was free it would be a different case.
I noticed some sets in the workshop and store with flipped normals, just wanted to make sure you guys take the time to check and correct them. Cheers!
Oh shit, i totally forget to re-revert it after importing it for the cinematic. I was wondering why the locks looked a little weird. Ty xD, that was embrassing hahaha. Gonn send fixes
Well, if/when I get something out on the workshop I would most definitely purchase a license without a second thought. Max is a spectacular tool! Not to sound sneaky or anything, but, there is AFAIK no way that Valve could know which tool you used to create an item. Except their Steam scans your system ("For data") to specify what you have installed on your system. But, by ALL means, I would happily upgrade to the full license when I get something out.
And what is most confusing about dota normals is that on the technical page there is false information as well:
"The "_normal" texture should be 24-bit and use the 3dsmax format(red channel is left; green is up; blue is top). If you aren't creating a custom normal map, use a flat normal color (128,128,255)."
Its not true, normal for ingame should have green down). Also source files that you will download from tech page are also normal green-up but if you decompile game files there will be normals green-down. All this make it just confusing I guess.
that confused me a lot in the beggining. Now i just used the y inverted on xnormals and my maya is set to the left hand coordinate, same as 3dmax.
I know that a lot of items were shipped with wrong normals, the easiest way to check is looking for the seam on the parts that you mirrored
I second that, you can definitely add spices to the stock kunai, shuriken and stuffs, without losing too much of the base shape. If you have a theme suitable to incorporate, why not?
if it looks bad in maya with right tangent on, then it will look good in DOTA2 xD
I used to be so paranoid about it being flipped, because let's be honest, sometimes it's not super obvious in dota.. I'm a victim of it too hehe. What's been working for me every time now is just baking in xNormal and Handplaning those - I don't need to flip anymore because it outputs correctly, and for taking pictures in Marmoset there's a little button that let's you toggle the normal direction so it looks right there. Toolbag
anyone not sure about if their normals are correct in the game owe it to themselves to at least do one import with the green channel each way to double check, just in case! I see a lot of entries hurting themselves by not checking and a great item can turn out looking sorta wonky. (though Valve has let in a lot of flipped items, and I'm not sure why they haven't corrected them or told the artist to, since it's a fairly simple fix)
if it looks bad in maya with right tangent on, then it will look good in DOTA2 xD
like this!
look the gray thing point, on the bottom image the normal seams to have a problem with flipped normals, everytime that happened with me i made another bake and blended on photoshop to " fix"
but look how they act in dota
Alec from Handplane shared me this and at first i didnt believe him =]
Hey Guys, what's Up.
I'm a tf2 conceptual artist and was recently challenged to make a dota 2 mount with what little knowledge of the game i had, so i ended up drawing up this mount that doesn't even go with the characters color scheme.
but i find drawing stuff for Dota too be a nice change from the tf2 stuff and i hope i can end up making some decent concepts, Here's something im currently working on with kite212:
If you clean up that bottom one a bit more, it could become a really fantastic color scheme. Even the top one works well for distruptor, just needs to change up the colors. :thumbup:
A head slot item for Nature's Prophet I put together. I don't consider myself a modeller by any stretch of the imagination, so hopefully this isn't a complete trash heap.
Your feedback and (if you like it) your support are appreciated.
@Muffy Nice!! I really like this Void. Those crystals could be a little more intensive and have some self-illumination, but overall the set is really well done!! Gave thumbs up!!
could I get some feedback on this?
specifically the gems on the shoulder blocks
It looks ok for me and its hard to comment about concept because its the part that i hate the most =] but what about making it add more to the sillhouette of the character? maybe more taller or pointy. perhaps some parts having a better sillhouette out of the character's would make it easy to read
Loved the headpice Frump! great work
guy, i received some feedback about the 2 models not looking like the are part of the same set and went asking for suggestions. Motenai suggested me to add more red to true form and i took some time to make the light bake more intense on the model.
What is Valve's policy with student software anyway?
I am a huge Blender fan/advocate. There are enough free tools to create what you want without expensive or stolen software.
Blender, Sculptris, XNormal, HandPlane, Gimp. I love the simplicity of Sculptris, so it wins over Blenders built in sculpting tools. For now anyways, Blender is continually improving while Sculptris has been trapped in a PixelLogic dungeon.
Maya, Max, any big software that continually updates itself and required the purchase of new licences or a monthly subscription (Photoshop) is not appealing to me.
Imagine if you were required to re-purchase physical items like your television or washing machine every year. I can understand the need to monetize these software products from a business perspective, and that moneys made will be invested in better future products - I just don't want to be a part of the endless purchasing cycle.
I am also 100% against stolen software/movies/music. We are all artists here and benefit from copyright laws being followed. By contributing to software piracy you are building a better case for tighter internet controls - which is self defeating. It kills me every time I see a post from someone who just started out and they are using thousands of dollars of pro software. I understand the desire to work with the best tools, but at the end of the day a pencil and paper are all you need to make good art.
I am a huge Blender fan/advocate. There are enough free tools to create what you want without expensive or stolen software.
Blender, Sculptris, XNormal, HandPlane, Gimp. I love the simplicity of Sculptris, so it wins over Blenders built in sculpting tools. For now anyways, Blender is continually improving while Sculptris has been trapped in a PixelLogic dungeon.
You can also add krita to that list.
Plus, the only software you really need to buy is zBrush because it makes things way easier. The rest you can just use freeware.
Plus, the only software you really need to buy is zBrush because it makes things way easier. The rest you can just use freeware.
I would buy a $99 3dCoat Basic Licence for more advanced sculpting tools or project control. You can find it on the Steam Store. I currently have a simple workflow between Sculptris and Blender which allows for complex sculpts. I wouldn't say you NEED zBrush but it is probably the best sculpting tool out there based on user gallerys.
Krita looks pretty cool. The mirrored canvas is something that Gimp is missing for sure.
I concur about Blender, I use it even for sculpting, but it clogs my machine to a halt in the levels of subdivision I need, so a good sculpting alternative that doesn't cost a kidney would be good.
3dCoat is pretty interesting. Voxel sculpting seems to need more system resources than polygon sculpting when you need fine details. Sculpting without tri's/quads has its advantages though. It has some very interesting tools like the muscle tool which is good for cloth folds etc. 3dCoat is also good for retopo and texture work.
Definitely worth giving a chance with the 1 month trial at their website. I made all sculpts using Sculptris and 3dCoat in my entry for last year's Escape contest. The rest of the 3d work was done in Silo and Blender.
Zbrush isn't that expensive AFAIK it's a bit more expensive than Mudbox. I've been using Mudbox but it's features is nothing compared to what ZBrush has to offer. So for me, it's going to be Blender. Luckily Blender has a 3DS Max control scheme. Gimp's painting feels more natural to me than Photoshop to be honest.
I would buy a $99 3dCoat Basic Licence for more advanced sculpting tools or project control. You can find it on the Steam Store. I currently have a simple workflow between Sculptris and Blender which allows for complex sculpts. I wouldn't say you NEED zBrush but it is probably the best sculpting tool out there based on user gallerys.
Krita looks pretty cool. The mirrored canvas is something that Gimp is missing for sure.
dont know if you tried but painting in lowpoly with 3d coat is amazing. i tried a lot of other softwares and 3dcoat gave the best result for me.
i always uses it to paint or fix seams on the lightmaps
dont know if you tried but painting in lowpoly with 3d coat is amazing. i tried a lot of other softwares and 3dcoat gave the best result for me.
i always uses it to paint or fix seams on the lightmaps
This makes me think about something that has been bothering me. I can hand paint stuff and use lots of color. I can also sculpt and bake out a normal and lighting info. My problem is combining the two. My baked stuff always looks super gray scale desaturated - this is a mystery for me. Also, if anyone is working with HSV for color, is there an ideal range you should be keeping the V in (0 = black, and 1 = white)? I know that black and white are extreme values and should be avoided but I'm just wondering what others thoughts or ideal ranges would be.
This makes me think about something that has been bothering me. I can hand paint stuff and use lots of color. I can also sculpt and bake out a normal and lighting info. My problem is combining the two. My baked stuff always looks super gray scale desaturated - this is a mystery for me. Also, if anyone is working with HSV for color, is there an ideal range you should be keeping the V in (0 = black, and 1 = white)? I know that black and white are extreme values and should be avoided but I'm just wondering what others thoughts or ideal ranges would be.
You can use 3 types of layers; dodge(for super shiny) Color (to colorize a bit) and a normal layer just for painting over (in photoshop/gimp/etc). So if you want to hand paint stuff,
-Make the greyscale by combining the maps together.
-Get some color into your greyscale image with the blending mode set to "color", and paint the rest away with the normal layer.
Or
Use a gradient map and paint over it.
I'm not sure for the ideal range, but try to avoid anything under 10% black . For whites, it just depends on the material to me.
For combining the two, look at belkun's thread, he has a couple stuff posted there (its pretty recent)
Tamarin, can you recommend some good Blender tutorials that was good for you to start with? Yeah, I know I should Google it myself but I don't want to waste time looking for crappy ones instead. Nevermind. Got some links.
Does anyone know a free alternative for NDO2? (Yes, I'm that broke.)
@Muffy Nice!! I really like this Void. Those crystals could be a little more intensive and have some self-illumination, but overall the set is really well done!! Gave thumbs up!!
Thanks!
I originally had more selfillum on the crystals but it was making the specular highlights difficult to read. I wanted that "bling" in there so they are fully metallic, half selfillum in the mask values.
Thanks!
I originally had more selfillum on the crystals but it was making the specular highlights difficult to read. I wanted that "bling" in there so they are fully metallic, half selfillum in the mask values.
I was thinking they could use some self illum too, but since you don't want that I'd suggest making them brighter and more saturated!
Tamarin, can you recommend some good Blender tutorials that was good for you to start with? Yeah, I know I should Google it myself but I don't want to waste time looking for crappy ones instead. Nevermind. Got some links.
Does anyone know a free alternative for NDO2? (Yes, I'm that broke.)
Quixel announced that dDo is becoming free... but not nDo sadly
Zbrush isn't that expensive AFAIK it's a bit more expensive than Mudbox. I've been using Mudbox but it's features is nothing compared to what ZBrush has to offer. So for me, it's going to be Blender. Luckily Blender has a 3DS Max control scheme. Gimp's painting feels more natural to me than Photoshop to be honest.
For anyone looking to buy zBrush, you can always find an authorized re-seller http://pixologic.com/retailers/
Saved $150 on my license
Love the design of the wings, it's very different from a lot of other Puck sets.
@Tvidotto the shoulder piece helps but i think you need to make the true form the same color scheme as the spirit bear. there's still too much of a disconnect with the colors which I think is the most important part of making a cohesive set
It looks ok for me and its hard to comment about concept because its the part that i hate the most =] but what about making it add more to the sillhouette of the character? maybe more taller or pointy. perhaps some parts having a better sillhouette out of the character's would make it easy to read
Loved the headpice Frump! great work
guy, i received some feedback about the 2 models not looking like the are part of the same set and went asking for suggestions. Motenai suggested me to add more red to true form and i took some time to make the light bake more intense on the model.
DAY
NIGHT
Do you guys think its still lacking consistency?
Should i use more red on the trueform?
They still feel so disjointed, as in they appear to belong in two different sets, or the bear is meant to be a standalone. I think altering the color to make the two match is enough to pull the whole set together.
Tamarin, can you recommend some good Blender tutorials that was good for you to start with? Yeah, I know I should Google it myself but I don't want to waste time looking for crappy ones instead. Nevermind. Got some links.
Does anyone know a free alternative for NDO2? (Yes, I'm that broke.)
Its not free, but i've been having fun in Substance Designer lately. Its a very interesting tool. I barely used photoshop on my last project. It was on sale on steam not long ago but sadly that has expired.
Replies
Whoops...
or u create the marketing renders ect first and then simply reverse the green channel after
"The "_normal" texture should be 24-bit and use the 3dsmax format(red channel is left; green is up; blue is top). If you aren't creating a custom normal map, use a flat normal color (128,128,255)."
Its not true, normal for ingame should have green down). Also source files that you will download from tech page are also normal green-up but if you decompile game files there will be normals green-down. All this make it just confusing I guess.
Oh shit, i totally forget to re-revert it after importing it for the cinematic. I was wondering why the locks looked a little weird. Ty xD, that was embrassing hahaha. Gonn send fixes
would be kind if u leave us a vote
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=243525258
that confused me a lot in the beggining. Now i just used the y inverted on xnormals and my maya is set to the left hand coordinate, same as 3dmax.
I know that a lot of items were shipped with wrong normals, the easiest way to check is looking for the seam on the parts that you mirrored
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=243636053&searchtext=
I used to be so paranoid about it being flipped, because let's be honest, sometimes it's not super obvious in dota.. I'm a victim of it too hehe. What's been working for me every time now is just baking in xNormal and Handplaning those - I don't need to flip anymore because it outputs correctly, and for taking pictures in Marmoset there's a little button that let's you toggle the normal direction so it looks right there.
anyone not sure about if their normals are correct in the game owe it to themselves to at least do one import with the green channel each way to double check, just in case! I see a lot of entries hurting themselves by not checking and a great item can turn out looking sorta wonky. (though Valve has let in a lot of flipped items, and I'm not sure why they haven't corrected them or told the artist to, since it's a fairly simple fix)
Was just going to say this, thing of the past now
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=243414629
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5LgOoeljvI#t=46
workshop link: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=243698488
drop a like if you wish:)
like this!
look the gray thing point, on the bottom image the normal seams to have a problem with flipped normals, everytime that happened with me i made another bake and blended on photoshop to " fix"
but look how they act in dota
Alec from Handplane shared me this and at first i didnt believe him =]
Black Mist Halberd for Abaddon
and for the March Contest
Shattered Boulder of the One for Elder Titan
Feel free to throw some post-mortem feedback if you have any!
I'm a tf2 conceptual artist and was recently challenged to make a dota 2 mount with what little knowledge of the game i had, so i ended up drawing up this mount that doesn't even go with the characters color scheme.
but i find drawing stuff for Dota too be a nice change from the tf2 stuff and i hope i can end up making some decent concepts, Here's something im currently working on with kite212:
Your feedback and (if you like it) your support are appreciated.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=244093080
could I get some feedback on this?
specifically the gems on the shoulder blocks
I just finished my Faceless Void Dark Geode Set. Vote it up if you like!
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=242947477
Loved the headpice Frump! great work
guy, i received some feedback about the 2 models not looking like the are part of the same set and went asking for suggestions. Motenai suggested me to add more red to true form and i took some time to make the light bake more intense on the model.
DAY
NIGHT
Do you guys think its still lacking consistency?
Should i use more red on the trueform?
I am a huge Blender fan/advocate. There are enough free tools to create what you want without expensive or stolen software.
Blender, Sculptris, XNormal, HandPlane, Gimp. I love the simplicity of Sculptris, so it wins over Blenders built in sculpting tools. For now anyways, Blender is continually improving while Sculptris has been trapped in a PixelLogic dungeon.
Maya, Max, any big software that continually updates itself and required the purchase of new licences or a monthly subscription (Photoshop) is not appealing to me.
Imagine if you were required to re-purchase physical items like your television or washing machine every year. I can understand the need to monetize these software products from a business perspective, and that moneys made will be invested in better future products - I just don't want to be a part of the endless purchasing cycle.
I am also 100% against stolen software/movies/music. We are all artists here and benefit from copyright laws being followed. By contributing to software piracy you are building a better case for tighter internet controls - which is self defeating. It kills me every time I see a post from someone who just started out and they are using thousands of dollars of pro software. I understand the desire to work with the best tools, but at the end of the day a pencil and paper are all you need to make good art.
You can also add krita to that list.
Plus, the only software you really need to buy is zBrush because it makes things way easier. The rest you can just use freeware.
I would buy a $99 3dCoat Basic Licence for more advanced sculpting tools or project control. You can find it on the Steam Store. I currently have a simple workflow between Sculptris and Blender which allows for complex sculpts. I wouldn't say you NEED zBrush but it is probably the best sculpting tool out there based on user gallerys.
Krita looks pretty cool. The mirrored canvas is something that Gimp is missing for sure.
I concur about Blender, I use it even for sculpting, but it clogs my machine to a halt in the levels of subdivision I need, so a good sculpting alternative that doesn't cost a kidney would be good.
Definitely worth giving a chance with the 1 month trial at their website. I made all sculpts using Sculptris and 3dCoat in my entry for last year's Escape contest. The rest of the 3d work was done in Silo and Blender.
But as it has a free trial I'll give 3dCoat a try. Thanks for the reply!
dont know if you tried but painting in lowpoly with 3d coat is amazing. i tried a lot of other softwares and 3dcoat gave the best result for me.
i always uses it to paint or fix seams on the lightmaps
This makes me think about something that has been bothering me. I can hand paint stuff and use lots of color. I can also sculpt and bake out a normal and lighting info. My problem is combining the two. My baked stuff always looks super gray scale desaturated - this is a mystery for me. Also, if anyone is working with HSV for color, is there an ideal range you should be keeping the V in (0 = black, and 1 = white)? I know that black and white are extreme values and should be avoided but I'm just wondering what others thoughts or ideal ranges would be.
You can use 3 types of layers; dodge(for super shiny) Color (to colorize a bit) and a normal layer just for painting over (in photoshop/gimp/etc). So if you want to hand paint stuff,
-Make the greyscale by combining the maps together.
-Get some color into your greyscale image with the blending mode set to "color", and paint the rest away with the normal layer.
Or
Use a gradient map and paint over it.
I'm not sure for the ideal range, but try to avoid anything under 10% black . For whites, it just depends on the material to me.
For combining the two, look at belkun's thread, he has a couple stuff posted there (its pretty recent)
workshop : http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=244098150
Does anyone know a free alternative for NDO2? (Yes, I'm that broke.)
Thanks!
I originally had more selfillum on the crystals but it was making the specular highlights difficult to read. I wanted that "bling" in there so they are fully metallic, half selfillum in the mask values.
I was thinking they could use some self illum too, but since you don't want that I'd suggest making them brighter and more saturated!
Good work btw.
Quixel announced that dDo is becoming free... but not nDo sadly
Nice! I was going to do some different chest uploads... new meta!
For anyone looking to buy zBrush, you can always find an authorized re-seller
http://pixologic.com/retailers/
Saved $150 on my license
Love the design of the wings, it's very different from a lot of other Puck sets.
@Tvidotto the shoulder piece helps but i think you need to make the true form the same color scheme as the spirit bear. there's still too much of a disconnect with the colors which I think is the most important part of making a cohesive set
They still feel so disjointed, as in they appear to belong in two different sets, or the bear is meant to be a standalone. I think altering the color to make the two match is enough to pull the whole set together.
Beep boop, trying to get a sleek style head for clockwerk
should be fully flexed
Its not free, but i've been having fun in Substance Designer lately. Its a very interesting tool. I barely used photoshop on my last project. It was on sale on steam not long ago but sadly that has expired.