Hey guys I'm looking for a bit of advise. I started working on a courier based on the gremlins from the dota 2 workshop. And I got pretty far in the modeling.
And then today I spotted this on the dota wiki
Which turns out to be a Smeevil. Hell these things are so rare that I hadn't even seen one in game before.
So my question is do you guys think I should carry on with this idea or should I just drop it and rather start work on something different? My concept is quite different from the existing one. I wanted to have my smeevil dragging a face down "poor man's shield" loaded with other items and then in flying mode have him holding on to a patch work hot air balloon with one hand and the shield package with the other.
Do you guys think it worth it?
Hey guys I'm looking for a bit of advise. I started working on a courier based on the gremlins from the dota 2 workshop. And I got pretty far in the modeling.
And then today I spotted this on the dota wiki
Which turns out to be a Smeevil. Hell these things are so rare that I hadn't even seen one in game before.
So my question is do you guys think I should carry on with this idea or should I just drop it and rather start work on something different? My concept is quite different from the existing one. I wanted to have my smeevil dragging a face down "poor man's shield" loaded with other items and then in flying mode have him holding on to a patch work hot air balloon with one hand and the shield package with the other.
Do you guys think it worth it?
the weapon could be a little bigger on the blade, it should be visible in game like the default one
the hyena doenst belongs to the same place/culture, but who cares =], there is a flying treasure chest into the game =]
i made my own animations and rig for the bird and the beast, if you want you can use my rigs, feel free to ask. i dont want anything in return, dont worry =]
i got a feedback from valve today about the boar, saying that they want to add my set to the game, if that comes true we will have in game 2 rigs and 2 different animation sets for both beastmaster summons
btw, try to avoid the black outline, makes you set looks more cartoony then it will be in game =]
Thanks for the feedback! I was wondering if you used custom skeletons and animations because you had to or because you wanted to? I was just going to rig to the existing skeletons unless that proves to be a problem. I checked him out in the workshop interface and there's a slot for "summon 2" and one other summon (forget what the slot name was).
I think the hyena I'm going to swap out for a different animal. I might use him for a different set. I was thinking a savannah set would be pretty cool too.
@Tvidotto, thanks for the heads up man. That kind of settles it. It's a pity though, I was looking froward to doing some cool animations for that character.
Hey guys I'm looking for a bit of advise. I started working on a courier based on the gremlins from the dota 2 workshop. And I got pretty far in the modeling.
And then today I spotted this on the dota wiki
Which turns out to be a Smeevil. Hell these things are so rare that I hadn't even seen one in game before.
So my question is do you guys think I should carry on with this idea or should I just drop it and rather start work on something different? My concept is quite different from the existing one. I wanted to have my smeevil dragging a face down "poor man's shield" loaded with other items and then in flying mode have him holding on to a patch work hot air balloon with one hand and the shield package with the other.
Do you guys think it worth it?
I happen to have one of those couriers next time there's a polycount DOTA match I'll have to dazzle everyone with it
Welp, After thinking I was making progress on one of my textures, I loaded it ingame and saw all my work reduced to 2 colors. I knew there was going to be compression, but I didn't think it'd be THIS bad. Below are the original texture applied to the highpoly model, and a shot from the ingame workshop. This is gonna be frustrating to fix
That's not really an issue of compression, even if you had a 1024x1024 map of that texture in-game think about how small it's going to be on the screen. These characters are being viewed from such a high-up, far away angle that tiny details like that are insignificant.
That's not saying you shouldn't put extra effort into texturing but you've only got so many pixels and polygons that you need to make each one count. Dota 2 is about big shapes and vivid colours.
That gem doesn't need to be more than two colours, most of the detail is going to be done in the mask layers anyway. Focus your effort into those horns.
I'm still working on a sandking set I started during the contest...
Finally got it all baked out and started roughing in colors. Textures are still very rough for the most part, still deciding on colors and layout. Here's a wip:
I'm still working on a sandking set I started during the contest...
Finally got it all baked out and started roughing in colors. Textures are still very rough for the most part, still deciding on colors and layout. Here's a wip:
Not a fan of the eyes, but the rest of his head looks fantastic, really love the shape of the tail.
Finally gearing up to finish my Lion set, I've got everything finished and game-ready except for the weapon which I've just finished the high-poly of.
After it's done I plan on working to get them all into the game at once which I haven't done yet - should be a fun learning process, got plenty of bookmarks about it.
Finally gearing up to finish my Lion set, I've got everything finished and game-ready except for the weapon which I've just finished the high-poly of.
After it's done I plan on working to get them all into the game at once which I haven't done yet - should be a fun learning process, got plenty of bookmarks about it.
@Bronto: Looking great, but what is that in the middle of the weapon? looks liek sand, lava?
Really needed a break at the BH set, can't get the skinning right and that's really frustrating :S So I started modeling the hyena courier I made a concept for earlier, here's the result so far, made it more cartoony so it would fit in more:
I don't believe so I was trying to figure out how to make my workflow more efficient with this project.
I use blender instead of maya or 3d max so a lot of the guides are good for general guide lines but I've really had to figure out some little technical details on my own.
I'm still working on a sandking set I started during the contest...
Finally got it all baked out and started roughing in colors. Textures are still very rough for the most part, still deciding on colors and layout. Here's a wip:
Hey Hunter, i really like those defined edges, matches a lot with the character in my opinion
helenek pointed something that made me think about the eyes in game, how the character looks on the dota´s camera angle? how is the sillhouette?
the default one you can see the eyes of the character?
Finally gearing up to finish my Lion set, I've got everything finished and game-ready except for the weapon which I've just finished the high-poly of.
After it's done I plan on working to get them all into the game at once which I haven't done yet - should be a fun learning process, got plenty of bookmarks about it.
Here's what I've got so far.
looking really nice Bronto
if you need some help adding it to the game you can ask me over steam, its t_vidotto
@Bronto: Looking great, but what is that in the middle of the weapon? looks liek sand, lava?
Really needed a break at the BH set, can't get the skinning right and that's really frustrating :S So I started modeling the hyena courier I made a concept for earlier, here's the result so far, made it more cartoony so it would fit in more:
in my option the creating process is like cooking, need to be slow and painfull
i dont like rushing things and by saying that it took just 2 days, i can find a lot of spots that you could have worked more
the battlefury that came into the game was made really fast, i watched the video of the guy making it, im sure that guy have a lot of experience
anuxi is another good example of quality and speed, but she is some levels above =]
maybe im wrong and things should be created quicker, but when i see some rushed thing, i tend to consider some lack of effort on it.
my idea of what happened is that the guys who made the headphone came to valve with the proposal and got someone to make them the item
but, maybe you are right and its like the other shirt or toys
anyways, im happy that the battlefury in game was not done in couple hours =]
yeah, maybe they came out to them, but valve made the model, i'm pretty sure. First of all it fits the valve quality level (and really, all the valves favorite methods are there) and second of all, you should submit everything through the workshop anyway, even if it's the promotional stuff.
Anyway, i think this one was done in a couple of hours. Counting that it requires 4-5 hours for me to make something from the already existing concept, divide it by years of experience and shortcuts they use and you'll probably get a couple of hours with bug fixing and testing.
yeah, maybe they came out to them, but valve made the model, i'm pretty sure. First of all it fits the valve quality level (and really, all the valves favorite methods are there) and second of all, you should submit everything through the workshop anyway, even if it's the promotional stuff.
Anyway, i think this one was done in a couple of hours. Counting that it requires 4-5 hours for me to make something from the already existing concept, divide it by years of experience and shortcuts they use and you'll probably get a couple of hours with bug fixing and testing.
you need to put on the workshop but you dont need to make it visible to everyone, the na´vi courier is an example of that
The Crystal Maiden concept I'm working on (I posted it a few pages ago but I don't know if anyone saw it)
I made some changes to the design. Her arm pieces are no longer completely fur, but rather a sleeve with fur on the top instead, I think it adds more diversity to the piece. I also settled on a cape design, out of the five I did everyone liked this design the most.
Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated, it's my first item set for Dota
Thanks, T_Vidotto I've added you, hopefully I won't have to pester you too much but I'll be happy to have you around!
Regarding the Battlefury, I'm 99% sure it was made by Valve -- It's been showing up in Cyborgmatt's patch analysis for about a month now with different stages of development.
While the headset is only Dota 2 branded and not actually made by Valve themselves they are selling it on their store and it falls in line with things like the Mouse/Mousepad set which come with a Juggernaut item.
Andyk125 I could go one or two ways with it, I could change the shape and make it into a magical gem-like thing as per the original weapon of Lion or I could make it some king of lava-like substance which I think I might do since the original intention was to make it like and old-style torch but... magic so that it never goes out.
Unfortunately this bug still plagues me. I could rig the cape so that it isn't affected (it's one of the cape jiggle-bones that's doing it) purely for presentation's sake but if I want proper animations I need to keep it the way it is.
This is really frustrating, I'm ready to submit these to the Workshop otherwise.
I wouldn't wurry to much Bronto, if the original piece has the same problem Valve probably needs to fix it anyways. I'm having similar problem with some items for my bh set, although Valve was smart enough to make their design so it won't be noticable..
Did some more work on the Hyena, here's an idea for the flying version, it has a balloon and two fans..
So far it looks covered.U even made some deliberate errors to explain the testing part,which i liked
I beleive the comment section will take care of that.
Just scroll through it every once in a while and u should get you the info about additional problem's somebody is facing.
I'll get down to it,its not like i've been waiting for the guide,i read earlier on some blog about processes,but yeah,i'll use this as a reason for me joining in the quest of item making
So,i'll probbably send u PM,with problems that pop out to me,so u can adress them in your blog,so that guide would become the most complete guide ever.
@beetrootChan: Modeling cloth is basically just a plane, and then (for the innards that'll be visible) cloning it with reversed normals.
Also, it's still somewhat early, but figured I'd brag a bit. Been working on the horns most of the weekend, and still only about 40-50% done with base texture work. So far, it looks a little something like this, and Im eager to get more done this week:
Great post Vlad, I definitely could have used something like that when I was starting out. I'm sure many people who are just getting into the Workshop will be very thankful.
Unfortunately this bug still plagues me. I could rig the cape so that it isn't affected (it's one of the cape jiggle-bones that's doing it) purely for presentation's sake but if I want proper animations I need to keep it the way it is.
This is really frustrating, I'm ready to submit these to the Workshop otherwise.
bronto, its look the idle alt have a twisted bone, did you check if it is played in game?
there is some models with "placeholder" animations there are still with the models but not used
----
@vlad, i have some suggestions on your post, i will tell when i find you online
----
hey guys, its been a while since the last update
i got some time to rework my boar model and animations, i wasnt happy with it and after some feedback i finally liked the result =]
drew a rubick set! no idea how to model cloth though so i'll have to hunt down a collaborator if i can't figure it out
Don't you want to extend his cape to match the original silhouette? Have parts of it dragging on the floor.
I'd love to do your Rubick wards though, hit me up if you're interested.
@beetrootChan: Modeling cloth is basically just a plane, and then (for the innards that'll be visible) cloning it with reversed normals.
Also, it's still somewhat early, but figured I'd brag a bit. Been working on the horns most of the weekend, and still only about 40-50% done with base texture work. So far, it looks a little something like this, and Im eager to get more done this week:
i think you should that cracked texture entirely, it'll become smudgy and noisy from afar, you could just drop some polygons in there and model one big crack with definite edges. Like this
i did head item similar to this for Enigma, and without some skinning tricks this will look really dull.
@T_Vidotto it was still there when I was playing around with him in the test client, it's the idle and portrait so it's very obvious when it's happening. Is there a chance the animations don't carry over into the main client?
Whats with the wards?
I saw lich ward earlier,now a warlock's one.
I know there we're some custom wards already in game,but none with hero theme on it?
Are they supported?Hero theme wards?
They strike me as a easier project to take for a start,till i get a hang of it.
But im not sure if they are submitable thought.
Not a bad guide. One thing stands out to me though, and it's not a problem with the guide, just a tip.
It looks like you baked the blade with just one smoothing group. Doing that for stuff with sharp plane transitions like the edges of a sword blade will make the normal look puffy. You should break it into at least two smoothing groups to separate the sides of the blade to get a more accurate bake. You can break the smoothing groups along the UV shell edges at no extra hit to performance, which works perfectly with mirrored UVs.
Originally Valve said everything had to have one smoothing group but that's not been the case for a while now, so break it up!
Replies
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=119330444
And then today I spotted this on the dota wiki
Which turns out to be a Smeevil. Hell these things are so rare that I hadn't even seen one in game before.
So my question is do you guys think I should carry on with this idea or should I just drop it and rather start work on something different? My concept is quite different from the existing one. I wanted to have my smeevil dragging a face down "poor man's shield" loaded with other items and then in flying mode have him holding on to a patch work hot air balloon with one hand and the shield package with the other.
Do you guys think it worth it?
I might post something later if anyone is interested. I just wanted to post and tell you that you guys are all awesome.
this character is already in progress by valve
http://www.cyborgmatt.com/2012/11/dota-2-28th-november/#base-pet-skin
maybe is not a good idea to continue on that concept... =[
Thanks for the feedback! I was wondering if you used custom skeletons and animations because you had to or because you wanted to? I was just going to rig to the existing skeletons unless that proves to be a problem. I checked him out in the workshop interface and there's a slot for "summon 2" and one other summon (forget what the slot name was).
I think the hyena I'm going to swap out for a different animal. I might use him for a different set. I was thinking a savannah set would be pretty cool too.
Edit, sketched out a wolf:
That looks awesome dude!
I happen to have one of those couriers
also here's what i'm working on today
looking forward to this big time. any and all info on how to piece this stuff together is a big help.
That's not saying you shouldn't put extra effort into texturing but you've only got so many pixels and polygons that you need to make each one count. Dota 2 is about big shapes and vivid colours.
That gem doesn't need to be more than two colours, most of the detail is going to be done in the mask layers anyway. Focus your effort into those horns.
I'm still working on a sandking set I started during the contest...
Finally got it all baked out and started roughing in colors. Textures are still very rough for the most part, still deciding on colors and layout. Here's a wip:
Not a fan of the eyes, but the rest of his head looks fantastic, really love the shape of the tail.
Does that have proper masks?
After it's done I plan on working to get them all into the game at once which I haven't done yet - should be a fun learning process, got plenty of bookmarks about it.
Here's what I've got so far.
Looking good Bronto!
Really needed a break at the BH set, can't get the skinning right and that's really frustrating :S So I started modeling the hyena courier I made a concept for earlier, here's the result so far, made it more cartoony so it would fit in more:
lol your right I totally didn't see that until now.
I don't believe so I was trying to figure out how to make my workflow more efficient with this project.
I use blender instead of maya or 3d max so a lot of the guides are good for general guide lines but I've really had to figure out some little technical details on my own.
Hey Hunter, i really like those defined edges, matches a lot with the character in my opinion
helenek pointed something that made me think about the eyes in game, how the character looks on the dota´s camera angle? how is the sillhouette?
the default one you can see the eyes of the character?
looking really nice Bronto
if you need some help adding it to the game you can ask me over steam, its t_vidotto
hahaha, looking amazing!
in my option the creating process is like cooking, need to be slow and painfull
i dont like rushing things and by saying that it took just 2 days, i can find a lot of spots that you could have worked more
the battlefury that came into the game was made really fast, i watched the video of the guy making it, im sure that guy have a lot of experience
anuxi is another good example of quality and speed, but she is some levels above =]
maybe im wrong and things should be created quicker, but when i see some rushed thing, i tend to consider some lack of effort on it.
sure vlad
[ame="
ahhh, you are right, its not the same
are you sure that was made by valve? because you need to buy a headphone to get it, never thought about valve helping the sell of a headphone...
Like here
yep but a tshirt is something that you can easily get someone to print thousands, but a headphone is a lot more complicated
my idea of what happened is that the guys who made the headphone came to valve with the proposal and got someone to make them the item
but, maybe you are right and its like the other shirt or toys
anyways, im happy that the battlefury in game was not done in couple hours =]
Anyway, i think this one was done in a couple of hours. Counting that it requires 4-5 hours for me to make something from the already existing concept, divide it by years of experience and shortcuts they use and you'll probably get a couple of hours with bug fixing and testing.
you need to put on the workshop but you dont need to make it visible to everyone, the na´vi courier is an example of that
The Crystal Maiden concept I'm working on (I posted it a few pages ago but I don't know if anyone saw it)
I made some changes to the design. Her arm pieces are no longer completely fur, but rather a sleeve with fur on the top instead, I think it adds more diversity to the piece. I also settled on a cape design, out of the five I did everyone liked this design the most.
Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated, it's my first item set for Dota
Regarding the Battlefury, I'm 99% sure it was made by Valve -- It's been showing up in Cyborgmatt's patch analysis for about a month now with different stages of development.
http://www.cyborgmatt.com/2012/12/dota-2-19th-december/#faceless-void8217s-battlefury
http://www.cyborgmatt.com/2012/12/dota-2-12th-december/#faceless-void8217s-battlefury-particles
While the headset is only Dota 2 branded and not actually made by Valve themselves they are selling it on their store and it falls in line with things like the Mouse/Mousepad set which come with a Juggernaut item.
Andyk125 I could go one or two ways with it, I could change the shape and make it into a magical gem-like thing as per the original weapon of Lion or I could make it some king of lava-like substance which I think I might do since the original intention was to make it like and old-style torch but... magic so that it never goes out.
Well that wasn't too hard
Unfortunately this bug still plagues me. I could rig the cape so that it isn't affected (it's one of the cape jiggle-bones that's doing it) purely for presentation's sake but if I want proper animations I need to keep it the way it is.
This is really frustrating, I'm ready to submit these to the Workshop otherwise.
I wouldn't wurry to much Bronto, if the original piece has the same problem Valve probably needs to fix it anyways. I'm having similar problem with some items for my bh set, although Valve was smart enough to make their design so it won't be noticable..
Did some more work on the Hyena, here's an idea for the flying version, it has a balloon and two fans..
http://www.workshophatemachine.com/2013/01/13/riptide
Many thanks
I beleive the comment section will take care of that.
Just scroll through it every once in a while and u should get you the info about additional problem's somebody is facing.
I'll get down to it,its not like i've been waiting for the guide,i read earlier on some blog about processes,but yeah,i'll use this as a reason for me joining in the quest of item making
So,i'll probbably send u PM,with problems that pop out to me,so u can adress them in your blog,so that guide would become the most complete guide ever.
Also, it's still somewhat early, but figured I'd brag a bit. Been working on the horns most of the weekend, and still only about 40-50% done with base texture work. So far, it looks a little something like this, and Im eager to get more done this week:
bronto, its look the idle alt have a twisted bone, did you check if it is played in game?
there is some models with "placeholder" animations there are still with the models but not used
----
@vlad, i have some suggestions on your post, i will tell when i find you online
----
hey guys, its been a while since the last update
i got some time to rework my boar model and animations, i wasnt happy with it and after some feedback i finally liked the result =]
OLD MODEL
NEW MODEL
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=111405333
I'd love to do your Rubick wards though, hit me up if you're interested.
i think you should that cracked texture entirely, it'll become smudgy and noisy from afar, you could just drop some polygons in there and model one big crack with definite edges. Like this
i did head item similar to this for Enigma, and without some skinning tricks this will look really dull.
I saw lich ward earlier,now a warlock's one.
I know there we're some custom wards already in game,but none with hero theme on it?
Are they supported?Hero theme wards?
They strike me as a easier project to take for a start,till i get a hang of it.
But im not sure if they are submitable thought.
Not a bad guide. One thing stands out to me though, and it's not a problem with the guide, just a tip.
It looks like you baked the blade with just one smoothing group. Doing that for stuff with sharp plane transitions like the edges of a sword blade will make the normal look puffy. You should break it into at least two smoothing groups to separate the sides of the blade to get a more accurate bake. You can break the smoothing groups along the UV shell edges at no extra hit to performance, which works perfectly with mirrored UVs.
Originally Valve said everything had to have one smoothing group but that's not been the case for a while now, so break it up!