More progress was made...
Man this stuff is really straining...
I never really tried making a full set, all I did was a single item, and it was pretty simple.
After seeing what you guys have been doing, my god your brains must be catching on fire.
Left that mesh on the original one by accident, but hey I'm so tired right now I only noticed when I was writing this post.
I need some time away from my computer, holy crap.
Her set hit 500 ratings long before it was posted to reddit :P (congrats on that btw anuxi!) and even as amazing as it is, it's at 78% upvotes/downvotes on reddit :O . If even her stuff is getting that many downvotes... if that's not harsh I don't know what is.
But you're right, it probably is that my set is just not up to snuff, or rather not professional quality work. Partially because my texturing skills aren't too great yet, and partially because my design is pushing him too far from rubick's default look, which makes me sad, I don't want to play it safe on my next set but I might have to if I keep getting so many "it's too different!" complaints.
I hope I don't sound like I'm whining, I really do appreciate both the positive and negative feedback, and I've gotten lots of positive feedback too, but every negative comment seems 30x bigger than every positive, guess I need to grow some thicker skin.
Actually, you must learn to recieve criticism as positive feedback and turn to your advantage. Some of them may indeed be bulls**t, but there are always some things you can improve with your design and you must thank people if they are taking their time to point out the flaws (if they are polite, of course). Don't give up, just try to look at your own work like an outsider, with a different point of view. I'm sure you'll get better in time.
I threw it up on reddit, which was clearly a huge mistake...
Currently 310 ratings in only 20 hours but it's still stuck at 4 stars... while 2 sets that came out around the same time but only have around 80 ratings are placing much higher on the best sets for the week... (not to insinuate those sets are bad, they're great!)
Either my set is a lot worse/divisive than I thought or redditors are damn harsh, maybe both, kinda down about it though =/
For anyone thinking about it I wouldn't recommend posting your workshop items on reddit to get more attention... appears to backfire.
Its give and take, I've had a lot of success posting my work on reddit. Other times it's been a massive failure. The reddit community is very opinionated, if you make something they like, or is absolutely amazing quality wise, or your Anuxi or T_Vidotto, you'll hit of home run.
I personally use reddit as a massive critique, the post made on my reddit threads is very helpful, things that don't work, things that do. The way I read it is, if the reddit community isn't going for it, neither will the steam/dota community. Take it with a grain of salt.
I would recommend posting on reddit, at the end of the day if it does backfire, you'll know where to push your work.
But you're right, it probably is that my set is just not up to snuff, or rather not professional quality work. Partially because my texturing skills aren't too great yet, and partially because my design is pushing him too far from rubick's default look, which makes me sad, I don't want to play it safe on my next set but I might have to if I keep getting so many "it's too different!" complaints.
I hope I don't sound like I'm whining, I really do appreciate both the positive and negative feedback, and I've gotten lots of positive feedback too, but every negative comment seems 30x bigger than every positive, guess I need to grow some thicker skin.
People can be hypocritical when it comes to personal interests. Looking back, I'm glad my contest entry didn't get attention, because it was pushing too far from the character's style. Personally, I think you might want to evaluate which parts people like, and why they don't like what they don't. I'm going quote a redditor from the Weaver thread, which mirrors my philosophy on making these items:
"It's similar enough to the original skin that individual pieces of the set would still look good without need the rest of the items, it has a cool concept behind it..."
If you evaluate the items on a per-item basis, some parts of your set don't synergize well with the base design.
Also, this is the DOTA community, which is notorious for having vocal nay-sayers and trolls. A thick skin is almost required.
You guys are, of course, right. I think I spent too much time and effort on this set the past couple months, so I was too heavily invested in the outcome/reaction of the community. I'm feeling rather silly and unprofessional reading my posts up above. It's just that 80-90% liking something isn't enough, it's gotta be 97%, which is what my one accepted item was at.
If I've learned anything from this so far it's this: absolutely nail your concept before you make a single polygon. I ended up wasting a lot of time remaking and changing things that didn't work out in practice as well as they did in my head/my very quick concept sketch, and in the end a lot of people didn't like the core concept to begin with so all those changes and adjustments were moot.
Thanks for the responses guys. I still have some hope of it being accepted, but if it is it'll be moreso because valve likes the unique direction, not so much the community votes, kinda like the polycount naga siren set.
I know where you're coming from mrpresident - it is tough to see something you've worked so hard on not receive the praise you imagined it would.
I will say, though, that any criticism we have of the community's opinions or responses to our items, remember that they're the ones who will be buying it and you can expect people to spend decent amounts of money on something unless they really really like it.
I know where you're coming from mrpresident - it is tough to see something you've worked so hard on not receive the praise you imagined it would.
I will say, though, that any criticism we have of the community's opinions or responses to our items, remember that they're the ones who will be buying it and you can expect people to spend decent amounts of money on something unless they really really like it.
This! So far I have come away with, stop making poofy curly hair. hahah
If you can take it, read he comments and slot the feedback int he back of your mind. But if you want to stay enthused, don't read too much of them
@mr president, i think that is a lesson to us all. spend enough time on the concept and accepting that maybe the success is not what you expected and is not proportional to the time you spend working on it =]
----
hey guys, just crosposting from the monthly competition
-Lore
Rejected at his birth and left to die by starvation. That is the only think we know about the history of this little creature before beeing rescued by Mirana in a cold night. He managed to survive and became her pet by the name of Snowl. Even with his tiny wings and against all the expectation, this brave guy after some years of hard training learned how to fly. He just enjoys life, something that only those who almost lost it could undestand Mirana trained him on the arts of stealth and gave him a little quiver. This loyal pet travels unoticed between the trees following her even on the most fierces battles and is the secret behind her infinity number of arrows.
@mr president, i think that is a lesson to us all. spend enough time on the concept and accepting that maybe the success is not what you expected and is not proportional to the time you spend working on it =]
----
hey guys, just crosposting from the monthly competition
-Lore
Rejected at his birth and left to die by starvation. That is the only think we know about the history of this little creature before beeing rescued by Mirana in a cold night. He managed to survive and became her pet by the name of Snowl. Even with his tiny wings and against all the expectation, this brave guy after some years of hard training learned how to fly. He just enjoys life, something that only those who almost lost it could undestand Mirana trained him on the arts of stealth and gave him a little quiver. This loyal pet travels unoticed between the trees following her even on the most fierces battles and is the secret behind her infinity number of arrows.
That is looking awesome, the first courier I'm willing to buy!
Your work is really getting better, especially the textures. your animations allready where spot on
Whoa, look at all these awesome new sets and couriers!
anuxi- her portrait view is just stunning :O
bezoro- love playing lich, nice to see some stuff being made for him! great work so far, keep it up!!
tvidotto- great work, your animations are always a treat
That is looking awesome, the first courier I'm willing to buy!
Your work is really getting better, especially the textures. your animations allready where spot on
thanks andy, that is so nice to hear!
part of the textures i need to thank anuxi, i showed her the texture and how it was in game and she gave some great tips that i think can help on some other models
-increase the value gradient
-decrease the saturation of the bottom parts
-increase the saturation on the face
I really like the animation on that little fellow.
--
I added the torso part for my outworld set yesterday. The rest of the pieces is coming up today after work I think. Still some tweaks left before I let this one go because more I look at it more things I want to fix and thats just making me mad. So better to wrap it up and start on another project.
Thought I'd post my progress as I haven't in awhile.
Almost finished just need some texture tweaks here and there and some rigging fixes. (some of the normals on the in-game shots are a bit broke too... of well getting there slowly.)
Took me a long time to actually get him in game... as the current system isn't very compatible, lots of editing of the QC etc... fun times. Anyway opinions appreciated.
The dota2 item I am learning and working on, first ever. Supposed to be a tidehunter weapon one day, but giving me a hard time texturing it properly. Atm playing around with highpoly normals to lowpoly uv-map and texturing with highpoly ao on lowpoly uv just to add color afterwards. kinda got a feeling that the shader masks are rather important to get right.
started a couple of weeks ago with the whole modeling/Sculpting thing so i am open to advice and suggestions.
this threads kicking so much ass this last week, Anuxi, Tvidotto,Junglehermit,AppleEater, HappyPuppy, Bronto and anyone i missed nice work guys.
Im still chipping away at Mr Lich, Fixed his bracers to work with his animations and baked out the lod1 Neckpeice.
Im going to run a few more tests with this rigged before i finalize the lowpoly neck, think ill remake the UV's as well to squeeze out some more pixels for his profile.
Let me show you the example of riki's tail
Copy ur riki's tail and them select first one, go to edit mode, select all vertexes and delete them, then add ur mesh(cube in my situation) and model.
I got a couple of cuts made with ctrl+r on my cube
And after that go to Object Data menu and watch vertex groups. You need to select some vertexes and assign them to vertex group(you can check it with select/deselect buttons). If you need you can always watch the original groups with the model you copied.
Let me show you the example of riki's tail
Copy ur riki's tail and them select first one, go to edit mode, select all vertexes and delete them, then add ur mesh(cube in my situation) and model.
I got a couple of cuts made with ctrl+r on my cube
And after that go to Object Data menu and watch vertex groups. You need to select some vertexes and assign them to vertex group(you can check it with select/deselect buttons). If you need you can always watch the original groups with the model you copied.
Thank you, helped me
I was comming to a solution myself :P
This has been a really good week, lots of incredible stuff from everybody. Looking forward to the eventual release of that druid trueform, and the lich set looks awesome .
I started working on a Sven Sword (yes there are plenty already but I thought it would be an easier way to start). It is my first project on 3d modelling and I already face a couple of questions. I am using blender for the model and photoshop for the textures.
Since I have to bind my weapon to a specific bone I am confused about the proportions of the sword.
1. Is it legit to have a 1.5 times bigger sword than usual?
2.1 Can I add little details like scratches with blender? I know that it is possible with zbrush.
2.2 On top of that does it increase the face/triangle amount when adding details?
My first try had many times more triangles than allowed.
3.1 How can I reduce the triangles/face amount without losing too much detail? I tried using the decimate modifier but it did not work as well as thought.
4. If I want my sword to have particle effects how can I add them? possible with blender? And does valve correspond with self-made particle effects or items with "intended" particle effects? I am pretty sure void's battlefury got some particles with it.
Edit:
5. After importing already existing items into blender is there any way to edit them? It would be a lot easier to simply modify these instead of creating new ones obviously.
I still got more questions but I think I can handle them with more research.
I started working on a Sven Sword (yes there are plenty already but I thought it would be an easier way to start). It is my first project on 3d modelling and I already face a couple of questions. I am using blender for the model and photoshop for the textures.
Since I have to bind my weapon to a specific bone I am confused about the proportions of the sword.
1. Is it legit to have a 1.5 times bigger sword than usual?
2.1 Can I add little details like scratches with blender? I know that it is possible with zbrush.
2.2 On top of that does it increase the face/triangle amount when adding details?
My first try had many times more triangles than allowed.
3.1 How can I reduce the triangles/face amount without losing too much detail? I tried using the decimate modifier but it did not work as well as thought.
4. If I want my sword to have particle effects how can I add them? possible with blender? And does valve correspond with self-made particle effects or items with "intended" particle effects? I am pretty sure void's battlefury got some particles with it.
Edit:
5. After importing already existing items into blender is there any way to edit them? It would be a lot easier to simply modify these instead of creating new ones obviously.
I still got more questions but I think I can handle them with more research.
Thanks in advance for every answer!
Being pretty new to the whole modeling/sculpting dota2 item creating process myself, I see alot of common questions. Maybe I can answer some since I, just recently, had to find answers myself. Note though, I am not saying what I am stating is 100% true, clarification from someone more into this stuff is welcome.
To 1: Having a larger sword aint a problem, its bound to a hero specific bone and thus reacting with respect to this bone. You have to try I out is what I would say. Larger proportions have to fit the design of the hero and its integrity, so maybe scaling down is a viable option but maybe leaving it as is looks even better.
To 2: Adding little scratches in Blender is kinda possible since this is mainly done through sculpting and then baking this info into AO and Normalmap. Depending on workflow and software this differs from artist to artist as far as I got my mind around this. I got some scratches in my item project, I sculpted them in with zBrush and baked them in the AO-Map, and into the Normalmap, work them out with color in the texture files and all together is then hopefully apearing ingame. Some scratches are even modeled in a lowpoly kinda hint into the model. So the normal map and the textures are supported by the basic model shape. Sculpting with Blender is possible and working though,check out on tutorials specifically for that.
To 2.2: Since the scratch optical info is not necessarily in the model itself it doesnt add towards polycount, unless you model the basic scratch into the model then ofc it might add towards more tris and vertices.
To 3: Reducing polys is kinda like an art form from what I picked up the last couple of weeks. Check out the Lowpoly thread here on the forum to see others approaching lowpoly. Its quite helpfull to see how certain shapes can be modeled and then be supported by proper texture and normalmap work. Somethings just dont need polys, they simply need clever texture. Keep in mind that dota2 is not really supportiv of detailed models ingame. You have a more or less top to down view on your item/items, so dont make your item to detailed, it doesnt need to be. Cut basic geometry, only the portrait/loadout could use some more details, but alot of times you got a different poly budget on those items. But still try to think simple shapes towards your item.
To 4: From what I know, Dota2 compiles the items for every new game on the fly, so to speak, so I am not completely sure on how possible it is to add your own particle effects. From what I read and remember stuff like that needs to be in the heros already pool of effects and alike. Kinda like a pool of material a certain hero draws from. Kinda like detail map, some heros have one some heros dont use it at all.
To 5: I can without problem edit imported files in Blender. But this might be a specific technical problem, so I am not sure why you cant edit your models in Blender once imported, maybe you check out the technical forum with specification concerning your problem. I can without problem import objs from zbrush or even edit smd's from valves original dota files. So not sure what might cause your problem.
As I said, just trying to help, no claim for flawlessness of my advice.
If you're into getting to know more blender, I can definitely recommend Helljumpers TF2 Hat creation Blender Basic guide. It goes through the whole process from using which button for what view and really basic stuff like that aswell as other stuff and then his follow up tutorial on dota2 item creation. Kinda gets you going with blender really easy. Both to find on youtube.
Does anyone know how Valve is handling the event chest items these days? It seems like none of the stuff from the Frostivus or Dark Implements chest are on the store yet. Is this how it is now or are they just being slow or what?
Does anyone know how Valve is handling the event chest items these days? It seems like none of the stuff from the Frostivus or Dark Implements chest are on the store yet. Is this how it is now or are they just being slow or what?
how long did it take for diretide? Was a few months wasn't it?
Actually it looks like it reaches back to diretide, none of the stuff from that chest is in the store yet either...
I hope people realized that and blasted a ton of keys at these chests.
They usually do, I used that dota 2 item stats page and tracked my own item, as well as previous items that were only in chests. Any item in a chest that isn't mythical or higher usually averages 16k-22k drops during a given month. But those numbers are only based off of 300,000 accounts. I have no reason to believe those numbers are higher and actually are something more like 35k-50k drops.
Get ready for tonnes of money! I just hope its what everyone says it is and the amount you get paid is 25% of the value of the key. :thumbup:
Also look back to the items in the international chest, I believe those items were added to the store. But not until very recently, maybe around December '12.
I also have no reason to believe, and not tooting my own horn here, but looking at how sought after the unusual chicken courier based on trading websites, plus the Pudge items in the chest, that this month will have far higher drops then the previous months. Anyone who has an item in the lotus chest is about to make serious bank!
I was honestly surprised at the popularity of the Lotus chest from what I've seen. I thought it was going to be one of the lesser popular chests, considering none of the items stood out as much as say, Frump's Catalyst Cap or the Pudge 'stache and comb-over.
They usually do, I used that dota 2 item stats page and tracked my own item, as well as previous items that were only in chests. Any item in a chest that isn't mythical or higher usually averages 16k-22k drops during a given month. But those numbers are only based off of 300,000 accounts. I have no reason to believe those numbers are higher and actually are something more like 35k-50k drops.
Get ready for tonnes of money! I just hope its what everyone says it is and the amount you get paid is 25% of the value of the key. :thumbup:
Also look back to the items in the international chest, I believe those items were added to the store. But not until very recently, maybe around December '12.
I also have no reason to believe, and not tooting my own horn here, but looking at how sought after the unusual chicken courier based on trading websites, plus the Pudge items in the chest, that this month will have far higher drops then the previous months. Anyone who has an item in the lotus chest is about to make serious bank!
Cool, good stuff to know.
I just tracked the Catalyst Cap from last month's chest and it's got about 17.5k/300k and there was a lot of other stuff in the chest, so that's a bunch of keys used.
I'm brand new here on Polycount and Dota 2 (Though I've played LoL for almost 3 years)! Some really great work on here, and wish you all the best with it getting accepted and making some serious money! Haha, I've scoured (seemingly) the entire internet over the last 2 days for a guide about using Maya as the prefered 3D application. (I have a few years experience with Maya.)
With my main question being: Why are there an MA, FBX, and SMD files? Which is best for Maya, as when I open the MA file, I always get errors. The FBX files opened properly with no faults; will that work?
Another question, as I desire to do an antimage item/set: Antimage's chest has the cgfxshader for a material which is foreign to me. Do I have to keep it? If so how do I (where do I) hook up the textures to it?
lennyagony - awesome set so far!
anuxi - great work on your windrunner set
tvidotto - courier came out cute as always!
Ieatapples - nice progress!
crazyone - came out awesome
Many other cool works too guys!
I've been working on a pudge set for the last few weeks. I wasn't sure how the community would react to it, so i went ahead and finished it up before posting any wips just to keep steam on the project.
Hope you guys like it! ps i know he prefers red meat
I'm really digging the idea behind the pudge set, but when it comes to how it actually looks in-game it's a little odd to me.
The tentacle arm is an awesome idea, but just doesn't seem very clear near the shoulders what exactly it is.
I love the head piece, and the shoulder piece and back work well too.
The weapons though, just seem very... bland. They feel like they don't really mix well with the creativity of the rest of the set.
Woah that Pudge set is so self brutalizing it's making me shudder
Fantastic work
anyway asked for Crits, didn't get any
here's the texture progress so far
Thought I'd post my progress as I haven't in awhile.
Almost finished just need some texture tweaks here and there and some rigging fixes. (some of the normals on the in-game shots are a bit broke too... of well getting there slowly.)
Took me a long time to actually get him in game... as the current system isn't very compatible, lots of editing of the QC etc... fun times. Anyway opinions appreciated.
awesome!
if i may suggest you could tone down the saturation a little
this threads kicking so much ass this last week, Anuxi, Tvidotto,Junglehermit,AppleEater, HappyPuppy, Bronto and anyone i missed nice work guys.
Im still chipping away at Mr Lich, Fixed his bracers to work with his animations and baked out the lod1 Neckpeice.
Im going to run a few more tests with this rigged before i finalize the lowpoly neck, think ill remake the UV's as well to squeeze out some more pixels for his profile.
lennyagony - awesome set so far!
anuxi - great work on your windrunner set
tvidotto - courier came out cute as always!
Ieatapples - nice progress!
crazyone - came out awesome
Many other cool works too guys!
I've been working on a pudge set for the last few weeks. I wasn't sure how the community would react to it, so i went ahead and finished it up before posting any wips just to keep steam on the project.
Hope you guys like it! ps i know he prefers red meat
amazing hunter, i really like how you forced the model, great work
I was honestly surprised at the popularity of the Lotus chest from what I've seen. I thought it was going to be one of the lesser popular chests, considering none of the items stood out as much as say, Frump's Catalyst Cap or the Pudge 'stache and comb-over.
Chaemirix, i dont know what is happening to that site, but its not working properlly for some time, the new items are not getting an icon and some of them never enter the statistics, maybe that change on valve´s way to get info that dota buff used is causing those problems...
Woah that Pudge set is so self brutalizing it's making me shudder
Fantastic work
anyway asked for Crits, didn't get any
here's the texture progress so far
As much as I love what you did with the hood, and the new addition would look awesome in motion. I miss the lack of windrunners red hair, if there is only a way to work that into the hood some how.
Replies
Man this stuff is really straining...
I never really tried making a full set, all I did was a single item, and it was pretty simple.
After seeing what you guys have been doing, my god your brains must be catching on fire.
Left that mesh on the original one by accident, but hey I'm so tired right now I only noticed when I was writing this post.
I need some time away from my computer, holy crap.
EDIT: Beautiful set by the way Anuxi.
Actually, you must learn to recieve criticism as positive feedback and turn to your advantage. Some of them may indeed be bulls**t, but there are always some things you can improve with your design and you must thank people if they are taking their time to point out the flaws (if they are polite, of course). Don't give up, just try to look at your own work like an outsider, with a different point of view. I'm sure you'll get better in time.
Its give and take, I've had a lot of success posting my work on reddit. Other times it's been a massive failure. The reddit community is very opinionated, if you make something they like, or is absolutely amazing quality wise, or your Anuxi or T_Vidotto, you'll hit of home run.
I personally use reddit as a massive critique, the post made on my reddit threads is very helpful, things that don't work, things that do. The way I read it is, if the reddit community isn't going for it, neither will the steam/dota community. Take it with a grain of salt.
I would recommend posting on reddit, at the end of the day if it does backfire, you'll know where to push your work.
People can be hypocritical when it comes to personal interests. Looking back, I'm glad my contest entry didn't get attention, because it was pushing too far from the character's style. Personally, I think you might want to evaluate which parts people like, and why they don't like what they don't. I'm going quote a redditor from the Weaver thread, which mirrors my philosophy on making these items:
"It's similar enough to the original skin that individual pieces of the set would still look good without need the rest of the items, it has a cool concept behind it..."
If you evaluate the items on a per-item basis, some parts of your set don't synergize well with the base design.
Also, this is the DOTA community, which is notorious for having vocal nay-sayers and trolls. A thick skin is almost required.
If I've learned anything from this so far it's this: absolutely nail your concept before you make a single polygon. I ended up wasting a lot of time remaking and changing things that didn't work out in practice as well as they did in my head/my very quick concept sketch, and in the end a lot of people didn't like the core concept to begin with so all those changes and adjustments were moot.
Thanks for the responses guys. I still have some hope of it being accepted, but if it is it'll be moreso because valve likes the unique direction, not so much the community votes, kinda like the polycount naga siren set.
I will say, though, that any criticism we have of the community's opinions or responses to our items, remember that they're the ones who will be buying it and you can expect people to spend decent amounts of money on something unless they really really like it.
that weaver set looks slick
This! So far I have come away with, stop making poofy curly hair. hahah
If you can take it, read he comments and slot the feedback int he back of your mind. But if you want to stay enthused, don't read too much of them
my item submit is already dead ( no ratings for last 12 hours). so i might need this ...
I'm thinking a very obvious greentooth courier would be cool, but it should be a free one because of not wanting to exclude anyone and of course because of the © agreement attached to the greentooth logo.
and my reddit post isnt showing in the "new" tab so im helpless.
meanwhile, let me pop up some new items ...
best no humanoid set ! very amazing, junghermit
this is looking very mediocre now
another shot with the base colours
please give me any critique you guys can
here's my concept in question
----
hey guys, just crosposting from the monthly competition
i think i finished this little one
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=129595986
-Lore
Rejected at his birth and left to die by starvation. That is the only think we know about the history of this little creature before beeing rescued by Mirana in a cold night. He managed to survive and became her pet by the name of Snowl. Even with his tiny wings and against all the expectation, this brave guy after some years of hard training learned how to fly. He just enjoys life, something that only those who almost lost it could undestand Mirana trained him on the arts of stealth and gave him a little quiver. This loyal pet travels unoticed between the trees following her even on the most fierces battles and is the secret behind her infinity number of arrows.
That is looking awesome, the first courier I'm willing to buy!
Your work is really getting better, especially the textures. your animations allready where spot on
anuxi- her portrait view is just stunning :O
bezoro- love playing lich, nice to see some stuff being made for him! great work so far, keep it up!!
tvidotto- great work, your animations are always a treat
thanks andy, that is so nice to hear!
part of the textures i need to thank anuxi, i showed her the texture and how it was in game and she gave some great tips that i think can help on some other models
-increase the value gradient
-decrease the saturation of the bottom parts
-increase the saturation on the face
Yay! ty sadies =]
Awesome job dude,
I think I finished Lion's hand
But I'm in trouble with color schemes ...
I really like the animation on that little fellow.
--
I added the torso part for my outworld set yesterday. The rest of the pieces is coming up today after work I think. Still some tweaks left before I let this one go because more I look at it more things I want to fix and thats just making me mad. So better to wrap it up and start on another project.
Almost finished just need some texture tweaks here and there and some rigging fixes. (some of the normals on the in-game shots are a bit broke too... of well getting there slowly.)
Took me a long time to actually get him in game... as the current system isn't very compatible, lots of editing of the QC etc... fun times. Anyway opinions appreciated.
Had a blast making this, Batrider is such an ugly son-of-a-bitch.
The dota2 item I am learning and working on, first ever. Supposed to be a tidehunter weapon one day, but giving me a hard time texturing it properly. Atm playing around with highpoly normals to lowpoly uv-map and texturing with highpoly ao on lowpoly uv just to add color afterwards. kinda got a feeling that the shader masks are rather important to get right.
started a couple of weeks ago with the whole modeling/Sculpting thing so i am open to advice and suggestions.
Im still chipping away at Mr Lich, Fixed his bracers to work with his animations and baked out the lod1 Neckpeice.
Im going to run a few more tests with this rigged before i finalize the lowpoly neck, think ill remake the UV's as well to squeeze out some more pixels for his profile.
Let me show you the example of riki's tail
Copy ur riki's tail and them select first one, go to edit mode, select all vertexes and delete them, then add ur mesh(cube in my situation) and model.
I got a couple of cuts made with ctrl+r on my cube
And after that go to Object Data menu and watch vertex groups. You need to select some vertexes and assign them to vertex group(you can check it with select/deselect buttons). If you need you can always watch the original groups with the model you copied.
I was comming to a solution myself :P
This is kinda sloppy. Bandana is supposed to push the hair down.
Since I have to bind my weapon to a specific bone I am confused about the proportions of the sword.
1. Is it legit to have a 1.5 times bigger sword than usual?
2.1 Can I add little details like scratches with blender? I know that it is possible with zbrush.
2.2 On top of that does it increase the face/triangle amount when adding details?
My first try had many times more triangles than allowed.
3.1 How can I reduce the triangles/face amount without losing too much detail? I tried using the decimate modifier but it did not work as well as thought.
4. If I want my sword to have particle effects how can I add them? possible with blender? And does valve correspond with self-made particle effects or items with "intended" particle effects? I am pretty sure void's battlefury got some particles with it.
Edit:
5. After importing already existing items into blender is there any way to edit them? It would be a lot easier to simply modify these instead of creating new ones obviously.
I still got more questions but I think I can handle them with more research.
Thanks in advance for every answer!
The hair on top is meant to be overflowing and the sideburns are very much underneath -- check the portrait screenshot.
Being pretty new to the whole modeling/sculpting dota2 item creating process myself, I see alot of common questions. Maybe I can answer some since I, just recently, had to find answers myself. Note though, I am not saying what I am stating is 100% true, clarification from someone more into this stuff is welcome.
To 1: Having a larger sword aint a problem, its bound to a hero specific bone and thus reacting with respect to this bone. You have to try I out is what I would say. Larger proportions have to fit the design of the hero and its integrity, so maybe scaling down is a viable option but maybe leaving it as is looks even better.
To 2: Adding little scratches in Blender is kinda possible since this is mainly done through sculpting and then baking this info into AO and Normalmap. Depending on workflow and software this differs from artist to artist as far as I got my mind around this. I got some scratches in my item project, I sculpted them in with zBrush and baked them in the AO-Map, and into the Normalmap, work them out with color in the texture files and all together is then hopefully apearing ingame. Some scratches are even modeled in a lowpoly kinda hint into the model. So the normal map and the textures are supported by the basic model shape. Sculpting with Blender is possible and working though,check out on tutorials specifically for that.
To 2.2: Since the scratch optical info is not necessarily in the model itself it doesnt add towards polycount, unless you model the basic scratch into the model then ofc it might add towards more tris and vertices.
To 3: Reducing polys is kinda like an art form from what I picked up the last couple of weeks. Check out the Lowpoly thread here on the forum to see others approaching lowpoly. Its quite helpfull to see how certain shapes can be modeled and then be supported by proper texture and normalmap work. Somethings just dont need polys, they simply need clever texture. Keep in mind that dota2 is not really supportiv of detailed models ingame. You have a more or less top to down view on your item/items, so dont make your item to detailed, it doesnt need to be. Cut basic geometry, only the portrait/loadout could use some more details, but alot of times you got a different poly budget on those items. But still try to think simple shapes towards your item.
To 4: From what I know, Dota2 compiles the items for every new game on the fly, so to speak, so I am not completely sure on how possible it is to add your own particle effects. From what I read and remember stuff like that needs to be in the heros already pool of effects and alike. Kinda like a pool of material a certain hero draws from. Kinda like detail map, some heros have one some heros dont use it at all.
To 5: I can without problem edit imported files in Blender. But this might be a specific technical problem, so I am not sure why you cant edit your models in Blender once imported, maybe you check out the technical forum with specification concerning your problem. I can without problem import objs from zbrush or even edit smd's from valves original dota files. So not sure what might cause your problem.
As I said, just trying to help, no claim for flawlessness of my advice.
If you're into getting to know more blender, I can definitely recommend Helljumpers TF2 Hat creation Blender Basic guide. It goes through the whole process from using which button for what view and really basic stuff like that aswell as other stuff and then his follow up tutorial on dota2 item creation. Kinda gets you going with blender really easy. Both to find on youtube.
it's ALLIIVEE !! link on the image
how long did it take for diretide? Was a few months wasn't it?
Actually it looks like it reaches back to diretide, none of the stuff from that chest is in the store yet either...
I hope people realized that and blasted a ton of keys at these chests.
They usually do, I used that dota 2 item stats page and tracked my own item, as well as previous items that were only in chests. Any item in a chest that isn't mythical or higher usually averages 16k-22k drops during a given month. But those numbers are only based off of 300,000 accounts. I have no reason to believe those numbers are higher and actually are something more like 35k-50k drops.
Get ready for tonnes of money! I just hope its what everyone says it is and the amount you get paid is 25% of the value of the key. :thumbup:
Also look back to the items in the international chest, I believe those items were added to the store. But not until very recently, maybe around December '12.
I also have no reason to believe, and not tooting my own horn here, but looking at how sought after the unusual chicken courier based on trading websites, plus the Pudge items in the chest, that this month will have far higher drops then the previous months. Anyone who has an item in the lotus chest is about to make serious bank!
It's a shame Lotus items aren't on http://dota2.stats.tf yet.
A weapon will be next - my tweet's prophecy shall be fulfilled!
crazyone - fucking hell, dude! That's amazing!
Cool, good stuff to know.
I just tracked the Catalyst Cap from last month's chest and it's got about 17.5k/300k and there was a lot of other stuff in the chest, so that's a bunch of keys used.
I'm brand new here on Polycount and Dota 2 (Though I've played LoL for almost 3 years)! Some really great work on here, and wish you all the best with it getting accepted and making some serious money! Haha, I've scoured (seemingly) the entire internet over the last 2 days for a guide about using Maya as the prefered 3D application. (I have a few years experience with Maya.)
With my main question being: Why are there an MA, FBX, and SMD files? Which is best for Maya, as when I open the MA file, I always get errors. The FBX files opened properly with no faults; will that work?
Another question, as I desire to do an antimage item/set: Antimage's chest has the cgfxshader for a material which is foreign to me. Do I have to keep it? If so how do I (where do I) hook up the textures to it?
Thanks for your help!
lennyagony - awesome set so far!
anuxi - great work on your windrunner set
tvidotto - courier came out cute as always!
Ieatapples - nice progress!
crazyone - came out awesome
Many other cool works too guys!
I've been working on a pudge set for the last few weeks. I wasn't sure how the community would react to it, so i went ahead and finished it up before posting any wips just to keep steam on the project.
Hope you guys like it! ps i know he prefers red meat
http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=129756491
The tentacle arm is an awesome idea, but just doesn't seem very clear near the shoulders what exactly it is.
I love the head piece, and the shoulder piece and back work well too.
The weapons though, just seem very... bland. They feel like they don't really mix well with the creativity of the rest of the set.
Fantastic work
anyway asked for Crits, didn't get any
here's the texture progress so far
i need to a little of your mojo to get it in game first hehehe
for those initial tests i like to use photoshop with a layer on "color" mode, its really fast
ty and that OD set is sick! great work
awesome!
if i may suggest you could tone down the saturation a little
lich is going really nice lenny, congrats
amazing hunter, i really like how you forced the model, great work
Chaemirix, i dont know what is happening to that site, but its not working properlly for some time, the new items are not getting an icon and some of them never enter the statistics, maybe that change on valve´s way to get info that dota buff used is causing those problems...
As much as I love what you did with the hood, and the new addition would look awesome in motion. I miss the lack of windrunners red hair, if there is only a way to work that into the hood some how.
how can i apply texture on model in blender so i can see it without rendering?