Male Norn - ArenaNet Character Test
hero character
A new challenger appears! entering myself into the fray for the character art test, block out progress so far:
I'm not too worried about the face yet since the focus is mainly on armor, I'm trying to follow the male norn proportions that are used for the game.
Some of my thoughts on the fur: I looked at some other armors modeled out for GW2 and they manage to do it as a solid piece without alpha planes, considering the tri budget this seems like a good way to do it.
All comments and critiques appreciated!
I'm not too worried about the face yet since the focus is mainly on armor, I'm trying to follow the male norn proportions that are used for the game.
Some of my thoughts on the fur: I looked at some other armors modeled out for GW2 and they manage to do it as a solid piece without alpha planes, considering the tri budget this seems like a good way to do it.
All comments and critiques appreciated!
Replies
Thanks for the crits, it wasn't until I compared my old model to the Anet Norn did I realize just how long the forearms where, and that I also had a lot of places I needed to bulk up.
I've got most of the armor pieces in, just a few small things missing. In the concept there are circular pieces and fur pieces that get repeated around his waist about 4 to 6 times, my plan is to sculpt/retopo those separately and assemble them later on the low poly.
Refining more elements, crits always welcome.
Only thing I don't like is the head on the chest armour, I think it protrudes out too much. Go for something more like pressed metal like this. It'll save you on your poly/triangle count. And you can just use a good normal map.
http://www.osfcostumerentals.org/stock/Uniforms,%20Military%20&%20Armor/Armor/Greek%20Roman%20Armor/slides/Armor%20Roman%20chest%20plate%20no%20straps.JPG
Otherwise, everything else is great! Keep going...
Just need some of the final details like the celtic knots and some buckles and the armor should be done.
Thanks for pointing out the wolf head danpaz3d! You where right it was too much, in the concept it's not quite as flat as the armor example you posted, but even so shrinking it will help later on.
I'm thinking about doing something different for the face just for the hell of it since the test is for armor, but we'll see.
Done with the high sculpt and it's assembled all together for the sake of presentation. I'll still take crits if someone sees something that I don't.
It's probably a bit too late now, but something about the distance from the chin to the shoulders is bothering me, it makes his neck look a lot more long that it should be.
Also, maybe pull the side hair out: right now it's narrowing and giving a weird triangle shape.
Artstream, I will double check the length of the neck, you could be correct and if so it's an easy fix. I'll get on the hair, thanks for the crits!
All normal mapped and at 6,274 tris, thanks to everyone who commented and gave crits, they helped.
Low poly looks good too! Did you do it from scratch or retopology or somthing else? Normals turned out ok, a couple of artifacts like the bottom back of the boots, but nothing too noticable. Well done, its a great result!
Textures so far, diffuse spec and normals, no alphas yet, using the XoliulShader2. I also fixed some geometry, it's now at 6,326 tris.
I'm going to be wrapping up this model working on a quick rig to set up the final pose. Meanwhile I'm looking for some final crits on the texture, nitpicking is good!
Final images, thanks to everyone who helped out.
I've got a question, though. You mentioned using Xoliul Shader earlier in the post. Are all your shots from in Max using that shader? If so, is that a common form to display game models?
Yeah I'm still using Xoliul Shader for the final renders, using real time renders from the viewport using Xoliul or Marmorset toolbag or a game engine itself is a pretty common way to display your work these days. It also usually looks better and is a little bit faster then using a modeling software's rendering feature, just take some screen captures and that's it!
If you have max you can use the grabviewport script to larger viewport captures.
Unfortunately, I don't know max. I'm a Maya guy, through and through. But I've been very impressed with some of the tools and scripts Max has.