Tits : this version is 28Mil total points. I always avoid to subdivide if I can stay in Dynamesh, so only some subtools are subdivided and really heavy ( the mask/hat for example is a single piece with 7Mil points. )
Well, I talked with rOmy last day and he convinced me to rework the sculpt a bit to improve some things and get better details from the cavity, to avoid having to paint everything manually.
I don't really change the shapes so I won't need to redo the lowpoly ( I do hope ), but I think I will redo the UV's, the staff ( I have another idea, less boring ), and delete the spellbook ( I could use this tris in the staff or do something else, I'll see ).
New screens soon.
For the colors, I think that I will go for reddish/pink/purple, maybe mixed with silver or gold. I'll try to do something subtle and less saturated ^^.
I think that the most important thing for ZBrush is the amount of RAM, I bought 8gigs of Corsair XMS3 ( 1600 mhz I think, CAS 7 ), it works really well. 4gigs are not enough for heavy work.
Haha I though that too, but actually Zbrush is still a 32 bits application, so it takes only 4 gig or RAM maximum at the moment (Yup I updated my ram 1 month ago and then I learned that after) Apparently it has everything to do with the graphic card (as surprising as it is, that's what the IT at work told me!)
Since I installed 8gigs I can work with heavier subtools and decimation master can decimate subtolls with more than 13Mil points. With 4GB it crashed when I try to decimate a subtool with more than 8Mil ^^. Maybe it's limited to 4GB but it can't hurt to have more. I often use Zbrush, Max and Photoshop or Xnormals in the same time.
But there is also some tweaking to do in the zbrush preference, maybe it could help you ( maxpolypermesh and that kind of thing ). I think there is a thread for this somewhere on Polycount.
PS : oh, and here is a little pic with some changes :
- removed the "organic" parts on the mask/hat
- added transition sbetween metal and horns
- metallic parts are sharper
- added scratches
- reworked the skull on the chest
- reworked the corrupted skin and extended corruption to the neck, ear and face ( asymetricaly ).
- removed the borders on the pauldrons clothing to make it loose.
- replaced the strange "leather" texture of the clothes by wires ( on the gloves and dress too ).
- reworked the skull back of the head ( separating metal and horns ).
I need to rework all the "claws" everywhere, and the knee pads. I think I will broke one the big horn on the helmet too.
Oh really :S that's weird since I upgraded to 8 I didn't see any difference for decimation or anything like that, still crash often enough. Will sure try to look around polycount. Anyway sorry for bringing the conversation away from your character,
amazing work!
I was just impressed by the amount of details and was really curious about the amount of polygones since I often get to put less details not to make my zbrush crash haha!
Anyway, awesome work!!
If you've got lots of other programs eating up your memory in a 64bit OS, adding more RAM will help even the 32bit ones. It's like how having additional cores/threads to handle background tasks and programs improves the performance of single-threaded stuff.
I love the skin colors in 1, and the red and amber tones in 3. You're losing a lot of detail in your normal bakes at this res, so I think you should keep the more intricate areas lighter, to accentuate the detail with high contrast AO.
For the staff, you can extend the corruption theme, and have the shape twist and conform around where she'd grip it.
I finished to reworked the highpoly, and as I removed the book and optimized the mesh a bit more, I can put 2000 tris on the staff.
First I thought to put a lantern on her side to replace the book, but then I thought to do the staff with the lantern. So, here are some quick concept. I will do some other ones :
I like the second one, but it doesn't fit with the character, the wood is too natural and my girl looks really sophisticated, I don't really see her with a simple tree branch. So I tried to keep the things I already have on the character : horns and metal.
I'll try to do a better skull version, this one sucks ^^.
Yeah I know everybody like tortured wooden staves ^^. But it really doesn't fit with the character.
I did some changes on my concept and here is the sculpt, took me the whole day.
I think I'm done with it, I have to move on if I want to finish everything in time...
EDIT : Oh, and here is the new sculpt for the character with new skin, new "hat", new pauldrons, dress, gloves, kneepads and boots... I had to separate everything in various files because it was too heavy and too long to save ^^.
Finally... I did the skull ont the staff again ( don't like the previous one and it was too heavy ). And the uv's... and the baking...
BUT I think that this time it's good. Well at least in Marmoset everything looks always good, I love this program, don't regret the 50 bucks ( and it just updated in 1.06 for free ).
Still in progress but here is a textured version. Not everybody will like it and time is running out ( I have school work to do for August 21 too... ), but I want to finish it.
I need to do a spec map and rework some colors and the skin.
looks sweet as hell, you could probably work on your values a bit though, turn it black n white and see if theres stuff with similar value and break up those shapes.
Gem : well in fact I did'nt textured the hair, it's all done by the AO/Cavity/Bent and the normal map.
lotet : in fact that's what I did at the beginning, I did a grayscale map before ading the colors to have good values, but then, some colors didn't look good if they are too dark or bright so I had to change. Finding the good values is really a hard work.
Here I added the spec and some lights, the skin is brighter and the clothes darker. I'll do the posing and maybe some ground if I got the time...
Since you have some strong highlights and AO in your diffuse, the spec is looking very uniform, and not conveying the full detail of your baked normals. Can you submit a turnaround vid for the comp (or at least for us to enjoy)?
I don't know how to do a good spec map, it always looks bad. I try to boost it in Marmoset, but even the black parts of the map become shiny, I don't understand...
I don't have the time to do a turnaround now but here is the map... pretty dark, but even with a dark gray everything looks wet and I don't like that; Any tip could be really usefull ^^ :
In Marmoset, you can use the alpha channel of your specular map to control glossiness. So, you can control what materials have sharp specular lights and what not.
About how to generate a proper specular, I don't know if you already read this, but it's an amazing article about the issue.
Wow thanks man, it will be really usefull. I think we had a course on this kind of stuff but it was really scientific with lots of formulas and stuff, we never really learned how to do this... what a school... ^^
I'm certainly no expert, so it'd difficult for me to offer advice.
Most noticeably on your jewels, you've got directional highlights, which defeats the purpose of having specular maps in a realtime-lit engine. You may want to apply a bit of your AO for the recessed parts that shouldn't receive as much light, and only put highlights on parts you want to suggest are more polished to "catch" more light, like on corners and edges. Especially on metal, your spec map should look flat, except on those raised edges and corners that would receive a little more polish.
I spent some time ( 4-5 hours I think ) with the rigging and skinning in Max with CAT. I never used this before, we only work with Maya for anim at school, but I really wanted to see that in max. It's pretty simple in fact but still boring ^^. An simply creating the bones for the dress and pauldrons ( I separated them from the body, was easier to work ) was a real pain...
So, if somebody skilled in max rigging come here, maybe he could help me... because here is what I have :
It's a bit difficult to do a pose with all these boxes, even if I make them transparent with alt+x...
Also, if someone has a good pose idea ^^. Lemme know.
I will, I will ^^. I spent the last days doing a work for school, rigging and animating a robot, and as the deadline was expanded I thought I had the time to do some touch-ups on the diffuse ( adding some dirt and variations on the leather ), re-do the spec and add a quick pedestal.
EDIT : OK I read the tutorial on the spec but it looks that Marmoset doesn't calculate it well. In the tuto they said that dielectric materials don't affect the spec color, so to neutralize it we need to inverse the diffuse color.
That's what I did on the "glass" ( as the ball on the head ) and the leather for example. But The spec color is not the color of the lamp, like it should be, but the color of the spec, so the inverse color of the diffuse.
Here are some pics. I boosted the spec to show what I mean :
- I inversed the purple leather to have a green spec, looks green ( but the spec color should be neutralized and take the lamp color ) :
- the eyes are green, the inverse color is purple/pink, the spec color is pink too ( spec is not boosted on this one to show you it's not the boost which sucks ):
- here I did a test, I desaturated the spec of the ball, and it looks good :
So, did I something wrong or Marmoset's specular just doens't work as the tutorial says ?
EDIT : I also have some weird issue with the shading, when I activate the spec, we can see some quads :
Man, I made a quick test in MT and everything looks fine. I guess you have to check those things I maked in red on the picture. Lowering specular intensity and sharpness and maybe rising fresnel valeu can reduce the way reflections will be applied on the surface. Pay special attention too to the lighting sources. Changing ambient light and the power of point lights will give you better or worse results.
Thanks for the "display as box" Lotet, it really helps ^^.
Amauri, something must be wrong. Well, I don't see the spec color with a small intensity value, but if I raise up a bit, the clothes become green, no matter what I do if the spec is green.
I use the blue sky ambiance with a pointlight in spotlight mode for the "sun".
About the pose.....have you tried using the Transpose Master plugin for Zbrush? It simply lets you pose multiple subtools simultaneously, using the lo-res mesh, the re-divides to the hi-res when finished posing.[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKYY47o-pzk"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKYY47o-pzk[/ame]
I just discovered it, and has helped immensely. It's a little ram intensive, but is a lot easier than than rigging.
Yes I tried that, but I don't like it. I mean, it's impossible to move the hips in a sexy pose, with the legs following the move, the feet standing on the ground with an IK and all the stuff. A rigging in Max is automated with CAT, the skinning take some time but it's not really hard, I prefer that way ^^. And Human IK do it well in Maya.
Yeah, to get any good hip rotations, you have to re-position the whole figure, to compensate, and plant the legs later
Haven't tried the zsphere method yet or max's rigging system, but the box influence looks cool too.
Actually i use Mixamo a lot for autorigging. If you can get your lo-poly down below 10,000 tris, an auto rig is free, then add influence to all the extra objects you need. There is even a script to add controls curves, and ik/fk legs and arms......it takes literally about 15 minutes to rig with control curves.
dude marmoset doesnt give a shit about the color of your spec map. it takes all the color from the diffuse und the cubemap. the only way to tint it is the the little box called specular color, but it doesnt take maps.
marmoset calculates specular not like most other game engines, depending on the lightsource.
instead the specular value controlls how strong the environment is being reflected.
the fresnel does what a fresnel does, only applied to the reflections.
and the sharpnes controlls how strong the cubemap is blurred.
so no use in fiddling around with the specular colors...
well the color does have some sort of effect. but as soon as you change any of the specular settings from the default values they tend to not be visible at all.
when i want the spec tinted in marmoset i usualy detatch the object and then tint the spec in marmoset.
way more controllable effect imo
Replies
Tits : this version is 28Mil total points. I always avoid to subdivide if I can stay in Dynamesh, so only some subtools are subdivided and really heavy ( the mask/hat for example is a single piece with 7Mil points. )
Well, I talked with rOmy last day and he convinced me to rework the sculpt a bit to improve some things and get better details from the cavity, to avoid having to paint everything manually.
I don't really change the shapes so I won't need to redo the lowpoly ( I do hope ), but I think I will redo the UV's, the staff ( I have another idea, less boring ), and delete the spellbook ( I could use this tris in the staff or do something else, I'll see ).
New screens soon.
For the colors, I think that I will go for reddish/pink/purple, maybe mixed with silver or gold. I'll try to do something subtle and less saturated ^^.
Back to work now !
But there is also some tweaking to do in the zbrush preference, maybe it could help you ( maxpolypermesh and that kind of thing ). I think there is a thread for this somewhere on Polycount.
PS : oh, and here is a little pic with some changes :
- removed the "organic" parts on the mask/hat
- added transition sbetween metal and horns
- metallic parts are sharper
- added scratches
- reworked the skull on the chest
- reworked the corrupted skin and extended corruption to the neck, ear and face ( asymetricaly ).
- removed the borders on the pauldrons clothing to make it loose.
- replaced the strange "leather" texture of the clothes by wires ( on the gloves and dress too ).
- reworked the skull back of the head ( separating metal and horns ).
I need to rework all the "claws" everywhere, and the knee pads. I think I will broke one the big horn on the helmet too.
amazing work!
I was just impressed by the amount of details and was really curious about the amount of polygones since I often get to put less details not to make my zbrush crash haha!
Anyway, awesome work!!
I love the skin colors in 1, and the red and amber tones in 3. You're losing a lot of detail in your normal bakes at this res, so I think you should keep the more intricate areas lighter, to accentuate the detail with high contrast AO.
For the staff, you can extend the corruption theme, and have the shape twist and conform around where she'd grip it.
I vote for the green color scheme. Good job!
@__@
I finished to reworked the highpoly, and as I removed the book and optimized the mesh a bit more, I can put 2000 tris on the staff.
First I thought to put a lantern on her side to replace the book, but then I thought to do the staff with the lantern. So, here are some quick concept. I will do some other ones :
I like the second one, but it doesn't fit with the character, the wood is too natural and my girl looks really sophisticated, I don't really see her with a simple tree branch. So I tried to keep the things I already have on the character : horns and metal.
I'll try to do a better skull version, this one sucks ^^.
Watcha think ?
I did some changes on my concept and here is the sculpt, took me the whole day.
I think I'm done with it, I have to move on if I want to finish everything in time...
EDIT : Oh, and here is the new sculpt for the character with new skin, new "hat", new pauldrons, dress, gloves, kneepads and boots... I had to separate everything in various files because it was too heavy and too long to save ^^.
Finally... I did the skull ont the staff again ( don't like the previous one and it was too heavy ). And the uv's... and the baking...
BUT I think that this time it's good. Well at least in Marmoset everything looks always good, I love this program, don't regret the 50 bucks ( and it just updated in 1.06 for free ).
14 999 tris. Hell ya !
Screen :
Will start the texturing tomorrow...
I need to do a spec map and rework some colors and the skin.
Gem : well in fact I did'nt textured the hair, it's all done by the AO/Cavity/Bent and the normal map.
lotet : in fact that's what I did at the beginning, I did a grayscale map before ading the colors to have good values, but then, some colors didn't look good if they are too dark or bright so I had to change. Finding the good values is really a hard work.
Here I added the spec and some lights, the skin is brighter and the clothes darker. I'll do the posing and maybe some ground if I got the time...
I don't have the time to do a turnaround now but here is the map... pretty dark, but even with a dark gray everything looks wet and I don't like that; Any tip could be really usefull ^^ :
About how to generate a proper specular, I don't know if you already read this, but it's an amazing article about the issue.
http://www.manufato.com/?p=902
Most noticeably on your jewels, you've got directional highlights, which defeats the purpose of having specular maps in a realtime-lit engine. You may want to apply a bit of your AO for the recessed parts that shouldn't receive as much light, and only put highlights on parts you want to suggest are more polished to "catch" more light, like on corners and edges. Especially on metal, your spec map should look flat, except on those raised edges and corners that would receive a little more polish.
I spent some time ( 4-5 hours I think ) with the rigging and skinning in Max with CAT. I never used this before, we only work with Maya for anim at school, but I really wanted to see that in max. It's pretty simple in fact but still boring ^^. An simply creating the bones for the dress and pauldrons ( I separated them from the body, was easier to work ) was a real pain...
So, if somebody skilled in max rigging come here, maybe he could help me... because here is what I have :
It's a bit difficult to do a pose with all these boxes, even if I make them transparent with alt+x...
Also, if someone has a good pose idea ^^. Lemme know.
I will continue my punkbot...
EDIT : OK I read the tutorial on the spec but it looks that Marmoset doesn't calculate it well. In the tuto they said that dielectric materials don't affect the spec color, so to neutralize it we need to inverse the diffuse color.
That's what I did on the "glass" ( as the ball on the head ) and the leather for example. But The spec color is not the color of the lamp, like it should be, but the color of the spec, so the inverse color of the diffuse.
Here are some pics. I boosted the spec to show what I mean :
- I inversed the purple leather to have a green spec, looks green ( but the spec color should be neutralized and take the lamp color ) :
- the eyes are green, the inverse color is purple/pink, the spec color is pink too ( spec is not boosted on this one to show you it's not the boost which sucks ):
- here I did a test, I desaturated the spec of the ball, and it looks good :
So, did I something wrong or Marmoset's specular just doens't work as the tutorial says ?
EDIT : I also have some weird issue with the shading, when I activate the spec, we can see some quads :
one thng about marmoset and spec maps; one trick for skin spec maps is to apply a grain filter in photoshop; give it a try!
would love to see a pose!
Amauri, something must be wrong. Well, I don't see the spec color with a small intensity value, but if I raise up a bit, the clothes become green, no matter what I do if the spec is green.
I use the blue sky ambiance with a pointlight in spotlight mode for the "sun".
I will try with a simple sphere.
I just discovered it, and has helped immensely. It's a little ram intensive, but is a lot easier than than rigging.
I'll try the ZSphere rig one day ^^.
Haven't tried the zsphere method yet or max's rigging system, but the box influence looks cool too.
Actually i use Mixamo a lot for autorigging. If you can get your lo-poly down below 10,000 tris, an auto rig is free, then add influence to all the extra objects you need. There is even a script to add controls curves, and ik/fk legs and arms......it takes literally about 15 minutes to rig with control curves.
marmoset calculates specular not like most other game engines, depending on the lightsource.
instead the specular value controlls how strong the environment is being reflected.
the fresnel does what a fresnel does, only applied to the reflections.
and the sharpnes controlls how strong the cubemap is blurred.
so no use in fiddling around with the specular colors...
when i want the spec tinted in marmoset i usualy detatch the object and then tint the spec in marmoset.
way more controllable effect imo