'Briareos' - meets Mad Max and Lonewolf - HP WIP

AdamRodgers

Hi Polycounters,

Thought Id share a personal project I'm working on, speaks for itself I hope. As a way to learn ZB I thought Id combine a few of my favourite heroes into one character, specifically Briareos but mixed with a couple of other favorites of mine.

For those unfamiliar with Shirows work on 'Appleseed' -

more info- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appleseed_(manga)

[UPDATE 13.9.12]
C and C welcome

AdamRodgers

Took a break on blocking out to create an organic for the final composition -



Modeled and textured in ZB

SeanO'Connor

---

Blaisoid

it looks like the "forehead" part blocks his vision, unlike the original design.

AdamRodgers

Thanks Seano'Connor. Dont worry about poly density, its all blocking in, I took the head a little further as I had a pretty clear idea what I wanted. You wont be seeing that crotch - just something to grab extracts from and draw masks and sketches onto.

Still a lot of decisions to make -



EDIT: Blaisoid: Book two Briareos has a rebuild and the forehead blocks his central sensor, although it is hinged to move out of the way and I suspect his central sensor isn't for vision anyhoo - but fear not there will be a lot of work done on the head to make things work.

AdamRodgers

Update - little more blocking in and roughing out more details -

AdamRodgers

A 'Lil' aside for a sumbission for upcoming comic series. It also serves as a practice ground for sculpting the two 'cubs' for Briareos.

'Lil' Tank Girl -

AdamRodgers

Back to Briareos and the final Pass - Heres the Low Poly BaseMesh of the 'Beowulf Mk II - Battle Rifle' A squat and hardy low maintenance Rail Weapon, powered from interchangeable Cells and/or External Generators.



Now to ZBrush with it.


C and C Welcome

AdamRodgers

Some mods to Basemesh, Longer barrel, tech inserts for readouts at sides of scope, monopod added and anumber of other small changes.

AdamRodgers

Added the Bipod and into ZB for the HPoly sculpt - not much time today but hope to get a good start over weekend -



C and C welcome.

Blaisoid

it looks really cool, keep it up.

i actually started reading the manga few days ago cause that torso thing attached to him looks pretty intriguing. i assume it also appeared in original?

AdamRodgers

Thanks Blasoid, keeping it up muchly

The chest attachment will be a Segue/Papoose for one of the two 'cubs' / babies that Briareos is carrying, the other is on his back and is slightly larger - these two Segue 'Baby Carts' are self aware survival vehicles for when things get a bit 'difficult' out in the wilderness.

Glad I've sort of inspired you to read Appleseed, but you wont find the Baby Carts in their, there are some baby pods though and more in Shirows 'Dominion Tank Police', which is well worth getting imo, its light hearted stuff but fun and great ~Art.

Update coming soon.

AdamRodgers

[UPDATE]
Started the High Poly Sculpt of the 'BeoWulf II' Railgun, sculpting it in extended form for ease and hoping it all fits neatly together still when folded.



C and C welcome

AdamRodgers

Update - made some changes to the LP after a few test sculpts on various parts and learnt my lesson about corner edgeflow and T junctions in ZB the hard-ish way.



Crits and comments welcome.

AdamRodgers

[Update]
Enlarged Bipod and tested folded mode, added some cabling placeholders and some other general furniture.



C n C welcome

AdamRodgers

Pretty much finished with the factory shipped HP. A few things to tidy and add, mostly grip surfaces and hints at different materials then onto wear and tear.

Still need to add a Eye and Wrist Jacks and cable and the external power cables to link to Briareos.



C and C welcome

Texelion

Nothing to say, it's just good imo ^^.

AdamRodgers

Thanks Texelion.

I think Ill call the HP done for now, primarily as it was just a way to test and bed in the new ZB and I want to get the LP done and textured while working up Briareos.

Ill be texturing it using tried methods as a factory perfect version first then using some different techniques to create the battered and weathered later.



C and C welcome

Alismuffin

FYEAH Appleseed

Continue

AdamRodgers

Thank you for the encouragement Alismuffin

As a test of HP to LP workflow I thought Id make some Speedloader pouches, a simple object to test and rough polypaint to test workflow and pipeline. But Ive got a wee problem!

After doing some HP sculpting I decided to go back and change the UV's a little and now its giving me trouble.

-I thought I could just import it into div 1 of the already sculpted Speedloader subtool but it doesn't seem to like that.

-I tried copying UVs in ZB and pasting and again but NO GO.

-So I tried dividing it upto same divs and projecting the detail with many small tweaks of PBlue, Mean etc and I still find it unsatisfactory. Is there a science to Projection now ? does anyone have any suggestions on this or another method? Or should I just keep tweaking Projection and hope I can get there eventually?

TBH It was only a very fast sculpt to get something for testing the whole workflow so I'm not precious about the sculpt, in fact its pretty raw imo, but Id like to be able to get out of this fix if it occurs with other more complex sculpts later.

Suggestions please?

AdamRodgers

A quick screengrab of what I get when I import the New div 1 with new uvs into the old HP - any thoughts?

Alismuffin

Hmm well you could use xNormal to bake normals since it only requires that you have UV's laid out for the LP

But I am sure it shouldn't do this when updating the basemesh though...

AdamRodgers

Thanks Alismuffin, I could and often do for comparrison but my chosen method is Max and cageing, but Im trying to reduce the number of steps and apps for the process. Besides Im intrigued as to whats occured here, there isnt even a seam on the front where the effect is most obvious, no layers, no even a morph target or masking, but its such a regular pattern that there must be some logical reason. The main reason for doing this was to use the ZB uv master to quickly output normals for testing.

Any suggestions?

disanski

Hmm how are you exporting and importing this. I have not tested it myself but perhaps if you use GoZ it might work?

AdamRodgers

Hi dis, thanks for dropping by I was imp/exp as obj with all the goodies, BUT dont worry, the problem has been solved after a good few hours of trying various ZB functions I just exported the HP div 1 to Max and copied the UVS over there and imported it back in as div 1 and everything is good. Thanks once again chap.

Bertmac

I like to use Goz
I know i might sound to simple but i have the feeling that importing an obj works different then using GoZ.

So send it over with GoZ paste the uv map in your modeling app and send it back.

hope that helps

AdamRodgers

Already sorted it Bertmac but thanks for the thought. That is more or less what I was trying but it was giving very funky results, and after sorting out the UV's by pasting in Max it was still giving some weird artifacts, but only on the Normal map, so in the end I went back to projecting the old HP onto the new UVd and divided mesh. It was all a bit headscratchy but I got to try lots of things that will prove usefull in the future and I finally got Projection to behave properly too

Thanks guys.

AdamRodgers

Quick polypaint to check out my scheme, I have desert and derelict urban in mind for the setting.



C and C welcome

Kushy

Really like the gun and detail on it. Don't have much crit right now but I will keep and eye on the thread and feedback

Also I am interested in the workflow you are using? This is going to be a HP to LP model right?

When I create this kind of asset I would work in this way:

High poly in max
Zbrush for detailing
Low poly in max and UV it
Xnormal for normals, AO, Cavity maps
Diffuse /Spec in photoshop / edit other bakes

so just interested if you do it in a different way?

peace and keep up the good work

AdamRodgers

Thanks ~Kushy. Yes it will be HP part of Sculpt for a vignette of Briareos but also go into my LP assetts folder for game/future use.

More or less the same - but this is testing ZB functions and tryingf to cut out as much swapping of apps as possible so -

LP in Max - sketch mesh to get a feel

Test Sculpt HP in ZB to see where Im going - essentially fast concepting in 2.5d

Once happy with where I'm going Ill generally see if I can add enough Geo in ZB using Edgeloops or using remesh or retopo to get the detail I desire if thats a fail or too involved then Ill go back to LP in Max, add details that can save geo like in this case Tightening up the buttons and adding some loops around the borders of the main shapes.

Zbrush for HP and detail

LP export div 2 or similar to Max or topogun and make a better topo LP mesh.

Normally Id use Xnormal or Max to bake but on this occasion I chose to test ZB multimap functions - with mixed results - I still maintain a Max cage offers better control than any other method - with the downside of Max memory/model issues.

PS - for fine tuning textures based on Diffuse AO and Cavity