Darksiders Character Fan Art - Wip
polycounter lvl 6
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Heya new character for my portfolio based on the Darksiders style.. Since I failed big time on the wep I made on the Darksiders Contest I will try again now with a full character
Gonna try to make a skeleton boss or something..
Started on the head.
Heya new character for my portfolio based on the Darksiders style.. Since I failed big time on the wep I made on the Darksiders Contest I will try again now with a full character
Gonna try to make a skeleton boss or something..Started on the head.
Replies
PredatorGSR Will fix that soon man :poly142:
Neox I know but last image was just an block out plus like SuperFranky said not everything will be 100% anatomically correct but some stuff need to be there tho ^^
T.
good luck
ayoub44 I like the short legs but I may fix so he got a bit longer I will think about it hehe
Haven t gotten to do much but its still some progress tho
I don't really have any critics right now as it looks really good. Can't wait to see how you'll do on the low poly. Keep up the good work!
Oh well I have started on the block out on the weapon now still not done detailing the body but will come with and update on that soon :poly142:
Can't wait for some texture loving.
If you didn't already, make sure you triangulate your low poly before baking. If that doesn't clean it up, your options are
1 - hardening the normals on the side edges of the belt
2 - adding edge loops along the sides of the belt, or
3 - simply baking the belt onto a card strip with alpha.
I wouldn't leave it as-is, since I think it detracts from an otherwise very nice sculpt and bake.
If you decide to go with option 2, here's a guideline
Alternatively one could model the belt laid out flat, both the hipoly and lopoly and bake that. Would produce the cleanest result without any extra loops required and would work just fine on the bent version.
Work is looking great btw. Looking forward seeing this badass textured.
the baking quality is really impressive.
right now I'm having some difficulties with baking in sharp-corned areas.
sorry for interfering in your topic, but could some explain a bit more about options 1 and 2? Dirigible, what do you mean by "hardening the normals"? And how can edge loops be added at baking stage without ruining the unwrapped mesh?
Consult this article. It basically covers it all. Further down you can find a section about hard edges and using extra loops.
http://wiki.polycount.com/NormalMap
WARNING: Normal maps, normals, and baking are more complicated than they seem at first glance. If you aren't familiar with the terminology, this might not make any sense. If that's the case, just head over to the wiki and get learnin'.
Baking and normal maps are controlled with vertex normals.
Fig 1 shows 3 sections of belt, hardened normals on the left, SveinY's original version in the middle, and a modified topology version on the right. It also shows the vertex normals of the three sections. As you can see, hardening the normals (splitting them, really) results in vertex normals that point straight in the direction of the face. Softening (welding) the normals makes them point in a more 45 degree angle, and 'bends' the way light affects the face.
Fig 2 shows the result of that bending. Since baking is controlled through vertex normals, the middle model has a bent, warped normal map. The bumps on the right side seem to be pointing left, and the bumps on the left side seem to be point right. The same thing WOULD be happening on the far right model, but adding more geometry changes the vertex angle. Warping only happens on the edges, where it's unnoticeable anyway.
Fig 3 shows the downside to simply hardening normals for baking. Hardened normals often result in a small artifact, that is simply impossible to get rid of. Splitting the uv's whenever you harden an edge does help REDUCE this artifact, but it does not eliminate it. If you zoom out far enough it's not that apparent, but it always bothers me anyway.
Fig 4 shows the importance of triangulation BEFORE baking. Whatever you are using to bake is going to triangulate your low poly, but all programs don't triangulate the same way. So if you feed quads to xNormal, it might triangulate different from Maya or Max. The middle cube has the same triangulation as when the normal map was baked. The right cube has wrong triangulation. You can see, it's important to get the triangulation correct!
xtra info:
while making this image I found out that it's actually the vertex normals of your CAGE that determine projection angle and warping while baking. If you don't give XNormal a cage, it will create one, copying the vertex normals from your low poly. If you make a cage, (for instance with xNormal's 3d viewer tool, or in maya or max) you will have direct control over the cage's vertex normals.
I've tried to read some sticky threads about normal maps, but their size multiplied by the language barrier made them quite hard for me. I'll surely study the wiki article, but I got the idea from the dirigible explanation, since It's perfectly clear.
That artifacting caused by a hardened normal will be practically erased with the splitting of the uvs, just a few pixels gap between the shells will fix it.
Edit:
ZackF says it better :P
Yeah I just did a test with a cube. In the past I had run into issues because of the vertex normals of my cage when I bake, but by manually creating a cage (in xnormal) I get a much cleaner result.
Because the default cage uses the vertex normals of the low poly model, there was a difference in projection that created artifacting any time I used a hard-normalled low poly, regardless of whether or not I split the uv's.
Sorry to hijack the thread like this, hope to spread the knowledge
Heh, sorry about that. You did a good job on that one.
Been a bit busy with an art test and getting a job
Also might think about tweaking the value on the skulls on the shoulder pad and belt to make them stand out from the other bone surfaces. The runes on the blade also could be pushed in more with some subtle highlights and shading, as they're also looking a little flat.
You've seen these. You're close, but your character is lacking the vibrancy and richness seen in the Vigil characters and style right now.
Keep pushing it!
The skulls could be a bit more anatomically sound for my taste, but that's just me.
Good stuff man.
Overall it's coming along nicely though.
I did a quick paintover to show what I feel you could do to bring it more in line with the Darksiders style.
I dunno if you plan to make any further changes, but hopefully this is helpful. Its nice work as it stands tho!
Great textures also!!