First thing Ive done is choose the 3 primary pieces to work on. I really really really want to do a spear, so the off-hand is a natural complement. Deciding whether to do the bracers or the helmet is tough, so for now Im going with the bracers since that seema a more natural flow. It also seems to me that helm-shoulder-body is perhaps the other holy trinity. Ideally Id love to do all six but I need to keep the scope tight and see how time and labor treat me.
I rendered out the originals and did a bit of research on Huskar. Since Ive only played DotA2 a handful of times I picked this Hero on a recommendation from a friend, after asking him whos popular and making sure the choice was in the approved list.
So hes a resurrected tribal avatar whos a slaughterhouse and he depends on blood sacrifice for his powers. Cool. Im thinking Aztec right away, and not even in a cliche way. Thinking of why a serious player would even use this Hero. If its for a mechanical reason, blood on blood is the first thing that springs to mind. If its for lore reasons, then the whole vengeful self-harming/others-harming story pretty much rocks.
Once I got all this in my head, I loaded up the game and played with him a bit. Against bots, naturally. I dont have the time to start a DotA2 career and make no bones about it, these games are careers. If you wanna be any good, of course. And no one wants to be a nooblet in these things.
Its a good thing I played. Right off the bat I realized the spear was held in a reversed position, since its a ranged weapon! I hope you experienced players got a good chuckle out of my initial render, but like I said: I have no idea what Im doing :poly142: I also grabbed a couple of screenshots so I could set up my render cameras to closely mimic the game view. Ill be working in zoomed in mode.
I re-posed the Hero and re-oriented the spear, and did a few renders to give me just a bit more of a nudge and a clearer idea on how the overall thing is going to look in-game and in-context.
Going to focus on the spear first, since Im just champing at the bit to get out some designs. Theres a few obvious considerations relating to the Heros lore, players choice, & whether or not Im going to have time to do just 3 pieces or more. First off, its clear to me that straying too far from the tribal nature wont do anyone any favors. That rules out ultra sci-fi level stuff. Im looking at woods, bones, stones. Natural materials. The spear should be aerodynamic, but also look badass. This stuff should be an upgrade, and Im going to shamelessly crib from the way Blizzards designers handle the visual progression curve of their weapons. Magical effects are within the realm of possibility but I'd like to "keep it real".
I stared at a bunch of reference for a while, mostly Google searches for tribal spear WoW spear badass spear, took a deep breath, and started doing some quick thumbnails overpainting a top-down render of the original, to keep the scale in check.
I came up with about 20 and now I'm nappin' in my chair like my old gran-pappy.
Fantastic documentation so far, Jack. I'm going to use your idea of setting up a camera to mimic the in-game angle, as that will be very beneficial in stepping back and see how the game will look in game instead of up close and personal the whole time.
Good day! It seems my current weekday schedule is only affording me a few hours in the mornings, but well make the most of them.
After first catching up on the contest threads I reviewed the thumbs from yesterday and chose 3 that appealed to me. I put these in a separate document and worked up 3 more prototypes mixing and matching elements from the chosen thumbs.
Once I was more or less happy with the prototypes I dropped the image into Illustrator and traced their outlines, then exported-imported into 3DS Max. A quick extrude and alignment later, I had some more silhouettes to ponder.
And so Ill ponder these all day and see what I still think tomorrow morning. Your input is welcome! Speaking of which...
Fantastic documentation so far, Jack. I'm going to use your idea of setting up a camera to mimic the in-game angle, as that will be very beneficial in stepping back and see how the game will look in game instead of up close and personal the whole time.
Thanks, Rik. Be careful though, I really have no idea what I'm doing.
Bottom right spear concept, and bottom most character/spear silhouette. I like how the blade is broken up by lighter values, and it gives you a lot of room to play with the materials and to figure out what that negative space is. The top version (on the pic with the character included) looks too much like a rocket launcher or an rocket-propelled grenade. Too smooth and curved.
Replies
I rendered out the originals and did a bit of research on Huskar. Since Ive only played DotA2 a handful of times I picked this Hero on a recommendation from a friend, after asking him whos popular and making sure the choice was in the approved list.
So hes a resurrected tribal avatar whos a slaughterhouse and he depends on blood sacrifice for his powers. Cool. Im thinking Aztec right away, and not even in a cliche way. Thinking of why a serious player would even use this Hero. If its for a mechanical reason, blood on blood is the first thing that springs to mind. If its for lore reasons, then the whole vengeful self-harming/others-harming story pretty much rocks.
Once I got all this in my head, I loaded up the game and played with him a bit. Against bots, naturally. I dont have the time to start a DotA2 career and make no bones about it, these games are careers. If you wanna be any good, of course. And no one wants to be a nooblet in these things.
Its a good thing I played. Right off the bat I realized the spear was held in a reversed position, since its a ranged weapon! I hope you experienced players got a good chuckle out of my initial render, but like I said: I have no idea what Im doing :poly142: I also grabbed a couple of screenshots so I could set up my render cameras to closely mimic the game view. Ill be working in zoomed in mode.
I re-posed the Hero and re-oriented the spear, and did a few renders to give me just a bit more of a nudge and a clearer idea on how the overall thing is going to look in-game and in-context.
Going to focus on the spear first, since Im just champing at the bit to get out some designs. Theres a few obvious considerations relating to the Heros lore, players choice, & whether or not Im going to have time to do just 3 pieces or more. First off, its clear to me that straying too far from the tribal nature wont do anyone any favors. That rules out ultra sci-fi level stuff. Im looking at woods, bones, stones. Natural materials. The spear should be aerodynamic, but also look badass. This stuff should be an upgrade, and Im going to shamelessly crib from the way Blizzards designers handle the visual progression curve of their weapons. Magical effects are within the realm of possibility but I'd like to "keep it real".
I stared at a bunch of reference for a while, mostly Google searches for tribal spear WoW spear badass spear, took a deep breath, and started doing some quick thumbnails overpainting a top-down render of the original, to keep the scale in check.
I came up with about 20 and now I'm nappin' in my chair like my old gran-pappy.
After first catching up on the contest threads I reviewed the thumbs from yesterday and chose 3 that appealed to me. I put these in a separate document and worked up 3 more prototypes mixing and matching elements from the chosen thumbs.
Once I was more or less happy with the prototypes I dropped the image into Illustrator and traced their outlines, then exported-imported into 3DS Max. A quick extrude and alignment later, I had some more silhouettes to ponder.
And so Ill ponder these all day and see what I still think tomorrow morning. Your input is welcome! Speaking of which...
Thanks, Rik. Be careful though, I really have no idea what I'm doing.