I suck at sculpting. Then I decided to try this Dynamesh thing that all the cool kids are talking about. Now I'm a cool kid too! ...Weeeell not quite, but it's definintely much easier than my previous workflow of building the base in Maya and sculpting on it.
Quick sketch for the bracers, made them a bit bigger than the concept so they'd read better in-game. What do you guys think, too much?
Great progress, man. Looks wonderful. Bigger is better, I would add some vivid color on the bracer tip to make it even more discernible - may be shining runes or something else. Thanks for your comments, very helpful. Keep rocking!
Gaaaaah, this is driving me insane! I haven't posted any updated in a while because I just can't get the shoulders to look "right" because of the extremely restrictive poly budget. They end up coming out looking really simple because I'm forced into using a lot of flat planes etc. I ended up redoing them 3 or 4 times over the past week but something always looks "off"... I'll post images tonight of where I'm at because I'm starting to despair :S
Don't despair! Always do a quick bake after you retopo it. (Auto unwrap and a quick AO and normals bake) To check if it is all good. Also retopo it a little over budget and cull manually after the test bake. That way you can figure out what works where with the normals applied!
Post pics!
I've been using the workflow of building the base in Maya, then sculpting on that in Zbrush, which, like I said, has given pretty mediocre results. I'm using that workflow mainly because I'm not familiar with retopo'ing a Zbrushed mesh, but I think I'm at a point where I'll just try to sculpt in Zbrush first (not my strongest skills either) and see how that goes :S
Well done. Very good priportions and readability. It will really stand out from other sets. And I would darken a book cover a bit to make it more discernible. Great job. Keep it up!
Went and redid the model a bit. Added a back part (looked very floaty before, especially ingame) and made the books way less symmetrical. It was just looking too clean, too pristine before. So I took the advice that I gave everyone but myself - to give the damn things more attitude.
I'm pretty happy with this one as opposed to all the other ones. Crunch time ahead!
Went and redid the model a bit. Added a back part (looked very floaty before, especially ingame) and made the books way less symmetrical. It was just looking too clean, too pristine before. So I took the advice that I gave everyone but myself - to give the damn things more attitude.
I'm pretty happy with this one as opposed to all the other ones. Crunch time ahead!
Test bake. Getting MUCH better results, much cleaner right off the bat, thanks to everyone for the tips and tricks! Not too much progress tonight, have to go be social *grumble grumble*
Some stronger lighting/AO might be nice (mainly noticing the scroll doesn't really feel like its sitting on the book). May not be a big deal with ingame lighting though.
Moving on to another item for now because of the deadline. I'll probably come back and polish the mask textures and some details if I have time later. Also, rigging is not done yet.
I'll update the presentation with a bit better graphics when I get off work. Frantic throwing together of images at 5:45am is not the best way to go about this kind of thing. But man, it's a load off my shoulder...
Yes, i am just tried to turn quantity into quality, and I can say - I studied a lot. Actually it is my first character art of that high level) Thank you again and good luck)
Replies
Quick sketch for the bracers, made them a bit bigger than the concept so they'd read better in-game. What do you guys think, too much?
Also an in-game test of the shoulders:
Cheers, more updates soon(tm)!
and leave the lore, it's way funnier if he does it out of arrogance and ego tripping!
Post pics!
Do want in game view!
I'm pretty happy with this one as opposed to all the other ones. Crunch time ahead!
you are doing magic with those few polys =]
Some stronger lighting/AO might be nice (mainly noticing the scroll doesn't really feel like its sitting on the book). May not be a big deal with ingame lighting though.