[Dota2] – Outworld Destroyer – Otherwordly Traveler

mrpresident

It's finished! This has been quite a learning experience, thanks to everyone who helped me.



[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HShg4N6jZw"]Beast from the Otherworld set for Outworld Destroyer - YouTube[/ame]

mrpresident

I managed to block out some head designs today. I'm fairly content with how the horns came out; depending on how many poly's I have left after the rest I may come back and add more detail to them. I'm less decisive on the rest of the headgear though... leaning towards #5, but I could also maybe make the blind thing work. Thoughts?

ExoCosmo

Hi, I'm thinking of trying my hand at making an outworld destroyer set as well, so naturally I'm looking around at the potential competition ;D
Are you planning on just changing his head shape here, as opposed to making armour of some sort for him? (I also think both 4 and 5 look pretty good

mrpresident

Of course I'm doing more than the head, for the contest you have to do an item set of at least 3 items.

I was originally going to do some sort of nomadic traveler between dimensions type set but cloaks and whatnot don't really seem to be working on him, and possibly more importantly don't mesh well with his default set. I might still block it out just to see what it looks like though, but at the moment I'm most likely going to do an armor set.

mrpresident

Did some more messing around with head concepts, decided to give my original hooded/cloaked idea a try just to see how it looks. I didn't like the blindfold, but using the helm from a different concept worked out imho.



I can't decide if I should go with #5 and follow that up with a suit of armor, or if I should go with #8 and and try for the universe traversing nomad look. Maybe I could do something incredibly cheezy and make his cloak filled with glittering stars haha. :P

ExoCosmo

Sorry, I must not have phrased that correctly S : I'm aware that you have to make a full set, I was just wondering whether you were making armour or a modification to his present body design :P Like what has been done with faceless void's head a few times.
Also, I'd say that a cloak would totally work, so long as it covers the rest of his cenataur body of course ;D
And I'm not sure as to whether a 2010 reference would be acceptable here, but my god 0:

Core7SO

I would say 8, just for the sake of making something more original. Imagine ALL the way he did to reach the planet where the war of the Ancients was about to start, its a cool idea.
Remember that his other theme apart from "interstelar being" its his great intellect, and the parallel with madness and sanity he makes all the time in his voice lines; maybe you could pick some idea from there.

Spudnik

I would say, try to stay away from hood. Don't get me wrong, I love doing hoods for Dota, mainly because they're easy(er) but for Obsidian Destroyer, the shape of his head is really a giant part of his design. Don't limit yourself by covering it up, think of it more as a crown or something.

mrpresident

Alright, well I think I'm going to some cloak concepts next, but I can always choose later if the hood or crown fits with it better.

TMiuccio

I really like the #5 helmet. Try to add to the character instead of covering him up. if you texture the helmet right, the eyes will become the focus of the set and you've done your job. Remember that the item sets aren't to accentuate the set, but to build up the character and their theme.

mrpresident

You're right about the eyes in #5 tmiuccio, I tested it in-game and with the default illumination to the eyes it looked great, I definitely won't be covering them up.

I had an idea for armor that I thought was great but the 256x256 texture resolution and the compression algorithm is murdering me. I was going to make armor that looked like you were peering into space, pitch black with no rim-lighting or specular, and glittering stars using just a little bit of od's animated texture to make them appear to be changing color. It actually looks pretty cool but the texture resolution and also I believe the compression is killing it badly. Something about the compression algorithm likes to create a gradient or something between colors and it's making everything all blotchy and stretched.

Does anyone have any advice for how to get around this problem or should I toss the stars idea and do something else?

mrpresident

Managed to resolve my blotchy texture problem, and the stars looked pretty good, but it still didn't come out the way I wanted it to. Instead of looking like a night sky it just looked like a flat bland texture with no specular/normals etc haha. Guess I'm gonna have to come up with a different texture idea.

Starcofski

It'd be a shame to toss away that idea so quickly. How did the results look when you tested with mask1? If you look at the base textures, you'd find that mask1 makes a glow effect of green (even in places where it isn't pure green).

mrpresident

It didn't look the way I wanted it to, even with various mask tweaking. I think I could make the idea work with particle effects but valve hasn't implemented a way to add those yet, so in the meantime I'll be trying something different.

mrpresident

I made some improvements to the horns/helm, unwrapped it, and finished both the Lod0 and Lod1.

Next up is the shoulders/armor. I sketched out (with a mouse unfortunately, don't have access to a tablet atm) some rough ideas. I have plenty of polygons to work with but the 256x256 texture space is worrying me, especially since I also need to do the back armor in the same space. I'm leaning towards #3 at the moment but I like elements of each. Once I know the direction I'm going in I'll work on the details and where I'm going to add OD's signature glow.

Vindalia

I like the shoulder horns on 2, but the chest/jacket portion of 3. Perhaps a combo? 3 feels a little sparse without the extra ornamentation, but that can easily be fixed by colors and texture.

mrpresident

Yeah, that's what I thought too vindalia =D .

#4 is just a test to see what it would look like if I run into polygon/texture space limitations, I'm aiming for #5. Also drew up some concepts for the back armor.

Now I need to decide where to add OD's custom glow effect, debating between just putting it around the edges or adding a pattern of some sort.

mrpresident

Finished and unwrapped the Lod0 for the shoulders. Next up is zbrush, sculpting the rock surface and where OD's light texture will shine through. I did some rough sketches of concepts for the light pattern, I think I'm going to go with something along the lines of A.

mrpresident

Been awhile since I updated this thread but I'm still pluggin away =D.

The helm and armor are finished, next up wings and hopefully enough time left over for the weapon. I'm thinking about renaming the set to Beast of the Otherworld, but valve tends to change the names of most of the items anyway.

Starcofski

As someone who previously submitted OD items to the workshop, I suggest you add a little more detail in the dark areas, or try to make the color match a bit more. I had a submission get shredded for having too much blank space.

mrpresident

Thanks for the tip starcofski, I increased the contrast between the light and dark areas and it looks substantially better, thanks =D. I'll upload screens later when I have some progress on the wings.

Echronos

Hey man, it looks really cool! How did you test the items in game?

mrpresident

I used this method, from the main dota 2 thread:

You can do it all on dota 2 test.
1:
unpack Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\dota 2 test\dota\pak01_dir.vpk using GCFScape
you must unpack all files pointing to \dota 2 test\dota, in a manner that the game dont need any file from the compiled ones. so unpack all files.
after this you must rename all the .vpk files (there is an easy way using the command prompt. but u can do it manually)

2:
import your files with dota 2 test as you would do normally on dota 2 beta. You can also use your alredy imported files on the dota 2 beta filesystem. Just use the same logic and copy the files to the same folders on the dota 2 test.

3: find the geometry folder as the exemple :
Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\dota 2 test\dota\models\items\yourhero\crazynumber\yourit em
now copy (its very important that u copy and dont erase this files) the content and paste here:
Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\dota 2 test\dota\models\heroes\yourhero
now rename the deafult files so u can use the respective slot with your own geometry, rename your autored files to the deafult ones and you are set.
After this you will see all your geometry loaded ingame on all possible views including loadout.
i got most of this info from this own tread andTvidotto's workshop tread. but i had to smash my head for some hours to get it done.

Limitations :
You cant use a slot if there is not a deafult item on the hero. For exemple : i cant use my "back" item on Spirit breaker, since there is not a deafult back item on him.

Starcofski

So mrpresident, you're saying you DIDNT have to overwrite the original texture files or change the mdl/dx90 file pointers to where the textures are? Because if so, that's a lot of pointless hours of frustration on my end.

EDIT: Yep, all those hours were pointless. GG Valve, WP. And thanks MRP, good luck on your entry!

mrpresident

Nope, unpack all of dota 2's files, import your items in-game, copy (don't delete) the imported items into the heroes' directory and rename them to the default item names and you're done .

mrpresident

Wings finished! Can I make a weapon from scratch in the next 20 hours? Let's find out the hard way XD.

mrpresident

Yep, I managed to do it, and submitted the complete set with 8 minutes to spare .

This has been quite a learning experience, thanks to everyone who helped me.



[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HShg4N6jZw"]Beast from the Otherworld set for Outworld Destroyer - YouTube[/ame]