[Dota2] - Skeleton King - Bones of Fire

Andyk125

Hello guys,

Thought I would give it a try, I hope I can finish a complete set. Allready have a lot of ideas, but I still need to work out a few.

Here's what I got so far:
- Sword concepts
Dragon type bones attached to the sword
- Cloak concept
Diffrent skin characters stichted, not sure if that's allowed
Otherwise a cloak with chains and bones

Here are some quick sketches, let me know what you guys think!

Lam

very cool! I like your concepts so far! Keep up the good work

Some Jerk

Hm, the morbid skin shield is cool idea, but it looks like something that would go on pudge. The skeleton king is all about the bones. He's not the type to bother with skin.

Andyk125

Lam wrote: »

very cool! I like your concepts so far! Keep up the good work

Thank you very much! Did some more concepts, still have a lot of ideas but I can't draw at this moment, need to work

Some Jerk wrote: »

Hm, the morbid skin shield is cool idea, but it looks like something that would go on pudge. The skeleton king is all about the bones. He's not the type to bother with skin.

Well maybe Il us it for a different hero, but I think it would also fit on the skeleton king. you should have some contrast between all the bones Hope to finish my concepts this week and then il start moddeling..

here's a small update (new one):

Andyk125

Well I'm a bit stuck on what to do with the hands and cloak, because it should fit the legs. They can't be changed unfortunatly.. Well I made an update on the hole character set for now, which sword concept would fit best? Myself I like number 3 and 4 the most..

bn20

how are you going to do the rib wrist guards? without going over poly limit?

mrpresident

bn20 wrote: »

how are you going to do the rib wrist guards? without going over poly limit?

He could do it using a single surface with transparency, unfortunately transparency is only turned on for a few heroes at the moment and I don't think skeleton king is one of them.

Spudnik

Actually, he might be:

mrpresident

Spudnik wrote: »

Actually, he might be:

Nice catch!

Andyk125

Spudnik wrote: »

Actually, he might be:

Wow thanks, I was wondering if I could use a transparancy map!

Still thinking on how I'm going to fit everything together, I might change the sabertooth for a dragon skul, as that was my first intension. I will try and sketch that tonight, for the cloak i think i will use dragon tails next to eachother, connected with caines or something.

On to the drawing board again tonight

Nobody has a opnion about wich sword looks the best or would suit the character the best?

Edit: Small update on the shoulder armor concepts

Andyk125

Some color variation, a king needs to have some golden bones

Andyk125

I Finially have a different idea on my cloak, it will be a dragon wing wich will suit very well with the other concepts. I think I'm using all the dragon theme concepts at first, here's a pretty simple sketch:

shanks37

as much as i want to say go with the triceratops shoulder pad you're probably on the right track. the dragon theme is pretty bitchin.

Andyk125

shanks37 wrote: »

as much as i want to say go with the triceratops shoulder pad you're probably on the right track. the dragon theme is pretty bitchin.

Thank, I might do the Triceratops and the sabertooth as a extra item, but then not as a set but more as an update

Almost finished my helmet, starting detailing further now I got all the base views ready. Never did a complete design like this, but my intuos tablet is really helpfull now..

Hope you guys like it:

Andyk125

Update on modeling the helmet, this is the LOD_1 version, curretly at 480 tri's.

Andyk125

Well here's a new update, I made a mistake with the trianglecount, I looked at the normal head piece and saw that it had 598 tri's. I thought I read somewhere that the limits on the workshop page where tricount, but it were really poly's..

By the way is it possbile to use a transparency map on more pieces, is it enabled for the entire hero, or just some parts?

Andyk125

High Poly version is ready

Andyk125

Well I'm almost finshed the head piece, need to make some more contrast and the mask texture for the gold

In the picture it's the LOD_0 model with 548 tricount and a 256x128 (WxH) texture. But man what a small texture size, not really used to it I would love to get some reaction or critics about it, thanks!

TMiuccio

I like the style. I'd have to say the one thing that bothers me is the helmet. The back being completely grey with those grey lines just reads a little weird. Maybe try a different texture for the back that better matches the rest of the set?

shanks37

yeah, the grey is a bit weird. i'd try a gold instead.

he's a king afterall. he can afford it!

Andyk125

I think your both right, although the helmet is the only piece that is changed, the rest is still his normal armor my idea is to make a golden skull or something on the back. I also made a new concept for the hands yesterday. The problem is the texture size and poly limits are pretty low, so you can't effort to put to much detail in there..

Here's the concept: , by the way the head is a skull of a dragon my sketch skills are pretty bad..

Spudnik

I'd say the dragon's head on the shoulder fits best with the rest of the armor design.

Andyk125

Spudnik thank you for your reaction

But what about the arm design I'm still not sure what to do, well I think I will start modeling the shoulder piece first. Need to finsih the helmet first though, and learn abot the masks

Here's the updated helmet, what do you guys think, I did some more realistic versions as a test, but they didn't really read good enough from a distance At least this design also fits the original armor pieces, but i'm not sure that's a good thing.. They might see the texturing as not original.. I would really like to get some opinions about this!

Andyk125

I completely redit my entire model, because it was just impossible to reach the right trcicount without screwing up the concept. So i've done the low poly model all over again, the next picture is with the Ingame LOD_1 model and has a tricount of 298.

Would love to hear what you guys think. I wanted to do a dragon skull on the back, but that just looked weird so I made a lycan type skull. Now I just noticed I put the long teeth the wrong way for Lycan, so it's a vampire skull for now none the less here's my progress:

Andyk125

I finially got my model imported correctly, still need to work on the maks but I'm pretty happy with the result

Andyk125

Hmm not one reaction?

Oh well I just keep posting, here's some small update on the arm, what do you guys think? Still need to put one smaller version in the back though, not sure if I wnat to use the same shape for that one..

Spudnik

Great! I think it works way better than the ribcage, way to go!

shanks37

really like the vertebrae arm idea.

the helmet is also looking badass overall but the gold in the fins is looks too flat. it needs a bit more contrast to give it some depth.

Andyk125

Thanks for the comment guys!

@Shanks: I will try and get some more contrast into there, also for some reason I don't get the same gold results as the original gold parts. Even if I use exsactly the same mask colors..

Here's a small update on the arm concept:

Naso

Andyk125 wrote: »

I finially got my model imported correctly, still need to work on the maks but I'm pretty happy with the result

I would make the fin parts of the helm curve inward, looks strange perfectly straight.

Andyk125

Naso wrote: »

I would make the fin parts of the helm curve inward, looks strange perfectly straight.

Well with the high poly it didn't looked that way, but because of the low tricount limits I needed to change the low poly version, and use an alpha map to make it a bit more appealing.

Here's an update on the arm model. I'm not sure if I can use the small one because of the poly limits. This is the LOD_0 model, now on to the LOD_1. I also made a high poly version.

Would love to hear what you guys think!

shanks37

I would definitely try and keep the small piece if possible. it helps the flow of his armour so his hand doesnt look quite as oversized.

keep up the good work overall though, this is one of my favorite sets. it makes sk look like something that belongs on the cover of a conan the barbarian novel.

Andyk125

shanks37 wrote: »

I would definitely try and keep the small piece if possible. it helps the flow of his armour so his hand doesnt look quite as oversized.

keep up the good work overall though, this is one of my favorite sets. it makes sk look like something that belongs on the cover of a conan the barbarian novel.

Thanks for the kind words

I would love to keep the small piece, but Valve is making it pretty hard to keep your concept good looking. Here's a picture of the low poly version so far, I can lower it around 30 tri's, without screwing up the complete shape.

It's 396 tri's right now. the normal hand piece of Valve is 275tri's, mine is 200 with the spikes Don't know who made those limits but I hate him allready!

Edit: Ok i got this to 350 tricount (not in the picture below), but without the small piece

Andyk125

Update on the arms, baked the normals and started working on the textures. It's not finished, but here's a preview

Andyk125

Well I got my arm model ingame, still need to make and fix one mask textures for the model. I've got 2 version, I'm not sure wich one to use. One got just cracks and the other one has cracks with lava inside (bones of fire )

Would love to hear what you guys think will fit the model best!

shanks37

the fire is a cool idea but it doesnt really work since its limited to only his arm. normal one is a safer bet.

his hand needs some work though, right now it's too solidly black.

also, why have i just noticed that his models armour is grey until your in game?... then its suddenly black...

Andyk125

shanks37 wrote: »

the fire is a cool idea but it doesnt really work since its limited to only his arm. normal one is a safer bet.

his hand needs some work though, right now it's too solidly black.

also, why have i just noticed that his models armour is grey until your in game?... then its suddenly black...

Well I wanted to go for the fire look overall, especially the arm and shoulder. But I can easily change it. Maybe also the sword, but I'm still not sure about those design I might work some more out later on.

Your right about the color, that's something I noticed when the first import test went wrong It's because the masks, and that's also why my hand looked weird. I forgot to change it at the gold parts and the hand.

Well here's an update, the hands finially got their right colors

By the way is there a possiblity to view more of your items at once?

diegoleeon

good work! Hope we can see the sword soon

Andyk125

Started working on the cloak, or dragon wing
Here's a blockout and a small concept. Im not sure about the colors though, and I will probably make it less damaged. Let me know what you guys think!

Clyptic

The dragon wing is a pretty cool idea. I have not messed around with importing into the game at all, why is it that the grey/silver in his armor turns black in game?

Andyk125

Clyptic wrote: »

The dragon wing is a pretty cool idea. I have not messed around with importing into the game at all, why is it that the grey/silver in his armor turns black in game?

That's because of the masks textures, if you don't use them it will keep the exact color, but without any special options like specular etc. there's an explanation of the masks in the main thread, or on youtube!

But that doesn't works perfect for me though, I looked a lot at the masks valve used an tried to do something simular for my gold, because otherwise it looked completely strange..

Andyk125

New update: high poly version of the dragon wing. It was pretty hard to get the correct shape, because of the bone structure and low amount of tri's I can use fot the ingame model. To make it possible to get a more round shape I modeled some bones if they were broken.. here's the progress so far.

Andyk125

Quick and dirty bake test, wanted to know how it will look without moddeling the bones. The model you see is 260 tri's at the moment, but can easily brought down to the 250 needed for the ingame version..

Andyk125

Finially finished my low poly bake. This is the ingame model, still need to work on the textures though. Not a lot of new things

ashleighmills

I LOVE the spine bone idea. Looks cool so far!

Andyk125

ashleighmills wrote: »

I LOVE the spine bone idea. Looks cool so far!

Thank you, glad you like it

Started modeling the dragon head for the shoulder. Here's a blockout so far, still need to add a few things and then I can start working on the high poly model. But first I need to finish the dragon wing.. Think after I modeled all the parts i'm going to rethink all the textures so it fits all the parts!

Wondering what you guys think about it?

Andyk125

Don't have much time lately so I just post every update I do I did some more work on the dragon wing, not sure if I keep it like this. I might chose a different direction. Well here's an overview of the last parts:

Andyk125

Did some new concepts for swords, still not sure so I might throw in some more concept. The older concepts are still in the back of my minde but probably to hard to get ingame without sacrificing to much..

Would love to hear what you guys think!

Okoo

oh, the #2 is really nice!

shanks37

new scimitar look is the way to go i think since no one has really done it so far. 5 or 6 minus the teeth gets my vote.

foeffa

Shit looks epic, true story.