[Dota2] – Meepo – Ground Breaker

latorril

Project member Steam accounts:

WaffleHeart - Director
latorril - Artist

latorril

Just some design notes about Meepo that will serve as a guide while I work:



Everything about Meepo (down to his smile) is triangular giving him a rugged and "edgy" demeanor. Meepo is composed of a series of inverse triangles up top, and an an opposing triangular base which provides a sense of stability.

His color scheme is split complimentary - the dominant color being somewhere between blue and cyan.

WaffleHeart

Were going to get down and dirty in this thread, so watch close and learn

latorril

Dirty thumb sketches




Final weapon concept sketches


We've been taking it slow and building up our own concept among ourselves, but we're finally ready to show our progress.

The idea is a miner set with a spin - he has a hand drill weapon, and will have a more stylized miner's hat that reduces clipping.

We're also working on a jar of dirt as his pack item - for the lols.

latorril

Here is a shot of the first test run in the game previewer. Making sure his animations work correctly with the weapon and that I got all the bones to work. This is not texture I'm actually using, it's the texture of his default item.

I was having a problem with getting the masks to work at this point, but I fixed that.

latorril

Here's the weapon at present. I need critiques on its texture since we've already decided to go this route.

I'm going to bring all the items to the texturing phase, then work them as a whole so they look nice and unified.

Also, as a side note, we wanted to stick very close to original character design and lore so that the items can stand up on their own as genuine Meepo pieces.

latorril

Finally, here are the sketches and present geometry of his helm piece.

We went with sort of a mix between these two designs for the helm, and he gets a shnazzy scarf:


Here is where I currently am - UVing on the verge of rough texturing:

latorril

An hour and a half of work since the prev post.
Spent it UVing and blocking in texture map.
This is what I have so far.

I'm trying to push the light in areas I know it bill bounce, like off of the horn spikes and the helmet brim. I don't think a particle effect or illumination map alone will push the brightness - I'm going for a combination of diffuse + illum to see how that turns out.

As for the helmet design itself I wanted to make something that actually fits Meepo's head comfortably. I don't think he would ever attempt to wear a human helmet seeing as his super-sized ears don't fit. My brother and I saw a lot of this going on in already submitted helmets and decided to change that.

Well, let us know what you all think so far

latorril

Some more texture love. Can already tell I'm going to need to take this into PS and adjust some saturation issues. Colors are a bit too "cheery" for Meepo.

foeffa

I'm a layman when it comes to the technical aspects, but I can safely say this is looking good and I love the drill idea.

latorril

Thank you foeffa!

latorril

Update. Bringing the two assets textures together.



The lamp is self-illum yay!

latorril

Bah. Not liking most changes to the weapon tex now. Reverting.

latorril

Designed a gutted TNT barrel as a pack:


He keeps his goods, and a nice stash of dirt there.

latorril

Another angle:

latorril

Done for today, finishing up tomorrow.

darkkyo

Oh nice! I had my own Meepo drill in progress at one point ( http://p3d.in/X6V2c ), but yours is pretty neat! Just keep in mind that some of Meepo's animations have him holding his weapon up in the air with both hands. So be careful with straying too far from the shape of the original or one of his hands will be "holding" nothing in the air.

latorril

Hey, thanks. I like your model And thanks for the heads up with the animations.

latorril

It's coming along woot!

latorril

FINISHED!!!

latorril

Done!



So happy, and proud that it's all finished.