[Dota2] – Riki – TBD

oDD

At the beginning I wanted to do a set for Phantom Assassin. I had few ideas but wasn’t sure if I could pull off something memorable.



My second choice was Riki. I liked his look. When I read his lore I immediately had bunch of ideas.

visual ideas for the concept:
1)asymmetry through destruction - I like the duality of this character: he has a noble background, yet he is an assassin. Plus his family was killed when he was a child so he is broken, not complete
2)royal symbols/emblems/jewelry(?) - signs of royal heritage
3)elements of older age(?) - Maybe I will try to make him look a little older (longer beard, longer horns). My thinking is it can contribute to a more grand/epic looking set

first rough sketches


two of my biggest obstacles:
modeling skills
time

wish me luck :P

Spudnik

Given numbering 1 to 3, 1 being left and 3 right, I like the right glove on 3, the right shoulder on 2 and the crown on 2. (all camera right)

You might run into problems with toooo much asymmetry, the poly budget and available UV space is pretty tight.

oDD

Spudnik thanks for the comments. I know what you mean but I think making a wrist strap on one hand gives me more polygons to spend on the gauntlet on the other hand etc.

I looked again on the polygon limits and I learned two things:
1) the restrictions are very high
2) weapon triangle limit is comparable to his head limit so the blades are more important than I initially thought ( they need to be awesome! )

I looked through more reference images. I really like this shape of horns (I will try to use this shape in the weapon and armor design)



New version of my concept, didn't want to go into too much detail (his right blade will be cut at the end, just wanted to show the main shape here)

oDD

started working on the weapon



shape of blade readable but handle needs more tweaks

editpolygon

As a person who is modding the same character I've come to realize how limited the aesthetics are when modding for Riki. We can't change anything about his clothing and everything we make will have to revolve around his distinguished attire.

That said, you found an interesting way to circumvent that. :P

Which program did you use to render out an image of Riki for your paint overs? I'm using Max and having trouble getting the materials right.

oDD

editpolygon: I feel you about the limitations. I'm also using max, I'm not even trying to recreate the materials, for the thumbs it's only diffuse texture plus specular with no mask. For the second sketch I used the screenshot from the game:



I've finished working on the lowpoly of the blade plus I've made a concept of the shoulder pad. I don't want to be too specific because the shape will probably change during modeling. Most important thing is the golden head, I want it to be visible in-game.

oDD

I need help! I don't know much about rigging nor animation. I'm testing the shoulder pad. The smaller part is rigged to biceps bone and it looks ok in game. The bigger part is rigged to the shoulder bone and it looks ok in max but is way too high in game. I could rig it to biceps but then it moves really stiff. How should I rig the bigger part? to few bones ? rotate the bigger part so it looks bad in Max bad ok in game?

editpolygon

oDD, your interpretation of Riki has a broken horn. Why don't you take that missing piece and fashion it into Riki's off hand dagger? :P

Managor

editpolygon wrote: »

oDD, your interpretation of Riki has a broken horn. Why don't you take that missing piece and fashion it into Riki's off hand dagger? :P

That's a nice idea but falls apart when thinking that they can be equipped separately.

oDD

editpolygon cool idea, Managor is right but i'm not gonna rule it out. For now I'm sticking to the minimum - two twin blades.

Did the lowpoly for shoulder pads (250 tris). For now sticking it all to biceps.



And created the concept for head

oDD

lowpoly of the head (it took me ages)



I read you can add your own bone to the model in the technical requirements section but is it possible to apply physics to his goatee? Please anyone answer this, I've searched but couldn't find too much info.

oDD

hands concept (I'm trying to reinforce the asymmetry with colors)



thinking of naming the set "Might & Misery"

oDD

hands are taking me ages to finish (having trouble with rig etc) here is a WIP


in the meantime i did the tail (no concept this time)

oDD

weapon in zbrush (too much detail but wanted to train my sculpting skills)



I'm starting to think i won't make it on time, good thing i will have more time in next few days.

oDD

baked and cleaned normalmaps + lod

oDD

tail

zbrush


final lowpoly with normalmap

BrontoThunder

Why is this thread not getting more love? This stuff is incredible!

I love the dagger, took me a sec to realise that it was a hoof

Good luck, hope you finish because I can't wait to see it in-game!

oDD

BrontoThunder: thanks for the encouragement!

I'm working on this whenever I've got time. If I want to do this on time I will have to finish all modeling before monday.

Making the crown was hard. I wanted to redesign it a little in Zbrush but making it look like it was not made from clay was very time consuming. I decided to finish it in Max.

selvesteHE

Good stuff man! I like how he has a self-portrait on his shoulderpad :P

Keep it up, youre doing great!

oDD

selvesteHE: thanks!

for the shoulder I started from reworking the lowpoly and adjusting the position of the pauldron so it would be better visible in game.



And here is the sculpt and final models.

Pina

Awesome stuff in here. Really, there should be more people watching you work dude.

One thing, are you doing your textures on the final resolution? Because your UV sets are very close to each other, be carefull because the game creates lower resolutions of your textures and some color could spill from one cluster to the other.

Down Limit

great job. how you make normalmap? its amazing

oDD

Pina: thanks, I'm hoping I left enough space between the pieces
Down Limit: thnaks man, My pipeline is pretty basic - lowpoly base mesh in max > sculpting in zbrush > baking normals in max with Projection modifier > cleaning the normal texture in Photoshop

I took a brake after the deadline extend announcement. I redesigned/simplified the arm piece in max. Here is where I am now.







There will be some minor tweaks to the model (I think some of the elements of the arms armor need to be a little bigger).

oDD

texture wip



and the turntable thingie

demondance

Keep it up, i really love your concept. One of the best concept of Riki up to now.

oDD

demondance: thanks!

after more work on the textures and some tweaking of geometry

oDD

Created the masks and uploaded to workshop



http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=111372792

BrontoThunder

Congrats on finishing