[Dota 2] - Witch Doctor - TBD

Tdank

Dec, 6 Update:

latest post:

Judging by the workshop ratings so far there is definitely room for improvement with my designs but I haven't had many comments/critiques as of yet.

Any suggestions for this or any future sets? I had a lot of fun doing the contest and look forward to making many more items but wanted to get some guidance insofar as where my focus should be. Right now I'm thinking that simplifying my designs would be first on the agenda. I definitely learned a lot about what does/doesn't work at these polycounts and UV map scales.

So once again I am really looking for some crits here but thanks again for the feedback I did receive and can't wait to start another set, hopefully a courier as well at some point since that would involve what I actually do (Animator).


Original Post:

Hey everyone,

I'm a little late with just under a month to go but thought I would design a set for the Witch Doctor.

Here are the rough designs I have so far. I have some sketches done for the back and weapon slots and I'll hopefully find time to post those tomorrow. Hopefully I'll also get a ward in as well.

I've submitted to the Dota 2 workshop before and found that my biggest time sink was due to not having decided on a solid design before starting to model. That being said I'd love to hear any feedback and suggestions you may have regarding the overall theme/direction of the set. Some of my designs are wayyy too complicated to work so I'm hoping to simplify (head option D is my favorite but with the budget allotted to the head slot it doesn't seem doable).


Overall I'm leaning towards a plague/fungal/poison theme.


..."it's time for shots!"

dproeder

I like Head "D" and Shoulder "B" if you pushed it a little more.

MichaelF

its a D, B, B for me great designs

Spudnik

Head D looks great! And I'm with dproeder on the shoulder, push it a little bit further away from the "plush toy" feel and it'll be great!

Beezow

Loving the third belt.

Graham

Head: A is super cool, I love the upside down idea.
Shoulder: B or C, leaning more towards C though, B is just too cuddly.
Belt: B, the ingredients and placement seem more interesting.

Nice concepts altogether.

Tdank

Thanks for the feedback!

I may have to simplify head D a little bit due to the strict poly limit (250 triangles) but I'll try to mock up a rough model of A and D sometime this week and see which is more possible.

I can definitely make shoulder B a lot less cartoony and I want to give it a shot as well. I will make a few more sketches of it.

Here are the concepts I have for the weapon and back slots, let me know what you think!

Spudnik

For both the back and the weapon, A strike my fancy

dArth

A A A F*ck**g A ! Very very very good job
Oh wait... C for shoulders

I'm jealous... ^^

Some Jerk

Staff A is very nasty looking. But it just might work.

neal_liddle

Too much awesome concept! Keep it up!! Loving the character hanging out of his bag

Tdank

Another update. Now I'm trying to decide which set works best together after ruling out the pieces that didnt seem as popular.

I am leaning towards set c. I like the frog head covering the most but get the feeling it will cause a lot of problems trying to get it in, I think ill try a low poly concept tonight or tomorrow though just to see.

Tdank

just made a test version of the frog helmet to see if it could be made satisfactorily within the 250 triangle budget, what do you guys think? Otherwise I should be able to squeeze a little more detail from head option a.

Zambash

I would go with option A, I think the frog head just looks a little too bulky and messes up the proportions a bit.

Tdank

lod 1 of the helmet. Wanted to make sure the design works at the lowest level (250 tris).

Tvidotto

awesome concepts man

why people here are so good? hahaha

Tdank

finished off the Lod 1 version of the head and now I'm working on the low res versions of the rest of the pieces. Here's an update on how the shoulder and belt are coming along. I hope to have the Lod1 versions of all the pieces complete by the end of the weekend and hopefully get into some sculpting/texturing tomorrow night.

I had a question about the lod0 versions and are they worth doing for all the pieces? My current understanding is that they are only used in the portraits of the characters and thus if they aren't visible there don't warrant the extra LOD. Regardless I have a busy few weeks ahead of me so I'll be plugging away and posting updates/looking for feedback as much as I can.

Tdank

Almost done with the rough Lod1 modelling:

Danglebob

oh man! i love that frog hat. It's an easier shape to read than option A. It has big enough shapes and enough humor to make it a popular item in the ingame store, in my opinion. everything else is looking great.

Gareth_Thomas

Awesome stuff! Really cool and original ideas. Can't wait to see it finished.

Tdank

@Screwonhed: Thanks for the feedback! I'm hoping to improve the readability of the face mask with the texture for sure. I'd love to do the frog helmet but with its size would probably take up one of the other slots just to increase it's texture resolution and polycount. I'm not clear on how you would submit an item that would take up multiple slots so I'm just playing it safe for now (I'm pretty green to modeling for games). Regardless I want to give it a shot after the competition for sure.


@Gareth_Thomas: Thanks! It's great to hear that some people are liking the set so far, all the more reason to rush home and after work and work some more lol.

Farfarer

Haha, that staff's looking awesome man. Loving the designs so far.

I think you could scale up the bottle in his belt a little - might get a bit lost in-game, especially as he sort of stoops over it.

Looking forward to seeing the textures.

Tdank

Updated first post, will put significant updates there from now on.

And thanks for the suggestion Farfarer! I made the bottle in his belt bigger and I think it reads much clearer now.

Tdank

Hey, here is some of the stuff I've worked on over the past weekend. I'm looking forward to finishing off the high res sculpts during the week and getting the baking/coloring done over the upcoming long weekend (excellent timing). I want to leave the last week to in game testing/adjustments so we'll see how this scheduling actually works out.

Shoulder color concept + zbrush WIP:


Head Zbrush WIP:


Staff zbrush WIP:



The belt and back sculpts are under way but a little rough atm, will post later tonight or tomorrow. I also have color concepts for the other piecs I will post, having a hard time settling on a palette that wont be too distracting. Other than that I'd love to hear your thoughts on the progress so far!

Tdank

And in case you were wondering about the head not matching the drawing I'm doing the sculpt symettrically so I can mirror the uv's more easily. I will remove the jaw on the left and lengthen the right tooth the uv's and baking are done. The UV map for the head is pretty small so making both sides of the face unique would cost a lot of detail.

Tdank

done the high res sculpt of the mask

Kralzar

lol, that staff makes me wanna puke in my mouth.. but in a good way!
Everytime I look at it I keep making a "blahhhh" sound in my head.
Keep it up.

Tdank

Shoulder update

Tdank

update on the shoulder high res sculpt, think this one is done

Tdank

rough color concept for the back:

hopgood

Love that back concept

Tdank

Back high res sculpt WIP, will hopefully finish tonight after work:

Tdank

Also, this has probably come up before but can't seem to find any info on it. How can I change the title of my thread to the correct name now showing on my original post (I edited it there expecting the title on the contest page to change).

Tdank

Another back slot update, pretty ,much done wit the high res sculpting escept for some extra refinement on the bag portion.

selvesteHE

Really looking forward to seeing the texture work for this!

Tdank

Thanks for the encouragement! It's a long weekend coming up and hopefully I can get most of the textures done by next week.

Tdank

Man that was a long weekend of learning programs..

I've baked out all my normal maps from zbrush high poly models to the lod1 set. Now I'm just finalizing the textures.

Here is the head so far:


and the final high res meshes:

Tdank

Update on head texture:

Tdank

Weapon texture update:

I've been having a hard time settling on the palette of the weapon. Not sure I'll stick with it in it's current form but I've got to get the other pieces colored before I stay on one item too long.

Some of the textures are dangerously close to being too low res once I bust it down to 256x256. I may have to shrink the head down a bit.

Tdank

Rough in game test of head, definitely think I should scale down the head on the staff now.

Lennyagony

That staffs epic, does the tongue wiggle?

D4V1DC

Love the work on that staff, don't scale that down too much.

Very original I love this, congrats keep going.

Tdank

@Lennyagony: You bet! I haven't polished the weighting on it but it seemed to work pretty good with a rough pass.

@$!nz: Thanks, will do!

Tdank

finally finished with the back and shoulder colors though if there is any feedback I'd love to hear it, there is still time to make adjustments of course.

Just need to finish up the belt and do some more submission tests and I may actually get this set in on time!

lancemaker

great job dude!

luckycat

original and cool designs dude,

the creature in the belt satchel..thumbs up :thumbup:

bugball

awesome

Tdank

Latest test with all pieces textured and all maps with the maya dota 2 shader (not working perfectly but close enough).

Any last minute suggestions for color changes/other adjustments?

Jalcober

Textures are looking way too noisy.

Tdank

Thanks for the feedback, I'll try to adress the issue in the time left, here is a picture of the staff up close in the game, Does anyone know which mask channel is responsible for that greenish tint showing up in the dark areas of the model?

Tdank

Not liking the inconsistency of the colors in the set, going to have to make a few more adjustments/tests then I thought... And I though I was going to sleep tonight!