HMP Contest-BananaHead

BananaHead

last update:
some further work:




Hello Guys,

i will give my best!
hopefully this time i will get a chance...

thanks and looking forward to some crazy characters.

last idea:

Anais

Welcome back, BananaHead!
Looking forward to see what you'll come up with this time.

Best of luck!

BananaHead

first idea finding.... hopefully i will have the time for the contest... i am learning for classes right now...

what do you think? which one would be the most interesting?

it will be a self-portrait...
i would love to dress myself in a wedding dress...

BananaHead

heya,

i refined my concepts a little bit.

i would love to make the bride-costume. but i like the idea of a steampunk-panda too.

what would you like better??

jeebs

I would go with the steampunk, or panda guy .

Anais

Hehe, I agree with Jeebs. Seems like a steampunk panda could be really fun (both for us and for you to create).

BananaHead

all right, challange accepted!

thanks for the replys.

Anais

Hey there! Just a quick reminder that your WIP post and Polycount nickname has not been associated with any registration to the contest yet:

Make sure to click the register button on the official page and provide at least your name, WIP post URL, and Mixamo login or associated email.

That way, we can make sure you have free access to Mixamo and Houdini services for your contest project. Cheers!

BananaHead

hello anais,

thanks for the reminder! i directly wrote the mail.

here is the new and final concept i will work on.
i just didnt like the steampunk panda, so i changed to the old-fashioned but stylish ape... maybe i will try to build in some steampunk elements, but for now the direction is found!

Anais

Now that is one classy -- and obviously punctual -- ape.
Note: Didn't see your email come through. Did you use contest@mixamo.com?

BananaHead

yeaps! (i used the link on the page)
well, i'll try again.

my mail adress is "brain@jan-daniel.nl", so maybe its comming to your spam? but my last mail did go through as well....

Anais

You're all good now. Thanks for your patience!

BananaHead

first session on the monkey face:



[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cGjgNmiJiE"]Mr. Monkey - first session - YouTube[/ame]

nacertag

good luck man,i like the monkey idea

BananaHead

hello there,

thanks nacertag, maybe it is a little bit mainstream.... we will see, how i make his outfit

next step on creating the base:

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Elyaradine

Cute face! Will he have a tail?

BananaHead

hey there,

sorry, long time no update... i am in classes-time for the university, but finally i took some time to work further.

i changed the idea completely. i will go after an fat badass steampunk sheriff monkey...

this is my progress so far:

Anais

Nice sculpt!

BananaHead

thank you very much anais!

further work on mr. monkey.
whoa... this will be so much work... so much work... i love this kind of work :poly142:

BananaHead

small update...

BananaHead

worked on the shoes.
have some big problems with the... uhm... "shoelace"...:

Anais

Wow you are fast...
I gotta say, I'm not sure what's going on with that shoe lace! :P

BananaHead

thanks anais! well, i had two free days so i sculpted a little bit ^^
i mean that... uhm... laces... i dont like how they look.
and i still have to add some more details.

Edrice

This is looking better and better!

BananaHead

hey, many thanks edrice!

BananaHead

new update.
i worked on the pants and he has finally a hat!
still lot of work.

i hope, that houdini works how i hope it works.
i have some non-cloth things attached to the cloth.

hopefully i can manage to simulate his cloth... :poly122:

nacertag

man that is awesome i like that attitude . good job
for the non cloth objects u do not need to put it in the sim, i think u can just put some kind of surface constraint on them to stick to the cloth or if u use max u can import your simulated cloth and apply a skin wrap on your hi res cloth and it should work fine .and im sure there is something similar in what ever 3dpack u r using
again love your update:thumbup:

twelveplusplus

ahahahah, it's like cowboy donkey kong meets beer belly... I wouldn't wanna be on the wrong end of this guy's barrel


12++

BananaHead

@nacertag: many thanks for this help. i will try out different things but it could work in the end, like i want it to look like.
i will have to experiment

@twelveplusplus: thanks. yeah, he doesnt use a barrel... ^^

some slow progress... i didnt like the pants in the shoes so i pulled it over them.
some work on the handshoes and the belt. nothing big here, just wanted to share the progress.

BananaHead

first color-layout.
i think, i go with the bright brown.

Eggbert

I agree, I like the light brown, think its a better contrast against the monkeys skin and other clothes, than the darker jacket

Anais

Oh my oh my... Can't wait to see more. Great progress!

Jim Crafton

Very cool concept, looks really good and the coat will be very cool to see it move. Do you have any ideas for the animation? Just a walk cycle? Something more complicated?

Dryulya

This monkey-sheriff is my favorite today.

BananaHead

heya! many thanks for the nice comments!
i finally got the time to finish the painting stage. And now the real pain begins: retopo! -.-'

@Jim Crafton: i dunno, i will see whats available on the mixamo site and what fits mr. monkey the best.


EDIT/HELP: maybe someone knows, is it possible to have a "thick" surface as cloth in houdini? His coat has thickness and i need to know before retopologizing it... would be nice if someone knows the answer. if not, i have to try... :-/

Edrice

I think it could work but it would be slow and problematic. You could have a single sided geometry and append it to your thick geo. Or add a shell node to your single sided geo.

BananaHead

many thanks!
i will try.
i only know the shell modifier in 3d max...

Edrice

Haha same here, I'm just saying this stuff because you should be able to them in houdini, but I have no idea how to do it in Houdini.

ChewyPixels

Nice work. You might be making it more difficult on yourself with all those straps & buckles, but who doesn't like a challenge?!

In Maya, for any cloth sim work, I'd apply the cloth dynamics to a single-sided surface object. I'd then bake this into the geo once my cloth was working the way I wanted it to. If I wanted to add any thickness to the object, I would apply it afterwards. You should be able to use a similar workflow in Houdini.

Good luck!

-Chewy

Jim Crafton

You can modify the cloth geo after it's dopimport node (this is the node that brings in the simulation data back into the SOP context or geometry data). After this node you could add a PolyExtrude, or do whatever you want.

nacertag

typical cloth wrkflow is to add thikness too your objects after your simiulation is done and i would try to change their collision thikness so when you do apply a shell it wont intersect with the other geometry
like your progress:thumbup:

BananaHead

hey there,

many thanks for the replys! i definetely will try this way.
i already thought, it has to be a one-sided geometry. but for today i am done with retopology, uv and baking.

for now only diff and normal maps.
Polycount for now: 7800. the coat will be heavy, because it has to look smooth.

Jim Crafton

Just a quickie question, because I've seen a couple of people doing this. Any reason why people are make game engine style meshes? i.e. triangulating meshes, making normal maps (as opposed to using displacement maps) etc? There aren't any requirements that we make low poly meshes, or restrict ourselves to normal maps are there? I'm not criticizing, I'm just curious.

BananaHead

hey jim,

short and simple answer: the original mesh is 34mio polys dense. so it isnt animateable at all.
this one is real low poly. i could give some better topology on the pants, but i was too lazy.
i use normal maps, because it worked best for me...

and the last and very personal reason: i want to have another piece for my portfolio. and maybe i can use that character later in a personal game project.

BananaHead

further retopo-work:

BananaHead

first of all i have to thank mixamo for the great support!

i had a very hard time to get the whole thing working inside houdini.

i tried the sim with painted values (very high bend on the collar, weak stiffness on the rest), but it took too much time to simulate.

i won't add the belts.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsudaVIP1-0"]Mr. Monkey dance Test1 - YouTube[/ame]

Anais

Damn... That monkey's got moves! Nicely mixed soundtrack there... :P
Sorry you had difficulties with Houdini: Can you sum up some of the things you're having trouble with here? Maybe we can get you some help from the Houdini team?

Jim Crafton

That's cool looking! I feel your pain on the cloth sim, I spent all weekend fighting with it, and I'm still waiting for it to finish (at around 7 minutes a frame). Keep at it though. How are you generating the cloth? Are you using "flat" geometry, i.e. no sides/not extruded, just a single side of faces? Is it triangulated? You can use the single sided mesh to run the sim on, and then have that drive your higher poly mesh.

Robert.Magee

Houdini's cloth tools prefer quads over triangles. If you are having issues then see if you can post your files to the contest forum at sidefx.com:

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=172&page=viewforum&f=43

Then I can have a developer look at your topology and setup and make suggestions.

Robert

BananaHead

Hello,

i use single quad faces.
My main problems are the right settings to make it look realistic.

after i painted different weightings (strong bend, stiffnes etc) on the collar and the rest, it renders unbelievable long and at some point it explodes.
So i tried to make "generic" settings without painting. But now it bends too much at the bottom.

i will post my file at side-fx. I hope you can help me to find a way to make it look good.

many thanks for your help!