HMP Contest - Se

ChewyPixels

--LATEST UPDATE--

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--ORIGINAL POST--
Hi everyone,

New here. This contest is too good to pass up so I had to join! It's going to be tough to finish with my busy schedule (freelance 3d generalist), but I would so love to win a Houdini license!

My character is an alien astronaut. I'm nicknaming him "Fishbowl" for the HUGE fishbowl like helmet he's wearing. :poly121: Still very early. I'm making it up as I go. I know... not the best most efficient way, but I'm hoping to come up with something good anyway. :poly124:

I still need to add some lower body armor before I finish what I have here. Most importantly, I also need to add several cloth elements. I want to have some long flowing fabric elements, so I'm not sure how to integrate that into his design. Any ideas are greatly appreciated! Heck, I'll give him a skirt if I have to or even a cape of sorts.

Btw, I'm not a character artist (more of a generalist) so any helpful crits are definitely welcome.

As I already see there is some tough competition in here. Best of luck to everyone!

-Chewy

alphajayel

this looks awesome man! love that side profile!

Anais

This looks like a fun concept! Welcome and good luck!

ChewyPixels

@alphajayel - Thanks man! Really looking forward to fleshing him out more. Really need to get the modeling done asap so I can move onto learning some Houdini. So much to do so little time!

@Anais - Thank you very much! Glad to be here.

-Chewy

Elyaradine

That space suit has a very attractive shape!

ChewyPixels

@Elyaradine - Hehe, thanks!

Small update. I did some work on the leg armor. Not sure about the tread on the feet. Might leave them out. Anyway, leaving as is for now and will move onto the arms. I hope to have something to show by the weekend.

-Chewy

ChewyPixels

Finally an update! It's been a while. Work is getting in the way. Argh! :poly127:

Good news is I did manage to work on my character for the last several days. I decided to scrap the astronaut concept idea since I just couldn't integrate some cloth into the design without looking forced. So, the new idea is that my character is an escapee from some secret government laboratory. :poly124:



I still need to add some more detail before moving onto retopo. Unfortunately, I won't be able to detail him as much as I'd like to considering the amount of time remaining. Need to make some sacrifices or I'll never finish.

Design-wise, I plan on giving him a lab coat that will be his pathetic disguise as he tries to escape the secret base. The lab coat will be oversized for him since he's only 3-4 feet tall. I think if I can successfully pull this off it should make for some nice cloth dynamics. We'll see. :poly121:

Crits welcome of course.

-Chewy

BananaHead

haha, nice, i like your little guy!
keep up the nice work!

ChewyPixels

Thanks @BananaHead! Glad you like him.

Now the challenge is to be able to finish on time.

-Chewy

nacertag

i like it

ChewyPixels

Going to try to post more regular updates to try to push myself to finish this guy in time.

Here he is in Mudbox. Finished with the hands and now moving back to finishing up the head. He's going to have some symmetry since it's just faster that way. Might break up the symmetry later down the road if I have time.

After I get the hands and head out of the way, I need to finish up detailing the flight suit and armor. Then it's onto the lab coat which should be pretty simple. After that it's onto retopo'ing everything, UV mapping, then texturing before I can start doing anything in Houdini. So much to do! :poly127:

Crits welcome as usual.

-Chewy

ChewyPixels

@nacertag - Thanks!

ChewyPixels

So, I tried the Mixamo site on my base mesh. Works really well. I really like it! Unfortunately, my previous design using the armor for my character's legs wasn't working well with any of the animations. Turns out the leg armor was just too wide on his legs. In order to make it work I would either need to heavily tweak the animation after importing into Maya or do a redesign on the armor until it worked. Neither of these options was going to work for me since both would eat up a lot of time. I already wasted lots of time as it is. :poly127:

The other option that I decided to go with is to go simple on the design. So, here he is at his current state. I already tested the simpler design through Mixamo and works much better. I would love to give him some more interesting details like armor and such but with time running out it's not going to happen. As for the cloth elements, I still plan on giving him a long, flowing, hooded robe to wear. That should take care of that aspect. I'm hoping to have that hooded robe done over the weekend for the next update.

-Chewy

Elyaradine

The suit looks nice and organic! Curious what you're going to clothsim.

ChewyPixels

Elyaradine wrote: »

The suit looks nice and organic! Curious what you're going to clothsim.

@Elyaradine - Thanks! I'm going to make him a long, hooded robe to wear. I guess that makes him either a priest, a monk, an assassin, or some being with super powers. It's a mystery! :poly124:

I'm hoping to have that robe done over the weekend. We'll see.

-Chewy

Vivi_ZA

excellent silhouette and proportions dude. Can't wait to see the final product. refraction under that helmet gonna look so sweet

ChewyPixels

Vivi_ZA wrote: »

excellent silhouette and proportions dude. Can't wait to see the final product. refraction under that helmet gonna look so sweet

Thanks @Vivi_ZA! Unfortunately, I had to ditch the whole astronaut concept since I couldn't integrate some cloth into the design.

ChewyPixels

I've been bogged with work, but I finally have a break!

Just a quick update. I'm still not sure if this is the direction I want to take with him. We'll see. I better decide fast as I'm so behind! :poly127:



-Chewy

ChewyPixels

Here's a test render to make sure that my baked displacement maps are working. I'm currently rendering a full turntable at smaller resolution to make sure there aren't any displacement issues. I'm using V-Ray for Maya for now, but if it works there it should work in Mantra. I'll be doing all my texture/shader look development in V-Ray since I'm familiar with that environment thus it should go faster there. Once I'm happy with the look, I'll try replicating it in Mantra once I get to that stage.

-Chewy

nacertag

very nice man.
it sucked that you could not incorporate that armor in your concept its so cool.
i would consider other option for the long jacket because the one you got in my opinion does not fit your concept
good luck

ChewyPixels

Thanks @nacertag!

Yeah, sucks I couldn't incorporate any of the armor. I just kept running into problems that had me redoing what I already had & then ending up not using any of it. It just ate up way too much time unfortunately and set me back quite a bit. I wish I had uploaded my character to Mixamo early on in the concepting stage. It would have saved me a ton of work. :poly127: I probably would have been able to keep the armor but in much slimmer form.

I also agree with you about the jacket. I was playing with ideas & haven't really found something that I really like. With time running out, I'm now leaning on just giving him a long flowing cape making him a super-powered being from another planet. This way I can still show his bodysuit more-so than if I had just added a jacket. Then it will be a matter of choosing the right combo of Mixamo animations with some cool-looking Houdini cloth techniques. That's the plan at least. We'll see. :poly122:

-Chewy

ChewyPixels

Super Intergalactic Planetary... Sapien! :poly124:

Finally finished with the modeling side of things!

Usually I would move onto look-dev, but I'll save that for near the end. The texturing/shading work is definitely going to suffer since I don't have much time. I already have the Mixamo animation imported into Maya, so I'll be making any animation adjustments if needed today. Then I'll bring everything into Houdini for the cloth work. I hope I can get all of that done today so I can have 1-2 days for the look-dev & lighting work in Mantra, then the remaining time for rendering & comping. *crosses fingers*

I will need a miracle to finish this on time!

-Chewy

nacertag

that's more like him ,i like the cape holder its awesome:thumbup:
i think you finished the hard part and it wont take too long for houdini to simulate that cape
it looks like the Super Intergalactic Planetary is in a mission to find hes super shoes:)

ChewyPixels

Ha ha! "Wear are my shoes!?"

nacertag wrote: »

it wont take too long for houdini to simulate that cape

I hope not, but you haven't seen the Mixamo animation I chose. I'm sure Houdini can handle it with no problem, but the question is... can I tackle it well enough? :poly122: We shall see!

I'll upload an animation blocking pass soon minus the cape of course.

-Chewy

ChewyPixels

Here is my current animation pass. There are some skinning issues but at this point I don't have the time to fix. It will have to do. Still a wip but leaving it for now so I can move onto cloth.

Crits welcome!

-Chewy

[vv]61767397[/vv]

nacertag

i like the animation that you got going :thumbup: .
make sure that your cape has uvs and its all quads and check the normal direction too its easy for Houdini like that .
for thickness u can use the method that is shown in the tutorial or use this nodes in this order polyextrude ,smooth and finaly facet and cahet it out using the rop output node and use the cached cape with thickness for your finale
good luck with the rest

ChewyPixels

Thanks for the tips @nacertag!

Unfortunately, my cloth sim experiments last night didn't go too well. I think it's partly because I am dealing with a fairly heavy animated mesh to begin with (22k quad faces). Then another 4700 quad faces for the low-resolution cape. So, I'm currently creating a lower face count mesh that will only be used to help drive the cloth simulation. Then I'll bake out the cloth and import that into the character scene. That's the plan but I'm not feeling optimistic about finishing this on time.

We'll see.

-Chewy

Vivi_ZA

your model is insane sir, the cape has an amazingly natural feel to it. Goodluck with the simming see you at the finish line

Dryulya

I really like the character and movement. Good luck.

Jim Crafton

Wow! That's gonna really look awesome, hope the sim works well with this. Can't wait to see what the Houdini renders look like.

ChewyPixels

Well, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to make the cut-off time. :poly127: Having 1-2 days to try to learn Houdini cloth for a fairly new Houdini user is just not enough time. Then there is still the rendering portion that I haven't even had a chance to look into. However, I'll still try to finish this for the fun of it and to have as a portfolio piece. I'll still post any updates up until the close of the contest.

Good luck everyone!

-Chewy

ChewyPixels

Turntable of my character with cape:

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-Chewy

nacertag

good luck man hope we can cross the finish line ,for me this will be the first caracther that i ever finish if i do :-)

ChewyPixels

First finished character? Ha, nice! Good luck to you as well @nacertag!

-Chewy

nacertag

yeap this will be the first :-)
im a self thought and a noob to the whole 3d thing and with my job that has no relation to 3d or art i never found the time to finish any project .
a couple of time when i did get close to finish something a stupid mistake pull me back to the start line like forgetting to save or a crush
im not hoping to win anything from this contest and this will be the first piece for my portfolio and i m happy with just that
good luck

Dryulya

The hands are very good.

ChewyPixels

Thanks @Dryula!

Houdini cloth is so much fun! After playing around with it for 1-2 days, I finally have my first decent cloth sim.

[vv]61960499[/vv]

I did forgot to add a ground object to act as a collision object. There are also a few interpenetration issues but overall not too bad. I'd also like to add some wind effects, but not sure if I'll get to that.

Unfortunately, I had to scrap all the work on the old cape as it wasn't working too well with the cloth sim. Definitely a lesson learned there.

I hope to finally nail the cloth today then get to rendering asap. I really wish we had another week to work on this but oh well.

-Chewy

Jim Crafton

Looks great! Really nice flow of the cloth, can't wait to see your renders.

Dryulya

chicly

ChewyPixels

Thanks fellas!

I quickly did some look-dev work for my character while running another cloth sim. This is what I came up with:



Just a paint-over of one of the TT renders. I'm going to go with very basic textures and materials since I don't have much time. For the cape I'm going to go with a silver inner material and outer black I think. Got the inspiration when I came upon some Ultraman images on the web.

I'm wondering if it's okay to use the SideFX logo. Anyone?

-Chewy

Jim Crafton

Very cool! I'd say go for it in terms of using the logo, I don't see why it would be an issue? I wonder what it would look like on the cape?

ChewyPixels

Thanks!

I might end up putting the logo on the outer side of the cape and have the camera swing towards his back near the end of the video. Or, I'll have to place it somewhere else since I forgot about the metal cowl around his neck.

-Chewy

Dryulya

The color of the dress is very well emphasizes the color of his face.

jayson

Really great looking character! The colors were looking a little concerning at first, but your last render really pulled them together well. I hear you on the time thing. There's a lot in Houdini to explore. It would be nice to have a few more days to experiment. Ah well. Good luck!

Anais

Looking awesome Chewy!
About the logo, I would advise against putting it up there. (There are strict trademark rules to abide by when using a company's logo.) Also, this contest is the fruit of a partnership between Mixamo, Houdini and cmiVFX so unless you want to end up with your costume looking like rally driver's jacket, I'd avoid going the logo route! :P

Have you managed to overcome the technical issues you had mentioned earlier?
Keeping fingers crossed! Cheers,

ChewyPixels

Hi @Anais!

Okay, I wasn't sure about the logo. I'll definitely not use it. Thanks.

I just finished my final cloth sim so yes, I did overcome the previous technical issues. Thanks for asking.

Cheers,
-Chewy

ChewyPixels

This will have to be my final Houdini cloth sim for my character. I'm not too happy with the animation nearing the end right before the character goes into a static pose. Animation on the cape is a bit unnatural there. I'll probably change the camera angle to make it less noticeable.

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-Chewy

ChewyPixels

Currently rendering out an alternate version of my final entry to have as a portfolio piece. Adding in a few things that I didn't have time for such as displacement map rendering and a simple environment. I'll upload here as soon as it's ready if anyone is interested.

-Chewy

ChewyPixels

Decided to create a more polished version of my final entry. This is what it should have been if I had more time to render and assemble.

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-Chewy