[UDK] Suchomimus - Dinosaur model

mistermojo

Pretty much finished this now and would love some feedback, be as critical as you like. Thanks!

Demo Video

Here's the video showing Suchomimus in UDK with full materials and animations, as well as showing him chase me around Epic's Foliage Map. Would love some feedback on the animations as I've never rigged/animated before.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLJY20oxuQY"]Suchomimus - Low Poly Dinosaur Model for UDK - Demo [J Hill, h005834a] - YouTube[/ame]

UDK Renders











OP:

One of my final year uni projects is to model, texture and animate (using CAT) a dinosaur to be put in the Unreal engine. The art style is 'realistic' but we're allowed to exaggerate slightly as long as we use bone structure/anatomy correctly. I'll be using zBrush to model initially.

I've chosen the Suchomimus and will post my progress in this thread; any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, I have a lot to improve!

I won't post all of my research and reference here, but here's my concept:



And here's where I'm at now, just blocking in the main forms using zSketch and Dynamesh:

mistermojo

Made a lot of changes as there were loads of inconsistencies, started adding more detail though, along with the teeth/claws/spine:

chrisradsby

I feel like it's looking quite cartoony right now. Mostly in the anatomy of the creature, it feels like the feet should be bigger and that the top of the legs should attach to the spine better or more smoothly. I think you should get away from any kind of shiny material when sculpting this, just try to define shapes more so you don't end up with something looking blobby.

Other than that, good job of getting the basic shapes down. Now you need to refine those shapes in every subdivision. Go back to a lower one and make sure the muscles look right.

mistermojo

chrisradsby wrote: »

I feel like it's looking quite cartoony right now. Mostly in the anatomy of the creature, it feels like the feet should be bigger and that the top of the legs should attach to the spine better or more smoothly. I think you should get away from any kind of shiny material when sculpting this, just try to define shapes more so you don't end up with something looking blobby.

Other than that, good job of getting the basic shapes down. Now you need to refine those shapes in every subdivision. Go back to a lower one and make sure the muscles look right.

Great feedback, thanks

Hit a bit of a wall with what I can achieve on this sub-d level so I'll just post what I have currently after a few hours of fixing things. I don't have a lower sub-d level cos I was getting problems with fingers merging together on lower resolutions, not sure if it's worth going back and changing things anyway?

mistermojo

Spent a fair few hours trying to add a bit more detail and sorted out the horrible hands too - not sure how I ever coped without dam_standard. Going to leave the scales until the form is correct

mistermojo

Added the scales and other small details using alphas, layers and morph targets, I'm thinking of dialling them back though as the muscle definition is getting a bit lost.

High res renders below, feedback welcome and appreciated

makinmagic3

The scales seem a little off for me, there needs to be some small/ medium/ big scales.

Check this video, for a good scale reference. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEXpKda61dg"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEXpKda61dg[/ame]

mistermojo

makinmagic3 wrote: »

The scales seem a little off for me, there needs to be some small/ medium/ big scales.

Check this video, for a good scale reference.

Loved the video, thanks

I've had another go at the scales, so glad I didn't just slap everything on one layer like I usually do:

mistermojo

Spent the day fixing a bunch of problems and having another go over everything (especially head, feet, hands and back). Feedback would be awesome

chrisradsby

I don't really have any feedback to give, right now I just want to see where you take it ^^ Good work so far!

mistermojo

chrisradsby wrote: »

I don't really have any feedback to give, right now I just want to see where you take it ^^ Good work so far!

Thanks

I've been messing around with rendering and trying to improve my presentation, I think this shows of the detail a bit better. Also been busy with the retop which is at the bottom (just to contradict myself it's badly presented, sorry ). It's just under my target, 12k. It's been a while since I left ZBrush so any thoughts on the topology would be welcome

KartoonHead

whole-eesh-it, that got pretty awesome pretty quick, can't wait for a bake!

mistermojo

KartoonHead wrote: »

whole-eesh-it, that got pretty awesome pretty quick, can't wait for a bake!

Thanks I'm still terrible with normal map baking but I'll give it my best shot...

mistermojo

Some freshly baked normals for y'all, I haven't tidied them up at all yet and I've got a few seams on the mirrored side of the model but from past experiences Marmoset has issues with mirrored normals which don't show up in UDK. Gonna test it tomorrow though

mistermojo

Fixed up the normal map and managed it to get it into UDK with (almost) no seams...

BenHenry

Wow! Amazing man!

mistermojo

BenHenry wrote: »

Wow! Amazing man!

Thanks a lot

Just messing around with polypaint, I don't usually use it but it's really good for quickly planning out textures which can be finalised later:

mistermojo

Moar painting:

neilberard

It's getting there. I would ease off on the cavity map in the diffuse and get larger gradient's and less saturation in the colors. Right now it feels really noisy and like a plastic toy.

mistermojo

neilberard wrote: »

It's getting there. I would ease off on the cavity map in the diffuse and get larger gradient's and less saturation in the colors. Right now it feels really noisy and like a plastic toy.

Agreed, it's a little garish at the moment, I'll be going over it again in photoshop soon Some of it is probably down to my dodgy editing of the ZBrush renders, so here's an unedited shot in UDK with an initial test diffuse, projected with xNormal (sorry about the bad presentation, just testing atm)

mistermojo

Been messing about with the diffuse and added a really basic spec. I can't figure out how to get the new Photobucket to upload higher than 1024x, so sorry for the low quality...

Satotiga

Looking great so far, good job mate. I don't have any advice to offer in the character side of things but just wanted to drop in and throw some praise at you.

I use imgur for all my hosting, its worth a try.

DWalker

Given their descendents, I'd probably model the eyes after a raptor than a reptile, but since there's no way to prove it either way, it's probably a matter of taste...




The tongue seems almost prehensile, typical of a giraffe or an okapi rather than either a reptile or a bird. It's also redder than is typical for either reptiles or birds. Those are both typically either white or a light pink.

grr... now I'm probably going to have nightmares about that creepy goose...

_DMage_

Huge

mistermojo

ToTheWorld wrote: »

Looking great so far, good job mate. I don't have any advice to offer in the character side of things but just wanted to drop in and throw some praise at you.

I use imgur for all my hosting, its worth a try.

Thanks Polycount has been so helpful in improving my work from what it used to be like.... *shudder*

DWalker wrote: »

Given their descendents, I'd probably model the eyes after a raptor than a reptile, but since there's no way to prove it either way, it's probably a matter of taste...

The tongue seems almost prehensile, typical of a giraffe or an okapi rather than either a reptile or a bird. It's also redder than is typical for either reptiles or birds. Those are both typically either white or a light pink.

grr... now I'm probably going to have nightmares about that creepy goose...

Awesome reference, thanks I've got a lot to improve but I'll be taking a break from this for a bit, got lots of other work to do unfortunately.

Dat goose :poly122:

mistermojo

Ok so I've pretty much finished this now, got him in UDK with working animations/materials/AI.

I'd love some feedback on the final model, feel free to be as critical as you like all the good stuff is in the first post. Can post texture flats if people want to see them. Thanks!

mistermojo

Nothing? I'm sure there's lots I can improve

mistermojo

Hate to triple post but a little feedback would be super-useful, especially with regards to the animation and UDK setup

tweekedgirl

I don't have much to say about the model itself - it's absolutely amazing, so great work there and it's looking awesome in-engine.

Just one thing about your presentation video. The first part seems far too long and I switched off after 30 seconds and skipped to the end. Perhaps condense the turntables and really reduce the total time?

mistermojo

tweekedgirl wrote: »

I don't have much to say about the model itself - it's absolutely amazing, so great work there and it's looking awesome in-engine.

Just one thing about your presentation video. The first part seems far too long and I switched off after 30 seconds and skipped to the end. Perhaps condense the turntables and really reduce the total time?

Thanks Yeah I agree about the video actually, I think as it's for a uni assignment I went a bit overboard with trying to show every aspect of the model.