Spinosaurus - (WIP)

aston91

Hi all, I have been making a Spinosaurus for one of my university projects. I have completed a base mesh (still need to add in tongue and teeth) which needs some tweaking but is mostly formed and complete. Any critique before i head in to Zbrush and start sculpting would be helpful. Cheers.

Here is some reference





My Progress

aston91

Here are some updates adding the tongue and teeth to the dino.

Lazerus Reborn

Shape it up before smoothing. It needs to be more organic.

The sail is too thick too, maybe use a double plane for it instead?

Add3r

Is this going to be a game model? If so, I mean, trying to be as realistic as possible is great, though I do think the amount of tiny teeth you have creates more noise than really helps. In games, its okay to change something up if it keeps that "believable realism" and helps with optimization and just straight up looks better as a final product. I mean, I am not saying go in there and make like 10 big fangs for each side of the mouth, but its just a little pre-thought before going into the high poly sculpting. Plus managing that many teeth is going to be difficult.

Duplicate! If you have a bunch of individual teeth, all currently unique it looks. if you make, say half, and then randomly duplicate and place for the final product, the chances of someone noticing the same minute details on such a small object while its in motion is next to zero. It also helps cut down UV space. If you are going for straight portfolio piece, it is a common practice to go all out on the piece and make it "next gen" and sacrifice some of the optimization.

Just some thoughts! Good luck with your zbrush sculpting! Will probably check back in on your progress

StuButler

You've got quite a lot of density in the mesh at the moment, particularly in areas like the neck, have a look at the base meshes we showed in class, they were a lot less dense at the base mesh stage, you may also want to look at topology to support the muscles, the back legs need better topology to define the underlying structure of the dinosaur's anatomy. You'd also benefit from radial loops around the arms to avoid running the loops up the neck. Take a look at the bases provided as examples and examine the topology.

Steve_T

Is that wireframe mesh/turbosmoothed? if not then it it way too dense to get the silhouette right. Also look into animation loops for the arms and legs.

The jaw is way too straight and has a very hard edge. Compare yours to these examples:





Full body wireframes are very helpful for people to critique your work better (just to keep in mind for updates).

Keep it up!

aston91

Thanks for the replies and advice really helped. I have just started sculpting today putting in muscles and changing many of the areas that were weak in the basemesh. Here is some progress.

aston91

More sculpting updates:

aston91

Just added a jaw line in:

aston91

Progress Update - Added on some more muscle lines:

aston91

Using these images as more of a reference for sculpting now.

Parralax

This is nice work but the upper leg looks too plain in comparison the rest of the body (could do with more defined muscle like the reference images). The veins on the tail are also too defined imo, it kinda looks like he is on steroids.

I'm not sure on this because i'm far from a dinosaur expert but the feet also look slightly too small to support a creature of that size. Compare them to any reference images you have and if the size looks right then stick with it as it is.

Overall should be a good project when finished, will be keeping my eye on this thread.

aston91

Cheers Paralax i will work on this, how do feel the fan on the head and neck which was added yesterday is looking?

aston91

Bump

nosyT

Liking it :] In the first picture the overall distance in the mouth cavity width wise looked sort of thick, and length wise seemed a bit short. Second, I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think the thumb had a rather large claw on it that is thought to be used to assist in catching fish and related prey. (See your second reference picture). But overall it looks great! As others have said the legs look a bit dis-proportional, maybe lean them forward a bit? I really like the fan on the neck and head too

aston91

Thanks nosy t, just tweaking that at the moment. Just starting to add scales on now and sculpt some skin pours etc.

02jdavies

Hey aston91

Really liking the scales on most of the skin I feel that using a different alpha for the larger scales could look good. Nice to see how it will turn out.

nosyT

Really like the skin and scale detail, looks great!

aston91

Thanks nosyT, More detail added here:

nosyT

The only complaint I have is something just seems a little off in the torso/hip/belly area. I can't quite put my finger on it. All in all I can't wait to see some color on it :]

aston91

Updated scales and the sail making it more defined than just using the standard brush using slash really made them look more like the reference images.

Helixos

Nice work! For me, the main issue is the legs. The top part of the leg is merging with the mid-section, which is going to cause some weird stretching if you intend to animate the game mesh. It looks unnatural too. The lower half is more of a form issue, you should bulk up the back of the foot as at the moment it looks like it wouldn't be able to support the weight of the dinosaur.

Hope this helps!

aston91

Good call Helixos, yeah i am going to rig it, never saw that before in this update i have fixed it i think, Cheers man. Just doing some final touches before i move on to retopping any major errors you can see before i head into 3ds max would be appreciated.

More Progress:


Added in some more muscles on lower subdivisions and used the form brush to pop the scales out more and make them into more distinctive shapes.

aston91

Forgot about adding in an ear on the sculpt, just added it in and fixed the arm length which was a problem all through the sculpting process.

Snacuum

I can't see it with a 360 but those last few images seem to have too little bulk on the areas connecting limbs. The arms and the legs connect to the body with too flat an angle: The arms flatten into the shoulder and the thighs flatten onto the sides of the body. Do you have a Spinosaurus skeleton as part of your reference? If so it would be good to check the overall shape against it. Don't forget that these dinosaurs have bipedal bird-like legs which means that the thighs remain at body height and the very first curve is the knee, with the oft-referred backwards-knee is actually the ankle.
All of this could have a quick fix by going back into the lower subdivisions and bulking up the joints and pinching the undersides.

aston91

Finished my low poly then i have unwrapped the model and started some poly paint this week, here is my progress:

aston91

Here is my progress on the polypaint, any feedback would be awesome, Cheers!:

02jdavies

Looking good but maybe you need into overlay more white around the eyes and darken the eye maybe a bit.

aston91

Yeah i agree on the eye just darkened it to a more presentable green. More progress:

aston91

Applied the normal, Diffuse and specular maps and got it up in UDK, Now on to rigging!

aston91

Here is the walk cycle for the Dino - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8c3g0w12R4&feature=youtu.be