Felspar Agaricus: Blunt, Fat, Fungal Hunter, Reluctant Guardian
high dynamic range
PROJECT COMPLETE
Hey Polycount: (Long Term project thread)
Planning to make a full game character asset of a character I've had brewing in my head for a while. Hopefully, this piece serves to pad my portfolio if I get this done before GDC 2013. And this thread being a log of my learning experience with this. The last character I did was this, and I'm still not entirely confident about making something like that again.
So, on that note, DEFINITELY humbly requesting critiques from those who are more fabulous at their craft than I
.Basic elements / limitations for Felspar Agaricus
- Fat
- Blunt personality
- Fungal-based anatomy/shape/body
- Professional Hunter
- Blunderbuss-like weapon
- Story Flavor Text: finds a human child in his world, reluctantly decides to be his guardian
Planned workflow
Thumbnails > Concept > Rough Sculpt > Retopo and carefully make final highpoly sculpt > Retopo for low poly > Bake maps > Texture
Planned Goals
- Really get comfortable with a hard-surface workflow in Zbrush.
- Really get comfortable with actually making a proper high poly model.
- Push as far as possible with the texturing, so even if it'll have painted qualities, make spec maps, normals, etc. Get as "next-gen" as possible. For March 15th, though, just get a Riot Games League of Legends quality character out.
- Overall, get confident, so if someone on the team needs me to do this, I KNOW I can doit.
Replies
Gonna push out a couple more if I have the drive, but no guarantee. Idea feels fairly fleshed out in my head in terms of the general focus of the character, a lot of it seems to be just determining specific details.
==Self-reflection / Critique:==
- I'm still gravitating to the look of 1, though I don't feel like it gives a good enough silhouette as with 2 or 3.
- 4 I'm digging, but it feels too Western-y.
- Definitely want to incoproate Scottish garb for the pants/bottom tunic, etc.
I'm going to start to make a final concept from here I think.
Any of these thumbnails starting from the last post working?
- so 3 and 7 from the thumbnails seem to be speaking better to people still, the basic design of it being incredibly similar to my original, un-iterated conception. The dreadlocks with 1 and 5 I liked, but just didn't seem too . . . wisdom-filled, almost like the character was a young man instead of an older, brutish person.
Going from here:
- I'm going to have to figure out how to compose this Felspar Agaricus, in terms of how many props to include and placement of them. I want to keep the basic rule of thumb of having areas of rest, which is what I want the skin to be, and areas of detail (props, armor, belts, etc). Every ounce of my body does want to just slap bags and aror everywhere on this guy though.
- Is there anything I'm missing with the design/concept? Anything I need to be wary about?
I had a big question, so do my shadows always have to be a relatively opposite temperature from the midtone/highlight temperature?
So like here, all my greens and browns are warm. Do I need to make my core shadows cold? WHY do I make them cold if that's the case?
If that's it, that's some freaky stuff.
As for the core shadow color thing...
I'm not a concept artist (and as a matter of fact, there are probably a couple of areas where I made things a little worse...), but I think you may be trying to approach your color selection too mathematically. If you want cools, use a blue. If you want warms, don't be afraid to use a red or orange or yellow. Color is one of those strange things where the more you screw with it, the more you come to understand it, and that's where the proper moderation comes (with experience). I made a quick paintover where I tried to use a quick rimlight, reflected light and background in an attempt to make the character pop a little more. I went over the lower body with the low-opacity bg color real quick (which is probably a bad habit to get into) in order to bring the upper body out a bit more.
Might want to visit his Deviantart for the break-down of how he approached his character:
http://deadxiii.deviantart.com/gallery/
Roughing in the anatomy. The hands and fingers have been causing problem for me in terms of looking good.
Hopefully, this looks fairly correct for a fat guy.
Man, those hands are really hard to work into. Making them look decent takes so much time, heh. Te fabric brushes I downloaded as well are a bit difficult to use.
I do notice though, compared to my last ZBrush foray, and after watching eat3D DVDs, it's a lot more fun to sculpt now knowing which brush I should be using to do what and predicting my workflow. Feels lke Maya all over again, in a sense.
Examples http://i.imgur.com/2Uuy3dW.png http://farm2.staticflickr.com/1124/4730069575_5b0425cafb_b.jpg
Also most bellies have a little w shaped indent in the middle, I'm sure you'll notice it when googling.
@ZacD: Took care of the back anatomy, though it's a bit rough still
Thank God, I think I'm starting to feel the workflow now.
Still feels lumpy.
Not sure what else to do to this.
Got a couple more elements to add before I start detailing.
Anyone see any major issues I should rectify?
- Right arm needs something to slightly break up the blank area. Maybe additional potions, etc.
- Get REALLY fat. Right now, it's still barrel chested instead of obese.
- Take time with the high poly. Really take time with it.
- Either I fix the large waist bag or I retroactively edit the concept art.
I'm probably going to aim the tri count to under 10,000, aiming for 6000, because of the upcoming Riot Art Internship application. I think, if I have the time, to make a 60k tri version so I can prove I can make a Next Generation (like PS4 level) fidelity art as well, so it will be both current gen AND next gen, while also covering different genre expectations, like an RTS or third person shooter.
Arm wrap detailed, hair added, and face modified among other things. Still have yet to add the spore callouses on the main torso, though I'm hesitant because I don't know what "texture" is best to apply. Body silhouette adjusted to fit the concept better.
I am perceiving difficulties in the future regarding proper "texturing" of the appropraite surfaces, liket he leather belt, etc.
If anyone has any critiques, I would LOVE to hear them
Still debating whether I want the machete to have a scabbard or just let it float.
Is there anything else I can do to this? I'm trying to get this is as close to League of Legends quality, but not sure what else to do.
AFter talking with David Woo, and attempting to tighten up creases and plane sculpt the body more, I think this is as far as I can take it.
That being said, if there's anything else I can do to this high poly, PLEASE let me know T_T. I don't think adjustments to the main body subtool will be too egregious for me to adjust for in the low poly. I feel like I failed and succeeded in certain respects with the high poly sculpt.
Looking forward to the next update!
Any issues? I think I'm gonna have a problem fusing symmetrical meshes with asymmetrical ones.
So I just decided to post in p3D what I got for retopo at this point.
A couple of challenges I need help with:
- So the body will require fused elements between both symmetrical and asymmetrical elements, and I sepecifically don't want to have floating geos in that area.
- Is there any way to nicely and symmetrically position the objects like the potions or the bags I made, when originally I set up the base sculpt geo symmetrically, but then me moving them into position on the sculpt has destroyed an opportunity to do a nice symm retopo of them? Jason Cercle just mentioned to as much as I can, reposition the placed sculpted objects into symmetry and retopo there, assuming that the sight inaccuracy of me placing it as symmetrical as possible will not be a big enough problem to worry about.
- Am I doing this at all right?
I had a big question about floating geometry. I'm trying to figure out when and where it becomes best to fuse geometries together, and after discussions with people, it always seems to be just a matter of what goal is being aimed for. I swear someone is going to call me out on the belts etc for not being fused into the main body mesh.
If my goal is to aim for baking normals as well, instead of just cavity and AO maps like in LoL, I'm wonder if I'm doing this correctly and if I'm going to have some weird bakes. I take a look at models like the Rengar that LeRoy Strauss has made, and I see that lements like belts and buckles are just part of this one flat mesh in the Low Poly, but I feel like this is only mostly possible because the items were really close to the body. But in reality (Looking at the High Poly Sculpt) such tightness and clipping of objects seems unrealistic, unless I'm supposed to sculpt a high poly that bakes out correctly instead of being realistic?
View the 3D model online
One other thing, as for the sculpt. I think the cloth in the pants and neckerchief could use a lot more reference to real cloth. The folds aren't reading as well as they could.. look up reference for pants and scarves
as for the legs and elbows and shoulders.. I think they're doing ok w/ loops for bending, but you're just going to have to try stuff out for yourself.
hope this helps man.. happy modeling...