at which resolution are you baking these maps? There's a huge difference between 5px padding on a 4k map and a 1k. It also looks for me that you painted very close to the border of the UV shells.
I've had this same issue before, and it is something to do with the game's compression. If you have a very bright color right next to a very dark one it will bleed through unless you've got a ton of padding in between, forget 5pixels in 256, try 10+. I just try to adjust my UV layouts so I don't put bright colors next to dark ones, sorry I couldn't help more .
If anyone manages to figure out a solution to this that would be great. I tried looking into how the source engine compresses and do it myself with vtfedit but didn't have any success.
Aaaaaalright, redid UV layout, rebaked etc so here's the newest version. Also started working on the animations and since the lod0 is only ~800 polys, I wanted to try out a cool death animation ^^ I'm gonna go back to the radiant ward and give him a nice shatter death as well, though I'm gonna have to cut back on my polys there T.T
Unfortunately I didn't finish this in time for the contest, the rigging was a bit more time consuming than I anticipated Still, got the rigging and lods done and threw in some base colors. Textures and presentation tomorrow.
looks great. I have some cc if you are interested. Make more contrast between the two capes. Now it looks like a bug with the texture map because it looks like one cape. Transparency is added to all heroes now so it might be cool to roughen things up a little. Other then that the textures look very good and blend well with the hero. I'm not shocked if i see this ingame
Oh, damn, I totally forgot about the transparency! I'm so used to not being able to use it, hehe, nice catch, I'll definitely incorporate that! As for the separation of the capes, you're right, Gooba had the same critique so I'll make that more obvious. Thanks for the CC, I really appreciate it!
I suck at texturing T.T but I'm trying to learn and here's what I cam up with from looking at the much better stuff that other people do. I'd love you guys' input; did I get anything wrong in the theory section? Did I miss anything big? I'm still not happy with the variations I came up with but I think the process of compiling the info was very helpful and I'll keep trying.
I really like the animations on the wards, but I think the idle animation for the dire is way too short and repetitive. I think it is okay to have that type of animation, but right now it like, look-look-spin. Where I think a more successful animation would be look-stare-look-stare-spin. That way it slows the animation down and make it more believable.
Good reference for eye ward animations would be Vidotto's Hell's Sight, while that ward might be a bit more frantic and wild, he definatly capture a very believeable eye movement. The two wards as they are feel a bit floaty.
Overall though as is, I see no reason they won't eventually be implemented. Unless you have the issue with them blending into the map and being too hard to see. Nevertheless, fantastic job!
It's funny, but i think that you picked up the most unfitting examples (The original PA got her value distribution in all kind of weirds, take a look).
While she seems dark all around with the exception of her breastplate, in fact her shoulders, pants and even ponytail have their own big chunks of lighter values, they also act as a resting zones. This is achieved partly by the clever use of specs.
Her colors all act in unison and adding the red trim (and that particular hue is really awkward) really breaks her look. I think using others colors than her default spectrum should be either through the undertone, or small details, like red tips or brownish leahter on her pants.
I dropped some colours to show what i mean:
Right one is really heavy and breaks up the flow, while the left one is light and rich with variations.
With all that said i think you got the right answers, but i don't think that you should use promo images for the value studies, because we're trying to fit the designs we want into the purposes and requirements of the Dota 2 look. Considering that you may want to rethink the belt things on that PA set, because they're barely visible ingame and will probably look weird skinned.
If you're looking for some general guidelines on the heroes values and colors, i suggst you work in the value/color space they have by default, and from there you could add more variety,or hue/value shifts. This will also help with blending default, your and any other set when your cosmetics are combined.
When you're looking on the hues and values, it's important to keep in mind the order in which they are used. For example, natures prophet set you posted got the hairgrass popping out, though you would've thought first that his mask will be more noticable, because it's brown amongst green.
The red band on the Kotl of the light draws all the attention and becomes the centerpiece of the set.
Blue colors you picked on the NP set are barely represented, and they are very close to the greens, you should give more attention to the yellows and how they're rather warm.
Axe is a good example on how you should roll the default color scheme over and over again to create a lot of variations.
Lich is agreat example of contrasting colors. Notice how non-popping the purple is, it makes the blend even better.
Another great example of the contrast is that Spectre set, outstanding use of the bright blue.
TL;DR
Great thoughts, but i think you shouldn't pick up the promo images and use actual ingame view more.
Operate in the hue/value range of the default items.
Nyx, for example, has a lot of hue shifting just on his armor
The lower the piece of armor is, the darker it is. And i can't stress enough the need of darkening the base and brightening the top. This is dictated partly because the darks are heavier, so it's natural for them to "sink down".
Baked AO adds to the look most of the time, but lots of it will create too much of an unnatural look.
The AO should be colored 90% of the time. B&W AO will create a lot of muddy shades, but the colored AO will create an illusion of some natural reflection and scattering. Which color to pick for the AO gradienting is for you to decide. You can pick the ambient colors, or the model color. This will highlight the material, will be either reflective or not so much.
using tint-by-spec mask can also help with the material defining.
Vertex had some nice articles on the color theory, i suggest you guys read them up. I'll type some more stuff tomorrow!
Hey Spudnik, first of all awesome job on the wards! Really dig the approach you took with them.
In terms of your comments on PA, I think you're having trouble due to the design..IMO you've added so much fine trim on your current set that there's barely any room to properly imply that value and hue separation that you're going for. Perhaps if you lightened up the detail on for example: Her chest and shoulders (What you see 90% of the time in game) you'll have much less of a struggle in that regard.
On the other hand though, PA is one of the darkest characters in game after taking a second look at her in game model, with her base design relying on her weapon to get the most value 'pop.'
Thank you guys so much for the critique, unbelievably helpful!! I return having done my homework - a lot of reading, especially the Vertex articles you recommended.
@Helenek
Yeah, I wanted to make him a little bit paranoid with a touch of OCD but you're right, it's quite repetitive. It was a bit frustrating though, because the only thing that's really moving on that wards is the eye and I feel it's quite limited in what it can do. Anyways, Thanks for the input, I have a long way to go until I'm at your or Vid's level ^^
On the other hand though, PA is one of the darkest characters in game after taking a second look at her in game model, with her base design relying on her weapon to get the most value 'pop.'
That was the major issue I was struggling with but as Vlad pointed out, the Spec maps are used to great effect here.
Ok, I forgot to post the initial concept that Gooba did which I really love:
I especially like the heavy, dark feel it has going for it, like when you see her on the on the battlefield, you know you're dead. So with that in mind, I didnt want to lose the dark feel but like I outlined in my last post and like you guys said, it didn't really work in game. So here's the latest version, only slightly lighter while hopefully fixing a lot of the problems that the last version had.
i don't think that you should use promo images for the value studies, because we're trying to fit the designs we want into the purposes and requirements of the Dota 2 look.
Doy, I feel incredibly stupid now T.T
The lower the piece of armor is, the darker it is. And i can't stress enough the need of darkening the base and brightening the top. This is dictated partly because the darks are heavier, so it's natural for them to "sink down".
Baked AO adds to the look most of the time, but lots of it will create too much of an unnatural look.
The AO should be colored 90% of the time. B&W AO will create a lot of muddy shades, but the colored AO will create an illusion of some natural reflection and scattering. Which color to pick for the AO gradienting is for you to decide. You can pick the ambient colors, or the model color. This will highlight the material, will be either reflective or not so much.
using tint-by-spec mask can also help with the material defining.
I think that was the best piece of advice, I really had an issue with how simple the hues were in terms of variation and tinitng the AO and gradient definitely does a lot to fix that issue. In this version I tried to give the whole set more of a gradient where the higher a piece is, the more green of a tint it has and the lower it gets, the more it fades into a blue.
If you're looking for some general guidelines on the heroes values and colors, i suggst you work in the value/color space they have by default, and from there you could add more variety,or hue/value shifts. This will also help with blending default, your and any other set when your cosmetics are combined.
I definitely agree, the red trim wasnt working at all and as Oroboros pointed out, the design relies heavily on the trim so making that all red just makes it way too frantic and busy so I'm definitely a fan of sticking to the original color palette.
When you're looking on the hues and values, it's important to keep in mind the order in which they are used. For example, natures prophet set you posted got the hairgrass popping out, though you would've thought first that his mask will be more noticable, because it's brown amongst green.
Blue colors you picked on the NP set are barely represented, and they are very close to the greens
Yeah, that was the reason I picked that one, because they used the lighter hues and values to have the lower ones pop more which I thought worked really well. Plus, the third color, the blue, I thought was used to great effect by being very very subtle and just accentuating the forms and not creating new ones for the most part.
OK, lots of reading today, not much actual work, but I think it's a definite step up from the last iteration. What do you guys think, what works for you, what doesn't?
I think that this short material right below shoulder blades on her back just don't feel right. I know from concept that its on top of cape, however on model it looks like some kind of error on cape itself, like you would have nasty seam there. I suggest making it a bit wider than cape itself, or make it lower on the sides like on concept. On model its to straight. I suggest also play with alpha channel to enhance ragged feel of cape. Also you could make cape more dark at the bottom like in default set. Better not to make PA to colorful
Also I very liked the painted eye on her chest that was visible on concept
edit: Just saw that you used our PA as an example in previous page. It was heavily criticized for because red elements. However I don't know if people based their opinions on ingame shots or promotional materials that were very high contrast compared to ingame.
Probably should have made those promotional images more dark and desatureted
I suggest also play with alpha channel to enhance ragged feel of cape. Also you could make cape more dark at the bottom like in default set.
Also I very liked the painted eye on her chest that was visible on concept
Yes to all 3 Thanks, I'll make those adjustments. The cape looked really dark in Maya so I was afraid of going even darker but that was because of the light position (doy :poly142:)
I can't believe you've missed the chance to use the curvies you have on the weapon and the helmet! Pointy shoulders are strong, and considering how frail the PA i think she needs them.
Second of all, i would've traded the detailing on the main armor and switched it up on the cape. This way your armor pieces would be less noisy and you can highlight the shape of the cape, because right now it's hard to makeout that it's actually a 3-4 pieces.
I also think that the bodyarmor parts are kinda weird and are barely noticable, why hiding one of the brightest parts of the default PA, you may want to scrap that or make it more interesting, considering that she already has bodyarmor and adding the corset on top of that seems a bit overkilling.
I think that the weapon is nice in shape, but too small. The screenshot you posted with the weapon having the original crit particles was really impressive though, you may want to incorporate that into your design.
Glad you resolved your lighting issue, don't be afraid to doubt!
Heyo! I made the concept for the PA set. Since it seems like everyone is having different ideas about the direction of the set, I thought I should explain my reasoning behind the design choices that I made for it, so we can all be on the same track. I think the advice given so far is valid, it just does not fit within the intended mood. I don't mean to sound snobbish, just trying to bring clarity.
The entire idea for the set was that I wanted to make her more intimidating, more menacing and sturdy. I thought that the original design was too flimsy and did not fit the mood of a Phantom Assassin. For example, if you found yourself face-to-face with her in a dark alley you should be peeing your pants, and I was not getting that with the original design.
The shoulders and torso area, with the giant pointy shoulders and bright silver scale mail, to me, didn't work at all. I purposefully kept the point on the shoulder down and covered up the bright silver. I think It looks a lot more uniform and competent.
Here's a paintover I did, taking into account what everyone said, and changing what I thought should have worked in the concept but didn't work in-game, while still keeping the mood/theme I was going for.
I added the purple to help make the form more readable, I added more design and texture to the cape, distinguishing the parts of the cape, and I brightened the top creating the gradient effect that Spudnik already added.
Updates! I tried incorporating the purple aspect but it always ended up looking forced and tacked on in 3D rather than a natural shift in color especially ingame.
@Vlad
As Gooba pointed out, the whole armor kinda has heavy feel to it so adding an upward curve it give it that light feel again.
Started working on the presentation
Well, I had to do it...
P.S.: Any idea why my gradients go to shit when uploading O.o ?
Sketching out a set for Shadow Demon. Don't like the front of the belt and the armor plates on the shoulders yet.
Working on Robo's Nyx courier. Adorable bugger.
Finished DoubleLeaf's concepts, check his thread for bigger pics. If anybody has a way to get a hold of him, please let me know, I need him to accept my steam invite to finalize revenue share!
PA is done too, just doing some quality assurance, should have it posted tomorrow.
Progress - Still have to do masks, but I got the diffuse done (more or less) today along with the rigging and lods
These were the things I noted while playing with the set for a while on the test map
- back spikes are too bright
- tail is too clean
- maaaaybe tilt cloth spikes slightly further away from cam (cloth disappears when viewed from behind)
Thoughts and critique is more than welcome, will be streaming tomorrow again.
Replies
If anyone manages to figure out a solution to this that would be great. I tried looking into how the source engine compresses and do it myself with vtfedit but didn't have any success.
spawn
idle
death
Updates on animations:
idle_rare
spawn
idle
idle_rare
death
Radiant Spire:
[ame="
Dire obelisk
[ame="
Well that ruins the fun
Good reference for eye ward animations would be Vidotto's Hell's Sight, while that ward might be a bit more frantic and wild, he definatly capture a very believeable eye movement. The two wards as they are feel a bit floaty.
Overall though as is, I see no reason they won't eventually be implemented. Unless you have the issue with them blending into the map and being too hard to see. Nevertheless, fantastic job!
While she seems dark all around with the exception of her breastplate, in fact her shoulders, pants and even ponytail have their own big chunks of lighter values, they also act as a resting zones. This is achieved partly by the clever use of specs.
Her colors all act in unison and adding the red trim (and that particular hue is really awkward) really breaks her look. I think using others colors than her default spectrum should be either through the undertone, or small details, like red tips or brownish leahter on her pants.
I dropped some colours to show what i mean:
Right one is really heavy and breaks up the flow, while the left one is light and rich with variations.
With all that said i think you got the right answers, but i don't think that you should use promo images for the value studies, because we're trying to fit the designs we want into the purposes and requirements of the Dota 2 look. Considering that you may want to rethink the belt things on that PA set, because they're barely visible ingame and will probably look weird skinned.
If you're looking for some general guidelines on the heroes values and colors, i suggst you work in the value/color space they have by default, and from there you could add more variety,or hue/value shifts. This will also help with blending default, your and any other set when your cosmetics are combined.
When you're looking on the hues and values, it's important to keep in mind the order in which they are used. For example, natures prophet set you posted got the hairgrass popping out, though you would've thought first that his mask will be more noticable, because it's brown amongst green.
The red band on the Kotl of the light draws all the attention and becomes the centerpiece of the set.
Blue colors you picked on the NP set are barely represented, and they are very close to the greens, you should give more attention to the yellows and how they're rather warm.
Axe is a good example on how you should roll the default color scheme over and over again to create a lot of variations.
Lich is agreat example of contrasting colors. Notice how non-popping the purple is, it makes the blend even better.
Another great example of the contrast is that Spectre set, outstanding use of the bright blue.
TL;DR
Great thoughts, but i think you shouldn't pick up the promo images and use actual ingame view more.
Operate in the hue/value range of the default items.
Nyx, for example, has a lot of hue shifting just on his armor
The lower the piece of armor is, the darker it is. And i can't stress enough the need of darkening the base and brightening the top. This is dictated partly because the darks are heavier, so it's natural for them to "sink down".
Baked AO adds to the look most of the time, but lots of it will create too much of an unnatural look.
The AO should be colored 90% of the time. B&W AO will create a lot of muddy shades, but the colored AO will create an illusion of some natural reflection and scattering. Which color to pick for the AO gradienting is for you to decide. You can pick the ambient colors, or the model color. This will highlight the material, will be either reflective or not so much.
using tint-by-spec mask can also help with the material defining.
Vertex had some nice articles on the color theory, i suggest you guys read them up. I'll type some more stuff tomorrow!
In terms of your comments on PA, I think you're having trouble due to the design..IMO you've added so much fine trim on your current set that there's barely any room to properly imply that value and hue separation that you're going for. Perhaps if you lightened up the detail on for example: Her chest and shoulders (What you see 90% of the time in game) you'll have much less of a struggle in that regard.
On the other hand though, PA is one of the darkest characters in game after taking a second look at her in game model, with her base design relying on her weapon to get the most value 'pop.'
@Helenek
Yeah, I wanted to make him a little bit paranoid with a touch of OCD but you're right, it's quite repetitive. It was a bit frustrating though, because the only thing that's really moving on that wards is the eye and I feel it's quite limited in what it can do. Anyways, Thanks for the input, I have a long way to go until I'm at your or Vid's level ^^
@Vlad, @Oroboros That was the major issue I was struggling with but as Vlad pointed out, the Spec maps are used to great effect here.
Ok, I forgot to post the initial concept that Gooba did which I really love:
I especially like the heavy, dark feel it has going for it, like when you see her on the on the battlefield, you know you're dead. So with that in mind, I didnt want to lose the dark feel but like I outlined in my last post and like you guys said, it didn't really work in game. So here's the latest version, only slightly lighter while hopefully fixing a lot of the problems that the last version had.
Doy, I feel incredibly stupid now T.T
I think that was the best piece of advice, I really had an issue with how simple the hues were in terms of variation and tinitng the AO and gradient definitely does a lot to fix that issue. In this version I tried to give the whole set more of a gradient where the higher a piece is, the more green of a tint it has and the lower it gets, the more it fades into a blue.
I definitely agree, the red trim wasnt working at all and as Oroboros pointed out, the design relies heavily on the trim so making that all red just makes it way too frantic and busy so I'm definitely a fan of sticking to the original color palette.
Yeah, that was the reason I picked that one, because they used the lighter hues and values to have the lower ones pop more which I thought worked really well. Plus, the third color, the blue, I thought was used to great effect by being very very subtle and just accentuating the forms and not creating new ones for the most part.
OK, lots of reading today, not much actual work, but I think it's a definite step up from the last iteration. What do you guys think, what works for you, what doesn't?
Also I very liked the painted eye on her chest that was visible on concept
edit: Just saw that you used our PA as an example in previous page. It was heavily criticized for because red elements. However I don't know if people based their opinions on ingame shots or promotional materials that were very high contrast compared to ingame.
Probably should have made those promotional images more dark and desatureted
Good luck with your set!!
Yes to all 3
Second of all, i would've traded the detailing on the main armor and switched it up on the cape. This way your armor pieces would be less noisy and you can highlight the shape of the cape, because right now it's hard to makeout that it's actually a 3-4 pieces.
I also think that the bodyarmor parts are kinda weird and are barely noticable, why hiding one of the brightest parts of the default PA, you may want to scrap that or make it more interesting, considering that she already has bodyarmor and adding the corset on top of that seems a bit overkilling.
I think that the weapon is nice in shape, but too small. The screenshot you posted with the weapon having the original crit particles was really impressive though, you may want to incorporate that into your design.
Glad you resolved your lighting issue, don't be afraid to doubt!
can you explain more about phantoms part mask 1 , mask 2 and the channels ..
im new here and i just started creating dota 2 models
would love any help you offer .
here is my first model
thanks
The entire idea for the set was that I wanted to make her more intimidating, more menacing and sturdy. I thought that the original design was too flimsy and did not fit the mood of a Phantom Assassin. For example, if you found yourself face-to-face with her in a dark alley you should be peeing your pants, and I was not getting that with the original design.
The shoulders and torso area, with the giant pointy shoulders and bright silver scale mail, to me, didn't work at all. I purposefully kept the point on the shoulder down and covered up the bright silver. I think It looks a lot more uniform and competent.
Here's a paintover I did, taking into account what everyone said, and changing what I thought should have worked in the concept but didn't work in-game, while still keeping the mood/theme I was going for.
I added the purple to help make the form more readable, I added more design and texture to the cape, distinguishing the parts of the cape, and I brightened the top creating the gradient effect that Spudnik already added.
I hope this clears up some stuff. Cheers!
@Vlad
As Gooba pointed out, the whole armor kinda has heavy feel to it so adding an upward curve it give it that light feel again.
Started working on the presentation
Well, I had to do it...
P.S.: Any idea why my gradients go to shit when uploading O.o ?
Sketching out a set for Shadow Demon. Don't like the front of the belt and the armor plates on the shoulders yet.
Working on Robo's Nyx courier. Adorable bugger.
Finished DoubleLeaf's concepts, check his thread for bigger pics. If anybody has a way to get a hold of him, please let me know, I need him to accept my steam invite to finalize revenue share!
PA is done too, just doing some quality assurance, should have it posted tomorrow.
Visit Spuds stream, it's crazy fun and really educating!
These were the things I noted while playing with the set for a while on the test map
- back spikes are too bright
- tail is too clean
- maaaaybe tilt cloth spikes slightly further away from cam (cloth disappears when viewed from behind)
Thoughts and critique is more than welcome, will be streaming tomorrow again.
Andyk125, which ones in particular are you talking about?
Thanks for the feedback guys, keep it coming, streaming again http://www.twitch.tv/spudnik3d