High Res Sculpt Help - Recreating the Archvile

Archvilell

Hey guys, I'm working on a reworking of the Archvile character from the Doom universe, and I'm kind of stuck. This character looks "okay" to me, but I'm having trouble making it look "fantastic." I think the character needs a "hook," something to catch the eye and make the viewer think more than "hey, another monster humanoid." I think I can do that with fire/lighting and pose, but I think the sculpt needs something too. I don't know if it could be surface detail, like massive veins running to the organs on the hands or maybe something requiring alphas to break up silhouette on the character. I know I don't want to add clothes - no Doom critters wear clothes except the zombies.

Take a look and tell me what you think. Any C&C are welcome, don't be afraid to be brutally honest. I want the piece to succeed more than I want my ego protected.

DiegoTeran

whats the idea behind it? i like the sculpt, its a tiny bit muddy but its good. i like the body and it seems that darker stomach area is hard surface? was he re-worked on? fixed?

also my biggest thing and its kinda boring is the head. love the body but the head is a bit meh. i think you can work that a lot more.

http://3dzbrush-obbi.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html

also! actually. look up

neville page.

his work is amazing and he has hundreds of concepts!

http://www.nevillepage.com/

Steve Schulze

The Archvile always struck me as one of the weakest designs in Doom. There's not a lot that's really worth carrying over beyond maybe the ribs that overhang the belly and the somewhat skull-like head.

I think you're on the right track with really developing the hands as they are pretty much the focal point of the character, being the conduit for his fire raising and resurrection powers.

In addition, I'd play with the proportions of the face. the features are quite small and almost child-like and it's not coming off as scary or threatening as it could.

Archvilell

Wow, thanks for the heads up on these artists, Turista! Neville Page is amazing and a lot like the style I want to go. Yeah the head is largely unfinished. I don't really know how I want to finish that yet, but I'm sure I can pull something from some of these concepts, this is great!

You're absolutely right, Jack. I'd never really noticed it before now because I always thought the Archvile was the most fearsome bad guy - the ability to resurrect and almost insta-kill the player made him my favorite enemy (hence my internet handle). But I had never looked at him from an artistic perspective - it's actually pretty lame - just a gutless lanky humanoid with a Martian head and shoots fire.

I tried to spice this design up by making it female, and thinking of him-now-her as more of a motherly cleric role. I found out through my reference gathering the sound effect for the Archvile's death is a heavily synthed and garbled child's voice crying "Why?", as in the Archvile doesn't understand why someone would kill him for protecting his flock. I don't know if I should push further in this direction, or go back to the firey scarey demon look Doom is known for. I don't want to put any cyber modification on her - after trying to decode when/why the id artist's put the prosthetics on the original enemies I come up with a couple reason: 1.) it just looks cool 2.) it amplifies some existing power, ie the pinkys strength or 3.) it adds some form of weapon to an otherwise useless creature, ie the mancubus.

So I thought maybe some cybernetics to amplify the fire ability, but I've decided the fire is more of a religious summoning from hell, stemming from the same powers that resurrect the fallen, as opposed to a manufactured flamethrower. That's as far in the design I've come. What do you guys think? Any ideas?

DiegoTeran

Archvilell wrote: »

Wow, thanks for the heads up on these artists, Turista! Neville Page is amazing and a lot like the style I want to go. Yeah the head is largely unfinished. I don't really know how I want to finish that yet, but I'm sure I can pull something from some of these concepts, this is great!



So I thought maybe some cybernetics to amplify the fire ability, but I've decided the fire is more of a religious summoning from hell, stemming from the same powers that resurrect the fallen, as opposed to a manufactured flamethrower. That's as far in the design I've come. What do you guys think? Any ideas?

yea yea np buddy. and yea, maybe some cybernetics would look interesting also. give it a shot. make some block outs and post it

Archvilell

Hey guys, I'm back, still working on the Archvile character. I hit a dead end with the previous iteration, so I Dynameshed it to a low res, grabbed the proportions and went more extreme with them. I went back to the male version, since I felt my attempt to make a female version was coming off too forced.



I'm way more happy with my current version, and I'm getting close to a skin detail pass. But I'm not sure what the most efficient way to get a model to sculpt skin detail on, and I was hoping you guys might have some ideas.

With all the indentions and deep crevices, I feel like I should hand retopo it. That would give me all the geometry I'd need, but would probably take forever. I could try Qremesher, but I've had poor luck with that making even geometry - a lot of times I'll get really big squares and really small ones right next to each other. And lastly I could try to a low resolution then subdividing down a few times and reprojecting. Alternatively Dynameshing to a really high resolution and subdividing just once. And lastly I could try the Geometry HD workflow, but I'm not sure I can get that high res geometry to export out to xNormal for baking my maps.

This is my first attempt in making a creature character in a long time - most of my characters have lots of subtools, clothes I can hide seams under, etc. I'm concerned a single subtool with too high of geometry will bog my machine down too much.

Edit: Hmm. I could use Qremesher to get a low res version, lay out UVs in Maya, then subdivide and reproject. Then use Geometry HD to get my super crisp details, then bake out maps from that. ... Though I won't know my final UV layout until everything is ready for low res-ing, and a low res suitable for subdividing isn't always the most efficient for a game mesh. Still stuck...

Archvilell

A couple updates on his face. I decided to Dynamesh it at a moderate-to-high level and subdivide once to get all the detail I need. Here's a close-up of his face:





What do you guys think? I think he needs some thick, leathery skin with liver spots for his scalp and brow, then I think his face is done. Once I give the whole character this kind of treatment, it's on to the low res!

Archvilell

Got a bunch more work done. I chunked the model into head, one arm (when I'm done, I'll clone it over as its own subtool), torso, and legs (kept together for smooth translation in groin and hips). Then dynameshed the subtool to a decent resolution, and subdivided to something like 4mil polygons.



The next thing I'm planning on doing is skin surface detail and then polypaint. What do you guys think?

Archvilell

Just got my high res done today. Thought I'd share my progress with the forum. What do you guys think?

Archvilell

Another update. I'm retopoing him right now. I was thinking I'd go for a 16k tri count.... then I went overboard with the detail. So now I'm shooting for something along cinematic lines. He's at 26k right now and I'm maybe half done. It's taking forever, but my maps will be so clean!!



Any protips on how to texture this guy? Think it's worth splitting him into two or or more texture sheets? I'm thinking two sets of 2048, one for the face and neck, the other for the rest of the body. What do you guys think?

Archvilell

Got some more work to post.

Been retopoing like crazy the last two weeks. Final polycount turned out to be 113,440 triangles... so he's a bit high. It was great practice in keeping everything in quads, ensuring deformability, keeping/terminating/rerouting edge loops, etc. I'd recommend doing something similar to any aspiring character artist.

Anyway, so here's what I have now. All the UVs are laid out, ambient occlusion/cavity/normal maps baked, and shown in standard Maya window.







I've started polypainting in ZBrush, and I'm really liking it. I've usually done all my texturing in Photshop, but I thought I should try this way. I think I'll probably end up doing 50% of this in Zbrush and finishing it in Photoshop. But I'm not sure how I feel about my color choices or placements for the character as a whole.





The second image show sort of what I'm going for. Granted, the colors are mostly just blocked out, but I think my character is overall too saturated. I also don't think the reds in him feel very well thought out. I want the muscles around his jaw to look sinewy and gross, but I think the reds are just too strong. I thought at first it might look weird if those muscles were skin colored, now I'm thinking skin colored is the way to go and leave the reds in the hand and blended into the forearm.

What do you guys think?

Ben

Lloydyy89

Oh my god this thing is fucking creepy.

Steve Schulze

He's really come together. You got a nice clean low poly and bake going on there even if it is erring a bit on the overly dense side.

With regards to the colours, I think what you have now picking out the important details could work, it just needs to be worked in subtley. I'd probably keep the reds deeper for the most part, maybe keeping that really vibrant colour for the hands

AlexCatMasterSupreme

I love this, Keep it going!

TheWildHunt

I see you're taking some inspiration from Mr. Aris Moody, his sculpture/painting style is something I strive to emulate. I would recommend looking into second stage bruising and its palette. Check out a slab of old beef for some inspiration. Use the bruising to highlight and shadow, followed by a mottling polypaint layer over it. (I believe Arturo's tutorial is here on PC). Alternatively, check out the paint jovlbs over at NIMBAFX for some inspiration.

Cheers,
Payton

Arthus

Very Nice!! Good luck with texture! Don't screw it!

Archvilell

Thanks for the tips guys. I took a look at the Nimba FX website. The artist(s) there are amazing, this is just what I was looking for when I was looking for wounds. I gave my character couple gunshots in the chest the other day. Side note: I made the mistake of typing "gunshot wounds" into Google without safe search ... I found them. They're awful. Bullets are not clean hole-punching pellets. They're hammers of doom propelled at 900 feet per second that rip people apart.

Also, I just found the rest of the Aris's work. It took a bit of digging, so for anyone else interested in looking him up, his site is: http://ariskolokontesart.blogspot.com/ and his work is amazing. Thanks for the tip on looking him up, TheWildHunt. The image I had came without a way to find the artist.

TheWildHunt

Hey there mate,

Do be careful dredging the web ffor reference in regards to gore. I had a discussion Once with a few colleagues, it became our concencus that most people have been so conditioned by film, that a perfectly replicated wound, can be "inaccurate" or "cartoony" to the genersl audience.

Archvilell

I was thinking that as well when I was looking through the real stuff. They were definitely real, but it didn't feel like anyone would believe it to be realistic if it were on my character. The stuff from Nimba FX though fits the bill - that Hollywood effect sells the illusion of gore better than the real life.

TheWildHunt

Indeed it does, Check out the work of Joe Lester, he wrote an article about the importance of character in sculpture with images based on the seven deadly sins.

Archvilell

Got more texture work done. Still polypainting, but in a bit I'll bake it to the UVs and start the final photoshop work.

Archvilell

Hmm, let's see if this works. Pardon that it takes a bit to load, especially on a slow internet connection. I'm using 4k textures right now, but I should probably drop it down to 2k at some point. Still, I think this will help you guys get a better feel for the project.

Archvile Recreated (click to view in 3D)


[Edit: hmm, looks like the code didn't work, or at least isn't for me. If it's broken for you too, try this link: http://studio.verold.com/projects/51e3501d80a8d3020000005b ]



Still trying to decide what color to make the veins running through him. I'm thinking a darker yellows, oranges, maybe a touch of red. I think either the organs on his hands need to lose the pink or the muscles making up his torso need more pink (currently leaning on the latter). The face needs work, the AO is too heavy and needs to be something other than a black-layer-with-multiply. Like a light Color Blend, something to push the darks through the skin colors, and not through gray.

Let me know what you think please!
Ben

Archvilell

Hey guys, got a ton more done on the Archvile. Got him posed and into Toolbag, lit and some renders. What do you think? I've got about a week before he has to be finished, and I'm going to work on some flame effect for his hands and some smaller one on his feet.

Archvile (click to view in 3D)

_Michal_

great work man!

KristaW

Nice. Although I am a little sad that some of that beautiful face detail is washed away in the final render. That being said, if I saw something like this in a game I would pee myself because it's pretty amazing, and creepy.

Tea Monster

Bitchin'! Agree that the face detail getting washed out is a shame, but the level of work here is amazing.

CourtJester5

https://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2766008#Comment_2766008

Love the late reply 😆