Scholar's Sentiment Redux

Gregorein

Welcome fellow Polycounters!

As DOTA2 related contests are no more and final exams ongoing my brain demands FREEDOM.
Thus, I have realised that there's one more thing that may or may not be nifty to polish.

I present you zee awfulness, zee cruelty and zee madness of Scholar's Sentiment set for Templar Assassin.

Steam workshop link
Fellow Polycount thread

Observation : Contest lost. (I'd lose again, if I'd have to)

Conclusion : Not Valve'y enough.

Observation : Countless (not) Likes.

Conclusion : Upgrade required.

So far, ladies and gentlemen. I present you myself. The upgraded (a bit) and the ultimate (once again) myself.
For I shall be performing today and today (reading time dependent) a trick (relating to the upgrade of said item set.)


# ACT I aka reading of zee comments commentated #

"like the armor but not the cape or hood so much"
"Maybe make the hood a little less "spacious" and a little more "reserved" and this set is aces!"
"Maybe just make the hood smaller, and then it will look awesome"
"Feels a bit unrefined but I like the concept."
"The author, if you read this) pliz, and also try to keep all current spit out from under the hood does not pull out, let it simply be, as if she had short hair! and then I'll worship you" < The one in russian made me cry. A bit. A tear of happiness.
"It looks like it's being propped up by some invisible force. Sexy idea, not-so-sexy implementation."

Summary : Hood bad. Cape bad. But hood bad more.

Let's review the product.



What we see is zee old-timer - zee hand-made mesh, made by single vertex extrusion repeated the given time. Creating a hi- and lo-res versions along with sculpted ones took too much time.

Let's now review zee sculpt created in the 30 times shorter time.



What we see is zee sculpted med res mesh, on base of which the game mesh will be created. The process is not yet finished.

Headshot with hood and Headshot sans hood
also may provide some hints on the progress.

I ask for your opinion. Meanwhile I will be posting meaningful updates, things that made me happy / sad depending on the given context and pretty images.

Gregorein

I have worked a bit on the hood, as the face wants to be seen and to fulfill the purpose of having hair on the head.

Old hood:



New hood:



with this I could abandon current hairstyle to make something better (if I'll ever understand the hair-sculpting part)

Spudnik

The hook and the scarf look quite gooey, very wax-y. I suggest you define the creases and smooth areas a bit more sharply, otherwise it'll just read blobby from ingame.

Gregorein

Hey
The gooeyness may be a result of material i used, you are right about creasing both meshes.
I don't want to get to another LOD so fast though.




Also this is the first time I created the hair mesh good enough

BrontoThunder

It's looking reeeeallly lumpy, you should focus on the lower subdivisions more and not rush to the higher ones.

Sandcoat

The problem with hoods and TA, in my opinion, is that 1) it's very hard to make it look nice from a top down perspective 2) TA has her face covered already and a hood on top of that, plus the hair, might look too busy 3) Hoods make things symmetrical which is worsened in TA's case because of her covered mouth.

So from my very clueless point of view, you should first and foremost show how it looks from the top down, then maybe try to shift the focus more heavily on the right side of her face.

TA's first polycount set (deadly nightshade) does it beautifully by covering her other eye which shifts all the focus on the uncovered one. The PA set does it by putting those feathers on the side + the knives from the shoulder slot showing up in the portrait. You put hair inside the hood but it doesn't really help break down the symmetry, so maybe work on that.

Gregorein

I have spent some time on thinking if I really have to make the hood at all.



this also solves the problem of hole in the hood I made to let the hair flow.