Old the Kid's Forge
Hi Polycount! As you can no doubt tell, this is my first non-reg post in my first thread here on Polycount!
That being said, a little about me:
I'm currently a student attending school to learn how to make games. I guess I shouldn't have taken that left at Albuquerque, because I ended up at a school that was less about the design aspect of games, and more about the art side.
Being the type of person who likes to burn down the house with the lemons I've been given, I decided to use this education to help develop one branch of skills I'll need to pursue my dream of design.
I'd eventually like to work at Nintendo as a lead designer on their franchises, but for now that's a dream. I'd be happy enough if I could start making an income while expressing my game ideas. Speaking of, I really, reaaaaally need a Wii U dev kit. Hopefully I'm good enough at this that I can fund said project.
I'm still kinda a newb when it comes to modeling, so any help is much appreciated!.
Enough about me, without further ado, here's my workshop:
Current Projects:
Spirit Breaker
-Imperial Armor
Tumblr WIP feed: URL="http://oldthekid.tumblr.com/tagged/spirit-breaker"]here[/URL
Anti-Mage
-Collaboration with Brad Whitlam [Note: sorry for polluting your thread with my WIP's!
]
Tumblr WIP feed: URL="http://oldthekid.tumblr.com/tagged/antimage"]here[/URL
Dragon Knight
Dragon Knight Sword
Thread will be updated as I finish projects. For more info on my processes, check my tumblr feed for Dota 2.
Any feedback is welcome, and I try my hardest to take it humbly.
That being said, a little about me:
I'm currently a student attending school to learn how to make games. I guess I shouldn't have taken that left at Albuquerque, because I ended up at a school that was less about the design aspect of games, and more about the art side.
Being the type of person who likes to burn down the house with the lemons I've been given, I decided to use this education to help develop one branch of skills I'll need to pursue my dream of design.
I'd eventually like to work at Nintendo as a lead designer on their franchises, but for now that's a dream. I'd be happy enough if I could start making an income while expressing my game ideas. Speaking of, I really, reaaaaally need a Wii U dev kit. Hopefully I'm good enough at this that I can fund said project.
I'm still kinda a newb when it comes to modeling, so any help is much appreciated!.
Enough about me, without further ado, here's my workshop:
Current Projects:
Spirit Breaker
-Imperial Armor
Tumblr WIP feed: URL="http://oldthekid.tumblr.com/tagged/spirit-breaker"]here[/URL
Anti-Mage
-Collaboration with Brad Whitlam [Note: sorry for polluting your thread with my WIP's!
]Tumblr WIP feed: URL="http://oldthekid.tumblr.com/tagged/antimage"]here[/URL
Dragon Knight
Dragon Knight Sword
Thread will be updated as I finish projects. For more info on my processes, check my tumblr feed for Dota 2.
Any feedback is welcome, and I try my hardest to take it humbly.
Replies
1) You cannot change the base texture for the body.
2) The color palette deviates too far from the original scheme as of right now.
3) The detail on the shoulder is leaning on being too fine to read well ingame - it'll turn into noise.
4) I feel like without the bull's heads, the armor is lacking a 'theme', something that draws the eye. and tells me 'these parts are important' (face, mace, maybe shoulders)
Keep up the good work!
I typically do point light maps in Maya and I know that a lot of people do them in 3DS Max. I'm not even sure if you can do them in ZBrush and I have absolutely no idea what you can do in Mudbox!
As far as feedback is concerned, I feel like the border is too narrow and the detail on it is going to be too small to be seen in game. I'd also focus on learning how to create sharp edges in ZBrush, it looks like that's what you intended for this design and it's all a little bit too rounded.
You've made the hardest step already, which is just starting. Keep going and you can't fail!
@Spudnik I was thinking the same thing about the bull. Thankfully, I planned for it in my original model, so it won't be too hard to reinclude. I'll probably remodel it starting from a cube this time instead of a sphere, then post it up.
I appreciate the heads up relating to the base color texture. My main problem with SB's base is the ugly black armor that's baked into it. It works fine for what it is, but I wish I had a little control over the geometry or stylizing of it. That being said, I'll rework my color scheme to better match the original. I got a little confused, because I've seen a few costume pieces or sets that bend the rules a little bit, so I figured I might take a crack at it--and to hell with the consequences!
I've been working hard at those hard edges, though zBrush seems to give me a lot of grief. And by grief, I mean the TrimAdaptive and Flatten brush sucking in the other side of the ridge I'm working on, despite having the intensity/focus/size appropriately set. Mudbox seemed to work a lot better in that aspect; I was really happy with how it came out in the last screenshot.
So point lights of the detail work well? Do you just throw your normal map on your base mesh (etc), apply your lighting setup, then bake it out? Regardless, thanks for answering the question better than the Google results I combed through for a few hours yesterday. I found this thread while I was digging, which gives a few different methods. Someone in one of my classes was kinda showing me how to get the Light map out of zBrush, but there was one of those points where he was kinda like "And yadda yadda yadda, you export the map, etc" skimming over a few important things. That and I was busy working on my final Character Rig (ehh...that was ok).
Another question for you guys: how much polish? I try to consider the detail from LOD0 and LOD1. I figure as long as it looks good in both, I shouldn't need to polish to the super hard-core level that I see a lot of Digital Sculptors get to. However, I know that having random bumps and other oddities from the sculpt can screw with the exported maps.
Either way, thanks for the feedback! I'll be putting in some time tonight and hopefully have something more to show for it!
EDIT: I missed the part about the set lacking a weapon. I have one planned, I just haven't tackled modeling it yet. I wanted to get started on the armor until my idea for a weapon developed more.
Were I to run with the red/gold/white color scheme that I had in my concept, I was going to make a Sun/Star version of what he currently wields. As opposed to the blue fire, I was going to change it to red to follow the color scheme I created. Now that I know you can't modify the base texture, I'll be reimagining the weapon. But it hasn't been forgotten, I assure you.
While it doesn't need to be perfect, having a clean sculpt is quite important. The sculpt is your starting point: You'll be making the lowpoly from it and bake from it. If step number 1 has issues, they're gonna carry trough the whole thing and eventually bite you in the ass (I speak from experience unfortunately)
It's like the Wild Wild West, it makes things kind of fun and interesting at times.
That's why I came here to open up this thread: You guys all have tons more experience than I do. That makes this site a super valuable resource to someone like me.
I've taken 8 weeks of modeling, 8 weeks of animation, and now 8 weeks of rigging. That's the extent of my knowledge of Maya. This project actually represents the most effort and time I've spent so far on a model--and I wouldn't have it any other way.
The rest of it has been picked up from the zBrush 4 for Games book (awesome book by the way), and other random tutorials across the web. I don't really know what is "right" and what is "wrong" other than to avoid weird geometry (n-gons and the like), and that sculpting from a cube is an easy way to get a cleaner model (that was more from experience though).
Unless I'm mistaken, it sounds like the base low-poly mesh I've made for the shoulder isn't the same one that's going to come out in the end? It'll be made from the high-poly? Woah, mind warp. Unless I'm overthinking it.
You got it! I just put the normal map on the model, set it to a mid grey colour, set up the lights and bake it out. Aside from that, like so many other things, it's just a case of experimenting until it works.
Sweet! I can stop dragging my heels now! Do you set up your lighting on a per-hero basis, or is it worth it to make a file with one lighting setup, so that I can bring in any of my other sets and items that I work on?
Do you think it's worth putting the Dota 2 Hero Shader stuff into maya to get the proper materials/surfaces, or are the built-ins ok for simple things like Point Maps?
PointLight - Maya
AO:
Normal:
zBrush:
AO:
Mudbox:
Normal:
Pre-green channel flip:
Post Green Flip:
**
Edit
**
Switched from Ray Casting Method to Subdivision method, got this result. A lot closer, but still some artifacts:
Pre-green flip:
Post:
**
**
zBrush won't run a normal pass without being able to step down a subD level. As I put a lot of nice smoothing polish in Mudbox, the abomination of a file (maya -> zbrush -> mudbox -> zbrush) no longer has the lower levels. If I remember correctly, I can pull in my other base mesh and zBrush can do the work.
I really like my AO pass from zBrush. It's very clear and looks correct to me. However, the Normals that I've gotten from every program so far have been pretty skewed. Or should I not expect them to look as natural as the AO pass does?
The normals that have been exported from Mudbox look crummy, mostly because I haven't seen it look so predominantly red/green before. Which means that there's some blue channel information missing, correct? This is also what everyone is referring to by artifacts and issues resulting from the sculpting. Oh well, practice makes perfect!
@MDK I really dig your avatar. The blinking interval is juuuuuust slow enough to be creepy when I'm not paying attention.
EDIT#2:
Non-smooth edge:
Softened Edge:
Here's a few test renders of the shoulder. I used Mental Ray to render. Is Maya Software or MR preferred for Dota textures?
EDIT: Nvm, I got my answer from this article on the Unity forums. Things may be moved around on more recent versions of Maya than they were using, but it seems to be the solid method. Apologies if I'm posting info that's redundant; I kind of want to keep this as a compendium for my own reference as well
I spent most of my day working on his kilt. I'm assuming that most of the detail on this part of the model isn't going to be very visible at LOD1, so I'm primarily thinking about LOD0, at least for this piece.
Probably going to start fresh on the shoulder soon. The normals have enough problems that I think it'd be much much better to go through and knock it out using Panel/edge loops.
Front of the kilt. I'm considering adding the bull insignia to each of the blank flaps in between the front and back. I was going to raise it using panel loops, but I decided that a separate piece of geometry (from the shoulder bull) would tie the theming together better once I've reintroduced it to my shoulders. I went with trenched mazes in the front, and raised in the back.
Concept credit goes to Brad Whitlam.
[SKETCHFAB]vMUhfBbePmNywBDnQpWaqbfzOH9[/SKETCHFAB]
at LOD0
If you post up the base meshes before any sculpting, there isn't really much to critique, especially if you're working from a concept (if you're blocking out a new idea in 3D, that's a different story). That said, the outer blade on the AM weapon is way too thin, it will just disappear ingame when viewed from a blade-on angle.
I have no problem with people doing the model and collaborating with Brad if they complete them first or better than I have. I fully intend to have them completed, but while I'm in class I have a different set of preferences, and don't bring my home project files with me, though I will be bringing the DK model home to finish over the weekend.
So I started it and got it in a state where I was comfortable posting it for feedback. I can stop posting my WIPs in my thread if people are getting discouraged by it or it's really such a big deal.
I end up "sketching" (dropping a cube in and speed modeling the general geometry first) these out and posting them so that I can get feedback from him (and others that are more experienced in modeling).
As to taking every concept? If I were going to take every concept, I would have modeled out every one of Dragon Knight's blades that he posted, or the spear, or the six or seven other things. I'll be finishing these two within the next week before I work on another.
And if I say "quickly pumping it out" it's to justify any issues there are with my geometry, as I end up sitting there for a few hours needling away at it after each snapshot. Nothing is perfect, everything needs a fine-tooth comb.
If there's any feedback for me that isn't directly relating to the work posted in the thread, please send it to me via PM, rather than posting it in my my thread. Hope that doesn't come off as too snarky, but I'd like to keep this as a place where I can get feedback about the actual work, not my work ethic.
Well, I'm back to my cave. Next time this thread is updated, I'll have things close to production.
EDIT: Thanks Spudnik, I kind of noticed it as I was dicking around with Sketchfab, but it's nice to have some confirmation. I'll fix it when I get home later.