[Mixamo Contest] - Dakruon/Spikesdm - "My name is Voynich".
polycounter lvl 7
Hello everyone, this is my second entry for a contest here on Polycount, I tried my luck with The Escape, along my team (Bushido), but didn't finish up in time due to how much work we had to do.
First of all thanks a lot to the Mixamo guys for the awesome contest!
In my entry I'll be teaming up with an awesome concept artist, who is also my friend, Pietro Scola di Mambro. He's already helped us with The Escape and will be drawing this one aswell. ( http://spikesdm.deviantart.com/ if you wanna check him out )
Let's get down to business!
"My Name is Voynich"
Our story is set not many years into the future. Something has gone wrong, very wrong. Our green and blue Earth has slowly become a desertic land, and we're the ones to blame.
Now, in this harsh hell only a few humans yet survive. They are holed up in little steel cities called "Domes". But many of these are falling, one by one for unknown reasons. Until only the First Dome remains.
Our adventurer sets out from this last "home" humanity has left, on a quest to find a legendary machine. It is said that Humans predicted such a moment could come, and that in the last moments before the cataclysm, they built a machine, capable of sending one man back in time, to fix things.
On his journey, Voynich, will write down on a book all the guidelines for humanity's survival. Alchemy, Astrology, Biology. Those are all pieces of a bigger plan that can save the world.
When depicted, here in the contest, Voynich is still looking for the legendary machine, traveling the dangerous desert, but in the end he will find it. Sadly it was never finished in time, and so it's up to him to try and fix it as much as he can. Eventually he will get the machine working, but not as predicted.
While he wanted to land in the 20th century, he will instead end up in the 15th. There he will have to hide his identity and the book, passing the secret from father to son, until one day his descendant, Wilfrid Voynich, will finally find the Tome again and will bring it back to humanity.
This has created a time paradox. Voynich is Wilfrid's ancestor, but at the same time Wilfrid is the same thing to Voynich. Will this chain be broken with the understanding of the Manuscript? And if the paradox ceases to exist, so will Voynich himself?
Until today no one has been able to understand the Manuscript. Mostly because everyone looks at the past for answers, while they should be looking in the future. Will someone decript Voynich's Legacy? Or will humanity be doomed once again?
This concept will be treated like a possible Videogame story, and in the upcoming concept art we'll try to explore some gameplay potentialities/issues and work around them to create a solid character that will work in a game engine.
I hope this doesn't strain too far from the contest guidelines, and I ask Anais to confirm this, if possible!
Thanks for reading the whole textwall and let's hope we make it to the deadline this time!
(And sorry about the poor English!)
First of all thanks a lot to the Mixamo guys for the awesome contest!
In my entry I'll be teaming up with an awesome concept artist, who is also my friend, Pietro Scola di Mambro. He's already helped us with The Escape and will be drawing this one aswell. ( http://spikesdm.deviantart.com/ if you wanna check him out )
Let's get down to business!
"My Name is Voynich"
Our story is set not many years into the future. Something has gone wrong, very wrong. Our green and blue Earth has slowly become a desertic land, and we're the ones to blame.
Now, in this harsh hell only a few humans yet survive. They are holed up in little steel cities called "Domes". But many of these are falling, one by one for unknown reasons. Until only the First Dome remains.
Our adventurer sets out from this last "home" humanity has left, on a quest to find a legendary machine. It is said that Humans predicted such a moment could come, and that in the last moments before the cataclysm, they built a machine, capable of sending one man back in time, to fix things.
On his journey, Voynich, will write down on a book all the guidelines for humanity's survival. Alchemy, Astrology, Biology. Those are all pieces of a bigger plan that can save the world.
When depicted, here in the contest, Voynich is still looking for the legendary machine, traveling the dangerous desert, but in the end he will find it. Sadly it was never finished in time, and so it's up to him to try and fix it as much as he can. Eventually he will get the machine working, but not as predicted.
While he wanted to land in the 20th century, he will instead end up in the 15th. There he will have to hide his identity and the book, passing the secret from father to son, until one day his descendant, Wilfrid Voynich, will finally find the Tome again and will bring it back to humanity.
This has created a time paradox. Voynich is Wilfrid's ancestor, but at the same time Wilfrid is the same thing to Voynich. Will this chain be broken with the understanding of the Manuscript? And if the paradox ceases to exist, so will Voynich himself?
Until today no one has been able to understand the Manuscript. Mostly because everyone looks at the past for answers, while they should be looking in the future. Will someone decript Voynich's Legacy? Or will humanity be doomed once again?
This concept will be treated like a possible Videogame story, and in the upcoming concept art we'll try to explore some gameplay potentialities/issues and work around them to create a solid character that will work in a game engine.
I hope this doesn't strain too far from the contest guidelines, and I ask Anais to confirm this, if possible!
Thanks for reading the whole textwall and let's hope we make it to the deadline this time!
(And sorry about the poor English!)
Replies
Yes, he is one-armed. Soon we'll post more about his weapons and gadgets. I'm going to start sculpting aswell.
As you can see we're trying to balance the asimmetry of the body, given by a single arm, with a one sided coat. We considered some environment necessities, like a pair of goggles and a hood against the sand and the sun. We're not really sure about the chest piece tho. We have to decide if it's reinforced, and heavy to carry, resulting in useless burden in such an extreme environment, or just a simple outfit, pragmatic but not defensive.
Any feedback is really welcome!
Concept looks good and I love the one sided coat. I'm not sure, however, how the one-arm asymmetry is going to play out with the Auto-Rigger (which takes bipeds, two arms, two legs): remember you'll need to Auto-Rig and animate the entry before submitting. Let me check with Oliver and Andrew to see if they have some tricks for us that would make this one-arm concept viable for the contest. I'll get back to ya tomorrow.
Other than that, I really love the story and feel.
Cheers,
Ricardo
As far as the rigging goes, I'm still sculpting and modeling with both arms, because Zbrush has a problem with symmetry finding if I cut it off right away, so we're still in time to fix this if Mixamo doesn't function properly with asymmetrical meshes!
Here's an update on the 2D concept:
We haven't dropped the idea of the half-cloak, we're just studying the forms and the shapes a bit better, and we've decided the face and the general color palette. We're not sure about the hood tho. What do you guys think? Should we keep it?
And here is the first very raw sculpt:
I'm still looking into the shapes, and the face is mostly a placeholder. Also I'm going to make it a little bit less muscolar, except from the right arm, which is the only one he uses and also must be able to swing around a very big sword.
Now we're focusing on his weapons and gadgets, and I will start building up details on the visible body parts and build a real face.
Feedback is always welcome!
Here's some updates:
I'm having some problems with facial hairs. Also had very little time to work in the last days, I gotta speed up and to the clothing!
I hope this helps, it's looking great so far and I'm looking forward to seeing more of your progress!
Here's how to register: Simply send an email to contest@mixamo.com and provide the following info:
Name: Your First and Last Name
Login: Your Mixamo login or associated email address
Source: Where you heard about this contest
Tools: 3D software you will use to model your character
Polycount WIP Thread: Your email must include the URL to your work-in-progress thread on Polycount so we can follow your progress
That's it!
We'll then provide you with free Auto-Rigging and animating on Mixamo and send you a confirmation. Thanks!