VG Remix - Geometric Super Smash Bros Brawl

CharlesL

So I'm going to be creating a smash bros brawl scene in a geometric style (i.e. http://www.sketchypictures.com/media/2012/07/mutant-fish-original1.jpg).

I just finished creating the mesh for Mario...


Stats:
Tris: 336
Verts: 208
No textures yet, but I plan on the texture being only 1x3, basically a color palette.

CharlesL

Textured Mario. I did fully unwrap the mesh and assigned a 128x128 image so that I can bake an AO map later on.

GragGunslinger

I know you're going for the geometric style, but I feel like some of your poly placement could be a bit better, like the pole on mario's face could be higher up to look more like a cheekbone.

CharlesL

Thanks Greg, that's a good idea.

Link's mesh...


Stats:
Tris: 388
Verts: 227

CharlesL

Textured Link...

CharlesL

I roughly textured the shield, but I'll probably clean it up later in GIMP (I'm currently just painting them on).

PaperTig3rs

Very cool Good luck!

CharlesL

Thanks PaperTig3rs

Updated links shield with a better texture...

CharlesL

Donkey Kong's mesh:

CharlesL

Each character I model gets progressively bigger...

D4V1DC

Really nice stuff though you should use all of the 500+ triangles for each character you got a good base for all of them just hit that mark other than that strong start.

CharlesL

Thanks D4V1DC. I know what you mean by saying I should use all of the 500 triangles, but I'm trying to keep all their designs simple. I'm also trying to have a little overhead, because I plan to add a few extra things to the scene that may end up adding a lot to the polycount. Thanks for the suggestion, though. I may end up adding more detail to the characters later on.

The fight between Mario and Donkey Kong (1 half of the scene):


Still have some texturing/coloring to do. And I still have to add another character for Link to fight with. Then I have to add more environment props/formations.

CharlesL

The scene in it's current state...
[SKETCHFAB]3473b5f8e4fd44b69b68badfc15aab70[/SKETCHFAB]

specsowl

I like how this is coming out, but perhaps a little love on your textures. Firstly, maybe pushing the saturation a bit so that everything doesn't look so muted. Right now Mario looks blahse simply because his skin is pale and his red isn't RED. I think you've got a great idea, but maybe push some things a little further.

And I agree with some other people in that ~500 is just a guideline. Going as low poly as possible won't really achieve what you might be going for. Utilize what you can without going over Hope I helped

CharlesL

Thanks for the input specsowl. The skin really does need some work, I'll fix that in the next post. I could add some extra geometry to the character meshes, but I'm not really sure where it would make sense to put it. I guess I could round them out a little more, but I do kind of like the sharper edges.

funkbro

Looking good, I think Mario's hat may need more volume though, looks really flat in profile view...

specsowl

CharlesL wrote: »

Thanks for the input specsowl. The skin really does need some work, I'll fix that in the next post. I could add some extra geometry to the character meshes, but I'm not really sure where it would make sense to put it. I guess I could round them out a little more, but I do kind of like the sharper edges.

Sharper edges are good, yes, but some polygons are incredibly stretched which could lead to bad lighting errors, texture stretching, etc. Most notably on Mario. Donkey Kong looks pretty good and reminds me of the rock dudes from the old Lego series Rock Raiders

CharlesL

specsowl wrote: »

Sharper edges are good, yes, but some polygons are incredibly stretched which could lead to bad lighting errors, texture stretching, etc. Most notably on Mario. Donkey Kong looks pretty good and reminds me of the rock dudes from the old Lego series Rock Raiders

Ah, yes I see what you mean. I was having some AO baking issues earlier because of Mario's sharp edged back. I forgot to mention that I will be fixing that

CharlesL

Posed Link:

CharlesL

Did a little more scene layout:

specsowl

Very cool. Really liking how Link turned out. He seems to be the "hero" piece! Get it, because, he's the...hero of time? Yeah ok. Anyways, coming out nicely.

CharlesL

Thanks specsowl, I appreciate it

Here's an update on the scene containing all the fixes from the last one (and a few other tweaks )
[SKETCHFAB]18cff07921b3437db6ceae148cbfdbd8[/SKETCHFAB]

EDIT: HMM... The lighter material for donkey kong isn't showing up. I'm not sure why...

a3sthesia

Cool!! I know this sounds silly, but my favourite details are the fx; i.e. the dust shooting up below Mario, and the cracked ground below Donkey Kong. Are the poses final for those characters? You should try exaggerating them, like really exaggerating them so they're all-over-the-top-epic looking. The frozen-in-time action sequences are going to be my favourite in this competition. The set and clouds are going to look awesome too.

SentryTheGod

Perhaps doing some poses that are not in the game?

CharlesL

Thanks @a3ssthesia. I have to agree that the FX are one of the best parts of the scene. They help to add motion to an otherwise stationary scene (and since it is cartoon I get to really push the FX to the limits ). I probably will be exaggerating the poses later on, but I want to do a little more environment modeling first. And I still haven't decided on a fourth character to model, so I have to do that too (I'm stuck between Falco and Pikachu).

@SentryTheGod, I dunno, I kind of like the poses they're already in. Since there's only one more character to create, I think I'll probably stick to poses in the game, but I might exaggerate them more.

Update (better lighting, sky, a little environment modeling):
[SKETCHFAB]6c3b0be8689e46bd89cebd418632f79f[/SKETCHFAB]

PaperTig3rs

This is def one of my favorites in the bunch!

CharlesL

Thanks PaperTig3rs, I'm glad you like it

Just a quick test to see what AO looks like:


(I didn't bother to unwrap it manually, I just used one of the automatic unwrap methods)

CharlesL

Mario AO:


Donkey Kong AO:

mospheric

Are you baking the AO down into the diffuse texture?

CharlesL

@mospheric

Actually no, I'm just multiplying it onto the material. I'm not sure if sketchfab does that, so I may end up baking the materials down into color maps. We'll see.

mariomanzanares

The AO is a cool tool to create fake depth and lighting, but you have to understand something: The shadows tend to be cold, especially the painted ones. If you turn the color of your AO map from black to dark blue, the bake are going to look far better. If you use it in pure black, the result is dirty.

Try to play with the hues: Cold for shadows, warm for lights (generally speaking, of course). And NEVER use pure black in a texture if you are aiming for a hand-painted or cartoony approach.

CharlesL

@mariomanzanares very good point, thank you for bringing that up. I'll tint them cooler once I do a final bake.

CharlesL

I finally decided to do Pikachu because he shows up more in the promotional images (but I personally like Fox better). I also added a fight between Link and Pikachu:

CharlesL

And the sketchfab...
[SKETCHFAB]1d987a60a66143c092bedca143625a11[/SKETCHFAB]

funkbro

Aha! Using sketchfab makes this look like the pause menu of Smash Bros

a3sthesia

oh i see what you're doing! That's even cooler than I thought originally. Awesome work ^_^

CharlesL

Thanks guys I really appreciate it

Here is a new update:
[SKETCHFAB]fac71adf019d4b7c98c73e6eba84b46e[/SKETCHFAB]

(excuse the messed up grass in the background. I think the normals are flipped)

EDIT: Fixed the grass issue (and fixed donkey kong as well )

specsowl

This is just so awesome. I love how this is coming out! The more you do, the cooler it looks

a3sthesia

so glad you have this in sketchfab already. It's such a great little action scene, and fun to pan around ^_^

CharlesL

@specsowl, thanks I probably would have stopped by now if not for the encouragement from you guys.

@e3stesia yeah, frankly I'm just to lazy to take screenshots :P but my excuse is that it's easier for people to scrutinize the models this way

Update:
[SKETCHFAB]b2e41f786c3b4b2f809c14d590a65152[/SKETCHFAB]

I'm now having a major issue. When I try to switch to the platform material to edit it, sketchfab will crash. The issue is that I can't add an AO map until I have access to the settings in SketchFab. I'm really not sure what to do. I've already tried it in two different browsers... Is anyone else having this issue?

CharlesL

Update (detailing work):
[SKETCHFAB]6664a8b04baa456ba30f267041c31768[/SKETCHFAB]

I'm not really happy with the smash ball. Probably going to remove it, but I just wanted to see if anyone had feedback.

I'm also going to try to figure out what the issue is with crashing sketchfab when I try to edit the rock texture. Maybe optimizing/splitting the objects apart?

E2x7u

I like the idea of the smash ball, but I think the texture needs to be shifted over, the cross should be facing the default camera screen, its off to side of the sphere. Try moving it around in different locations to see its effect on the overall composition, or put more items lying around.

CharlesL

E2x7u, I decided to remove the smash ball. It wasn't adding anything to the composition, plus it was difficult to make it look good. I wish I could have made it work, but it would have been a lot of messy tweaking that I didn't want to have to worry about.

Update on the scene:
[SKETCHFAB]c7827454e08143588596411339464f2f[/SKETCHFAB]

Sketchfab stopped crashing once I optimized my mesh a little bit, so I was finally able to get some textures on everything! What do you guys think of the AO? Also, should I add anything else to the scene (pokeball, food, hammer, etc.)?

CharlesL

Well, I'm going to submit mine unless anyone has anything else they think needs fixed. Any ideas?

adam

Why don't any of your characters have eyes?

CharlesL

@adam, I tried to simplify the characters as much as possible. Since their eyes aren't the defining factors to recognize them, I got rid of them.

William3DArtist

This is sweet I am looking forward to the finished piece of this one.