DanJohnCox's Workshop

danjohncox

Puttin up a new thread for updating things as I go.

Submitted workshop items:
The Shadow King
http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=245561280



The Chrono Maul (Spring 2014)
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=216738641





What I'm working on now:

danjohncox

So I'm gonna try out my first set for shadow demon. Thinking of him dressing himself like a king (but trying to avoid him looking like wraith king).

design idea: Thinking of him wearing the bones/remnants of other hell/nether creatures to ward off lion and shadow fiend.


blockin. trying to do nearly the whole process in zbrush (which is kind new to me). Final lowpoly won't be done there though, I'm not a madman.






Would love some thoughts. Not happy with the current sculpt details, need to rethink the flow of the form

danjohncox

Here's some updates. I'm not sure I'm happy with the design as it's turning out. But I'm finding I don't know what to do to. I think I might look at changing the shoulders but I'm not sure I have the correct perspective on it.



Might draw out a redesign and toss it up. Not sure. Gonna think it over

Sukotto

Liking the set so far, can't wait to see what the bracers look like. Though I think you could do a bit more with the head than just some floating crystals and a third eye

Xajai

Hey! as much as i like the shoulders and their ridiculous size, i think they will clip a bit. You might want to try a super early bind and just move the arms a bit. could prevent you from finishing the set, then finding out you need to change something in the model.

What i would do is run it through Decimation master, and import it straight into maya and cheking it out.

nxscythelynz

interested to model my concept?
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=130570

danjohncox

Sukotto: I get what you mean. I wanted to do a crown in keeping with the self proclaimed king motif I wanted him to kind of have but it looked cheesy. So i tried making it less obvious with the crystals but I don't think I'm making it fit right now. Maybe more crystal elements would help to tie it together? Since I'm gonna have such a low texture space because of the shoulder pieces (those and his cape, AND the crystals) I worry doing anything more complex just won't turn out. maybe I'm mistaken?? (i'd love to be).
Here's kind of where my mind was going with it in the first place. But it's kinda cheesy and doesn't look like a shadow demon thing does it?


Xajai: oh ya you're right. I should test asap!

Nyxscythelynz: glad you found someone and sorry I'm not doing any collabs at the moment

As for the bracers, I'm setting them as an armor item, replacing his chains. Will this be an issue you think? Should they be included elsewhere?

Thanks for the feedback guys

danjohncox

So I'm taking a short break from the sculpt to do plan out another piece thats been on my mind. I want to make a Courier next and I really latched on to it being a Bottle Crow since I heard so many people refer to the term.



not sure if I should have it carrying anything or keep it as a bottle entirely. I'd love to build it in such a way that you could slot different gems in to get effects similar to the rune charges. Or have the bottle crow look empty if you're actually bottle crowing. Shader wise I don't yet see how to pull that off. And unforunately the current shader system doesn't allow for glass like objects (transparent but shiny/reflective) does it?

Feedback is welcome!

ike_ike

ok that is like the most brilliant courier concept i've seen yet

agito666

when bottle crow dies, make it like CM does :P

danjohncox

Thanks a TON you guys! so glad you like the courier idea I'm thinking about doing it this weekend and streaming the process and doing it fulltime but I'm trying to figure out whether to do that or finish my shadow demon set.
Speaking of which!

danjohncox

So I finally figured out skinning. I haven't done it in forever and when I first tried testing out Xaijai's advice to skin the shoulders to make sure they don't clip I had a fbx scaling issue. Which I now fixed too!

except...


I'd made adjustments to fix my expected back clipping (which doesn't happen now) but now the design is hilarious around his head. He moves SO much more than i realized!! So stupid of me not to check! Well now I know at least and this mesh was just a decimation model to keep things quick for testing this. So now I gotta change the design. Not sure how to pull off the current one but I guess we'll see!

danjohncox

Okay, finished the highpoly! Gonna retopo today and hopefully test more skinning. I think I've got the shoulders fixed now with some specific skinning.

TrevorJ

Hey, lookin good. Yeah ever since my ursa set i always do a quick blockin and skin that to test it out in-game first. A lot of the heros idle poses can be substantially different from their bind poses. The only thing i can really think of to fix the head cage issue is to maybe shorten the spikes. Optionally maybe cut them off in zbrush and rotate them so they curve outward. Here's a quick idea of that. Just a thought.

Pastat7

Very nice lookin

Shock

looks interessting. my advise is test it with the ingameimporter as soon as possible to check if the details blurs out with low resolution.

greez

danjohncox

Trevor: Good idea! I was thinking of that too but managed to get this working with just skinning.
Shock: ya man, I'm noticing that now for sure. I thought I could plan ahead for it, but I didn't think i'd mix it up this much :P
Pastat7: thanks!

Got everything imported and spent awhile fiddling with the shoulders to get the animation not clip. Took awhile and taught me a lot. I still have to fix how the parts integrate with colour and materials.



Edit: I feel like I need to be done with this. There are a number of things I'd like to change but would require me to just start over (mostly design stuff) on highpolys. But sometimes, I dunno, I feel like i MUST fix them and I'm not sure when is the right time to just set it free. For example? I'm really feeling like he needs his cape.... and I don't know how to fit that in there with good resolution. ugh.

Reyne

It is looking pretty good! I think he is oe of the hardest heroes to design for, so I think you have done a really good job

The .gif makes me think of Zelda OoT Gannondorf fight.

danjohncox

It's in! finally finished my Shadow Demon set called The Shadow King.
http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=245561280



Hope you guys like it! and votes would be amazing if you do

danjohncox

So people hated the tail on average so im thinking of making an alternate tail. A couple ideas, lemme know which ones you guys think i should go with

Bernoully

I voted for that Shadow Demon set, one of the best ones I've seen! Hope it gets in

From what I know, there's currently no way to make glass objects work as shaders, the closest is probably the Death Prophet transculent ghosts. I love the idea of a Bottlebird though!

Automedic

I'd take the left one, it goes better with the rest of the set. I really love your work!

Oh, and as far as the translucency ("glass effect") is concerned: isnt it possible to add the line for that into the item's .vmt?

danjohncox

Long time no post! been working on a QOP set, design by cottonwings.





I think I'm just about ready to get the lowpoly going. Anyone find any issues with not skinning certain bones of qops wings? i tested it and it looked fine but I'd hate to have missed something.

cottonwings

How could I miss this post! I'm loving how it looks so far, so glad to see the concept works in sculpt. Looking forward to it

danjohncox

Alright! it's been ages but now I'm in the home stretch for this Qop set! I think we'll have to wait till after New Bloom before we submit. Would that make sense?





Hope you guys like it! The design from Cottonwings was just so great I'm glad I could get this finished

Potm

wow, the set is looking amazing, LOVE it, will totally support it with my vote (droolll

Snowstorm

That hair looks reeeaaaally awkward from the side view within the portrait. Is that a rigging error?

Potm

i thought it's the style of it O: which i personally think it looks good

looks like Ariel~

danjohncox

Potm: Thanks!! Ah ya, didn't think of ariel but she certainly does have similar bangs

Snowstorm: not sure of the issue you're seeing. Awkward where? The bangs? do they go forward too much? Not likely a rigging error as the hair is pretty much all rigged 100% to the head. Can you expand on awkward? is it too big maybe? I'll admit something does seem slightly off, but if you're thinking its reaaallly awkward I'm gonna need more help with knowing what that is :S

Snowstorm

oh. ok, I assumed it was unintentional.

This is the part I'm referring to:



Highlighted in red, I've sketched the flow of the hair in white. The fringe bit sticks out much too far and looks unnatural because the flow opposes how the hair wants to fall. It looks odd because hair doesn't stick out that way, especially long hair, unless it's been all gelled up (or however Elvis did his hairdo). Well, at least I find it unnatural, but others might have different opinions, which they are definitely entitled to.

@Potm - I've sketched the flow of Ariel's hair as well and whilst it sticks out from the forehead that works because it flows very nicely. There's beautiful curves to it that make sense when you look at the hair, and so the artists can add a little bit of fantasy to it to make it even prettier.

imo you could look at shaping the hair from the side like the sketch I made in blue, which would make it look more natural. The bottom line of the fringe curves up earlier, and the top line of the fringe curves up along the line of her skull before falling and doesn't end too far from her forehead.

I don't think you'd need to resculpt anything. From what I can see I think any changes to the fringe could just be a little vertex pushing here and there. Just need to move the outermost edge of the fringe in towards her forehead along the z axis until it nearly touches. It'd look the same from the front.

The rest of the set looks pretty good!

danjohncox

ah! ya i see what you mean for sure. I think this was an issue of me sticking maybe too closely too the concept without accepting, you know... gravity. I agree, "should" be doable with some vert movement. I'll see if that'll work. Thanks for the breakdown! That totally clarifies things!

Potm

@ Snowstorm & danj



the paintover is really hard to tell the difference i guess, but i think it's the thickness of the hair that cause the problem? is that what you mean Snowstorm? I think as long as you make the front bit hair a bit thicker, it looks good to me personally, hairstyle can't be right or wrong after all...who knows if you put wax on you hair before you go for the battle XD

danjohncox

Whoaa it's been too long. But now I got this thing submitted finally! Loved Cottonwing's design and I'm glad we finally got it all in.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=446529573&savesuccess=1

bounchfx

this came out just awesome. great work you two !!

kendmd

Dude! Awesome execution!!

danjohncox

Now two things done and released close together! Maybe I'm getting faster? Doubtful!

Anyways, I've actually done a courier now which I'm pretty pleased about King Chompterton. He's meant for the Dota 2 Elite Series tournament in Toronto.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=453252555