Halo Mod - Spartan Character - Seeking Feedback
Hey, everyone. My name is Justin Butschi, and today I'm hoping to gain some constructive criticism on my model.
(Many more images below!)
I am the Lead Character Modeler over on the Venerance project (http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2012/07/24/halo-fan-mod-venerance-to-be-made-in-cryengine-3.aspx)
We at Venerance have to call ourselves something, so we call ourselves Tributary Creations, but we're not a company or anything like that. Just a bunch of Halo fans expressing our love for Halo through our talents and abilities. Venerance is not a product, it is merely a mod using the CryEngine; it is a single-mission labor of love based on the novels that is in NO WAY associated with money. Heh, we're very careful about that. No ads on our site, no "donate buttons" to other organizations, nothing: nothing at all. All concerns about "Cease & Desist" letters can go ahead and be nipped in the bud, because we've been at this a long time, and we've always operated within Microsoft's "Game Content Usage Rules".
So, with that out of the way, and with the assistance of my Lead's ability to articulate via text, today I'm hoping for you to brutally rip apart this model of a SPARTAN-II that's wearing their last version of Mark 4 MJOLNIR armor before the model-2's started being switched over to the Mark 5 in 2552.
The overall goal of Venerance's visual identity design is to stay absolutely true to the soul of the Halo novels, while still taking the designs forward in their level of detail (kinda like asking the question: what would Halo look like if technology were not a limiting factor?). We even have an image we use to communicate this:
Now I'm always looking to improve my skills, and while I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out so far, I know it can be better, and so that's where I need your help.
So here I'm going to walk you through how I've been directed to get to where I'm at right now with this character. I'm going to include links to where you can see some of the images used to communicate the details of what we were going for:
Starting off with the naked body underneath the armor, it's important to note that Spartan-II bodies are NOT able to be described by the same metrics as mere human bodies (Spartan-IIs are trans-human cyborgs that are augmented in many different ways; they're close to, but not *quite* the same as, broader, taller, idealized humans--they're around 7-feet tall, have unnaturally intense physique proportions, longer limbs, and an agile yet powerful look to them).
It's also important to note that this particular S2 is one of the largest; it's the player's character, "Blue-5", a non-canon, no-personality character meant for the player to inhabit, who has an unstated thematic connection with a long-dead SPARTAN-II named Samuel; Sam-034 was a head taller than John-117, and so that puts him at 2.31 meters tall while out of armor and 2.41 meters tall while in armor (that's 7 feet and 11 inches in armor, imperial).
http://imgur.com/a/l28pQ
Now for the armor itself:
While I could go into a LOT of detail, the "Cliff Notes version" of what we are going for with our interpretation of the last version of Mark 4 is that it is an idealized synthesis of all appropriate MJOLNIR designs seen to date in all forms of media, especially the helmet. If you have read Halsey's Journal, you might remember that she sent the Spartan-IIs upgrades as soon as they became available, regardless of any "Mark" system that the UNSC used to refer to differences in MJOLNIR armor over time. In the actual game, the armor and everything on it will be COMPLETELY covered in passive camouflage, so the textures seen on this model are not representative of what the textures in Venerance will end up looking like. But they make it easier to work on in the meantime, and we think they're easy on the eye.
Big thanks here to our Lead 2D Character Artist, Geoff Herndon, aka Tekka-Croe, for his part in helping us to get these things to go together well. He's an AMAZING artist, be sure to check out his work (http://tekka-croe.deviantart.com) when you get the chance.
http://imgur.com/a/SvB0h
Now for the attachments on the armor:
The ammo pouches,
the (ambiguous) armor ability module,
the helmet modules,
the retractable antennas,
the anti-Brute/Elite dagger (we know it needs a sheath; we're not to that point yet),
the combat knife sheathed in the pauldron (the vents under the pauldron aren't going to stay),
the thigh satchel,
and the fanny pack
are all based on an idealized synthesis between existing information found in the Halo universe and supplementary materials found elsewhere.
http://imgur.com/a/q3CEI
And that's it!
Here are some shots of it in-engine, using the level that comes standard with the CryEngine SDK:
(we did not make anything else seen in the image, to be clear! Just the character.)
Thank you so much in advance for any and all feedback that you can give. Please keep it constructive but by all means please rip into it!
(Many more images below!)
I am the Lead Character Modeler over on the Venerance project (http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2012/07/24/halo-fan-mod-venerance-to-be-made-in-cryengine-3.aspx)
We at Venerance have to call ourselves something, so we call ourselves Tributary Creations, but we're not a company or anything like that. Just a bunch of Halo fans expressing our love for Halo through our talents and abilities. Venerance is not a product, it is merely a mod using the CryEngine; it is a single-mission labor of love based on the novels that is in NO WAY associated with money. Heh, we're very careful about that. No ads on our site, no "donate buttons" to other organizations, nothing: nothing at all. All concerns about "Cease & Desist" letters can go ahead and be nipped in the bud, because we've been at this a long time, and we've always operated within Microsoft's "Game Content Usage Rules".
So, with that out of the way, and with the assistance of my Lead's ability to articulate via text, today I'm hoping for you to brutally rip apart this model of a SPARTAN-II that's wearing their last version of Mark 4 MJOLNIR armor before the model-2's started being switched over to the Mark 5 in 2552.
The overall goal of Venerance's visual identity design is to stay absolutely true to the soul of the Halo novels, while still taking the designs forward in their level of detail (kinda like asking the question: what would Halo look like if technology were not a limiting factor?). We even have an image we use to communicate this:
Now I'm always looking to improve my skills, and while I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out so far, I know it can be better, and so that's where I need your help.
So here I'm going to walk you through how I've been directed to get to where I'm at right now with this character. I'm going to include links to where you can see some of the images used to communicate the details of what we were going for:
Starting off with the naked body underneath the armor, it's important to note that Spartan-II bodies are NOT able to be described by the same metrics as mere human bodies (Spartan-IIs are trans-human cyborgs that are augmented in many different ways; they're close to, but not *quite* the same as, broader, taller, idealized humans--they're around 7-feet tall, have unnaturally intense physique proportions, longer limbs, and an agile yet powerful look to them).
It's also important to note that this particular S2 is one of the largest; it's the player's character, "Blue-5", a non-canon, no-personality character meant for the player to inhabit, who has an unstated thematic connection with a long-dead SPARTAN-II named Samuel; Sam-034 was a head taller than John-117, and so that puts him at 2.31 meters tall while out of armor and 2.41 meters tall while in armor (that's 7 feet and 11 inches in armor, imperial).
http://imgur.com/a/l28pQ
Now for the armor itself:
While I could go into a LOT of detail, the "Cliff Notes version" of what we are going for with our interpretation of the last version of Mark 4 is that it is an idealized synthesis of all appropriate MJOLNIR designs seen to date in all forms of media, especially the helmet. If you have read Halsey's Journal, you might remember that she sent the Spartan-IIs upgrades as soon as they became available, regardless of any "Mark" system that the UNSC used to refer to differences in MJOLNIR armor over time. In the actual game, the armor and everything on it will be COMPLETELY covered in passive camouflage, so the textures seen on this model are not representative of what the textures in Venerance will end up looking like. But they make it easier to work on in the meantime, and we think they're easy on the eye.
Big thanks here to our Lead 2D Character Artist, Geoff Herndon, aka Tekka-Croe, for his part in helping us to get these things to go together well. He's an AMAZING artist, be sure to check out his work (http://tekka-croe.deviantart.com) when you get the chance.
http://imgur.com/a/SvB0h
Now for the attachments on the armor:
The ammo pouches,
the (ambiguous) armor ability module,
the helmet modules,
the retractable antennas,
the anti-Brute/Elite dagger (we know it needs a sheath; we're not to that point yet),
the combat knife sheathed in the pauldron (the vents under the pauldron aren't going to stay),
the thigh satchel,
and the fanny pack
are all based on an idealized synthesis between existing information found in the Halo universe and supplementary materials found elsewhere.
http://imgur.com/a/q3CEI
And that's it!
Here are some shots of it in-engine, using the level that comes standard with the CryEngine SDK:
(we did not make anything else seen in the image, to be clear! Just the character.)
Thank you so much in advance for any and all feedback that you can give. Please keep it constructive but by all means please rip into it!
Replies
The knife's current placement would make drawing it very awkward. Depending on its length, you could have it on the belt/thigh, on the chest, or on the back; keep in mind that you'd want to grab and draw it quickly, and that it shouldn't stick out where it could catch on things during awkward moments.
The materials also need some work, specifically speaking the visor, which is far to shiny and also lacks any detail (ala Halo 2 + 3 had a design on the outside of the visor).
Overall it looks good but those things stand out.
I think its looking really nice thought
He appears to have an upside down Triangle build, which looks a bit cartoonish and out of character for the Halo series. Very broad shoulders, a thin waist and skinny legs. Part of what makes the original armor designs so good is that they look sleek and fast while still having the underlying bulk of what must be a strong and powerful human underneath. You can see a great example here. I think if you massaged the proportions a bit, gave him a thicker waist, a less broad silhouette, and gave his arms and legs a but more consistent bulk, he would read better.