Torch, I was wondering this myself. I'll definitely post updates when I figure it out.
Rumkugel, I'm as far from "rushing things" as I've ever been. Thanks for the boot-seams, I think I looked at the reference wrong! Good catch on the bicep part, also.
as for the helmet netting.
i´d do this with alpha planes.
copy helmet geometry, bake helmet mesh onto it, push it a bit off the helmet geo.
adds little contour.
Thanks for the paintover. I just moved the seam down with the move brush. Thanks for the back part, too! Will do that:)
It does hang a lot better now. Much appreciated! For the helmet, I want to preserve that silhouette you get with the geometry. While alphas would be ideal, they mightn't be nearly as interesting as having some geo actually placed in.
Initially I'll try some hand-retopo on the mesh, just to see what the polycount is like. Considering that I want this model to be portfolio-quality (hopefully), there should be quite a bit of detail.
A lot of critique/encouragement/etc. going on here. Thanks so much, guys. I really appreciate every single word
Here's Nixon as of now, I don't want to push the seams down too far, so that's probably my extent. I can't help but feel that he seems too wide, or that something is off. Any ideas?
you should consider shortening the epaulettes on his shoulders..
they´re like superlong
again, check the ref pic of the screen grab you posted and i painted over.
some seriously deep wrinkles going on around the armpits, due the jacket being that saggy.
You really should make sure you have your proportions correct before you get this far in. I did a quick paint over to help. The things I noticed were the whole character looks squashed vertically, the shoulders are too low and too broad, the neck doesn't exist, the should look better with the seam higher, and the head is a bit small. Also the cloth bunching at the boots looks off. It should be an accordion fold. Here is some ref for the cloth and my paintover:
I was thinking alphas for the hair netting as well but if he's going for a next gen model, I imagine these could just be modelled in (optimized obviously.)
Yeah, I was thinking he was squashed vertically. I think the problem there is that I work on an angle with my tablet, so when I screenshot him back to my main monitor, it all looks a bit funny. I'll play around with that tonight. I do like the shoulder better with a higher seam. Feels a little less wonky, but we'll see.
The base-mesh I used was proportionate, but I think that the problem lies with the clothing, and how I made it hang. So I messed around with some of the proportions so that he's a little less squashy. He has a neck! It was just covered completely by a scarf.
I suppose to some it mightn't read well. Fingers crossed this seems to be progress. He still comes off as a bit squashed. Pants aren't being worked on just yet, one thing at a time
Righto. Progress report. Working on the low-poly. Currently sitting at ~9k tris. Jacket is a bit funky, but it should deform okay. I tried the helmet webbing as a mesh, and it bumps the tri count to 13k. Even with a simple little layout. Leaning towards alphas, now :P
Few things here and there that could be fixed. Still have to add..
Completed a bit of texturing today. The boots feel a bit clean. The actual paratrooper uniforms were actually a lot brighter than this, though I drew some inspiration from a few of the scenes where the uniforms had been soaked/darkened by the environment.
Note: Removed the laces and helmet webbing. Ended up tessellating the helmet webbing instead. Easiest way, and prettiest way. Working on the face now, and all up it comes out at around 11,000 tris.
The clothing looks really amazing and detailed, but now the face needs all of the work. Looking at the face doesn't really remind me of the actor, even after looking at reference images.
Nice to see you progressing with this. Posting a close up of the face might be useful for us to try and help you with that.
Personally I think the highlights on the jacket and pants are too strong, and makes it look like its made out of a plastic or nylon instead of a thick burlapy material (it's too shiny). Also, The buttons and belt clip should be a black metal if I remember correctly, but you probably haven't gotten around to working on them yet.
There seems to be this odd discoloration going on (maybe it's your lighting) in the jacket especially. I actually preferred your image a few posts back (post #66) even though it was darker, because the material looked more like it should in both texture and color consistency.
Nothing really changed with the jacket texture between the two, I think it was just lighting. I'll match #66, but I'm probably just going to call it here (for now).
Replies
Torch, I was wondering this myself. I'll definitely post updates when I figure it out.
Rumkugel, I'm as far from "rushing things" as I've ever been. Thanks for the boot-seams, I think I looked at the reference wrong! Good catch on the bicep part, also.
as for the helmet netting.
i´d do this with alpha planes.
copy helmet geometry, bake helmet mesh onto it, push it a bit off the helmet geo.
adds little contour.
It does hang a lot better now. Much appreciated! For the helmet, I want to preserve that silhouette you get with the geometry. While alphas would be ideal, they mightn't be nearly as interesting as having some geo actually placed in.
Initially I'll try some hand-retopo on the mesh, just to see what the polycount is like. Considering that I want this model to be portfolio-quality (hopefully), there should be quite a bit of detail.
Here's Nixon as of now, I don't want to push the seams down too far, so that's probably my extent. I can't help but feel that he seems too wide, or that something is off. Any ideas?
they´re like superlong
again, check the ref pic of the screen grab you posted and i painted over.
some seriously deep wrinkles going on around the armpits, due the jacket being that saggy.
your´s are getting better, but are bit shallow.
I suppose to some it mightn't read well. Fingers crossed this seems to be progress. He still comes off as a bit squashed. Pants aren't being worked on just yet, one thing at a time
Few things here and there that could be fixed. Still have to add..
- Helmet straps
- Helmet webbing
Note: Removed the laces and helmet webbing. Ended up tessellating the helmet webbing instead. Easiest way, and prettiest way. Working on the face now, and all up it comes out at around 11,000 tris.
Mightn't be able to get him to look like Livingston, but at least he'll look less clean..
Personally I think the highlights on the jacket and pants are too strong, and makes it look like its made out of a plastic or nylon instead of a thick burlapy material (it's too shiny). Also, The buttons and belt clip should be a black metal if I remember correctly, but you probably haven't gotten around to working on them yet.
There seems to be this odd discoloration going on (maybe it's your lighting) in the jacket especially. I actually preferred your image a few posts back (post #66) even though it was darker, because the material looked more like it should in both texture and color consistency.
Keep it up!