@stuburrito: I think it looks great, fits well with the theme. Not sure if it's too late to change this but try widening the blade close the the hilt, as it is I think your sword blade is too narrow at its base. Not sure if it's just the camera angle but the sword blade looks like it's getting bigger as it gets longer. Proportionally it doesn't work for me.
@schnoodle: I like the new way you've arranged the helm, sure the previous incarnation looked more like the item but it didn't look much like Abbadon anymore as a result. If you could hide Abbadons default eyes behind a geometry and then add a shiny eye in the middle, that might be Skadi enough without losing Abbaddon's identity.
@CoteDePablo: You need to post nicer screen shots than that, I can't even see whats going on.
I had a nice idea for a dragon knight set, but there were some flaws with the design I wasn't happy with, so I won't be submitting an entry this month. Considering how long it takes me to make stuff... you'll probably see it next year.
@CoteDePablo: You need to post nicer screen shots than that, I can't even see whats going on.
I had a nice idea for a dragon knight set, but there were some flaws with the design I wasn't happy with, so I won't be submitting an entry this month. Considering how long it takes me to make stuff... you'll probably see it next year.
Can you see it now?
I'm just showing the basic concept about the sword. Not with the details because it's not finish yet.
Need someone to teach me how to make a texture tho.
I was able to follow along, get all my masks roughly together, then put them on the model to see where I'm at.
Textures and maps are still a bit rough, but it's coming out nicely.
Test it in dota 2! It'll give a better representation! And if you update the textures or model while you're in the importer, you have to restart dota to see the changes because of how they hold the cache or w/e now. It's really annoying.
@Schnoodle - Thanks! I'll give it a try after work today and give an update. I need to work on the maps some more as well. Currently I'm trying to fix the wrap around the hilt. It's normal mapped, but for whatever reason it doesn't show through that well. The red is probably overpowering the normal map.
I'm just showing the basic concept about the sword. Not with the details because it's not finish yet.
Need someone to teach me how to make a texture tho.
You need to post more screenshots with more angles. Also if you're just concepting don't jump right in to the modelling, that's a really inefficient workflow. Go grab a concept sheet for the character in question and sketch out a few ideas!
@paperbag, I would also recommend this with your future concepts. For you're present sword I would recommend losing the curvy-ness on the blade, because the blade doesn't look rigid, it looks like it's been broken. This removes from the bad-ass-ness you are aiming for. It reminds me of the sword from Hero a bit, you could try emulating that.
Finished sculting and retopo. Here are some pictures of the textured model - maps are still a mess though. Not very happy with the texture, I'll probably let it sit for a few days and then get back to it... any suggestions?
@aitnar: looking nice! The ribbons could maybe use some more definition.. but then they will be under his hand so maybe it won't matter.
@paperbag: I like the face, why not leave it? The model does generally have a look of having molten down a little, like was noted earlier. But I personally don't know how to fix that.
@CoteDePablo: Nice shape, but it's hard to tell what you are going for there... looks like you want stripes? For that you wouldn't need all those faces, you could do that with texture only. And when you have all those faces saved, you can make some more detail with them As for texturing (and also the rest of the workflow) I found this tutorial to be very useful to get me started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8OWy1QJN9c
@tyn: Awesome! Looking forward to seeing the finished thing.
@Sekoran: Like that, suit the hero well. I'm curious to see how well all the small detail will work out.
@Spacemonsky - Thanks man! I appreciate the feedback. That shield is looking sick. I do have some feedback for you.
I'm not sure how many polys you have left, but i'm not entirely sure what the railing around the top is for. The metal looks a little weak.
Have you tried placing like a tattered dragon wing behind the shield, or maybe some dragon horn(s)/tusk(s) to pull the users eye back to the center of the shield?
Also, the yellow circles are cool, but i recommend trying to place some more around the forehead area for some diversity. Just play around with it and see if you like it.
Finally done with my helm/hair combo for Omniknight, highres textures here but it's looking pretty in-game as well.
Going to make a real post tomorrow, can't really be arsed to put it up right now as I've been painting hair all day and yesterday. My poor hand hurts :<
Hey all, I'm trying to import my weapon to Dota2 at this time. I'm hitting a wall with the SMD importer step. The Wunderboy plugin doesn't work as I have 3dsmax 2013 (it just throws an error), and I'm now using Wall Worm. Unfortunately, importing the weapon.smd for DK will position the skeleton incorrectly.
what do you all use as your importer/exporter? Any other plugins/scripts out there that are easier and more accurate to use?
Personally I just export with a .fbx from maya (tested in 2014, no plugins).
What works for me:
1. Move geometry to the correct joint
2. Import another part of the model (ex. weapon) from the folder
3. Delete everything except the rig
4. Remove all groupings in the scene
The grouping part is what messed up most of the rigging i think, if you have
the whole model or w/e in the scene and just remove everything except it
plus the groups it should work.
5. Bind the model to the correct joint
6. Select the root joint and the model and export as an .fbx
Edit:
Also export it with the default lambert shader, complains every now and then otherwise.
You guys are all awesome. Thank you so much for the help. I'll try it out tonight!
Also, thank you everyone for a wonderful first experience on Polycount. You've all been awesome. Now that I have a overall idea of the process it takes to make an item for dota2, I'm going to start my on workshop thread at the end of this contest. I hope to see you all stop by sometime.
@Paskie - Thanks! @Tyn - I've adjusted the specular map and I think the flatness disappeared, thanks for the help. @Gh33 - I pulled the verts out as much as I could to broaden the sword until the textures started stretching, thanks for the input.
Thanks for all the helpful suggestions everyone,if you like the sword drop it a vote!
I'll be back later to give everyone a thorough critique.
@Paperbag - You've made some great progress this month, keep at it! @Tyn - Helmet is looking really nice, can't wait for the ingame shot! @MDK - That hairstyle fits him very well @TtraG13 - I would agree that the assymetrical blade throws off the sword a bit but I am looking forward to seeing more of this. The concept painting is well done! @Sekoran - The circlet is coming along, I would ditch the small rune and focus on the shading of the outer band instead @Jlem - I think the beard could use some more definition in the sculpt. Try and dig in a little further between the strands. @danpaz3d - I think your textures could use alot more variation. Try seperating the highlights more or add some more AO @schnoodle - I like how this turned out. I would add a little more metalness to the outside area though. @Aitnar - Glad to hear your gonna start a thread. Your sword has progressed a great deal this month. I would watch some texturing tutorials as your next step. @Paskie - Looking forward to your sculpt. Your lowpoly has some nice definition. I would extend the handle a bit though. @Primrose~ - Awesome work. Looking forward to the beefed up version. @Reyne - I really like your whole set. Very angular. I might widen the hip armor a touch though. His waist is looking rather thin. @spacemonsky - For being new to 3D your doin great. On your shield I might have stayed away from the floating geometry on the edges. It wont show up very well when normal mapped or ingame. @CoteDePablo - Your geometry has alot of unnecessary edges. I would find some low poly modeling tutorials on youtube and try and figure out what edge will contribute to the overall shape of the model
Hey all, sorry to bother you again. I'm running into a weird import issue. I followed everything in the tutorials correctly, but for some reason the sword is not in his hand.
I placed the sword in his hand to match his default weapon, put the pivot point to 0,0,0, (I also tried the bone pivot point), reset the xform, collapsed, skinned to Sword_1, selected both the sword and bone Sword_1, and exported.
You will have issues with some of the models if you download them directly from the character page on the website. They are way out of scale.
You will have to resize and move the sword with the vertices selected, then reset xforms and reskin it. If you just move/resize it at the object level, it's not actually resizing the model, but resizing how large you see it in viewport.
Edit: I've recently switched from Max (my baby) to Maya specifically for working with Dota models because importing the SMD's or even the .ma file is a lot less of a headache than importing the OBJ file from the downloaded model. It's unfortunate Valve isn't making this easier on us, but they aren't, so you'll just have to do more work to use Max for now.
Kinda happy to be done with it, still somewhat on the fence about the runes but removing them makes it somewhat lacklustre and I want to move on to something else now XD.
Hey guys! Thanks for the help Bewsii, your scaling solution worked perfectly! I got the item in-game and it looks fantastic.
I realized that I'm missing one thing.. a specular map. I'm looking for a tutorial on how to make a basic specular map, but not having much luck. The ones I do find are a bit vague. Thank you for any help you can provide.
Hey guys! Thanks for the help Bewsii, your scaling solution worked perfectly! I got the item in-game and it looks fantastic.
I realized that I'm missing one thing.. a specular map. I'm looking for a tutorial on how to make a basic specular map, but not having much luck. The ones I do find are a bit vague. Thank you for any help you can provide.
For the masks, a good tip is to look at and then reference some of the other masks on the hero. Just match up similar materials with the valve ones and then see how they painted the mask for that material.
Nice to see that some are finished with their items! Good work! @Danpaz, spikey and big. I like it!
Made some slow progress on the sword. Gonna take my time on this one and try to do some variations on the dragonpart. Here is what I got so far from the first test. Made the handle a bit different from the concept. Felt like this looked better.
Thanks for the help all. I'm trying all the tips you've all given for the Specular map. Unfortunately, I'm not having any luck. I'm not sure if I missed something somewhere. I'll keep messing with it, hopefully I can get a result.
Thanks for the help all. I'm trying all the tips you've all given for the Specular map. Unfortunately, I'm not having any luck. I'm not sure if I missed something somewhere. I'll keep messing with it, hopefully I can get a result.
Mask 2 - Red Channel - Make it completely white.
If that doesn't give it some shine, then double check your in-game video settings to allow specular. That's all I can think of.
If that doesn't give it some shine, then double check your in-game video settings to allow specular. That's all I can think of.
Hey Danpaz, did what you said, but unfortunately.. still no shine. Checked my dota2 settings and all video settings are on/maxed. I tried tweaking my alpha channel as well to different shades of gray, but no luck.
I'll keep tinkering with it. I may just start Mask 2 from scratch.
Thanks for the help. I hope to post an update tonight.
Aitnar, could you post all your Mask textures? It may be your metalness channel isn't strong enough. Also, don't use a full white or full black texture as the shader will just read it as a null channel, put a little dot of the opposite color in the corner or something.
Hello everyone, here is my "concept art" (if you can call it that) for a DK item, i did it a long time ago, never had the will to comeback to it, till now, so for today, just dropping a rough sketch that will be later polished and coloured before modelling. The idea, at least for me, was to abstract what DK meant as a hero and put it into an item, i think the end result its cool even if my drawings are crude, hope you like like it, would love to hear some inits on the idea.
Will update some time around tomorrow at this same time.
So i decided to go ahead and start colouring right away, just to get a feel for whether the colour i though about in my head where ok or not, so far this is how it's coming along:
I still have to figure out the hilt, haven't figure what i want to do with it yet, i think the general idea of how it is coming along (have it be part of the wings, and possibly a generic hilt coming down) would be ok, but i would love to have it have more personality.
Also an alternate version, would love to know which one you guys think looks better:
Ok, i'm not sure what happened. I rebuilt Mask1 and Mask2 from scratch. Mirrored them to be exactly like Dragon Knight's maps, and it worked. :D:D:D:D:D
Replies
I'm a newbie here. Just learned how to make things from youtube 30 minutes ago and I came up with this design for DK's sword.
Any thoughts please?
I was able to follow along, get all my masks roughly together, then put them on the model to see where I'm at.
Textures and maps are still a bit rough, but it's coming out nicely.
@schnoodle: I like the new way you've arranged the helm, sure the previous incarnation looked more like the item but it didn't look much like Abbadon anymore as a result. If you could hide Abbadons default eyes behind a geometry and then add a shiny eye in the middle, that might be Skadi enough without losing Abbaddon's identity.
@CoteDePablo: You need to post nicer screen shots than that, I can't even see whats going on.
I had a nice idea for a dragon knight set, but there were some flaws with the design I wasn't happy with, so I won't be submitting an entry this month. Considering how long it takes me to make stuff... you'll probably see it next year.
Can you see it now?
I'm just showing the basic concept about the sword. Not with the details because it's not finish yet.
Need someone to teach me how to make a texture tho.
Test it in dota 2! It'll give a better representation! And if you update the textures or model while you're in the importer, you have to restart dota to see the changes because of how they hold the cache or w/e now. It's really annoying.
@gh33 I like the idea! I'll give it a try!
School just started back up for me so I didn't get to work on this way too much since I last posted the WIP. Time for textures!
You need to post more screenshots with more angles. Also if you're just concepting don't jump right in to the modelling, that's a really inefficient workflow. Go grab a concept sheet for the character in question and sketch out a few ideas!
@paperbag, I would also recommend this with your future concepts. For you're present sword I would recommend losing the curvy-ness on the blade, because the blade doesn't look rigid, it looks like it's been broken. This removes from the bad-ass-ness you are aiming for. It reminds me of the sword from Hero a bit, you could try emulating that.
http://whatculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/hero.jpg
@aitnar: looking nice! The ribbons could maybe use some more definition.. but then they will be under his hand so maybe it won't matter.
@paperbag: I like the face, why not leave it? The model does generally have a look of having molten down a little, like was noted earlier. But I personally don't know how to fix that.
@CoteDePablo: Nice shape, but it's hard to tell what you are going for there... looks like you want stripes? For that you wouldn't need all those faces, you could do that with texture only. And when you have all those faces saved, you can make some more detail with them
@tyn: Awesome!
@Sekoran: Like that, suit the hero well. I'm curious to see how well all the small detail will work out.
I'm not sure how many polys you have left, but i'm not entirely sure what the railing around the top is for. The metal looks a little weak.
Have you tried placing like a tattered dragon wing behind the shield, or maybe some dragon horn(s)/tusk(s) to pull the users eye back to the center of the shield?
Also, the yellow circles are cool, but i recommend trying to place some more around the forehead area for some diversity. Just play around with it and see if you like it.
Let me know if that helps!
Going to make a real post tomorrow, can't really be arsed to put it up right now as I've been painting hair all day and yesterday. My poor hand hurts :<
what do you all use as your importer/exporter? Any other plugins/scripts out there that are easier and more accurate to use?
Thanks!
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=149270397#89704
Personally I just export with a .fbx from maya (tested in 2014, no plugins).
What works for me:
1. Move geometry to the correct joint
2. Import another part of the model (ex. weapon) from the folder
3. Delete everything except the rig
4. Remove all groupings in the scene
The grouping part is what messed up most of the rigging i think, if you have
the whole model or w/e in the scene and just remove everything except it
plus the groups it should work.
5. Bind the model to the correct joint
6. Select the root joint and the model and export as an .fbx
Edit:
Also export it with the default lambert shader, complains every now and then otherwise.
Also, thank you everyone for a wonderful first experience on Polycount. You've all been awesome. Now that I have a overall idea of the process it takes to make an item for dota2, I'm going to start my on workshop thread at the end of this contest. I hope to see you all stop by sometime.
Again, thank you all for all the help.
-Aitnar
@Tyn - I've adjusted the specular map and I think the flatness disappeared, thanks for the help.
@Gh33 - I pulled the verts out as much as I could to broaden the sword until the textures started stretching, thanks for the input.
Thanks for all the helpful suggestions everyone,if you like the sword drop it a vote!
I'll be back later to give everyone a thorough critique.
Legacy of Avernus by Stuburrito
@Tyn - Helmet is looking really nice, can't wait for the ingame shot!
@MDK - That hairstyle fits him very well
@TtraG13 - I would agree that the assymetrical blade throws off the sword a bit but I am looking forward to seeing more of this. The concept painting is well done!
@Sekoran - The circlet is coming along, I would ditch the small rune and focus on the shading of the outer band instead
@Jlem - I think the beard could use some more definition in the sculpt. Try and dig in a little further between the strands.
@danpaz3d - I think your textures could use alot more variation. Try seperating the highlights more or add some more AO
@schnoodle - I like how this turned out. I would add a little more metalness to the outside area though.
@Aitnar - Glad to hear your gonna start a thread. Your sword has progressed a great deal this month. I would watch some texturing tutorials as your next step.
@Paskie - Looking forward to your sculpt. Your lowpoly has some nice definition. I would extend the handle a bit though.
@Primrose~ - Awesome work. Looking forward to the beefed up version.
@Reyne - I really like your whole set. Very angular. I might widen the hip armor a touch though. His waist is looking rather thin.
@spacemonsky - For being new to 3D your doin great. On your shield I might have stayed away from the floating geometry on the edges. It wont show up very well when normal mapped or ingame.
@CoteDePablo - Your geometry has alot of unnecessary edges. I would find some low poly modeling tutorials on youtube and try and figure out what edge will contribute to the overall shape of the model
@Spacemonsky - I did a quick paint over of your image to give you a better idea of what I was talking about on page 7. Hope it helps!
I placed the sword in his hand to match his default weapon, put the pivot point to 0,0,0, (I also tried the bone pivot point), reset the xform, collapsed, skinned to Sword_1, selected both the sword and bone Sword_1, and exported.
Unfortunately, this is happening.
Thank you for your help.
You will have to resize and move the sword with the vertices selected, then reset xforms and reskin it. If you just move/resize it at the object level, it's not actually resizing the model, but resizing how large you see it in viewport.
Edit: I've recently switched from Max (my baby) to Maya specifically for working with Dota models because importing the SMD's or even the .ma file is a lot less of a headache than importing the OBJ file from the downloaded model. It's unfortunate Valve isn't making this easier on us, but they aren't, so you'll just have to do more work to use Max for now.
Work in progress here...until Twitch erase them!
http://www.twitch.tv/motenai82/profile/past_broadcasts
Kinda happy to be done with it, still somewhat on the fence about the runes but removing them makes it somewhat lacklustre and I want to move on to something else now XD.
I realized that I'm missing one thing.. a specular map. I'm looking for a tutorial on how to make a basic specular map, but not having much luck. The ones I do find are a bit vague. Thank you for any help you can provide.
Y DO U HAVE TO BE DIS GOOD POLYCOUNT
Any ideas as to why?
http://www.manufato.com/?p=902
As far as making them the Valve guide does a great job of explaining
http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/workshop/Dota2ShaderMaskGuide.pdf
@danpaz3d - Looks amazing! Voted
For the masks, a good tip is to look at and then reference some of the other masks on the hero. Just match up similar materials with the valve ones and then see how they painted the mask for that material.
@Danpaz, spikey and big. I like it!
Made some slow progress on the sword. Gonna take my time on this one and try to do some variations on the dragonpart. Here is what I got so far from the first test. Made the handle a bit different from the concept. Felt like this looked better.
Mask 2 - Red Channel - Make it completely white.
If that doesn't give it some shine, then double check your in-game video settings to allow specular. That's all I can think of.
Hey Motenai!
could you give more direct links with some small directions on what you are doing on that moment?
Since you are streaming almost everyday in one month is going to be hard for someone to find the correct ones
Your streams are really useful, i learned a lot with them. Would be nice to have more guys from polycount learning from them
May
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2121565#post2121565
June
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2121571#post2121571
Finished sculpt:
Low-poly:
Working on textures and hopefully will have it submitted soon!
Hey Danpaz, did what you said, but unfortunately.. still no shine.
I'll keep tinkering with it. I may just start Mask 2 from scratch.
Thanks for the help. I hope to post an update tonight.
Will update some time around tomorrow at this same time.
I still have to figure out the hilt, haven't figure what i want to do with it yet, i think the general idea of how it is coming along (have it be part of the wings, and possibly a generic hilt coming down) would be ok, but i would love to have it have more personality.
Also an alternate version, would love to know which one you guys think looks better: