[Chivalry] - Agatha Knight - Lion Set

Chris Bruin

I'll be making armor and weapons based on a lion. I think the helmet could be used for multiple classes, but for now I'll assign it to the knight.

Since I'm just starting right now, here's my reference sheet:

Reference sheet:


I'll have a blockout done soon, will post updates.

Chris Bruin

Update #1! Blockout is mostly done, a few things left to do, mostly around the neck area and how the mane connects to the chin piece. Tomorrow I'll start sculpting in Zbrush, hopefully will have a first pass sculpt blocked out.

Tobbo

I was really close to doing something just like this! I was afraid the helmet would look way too top heavy though.

But yours is looking much more practical than how I envisioned it in my head. Nice job! Looking forward to seeing the end result.

Chris Bruin

Update #2! First Zbrush pass is done, still more I want to do, such as separating out some of the trim pieces around the mouth. Not totally happy with the mane on the back of the head, as you can see I changed it up completely from my initial blockin. I'll play around with it some more.



I may remove the neck guard as well, as that is not actually a part of the helmet and may not fit within the contest rules. The helmet also closes without collision, so I may submit this as a closed version. Maybe both?

jackalope

It's really coming along niclely. I would show off both open and closed versions. There are quite a few examples of other helmets in the game that have open and closed options.

Chris Bruin

Went camping over the weekend, didn't get a chance to start working on this again until today.

I redid the back plating, it wasn't working out aesthetically, too many conflicting curved lines. As well, I have removed the neck guard, mainly because I am not sure if it will count for the final piece, and it's triangles I can throw instead towards the helmet. The hinge area on the jaw was also redone, it's less blocky now and flows better into the head.

I have some more work to do on the top half of the helmet, damages and metal work to match the jaw and back plates. Right now I'm just experimenting with the effect, trying to see how far I want to push it. Looking at the assets in the game, they don't have much in the way of metal work, but they do have scratches and gashes. I may also redo the eye loop trim piece, that's one thing I'm not fully sure if it will work or not.

jackalope

Nice improvements. I hope all that sweet detail will fit in the tri budget.

Nolt

Looks good, but like Jackalope said, I would be concerned about tri count. Keep the inside ridiculously simple, that may help

Chris Bruin

Done with the sculpting, I'm happy with it now. Ripped out the ornate eye loop and replaced it with something much more simple. Tomorrow, low poly, bake, and first texture pass and integrating it into the engine.



If you have feedback, please let me know before I go ahead and finish this thing!

Magicspook

It looks more metally than before, which is a good thing.

Also, I like the idea of the teeth serving as protection against anything that's shoved into the knights face. But the upper teeth look like they would block the knights vision quite a lot.

Maybe more teeth on the upper jaw, but thinner, like some kind of grid?

Nolt

Oooo what if you covered the face with a holed face plate so it's like the lion is munching on it. Definitely liking the hammered metal you have on there.

Magicspook

What I was thinking of was this:



with the bars being the lion's teeth

But the gladiator thing could work as well!

Oh and yes, this is a runescape helmet from the days when they were cool.

Nolt

HAHA! I thought that helmet looks familiar!

Chris Bruin

The helmet has an opened and closed state, so blocking the knights vision won't be a problem

Here's where I am at tonight, kinda stuck because I've got a nasty seam running down the center of the helmet, and I'm not sure what I can do to fix it. If you know the solution, I'd love to know! Geometry clocks in at 1198 triangles for both the open and closed states of the helmet, using 1 texture map for both.



I made sure to import the map with the green channel flipped, as well as setting the texture group to CharacterNormal. This normal map is from xNormal. As a side note, bringing an object space map into Handplane and converting it to an Unreal specific tangent space map actually gets a more noticeable seam.

Dylan Brady

Did you set the compression setting to TCnormalmap?



If this is the issue i'll edit you post with the answer.

Vailias

If the texture options presented here don't work, check your mesh. Make sure those verts along the seam are welded and the normals are in the plane of the mirror axis. If they're slightly curved to one side with the smoothing algorithm you'll get a mapped seam, even though the bake is "correct".

Another possibility is your FBX export. Try unchecking smoothing groups and letting Unreal rebuild the tangents and such on import.

Also, you could ignore it and just add in some texture weathering or overlayed normal noise so the seam is less noticeable.

Scoot_da_Poot

I like to line up the seam side perfectly horizontal or vertical in the uvs and then relax the verts not on that edge. This will usually prevent that from happening.

Chris Bruin

Didn't really fixed the seam, I rebaked all of my textures, and putting on the diffuse basically helped a bit. Dylan, I did have the incorrect compression type set, which mitigated a little bit of the issue, but not completely as you can see below.

So yeah, I'm basically done with this asset now until I figure out what I did wrong with the normal map. I may do some other tweaks later in the month right before I submit the asset if I can think of anything that needs changing. It's always good to let something sit and come back to it later.

The open version clocks in at a total of 1156 triangles, and the closed version is at 1198.



Now to move onto the weapon[s?]! Sketches incoming.

JO420

Looks really cool,one crit i have aesthetic wise is that perhaps you can use gold a bit more to give some contrast within the model. I can see the teeth,the bolts,the rim around the ear having gold plating. Maybe the rim around the eye as well. That would give the helmet some material separation thus helping you see the elements more individually.

Chris Bruin

I'm pretty sure I mostly fixed the problem! The results are much better than what I was getting previously. Here's the solution and complete workflow that should produce good results:

1. When exporting your .fbx out of Maya/Max/whatever, make sure you export the Tangents and Binormals under the export settings. However, this does not export the Binormals from what I have been reading (it's a bug with the .fbx file format), which is ok though as the results I got are pretty solid.
2. If you are baking your normal map in xNormal, make sure you use the same .fbx file for baking. .obj files do not contain Tangent/Binormal information, so there may be some discrepancy in the final results.
3. If you are using Handplane to convert your object space normal map into a tangent space normal map, again, use the same .fbx to get the best results.
4. Import your asset into UDK
4a. Under the import settings, turn OFF "Import Tangents". If you read the tooltip, it will explain that it imports Tangents and Binormals. However, again, .fbx doesn't contain Binormal information due to either an oversight or bug.
4b. Turn ON "Explicit Normals" under the Static Mesh/Advanced dropdown
Here's what my import settings look like:


Doing that got me this result, which has basically all but fixed the issue:


If I go back and rebake my normals in xNormal with my .fbx file, I may get marginally better bake results, although it would take a microscope to see the difference. The normal map I am using in my final asset is just a Tangent Space xNormal map.

I hope this is helpful to someone!

jackalope

The low poly turned out great Nice job.
And thanks for the normal map tips.

Nolt

Also if you're baking your normal map with xNormal, make sure the y is set to y- rather than y+ because max, I think maya, and UDK use an inverted green channel. So if you baked your maps already with y+ just pop open the normal in photoshop and invert the green channel.

soulstice

Texture and low poly is reading really nice. Good job thus far!

McGuire

The open visor variant is absolutely bad ass. Great work!

Zelfit

make sure the y is set to y- rather than y+ because max, I think maya, and UDK use an inverted green channel

Maya use y+, as I understand. Also you can generate tangent normals for needed software from object normals using Handplane.

Nolt

@Zelfit, good to know about Maya. I never really deal with object space normals, but you're right. I have seen that handplane is a good way to convert them.

Chris Bruin

Here's my first blockout of a Pole Axe I'm making for the set. I didn't have any luck with 2d sketches (2D skills are crack-a-lackin' for weapons), so I just dove straight in to the modelling phase.



I still have to play around with the handle area, replace the spiral with some proper leather wrap. And below that section, right now it's boring and feels too heavy. I also need to think of a good pommel for this; although never really used in combat on a Pole Axe/Halberd, the pommel should still look nice of course.

Nolt

Really nice looking! I like all the different pieces in there. My only concern is it might be a bit heavy as a pole are with all that weight at the top. What do you think?

Chris Bruin

The idea of a Pole Axe is to actually have substantial weight behind it for the smashing side of the weapon. A Halberd lacks the hammer section on the weapon and generally was a faster weapon to wield as it didn't need to have the weight for percussive impact.

I may trim down the blade size (increase the cutout area) or increase the hammer side to give a better overall balance to the weapon though, as it is a bit lopsided right now.

Noth

This looks cool, glad you managed to get the helm cooporating. I'm working through the tutorial stuff now, never dealt much with unreal before. My spec map isn't behaving like I'm expecting it to either. I'm going to start the process over tomorrow and see if I have any more luck. I also put together a little tut since you shared some info in your thread.
Thanks for that, it was helpful.

http://i.imgur.com/U6MdSaW.png

Chris Bruin

Update, I went and further refined the overall design of the weapon, I'm fairly happy with it right now. I'm done the sculpting as well, although I may do some touchups before I do my lowpoly/bake tomorrow.



Crits appreciated

alexd

Not sure what to critic , if i see it ingame i will buy it

Nolt

Really nice design. Seeing that hammer end from the side makes me feel better that it wouldn't be too heavy. Looking forward to the low

Chris Bruin

Low poly done, textured and with blood masks. Looks kinda tiny in his hands, but it's the same scale as the default Poleaxe... Any final crits before I move on to my next set? (new thread incoming!)

Nolt

Yeeeeeaaaah! Nice! Man I would love to smash some guys with that!

pior

Such a striking figure ! Very well done

Chris Bruin

As with my bow, here are the final images for my Leo set.

Steam Workshop Page

Main Presentation Image


Highpoly/Low Poly Wireframe


Texture sheet


Pollaxe Reference Sheet


Helmet Reference Sheet

Nolt

Great job! These look fantastic. I really dig your posing too. Best of luck to you.