Hey guys. Submitted these a few days ago and immediately started working something else. Forgot to post the finished assets here XD.
Anyhow, as I wrote in the workshop item description, I submitted these bows with the intention of them getting put in game as the same bow with 2 styles. Not exactly sure how that works for this competition since we're technically only allowed 1 entry. Let me know if you guys would allow the 2 styles to fly as a single item or if you want me to just pick one for this months competition
@Matthew O - Clean sculpt so far, I guess the only thing to mention is to make sure the triangle count will work (I'm not sure what the count is for the ward).
@Thnk Nice! Maybe a bit too much red for me, solid work though.
I'm still working on a back item for SD, should have a sketch up soon.
@Aitnar - Thanks [= and i just googled gif screen capture and downloaded a random program. theres plenty of them to choose from. Probably gonna try a different one next time. For some reason they didnt program hotkeys for start and stop recording. so you have to click the buttons and you can briefly see the tool tip pop up at the top right of the gif which is rather annoying once you notice it happening lol.
@Thnk + @Aitnar - The best thing to do would be to fraps the video (or some sort of other video capture) and then import footage into Photoshop using "Video Frames to Layers". It works best with uncompressed .mov files I think. Then you have a lot of control over how to output your gif through the Save to Web stuff.
Hai guys, trying to lay down a decent base coat and trying to stick to Venomancers colours scheme, I'm feeling like he needs marking down his back of some sort but I'm scared of making him look really noisy. Also Maybe the purple will make it easy to mistake a ward for venomancer for long enough that valve might not like it...
Feedback always appreciated
@Danpaz3d - I have 1500 tris to play with as the plague ward is almost as tall as a character so hopefully i'll be ok, I made the basemesh for 1800 tris with wastes polies so hopefully the legs won't punish me too much!
@thnk, Hamish - Thanks! I have fraps already, I never knew about that feature in Photoshop however. Thanks for the heads up! I'll try it when I finish.
Here is a quick sculpt update, I got a little further and started sculpting the wooden frame, but started to feel sick and went to sleep early. Still feeling bleh, I hope to finish this weekend though. *fingers crossed*
Be careful with that level of detail. Think about the size that bow is going to be in game and how those fine cracks will blend to just be noise. Try for larger readable shapes that will translate well to the lower viewable and texture size in game.
@Hopgood - You're absolutely right, and I noticed that towards the end of the night.
I was mostly testing ideas, and decided this is a direction I'll be going in. I need to make those stone shapes much larger, and much larger cracks as well. Thank you for the heads up.
According to the workshop importer in game its 1,500 for the plague ward with a 256x256. They're under the ability replacement button rather than the general workshop item button.
@StuBurrito Thanks, I want to leave the face there, but I'll definitely improve it. Good work on that Venom head so far.
I feel I'm restricting myself a lot to the original hero designs with all my dota stuff. I'm going to start putting my own style into the designs a lot more now, kind of just do my own thing I guess. I'll be a lot happier anyway.
According to the workshop importer in game its 1,500 for the plague ward with a 256x256. They're under the ability replacement button rather than the general workshop item button.
Thanks dude, I didn't realise you could look at it there. That's really helpful
I've been getting my head around the masks / shader and I think I'm getting it now. I need to look at some sort of pattern on his back though I think.
I'm trying to read up on custom rigging / animations now. I'm not sure if they're required?
Have made some progress on my high poly... it's slow going since I'm super noooob at this. Need to make me an alpha for some Orb style cracks. Then I'll get onto the wood, metal part and handle.
I spent some time during Sunday figuring out how to actually see my lil character in game / the submissions process and it felt really rewarding to go in game and use the ability that spawns him
I may need to do some custom animations for him as some of the animations look like they may be really difficult to skin for but i'll take a shot at it anyway as I'm no animator. Other than that I need to reduce the saturation in a few places, I'm going to push him a little more toward yellow so that he works better along side Venomancer and I'm going to look at giving him some cool markings down his back
Looks sick man! Also, I call BS on the "no animator" thing. What was your degree in again? :P
The texture will probably need be painted nice and dark since it's blowing out heaps at the moment but I'm sure you're all over that.
I also now realise that venomancer is far less green than I had anticipated. Is your goal to match his colour scheme as close as possible? The fangs are the closest (with a little less saturation and brightness).
honestly, mathew i like ur veno ward concept - but i would advise u to adjust the colorsheme abit. veno has a very basic colorpalette, there is mainly yellow and muddy brown with some rare highlights of orange and lemongreen. i would prefer to go on with colors are based on that pool so ur ward becomes visible as a veno thing, and less out of the context.
Looks sick man! Also, I call BS on the "no animator" thing. What was your degree in again? :P
The texture will probably need be painted nice and dark since it's blowing out heaps at the moment but I'm sure you're all over that.
I also now realise that venomancer is far less green than I had anticipated. Is your goal to match his colour scheme as close as possible? The fangs are the closest (with a little less saturation and brightness).
Can't wait to see the next pass Mat!
Thanks man, I technically can animate but I'm not very good at it :P
The specular I set up is blowing him out like mad and I forgot to look at venomancer much while I was combining bakes with my polypaint and ended up way off so I have some fixing to do :P
honestly, mathew i like ur veno ward concept - but i would advise u to adjust the colorsheme abit. veno has a very basic colorpalette, there is mainly yellow and muddy brown with some rare highlights of orange and lemongreen. i would prefer to go on with colors are based on that pool so ur ward becomes visible as a veno thing, and less out of the context.
Thanks for the feedback man, he definitely sticks out like a sore thumb at the moment
@Tvidotto Yeah, I think only have essential information.
Title pic, heroes, rules, prizes, example submit post (rather then code) and a link to only the previous month.
No need to show the winner here if there's a link to previous month.
i thought i'd try doing a Shadow Demon back piece, i have completed the low Polly and am working on the high poly now. i also decided to do the other three pieces as well, as a way improving myself.
@Matthew O: That ward is fantastic! It is a bit sickly green atm, but that's a pretty quick fix.
@StuBurrito: that thing is vicious, mean and the right kind of ugly. I freaking love it.
@Hy57: Interesting concept, I can't wait to see how it progresses.
@Betudi: Kinda reminds me of the Saiyan armour from DBZ, not that thats a bad thing! My only concern is that the shoulder-pads might be a tad too wide atm.
Anyway, this is mostly to say that I'm probably going to be dropping out of this month's contest unless I can quickly put something new together; this cuirass is an absolute pain in the arse to rig onto the bones, and I'm slowly losing my enthusiasm for workshop stuff just by looking at the thing at this point. Sorry to everyone who was looking forward to a finished piece.
Anyway, this is mostly to say that I'm probably going to be dropping out of this month's contest unless I can quickly put something new together; this cuirass is an absolute pain in the arse to rig onto the bones, and I'm slowly losing my enthusiasm for workshop stuff just by looking at the thing at this point. Sorry to everyone who was looking forward to a finished piece.
Venoward was hard too , I don't think I'll be even able to finish without the animations
Thank you for the nice comments and the really useful feedback guys, I can't actually seem to get in game right now to see how it looks. It just endlessly tells me it's connecting to the steam network
Hopefully I've addressed everything:
In game screenshots coming as soon as I can get some, I'd love any more crit that you guys may have.
@Mathew O - Those textures are 100% looking better. Your ward is really similiar to the venomancer himself, I would try and make the mouth colors the same and use the bright bright purple outline on the rim of the body.
Hey all! Everyone's posted great stuff this month. I apologize for being MIA lately. I caught some sort of virus with strep-throat like symptoms. It wasn't fun. I'm all better now and I hope to knock out this bow today.
Here is the completed sculpt, and I'm working on my maps now.
A few things I need to fix:
- Animation weights (not 100% certain how this is done)
- Wood is showing specularity...that's weird. Will fix.
- Handle is too wide.
Let me know if you guys see anything else that stands out. Also, how are bow strings made for heroes that use bows?
For your bow, yeah, pretty much the points you've mentioned, and I think you'll need to tweak the smoothing for the wood as I can notice some sharp edges.
The strings for bows usually just show up ingame, you shouldn't have to do anything for it.
Thanks danpaz, the smoothing groups are there, but not sure why it's so blocky. That's something else I need to look at. The geometry may have gotten corrupted and I simply need to clone, delete, and re-assign smoothing groups.
As for the bow string, it didn't show up when I imported. See image above.
Anyway, hope to have time to look at it again tonight and have updates.
Created the model.
I couldn't figure out how to do thin surfaces in zBrush, so I ended up modeling them in Maya. Next step is to throw it in zBrush and sculpt details!
Hey all, so I've corrected all my issues but one. The bow string still isn't showing despite me selecting it and exporting it to the .FBX file for Dota2.
I've tried skinning the bow_string13_0, exporting with and without the selected bone, and it still doesn't display in-game. What am I missing here, a file import?? I can't find anything on Google about this issue either.
@Aitnar Hmm, It shouldn't be a rigging issue, as long as it has the same bones attached as the default. Have you tried testing on a local server? As in, actually testing it in a game? I did a test bow for Medusa before, I copied the skin from the default to my new model, exported, imported and it was ok.
Not really sure what else it could be. I've come across issues with particles displaying n' stuff with other heroes (CK mount/weap/helm doesn't show particles). Maybe it could be something related to that.
I know that if you want particles, you need to add points from which the particles originate somehow... I remember there being a tutorial on this with one of Anti-Mage's weapons.
You build a basic mesh for particles, and each vert on that mesh is where particles are created.
It will ask for a particle mesh if you need one in the importer (it might be a page 2 thing so easy to miss).
However I think the bow string is different. It's not 'emitted particles', just a line. So it's probably drawn between the bones, or starts at one in the image above.
Very likely it could just be a model previewer, haven't done a bow myself.
Particles aren't related to this issue. As long as the bow is rigged properly, there shouldn't be a problem. It's most likely the model previewer. No bow I've heard of uses particles, I was just suggesting that it might be a previewer issue too.
Replies
@Ekibyou - I like it man, it looks like it'd really help him stand out on the battlefield
Here's my sculpt so far, I'm trying to stick to large shapes so that it's readable. Any feedback would be awesome
Anyhow, as I wrote in the workshop item description, I submitted these bows with the intention of them getting put in game as the same bow with 2 styles. Not exactly sure how that works for this competition since we're technically only allowed 1 entry. Let me know if you guys would allow the 2 styles to fly as a single item or if you want me to just pick one for this months competition
Crimson Fang by Thnk
Scarlet Fang by Thnk
@Thnk, your bows came out amazing! How did you create your gif of Medusa shooting her bow?
@Thnk Nice! Maybe a bit too much red for me, solid work though.
I'm still working on a back item for SD, should have a sketch up soon.
Feedback always appreciated
@Danpaz3d - I have 1500 tris to play with as the plague ward is almost as tall as a character so hopefully i'll be ok, I made the basemesh for 1800 tris with wastes polies so hopefully the legs won't punish me too much!
Here is a quick sculpt update, I got a little further and started sculpting the wooden frame, but started to feel sick and went to sleep early. Still feeling bleh, I hope to finish this weekend though. *fingers crossed*
I was mostly testing ideas, and decided this is a direction I'll be going in. I need to make those stone shapes much larger, and much larger cracks as well. Thank you for the heads up.
Not much else to say for now.
I've started sketching up an idea for my SD back item. Still gonna make tweaks and color changes, but heading towards this direction.
Edit: I accidently left out the "ass":(
There's nothing here as far as I can see: http://www.dota2.com/workshop/requirements/Venomancer
According to the workshop importer in game its 1,500 for the plague ward with a 256x256. They're under the ability replacement button rather than the general workshop item button.
A little more progress on venom head.
I feel I'm restricting myself a lot to the original hero designs with all my dota stuff. I'm going to start putting my own style into the designs a lot more now, kind of just do my own thing I guess. I'll be a lot happier anyway.
Thanks dude, I didn't realise you could look at it there. That's really helpful
I've been getting my head around the masks / shader and I think I'm getting it now. I need to look at some sort of pattern on his back though I think.
I'm trying to read up on custom rigging / animations now. I'm not sure if they're required?
Slow and steady, right?
I may need to do some custom animations for him as some of the animations look like they may be really difficult to skin for but i'll take a shot at it anyway as I'm no animator. Other than that I need to reduce the saturation in a few places, I'm going to push him a little more toward yellow so that he works better along side Venomancer and I'm going to look at giving him some cool markings down his back
Any feedback would be great, cheers guys
The texture will probably need be painted nice and dark since it's blowing out heaps at the moment but I'm sure you're all over that.
I also now realise that venomancer is far less green than I had anticipated. Is your goal to match his colour scheme as close as possible? The fangs are the closest (with a little less saturation and brightness).
Can't wait to see the next pass Mat!
Thanks man, I technically can animate but I'm not very good at it :P
The specular I set up is blowing him out like mad and I forgot to look at venomancer much while I was combining bakes with my polypaint and ended up way off so I have some fixing to do :P
Thanks for the feedback man, he definitely sticks out like a sore thumb at the moment
here is the result of the last month contest
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2188390&postcount=154
Some in-game shots from me, going to do another pass on the diffuse and wrap this up.
Acidic Head of the Venomancer by Stuburrito
I was talking with Bounch and he mentioned that the first post is too polluted with information.
Should I clean it a little for next month?
first: Vital info on contest. Rules, Heros, Prizes.
second : additional info, quotes, last month winner, etc...
Then it's easy to see the basic rules, if people want more info they can continue reading the second post.
Title pic, heroes, rules, prizes, example submit post (rather then code) and a link to only the previous month.
No need to show the winner here if there's a link to previous month.
I think that's all that's needed.
i thought i'd try doing a Shadow Demon back piece, i have completed the low Polly and am working on the high poly now. i also decided to do the other three pieces as well, as a way improving myself.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=22975&stc=1&d=1416426861
concept for shadow demon (cape only)
hope to finish the 3d model soon
@StuBurrito: that thing is vicious, mean and the right kind of ugly. I freaking love it.
@Hy57: Interesting concept, I can't wait to see how it progresses.
@Betudi: Kinda reminds me of the Saiyan armour from DBZ, not that thats a bad thing! My only concern is that the shoulder-pads might be a tad too wide atm.
Anyway, this is mostly to say that I'm probably going to be dropping out of this month's contest unless I can quickly put something new together; this cuirass is an absolute pain in the arse to rig onto the bones, and I'm slowly losing my enthusiasm for workshop stuff just by looking at the thing at this point. Sorry to everyone who was looking forward to a finished piece.
Venoward was hard too
Hopefully I've addressed everything:
In game screenshots coming as soon as I can get some, I'd love any more crit that you guys may have.
Here is the completed sculpt, and I'm working on my maps now.
An update on my back item for Shadow Demon
A few things I need to fix:
- Animation weights (not 100% certain how this is done)
- Wood is showing specularity...that's weird. Will fix.
- Handle is too wide.
Let me know if you guys see anything else that stands out. Also, how are bow strings made for heroes that use bows?
Thanks all!
For your bow, yeah, pretty much the points you've mentioned, and I think you'll need to tweak the smoothing for the wood as I can notice some sharp edges.
The strings for bows usually just show up ingame, you shouldn't have to do anything for it.
As for the bow string, it didn't show up when I imported. See image above.
Anyway, hope to have time to look at it again tonight and have updates.
Any additional feedback is welcome!
Created the model.
I couldn't figure out how to do thin surfaces in zBrush, so I ended up modeling them in Maya. Next step is to throw it in zBrush and sculpt details!
I've tried skinning the bow_string13_0, exporting with and without the selected bone, and it still doesn't display in-game. What am I missing here, a file import??
Halp!
Not really sure what else it could be. I've come across issues with particles displaying n' stuff with other heroes (CK mount/weap/helm doesn't show particles). Maybe it could be something related to that.
It will ask for a particle mesh if you need one in the importer (it might be a page 2 thing so easy to miss).
However I think the bow string is different. It's not 'emitted particles', just a line. So it's probably drawn between the bones, or starts at one in the image above.
Very likely it could just be a model previewer, haven't done a bow myself.
Here's where I'm going to leave the sculpt so I can crack on and get this all done in a reasonable time frame.