To all the character artists who've been doing this professionally for a while.
Am I doing something wrong if I find myself explode baking for normals, and then rebaking over several sets of intersecting highpoly to grab the AOs as precisely as possible?
I have this weird feeling there may be a more efficient way of grabbing the AOs. In my head, the ideal would be everything stays in its place and I don't need to move meshes to do bakes. But if I want to get clean normals, I find myself having to separate the meshes, and then later recombining them.
You don't need to explode the mesh in order to bake it. Just detach the pieces as needed, but keep them in their original place. That way, you can use the same bake setup for your normals and AO.
Also when baking AO, make sure you have your lowpoly set to not be included in the lighting calculations. This may be the reason certain parts are turning out black for you in the AO.
Seeking a volunteer rigger that wants to take this model to put into their reel and collaborate with a Character Artist so we can simulate professional communication.
Doing something new by trying to do msot of the work in Substance Designer. Admittedly, it's mentally easier than having to copy paste the mask across multiple folders in Photoshop.
I'm going to see how much noise I can push on it before it loses the render target of the original Tracer character model, though I may get lazy and just leave the albedo and gloss flat as I have right now.
Really like how her face is turning out, but her blush seems to be running along the underside of her cheekbones... which is kinda weird. That's a place girls tone when they put on makeup, but actual natural blushing tends to sit along the topside of the cheeks and the bridge of the nose, like this:
Also, if her eyeshadow is sitting above the fold of her eye on the inner side I would advise against it unless you've got a really solid reference. I can't tell if it's just shading or not but it looks really off. Generally if you do that it's with heavier application or colors... Most natural looks go for a sort of wing that's heavier on the outer end, and tapers to follow the fold of the eye on the inner, or even goes so far as to use a lighter shade on the inner corner
Her eyelashes being thicker might be nice. Something seems a bit odd about the red leather right next to the brown leather. I don't know if its the colors of if the material definition is a bit off.
Additionallt, what are the plates on her gauntlets/shoes/chest made out of?
Your colors are also a little funky right now, that bright green at the top of her pants seems out of place (and is also making me drawn to her crotch constantly).
Just some thoughts. Again, really liking how the face and hair turned out, and the idea of the red/brown/green combo is really nice (even though I feel you need to work it just a little more). Moooore.
I might want to up the value of the leather jacket to match the values of the bright green, or drop the value of the bright green a bit. Totally forgot about the value focus.
Hex pattern feels out of place! Could be diamonds to fit in with the rest of the patterns on the design, or dots or something. It feels to clean-scifi to feel Retrofuture or Sovietfuture(???).
Also the red looks a tonne better, but the colors (particularly on the jacket) seem a bit odd.
Firstly, I think that even for very distressed Leather, the bits that are still glossy seem like they need more gloss (could be being accentuated by WIP lighting). It seems but a bit too matte for real leather.
It's also veeeery uniform in color, real distressed p/leather has a lot of variety, not just one tone of brown-- it tends to be fairly mottled.
eg,
I think the mottled color variation could introduce enough variety needed to stop the colors looking off, but otherwise I'm feeling like the light green could stand to be a little more yellow (just the tiniest smidgen) and the brown leather could stand to have some slightly redder tones introduced with the darker tone variations.
Also, for the hair, that looks like shader magic and not something that the artist necessarily controls entirely. I suppose it could be a flow map but ech.
Took your critiques into account. Added discoloration to the leather jacket, jumps between desatruated, low value and saturated, high value hues.
Also redid the pants pattern. Followed after the original Tracer game model, used a diamond pattern across the pants.
Thank God, I THINK FIGURED OUT THE HAIR SPECULAR DISTORTION ON THE GAME MODEL with the Direction Map. Handpainted too, jeez. Figured this out after 2 to 3 hours.
Okay so explanation.
Flow (or Direction) Map: Think in terms of channels
1) There is the Red, Blue, and Green Channel
2) There's no Blue in a Direction Map for this. Blue doesn't exist in this solution for the Direction Map. With the blue, it turns it into looking like a normal map. We don't want that.
3) Green Channel makes the anisotropic highlight go horizontal if it's only full, 100% Green in the Green Channel (all others black in their channel).
4) Red Channel makes the anisotropic highlight go vertical if it's only, full, 100% Red in the Red Channel (all others black in their channel).
5) Green is at 100% in it's channel. No need to change it.
6) Adding more Red in the Red channel makes the specular band edge closer towards a vertical position. We want that zig zag happening, so we want to add red. What I did, and this was through pure experimentation, painted vertical bands of differing values/hues yellow on the RGB channel (Red and Green make Yellow when combined.)
>> The results are as follows, assuming you keep your Blue Channel black as night.
The Red Channel
The Green Channel
The Combined RGB Channel
and my results
It's not perfect, but I think it's in the right direction. Once I figure out how to exactly nail it where I want it, I think I might write up a quick PDF tutorial and gumroad it for others to see.
Holy hell, Brian. Kudos for managing to figure that one out! Good luck on refining it, I'd love to see more. Jacket material looks a lot better, and the pants seem less out of place. Nice update.
This is easily some of your best work I've seen you create thus far in your career Panda. I have on thing though, if she's supposed to be like, all rusky red commisar special times, why are her pants green? I feel like this is a missed opportunity to incorporate some red, and possibly a pattern of some sort on her tights such as a hammer and sickle or red star pattern such as below:
@anglorum: Thank you. It's really . . . frick . . . it's really hard to hear that sometimes, but thank you. I actually feel like I made some career progress now.
So I spent some time trying to figure out the color layout during the concept stage. As a written reason here's what I have:
1) Red and Green are complementary colors (using the art theory term), and this feels very much a direct opposite to the blue and orange that the original character model has.
2) Disregarding everything that's in a neutral color, what I'm let with is just those two colors to play with.
3) Since one of them has to be the emissive to reflect as it's done on the original model, I decided to choose red since it reads more immediately to most people as menacing and "evil-intended." Green can be meancing as well, but it feels like it would read too explicitl as nuclear powered or creepy.
4) Green plays better and is historically a more often used color for military uniforms.
>> Red goes to the emissive. I will have additional emissive symbols textured and set up on an alpha plane for the chest reactor. The green goes to the pants.
I think the green is too saturated and vibrant. Like others have said, the red is an important part of the Soviet theme, yet the green is the most visible color on the model. When I momentarily glance at the model I see the white armor bits and green, and some brown. The green is just too overpowering and doesn't fit in with the theme you're going for. If you're going to go for the complimentary colors deal, the green should be an accent, not the primary color, and it shouldn't be brighter and more vibrant than everything else.
3) Since one of them has to be the emissive to reflect as it's done on the original model, I decided to choose red since it reads more immediately to most people as menacing and "evil-intended." Green can be meancing as well, but it feels like it would read too explicitl as nuclear powered or creepy.
I can understand your thinking with this but as others have said, it could be flipped. You even said yourself that green reads as nuclear powered. I think that fits perfectly for a Soviet themed character with a reactor core on her chest. That or just desaturate the green a bit maybe soften the gradient so the contrast isn't as noticeable. I get you're going for a top-down gradient but the effect should be subtle.
I'm of the personal opinion that your original scheme worked a lot better.
The green highlights seem... weird, they don't get the point across as well. Certainly messes with the overall vibe to me. If the tone of green was changed to a more obviously nuclear (more yellow) then I can kiiinda see it, I guess.
It MIGHT work better if the goggles were still red.
I still kinda like the idea of the green pants with more of an olive/army green tone. I feel overall it's more cohesive.
EDIT: Though I do definitely agree that the pants need to be less vibrant! It's a bit too much for the rest of the themeing
In Overwatch it makes sense visually, since literally everything else is vibrant. As a standalone character that's more realistic with a soviet theme, you're encountering a lot more contrast with everything else.
That said, having fiddled around in PS for a while with your last shot, it's not necessarily desaturating anything that made anything work in my eyes, but shifting hues. So I dunno. I did find out that I do definitely like the green pants much better for sure though, I'll lock in my 2c there.
Also something I just noticed, you should make the gradient on the pants a LOT longer. It looks like it should be a smooth gradient from the middle of the thigh to the middle of the shin.
Other suggestions:
- Make the goggles a little warmer and more saturated
- Make the dark end of the gradient much darker in value, it doesn't have as much pull as it should right now (I tested this one). Having it darker really weighed the character down more, since you're not really using the darker end of the value scale for anything but the blacks. Hard to tell where to sit ones eye without it.
There is one thing your character doesnt have that the original character has, no matter what color you choose for the pants and it's a strong color palette.
You have to strenghten the overall color palette.
You have red and green and brown and white and everything all over the place, look at how colors are placed on the original Tracer (This is my own study of her color so i might be wrong but IMO it makes sens).
She's the only character with bright saturated legs.
the saturation is way too strong, if you tone it down , the gradient becomes a lot better and it gets a more russian army green look
gradients are best if theyre subtle , the one you have right now is waay too strong : P
good progress so far, no fan of those shoe metal things tho : P
I really like Felix's suggestions, much better than the red pants.
Small nitpick but I would tone down the pants pattern in the diffuse/albedo and bump it in the spec to match Tracer's default pants better. It becomes really visible in direct light and fades out when in ambient light. Also, the pattern is much larger in comparison to the default model.
Just for clarity sake, this was something more along the hue that I was suggesting. The pattern would take some finagling, but yeah.
Just a suggestion haha. Also I'd go back and make the white metal that olive green, just to try it out. I'm at work so I don't really have time to do so, but I think it'd work from a design, and composition point of view.
Agree with a lot of the comments posted here. I think matching the colors closer to those in the soviet flag will help sell the concept stronger than matching the original model's gradient pants
I personally really like what anglorum is pointing out. The red + brown leather + some yellow-ey tones for accents is the way to go for the whole hammer and sickle type loadout you are going for. The green IMO doesnt read across as Soviet Union or just that #CommunistLyfe.
Huge improvement in the hair though, was my biggest gripe until you recently spruced it up with that update. Nice. Maybe now work on the harsh transition between the scalp/stubble to the hair cards? Where they intersect is kinda rough when looking at it for a while. That is pretty nitpicky though. Same with the fur cards on the jacket. Maybe adding a slightly alpha gradient to the alpah to smoothen out the transition from geo to alpha card?
I really like Anglorum's take on the red version. I would still change the middle of he body for something else than red and brown (Especially the center light thing).
Going with red, with accents of yellow, and dark-desaturated-green for the leather would work.
Actual soviet army suit :
[EDIT]
Maybe something along this way ?
And i don't know if it's been pointed out but in your first message in the thread you said
Hey Brian. The last 10% all are about patience. You have to put in the hours.
Unless you are a bit more specific about what you're looking for (tutorial wise), it'd be hard to recommend you something.
Replies
You don't need to explode the mesh in order to bake it. Just detach the pieces as needed, but keep them in their original place. That way, you can use the same bake setup for your normals and AO.
Also when baking AO, make sure you have your lowpoly set to not be included in the lighting calculations. This may be the reason certain parts are turning out black for you in the AO.
Seeking a volunteer rigger that wants to take this model to put into their reel and collaborate with a Character Artist so we can simulate professional communication.
Btw Afanasyev was the author of OTs-02 Kiparis which was mentioned in this thread.
Debating how soon I should bring this all into Substance Painter.
Doing something new by trying to do msot of the work in Substance Designer. Admittedly, it's mentally easier than having to copy paste the mask across multiple folders in Photoshop.
The leather seems to be almost in place, but her arms might be a bit too sweaty with the high spec.
I'm going to see how much noise I can push on it before it loses the render target of the original Tracer character model, though I may get lazy and just leave the albedo and gloss flat as I have right now.
Anyone have any critiques? Any tips on how to improve the model?
Also, if her eyeshadow is sitting above the fold of her eye on the inner side I would advise against it unless you've got a really solid reference. I can't tell if it's just shading or not but it looks really off. Generally if you do that it's with heavier application or colors... Most natural looks go for a sort of wing that's heavier on the outer end, and tapers to follow the fold of the eye on the inner, or even goes so far as to use a lighter shade on the inner corner
Her eyelashes being thicker might be nice. Something seems a bit odd about the red leather right next to the brown leather. I don't know if its the colors of if the material definition is a bit off.
Additionallt, what are the plates on her gauntlets/shoes/chest made out of?
Your colors are also a little funky right now, that bright green at the top of her pants seems out of place (and is also making me drawn to her crotch constantly).
Just some thoughts. Again, really liking how the face and hair turned out, and the idea of the red/brown/green combo is really nice (even though I feel you need to work it just a little more). Moooore.
The white metal plates are painted metal.
Some more love given to the normals, subdermal mask, and transluscency mask.
Gave alpha to the tips of the hair, but still not satisfied with the normals. Not sure what to do.
Anyone have any critiques about the design, material definition, etc?
Also the red looks a tonne better, but the colors (particularly on the jacket) seem a bit odd.
Firstly, I think that even for very distressed Leather, the bits that are still glossy seem like they need more gloss (could be being accentuated by WIP lighting). It seems but a bit too matte for real leather.
It's also veeeery uniform in color, real distressed p/leather has a lot of variety, not just one tone of brown-- it tends to be fairly mottled.
eg,
I think the mottled color variation could introduce enough variety needed to stop the colors looking off, but otherwise I'm feeling like the light green could stand to be a little more yellow (just the tiniest smidgen) and the brown leather could stand to have some slightly redder tones introduced with the darker tone variations.
Also, for the hair, that looks like shader magic and not something that the artist necessarily controls entirely. I suppose it could be a flow map but ech.
@Tuscon:
Took your critiques into account. Added discoloration to the leather jacket, jumps between desatruated, low value and saturated, high value hues.
Also redid the pants pattern. Followed after the original Tracer game model, used a diamond pattern across the pants.
Thank God, I THINK FIGURED OUT THE HAIR SPECULAR DISTORTION ON THE GAME MODEL with the Direction Map. Handpainted too, jeez. Figured this out after 2 to 3 hours.
Okay so explanation.
Flow (or Direction) Map: Think in terms of channels
1) There is the Red, Blue, and Green Channel
2) There's no Blue in a Direction Map for this. Blue doesn't exist in this solution for the Direction Map. With the blue, it turns it into looking like a normal map. We don't want that.
3) Green Channel makes the anisotropic highlight go horizontal if it's only full, 100% Green in the Green Channel (all others black in their channel).
4) Red Channel makes the anisotropic highlight go vertical if it's only, full, 100% Red in the Red Channel (all others black in their channel).
5) Green is at 100% in it's channel. No need to change it.
6) Adding more Red in the Red channel makes the specular band edge closer towards a vertical position. We want that zig zag happening, so we want to add red. What I did, and this was through pure experimentation, painted vertical bands of differing values/hues yellow on the RGB channel (Red and Green make Yellow when combined.)
>> The results are as follows, assuming you keep your Blue Channel black as night.
The Red Channel
The Green Channel
The Combined RGB Channel
and my results
It's not perfect, but I think it's in the right direction. Once I figure out how to exactly nail it where I want it, I think I might write up a quick PDF tutorial and gumroad it for others to see.
Thank the Lord, felt good to figure that issue out.
http://www.vaq136.com/russians/startitle.gif
Just some suggestions. Keep up the solid work though, it's really coming along.
So I spent some time trying to figure out the color layout during the concept stage. As a written reason here's what I have:
1) Red and Green are complementary colors (using the art theory term), and this feels very much a direct opposite to the blue and orange that the original character model has.
2) Disregarding everything that's in a neutral color, what I'm let with is just those two colors to play with.
3) Since one of them has to be the emissive to reflect as it's done on the original model, I decided to choose red since it reads more immediately to most people as menacing and "evil-intended." Green can be meancing as well, but it feels like it would read too explicitl as nuclear powered or creepy.
4) Green plays better and is historically a more often used color for military uniforms.
>> Red goes to the emissive. I will have additional emissive symbols textured and set up on an alpha plane for the chest reactor. The green goes to the pants.
I can understand your thinking with this but as others have said, it could be flipped. You even said yourself that green reads as nuclear powered. I think that fits perfectly for a Soviet themed character with a reactor core on her chest. That or just desaturate the green a bit maybe soften the gradient so the contrast isn't as noticeable. I get you're going for a top-down gradient but the effect should be subtle.
I'm looking at a toss up here.
What do you guys think? Which one is better?
The green highlights seem... weird, they don't get the point across as well. Certainly messes with the overall vibe to me. If the tone of green was changed to a more obviously nuclear (more yellow) then I can kiiinda see it, I guess.
It MIGHT work better if the goggles were still red.
I still kinda like the idea of the green pants with more of an olive/army green tone. I feel overall it's more cohesive.
EDIT: Though I do definitely agree that the pants need to be less vibrant! It's a bit too much for the rest of the themeing
That said, having fiddled around in PS for a while with your last shot, it's not necessarily desaturating anything that made anything work in my eyes, but shifting hues. So I dunno. I did find out that I do definitely like the green pants much better for sure though, I'll lock in my 2c there.
Also something I just noticed, you should make the gradient on the pants a LOT longer. It looks like it should be a smooth gradient from the middle of the thigh to the middle of the shin.
Other suggestions:
- Make the goggles a little warmer and more saturated
- Make the dark end of the gradient much darker in value, it doesn't have as much pull as it should right now (I tested this one). Having it darker really weighed the character down more, since you're not really using the darker end of the value scale for anything but the blacks. Hard to tell where to sit ones eye without it.
You have to strenghten the overall color palette.
You have red and green and brown and white and everything all over the place, look at how colors are placed on the original Tracer (This is my own study of her color so i might be wrong but IMO it makes sens).
She's the only character with bright saturated legs.
Simpler is better.
I kept the boots black and white, but you can put a bit of dark green in there that could work.
the saturation is way too strong, if you tone it down , the gradient becomes a lot better and it gets a more russian army green look
gradients are best if theyre subtle , the one you have right now is waay too strong : P
good progress so far, no fan of those shoe metal things tho : P
Small nitpick but I would tone down the pants pattern in the diffuse/albedo and bump it in the spec to match Tracer's default pants better. It becomes really visible in direct light and fades out when in ambient light. Also, the pattern is much larger in comparison to the default model.
Just a suggestion haha. Also I'd go back and make the white metal that olive green, just to try it out. I'm at work so I don't really have time to do so, but I think it'd work from a design, and composition point of view.
Huge improvement in the hair though, was my biggest gripe until you recently spruced it up with that update. Nice. Maybe now work on the harsh transition between the scalp/stubble to the hair cards? Where they intersect is kinda rough when looking at it for a while. That is pretty nitpicky though. Same with the fur cards on the jacket. Maybe adding a slightly alpha gradient to the alpah to smoothen out the transition from geo to alpha card?
Going with red, with accents of yellow, and dark-desaturated-green for the leather would work.
Actual soviet army suit :
[EDIT]
Maybe something along this way ?
And i don't know if it's been pointed out but in your first message in the thread you said
and proportions are really important to maintain the blizzard look, and the overall overwatch-exaggerated look :
Took everyone's critique into consideration.
Did a palatte swap.
Still want to keep a complementary color scheme, so the emissive will be green
How we looking?
Unless you are a bit more specific about what you're looking for (tutorial wise), it'd be hard to recommend you something.
Keep it up!
Ps:
- Other uses for specific maps
- Manipulating shaders (engine dependent, understandably)
- Material Definition
Check out these guides if you haven't already:
https://www.allegorithmic.com/pbr-guide
Stuck between getting work done, fighting my unemployment, and just learning new tools (minus straight up creating new content).
This is definitely a really great piece. Keep it up, Brian.