First game character model - feedback appreciated

Jakub

Hello, recently, after intensive months of working in Zbrush, I decided to create a game ready model. I did not picked any concept for that, just went a a regular guy, slightly clothed, it was also a anatomy study for me.

Everything in this model is a first time for me: full body sculpture, clothing, retopo and texturing.

I'am using Zbrush, some Maya, Topogun for retopo,UV Layout,xNormal for mapping, dDO for texture and Marmoset for final render.

High Poly Mesh, I do realize that the clothing folds are not even near being good, but tried to do my best:




Retopology, so that was fun, I did some research and bought myself a topogun, as it seemed to do a job really well, I am not disappointed.

I watched some retopologized characters over the web and tried to copy that a bit,:




I got three questions so far:

1.Should I retopologize over the edge of clothing to give it some thickness ? You can see that I've done it with the sleeve of buttoned shirt, but I am not sure if that should be done over all clothing edges or just be ignored. Or maybe, just give it a little thickness after loaded in Maya ?

2. What would be a good approach to retopologize bracelets ? Just normal squres on it and normal map will do the rest ?

3. After retopology, I imported these parts to Maya to check how it looks like, is it normal that clothing is overlapping and is has to be fixed manually, or I made a mistake somewhere on the way ? They do not overlap in high-poly so that is why I ask.

I'd be really grateful for overall feedback and some help along the way. I'll be using that topic for my next project, after this one will be done.

Greets Polycount!

TheWalkerGod

er, this would go under overall feedback but I think there's something wrong with the upper body. It looks to squat and the chest seems too wide, also where the arms connect to the shoulders looks funny. When your were studying anatomy what images did you use?

Jakub

I've based him on the actor - Stephen Amell

I'll note all the anatomy feedback and try to not make same mistakes in the next model

Thank you TheWalkerGod

GRASBOCK

If you are going to rig that Character, then you need more edgeloops in the knee-area. Maybe the elbow-area as well. Because when he kneels or Runs the polys will be stretched out and you will see the Polyedges ingame very easy.
And between both legs you were setting quads in a sort of rectangular shape. Thats where i agreee with the anatomy.

Jakub

I'll not rig that one, this is solely for purpose of trying to retopo for the first time and bake maps correctly. So, I went on, retopolized the clothing, done uv layout and created normal maps and of course I run into some errors that I have no clue how to fix and why they're there in the first place

The overall look of the model in Maya:



Wireframe and uvlayout:



Now the errors:




I see that my character has only 9k tris right now, I've been wondering how people achieve the numbers like 35-40k for Nexg-Gen characters ? Is there a magic subdivide button(:P) or they create the base and add edge loops everywhere ?

I have to say, that all this looked a lot easier on tutorials

Jakub

Unfortunately I had to drop previous project, not being experienced led me to a lot of problems with normal mapping.

That is my next try in modeling a game a asset, texturing in dDO and rendering in Marmoset. I'd be grateful for criticism and advices

DataDragon

No advice here, but keep it up.

I'm liking this recent game asset. What exact problems did you have with your normals? I too am about to venture toward that direction with my model.

praetor187

Hey, man I went through your thread, don't abandon this character man its looking nice for your first game ready model. Normal maps are a pain a lot of the time,I usually put my maximum ray distance down pretty low and that seems to keep those weird artifacts from popping up. Your gonna run into a lot of problems like that, the only thing to do though is to try to figure them out and push through on the model. Thats a nice character you have going on, see it through to the end man! Im rooting for you.

Jakub

DataDragon: Unlucky, I'd have to prepare them again, as I got so mad I deleted maps, because they were broken. But the main issues I was having:

- Visible UV seams, that were making normals looks broken and I have no clue how to get rid of them.
- My mesh was hmm, not smoothed. I actually have screenshot for that. As you can see, my model is square, which caused problems, with the underlying shirt sticking out. I know that could be fixed, but how can I actually make my mesh smoother ? :P Tried to smooth UVs, did not work, and normal Mesh---> Smooth increased polycount a lot.

I had one issue with my asset, as you can see, normals are broken in along that edge, but I do not have a UV seam over there.

praetor187:

Thanks for kind word. I tried everything, playing with ray distance, cage and some of it got fixed, but then I got a new one along the edges of the tshirt. Annoying, annoying stuff, it would be great to find a tutorial that explains creating character from Concept to full on next-gen, but it is hard to find something like that

pmiller001

You should continue posting your previous model. because you have mistakes means its prime real estate to learn something. I know what its like to get disheartened. But you should go ahead and try to finish it, because those problems that you had, now ou dont know how to solve them. The people here are more than happy to help.

Jakub

pmmiller001: That is actually a really good point. Problem is, that I can't find my mesh, probably got lost during a pc format I had recently. I am pretty sure that there will be another opportunity with broken maps, so I guess someone will help me then

Jakub

So, I have started another asset, this time I decided to create Mjolmir. I run into some problems with normal maps, which I cannot fix.


The problems that I am having. It is weird, I have done nothing in this area, only subdivided the model to create engravings in the holes.
Another issue is on the handle, where you can see those little rings squared off and broken.

I already tried to use cage and ray distance calc in xNormal, but nothing help me out.





This is a look at the wires at high&low poly.






I'll be glad for any help or advice that would let help me out.

Jakub

Sorry for bumping, anyone got an idea how I might fix these issues ? ;p

AgelosAp

Not really an expert on baking myself, but I 'd guess your problem is the unwrap.
Try putting a checker with pretty small squares on the low poly to see
if there is any stretching, eliminate that as mush as possible.

shadownet752

What Firith said. You might not have enough space between these two spots on your unwrap. If they're too close or your bleed from the bake starts to overlap you might get some noise

Its hard to say though without seeing your unwrap.

Jakub

I am extremely thankful that you're trying to help out! You can see the UV layout and normal map generated by xNormal. I am using Topogun for creating the layout.I can always send maya file to someone, if you would like to have a look at it.

TGI

Hey Jakub,

It looks like the silhouette on your original asset doesn't follow the lowpoly well enough to get a good bake. You might need to make it more high res, if I'm reading your images right.

Good luck!

Jakub

Thank you TGI,

Meanwhile your post I noticed that after subdiving, my topology is getting weird on those edges, like you said. I must have made a mistake someone in my model while trying to "hold" the edges and I added way too many edge loops.
I managed to fix that problem by using crease in Zbrush and then subdiving. I had small errors that I was able to fix by painting on normals in photoshop.



My question is, is that a way to fix things ? Will model as that one be considered "good", if maps need to be fixed in photoshop ?

TGI

Yep! That's totally and completely fine, and actually, usually expected. I am constantly adjusting maps in photoshop- especially normal maps. Don't worry about it.