ArenaNet Turtle Test!

Khimarra

Hey everyone! I'm currently working on my art test for ArenaNet's creature internship! I think I'm just about ready to start working on the low rez, but I wanted to post it here, first, to see if anyone has any C&C for me at this stage. Let me know what you think!

Ged

really cool so far, the only part that looks a bit disconnected to me is the spikes on the legs, in the concept they seem to come out in the same pattern as the scale shapes on the skin, yours look like a seperate unrelated object rather than part of the skin etc. you could also perhaps add a little more skin/muscle/shape definition to the legs. 

praetus

I agree with Ged with the legs.  It feels like you made the shape and then immediately jumped into detailing.  There isn't much for secondary forms there and it could use some work.  The area of the shell that connects front to back (on his side) doesn't have much of a difference from the skin.  Kind of feels like you haven't sculpted there yet.

The biggest critique I can think of though is make sure you're using your forward thinking and pre-planning skills.  Most stuff in GW is fairly low poly and smaller texture maps (as most MMO stuff tends to be).  When it comes to the spins sticking out from the shell and the legs think ahead as to your low poly and UV map utilization.  What of the spins can be baked down into the low?  At what point do they need to be modeled?  Do they need to be attached to the skin or stick through it as separate pieces?  Can the spines share the same UV space and be reused or are they unique?  It looks like you've physically modeled them out from the legs at the moment which might be a mess to deal with when you get to the low poly/ uv stage.  I don't know what brief you have received for this but look at any specs they gave you and make sure it will fall in line properly.

Khimarra

Thanks for the feedback! I definitely see what you mean about the legs not having much form, that's a relatively easy fix. As for the leg spikes, I had actually considered only sculpting a couple as separate pieces and then I would just sculpt the flat scales on that part of the leg, as well, for a template of where to put the spikes. That's how I usually would have done it, so I'm not sure why I chose to do it the hard way, here. Something about it being a test made me feel like I have to actually sculpt all the details as one piece, but obviously that's silly. I think I can actually redo those as separate pieces pretty easily, too, due to how I made them in the first place. 

I also got a critique outside of polycount, where it was suggested that I rethink the feet. They currently don't look very load-bearing. 

I completely agree with all of those points! Time to make some fixes!

Khimarra

Update time! I've extracted the spiky scales from the rest of the mesh, so now they're not the same piece. My plan is to make one or two master scales in maya, which I will then duplicate and morph to fit where the sculpted scales are. That way they can share the same UV space. I kept the ones I had already made as placeholders because I do like the layout. 

I've also added skin folds to the legs to make them look more fleshy, and I cut the side shell connection into smaller plates, in order to make him look more like a real tortoise. (also to make it look like I wasn't just ignoring that space) As I'm typing this, I'm noticing the wrinkle wrapping around his back knee looks out of place so I'll probably go back and rework that, again. 



Thanks again for the feedback so far, it already looks quite a bit better to me. If anyone sees anything else I could fix before I move on, I'd love to hear it!

amirabd2130

nice so far

Khimarra

Thanks!

Khimarra

I haven't gotten any more feedback on the the sculpt, so I decided to start working on the low rez a few days ago. I figure if anyone else has any tweaks for me on the sculpt, I can still change small things until I go to bake. I just finished the retop! All of the spikes, claws, teeth, etc. are separate pieces to save on polys, and so like pieces can share UV space.
7498 tris, budget was 7500

Khimarra

Retop and UV layout are done, and I got my normals baked. They're pretty clean, aside from the front points on his undershell, but I was expecting to have to clean those up a little, considering how I built it. Time for some painting!

Ged

Looks good, Im not sure if there are enough loops in the right places on the legs for this to animate nicely, it seems like the "knees" might be too low poly but Im not an expert on animation.

Khimarra

Ah, thanks for pointing that out! Now that you say that, I think I do need to add one more loop to the shoulder area, at least. One reason it might look like I don't have enough loops for animation, though, is the fact that a turtle's front "knees" are basically where you would expect their shoulders to be, so this poor guy's front legs would basically be rigid from "shoulder" all the way to ankle. I also considered moving the front knee joints down a bit in order to make it seem less awkward while walking if he were to ever be animated, but I decided against that because I feel like the concept has his knees about where a real turtle's knees would be, although the concept is sort of vague. 

Here's a real turtle skeleton so you can see what I mean with where their joints are. 

Khimarra

Time for another update! I think I'm close to finished, so I wanted to post him here to see if anyone has any more feedback for me before I finalize things. The main things I'm questioning are 1. the color temperature: It's definitely warmer overall than the concept is, but part of that is lighting. Should I think about making it cooler? And 2. the shadows in the skin folds... are they too strong?  

Any other comments are also more than welcome. Thanks again for all the feedback so far! 

Ged

looking good! I think the shadows/darker areas are a bit too dark, the top of the shell seems particularly dark and a bit too warm compared to the concept, the concept does seem to be tending more toward a desaturated green in general. The darkness in the folds of skin eg along its neck could be a different colour and blend more with the skin tones as it kind of looks a bit dirty/mucky to me.

Khimarra

I got so used to the warm version I was painting, this looks washed out to me, but it's actually the color family of the concept, now! Turns out my second monitor's color calibration somehow got really off, so I was painting based on what the concept looked like on the other screen... oops.

I also lightened up parts of the occlusion map (because it turns out that's what was making the creases so dark) so hopefully he looks less mucky now. The last thing I adjusted here is his head. I chose to make it a little lighter than the legs so it is more of a focal point, but it was looking too separate, so I made the top of his head a bit darker. What do you guys think? Is the lighter head working, or should I try to match the values of the concept?

I think I'm just about ready to light and render this guy, unless anyone has anything else to say!

Khimarra

One more update, I added a gradient layer to further help with the focal point. 

Ged

really good now, I actually think it was better/more like the concept before the gradient layer was added. The white skin looks a bit too eye catching / bright a slight browny green tint to make it less bright would be great. Its pretty much done now, nice job!

You could set up a nice lighting scene and get some beauty shots to show off the shapes with nice shadows etc

supersnakelx

I agree with Ged, better before the gradient and make the skin a little less white.

Khimarra

I took your advice again and tweaked some colors. I also set up a basic 3-point light system in Marmoset to render it out. Unfortunately when I went to apply to the internship, the listing had been taken down. It was there when I went to double check that I had all the files they asked for, but it was gone within an hour, when I went to actually apply. I'm so upset that I missed it, especially by less than an hour!

At least I have a nice new portfolio piece, and I learned a lot from making this guy! Thanks again for all the help!!!

czepta

Nice this looks really cool. Great work on the textures too.