Portfolio Piece Critique | MechWarrior Kopis BattleArmor

CampingCaraboo

Hey guys!

New here, but I was hoping that some of you could help and give me some critiques on this fairly recent piece I did. I've worked in 3d off and on for the last several years, but only within the last year have I really gotten into texturing in any significant way.

I got some feedback recently from a friend that it needed some materials redone, that it didn't look like painted metal, and needed more material variety. Here is a before and after along with some other views, etc. This was textured in Quixel DDO btw.

Original concept is from the MechWarrior IP. Not any other references other than one image I found, posted below as well.

Before

Original Reference


After

Thanks!

CampingCaraboo

Bump.

Any thoughts or critiques are welcome! Thanks in advance everyone!

Acrlixe

So just a initial read, the tubes near his shoulders don't read as paneled at first, but low poly. Also I am not sure what you rendered this in but your materials don't read well as metal and glass, so maybe that is something you could look into. I would also add that maybe you should put more detail into his head, there is a lot of information missing from the concept shown and your model. Good effort though, maybe look at other metal refs that have used Quixel as well for examples?

CampingCaraboo

Gotcha. Hmmm ok. Yeah I just used 3DO for the rendering. Works pretty good for fast results, but I have been looking into Marmoset as a possibility for better renders.

On the head piece, would you think that it may just be that the material and renders could be improved to better show design elements from the original concept?

Also, the tubes, do you mean the shoulder mounted laser looking objects? If so, I could see what you mean on that. Could be read as a faceted look. I guess when I modeled it I interpreted the concept a little different than it being paneled. I'll be sure and take a look at other peoples' results. Thanks a ton btw!

Acrlixe

a quick draw over for the head, look for the flatten shape on the top, the side panel around the head almost like a bevel. the extrusions at the top of the mask where it meets the roof of the head should be pulled back a bit. Then the detailing on the side looks like they should meet closer together, and then you can add the cut at the bottom too. Hope the drawing helps clarify what I am seeing

Also if he is stand in dirt, make him dirty! using roughness and colors to help break up just the gray and red a bit. looks like he has a plasma gun, add some burn on there. 

Cheers!

CampingCaraboo

Ah I see what you mean on the helmet. Good observations. Yeah, I will go back and add those elements you suggested on the material. Thanks!

Vertrucio

For concepts from old miniature games, you'll need to push the design much much more than other designs. A lot of those old concepts are made chunky and low on detail, with bad or uninteresting proportions to boot.

The arms, for example, aren't long enough have hands behind the claw-like grippers.

The proportions and surface detail overall, while acceptable for a miniature game where this miniature will be tiny, looks basic and blocky full size.

CampingCaraboo

Gotcha. That is a great point. My main goal was just perhaps to translate it to 3D, without a significant overhaul to the design. I'll have to keep that point about miniature designs in mind for any future pieces though! Thanks!

CampingCaraboo

Ok, here's a quick update. Still using 3DO for now, but I was able to redo the renders, and add a couple extra touches to the materials. Most of this is just tweaking the renders though. I have not touched the model though. In general for whatever reason 3DO does seem sporadic in its consistency. One time I will load the project and it will start it up different than the prior time, the lighting will look different etc. I'm aware of some ATI Quixel compatibility issues, so maybe those issues carry over to 3DO as well. That may also be why the materials don't show as well in the previous batch.

Anyways, I would say just initially that these renders, particularly the posed ones, look much better. Thoughts?

Ged

Its a really cool concept, I think you could get more of the concepts proportions in, eg the arms are really beefy (like almost as thick as the legs in every way) the shoulders seem wider the chest looks a bit wider and not so tall, where is the colour scheme coming from, its alright but it doesnt show off the shapes too well eg if parts like the hands were full on metal they would have nice seperation and read easier.

CampingCaraboo

Thanks for the input! So ok, I can bring in more of the proportions into the model. As for the color scheme, it was inspired a bit by what you may see on something like the Star Wars A Wing (I believe).

I'll take a look at the metal for the hands. With that, do you mean the whole gun piece, barrel, etc., or just the claw pieces?

Ged

Hi you dont have to do what I suggest, its laready coming along well but heres some ideas. Yeah I meant the mechanical parts more like steel (the claw pieces) and maybe the guns as well. The colour scheme is ok, I would suggest trying some other more land based military colours just to see what fits best also there seemm to be more patches of colour based on the concept. like this stuff https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/70/8a/7e/708a7e2a8243491113577de311be6cd4.jpg
The wear and tear looks a bit odd because it appears that youve got red paint that has been worn away but underneath seems to be more white paint. Usually people would wear away the paint to the bare metal underneath on models like this. I like the dirt on the feet but I feel there are scale issues, the base with the mud might actually be making this guy look small as hes made big deep footprints in the mud and the mud looks about normal size for a human ( no scale references eg stones, bushes, trees, rocks, a car etc). If this is a massive mech I reckon each foot is about the size of a car and therefore hes about 1.5 meters deep in mud which seems odd as mud is usally not that deep at all.

CampingCaraboo

 Yeah I have actually been messing around with Substance Painter doing a more military color scheme while I am getting used to the program (so far it seems much more responsive and reliable than Quixel). I'm gonna give your suggestion about the claw pieces a shot and see how it turns out!
For the red paint wear (and paint wear in general) it is actually the bare metal underneath you are seeing. I think the reflection right now in those renders may be a bit hot, so that must be what you are seeing. So thanks for that feedback as well! Now I can know I need to maybe ease up on that a bit.
Good points on the scale reference too. I'll take a look at changing some aspects. Just so you know, this is supposed to be human scale. Not a giant mech like you see in most designs.

CampingCaraboo

Here's a quick update. I went back, made some edits to the helmet, arms, and chest piece, as well as the shoulder lasers. While at it, I also mostly redid the UVs, utilizing more of the texture space, etc. With that I also completely redid the materials in Substance Painter. Had some fun with the particle brushes! Something more military and practical. The Iray renderer in Painter seems much nicer than the 3DO renderer.

Any thoughts? I'll probably do some touch ups on it in a little bit. Also will have the model posed again soon.

CampingCaraboo

Here it is again posed, and under different lighting conditions. It seems it bugged out on a grime material when I switched to this posed version. But alas, here we are for now.

CampingCaraboo

ANd only now I notice the pivots on the shoulder lasers got messed up. Whoops!

CampingCaraboo

Here it is now, rendered in Toolbag. Also got some free Megascan assets that look awesome and used them for my scene. I think it helps quite a bit.

Any thoughts on it? Thanks!