@Dumbanana: I think you're spot on about his jacket and pants. I'll definitely go back and rework them to bring up the quality (and the details). The materials and roughness for the jacket and pants have been giving me a rough time from early on, so it's great to get someone else's take on them.
I might want to go back and rework this before moving onto the dog textures after all. Thanks for the suggestion!
Its looking really awesome , its giving me that dishonoured vibe
I like the jacket and i second the idea of giving the leggings abit more treatment. Maybe give it abit more shine like what Dumbanana said and stitch seams. Keep it up man cant wait to see the dog :P
Small material update on the jacket and pants. I think I wanna push a few more things with the face mask material and add a little more variation in the hair after getting some more feedback, so I'll update that sooner than later. Then it's time for that crazy chihuahua to get some of his own materials put together.
I tried making it so the neoprene-like roughness in the tights isn't too busy, but also large enough to see from a little further out. I took away most of the curvature breakup in the albedo map and really cranked up the roughness reflections. Fixing the light will help that get a little closer to what I'm after, but I'm always happy to hear any thoughts or suggestions in the meantime!
Seeing all of your work on this forum is so inspiring. I love the Zoolander look of course, perhaps that is my favorite detail. You nailed the stylized look. Cant wait to see this finished!
Thank you, @KristinMays! That's really flattering to hear. That Zoolander look was really fun to work on, so I'm glad it's helping boost this guy's appeal. I might even need to go back and make the lip-bite a little more expressive so it can measure up to "Magnum."
I always feel like I lose out on a lot of the style from the original concept when I get around to the texturing, so I'm relieved that it still kinda works!
Jumped back to the high poly to work on some good ol' face sculpting! I didn't think the lip-bite expression held up when compared to the concept face or the magnum face, so I tried to rework it a little.
So with the original feeling too neutral I mostly just played with the lips and tried to furrow his brow.
It kinda felt like they were holding in some bad gas, so I tried a different (and angry) face and wasn't feeling it. A mutual on twitter had a great suggestion to bringing up one of the brows, so I tried to make a subtle and less subtle version.
I'm still not 100% on this, but I think I narrowed it down to one of these two looks. Now I just gotta try and find that balance between smug and fabulous without it looking too much like an animal died in the room. I might need to sit on this one for a day.
Then I remembered that the Magnum expression also had alternating eyebrows. It's not a huge deal but I didn't want 2 out of 3 expressions to be that similar, so I tried to work on the old Magnum face.
I think Magnum became Blue Steel somewhere along the way, but I'm kinda feeling it. Today was mostly just exploring different expressions, but I'd love to hear any thoughts or suggestions!
Okay I swear I'm gonna work on the chihuahua's textures next! I wanted to just do a few small fixes and updates to the face and materials, and they ended up taking me a little longer than I'd thought they would. Minus a few possible changes, I think I'm pretty much done with the dude unless I notice something big later on. Hair has also been fixed and updated to try and look more interesting (and match the concept color a little closer).
Today we got a two-for-one update! I've started in on the dog's materials (and they still need a ton of work) and made the dude's eyelashes a little bit longer. I think the new lashes work with the concept a little bit better (and his character), so we'll see how that looks at the end.
Right now the dog has the same materials for his suit, as the guy does for his face mask. The reflective bits (which I did a terrible job getting an image of) are more of a call-out to his jacket material. I gotta add more color variation to his suit and fix up his fur diffuse and roughness.
I'm reaching the point where I'm wondering why I chose to do two characters for one project, but we're already this far in so we might as well bring the dog along for the ride!
Time for another update! I reworked a few things with the diffuse and roughness materials, and went back to the concept for the legs of the suit. It might make less sense, but I kinda feel like it's closer to the concept now. Minus a few changes moving forward, I think I'm ready to jump back over to the dude and start on his rig.
I had a ton of help with my last character's rig so I'd like to try doing this one myself. That means relearning a lot of stuff, but I'll try an keep things moving forward!
Finally was able to finish up the dude's rig (for the most part)! I still need to paint and fix the weights with certain extreme movements, but we're all good otherwise. Next up is cranking out another few poses and give the doggo the same treatment. I'll probably fix the lights once the rigs are out of the way, but it's great to finally see that finish line in the distance!
Big thanks to Kiel Figgins and also the Pluralsight tutorials on helping me understand the rigging process a little bit more.
Updated the dog with a half-working rig! I sort of needed to break it apart near the end to get the back legs working properly, so I'll probably rework the rig from the beginning so I can set it up for the other 2 poses. I put together a little gif to show the progress of the rig (it broke after the skeleton disappeared, so I just pushed and pulled vertexes by hand after that ).
Just 2 more poses for each of them before I put it all together with some fancy beauty shots! C&C always welcome!
After this project I think I better learn some face rigging too. For the dude (and for the dog) I attempted a blend shape route that I kinda figured out while working through it.
I started by sculpting and forming the basic look of the head (and rest of the character in ZBrush) before chopping the head off and bringing it into Maya to fix the topology. Then I refined the face a little more before realizing I should have made a more neutral face to start with, so I headed back to Maya for more retopo work (mostly to just add some clean eyebags and a mouth bag.
Now that I had a bunch of high poly sculpts and a neutral low poly base, the first part was just projecting the details (and repainting stuff that couldn't be projected) back onto the neutral face at a higher subdiv. I duplicated that neutral face 3 times to start working on his different expressions. Since all the lowest subdivs came from the same low poly face mesh, once I exported their low poly versions back into Maya, I was able to use them as a blendshape for the original neutral expression.
The biggest pro from doing this might have been getting multiple normal maps (from the different high poly bakes) which just added a little more oomph to the low poly face changes. Then I was reminded of that yellow face mask that he wore.
So I went back to the neutral expression's high poly and created the mask. I copied the normal map from the mask into all of the different expressions so it ended up as more of a material instead of a mesh.
I would totally approach this differently now, but it was an interesting way to figure things out. In the future I think I'll check out one of Pluralsight's facial rigging videos to get a different perspective. They had a few good Maya rigging instructions that helped me put this guy's skeleton together, so it would be the first place I'd check. I hope that wasn't too long winded!
SciFi Dude has gone on a bizarre adventure for this next pose. Gotta bring that Jojo inspiration into the character and hopefully it's reading well enough. The placement of the dog isn't set in stone (might try having him growl at the viewer instead of the dude) so that might change later on if it looks better.
Any C&C is always welcome. One set of poses left to go! I'm thinking it'll be more Zoolander inspired to work with that Blue Steel expression.
Thanks to some advice in a discord group, I was able to add a little more gesture to the guy's spine for the Jojo pose since the last update. I figured I should really try to put everything together for this last bit, so I think this will be one of my last WIP updates for this project!
Next I'll be reworking some of the lighting before setting up some breakdown pages and beauty shots to wrap things up. It's not too late if something feels off, so I'd love to hear any thoughts or suggestions if you have them! The biggest thing I'm still thinking over is the position of the chihuahua for the Jojo pose. It feels a little more powerful with him in the front, but in terms of angle and the focus of the eyes, I might go back and change this or that.
That last pose is great Youve captured the gesture and facial expression very well.
In the first image his lower left leg is twisting unnaturally. His knee would be pointing more in the direction of his foot rather than straight ahead, you may want to take a look at that. If you want to still work on him I would suggest pushing those textures more as they appear a bit flat and read a bit vaguely in some areas, the lighting may be washing them out a bit too. Great to see all your breakdowns
@Pav3d@carvuliero: Thank you both so much! I usually just try to figure out a pose as it comes together, but having another few pairs of eyes really helps me understand how I can improve on things a little better.
Now that you both mention the knee, I can't unsee it, so I'll definitely fix that part first. A lot of the fixes seem really manageable too, so I'll want to try and get the read to be as strong as possible.
@Pav3d: I'm glad you like how the third pose came out! I think it helped that it was the only one that was based off a real photo / pose! It's great to hear if I'm taking things in a good direction. I'm not positive if I'll go back to the materials at this point, but I hope that messing with the lights a little bit can help with the final presentation. Thanks for the input, man!
@carvuliero: I completely agree with the first pose's fingers being super strange, but I didn't know if I should try and push towards a natural feel or try and get whatever the concept is working with? Right now I feel like I want to be closer to the concept, but only if it gives off a natural enough look to not draw too much extra attention. With the upper shoulder area and the contrapposto, the rig is really ridged around the jacket, but I'm going to try and add more of an appealing curve in there if I can! While I'm working on the fixes I realize I haven't posted some of the reference I've been working from / inspired by, so I'll include those images for future use.
For the dog, I'm not 100% on his peeing pose, but I tried to look up some lifting leg peeing references and get that leg position as close as possible (while still trying to get that silhouette read). Just sketching over some things though, I think it was a great thing to point out. Maybe this new version would work a little better? I'll need to break the rig a little more but if it reads a little in the end, I'd rather go that route.
Thank you guys again for checking things out! I'll keep at it and try and fix these issues as soon as I can!
References are usually to give you ideas and keep you grounded in reality but they are not perfect so if you want you can design and improve upon what you already have
That's some great advice, @carvuliero! Thank you for that (and for the notes). I've completely neglected ZBrush as a way to cleanup some broken rig pieces with this character, so I'll try to adjust the dog's leg from there.
Just wanted to thank you guys again for all the great help with this project along the way. I mostly posting on Polycount to keep myself accountable with my work, but it really feels fantastic whenever someone has something to say (or suggest) with these characters.
I've hopefully fixed up the main glaring issues and broken anatomy from before, and if you guys are interested in seeing any of the breakdowns, I've uploaded a few other images on my ArtStation over here. Since the last update, I've also adjusted his proportions a little bit. After getting his legs and hands back where they should be, I realized his head and torso were much bigger than what was shown in the concept. I think the newer / lankier proportions work a lot better than before. Also did a bunch of light fixes.
Replies
I might want to go back and rework this before moving onto the dog textures after all. Thanks for the suggestion!
I like the jacket and i second the idea of giving the leggings abit more treatment. Maybe give it abit more shine like what Dumbanana said and stitch seams. Keep it up man cant wait to see the dog :P
I tried making it so the neoprene-like roughness in the tights isn't too busy, but also large enough to see from a little further out. I took away most of the curvature breakup in the albedo map and really cranked up the roughness reflections. Fixing the light will help that get a little closer to what I'm after, but I'm always happy to hear any thoughts or suggestions in the meantime!
I always feel like I lose out on a lot of the style from the original concept when I get around to the texturing, so I'm relieved that it still kinda works!
So with the original feeling too neutral I mostly just played with the lips and tried to furrow his brow.
It kinda felt like they were holding in some bad gas, so I tried a different (and angry) face and wasn't feeling it. A mutual on twitter had a great suggestion to bringing up one of the brows, so I tried to make a subtle and less subtle version.
I'm still not 100% on this, but I think I narrowed it down to one of these two looks. Now I just gotta try and find that balance between smug and fabulous without it looking too much like an animal died in the room. I might need to sit on this one for a day.
Then I remembered that the Magnum expression also had alternating eyebrows. It's not a huge deal but I didn't want 2 out of 3 expressions to be that similar, so I tried to work on the old Magnum face.
I think Magnum became Blue Steel somewhere along the way, but I'm kinda feeling it. Today was mostly just exploring different expressions, but I'd love to hear any thoughts or suggestions!
C&C is always welcome and appreciated!
Right now the dog has the same materials for his suit, as the guy does for his face mask. The reflective bits (which I did a terrible job getting an image of) are more of a call-out to his jacket material. I gotta add more color variation to his suit and fix up his fur diffuse and roughness.
I'm reaching the point where I'm wondering why I chose to do two characters for one project, but we're already this far in so we might as well bring the dog along for the ride!
I had a ton of help with my last character's rig so I'd like to try doing this one myself. That means relearning a lot of stuff, but I'll try an keep things moving forward!
Big thanks to Kiel Figgins and also the Pluralsight tutorials on helping me understand the rigging process a little bit more.
Just 2 more poses for each of them before I put it all together with some fancy beauty shots! C&C always welcome!
Where'd you learn to do face rigging? Been thinking about getting into it myself
After this project I think I better learn some face rigging too. For the dude (and for the dog) I attempted a blend shape route that I kinda figured out while working through it.
I started by sculpting and forming the basic look of the head (and rest of the character in ZBrush) before chopping the head off and bringing it into Maya to fix the topology. Then I refined the face a little more before realizing I should have made a more neutral face to start with, so I headed back to Maya for more retopo work (mostly to just add some clean eyebags and a mouth bag.
Now that I had a bunch of high poly sculpts and a neutral low poly base, the first part was just projecting the details (and repainting stuff that couldn't be projected) back onto the neutral face at a higher subdiv. I duplicated that neutral face 3 times to start working on his different expressions. Since all the lowest subdivs came from the same low poly face mesh, once I exported their low poly versions back into Maya, I was able to use them as a blendshape for the original neutral expression.
The biggest pro from doing this might have been getting multiple normal maps (from the different high poly bakes) which just added a little more oomph to the low poly face changes. Then I was reminded of that yellow face mask that he wore.
So I went back to the neutral expression's high poly and created the mask. I copied the normal map from the mask into all of the different expressions so it ended up as more of a material instead of a mesh.
I would totally approach this differently now, but it was an interesting way to figure things out. In the future I think I'll check out one of Pluralsight's facial rigging videos to get a different perspective. They had a few good Maya rigging instructions that helped me put this guy's skeleton together, so it would be the first place I'd check. I hope that wasn't too long winded!
Any C&C is always welcome. One set of poses left to go! I'm thinking it'll be more Zoolander inspired to work with that Blue Steel expression.
Next I'll be reworking some of the lighting before setting up some breakdown pages and beauty shots to wrap things up. It's not too late if something feels off, so I'd love to hear any thoughts or suggestions if you have them! The biggest thing I'm still thinking over is the position of the chihuahua for the Jojo pose. It feels a little more powerful with him in the front, but in terms of angle and the focus of the eyes, I might go back and change this or that.
Now that you both mention the knee, I can't unsee it, so I'll definitely fix that part first. A lot of the fixes seem really manageable too, so I'll want to try and get the read to be as strong as possible.
@Pav3d: I'm glad you like how the third pose came out! I think it helped that it was the only one that was based off a real photo / pose! It's great to hear if I'm taking things in a good direction. I'm not positive if I'll go back to the materials at this point, but I hope that messing with the lights a little bit can help with the final presentation. Thanks for the input, man!
@carvuliero: I completely agree with the first pose's fingers being super strange, but I didn't know if I should try and push towards a natural feel or try and get whatever the concept is working with? Right now I feel like I want to be closer to the concept, but only if it gives off a natural enough look to not draw too much extra attention. With the upper shoulder area and the contrapposto, the rig is really ridged around the jacket, but I'm going to try and add more of an appealing curve in there if I can! While I'm working on the fixes I realize I haven't posted some of the reference I've been working from / inspired by, so I'll include those images for future use.
For the dog, I'm not 100% on his peeing pose, but I tried to look up some lifting leg peeing references and get that leg position as close as possible (while still trying to get that silhouette read). Just sketching over some things though, I think it was a great thing to point out. Maybe this new version would work a little better? I'll need to break the rig a little more but if it reads a little in the end, I'd rather go that route.
Thank you guys again for checking things out! I'll keep at it and try and fix these issues as soon as I can!
I've hopefully fixed up the main glaring issues and broken anatomy from before, and if you guys are interested in seeing any of the breakdowns, I've uploaded a few other images on my ArtStation over here. Since the last update, I've also adjusted his proportions a little bit. After getting his legs and hands back where they should be, I realized his head and torso were much bigger than what was shown in the concept. I think the newer / lankier proportions work a lot better than before. Also did a bunch of light fixes.
Thanks again!