WIP Medieval Corrupted Warrior (need some advice regarding Remeshing and opinions in general)

g_osorio

Hi Everybody! Here's my first WIP and real project on Zbrush! He's supposed to be a warrior who fell into his animalistic instincts and thirst for blood, and is starting to become some sort of lycanthrope creature. I was wondering about some things regarding remeshing this high poly mesh into a low poly one, and if anyone could help me, that would be pretty cool!





As you can see in the top 2 images, the chainmail and the ripped gambeson (cloth under the chainmail) are two different meshes, should I bake them into 1 mesh or should I have 2 meshes for each respective part (one for the chainmail and another for the gambeson)??


For example, here in the gauntlet, should I bake two different meshes as the metal and the belt or just one?
The same case goes for the Tassets! (The waist part is a bit tricky because ingame the armor will bounce around as if it wasn't just one piece, but four)


It would also be pretty cool if you notice something weird or just plain poorly done in the HighPoly to tell me what it is, and, if you know how to fix it, tell me about it as well, I would be very appreciated and happy!!

Here's the post in my Artstation if anyone is interested in it - https://www.artstation.com/artwork/6A4er

RocketBryan

Heya man, he's looking pretty cool. I definitely wouldn't want to meet that dude in a dark alley. I really dig the weathered, beat-to-hell look of his shoulder and arm guards.

I would say the the answer to whether you want to separate out meshes for baking depends entirely on your goal. If you're going for something with a lower poly budget, then you'll want to bake some of those pieces together (like your example of combining the vambrace and leather straps). If you don't mind having a higher budget then there's absolutely no harm in separating the meshes as it'll just contribute to a higher level of finish. However, the most important thing to keep in mind is what you're trying to accomplish with this piece. If you're aiming at a specific studio, then figure out roughly what they tend to use for poly budgets and topology and shoot for that. Or perhaps it's just technical practice, in which case you have more freedom to focus on either version of the pipeline.

As for your actual highpoly work, I would recommend a working a bit more on a few areas:

• His neck seems kinda stunted when compared to the rest of his body, especially that elongated arm. This could be just a preference thing, but unless I'm building an explicitly muscle-bound character, I tend to elongate limbs, midsection, and neck because it pushes the character into slightly more monstrous territory.
• I'd suggest revisiting and simplifying the fabric folds of the pants and boots. Unless you're pulling from specific reference, most fabric (especially more rigid materials like leather) don't have such a uniform distribution of fold lines. There's usually less of them and/or more concentrated in stress, rotation, or seamed points. I usually employ two levels of details with folds - the big ones that alter the silhouette, and the small ones that are just the 'cake icing' and support the read of the fabric.
• Lastly his face feels like it's 'sliding' forward and off his head a little too much. If you cover his face with your thumb over the screen, look at his cranium, and then uncover the face again, it really does appear as if his face is trying to escape his head! Perhaps bringing his features back up and adding more volume to the back of his head would be a perfect. On a normal human head, in profile the ears should sit at roughly halfway between the front of the face and the back of the skull. Even with more bestial features, making sure you're anchoring the fantastical elements in reality is always a good idea.

g_osorio

Hey Bryan! Sorry for the 2-week late answer, I was spending some time with my parents!
I feel so blessed to have someone of your skill to answer my questions, so before anything, thank you so much, man!!
So, Thank you so much for the detailed overview of this WIP, I'm really grateful! In this project, I was aiming for a sort of realistic look and feel of bloodborne but in a medieval era, so regarding the vertices, I'm holding right now almost 16k with the retopology almost done because I decided to do individual meshes for each part of the high poly. I don't know how many vertices bloodborne enemy 3d models have, but I say it's roughly around that amount (?). I can't really be sure, I tried to search regarding Dark Souls 3 but I couldn't find anything (didn't lose much time on it either)

• Regarding the neck, I made it larger so sort of resemble a big bad werewolf, and since there isn't any real-life reference we can pick up on werewolves, I decided to keep it that way for now.
• I completely agree with you on the fabrics, right now that I look at it twice, it seems to be a bit exaggerated on the number of folds it has, and part of the reason I think its the way it is was because they were the first pieces I started adding detail, and also because I took reference from MANY pictures, instead of staying with a small amount.
• With the face, I also didn't even notice until you stated it right now! it definitely looks like its sliding off a bit, but I think I know what I was going for. For example, if you take two side pictures, one from a human, and another from a dog/wolf, if you imagine the transition, it is kind of like if the face was trying to escape from its original position! I might be having the wrong sort of thought process, but I have to agree it is a bit exaggerated.

Unfortunately, for now, I must keep it the way it is since this is a school project and I need to finish it asap! But after it, I'll redo it with the criticism everyone has been giving me, thanks!

Right now I'm doing the hair cards (which is something I'm a complete NOOB at), and so far I'm having a lot of fun!

Trying to somehow replicate the way the hair is in the Huntsman Enemy in bloodborne: https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/bloodborne/images/2/29/Huntsman_№7.png/revision/latest?cb=20170929205530

And here's how mine's looking like:
https://i.imgur.com/rynkiTp.png

It seems a bit weird but I think I made process from the first attempt ahah!

I was also wondering, Any idea how I can do two/three texture sets/maps just for this character? was wondering if It was a good idea to have a texture set for the fur, one for the body (skin), and another one for the rest of the clothing/armor. Any idea how I can do that? (if you know how to do it in Blender that would be extra super cool!)


Again, sorry for taking so long getting back to you Bryan, really happy you took your time for me! Thanks a bunch!

Brian "Panda" Choi

We usually count by triangles, not verts.  Verts have really only come up in mobile games where each polygon/vert really counts for performance because of split normal edges and vertices, etc.


It's good you recognize that the fabric looks bad, lumpy, and muddy.  I suggest you try to recreate and reference both real life references and existing character sculpts from similar games like Uncharted or Star Wars Battlefront if you want realism.  What I can tell you right now is no matter how much you try to texture those pants as best you can, your sculpt is going to give you a bad foundational normal map that you can't fix until you resculpt/sculpt fix the pants.


What denotes a canine head to me, as it has with other artists on games like The Order 1886, etc, is the length of the snout, not just the nose changing into that shape of a dog nose.  Right now, the head lacks a strong assertive form to it, and just looks like a flimsy vampire minion.  Really push into that elongated bat head idea.


Substance Painter usually accepts seperate texture sets based on the number of Material IDs your character has.  UVs can overlap in the same 0 to 1 space, but with multiple Material IDs, that's how you get 2+ texture sets in Substance Painter.

UV your character as needed, and select all the faces that will be of a single material ID.  Rise and repeat.


You made mention of wanting to revisit this after you turn this in for a grade.  If you really want this to be a strong portfolio piece, you have the right idea.  Rarely have most of us seen a homework assignment be of portfolio quality with the time they give you at school, so we really encourage you to make the effort to go back to the model and even resculpt it to make it look the best it can.

Your facial fur needs better planning.  I suggest rough sculpting the medium and smaller forms oft he fur around your head sculpt to give yourself at least a proxy mesh to lay down your hairstrips AND give you a clear plan of attack.

g_osorio

Sorry again, for the necro!

This is the finalized Piece I worked on my final project. Something doesn't really feel right, but I'm happy I made it to the end. If you guys are still willing to give me some criticism, I'd be more than grateful. 
I feel like I exaggerated on the lighting a little bit, but I liked some of the renders. 

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ybExGO

Alex_J

cool! you really went the extra mile with the presentation -- all the bad ass poses with weapons and all.

Looks like you've already got some good advice but I wanted to add something as it is an issue I am starting to realize in my own work as well. You might call it "cleanliness." A lack of cleanliness. Even with a weathered, foul-ass creature like this, I think the overall presentation may be better if more care is put into creating crisp, readable textures and details. Kind of hard to describe what I mean, but maybe check out the work in progress threads from the artist Paul Widelski here on polycount to see what I mean. He has all the tiny details like chainmail and layered clothing, but it's all sculpted with careful attention so the end result is something that can stand up to close inspection. I think it's just a matter of experience -- learning which key details to include and which extraneous stuff to exclude. It seems with game art, even with realistic styles, there is still some judgement necessary in choosing what to accentuate and also knowing the limits of the medium.

Because of the "muddiness" in your sculpt and textures, I feel your presentation would be best if you do not get as close, but stay like third person game camera distance away. It just isn't sharp and clear enough for up close, hero camera shots.

But overall, great work. It is clearly a work of dedication and imagination. Keep it up.

Brian "Panda" Choi

The hair strands don't need to be that wavy in the texture.  Wolf hair rarely kinks like that.

Besides the fur, rest of it looks solid.  I'd make turnaround shots that are more neutrally lit for a better flat presentation.