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[FINISHED] Sci-fi Military Soldier Busts

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CognizanCe polycounter lvl 10
Somewhat/Mostly inspired by Doom 3 Marines.

The end result will just be these busts against a building.
I'm not good enough to create full character bodies (hands particularly).

I didn't create any sketches/concepts because I wanted to sculpt rough forms then refine during high poly retopologizing. 

This is something I've been only working on in my spare time, and retopologizing to create a good base mesh, then create a high poly out of that is taking a long time.

I've seen spectacular high poly meshes made with Zbrush that don't require retopologizing to create a base mesh in a traditional 3D program, and that seems much faster than what I'm doing, but I cannot afford ZBrush. I've been dabbling in 3D coat for years, but for polished hard surface, zbrush just seems be so much more powerful.









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  • CognizanCe
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    CognizanCe polycounter lvl 10
    Normals and MAT ID baked to low poly.
    Now I can start texturing.
  • CognizanCe
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    CognizanCe polycounter lvl 10
    Iray screen grab  from substance designer.
  • akiratang
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    akiratang polycounter lvl 11
    Looks pretty cool, Only crit is maybe the material of the armor is a little too clean , and i think if the helmet screen had a opacity effect to see inside it would look cool too. But Good job man
  • CognizanCe
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    CognizanCe polycounter lvl 10
    akiratang said:
    Looks pretty cool, Only crit is maybe the material of the armor is a little too clean , and i think if the helmet screen had a opacity effect to see inside it would look cool too. But Good job man
    Thanks man.
    I'm not sure if I'll be able to spend some more time on it tonight, but I definitely planned to scuff it up and grunge it up.

    As for helmet opacity, I think the solid metal makes them look more soulless and drone like, as opposed to visors.
    -But if I design another faction I'll definitely consider transparent visors.
  • CognizanCe
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    CognizanCe polycounter lvl 10
    REEEEEALLY on the fence about adding a background, but at this rate it may take at least another month.
    :/

    EDIT: Since the characters are done at least,  critique please.



  • goekbenjamin
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    goekbenjamin polycounter lvl 5
    looks pretty cool! Congrats!
    if I may criticize something, than it would be that black "under armour".
    compared to the rest of the armour it looks bland, maybe add a little bit of details in it, here and there a litte cut, or even a tiny pattern overal
  • JamesBrisnehan
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    JamesBrisnehan polycounter
    Would you mind showing us your texture maps? Im curious about how you're utilizing your metalness and roughness maps. Your painted metal, raw metal and under armor all seem to have the same specular quality. Also what software are you using to paint and render in? 3D coat?
  • CognizanCe
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    CognizanCe polycounter lvl 10
    Would you mind showing us your texture maps? Im curious about how you're utilizing your metalness and roughness maps. Your painted metal, raw metal and under armor all seem to have the same specular quality. Also what software are you using to paint and render in? 3D coat?


    Most of the metallic map contains a "noise" texture.
    I wanted to imitate a metallic paint job on a car, which (according to what I read for this project) is paint mixed with aluminum and have bits of metal of varying sizes.

    The dark dirt mask I used for the albedo was also used in the roughness to make it...rougher.




    Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I'm using the maps correctly.
    I made it a point not to have any extreme differences in specularity or roughness in order to make the overall look more subtle and cohesive.

    The exposed metal under the paint job shinier, but at times it's also covered by the rough dirt I mentioned earlier, because I figure dirt goes on top of a surface, regardless of if it's damaged or not.

    This was textured and in Substance Designer, rendered using the Iray option.
  • JamesBrisnehan
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    JamesBrisnehan polycounter
    Yah, you are using the maps right, but your roughness map seems pretty low contrast for this kind of armor. It may be worth separating the values of the different materials more. I think it could give the model more visual interest and read better from a distance. Perhaps the red paint could be a bit more glossy, and the orange paint, raw metal, and dirt more matte. Layering some subtle grunge maps into the roughness would be nice as well.
    Also, in your metalness map, your dirt should be much darker, and any plastics set to black. You have plastic in your Substance graph, bit I'm having trouble differentiating it from the metals in the render.
    When working with roughness in Substance I always like to plug a uniform color set to grey into the albedo for a bit so I can really see what I'm doing. I've found that the color can be distracting while I'm trying to get the micro-surface and material definition right. Give it a try if you don't already do that.

    You are doing some great work so far. Keep it up and have fun.
  • CognizanCe
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    CognizanCe polycounter lvl 10
    . Perhaps the red paint could be a bit more glossy, and the orange paint, raw metal, and dirt more matte. 

    Well you were definitely correct about making the raw metal and dirt more matte.
    That added more contrast and clarity to the dirt, and edgewear in the final render.
    I tried making the orange more matte and shiny, but I think it was brightest/easiest to read where I originally had it. VERY subtle differences in the pic below.
    For the sake of speed, below are OpengGL renders (Before I remembered to increase the shininess of the main coat).



    Below is the IRay render, with shininess of the main coat increased.



    When working with roughness in Substance I always like to plug a uniform color set to grey into the albedo for a bit so I can really see what I'm doing. I've found that the color can be distracting while I'm trying to get the micro-surface and material definition right. Give it a try if you don't already do that.


    Sounds interesting, I'll have to give that a try.
    Thanks for the critique!
  • CognizanCe
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    CognizanCe polycounter lvl 10
    looks pretty cool! Congrats!
    if I may criticize something, than it would be that black "under armour".
    compared to the rest of the armour it looks bland, maybe add a little bit of details in it, here and there a litte cut, or even a tiny pattern overal
    OK, I'll keep that in mind for next time.
    The body suit was baked to one half of the low poly mesh,  then that mesh was mirrored to complete the body.
    Looking back now, that was totally unnecessary and overly cautious, but the problem is any major noticeable detail will be mirrored on the other side.
    Maybe minor imperfections would be fine, but anything larger would be noticeable.
  • CognizanCe
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    CognizanCe polycounter lvl 10
    I'm calling this done.
    Did a few variations just for fun.
    Including a 3D background was NOT working out.















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