[WIP] Glitch the Glitch!
polycounter lvl 6
Hi all! I'm taking on my first 3D project in a long time: my character Glitch, who is a glitch. I've always wanted to bring this design into 3D and animate the glitchy particle effects coming from it's neck, tail, arm, and leg. Well, now I'm finally doing it!
not pictured: The glitchy effect is the inside of the mouth, also the tongue is a box. Also, I put the leg glitch effect on the wrong leg
I'm using Blender 2.8 for this model, which I have not used prior to this. I was fed up with 3DS Max, and I wanted to try something new (and free). The node system primarily attracted me since I felt it would be a great way to generate the particle effect. Thus, though I am familiar with 3D, the program is not, so it's going to be VERY trial and error.
To speed things up, I already modeled Glitch. I went for something that wasn't particularly high poly nor subdivided. While it would be cool to make a higher poly model for Glitch, it is inspired by retro game glitches (especially 2D games) and having a smooth, high poly model would not fit them aesthetically. (Plus I already did a model of Glitch in zbrush a while back) Critique on the edge/poly flow and other such things is encouraged, especially around the thigh area. I tried my best to avoid unnecessary triangles but some were unavoidable, particularly around the collar and toe areas. I intend to rig this as well.
I'm not sure how I want to finish this model. Handpainted textures? maybe. I'm not sure what would look best. Not looking into normal maps for this guy, since I think they already have all the details modeled in.
For the particle effect, I already have an idea. It would generate boxes of various length and height (but stable width) from a line defining the origin (not a point!) of the particles. They would all be the same width, as i'd like to have the illusion that all the blocks are part of the same "chunk". As they travel from the origin, their UV map on a gradient moves the same distance. (until it reaches the end, in which the block changes to the end color or something to prevent it from changing back to the light green color)
For the inner light green, I would do the same effect, but on the texture itself. I would draw particles onto the texture itself and they move and decay much like the physical particles as well, but they would all be drawn in the light green color. This probably requires some python scripting. I know how to program, but I'm unfamiliar with python. What better way to learn than by application?
Finally, I would rig these things so that the tail and particles bend (after being created) to the tail bones. For the arm, leg, and neck particles though, I would only bend the curve that spawns the particles, so they don't deform since the particles wrap around Glitch's head and neck.
I don't know how or if i can achieve these things in Blender, but I damn well want to try!
not pictured: The glitchy effect is the inside of the mouth, also the tongue is a box. Also, I put the leg glitch effect on the wrong leg
I'm using Blender 2.8 for this model, which I have not used prior to this. I was fed up with 3DS Max, and I wanted to try something new (and free). The node system primarily attracted me since I felt it would be a great way to generate the particle effect. Thus, though I am familiar with 3D, the program is not, so it's going to be VERY trial and error.
To speed things up, I already modeled Glitch. I went for something that wasn't particularly high poly nor subdivided. While it would be cool to make a higher poly model for Glitch, it is inspired by retro game glitches (especially 2D games) and having a smooth, high poly model would not fit them aesthetically. (Plus I already did a model of Glitch in zbrush a while back) Critique on the edge/poly flow and other such things is encouraged, especially around the thigh area. I tried my best to avoid unnecessary triangles but some were unavoidable, particularly around the collar and toe areas. I intend to rig this as well.
I'm not sure how I want to finish this model. Handpainted textures? maybe. I'm not sure what would look best. Not looking into normal maps for this guy, since I think they already have all the details modeled in.
For the particle effect, I already have an idea. It would generate boxes of various length and height (but stable width) from a line defining the origin (not a point!) of the particles. They would all be the same width, as i'd like to have the illusion that all the blocks are part of the same "chunk". As they travel from the origin, their UV map on a gradient moves the same distance. (until it reaches the end, in which the block changes to the end color or something to prevent it from changing back to the light green color)
For the inner light green, I would do the same effect, but on the texture itself. I would draw particles onto the texture itself and they move and decay much like the physical particles as well, but they would all be drawn in the light green color. This probably requires some python scripting. I know how to program, but I'm unfamiliar with python. What better way to learn than by application?
Finally, I would rig these things so that the tail and particles bend (after being created) to the tail bones. For the arm, leg, and neck particles though, I would only bend the curve that spawns the particles, so they don't deform since the particles wrap around Glitch's head and neck.
I don't know how or if i can achieve these things in Blender, but I damn well want to try!
Replies
This was my first attempt, with a particle system spawning blocks that eventually dissipate. However, this looked nothing like my concept and the sudden disappearance was quite jarring. It also didn't spawn nice long blocks that I drew in my concept.
In this attempt, I decided to go with a different approach: instead of spawning particles that move up and disappear, I instead went with particles that scale up and down. I like this effect much better, but It's entirely uniform. However, this doesn't allow for an effect like Glitch's tail in which it doesn't uniformly extend from one point, but there are parts "missing" from it.
This was my last experiment. It was mostly the same as the first one, but I included a third particle effect of a long block that would be the base of the particle effect, to prevent it from looking like the glitch effect had no stable mass. I also increased the "spread" of the particles so that they would spawn within a set distance of each other, instead of right on top of one another. This helped a little bit to prevent too much clumping, but there are still unfortunate small gaps between blocks that look weird.
The glitch effects look nicer now, but I'd like to be able to control it so that the "middle" part of the particle effect is
I realized quickly that Glitch's glitch effects would be like a pixelly campfire - with big flames that ungulate and change shape, and small embers coming off of the top. Perhaps instead of being a completely separate particle system, they would be spawned when a "block" of glitch reaches its maximum height. I'm still messing with the effect and constructive criticism is highly appreciated.
Another idea I had was to "glitchify" a flame animation and convert it into long pixels like this, which might lead to a more organic but still pixelated/glitchy look, but I don't know how I'd go about that.