[Finished] Orc Marauder

akiratang

Starting another character, a fantasy Orc this time. I will be dumping my progress in here and hope for some feedback
Main purpose for this project is to further branch out my portfolio, going through character pipeline, and something i've never done before, fur.

Main concept im following is this one by Pierre Raveneau https://www.artstation.com/artwork/orc-a34ae525-f6e6-4ed7-933a-c111fc593c58
Tri count i am looking somewhere reasonable for games nowadays maybe along the 60k tri range. 



A very rough blockout of character so far in Zbrush.

Im messing around with fibermesh which i have never used before. Any tips would be appreciated, and if its suitable for use as game mesh? I also found this tutorial which looks quite good for fur creation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=LC57pzXFkK0

Probably abit early to be looking at this during high poly stage but figured its nice to plan out things.

kanga

Cool concept. Looks great. Hands might be a little big.

akiratang

kanga said:

Cool concept. Looks great. Hands might be a little big.

Thanks, havent worked on him for a few days but will get back into it and fix em

akiratang

Got the main blockout done so can start adding in the details. Still sorta iffy on the hair on the side, not sure if i will keep it on the final thing but it does add abit of character. Depending on my time and final tri count i may make his weapon too.

akiratang

Messed around with some low poly fur in marmoset, this is the fur on the back of the character. I kind of like it so far, still early and experimenting with colours and alphas. 

akiratang

Some updates.
- Done with the highpoly i think, any stitching and the scales in right chest piece,I will do in substance painter later. I prefer to do my stitching there especially, as i can get more clearer detail there usually without having to go super high subdiv in ZB.

- The small bit of hair on his right side... i decided to remove it as i didnt really love the look of it and means less work for me =P (Could change my mind later tho)

- Probably start retopo on weekend if things go well. My target is around 60k tris but i'll see how low i can get the fur down.

CheeseOnToast

That fur is looking great. Any nice workflow tips? Or just a lot of hand placement?

akiratang

CheeseOnToast said:

That fur is looking great. Any nice workflow tips? Or just a lot of hand placement?

Hi, altho its not finsihed yet and i havent worked on it, it was relatively simple. I used ZB fibermesh to create it, i changed some of the settings to make it more spaced out and lower poly (tweaking maxfibers and segments) ,then used groom brushes to space it out more. The trick is now trying to get it to a more acceptable polycount , depending on your requirements that is. I didnt do any hand placement at all, i like doing it this way as its a more smoother workflow for me. 

akiratang

Nothing major done on the model today, just experimented to see what the low poly hair might look like.
Its not finished but i might keep it for now as this piece of hair is pretty small only about 1k tris or so.

akiratang

Finally got this beast retopoed!
Was a long process and the least fun part



He stands so far at 60,549 tris, my target was somewhere along the 60k tri range, but there is still some duplicate meshes to add such as the buckles and some straps. There are alot of unnecessary edge loops i can remove to further optimise the model later, but keeping them in to get cleaner bakes for now.

Next is to unwrap the model and then i will get along to the texturing. Hopefully will be done soon

akiratang

Little update on the model, got the unwrapping done so got started on some test bakes.
I think the bakes came out pretty good, missing a few things still like the eyes, belt buckles ,scale chest piece etc.
Getting closer to finishing, will get started on the proper texturing and maybe will have him done by end of the week or sometime next week hopefully. 

akiratang

Got a first pass of the texture done, getting closer to finishing now .
Some meshes are protruding and intersecting each other which I'll clean up later, also missing parts like buckles and straps in certain places , but will do that once im finished texturing. I think I may make a weapon for him but will decide on that later too.

akiratang

Added the duplicated meshes like the straps and buckles. Also darkened the textures of the fur abit.
I'm calling the textures done for now. At the moment with everything he stands exactly at 63,000 tris.
I will probably make a weapon for him and pose him at a later date, i'm not the best at taking screenshots, but heres some  progress screenies taken from Marmoset
I've learned alot from creating him so far, like the fur i've never done before and furthering enhancing my Substance painter skills which is always nice. He was quite a complex piece for me , with so many parts but was a good challenge.

akiratang

Calling this guy done, was a pretty fun project. I added a simple pose and more renders.
Hope you guys like him







Edit : Fixed weapon shading

Polynaught

How did you convert the fibermeshes to all quad fur/hair cards? A  few clicks in ZBrush?

I guess the fur strands are the UVs in your leftmost unwrap in the bottom left corner - did you bake any highpoly normals down to them, or did you simply create some variations beforehand that you mapped the cards to afterwards?

Very nice results.

I feel the weakest part is the weapon itself - at first I thought he'd carry some kind of pipe until I saw the lowpoly wireframe. The shading of the weapon somehow looks rounded.

Everything else looks awesome!

akiratang

Polynaught said:

How did you convert the fibermeshes to all quad fur/hair cards? A  few clicks in ZBrush?

I guess the fur strands are the UVs in your leftmost unwrap in the bottom left corner - did you bake any highpoly normals down to them, or did you simply create some variations beforehand that you mapped the cards to afterwards?

Very nice results.

I feel the weakest part is the weapon itself - at first I thought he'd carry some kind of pipe until I saw the lowpoly wireframe. The shading of the weapon somehow looks rounded.

Everything else looks awesome!

@Polynaught Thanks for your comment and yes i did convert the fibermeshes to quads inside of Zbrush, I believe what i did was lower the amount of maxfibers and segments to get it lower poly. I think those two settings were the most important.

For the highpoly normals, textures and alpha i created them beforehand. The nice thing about fibermesh too is that it automatically unwraps for you and all the hair cards will share the same UV space. Also take a look at this tutorial i used this to help create my normal map for the fur, you can use it to also make a alpha or texture if you wish. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=LC57pzXFkK0

Now that I look at it some more, the weapon probably lost its smoothing groups when it transfer somehow, maybe I will take a look at it later.

Thanks again! 

Polynaught

It's reading muuuuch better now that the smoothing is fixed!

allmighty_thunder

That fur is looking really smooth

TheMeekon

Looks great, especially the fur. I was just starting some fur for a character and this has helped so much, thankyou!

akiratang

TheMeekon said:

Looks great, especially the fur. I was just starting some fur for a character and this has helped so much, thankyou!

Thanks! I didnt go into super detail, but im glad it helped someone