Mix of Zbrush and Oculus Medium to get it to this point. Going to spend more time in Oculus medium to play with details and silhouettes. Adding volumes feels better in it.
I'm at an impasse with the head and hair at the moment. Mostly feels like fidgeting with sliders instead of significant changes.
The hair top at certain angles will seem to have weird shadows, but I don't know how much of this can't be helped given that it's a tuft that can be seen from all angles usually.
Still debating how intensified I want the normal map on the face since more wrinkles would seem to help carve out and accentuate the face more.
@slosh , I'm gonna do that ear/neck fix at the end, because redoing the vellus hair to match the new topolgoy is a pain.
@slosh I believe I have moved the jaw and back of the neck now.
I want to hope I'm close to getting this done, but I can't see any more obvious places I can improve on this without it feeling like I'm just aimlessly noodling.
Anyone see anything I can specifically do to improve this?
It's looking pretty good Brian! I think you can have the shadow from the upper eyelid to the eyeball a bit stronger so that highlight isn't as strong. Also, did you add white hairs all over his face? If so, they are way too strong right now.
@slosh regarding the hairs, that was a vellus hair attempt as per this tutorial from Vadim Sorici. I'll pull back/refigure out how to render it.
Upper Eyelid shadow: I'd like to avoid doing an artificial shadow card to imitate the shadow, but does anything immediately come to mind as possible troubleshoot issues surrounding why my upper eyelid mesh isn't already casting a shadow? The whole eye socket is a closed mesh as it is, and the spotlights are being aimed from above.
No engine will render that shadow. It’s too small a lip. For personal art, u should absolutely fake it. It’s pretty standard practice. Why would you avoid it if it makes ur character look better?
I want to hope I'm close to getting this done, but I can't see any more obvious places I can improve on this without it feeling like I'm just aimlessly noodling.
Anyone see anything I can specifically do to improve this?
Cor blimey, excellent work Brian!
I've played the game so honestly it's a challenge to pick the difference between your rendition or Respawn
Most major elements modeled in. Going to bring this over to Zbrush and get it prepped. Any other details, I think I'm going to do on the texturing side.
Would it be possible to show your low poly wires, and also a shot without the texturing, just the bakes + a flat color? Also what are you using to texture, and what are you rendering in?
I'm seeing a lot of noise and not much wear that is placed with thought. Where I do see wear, it is all black which reads very odd. What material is the wrap around the handle? I feel like it should have folds as well. I'm not really seeing attention to detail on this one. A lot of blanket materials with generators or curvature based wear without much thought put into it.
I would say the outfit also suffers from similar texturing issues. If you check out Regie's stuff, there is some incredibly nice stuff going on there: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/NeAzq
I would definitely mimic that. I think the detail level on the weapon needs to go up as well. A lot of it feels very flat and just a ton of primitives shoved into each other. Part of that is the concept but I think you can improve it with more interesting paneling/detailing to add interest. Vary the materials as well on larger surfaces...break it up more. I would also try to do noise in the spec rather than a lot of diffuse noise.
Did my best to finesse out the directionality of the wear and tear and finesse out the roughness variety across the flat surfaces like accentuating finger prints, etc. Added gradients across elements to enhance the directionality, and I feel like I need to do it more boldly for the next WIP.
I'm trying to figure out what I can do to get more playful with the material surfaces while staying true to the concept's spirit.
Also, to anyone reading this who uses Modo: Modo 14, at least, the NATIVE VERTEX NORMAL TOOLS WORK. Read the documentation, because farfayrer, or whatever the heck his name is, has integrated his older Vertex Normal Toolkit INTO Modo, so there's completely different process now to deal with hardening and softening vertex normals. Don't make my mistake and waste 2/3rds of a vacation ripping your hair out over why your old script doesn't work anymore, and why there's a discrepancy between Substance Painter and Toolbag even though Toolbag is saying "oh no everything is fine; nothing wrong."
I think the only thing holding that gun back is the roughness map. It's still too procedural, detracting from the fine color and silhouette.
The level of detail you'll need depends on the character's final level of detail, but I feel you should at least make the roughness more directional and add a little bump to some of the stickers and different coats of paint.
Go grab a piece of fabric and clean some object now—no joke!
Think of the direction you'd use to clean the object, of how you'd clean a particularly persistent stain, pay attention where the fabric catches on the edges, where you end up using more strength or barely cleaning. That's all the data you need to tackle the roughness map. You can then increase the detail if needed by playing with elements like crevice dirt, rust, more bump for paint, etc. Example:
@birb Extrapolating on that "wash cloth idea," is what you're saying to, within the scope of a roughness variance, have it less rough in places where it'd be polished clean more, and vice versa? Or in a bigger idea, less rough in places where it encounters more of the external 'forces?'
@Brian "Panda" Choi Exactly! This is worn down but not very dirty, meaning someone has been taking care of it. It's also a small prop, something that will be seen from closer distance than bigger arms like tanks, thus a prop that demands a little extra attention to detail. The idea is to make a map that fits your unconscious expectations so well that you barely notice it because nothing looks out of place.
The thing about picking an irl object and cleaning it is to notice subtle variances on the resulting roughness patterns. Eg: When cleaning a flat surface you tend to avoid edges so your hand won't fly away all the time, then you give extra attention to edges but due their geometry you'll end applying more pressure to them than to the surrounding flat areas because same strength + less surface = focused pressure (that's why paint wears there first; it's not only environment damage, it's maintenance as well). If you need to ensure those surrounding flat areas are clean you'll likely be methodical and quick, applying more strength to create more friction and avoid going over the edge + clean faster because you just want to be done with it dammit!—creating a distinctive pattern with more contrasting scratches (more strength) running in parallel to the edges and with likely less uniform roughness underneath (because you routinely avoided that area when cleaning the center).
Your roughness is a bit too uniform, could use more contrast. Also I think that the whole weapon could use more material separation, right now almost every part has the tan colored metal.
Here you can see how the weapon looks more interesting because of the black parts that give it variation and contrast.
Uniform "cloudy" roughness is a great starting point, but there hasn't be any consideration to wear and use.
Where parts move, there would likely be some directionality to the roughness. Where exhaust exits, there would be more roughness and soot build up. Where people would touch would have build up for skin oils and be less rough. Things like handles, where magazines go, where you need to touch/hold to reload, etc. Areas that are easier to reach and clean would be less rough, and hard to reach nooks would be darker and more rough.
Going to verbalize my thoughts on trying to fix the roughness map. Anything I'm NOT properly thinking about or still forgot?
So where bullets move in the receiever, or where the person holds the weapon most often, the area gets shinier.
Directional to sunlight generally get rougher.
Places where gunk builds up like soot gets more build up
Material accuracy is understandable, and sure, materials have a sort of "default roughness" they have, but since items like used guns are constantly in motion, use, friction, you have to expect a larger variance in roughness. Not only does it provice compositional variety in the asset itself, but just reflects how it would look in real-life operation. Don't be so married to the idea that it needs to be as close to its inherent roughness read.
Next is the tinier noise details: flecks, specific chipping or stuff like rubber dimples getting a different roughness treatment.
Added more noise detail and massaged the roughness map more with more specificty as to where placecs are getting rubbed, fondled, touched, tweaked, pinched, caressed, slapped, bopped, booped, fingered, tickled, palmed, etc.
Expanded the scope of the paint job to provide more break up.
Need to go back in and vacuum wrap that trigger handle tape a lot more.
The visage and hairs are pretty realistic, good job. The suit is very detailed, I enjoy the textures, and with the cyborg arm it adds a nice little touch.
Replies
Mix of Zbrush and Oculus Medium to get it to this point. Going to spend more time in Oculus medium to play with details and silhouettes. Adding volumes feels better in it.
I'm at an impasse with the head and hair at the moment. Mostly feels like fidgeting with sliders instead of significant changes.
@slosh , I'm gonna do that ear/neck fix at the end, because redoing the vellus hair to match the new topolgoy is a pain.
@slosh
I believe I have moved the jaw and back of the neck now.
I want to hope I'm close to getting this done, but I can't see any more obvious places I can improve on this without it feeling like I'm just aimlessly noodling. Anyone see anything I can specifically do to improve this?
regarding the hairs, that was a vellus hair attempt as per this tutorial from Vadim Sorici. I'll pull back/refigure out how to render it.
Upper Eyelid shadow: I'd like to avoid doing an artificial shadow card to imitate the shadow, but does anything immediately come to mind as possible troubleshoot issues surrounding why my upper eyelid mesh isn't already casting a shadow? The whole eye socket is a closed mesh as it is, and the spotlights are being aimed from above.
AO card it is!
Danke.
Honestly at this point, I hope it looks at par or better than their Jedi Fallen Order work, as their most recect 'realistic" work.
Most major elements modeled in. Going to bring this over to Zbrush and get it prepped. Any other details, I think I'm going to do on the texturing side.
Using Modo and MOP Boolean plugin
High Poly done for now. Moving onto Retopo
The whole gun feels . . too Spartan almost. I don't know what I'm missing.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/NeAzq
I would definitely mimic that. I think the detail level on the weapon needs to go up as well. A lot of it feels very flat and just a ton of primitives shoved into each other. Part of that is the concept but I think you can improve it with more interesting paneling/detailing to add interest. Vary the materials as well on larger surfaces...break it up more. I would also try to do noise in the spec rather than a lot of diffuse noise.
Did my best to finesse out the directionality of the wear and tear and finesse out the roughness variety across the flat surfaces like accentuating finger prints, etc. Added gradients across elements to enhance the directionality, and I feel like I need to do it more boldly for the next WIP.
I'm trying to figure out what I can do to get more playful with the material surfaces while staying true to the concept's spirit.
Also, to anyone reading this who uses Modo: Modo 14, at least, the NATIVE VERTEX NORMAL TOOLS WORK. Read the documentation, because farfayrer, or whatever the heck his name is, has integrated his older Vertex Normal Toolkit INTO Modo, so there's completely different process now to deal with hardening and softening vertex normals. Don't make my mistake and waste 2/3rds of a vacation ripping your hair out over why your old script doesn't work anymore, and why there's a discrepancy between Substance Painter and Toolbag even though Toolbag is saying "oh no everything is fine; nothing wrong."
The level of detail you'll need depends on the character's final level of detail, but I feel you should at least make the roughness more directional and add a little bump to some of the stickers and different coats of paint.
Go grab a piece of fabric and clean some object now—no joke!
Think of the direction you'd use to clean the object, of how you'd clean a particularly persistent stain, pay attention where the fabric catches on the edges, where you end up using more strength or barely cleaning. That's all the data you need to tackle the roughness map. You can then increase the detail if needed by playing with elements like crevice dirt, rust, more bump for paint, etc. Example:
Extrapolating on that "wash cloth idea," is what you're saying to, within the scope of a roughness variance, have it less rough in places where it'd be polished clean more, and vice versa? Or in a bigger idea, less rough in places where it encounters more of the external 'forces?'
The thing about picking an irl object and cleaning it is to notice subtle variances on the resulting roughness patterns. Eg: When cleaning a flat surface you tend to avoid edges so your hand won't fly away all the time, then you give extra attention to edges but due their geometry you'll end applying more pressure to them than to the surrounding flat areas because same strength + less surface = focused pressure (that's why paint wears there first; it's not only environment damage, it's maintenance as well). If you need to ensure those surrounding flat areas are clean you'll likely be methodical and quick, applying more strength to create more friction and avoid going over the edge + clean faster because you just want to be done with it dammit!—creating a distinctive pattern with more contrasting scratches (more strength) running in parallel to the edges and with likely less uniform roughness underneath (because you routinely avoided that area when cleaning the center).
The devil is in the details.
Does the model overall read better at the moment with its surfacing details and variance across large read surfaces?
Where parts move, there would likely be some directionality to the roughness.
Where exhaust exits, there would be more roughness and soot build up.
Where people would touch would have build up for skin oils and be less rough. Things like handles, where magazines go, where you need to touch/hold to reload, etc.
Areas that are easier to reach and clean would be less rough, and hard to reach nooks would be darker and more rough.
@ZacD
WIP8
I think I'm done-ish. There's a couple people I'm going to directly message to take a look at this.
I like the colorscheme. I think laser rays is too bright at the base however
It is more like a needle