Bangaa Dragoon for portfolio (Finished)

danielacostaavila

Hello, I'm starting in 3d modelling and this is my 1st post here.

I'm starting the 3d for a character from the Final Fantasy Tactics Advance series (GBA) but how it would look game ready for a game for the Nintendo Switch maybe.

     

                                                                                                                           (Right, original art)

I just finished the front, side, back views to understand better the subject.

I checked references to know how the final result to choose how I want it to end but I'm still undecided.

Maybe you can help me choose a style and how it could have a better impact.

REFERENCES (not mine) >>>>

   

Thanks. I'll post updates as I go.

danielacostaavila

I blocked the big areas with basic shapes and started dragging the vertex with the sillouete.

danielacostaavila

danielacostaavila

danielacostaavila

danielacostaavila

I think its ready for ZBRUSH.

danielacostaavila

I forgot to put the ears. I think NOW its ready for zbrush

danielacostaavila

I finished the high poly. Now I'm doing the retopology.

danielacostaavila

Retopology is done. Now I'm doing UV mapping.

danielacostaavila

Retopology is done. Now I'm doing UV mapping.

danielacostaavila

I did the UV Mapping. The bakes were done in Marmoset.

I tried to keep the maps straight and vertical so I could paint them on Photoshop as well as Substance Painter freely.

T

Joseph_Bramlett

Hey Daniel, I think this is a really fun project and I enjoy checking in on the updates as you post them. Your bakes have come out pretty good but I wanted to point out this change with the armor you have made. The section circled in green doesn't quite line up with the original armor and the way it is on the model feels kind of chaotic and not really designed which feels to go against the original look. Eve benign unfamiliar with the design personally this has stood out to me as inconsistent. Beyond that you are loosing some of the more dramatic shapes, one of which is circled in blue, which i think really sell this design. the same could be said for the slope of the back of the head. 

danielacostaavila

Thanks for your comment Joseph.

All you say is true I think.

I haven't noticed some of the those points until you mentioned them.

The arm part I can fix it after painting (i hope). Probably just adjusting the edges.

But the Armor which you cirlced green, I started doing drag-drops of an alpha in Zbrush starting from the front and back, but then all of them mixed in the shoulders as you see. I guess the better way was to start with front, side and back. That way the "ears" would cover the mess.

I'm noticing even the head seems a little too long.

Thanks again for pointing that out, I'll see how to fix it after painting, which I am right now.

Here's a WIP.

birb

The plates line up in the concept because they deform with the armor pieces, getting wider and smaller as needed like if the armor pieces were made from deformed planes.



The fastest way to generate something similar now you already modeled the armor depends on your familiarity with your 3d packages and whether you need the geometry or only the maps. You can, for example, wrap floater planes around the armor sections, apply a pre-baked texture or displacement to these planes and bake them onto the armor.

danielacostaavila

Oh I didn't think of that! I did them one by one and it took ages.

danielacostaavila

I think I finished the painting process.

I mostly handpainted it in Photoshop. Put the AO bake on a multiply to give me some direction and just started painting on top.

I tried to keep the UV Maps as ordered as possible to avoid confusing myself, but I can see I lost too many UV space, I could've make the pieces a little bigger.

I also tried applying metalness and roughness maps, but I think it starts to look more "realistic" and it takes away that toony feel. So I'm just gonna present it with albedo and normal maps only.

I did some modifications to the mesh, the head, the elbows (joseph's comment) and did the ears a bit longer. Now I'm gonna rig it and pose it. I don't have experience in animation though I would like to make an idle animation for this someday.

Thanks for your comments!

danielacostaavila

So I just did a basic rig with 3ds Max's bones. I already had the spear ready and just imported it.

Doing the renders in Marmoset was quicker than I thought. I also used for reference this post in Erika's Uni Blog to make the images for the portafolio. (https://111426studio.wordpress.com/2016/05/09/presenting-3d-models-in-a-showreel-and-online/)

I couldn't make the pose any extreme because there was too much deformation and I don't know how to deal with it yet.

I also noticed that Marmoset chooses the Lambert material for default, later I changed it to the "unlit" type and noticed that the albedo was more similar to the PSD file, with Lambert I constantly had to make the image darker. However the renders were done with Lambert.

Also did the "enemy" dragoon cholor scheme just for fun.

It has it's errors but I liked how it came out. I'll probably return to it later to rig it and animate it correctly.

Thanks to Joseph_Bramlett and birb for your observations.

I really enjoyed this project and I hope I get to do more and get better.

Cheers

danielacostaavila