It was a very unproductive week for me. I was visiting family, and I also got hit with a nasty flu which I'm still recovering from. As I only had a laptop at the time & didn't want to sculpt on the vampire mesh with only 14" of work space, I decided to do some blockouts of creatures in project nova.
The last 10% really does take awhile. I'm still recovering so it's hard to do the longer stretches of work I usually do, and spent a lot of my free time last week sleeping. Everything feels really surreal, and life keeps flashing before my eyes. I'll probably be back to 100% next week. IDK what kind of flu I had, but I'm glad the worst is over. Have a great week!
Time flies! I thought today was Wednesday, but actually it's Tuesday. Happy Tuesday everyone!
Last week I worked on updating the human basemesh retopology, separated the underwear lowpoly from the basemesh lowpoly, and began budgeting for textures. I also added fingernails, toenails, and detailed the vulva.
Last week I used consistent references (nsfw) to improve the human female basemesh. It's still damn hard to make something that doesn't feel uncanny, but It's just a matter of learning and forming the neural connections and muscle memory that will enable me to 'see' what works and what doesn't. Ideally over the years I'll get faster and more accurate at sculpting faces and anatomy.
More lowpoly and UV work was done as well as a test bake. The results aren't too shabby considering nothing is optimized. The face is 2k, the body a 4k. As per last week's update, the female genitalia is sharing space in a 1k map that will also include male genitalia, alongside other small, modular race-specific parts that are also available to customize, e.g; eyes, fingernails, and possibly more, with the goal being a character customization system similar to Cyberpunk 2077 or Baldur's Gate 3.
I've decided Project Nova will not have a first person mode, and will only be 3rd person. With this change comes the removal of modular fingernails and teeth, however I think this is fine since the fingernail idea came from Cyberpunk, which is a first person game that has you staring at V's hands throughout the game, and makes a lot of sense in that context. Modular teeth are not worth the effort, since teeth are really only seen during dialogue.
Last week was just shittons of learning. I've been a highpoly sculptor for most of my career, and have only rarely dabbled in textures and bringing everything together in-engine. This is what I've achieved, and it's great seeing how far I've gotten despite the mountain of work ahead of me to get everything looking pristine. https://youtu.be/rxsuB0CW6Rw
Next week I'll likely be bringing everything else to lowpoly. I'm eager to work on the male meshes, as well as animations and armour, it's a bit tiring seeing naked people for so long, tbh. The whole purpose of making excellent basemeshes is to make incredible armour and clothing.
I don't think I got a lot done last week. I swapped the lowpoly subdiv mesh of the vampire for the lowpoly of the human, and transferred the human anatomy updates over as well. I missed two days of project nova work, which I'll be making up for this week, and need to get my schedule back on track.
Your anatomy improved crazy fast! I absolutely love the vampire mesh and (sorry for being a pervert) the weird slited clitoris. Are your characters still going to be in the never nude gang?
lol anatomy is like the hardest thing ever, even more so than armour and weapons. Thanks! Yes characters will be nude simply due to how detailed I'm making everything else.
I think Baldur's Gate 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 showed the world how it isn't really that big of a deal. We're all born with bits and bobs. However there likely won't be depictions of sexual acts in game; I don't see it contributing much to a mostly looter-shooter survival sandbox game. If there is romance, there are good examples such as, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Dragon Age: Origins, where stellar writing, narrative, voice acting, and character development play key roles.
For me it's the opposite lol, I suck at hard surfaces.
Exactly, I think it's fun when you can get your character naked and customize their genitals even if there is no gameplay reason for it. And since you have multiple humanoids you can make interesting body designs that expends the lore.
Finished up the back of the wings, at least until I start polishing everything with alphas. Inner wings mostly done I'd reckon, until alphas as well. Cleaned up and made the scales around the face and neck smaller; this will apply to all areas with higher levels of articulation.
i feel like this is becoming incredibly noisy and harder to read. it kinda lacks mid and low level details of the prior versions that especially made it easier to read at a distance, i think you should go back a few levels and introducing some bigger shapes, clumping together details into interesting groups, rather than just surface noise
good point Neox, some of the larger shapes were softened when I projected the human basemesh details onto the vampire mesh, I've been meaning to go back and accentuate some parts, and reduce some noise
More scales & pulled out some details that were starting to get hidden. Mostly trying to get the scales density to look right before I really finalize larger shapes & details. Some of the scales were abnormally large & next to large patches of bare skin, or followed illogical patterns, like large scales in highly articulate areas. I particularly like the changes to the hips, but the small of the back is definitely more noisy, however the scale density is where I want it. I'll go back and fix it up later!
Replies
Added more detail to the abdomen, legs, back and tail.
Have a great week!
Have a great week!
Have a great week!
Have a great week!
More lowpoly and UV work was done as well as a test bake. The results aren't too shabby considering nothing is optimized. The face is 2k, the body a 4k. As per last week's update, the female genitalia is sharing space in a 1k map that will also include male genitalia, alongside other small, modular race-specific parts that are also available to customize, e.g; eyes, fingernails, and possibly more, with the goal being a character customization system similar to Cyberpunk 2077 or Baldur's Gate 3.
Next week I'll likely be bringing everything else to lowpoly. I'm eager to work on the male meshes, as well as animations and armour, it's a bit tiring seeing naked people for so long, tbh. The whole purpose of making excellent basemeshes is to make incredible armour and clothing.
Have a great week!
Have a great week!
Have a great week!
Have a great week!
Bonus Turntable!
Have a great week!
Have a great week!