SHODAN again and again...

gauss

i know, i know, i still haven't actually even beaten System Shock 2 (though looking to bash through it on co-op pretty soon), but i always seem to come back to SHODAN. such an iconic character design.
so while taking an opportunity to get back into 3d a little, i've been working on my take on SHODAN in 3d. it's been probably 4-5 hours at this point getting the head mesh together, and then a few more hours to play around with test lighting/material setups.
if you're familiar with SHODAN at all you can see that this is barely a preliminary image--though i don't plan on slavishly copying the SS2 design by any means, the finished product should look closer to that design. anyway, here's a viewport shot and a test render (both eyes and wavy green bits, and well the whole deal very WIP). not exactly looking for crits just yet... i'll post some design sketches or something later. just wanted to share with people.

edit: still just working on geometry




first render
first viewport


edit: some sketches.



obviously i want to keep it close to the original design, but i think that i'd like to take it further to the 'digital' end of the spectrum since a digital entity with all manner of tubes and other such physical artifacts doesn't quite make sense to me. more energy-related and almost a hint of tronishness (as possibly evidenced by the first screenshot) but we'll see how it goes.

man_o_mule

mmm, i'd love to do some lip synch animations with something like that.........i love shodan's voice in system shock 2. scariest game ever!!!

Toomas

I think her eyes are too far apart. Go straight up from the corners of her mouth, thats where the pupils should be.

Mr Smo

noooo dont bring back my obsession with that game !!!!!

sweet stuff man shodan rawks.

Steve Schulze

A few tweaks I can see that need to be done. Should make for a cool model.

ScoobyDoofus

I loved SS2. I agree Shodan's voice was amazing in that game. I really wished the graphics for that game had been better, as that would have helped my immersion but the sounds was so fantastic it was easy to overlook.

Daedalus

nice projet.. must add it in my "must follow " list
i agree with the voice. man too bad looking glass had to close... ... i whas hoping for a SS3 using the D3 engine...
one thing i would change are the eye . refering to the original poster. they could be more close.. look more menacing this way.. more feline

tRens

i brought this up in #model_design.. i can think of only a few games that would fit the doom3 engine perfectly.. and this one of them.. i ranting and raving how awesome a mod for doom3 or a complete remake of the first one for doom3 would kick but.. all the data is out there on the net.. the ground work is there.. now just to build it.. heh..

ther other game would be Ultima Underworld.

man o man..

LETS GET MOTIVATED!

tRens

adam

Having your shot compared to the one posted from the actual game, I think you could make the shape of her face from the cheakbones to her chin become narrow more quickly (I guess throw making the distance shorter).

Also, I really like how you achieved the laser/plasma effect w/ the eyes. Mind sharin' how?

gauss

thanks for the comments everyone.

mule: yeah, i dunno what i'm going to end up doing with her, but ending up with some sort of in-game asset would be cool. maybe normal mapped something or other, who knows.

Toomas: as you can see from the SS2 version of her, i've put the eyes about as far apart as they are in that version. not sure if i'll keep it that way, though. and in any case the current eyes are placeholders, you can kinda see in the viewport shot that they're only loosely set into the eyesockets. need to refine the mesh quite a bit.

mr smo: i don't know anyone the game has touched that it leaves alone.... :0

jackablade: thanks for posting that to the thread for a reference point for others, but i'm not going to be sticking with the SS2 design. the lady needs an update

scoob: yeah, i booted it up last night and (before it crashed) the sound design is as strong as ever.

daedalus: as i said with toomas, this will be something i'll be clearing up. i like the menacing effect of the eyes set wide, but we'll see how it goes.

trens: you never know

brome: it's not so much the face of her shape as it is the fact that the original face is partially 'clipped' by all the wires and stuff running into her. earlier test renders i had a clipping plane set up to mimic the effect, just ended up liking the full face render better.

oh, and the glowly wires? easy as pie. uh, i'm pretty sure i just used a falloff map in max with some self-illumination. though in one of the color slots for the falloff i used a secondary falloff to tweak the effect. i'm really pretty clumsy with shaders in max

Michael Knubben

It's looking pretty good so far, but ofcourse, it's lacking most of the character Shodan had, it's just a bit too friendly still.
ALso, does anyone know how to get SS2 to run on xp sp2?
i've found some things on the internet, but they're sketchy at best, and always feature this little tidbit: "this MIGHT work"
which isn't exactly what i'm looking for, heh.

gauss

yeah pea, she's not nearly mean enough or wired-up enough or generally shodan-y enough, but i hope to change that soon. i think i might be about done with the head geometry, then i'll move on to making all those wire bits and skinning the face. i've never messed around with bump maps and spec maps and super duper maps etc. so i think this'll be my opportunity. oh yeah, updated pics above.

poopinmymouth

mmmm green glowy eye gunk. my favorate. 8-) looking good gaussmo!

Steve Schulze

Lll-lll-l-look at you hacker. A p-ppathetic creature of meat and bone, panting and sweating as you run through my corridores. How can you hope to compete with a perfect, immortal machine.


[ QUOTE ]
i whas hoping for a SS3 using the D3 engine...

[/ QUOTE ]I'm surprised how few people have picked up on this - http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/bioshock/preview_6110044.html

More of a spiritual successor than a sequel, but I'm willing to hope that it'll be a worthy one. I can't see Shodan getting a look in though.

gauss

actually, there was a topic on Bioshock on the General Discussion board before it went down, it does look interesting.... though it'd still be good to see EA hand over SS3 to a capable team with the D3 engine. fat chance though.

RazorBladder

yah, I caught that on the day it was upped and keep on checkin back preying for more updates cause it does look to be a pretty awesome game.