had some time and helped some friends out on PT2 since they got not much modelers. Basicly i wanted to port my favourite character model from the first part (HL1 engine) to HL2. It turned out a bit excessive regarding specular maps and stuff. I made the face 1 year ago, opened it again added polygons here and there, reunwrapped and retextured it. i made a hipoly model out of it and used some paint deformation for defning and finally baked out a normalmap. The texture itself consists of approx 10 photossources, which were overapainted. I use this technique to achieve a semi realistic look. Then i added a specular map and selfillumination map for simulating SSS. Was really fun stuff.
crits are welcome. Not a masterpiece of art, but hey.
Replies
The eyes are way too white - no eye is ever that bright! Argh!
Also his eyes are very large ... in the original skin for HL1, he has really narrow suspicious eyes, now in this version he looks like he's staring or frightened of something. The eyes should be smaller to capture that look again I think.
The shape of the nostrils and base of the nose in the side view seems somehow wrong - too square?
I'm not a huge fan of the lips - the top lip is shaped a bit strange (too wide at the top) and the bottom lip is huge. Plus it isn't very shiny - the highlights on the lip should be as bright as the nose or cheek, but they don't appear to be.
I don't like the hairline where it meets the forehead at all. It's just a solid colour with no highlights or detail, doesn't look good at all IMHO.
The ear is a pretty weird shape especially in the front view (doesn't stick out enough, too small) and the texture looks very poor compared to the skin of the face, which is all bumpy and has nice highlights and stuff.
His neck is also kinda odd, the shape is too straight and square, not enough curves to look natural.
It's a shame because the flesh tones and shininess of the skin texture are excellent, but then the other parts let it down. I think it needs a bit of re-working before it will match your usual quality, Shimmer.
I guess it would look fine in game, but it's the difference between "fine" and "awesome" I guess I'm trying to find
MoP
The distance from his eyes to his ears seems to far, and the tops of his ears are high on his head. Generally your eyes line up with the top of your ears. Could be just an issue with the angle the pics were taken on.
OVerall though I'd say this is a solid piece.