Variag Peasant

Joshua Stubbles

Haven't pimped anything in a long time. I started working on a mod for Rome: Total War, based on Tolkien lore. The mod takes place about 70 years after Aaragorn's death, with middle earth falling into shambles.
I'm a prop/enviornment artist, but these guys wanted me to make some characters instead. So please be a bit forgiving when it comes to my anatomy and badly painted char textures

There are a few issues as well, with the bone skinning. These will be resolved soon. The funky yellow on the guy's arm is from the lighting in the level. I'll be creating 4 additional LOD meshes, dropping all the way down to 80 polys.

johnwoo

Very nice work Vassago..as far as I can see there is good use of polygon's and texture space usage...no crits from me...with the lighting problem have you tried looking at the face normals? could need a smoothing group maybe inside the sleeve?...worth a try if you have'nt tried it as of yet (just never seen any discrepencies like that before..will you be posting the LOD versions aswell?....all the same good stuff man...

_Shimmer

actually this stuff looks very nice until it comes to the ngame scenes itself. For some reason it just looks crappy somwhow. Maybe that an lighting issue

The model + texture looks very good, well balanced and stuff. The texture looks damn good (yet a bit too much brown), the head could be right out of bobos mind (got inspired eh?). I would wish to see some colorvariation somehwe.
Can you show us a close up of the head?

And hey, if you have more time, just post yur stuff, very cool.

KDR_11k

The textures seem washed out ingame, try increasing their contrast ad adding specular highlights.

Chunkey

I'm liking what I see really nice texture work, though I agree with KDR about increasing the contrast a bit more- A cheap and fast way of doing this that I've been using recently is to do a copy flattened on the texture, and then set the new layer to luminosity and just ramp up the contrast that way- you should keep the hue balance just right this way too.

With the mesh, you could lose some more verts and still get it looking the same, mostly around the shoulders- if you bring out the verts that make up the vertical seam and just assign them to the clavicle bones only, you can use the top 2 verts at the beginning of the arms to get the bend, and nob off the ones on the underside. You can then afford to add another edgeloop around the middle, just for better torso deformation, depending on how many spine links you have in your skeleton.
It all comes down to how optimal you want the model, though it does look fine as it is

JDinges

Like they said, the model/texture is quite pimp. But the engine is killing it, maybe the lighting is too intense?

The foot seems strange, the top of it seems to be very swollen. I'd flatten the foot out a bit.

good work

Joshua Stubbles

Thanks for the comments so far.

As it turns out, the reference and information I was given to create this was incorrect. I have to redo most of the model and texture now.

Johnwoo - I think you're right on the normals issues. I'll try using another smoothing group on the cuff.

Shimmmer - I do agree that it looks a bit crap in-game. Rome: Total War's lighting system is a bit harsh to say the least. The texture is a bit bland as well, but I was trying to get it as close to the ref image as I could.

KDR & Chunkey - I'll try messing around with the contrast, see if I can get it to "pop" a little more. I'll also look into removing some of those extra verts.

Jdinges - That's now fixed Thanks.

Here's a closer view of the face (looks crappy, but you'll never see it this close anyways):



This is the reference image I was given:

Thegodzero

Nice vassago! Makes me want to go back and make even lower LOD's for my nazi. Nice face, but i dont like your hands, their geometry just dosn't do it for me.

One last thing, its something i forgot to do as well, but is something to think about for next time. His expression, he looks bored not like someone whos going to cut my arm off.

rollin

what? its possible to make new models for rome?? .. whow thats cool .. maybe i take a look (liked shogun alot)

model and textures look good

but something wired on the ankle of the arm on the first ingame pic.. ?!?

Joshua Stubbles

The ankle of the arm? You mean the elbow? Yea, I know. There are a few bone skinning problems I have to fix. I skinned the mesh in like 2min, so it's a bit flawed atm.

TheGodZero - Good observation on that one. I painted him as being a boring peasant, but it does look a bit odd when he's running after you like that

I also checked the mesh right now. I already had a differant smoothing group on inside cuff than the arm has. So I'm not too sure what is causing that yellow area on the arm.

*update I adjusted the contrast in the texture, and it looks a lot better. Playing the level with "midday" lighting instead of evening or morning resolved the yellow-arm issue.

D63

Hey cool, this super low poly stuff is great, my room mate is working on the Warhammer mod for Rome and he's been doing some really cool stuff too.

Joshua Stubbles

Another update to the mesh and texture:





The fun thing about making content for RTW is that it's easy to get into the game. The engine has a lot of limitations though. Everywhere there is a UV seam, you have to break the mesh. There can also only be one bone influencing each vert, so it's hard to get nice deformations. Overall though, it's a blast.

Daz

Very cool man. I didn't even realise Total War was moddable. Great work on the textures.

Joshua Stubbles

Thanks

RTW is moddable, but not extensively. There is no real mod support from Creative Assembly, nor are there any "real" mod tools. Defineatly no source code, either. Hopefully that will change soon. Right now, there are a few maxscripts that people have made, which allow you to import/export the CAS mesh files.

johnwoo

Cool...good to hear you fixed the yellow weird area on his sleeve..I guess you can put that down to experience then...mesh is deforming well also...keep up the good work...