UT2004 Female Character - Stryker
polycounter lvl 18
Here is a character that I have been working on for the past month or so off and on. This character is geared more towards higher end engines such as the Doom 3 or Next Gen Unreal 3 engine, but im going to just import it into 2k4 for now. Original poly limit I set for myself was 5,000 tris, considering Unreal 3 has characters between 6,000 and 12,000. Ended up being 4,786, so I guess thats good 
.
Just finished laying out the UV's and now im getting ready to texture, rig and animate her. She will have a completely new skeleton and new animation files as well.
Well, I wanted to see what anybody else thought, comments and critiques are welcome.
.Just finished laying out the UV's and now im getting ready to texture, rig and animate her. She will have a completely new skeleton and new animation files as well.
Well, I wanted to see what anybody else thought, comments and critiques are welcome.
Replies
Design is pretty redundant, what exactly are you looking to add to the game?
The design is cheesy 1980's space oddysey, kind of appeals to me.
Welcome to polycount!
Got an SDK (wires + 3ds or obj file) ready? I'd like to take a whack at skinning her sometime.
damn, is she stuck on ONS_artic stronghold or something?
[/ QUOTE ]That would be a nice if not a bit sleazy feature for future games...
With the right textures it would look really good in UT2004.
Etienne
shotgun - Not sure what you mean . . . ? I just want to create a character. I agree the design is cheezy and simple.
Snowfly - I will post the wires tonight. I agree about the design.
poopinmymouth - thanks for the comment. I agree with everyone that the design is simplistic, but I didn't want to get too crazy with my first UT character. This is more or less a practice for me to see how to get it in the game. She is simple and easy to rig, which is what I was aiming for.
Skizot - I remember the cop guy, wasn't his name Jax or something like that? Don't remember any frost though . . . I will have to go look at the game again. I'll add a face mask, and leave it optional with transparencies to make it visible or not. I originally intended for her to have a mask, but wasn't sure if I should put one on or not.
Weiser_Cain - i'll post some wires tonight.
Hollowmind - Huh, I didn't know that. Hope the model doesn't get all screwed up then . . . that would suck . . . alot. I'll take a look at the ear again. If its fixable with a texture, I will just do that.
sundance - actually, yes! No, i dunno . . . probably gonna remove the nips, although you cant really see them when there is a texture on her.
Kirin - Cool, that would be awesome of you. As soon as the model is ready, i'll give you a hollar.
Etienne - Thanks for the comment.
Thank you guys for your comments and taking the time to view and post in this thread. I have a question for the one's that mentioned the simple design . . . would you mind giving some tips to improve it? I am more then open to suggestions and would like to change it now before I get halfway through animating her.
It's always a pleasure seeing people more open minded to suggestions rather than sticking to "Da Shit"..
I apprecaite it..
So like I said the human geomatry is pretty sick. You obviously know what you're doing. She's almost 8 heads tall which is little too much for me (and I'm 6"5 myself) but hey.. whatever shwings your magic puppet
If you want to go for a classic cheap 80's vid game style, that's fine. I respect that and I won't pretend to say any other design is better, you do what you want to do. But I think you can deffinately push it a little further than that, possibly by creating some more interesting geomatry that would be noticeably as a silloutte or, at least, from afar. Older arcades didn't rely on details anyways, rather on a graphicly coheseve design (MoP - that's second time, third time I'll paint you an icecream!). So you want to stick to a narrow palette and large shapes.
I'm not a personal fan of "belt with boxes", its so fucking redundant.. but this may be a tech issue with how the models runs in game, i dunno. If it's not, id break out of this wretched wrap-around design for a belt and work organic.
The female crest and waist area could/should be your insipiration, especially noticing her very, un, feminin form. Just connect some lines, follow organic anatomical energy points, connection points of muscles, etc., mirror it, and you've got something. It can be stylized like the "belt" around her shoulder, sharing the same material. That could work well.
Good job on the proportions. There are *very* few people here who model hands proportional to the face.
EDIT
what I meant, btw, by "what are you adding to the game".. seeing the work on yourwebsite you seem to work quite realistically, and UT has a realistic style as it is. So style-wise, I don't expect you to add a great deal to the game (no disrespect tho). The character design looks just like any of the original UT models that shipped (quality wise as well), in fact even like one that I've skinned myself. You can always push the design with the skin, but if you are the one making the model.. right?
Make something new. Something from You. Something anyone would see and say oh.. this model.. this shit stands out. who made this? It looks like something *** would make cause it's unique..
I feel - and this is quite personal - that unless you actually contribute something to the game, expanding it, and not just enhancing what has already been made. Know what I mean?
shotgun - you rock. Thanks for the info. I think im going to do a quick "once over" on the model and give it a little face lift. Your comments are much appreciated. Thanks guys. Im off to bed now.
I don't see a lot of lost, or useless polys (if any).
When are you going to start rigging and skining this model?
Etienne
Looks like her butt could do with an extra row of polys for good deformation (right at the base of each buttock).
Also the front of the knees could do with an extra row of polys too, those knees would look really "sharp" when bent.
The back of the neck and head is too poly-heavy at the moment, too, there's a lot sitting there doing nothing.
Since it's low-poly, I'd recommend triangulating before doing any rigging/texturing, since that's a much better way of seeing where you do/don't need polys for in-game meshes.
Yeah, it's a nice mesh, but no, it's not the best example of low poly topology I've ever seen on these boards
Keep it up!
MoP
In a nutshell, as Paul has touched on, you're sacrificing good deformation and efficiency soley for the purpose of keeping the model all quads, and there's just no need.
But don't get me wrong, this is a beautiful model!
I have no idea how to quad or sub-D a model, but I'm sure daz is right anyways.
Waaa
Etienee
But.
Quads in game as it places .
It help maintain a good Tri strip.
And that is very important in games.
b1ll
That's pretty cool. I know how work can come in the way of personal projects. Well, for me that's animation at Concordia-U, part time job and my family. What did you do on the TV show?
I can't wait to see the update.
Take Care
Etienne
I was responsible for the modeling and texturing of the Hotel, as well as the destruction of it including dynamics and animation. It was alot of work and late nights. Pretty sad though cause you spend like a month of hardcore work hours on 15 sec of air time . . . oh well! Lol. Take care.
Great looking female you have here! I'm loving the proportions, and the overall quality (and the relaxed pose too) reminds me of this model Zack Petroc did for his Gnomon DVD... which is a good thing!
I'm with Shotgun, these things are important. But I'm sure the finished model will stand out anyway.
On a side note, you might make some rigging tests with her if you want to use the UT2k4 stock anims and rigs. They are using a classic cs biped skeleton and I'm not sure if its really that easy to skinweight a model ontop of a classic biped rig once put in such a pose : once posed back to a weapon holding pose it might cause problems, but I'm unsure.
I have a pic of the default pose the UT creators most probably used somewhere (taken from the UT skeletons download pack), I can try to dig this out for you if you need.
Good job!
Scott
I know the feeling of working a long time on something a getting a VERY short film. Since I'm studying in animation 8 to 10 hours of work (alone) give me aprox 1min of black n white animation on 16mm film. (God I hate film)
Keep up the good work!
Etienne
Stryker:
sundance - actually, yes! No, i dunno . . . probably gonna remove the nips, although you cant really see them when there is a texture on her.
[/ QUOTE ]
No, not the nipples!
I think you will see them though.
What about making the model for HL2 also
(I don't care for nips) I just want something cool.
Etienne