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Hi Poly Attempt-Jaggir (And a Request for Advice).

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Scott Ruggels polycounter lvl 18
The company is moving into "Next Generation" technology and I am now having to learn High Poly" techniques. For the "PracticeModel, I wanted soemthing I kew well, so I have gone back and picked this piece of mine as the "Concept for the creature.
layer11.jpg
This guy finished out in the usual "Next Generation" full dress might look good in my portfolio, but to do it, well, that's the rub.

I set up the file, the way I usually do, with an inverted cube as a bas, and the plan views mapped to their corresponding faces:
Templatesetup.jpg

However, from where to proceed? If I follow the method described here:http://www.thehobbitguy.com/tutorials/polymodeling/. I get something like this:
ShellType.jpg

And I am finding the mesh density actually becoming a pain to adjst and deal with.

On the other hand, if I start with the "Box Method", as advocated by folks at the massive Black show, I get results that begin more like this:
Boxtype.jpg

I've done a lot of recent modelling using a varioation of the Polygon shell method, especially for production and it works for getting a useable monster quickly. But the Box method here, my instincts are telling me, that the fact I got a "good silhouette" in a shorter amount of time, and that I started with boxes, may give me a "cleaner" mesh. So how should I proceed in making this High Poly? (I want to get a base nude figure done, before I worry about Uniform, and acoutrements).

Thoughts?

Scott

Replies

  • JO420
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    JO420 polycounter lvl 18
    i like to break up the large pieces into seperate parts and i typically begin wit 1 polygon and guild up from there,then begin connecting the pieces and adding a meshsmooth or turbosmooth and then turing it off go back to lowpoly,make adjustments then add turn it on again until the model is done.
  • Scott Ruggels
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    Scott Ruggels polycounter lvl 18
    "Turn off" mesh smooth? So I should conver this to SubD? I do intend to turn this into a Normal mapped asset sothere would be a low poly version, as well as a High Polygon.

    Scott
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    JO420, Scott's working in Maya, talking about meshsmooth or turbosmooth will not help him at all, the way Maya deals with that stuff is fairly different to 3dsmax...

    Scott: Both of those meshes look like good starts. Either could become a good base for a high-poly model.
    You'll want to use (some advanced Maya user can probably correct me on this!) Smooth Proxy on that mesh? Then you can work on the low-poly model and it'll smooth it out like subdivision surfaces.
    I'd say just work on a high-poly thing for the time being, don't worry about how it looks in the low-poly version, as long as the smoothed mesh looks right, then once the high-poly model is done, then make a new low-poly mesh from scratch around it, and render the normal-map from that.

    I'm sure someone like Daz will be happy to tell you the correct workflow for stuff like this in Maya, I'm afraid I only use Max for highpoly work at the moment, so I'm not sure what a sensible way of doing that in Maya would be...

    I like the concept, look forward to see what the final model turns out like!

    MoP
  • JO420
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    JO420 polycounter lvl 18
    well sorry,my mistake,just trying to help
  • Scott Ruggels
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    Scott Ruggels polycounter lvl 18
    No worries, thanks for the suggestion JO.

    I'll give it a go, then MOP< take a look at Smooth Proxy. (Then Z brush acfter that for Extra Detail).

    Scott
  • JO420
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    JO420 polycounter lvl 18
    oh yeswhile i have your attention scott,you being more of a world war 2 freak than i am i wonder if i showed you a pic of a machine gun if you could please try to identify it,im making an environment from Raiders of the lost arc, on the funky looking german plane there is a machine mounted on its turret,it doesnt look like an mg42 i wonder if you might know?
  • Scott Ruggels
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    Scott Ruggels polycounter lvl 18
    Ah! that MG turret in the rear of the funky flying wing was a MG-15 Twin nm\mount. The Light Machine gun was used by the Weimar Republic as th squad Light Machine Gun, until surpassed by the more robust MG-34. th MG-15 continued in Service as the Flexible mount weapon for Luftwaffe Bombers.
    MG_15.gif
    MG-15_Small.jpg

    MG-15_Detail_Rear_01_Small.jpg
    MG-15_Detail_Rear_02_Small.jpg
    mg152.jpg
    http://www.thedentedhelmet.com/davin/replica_weapons.htm

    Hopefully this will help, Now Back to the Question... Smooth proxy?


    Scott
  • Kevin Johnstone
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    Kevin Johnstone polycounter lvl 18
    You have picked an incredibly hard first piece to make a hi poly model with. May as well dive in the deep end though I suppose.

    Best advice I can give concerning hi poly in general is to seperate out everything you possible can into seperate pieces and detail them out.

    It is good to rough out your proportions first like you are doing, but then create new seperate pieces for stuff like the strap, the buckle at end of strap, the caps on buckle, the bolts and pins on straps, the latch on end of strap that connects to waist belt and so on and on and on and on.

    A character generally takes us a solid month to model here and we still add a ton more detail in the normal map through photosho filters later so its good to settle down and get comfortable with the notion that you are looking at over a months work here, possibly 2 months to fully articulate your model.

    I think that getting comfortable with how long this stuff takes and approaching each part as an individual form as part of the whole are 2 incredibly important things to learn right away.

    Later on, when you understand the process, thats when you can spot where and when it is appropriate to cheat.

    So you ended up plumping for the tech afterall eh?
    You effects guy mailed me about it a wee while back.

    r.
  • JO420
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    JO420 polycounter lvl 18
    woot thats it scott ty you rock
  • Scott Ruggels
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    Scott Ruggels polycounter lvl 18
    Can't Elaborate on the local developments, but it has given me the incentive to learn the high end stuff. the Next Gen is where continued employment lies.

    As to making it all in separate pieces, that is what i was figuring, building out a base nude model as a clotheshorse, and then sculpting the great and pieces over it. I know the character, and I know how Military Equipment looks and is put together, Idont see making a lot of little pieces as being a bad thing, just a buit tedious, the gear is loosely based on British Pattern 37 Web and construction techniques so I can use common straps and fasteners and snaps all over.

    I'm just trying to figure out how to approach the body. "Smooth Proxy"?

    Scott
  • Noren
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    Noren polycounter lvl 19
    As for your question,which of the above showed methods to use:
    There isn't that much difference between the two of them, especially time-wise.(I remember dimly though that there is no shift-cloning edges in maya, so it could be different there.)
    You could have built the very same light mesh that you got with the box-modeling method by using the one of the hobbit-guy. All you have to keep in mind is to build from "big" to "small" and start detailing only if the rough forms are defined, so you don't have to move around too many vertices/edges/faces later in order to apply more global changes that could have been accomplished by just moving two or three vertices at an earlier time. As for permanently subdividing your model in order to quickly get a higher detailed mesh -as I understood it (I'm no maya user)- I personally wouldn't do it unless the basemesh was very rough and literary build out of extruded boxes. But opinions may differ on that wink.gif
  • Scott Ruggels
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    Scott Ruggels polycounter lvl 18
    Thanks. So then I "could"continue with either, in a rough form. If I did this as SubD. The goal is something similar to what Daz did with his German Soldier, I could take this down to a certain state then apply asmooth, but I am thinkingof taking to a certain state, and then importing it into Z-Brush. I think Ihave a Direction. Thanks.

    Okay

    Scott
  • Daz
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    Daz polycounter lvl 18
    Well, you're not doing anything horribly wrong here Scott. You've just not yet reached the point where either of those control cages are ready for smoothing that will give the desired result.

    Hit polygons>smooth on either of them right now and you'll see that your result is just an undefined blob in the vague shape of a dinosaur. And now undo it.

    The key is definitely to not feel overwhelmed with verts and edges to shift around. So keep the cage light, and only start detailing out when you're happy with basic forms. Just get stuck in with the split poly tool. Keep everything as quad as possible, and use edges close together to define a harder edge.

    If you are just starting out I would highly recommend using the CPS toolkist as opposed to Mayas crappy out of the box smooth proxy. It has way more functionality.
    However, nowadays personally I simply use 'smooth and undo'. It's crude but it works. Heres the thing: the purpose of any kind of smooth proxy setup is to be able to easily work with your control cage and see the driven smoothed result at the same time. But the more high res modeling you do, the less you will need to see both your cage and result simultaneously. Because you basically learn to predict how the smooth algorithm affects the geo and how it will look. You sort of gain this sixth sense for it. Its hard to explain but its very satisfying. I hope that doesn't come across as arrogant.
    Grab cps, ( http://www.highend3d.com/maya/mel/?group...;sort=file_name ) and just start trying to flesh out the shape of the thing and you will start to get a feel for how your topology on your cage looks once smoothed.
    That design you have there has an awful lot of bags and straps and stuff which can be real tricky. As Ror says, aint nuthin' like jumping in at the deep end smile.gif For objects you really need to think about how they are constructed to be able to make a high polygon model out of them. In that respect its very different from low poly modeling. If something is made out of two panels butted together, then heck, make it that way. So I see this model being made up of many many different pieces. Don't for the life of you try and make it as one. smile.gif Also, don't ever model 'as you go'. You seem to have your concept down ( nice too ) so you've figured that one out allready. There would have been nothing more annoying than really fleshing out the neck musculature on that dino nicely, only to cover it up with the scarf. As the concept is now your neck can be pretty simplistic. High poly modeling can be time consuming, and it's way less forgiving of course than low when it comes to big changes part way through a creation. Feel free to bug me. You know how much help you gave me with ze German.
  • ryan77
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    ryan77 polycounter lvl 18
    I cant help you with hi poly modeling... But i absolutely love that concept you came up with, wow (for some reason that just really hits the spot for me).
  • poopinmymouth
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    poopinmymouth polycounter lvl 19
    Scott, I always liked that model. Glad to see you taking it into high poly.

    Even though it will be in Max and not Maya, I am going to be doing a high poly video tutorial in the near future, so if you wanted to look for that, hopefully it will be in time to help you. I'm also going to make some quick reference cards (jpegs) for people to print out with common techniques and meshflow resolutions.

    I personally prefer the box method, and I just slowly cut away the details till it's refined.

    Also I'd say a month is far too long for that concept. It might take that long as a side project and as your first model, but a seasoned high poly guy should be able to crank that out in a week, the high poly anyway. I know Mr Rockstar has been doing some models of that complexity in 4 or 5 days. Arshlevon and myself have been reproducing similar feats as well. Don't let the time factor dishearten you, some people take longer, and you will definately increase speed with time.
  • Scott Ruggels
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    Scott Ruggels polycounter lvl 18
    Thank you Daz, I was thinking getting in the rough shapes in first, and looking at it, I think I may continue with the Cube version, as I can make the adjustments easier with the fewer and more regular edges and verts here, sort of "sketching" the base shapes in, before adding the details (As I would if this were a drawing.) The Shell cage was allready making me have to fiddle about too much with the edges and verts to get the shapes right. Okay so I will give the CP Tools a try. U intellectuially inderstand what one does for highpoly, I just don't have much experience, as I have been a low poly guy since the mid nineties, and my previous High Poly work was for rendering, and therefore modelled supremely inefficiently. (Mostly buildings and trucks for the old PC Armymen series).

    Poop, the time factor isn't a worry, really. It is a side project, but being done at work to practice Hi Poly techniques, as well as "looking productive" while I do this and Learn Z-brsh and some other new "Next Generation Tools". Still I'd like to take a little time on this, but I am not seeing where my 200 Polygons and hour estimate for low to medium low polygon work will translate to High Poly work. I'll just have to dive in and see what I get. Thanks for the Advice, though.

    Scott
  • Rick Stirling
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    Rick Stirling polycounter lvl 18
    From the stuff I have been doing at home I generally ignore the lower poly model at the start. The reason for this is that I don't want to be constrained by the final low poly piece when working on the high poly version.

    I'd say that for the concept you chose the Zbrush part is quite a while away, and you can do most of it in the 3d pacakge( I have practically zero Maya knowledge, so I'll ignore the specifics).

    the great thing about HP as already mentioned is that you can seperate it into multiple objects. Each object can de detailed as much as you want, and you can intersent and boolean as much as you need to (though this can screw up smoothing, but you already know about the perils of booleans).

    So you can build your accessories separately, cut holes for the belt holes, boolean or intersect your belt loops and buckles and buttons. All thos patches you have that we used to just paint? Build them as seperate objects and simple place them into the mesh.

    You low poly version is also easier to build (your low poly cage will still probably be higher than what you are used to) - as well as having your old 2d sketches, you will have a fully formed 3d concept model to check it against, and probably verts to snap your low poly cage to.

    If you havent already seen it, I really cannot stress how good Martin Krols Demon.avi is. it'll take a little bit of searching as there are a few dead links out there. If you can find it I can upload it for you, its a fair size.

    He builds a nice quad mesh then details it, but what you might like to see is the way he builds the accessories.
  • malcolm
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    malcolm polycount sponsor
    Get the cps toolbox and mj poly tools both for Maya and then do the appropriate tutorials for both and you will be set. cps is great for learning as it puts the low res and high res out put meshes in layers so you can see exactly how tweaking the low res model affects the hi res in real time. As a personal preference I like to use cps and smooth to level 2 for all my high res junk.
  • StrangeFate
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    StrangeFate polycounter lvl 18
    [ QUOTE ]
    If something is made out of two panels butted together, then heck, make it that way

    [/ QUOTE ]
    Can't agree more. Always hurts to see meshsmoothed lowpoly models with some random details carved into them, while to have something look like it was built, you should model it the same way.

    A good thing to do if you're experimenting with new stuff is to not start wih the most visible and important part of the model.
    I'd start with one of the bags, probably the big one on the side. Seems like a good playground to try out the different ways to approach hipoly modeling.
    That should warm you up and give you a bsic workflow to follow.
  • Scott Ruggels
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    Scott Ruggels polycounter lvl 18
    I think I have it a shade better in that I have a lot of Military Items that I can handle and turn over and look at when I model to get the construction techniques, and My "Mental" approach for the gear is sort of the way of a High end action figure, in that each back, and sttrap will be made of multiple components. The body however, I think I want to start with for 1.) to make sure that the the proportions and size are correct for putting the gear over, and 2,to practice creature musculature, and surfacing in High poly, as well as to have the base model around for the other variations. I am thinking that the lo poly cage made for the concept abopve specifically will have to be a "New" item, made over the high poly at a later date. Hopefully in it's construction I can hide the texture seams well.

    But I always wanted an action figure like that. :-)
    Progress to be posted AFTER i Return from San Diego onthe 20th.

    Scott
  • John Warner
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    John Warner polycounter lvl 18
    I'm just retardedly late on this thred, but i might as well add my 2 cents.

    when i started high poly modeling, I didn't really find that it was any different than low poly modeling, even tho before i started, i had no concept on how to do it, which is very strange..

    just keep everything quads, nice and clean, and methodicaly add detail. i prefer the box method a little more.. if you have that base mesh that you posted above, you can just start by grabbing some polies at the base of the rear leg and extruding them down, rotating, etc etc, untill it forms a proxy leg, which just makes out the basic shape of the leg. from then, it's a matter of adding lines, and adjusting here and there untill you get a shape you're happy with. there's a few tricks that might be useful, like adding edge loops around the leg on the body, to help with deformation, although that might not be nessisary. high poly to me is just keeping my mesh clean, and bringing edges together to make creases when you want them. you can make the dino's body like that, faily simply. as far as the equipment goes, like ror suggested, just make them separately. a proper rig would hold them all together, and quite frankly, if you want something to look right, you've got to build it the way it acctualy is in real life.

    and make sure you take your time, although i'm sure i dont need to tell you that.

    i hope that helped, and wasn't just incohearant banter. if it was, make sure and tell me so smile.gif

    oh, btw, Scott, once again, your knowlage of all things ww2 is absolutely staggering.
  • Pseudo
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    Pseudo polycounter lvl 18
    Rick, you peaked my interest so I went and found the video you mentioned. You can find several of Martin Krol's videos here:

    http://prymevalgraphics.com/martin_krol_vids.htm

    As it turns out I had seen them before, but long since lost the files, so it was good to grab them again.

    Thanks for the tip!
  • Scott Ruggels
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    Scott Ruggels polycounter lvl 18
    Holy flying Dogshit, Professor, this Crazy Gismo really works!! Here's a couple three hours of progress using the "Connect Polygon" tool. And man, it it working well, The low detail mesh is odd, but the smoothed mesh is sweet. here, take a look!

    Jagfront34_th.gif

    jagrear34_th.gif

    Jagsidewire_th.gif

    Jagfrontwire_th.gif

    I will update as I make major changes. Now I just need to figure out how to put in the mouth...

    Scott
  • JKMakowka
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    JKMakowka polycounter lvl 18
    I might be just me, but I can't really advise working with this aproach.

    As you have already said, it results in really bad level0 meshes, and as soon as you get to a certian level of detail it will not be a practical modeling aproach (1. because of performance issues while modeling, and 2. because you don't have as much controll over the mesh as you have with a clean level0 mesh).

    It basicly only works well, for round, cartoon like meshes.
  • Scott Ruggels
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    Scott Ruggels polycounter lvl 18
    THink so? Well I'll muddle along for how on this, for the main body, For the equipment, I know I have to use a different technique.

    Scott
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    JKMakowka: What? Do you do a lot of high-poly work in Maya? To me this looks like a fine start to a mesh.

    That's usually what control cages look like at this stage... I think you're on the right track, Scott. For the mouth you can just cut some new edges in for the approximate shape, then extrude those inwards, that should work.

    MoP
  • ScoobyDoofus
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    ScoobyDoofus polycounter lvl 19
    Scott:I think its going to be great! Im so used to seeing the isoline display in max, the dense wires its showing are throwing me a bit, but the low-green cage looks sharp. Im sure with a bit more TLC this will turn out really fantastic.
  • Daz
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    Daz polycounter lvl 18
    Looks like progress to me Scott!
  • JKMakowka
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    JKMakowka polycounter lvl 18
    Yeah I guess you could redefine the mesh Scott did, to have a really nice model, it is a bit too early to really judge it.
    But he explained it in a way that made me think that he is actually working in a smoothed mode, while manipulating the control mesh. Which basicly means that is is just looking at the smoothed result, and not actually trying to get a good level0 mesh.
    Working like this results for example into really sharp spikes (and sometimes overlaps) in the level0 mesh which will look ok in smoothed mode but really limit your control over the final result, and are also bad for unwrapping and animating the mesh.

    But it is probably also my aproach to basicly model 100% detail directly into the mesh, and only blocking it out very roughly before that (which works pretty well wink.gif ).

    I hope this made sense (if not I blame it all on the Irish beer tongue.gif ), but to put it in a nutshell a good level0 mesh will look good by itself, and does NOT depend on smoothing to look good.
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    Ah, right, I see what you mean.

    Yeah, it's usually a good idea to switch off between the control mesh and smoothed version (if you're not doing that already, Scott - are you?) just so you make sure the low-poly cage is staying fairly sensible and workable.

    JKMakowka: Also though, if this is purely for a normal-mapping exercise (which it seems to be), it doesn't really matter what the control mesh looks like as long as the smoothed result is ok, since it's just the smoothed version that will be baked down to a different low-poly mesh later on.
  • JKMakowka
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    JKMakowka polycounter lvl 18
    Yeah, but it is a bad habit you can get used to, even though it doesn't matter for normalmaps.
  • Daz
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    Daz polycounter lvl 18
    Am I missing something here? I honestly do not see the 'problem'. I see a low poly cage driving a subdivided result in these shots. That's er, subdivision modeling.
  • JKMakowka
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    JKMakowka polycounter lvl 18
    Below is an example (not by me, sorry can't remember where I got it from... if it is by 'you' and you don't like it beeing used, I will imidiatly remove it):

    Picture1
    Picture2
    (!Warning nudity!)
    This is actually really well done, but as you can see, the smoothed result looks great, while the level0 mesh looks well 'urrggh'. I guess this mesh is done the way described above (not entirly sure though, might be also to save rendering time or something like that). And it is not only bad looking, but a mesh build like that is not really well suited to add further detail (without drastically changing it) and UV-mapping and descent weighting for animation will be also quite difficult to do I guess.
  • Fuse
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    Fuse polycounter lvl 18
    it is my understanding that he will have to remake his lowpoly model to follow the contours of his highpoly properly and will not use his control cage to bake the normalmap onto
  • Scott Ruggels
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    Scott Ruggels polycounter lvl 18
    The control cage, is yes, a throw away as I am following Poop's advice and just make a new low ply cage when the ENTIRE model is finished including uniform bits, so that like those above pictures the Level 0 mesh is not for use, The Hich PolyMesh will have two "Uniforms" over a basic body, and the Low Poly mesh will have the model and uniform modeled as one onbject for UVW mapping. That's what the plan is. If I was going to do a regular "Low to High" I would start with a moderate level mesh, and then just chuck it into Z-Brush, but at the moment I am not all that good at Z-Brush (Fucking Interface), and I want the gear separate,but whole. I may do a piece like that later,but for now, i want somethingon the level of the Unreal 3 Models, with that sort of detail, and I epect it to take a long time.

    Scott
  • JKMakowka
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    JKMakowka polycounter lvl 18
    Okok, you win wink.gif

    I am not really talking about normalmaps and such, just about doing highpoly models the proper way (tm). I guess I am just a bit old fashioned, and too influenced by the digital sculpturers over at Spiraloid laugh.gif
    But just because you can get away with a lot of things when using mormalmaps, doesn't mean a proper highpoly mesh doesn't look better tongue.gif

    Zbrush, btw, is a nice tool, but it is way overrated at the moment. Actually I think it is a really nice tool to do surface detail a lot better than it was done before by bumpmaps and stuff like that, but it doesn't really replace a well crafted base mesh. But than again call me old fashioned tongue.gif
  • Daz
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    Daz polycounter lvl 18
    Ah I getcha JK. That image you posted makes a good point, only not really valid in this instance smile.gif
    Overall after several months with it now, I'm definitely generally somewhat dissapointed with Zbrush. Performance and actually spitting usable data outta there are still big cumbersome issues as far as Im concerned. Definitely has its use though.
  • Kevin Johnstone
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    Kevin Johnstone polycounter lvl 18
    I think Zbrush is more useful than you are saying Daz.
    While I have not used it enough to say so with complete confidence, I have been watching and learning from Kevin Lanning's use of it on the characters on the Gears of War.

    I think its an incredibly useful tool that lives up to expectations with the correct workflow.
    While I need to agree that it is a laborious process in terms of how many pieces you are required to break your model up into so you can export/zbrush/polycrunch and return to max, you can't argue with the results.

    In the end , it is all about results I think.
    Quality has always taken time and now that the bar has risen again, as it always has before, quality is still the deciding factor and we are simply required to become more capable with the time required for that quality which has always been accomplished by spending more time practising in the past.

    I don't see a reason yet to assume the same will not be true whilst sure, I still appreciate that it all takes longer still now wink.gif

    r.
  • Daz
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    Daz polycounter lvl 18
    Well, what I've discovered is that there are a number of complicated factors that actually make it a lot more usable in a pipeline that is Max based as opposed to Maya. I'm not disputing its validity or usefullness overall though. But the interface still blows ;-p
  • Scott Ruggels
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    Scott Ruggels polycounter lvl 18
    Why does it not surprise me that Z-Brush works better with Max? I just need something tio practice with. Well I have a rudimentary face, and fingers on the model.

    MOP I'm all I am doing is using face estrudes, and being very vcareful to keep thing 4 sided. to keep themesh logical, if not perfectly smooth. Adding detail only as necessary at the moment. I may need more general detail, to tighten up a few places but it seems to work.

    Scott

    Scott
  • Scott Ruggels
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    Scott Ruggels polycounter lvl 18
    Update.

    well after about 4 days of not very hard work on it, The basic shape and elements are all there. It's odd seeing a creature developed before my education in 3D appears as a full volume form. it's evident, that I cheatd a lot with the form, and in making the model Ihad to decide between the discrepencies between the front and side view.

    jag05_th.gif

    jag06_th.gif

    jag07_th.gif

    jag08_th.gif

    jag09_th.gif

    jag10_th.gif

    jag11_th.gif

    So from now it will be some twiddling and tweaking of vertson the control cage and adding a little more here and ther for some muscle definition, but that's basically the shape, for now, When I am done, next will be to drag it into "Z-Brush" and learn how to use that properly, so that this can be the dry and dustry creature I've always imagined it to be.

    Scott
  • ScoobyDoofus
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    ScoobyDoofus polycounter lvl 19
    Good progress Scott!
    I know you mentioned tweaking and a little adding for muscles, but...
    I'd say, personally, that you need to make your low-poly control cage quite a bit denser before moving onto zbrush.
    Really, it works best if your cage is closer to the final result than you've got it here.

    Anyway, Im sure you'll turn out fine though!
    Keep up the good work!



    Outside of managability, there isnt much reason to practice polygon economy with this portion of the character.
  • Scott Ruggels
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    Scott Ruggels polycounter lvl 18
    Actually, Id say that it would be for the sake of cage manageability, but yeah I am slowly overcoming my timidity and just adding detail. the muscle definition is going to be plenty of detail as well as more detail in the neck.Yeah a bit more detailing, and shaping, but it's close.


    Probably not a lot more in the head, though thats about as far as I think it needs (though I could be wrong). But once I have the base body, I can use it for several projects,and directions, like this:

    priestessvjag.JPG

    Scott
  • aesir
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    aesir polycounter lvl 18
    I agree with scooby. I would add a LOT more to your control cage. I'd also work a bit more with edgeloops. Right now the mesh is looking pretty messy with all those triangles... Another problem is the muscle definition you've added so far. It looks like you've just modeled in a crease in the leg, rather than defining two actual muscles and the separation between them. If I were you, I wouldn't rely on zbrush to do all the shaping for you, and I'd work on that mesh quite a bit more.

    I've found it helpful to look at other people's high poly meshes while I work on my own to see how they manage their loops and everything. My favorite forum for that is spiraloid. Might wanna check it out.
  • Scott Ruggels
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    Scott Ruggels polycounter lvl 18
    A...lot more? O...O-okay.

    Scott
  • aesir
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    aesir polycounter lvl 18
    My last post kinda lacked examples so I found a few of some high poly creatures/heads that might help show you a more denser cage.


    a puppy
    http://img188.exs.cx/img188/8343/GM_Wire_WIP_04.jpg
    http://img188.exs.cx/img188/6238/GM_Body_WIP_13.jpg

    a head
    http://img169.echo.cx/img169/476/newerdude97tr.jpg

    high poly head tutorial
    http://67.15.36.49/team/tutorials/criven/criven01.asp

    3dtotal also had a good tutorial on modeling sebula i think...


    It looks like youre worried about the polycount in your model. You dont need to weld anything together to make tris, instead you could just continue the loop all the way around the model. If you need more detail, make another loop. Anyways, my advice is mainly to just look around at other people's meshes...
  • Scott Ruggels
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    Scott Ruggels polycounter lvl 18
    Okay, here's the critter updated after a few more hours of love. More muscle definition. refinement of legs and head. it probably still needs more detail, but I just wanted opinions on the progress so far. This Quads business, and clean mesh is hard!

    jag13_th.gif

    jag14_th.gif

    jag15_th.gif

    jag16_th.gif

    jag17_th.gif

    jag18_th.gif

    jag19_th.gif

    jag20_th.gif

    So let me know what I should be doing now and where I can imrpve things. I hope to start with Z-Brush on this guy as soon.

    Thanks.

    Scott
  • poopinmymouth
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    poopinmymouth polycounter lvl 19
    Right now your cuts are too boxy. It looks like you made a smooth control cage, then cut the lines in where you wanted them, but didn't edit the mesh flow to respect the new flow of edges. For every bit of detail, you want to try to have the edges running either directly across it, or directly with it. When it runs at odd angles, you have to have many more edges than when they run with it and over it.

    Hope that makes sense.
  • Daz
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    Daz polycounter lvl 18
    Poop explained that much better than I was about to. I was struggling to find the words. I also think you have too many tris, and the edge loops dont seem to follow the contours of the creature too well. That stuff only comes with a lot of practise though man. So keep at it, and maybe try studying some quality wireframes too.
  • EarthQuake
    Yeah poop and daz pretty much hit it on the head there.... I never seem to be able to find quality wireframes when i need to, anyone have some good stuff they know of anywhere?
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