noob born babe

mikejkelley

I am creating this character for an multiplayer FPS mod. She currently has just under 5000 polys, which, while it may seem like a lot now, will probably not seem as much when the game is finally released.

The first pic is a viewport cap of a wireframe, the second two are from stills of an animation of her walking. The "hand" issues she is currently exhibiting will prolly be cleared up easily. She is currently wearing two maps and a bunch of materials... [img]http://www.mikejkelley.com/shoulder wires.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.mikejkelley.com/kiyoko walk1.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.mikejkelley.com/kiyoko walk2.jpg[/img]
And now for some questions...
By looking at the top pic, can anyone tell me if the underarm deformation issues are caused by geometry errors or from weighing errors?
Also,
I'm noob to skinning. I have been selecting the faces of cylindrical objects (like arms, legs, torso,...), applying a uvw map modifier then cylinder>fit>acquire, and then applying a uvw unwrap modifier on top of that. Then I collapse the stack. How do I get all those seperate maps for the arms, legs, torso, etc,... on to one single map? Or don't I?

Keep in mind, I'm just a hobbyist, and know very little of character modeling outside of pushing verticies x, y, and z.

Asherr

collapsing the stack is the problem. collapsing tells it you are done adding uv maps.

do this instead:
1) mesh/poly select
2) select polies you want to map
3) uvmap
4) uv unwrap
5) move the mapping to a distinct area
6) mesh/poly select
7) select new area
8) repeat steps 2-7 until you model is fully mapped

if you want at this point you could collapse the stack, then select the entire model and apply a UV map and unwrap. all the sections should now be on the same map where you placed them. now arrange your map.

pior

I love the redered images... Looks a bit like something out of JetSetRadio, and the twisted hands remind me of E Schile's works. Nice and original!

Is your FPS engine capable of such a rendering quality in the long run?

There are some weirdness on the model tho. Seems like you have unwelded verts on the underarms. Besides that the approach you take on the shouldera area is not 100% anatomically accurate, yet the FFX modelers took the same route and the results kickedass so one cannot blame you for that.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v242/pior_ubb/ff_01_white.jpg

The boobs are rather dense too (read : geosphere slapped on). Yet I guess it might allow clean boobshading once put ingame. Just try to make them 'merge' into the whole mesh more, to avoid shading harsh shading steps.

You might also want to post an actual full perspective shot if you want further crits on the model topology aso.

Please correct me guys if I'm telling bullshit!

Nice work man.

mikejkelley

Cool, thanks! Very helpful indeed Asherr.

Pior, thanks for the encouraging words. What appears to be accidentally unwelded verts is really just a technique I've come across to make sure that the engine renders a nice line where her armpit should be at certain angles. I may re-think this though as it doesn't seem overly neccessary. I'll prolly post more perspectives soon.

Another question, when rendered in the cell shaded style, the textures become less "cpisp" than I would have hoped for. This is aside from any stretching issues... I remember seeing in another forum someone saying that "vector skins" are used in conjunction with the cell shaded style. If I recall, it left me with the impression that the XIII chars were skinned using "vector skins". Can anyone give me a lead on this? BTW, thnx again.

Zergxes

I have no idea if this applies to your engine or your app, but I've found with cell shaders, vector rendering, and ramp shaders (Maya) that hardening edges gives you lines where you want them. What do you Max folks call that, smoothing groups? Maybe that would work instead of putting extra edges in there that close. Luck!

mikejkelley

Zergxes, that's a good idea, I'll try playing around with the smoothing groups. For the armpit area I need a series of edges within a smoothing group to make a distinct line though... now that I think about it, it might be better to break apart the verticies along the line. I believe this would work independent of the engine/renderer too...

I'm still having trouble with my foray into mapping. I am unable to repeat the steps Asherr has listed. I can map and unwrap one smoothing group and then that's it. After selecting another smoothing group, and hitting "acquire" under the map modifier, when I go into the unwrap modifier edit uv window, nothing new appears. I'm doing this all pre-collapsed stack now.

It's worth mentioning that much of the time the "select face" option under the uvw unwrap modifier is unavailiable for some reason. Also, when I punch "Reset UVWs", the last thing I've tried to acquire from the map modifier suddenly appears in the unwrap modifier edit uv window. I need both maps to appear in this window simultaneously! How?

So to sum up, I can't get more than one uvw map modifier "acquired" map to appear in the unwrap modifier edit uv window at a time...

mikejkelley

I think I'm begining to work it out... I'm collapsing the stack each time now and reselecting the previously mapped faces each time I want to map a new set of faces. They then appear in the edit window.

Did I mention I was a noob?

hawken

Asherr mentions the best way, try that

Steve Schulze

Do I detect a hint of Paul Steed influence here?

mikejkelley

Hawken, [ QUOTE ]
I am unable to repeat the steps Asherr has listed.

[/ QUOTE ] I'm probably doing something wrong, but I have no idea what.

Jackablade, everything I know comes from Paul Steed! I wish he had a book on skinning.

Steve Schulze

I thought as much. Paul Steed's modelling book is fairly obsolete nowadays, and even back when it was released it had some funny ideas about how to do things. You'd do well to track down some more up to date tuts by the guys around here and get a handle on the new techniques that have come in since Steeds book was published.

mikejkelley

Jackablade, I think this is mentioned in the Steed book...
[ QUOTE ]
now that I think about it, it might be better to break apart the vertices along the line. I believe this would work independent of the engine/renderer too...


[/ QUOTE ]
is there any reason why this is a bad idea? What about intersecting planes to created the same effect? I use that technique elsewhere, though now I'm thinking of achieving it all with unwelded verts...

A quick reasoning behind the triangle arrangement...

I set out to optimize her for cell shaded renders. IMO, a detailed surface would be counterproductive in creating the nearly 2-dimensional effect I'm purposely trying to achieve. Instead, I've spent extra time and effort to make sure that she has a nice smooth silhouette from every possible angle. Where as, say realistically rendered player models have an extraordinary surface and boxy silhouette, I'm trying to achieve the exact opposite here. At the same time, I've worked to make the topography more explicit where I want to create lines within the silhouette (i.e.., breasts).

The game is for the comp and limited to 5000 tris (is there a difference in the count?) as it's my understanding that engines tend to hog resources when trying to accomplish cel renders.

mikejkelley

[img]http://www.mikejkelley.com/stretch scrn.jpg[/img]

The texture map was created using Textporter and as you can see I'm having some nasty seam issues. I thought this was exactly the sort of thing Textporter was supposed to avoid? How else might I address/correct this issue other than simply shrinking the UVWs in the afflicted areas? I want to get my technique as well as the project nearly perfect. Thnx.

jec1183

Everyone has this issue with texporter. You are not doing anything wrong its just the way texporter renders out the information. To fix this issue just select the area around the head so its right up against the seems. Then expand the selection 2 to 3 pixels out. Once that is complete just fill it in with the base color. Texporter makes the seem lines into pixels and this means at a lower resolution there are not enough pixels to create the seem area accurately. In turn when you zoom in on the seems they become stair cases which are extremely in accurate.

Steve Schulze

Leaving holes in your mesh is a practice (and one which I don't think was ever all that practical) for modelling extremely low poly models and saving a few extra in the arm joints. With 5000 polys to play with theres no reason whatsoever that you should need to do this.

Xeto

Hey I see that no one has posted in a bit and you may not have the texture problem any more, but I have a free unwrap tool that I have and the wire frame dump is always right on and easy to save out. It also comes with lots of extra tools that make unwraping fun!!! any way, you should still always make the selection around the wire larger to make a bleed, but this will help things be a little more spot on when looking at your uvw. I find it helpful any way... but to each his own!

UVW unwrap MAXScript

Hope some one finds this helpful. Take care!

mikejkelley

I forgot to thank everyone for their input. In my defense, I've been extremely busy. Better late than never? Thanks jec1183, Jackblade, and Xeto. Xeto, I now use the app you referenced to export all my maps. Super Thanx!