Sea Monsterman

kunglao

Here is an update of my lo poly sea monster man (dubbed Mangler as it is gonna be half man half angler fish)
Current tri count is 2600 and i aim to take him into zbrush and attempt a normal map.
If anyone could help with the following:-
1. 2600 tri's is this low enough to be exported to zbrush
2.The fins are just single edge extrusions that from left are visible from right they are not,without doubling the poly count how do i get it to be visible from both sides,also these will have alpha map applied to recreate fin look.
3. I have have a few (not many) tri's and 5 point polys in the model,i have read that zbrush prefers quads,am i ok to export still?
4.This is going to be my first 1st time using zbrush(gonna learn interface,do couple of tuts before i start on him).Do i unwrap my model in max before exporting to zbrush
5,behind the eyeball the socket is not closed am i right in thinking that zbrush handles model better if it is one continous closed mesh.
if anyone also has links for creating normal maps using max and zbrush i would be grateful.
Read Ben Mathis(poopinmymouth) normal map outline and going with the approach- build lo poly in max(clone?)export 1 over to zbrush create hi for normal map export back to max.
As said i a new to zbrush and normal mapping

Thanks,as usual c+c welcome

melkior

looks pretty good from here, I'd be quite curious as to what the process, requirements and hints and tips will be to get it into zbrush as I'm working towards doing that for the first time as well.

Rhinokey

you can aply a 2 sided materal to the fin, but then it wuld light funny, best bet would be just to double it,
are you using editmesh or edit poly? if mesh then you should quickly convert to edit poly, its by far superior, no ifs ands or buts about it, the model is looking good, and the general proportions look fine to me

suggestions

the edge flow seems to grid like, most of your edge loops in the legs and other places are almost completely horizontal, this leads to a rather stiff feeling model,

try and add a bit more flow to your edges, good work, and keep it up

Steve Schulze

You can get away with having quite a few triangles. You'll just from time to time run into problems where its difficult to get exactly the shape you want from your ZBrushed mesh. I ZBrushed a 200 Poly DS model which was mostly triangles (Going from 200 polys to 750,000 is pretty liberating) the other day and that worked out ok.

shotgun

looks pretty good so far

you might wonna check the size of the feet, compare it to the forearm it should be roughly the same. also i think the head comes out of the torso on a weird angle, looks offsetted to me but it might be what u'r going for.. but then, in that case, the body posture doesn't support it. so something is off.

i think the skull should just start about where the back edge of the fin in. get some skull showing back there!

looking like a good start though, keep going.

kunglao

thanx for feedback
i have a couple more questions if i may
1.I have doubled the polycount of the fins now do i weld the vertices of each part of finor just snap them together?
2.do i unwrap model before exporting?
3.do i delete all symmetrical parts of model,before unwrap and to export over to zbrush.
4.Do i leave the eyes behind in max when exporting to zbrush they are attached to object but little work will be done in zbrush on them
I have a rough idea of the max/zbrush normal mapping process but if anyone could outline it for me i would be grateful

kunglao

slightly off-topic
I have an interview with EA Games as a software tester next week (foot in the door hopefully leading to an entry level 3d artist role)
I have to attend an assessment center could anyone shed some light on what i am to expect.
+ any help with last post would be great,

Rhinokey

sorry man no idea what an assement center is

kunglao

didnt get EA tester job.Very Corporate would not have enjoyed working there.My intention was to go in as qa and meet artists to pickup some pointers.But,qa are on different floor and would never have met them.Only qa team leader would deal with art dept.Got 22 out of 27 in assessment test lost points on watching game footage.I was looking for bugs but questions were like"how many times did player die in clip and what was the time limit in the game?" well excuse me but these(in my opinion)are not errors but gameplay settings, i mean if i was to write down on bug sheet i died 30 times in an hour playing this game then i would be out on my ear! Hours were monday-sunday,£5.50 plus overtime(unpaid!)you sign a contract waving your overtime at start.Ho-Hum

Anyways i want to concentrate on my mangler.Here is my wip of him in zbrush.Very early days (1st time with zbrush)basically just working on chest abs area.Following practical manual i am just shaping the model in level 2 then going up to level 5 to see how it looks.Please note that so far i am not concentrating on detail but shape.PS- ignore left hand missing that is where back image overlapped in photoshop
As usual c+c welcome

kunglao

UPDATE
Still a ways to go about to go to PM mode and add details(scales etc)
One question.
The teeth? as you can see the diff between level 1 and 5 >am i likely to experience problems when creating the normal map?I am new to zbrush and normal mapping

Slash

Its coming along nicely, but i think those teeth needs some more geometry in the low-poly to make a good normal map. I would have skipped the teeth completely and added them in max instead, but thats just me. :P

CheapAlert

The concept itself is quite bare. All he is at the moment, is a man with new hands, new feet and a new face, which all could be accomplished by prosthetic makeup. Don't make it look like that. Perhaps this guy could be of inspiration (no, i didn't draw him). Mmm, gills.

kunglao

Thanx for feedback.
Cheapalert thanks for Ref(love darkstalkers!)
The character looks this way for 2 reasons.
1-1st time with zbrush created basic human body and tweaked fave etc,wanted simple model to learn zbrush with.
2-My inspiration was 50's B movies like creature from black lagoon
UPDATE
Here is my final for the hi poly normal map.I have gone for a 50's Bmovie creature(half man half angler fish)
I have left the teeth and will go with an alpha.I F**cked up with feet.What happened was i had on symmetry painting and hid all but one foot and modelled away only to my horror when i unhid rest of model and other foot was not changed,Still a mistake i wont repeat in the future.What about the eyes i left behind do they get attached or leave as seperate object(pref to get mesh bitmap down to one sheet for diff,spec and one for normal)
first for me using zbrush and creating a normal map.So far i have really enjoyed zbrush and would recommend it.
For now,I am going to drop level down to 1,save as diff file, load up in max and unwrap(right?)