Welcome to the Forums Stubbs, bonus points for the avatar.
I'm not a modeler but I've been lurking around here long enough to know a few things that might help. To start with a lot of your polys could be repurposed from the hands, a lot of them, to other places that could use some more solid definition, like the head, shoulder pads, and boots. If you arent looking to expound on these areas you could just eliminate the excess polies all together and save a few seconds on your next render.
Next the skin is very noisy. I would suggest reducing the noise in either the armor or the flesh, your choice, to help accent certain areas. The more noise there is on a location the less the eye knows what to make off it and begins to wander to another surface. You could use a lack of noise to create areas of focus, like the head and the arms for example.
Other then that I'm sure someone else will be able to help you more then I can. Good to have you aboard though. Keep posting!
You could go well below 3000 tris (or spend them somewhere else, as Steak pointed out) if you just optimize those hands.
Have you done any fullrange deformation tests? That shoulder armor will definatly intersect (and already have to some extent) with the body if you try to animate his arms going over his head. If you plan on using that sort of movement, you could trim back his armor a little. I'm not sure if the mesh will deform cleanly around the hip either, looks like an extra segment could be useful there.
Could you post an unsmoothed wire and a closeup of the face too? Looks like you have spent quite a lot of unnecessary poly there.
The texture is nice, though as Steak said a litte noisy and kinda bland, color-wise. At any distance this guy is going to look like a grey blob. Add some lights, markings, Andrew Jones style seams with glowing energy beneath, whatever. It just needs something to contrast with all the purple/grey, and to strengthen the visual difference between the skin and the metal areas.
Thanks for the comments. I agree that the color scheme is quite bland, so I've been trying to distinguish the skin from the armor better. Also been trying to reduce the noise of the texture. I've been messing around with the color scheme to make it less bland, nothing is really working though. It is also true that the shoulders are cutting into the mesh pretty badly. I agree that the hands could be optimized more, as well as some other areas.
Here are the unsmoothed wire and face screens as requested:
I would have liked to use this character as the first project for my new portfolio (I'm replacing my old one). However I'm going to pull the plug on this project because this character as a whole is somewhat of a failure, mostly due to the color scheme problems. It came close to being a new portfolio piece but its not quite there. On the plus side it was good practice and experience. Thanks for the help.
nice to see you around here greg. I wouldnt consider the character a failure, it just needs liek everyone else said more contrast on the texture. Also maybe using 2 512 maps instead of 1024? i think it will look just about the same and you are cuting down half the texture size
the model has a triangle distribution issue on the had where i frankly think you could cut some and spend them on the overall model .
i would work more on the normal map, cause u seem to have made the diffuse with some very weird and busy colors for the eye, yes ur model is very tiring to the eye .
the overlays you are using are completely distracting me. To the point where i dont even give it enough attention to dig into your detail work. Deal with that macro noise and this looks like it could be respectable. gogogogo!
Replies
I'm not a modeler but I've been lurking around here long enough to know a few things that might help. To start with a lot of your polys could be repurposed from the hands, a lot of them, to other places that could use some more solid definition, like the head, shoulder pads, and boots. If you arent looking to expound on these areas you could just eliminate the excess polies all together and save a few seconds on your next render.
Next the skin is very noisy. I would suggest reducing the noise in either the armor or the flesh, your choice, to help accent certain areas. The more noise there is on a location the less the eye knows what to make off it and begins to wander to another surface. You could use a lack of noise to create areas of focus, like the head and the arms for example.
Other then that I'm sure someone else will be able to help you more then I can. Good to have you aboard though. Keep posting!
Have you done any fullrange deformation tests? That shoulder armor will definatly intersect (and already have to some extent) with the body if you try to animate his arms going over his head. If you plan on using that sort of movement, you could trim back his armor a little. I'm not sure if the mesh will deform cleanly around the hip either, looks like an extra segment could be useful there.
Could you post an unsmoothed wire and a closeup of the face too? Looks like you have spent quite a lot of unnecessary poly there.
James Ball
Here are the unsmoothed wire and face screens as requested:
I would have liked to use this character as the first project for my new portfolio (I'm replacing my old one). However I'm going to pull the plug on this project because this character as a whole is somewhat of a failure, mostly due to the color scheme problems. It came close to being a new portfolio piece but its not quite there. On the plus side it was good practice and experience. Thanks for the help.
i would work more on the normal map, cause u seem to have made the diffuse with some very weird and busy colors for the eye, yes ur model is very tiring to the eye .
so fix this and make it awesome