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Polycount - Generals - Rick Stirling

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  • Rick Stirling
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    Rick Stirling polycounter lvl 18
    Update.

    A lot of the new form is roughed out.

    wedcelt.png
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    ah, nice, looking a lot beefier now. legs still seem a tad squat? i guess it depends if you're gonna stick rigidly to Gauss's concept or not. I think his concept was based off your initial model, so the proportions seem kinda stumpy to me, but hey, if that's what you're going for, make it so. smile.gif
  • PeteJ
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    PeteJ polycounter lvl 18
    I agree with what MoP has said, still a tad stumpy looking, but certainly coming along nicely.
    He reminds me of the Erl-King from the wild hunt (if you dont know you should!) though a little squatter and less ugly. nice work.
  • Rick Stirling
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    Rick Stirling polycounter lvl 18
    Funny, he looks more squat in the image here on my PC than he does in Silo on my mac, or in the image on my mac. I'll have to figure that out.

    i've brought him into work for some lunchtime loving.

    but yes, he is a bit short, and the shapeless waist isn't doing it any favours. I also find that high belts and hanging stuff that hide the crotch always alter the perception of where the waist is.
  • Ninjas
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    Ninjas polycounter lvl 18
    I think your entry looks pretty awesome. I really love the concept you guys have come up with.
  • rooster
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    rooster mod
    I'd like to just grab his waist and move it in a bit, then raise up his crotch. er, on the model. ON THE MODEL!

    really nice chunky feel though tongue.gif
  • Delaney King
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    Delaney King polycounter lvl 18
    love it darling, just love it.
  • Rick Stirling
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    Rick Stirling polycounter lvl 18
    To do - shoulderpad, antler, minor tweaks. UV map, high poly (subd and zbrush), texture.

    10 days? Easy.

    thucelt.png
  • solar
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    solar polycounter lvl 18
    Hey don't forget rigging, posing, and modelling and texturing the base too tongue.gif This is looking much better Rick, the armour should normal map nicely. You better get moving though not long to go!
  • Rick Stirling
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    Rick Stirling polycounter lvl 18
    Ach, if I cant get an OSX unwrapper this weekend, I'll build the weapon and base and highpoly, then unmap it on monday at lunchtime.
  • Rick Stirling
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    Rick Stirling polycounter lvl 18
    Final gameres version? Probably...I'll lift the crotch about 6 inches.

    This 4817 triangles, giving me about 200 for the weapon.

    satceltfnl.png
  • Rick Stirling
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    Rick Stirling polycounter lvl 18
    Update - no image.

    I raised the crotch, altered the antlers so they were not mirrored, and found a few stray polygons, so now I'm at 4787 sans weapon.

    I'll concept and build the base and the high poly next, unwrap and Zbrush at work on Monday.
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 19
    raise crotches often?

    kidding aside, he's nice and solid looking, I can't wait to see him all zbrushed up.
  • solar
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    solar polycounter lvl 18
    yes! those new antlers did the trick, how about making him a smidgen taller? I count him as 6 heads tall, super heros are usually around 8 i think. Although i do like the bulkyness to him.
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    Don't just raise the crotch, select everything above the thigh pad armour, turn soft selection on and move it all up (including the arms). What solar said is right, he's only 6 heads tall, so just moving the crotch wouldn't change this, it'd just make his legs look longer and torso shorter. I think what you wanna do is just lengthen the legs and leave everything else as it is, that should make him seem more commanding. Are you running a screen resolution that squashes everything vertically? tongue.gif
  • Rick Stirling
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    Rick Stirling polycounter lvl 18
    Cheers Justin. I am known as the guy who can make men wet.

    Gordon - Yup, Gauss nailed the antlers in the design.

    He is also about 8 heads high, I think the neck might be deceptive. Again, this was the mac screenshot, there is something going in. I've got it set to auto resize depending on whether or not it is plugged into my monitor or my TV.
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    Hmm, maybe I'm insane or maybe you changed that last image, but he looks in proportion now... did you reduce the size of the head and re-upload, or am I just an idiot who can't make up his mind? smile.gif
    If anything his arms seem a tad long now, but it's not really an issue. Better hurry up especially if you're doing a high-poly version, there's only 9 days left!
  • headengine
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    headengine polycounter lvl 18
    Looking good Rick, hurry up and get texturing and baking young man!
  • Zcubed
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    Zcubed polycounter lvl 18
    Yes! Silo! Now just hang in there until they add the UV tools. crazy.gif

    Looking good Rick. I'm no anatomy wiz, but nothing looks wildly out of proportion. It's a very exciting mesh, lots of stuff going on. You have big shoulder pads, horns, intricate boots, wrinkled sleeves, and a sexy belt. I like how there's something interesting no matter where you look.
  • Rick Stirling
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    Rick Stirling polycounter lvl 18
    No nnija edits here - thats the same image as before.

    9 days? Easy. I jsut happen to procrastinate for 3 weeks then do it all in day.

    I think the problem is the way his armour hangs - there are 2 bits of thigh armour, then the hanging cloth hides the crotch. This just makes it hard to decide where the waist is. If you seen him from the back you'd see it was all correct.

    Cheese Mike! I resorted to plugging in my PC just to get a start on the mapping - I'll get it all roughed out, then edit it at work. I miss max 8.

    Zcubed - Silo is so nice to work in. Max must have copied Sonys Emotion Engine, because I cry everytime I use it.

    I've still got a weapon and base to build..eeek...maybe 9 days willl be tight....

    Naw. Easy.
  • Rick Stirling
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    Rick Stirling polycounter lvl 18
    Monday morning.

    I did a bunch of mapping yesterday. All that is left is the helmet and head. I've left space on the maps for the weapon, which is yet to be built, or even designed.

    My plan for today is to map the head, set up the smoothing and perhaps even rig him. The rigging might be a ob for lunch tomorrow. Textures will be started tonight at home.

    mondayrender.jpg
  • Rick Stirling
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    Rick Stirling polycounter lvl 18
    Reply with no images. Sorry. If you are good I might show you some later.

    I dragged the PC out of retirement and UV mapped the model, leaving space for the weapon. I've been doing most of the work on it at work - my LCD at home is rubbish, Mike gave me a great idea - use my heefing big TV, so I'll do that tonight.

    Workflow wise, I've got a few versions of the model in my scene.

    1 is the complete model

    1 is the model split into material IDs - this is much nicer for taking into Silo

    A second version of that has the model split into the organic (fur, leather, flakpads, flesh) parts, and the non-organic (armour, pads etc). This lets me export the organic parts to zbrush and the hard surfaces to silo, where I can sculpt or build the high polygon versions.

    A few more things I have learned - I've constructed the seams and a few pads in 3d by cutting in lines and chamfering extruding them before taking this into zbrush. when divided this gives me a really nice crisp edge, and several starting points for my wrinkles (as you will notive that many wrinkles start and terminate at fabric creases.

    I've still got a base and a weapon or two to build, with 250ish polygins for the damage dealers. The design for them is more or less sorted, but I need to sketch out a base.

    Anyway, perhaps some screenies later...
  • gauss
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    gauss polycounter lvl 18
    i think he's shaping up quite nicely if you ask me smile.gif can't wait to see you take the high poly pass/zbrush stuff to him, especially for the different materials and such. i'm watching this one, as you're one of the few slags around here that know how to get shit DONE! laugh.gif
  • Rick Stirling
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    Rick Stirling polycounter lvl 18
    I've taken a break form texturing to get a roughed out base done

    base01.png
  • Rick Stirling
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    Rick Stirling polycounter lvl 18
    Stage 1 of texturing is always the boring bit - laying out the basic forms

    I've found that I have to block in areas with texture - any blankness scares me. I then tend to get bogged down in detailing some areas.

    The next few hours of texturing will see vast overall improvements in the basic layout.

    celttex1.png
  • Rick Stirling
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    Rick Stirling polycounter lvl 18
    Had no bip files at home, so the rig will be tested and fixed at work.

    rigged1.png

    Also the base was rebuilt, keeping only the smaller rock formation. It's been UV mapped and basic textures bloked in.
  • Ninjas
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    Ninjas polycounter lvl 18
    Looking cool, but I'm not sure I dig on the mk. 1 storm bolter. I was thinking he needed his right hand to rip people's hearts out. For some reason, I'm thinking his weapon should have more of a naturalistic vibe. Execution so far looks great.
  • Rick Stirling
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    Rick Stirling polycounter lvl 18
    I started to texture my base at lunchtime

    newbase.jpg
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    Nice start on the base! Keep it up smile.gif
  • Noisybast
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    Noisybast polycounter lvl 18
    Nice Base! Very Finn Mac Cumhail smile.gif
  • Rick Stirling
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    Rick Stirling polycounter lvl 18
    Thats the idea - I grew up 10 miles from the Giants Causeway, so its an area thats stuck with me - there are very few places in the world with those rock formations, Staff being the second most well known. Incidentally, my Dad is now a National Trust Coastal Warden in Northern Ireland, working at places like the Giants Causeway and rop Bridge.

    For those of you who don't know what it is...

    http://www.northantrim.com/giantscauseway.htm


    it's a HUGE natural rock formation

    P225386_giants_causeway.jpg
  • rooster
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    rooster mod
    bloody hell thats nuts.. How the hell did that happen?
  • Rick Stirling
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    Rick Stirling polycounter lvl 18
    A giant made it.
  • joolz8000
  • Rick Stirling
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    Rick Stirling polycounter lvl 18
    I. Have. Not. Forgot.

    Stop emailing me smile.gif

    First pass diffuse is NEARLY DONE. I took time off to go house hunting.

    This'll tide you over for a few days:

    forgot.png

    i may point out, that while I know some basic Celtic knotwork (from George Bains boxed set of books), 99% of the knots on this are STOLEN off the interweb and painted over.

    He has 3 or 4 poses, but after I altered a few loops the skinning got foooked, so I need to redo that.

    spec + normal + more diffuse + relection left
  • notman
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    notman polycounter lvl 18
    [ QUOTE ]
    -or Led Zeppelin. http://home.att.net/~chuckayoub/Led_Zeppelin_Houses_Of_The_Holy.jpg

    [/ QUOTE ]
    I was thinking Superman's home after teh polar caps melted wink.gif

    Looking good Rick
  • Rick Stirling
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    Rick Stirling polycounter lvl 18
    Cheers. The first pass normal and spec maps are done for the arms and legs.

    This is the first time I have ever used HLSL shaders to preview my work in real time. It took a wee while to get stuff set up, but its very useful.

    The leather bits on the arms and legs were zbrushed, the mechanical bits were built higher in 3d and these were combined along with some nvidia action to construct the normal maps.

    I'm guessing I'll need to make masks for the reflection bits. No idea how I'm going to add glow to the render though.

    Just about to zbrush the head, then the board head is up.
  • rooster
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    rooster mod
    definately a cool model, looking forward to the final result! how about a closer/bigger pic?
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    if it's glowy lights and stuff, just make a glow map (black base, bright points/lines for all your glowing stuff), and put that in the Self-Illumination slot of your material, and tick the "Color" checkbox next to that (in the basic settings rollout, not the maps rollout).
    That is, if you're using max8 and the DX display of standard material method, but I don't see why you wouldn't since it works very nicely in Max8. Sucked in max7 though. Doesn't do specular quite right in realtime but it's a good enough preview, and rendering it shows it all accurately.

    Looks good so far!
  • Rick Stirling
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    Rick Stirling polycounter lvl 18
    Ah grand, I'll give that a go - so blurring out the colour into the black will just be like a soft edged alpha?

    I was looking for a simple shader that just did diff, spec, bump and reflection, but most are either too simple with not enough, or too complicated with too many maps slots.

    At work I have a nice fast PC with 2 gigs of Ram and a good gfx card, and 2 GOOD monitors both running at 1600x1200.

    At home My PC has just crashed trying to bring a zbrushed model into max. I have 768 MB RAm. My monitor is a shitty 1024x768 LCS with a viewing angle of about 1 degree (one of my work monitors is LCD, it's crystal clear).

    Gah, the difference.

    Strangely, the monitor is plugged into both my Mac and my PC (uses a switch) and the output from the mac is much much MUCH better - clearer, sharper etc. So all the textures are done on the mac, max loads them off the network.

    I might post a bigger closer shot later.
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    Yeah, blurring the colour a bit will make it look like it's emitting more, but if you wanted it to bleed into the background off the edges of the model you'd probably have to post-process that in Photoshop. You could make a different material which is 100% self-illuminated with the Glow map as Diffuse, render in the same pose/camera angle on a black background and use that layer with some gaussian blur on it as a Screen or Dodge layer to fake some bloom on the glows. I'm sure that'd be allowed since bloom is a postprocess effect anyway and there's no real other way to fake it outside of a game engine AFAIK.

    So far I've never had a crash in Max resulting from importing/exporting an OBJ... just today I've been using one that's 1.5 million tris and 141mb... I only have 1gb more RAM than you... so who knows! Mr Kite also said max was sometimes taking ages (literally numbers of minutes) to import an OBJ, so I dunno what's going on there... mine's never taken more than about 20 seconds to bring in even the highest level of detail from ZBrush. Must be some sort of hardware issue I guess.
  • Rick Stirling
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    Rick Stirling polycounter lvl 18
    As requested smile.gif

    satceltwip.png

    Max is not mirroring my skinning info, but Fin was in at work so mailed me my SPECIAL script (only for local people) that will let me fix that.
  • Rick Stirling
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    Rick Stirling polycounter lvl 18
    Can I post process the beuty render in Photoshop? I've done that in the past:

    fire.jpg
  • Ninjas
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    Ninjas polycounter lvl 18
    Looks awesome. I really love the color scheme
  • spacemonkey
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    spacemonkey polycounter lvl 18
    hey Rick the pose is cool, but because he is crouched so much I think it detracts from the character a little - since the base dominates half the render. Maybe zoom in on the character more ? chagne the angle of the render. I'm sure you going to experiment with those things anyway wink.gif

    I wouldnt imagine that there is a problem with post processing the beauty render.. it seems common place for most finished stills. A beauty render should have the bells and whistles anyway right? smile.gif

    Also give Fin a punch in the bollocks for not finishing his character wink.gif
  • Rick Stirling
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    Rick Stirling polycounter lvl 18
    there are 4 render poses, that one is just a teaser smile.gif

    Have you seen Fin? Christ, punching him would be like a level from Shadow of the Colossus...
  • headengine
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    headengine polycounter lvl 18
    If you got a wee step, you could reach them - the bollocks.

    Failing that, HURRY UP AND GET IT LIT RIGHT RICK AND GET THE NORMALS ON IT

    *ahem*
  • chico
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    chico polycounter lvl 17
    looks amazing; very inspired

    chico
  • Rick Stirling
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    Rick Stirling polycounter lvl 18
    Mr Kane, I *THINK* you will be in love with me when you read your email on Monday morning. Fin might even kiss me.

    Cheers Chico. By the way, What Time Is It?

    Final update for the night. Tomorrow I go to look at houses, so there is not likely to be an update.


    satnightcelt.png
  • cholden
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    cholden polycounter lvl 18
    This guy is really coming together. I like the base, and recently heard that giant story.
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