Low Poly Hero Character

jec1183

This is just some little hero character I sketched up while I was bored one day. I sketched up a Villain to go with him but I start and stop so many projects it seems nothing ever gets done so I am going to try and stick this one out till the end.

I just finished the character with his weapon which isn't shown and he comes in a little under 2200 tris. So now I have to unwrap, get the smoothing groups right, and texture. Then I will rig and possible place in unreal 2k4. I am trying to decide if I should go for a WOW type texturing or more for The Incredibles type texturing.

John Warner

hey dude this is pretty cool. it's hard to comment on becuase of the smoothing groups, though. i really dont like they way they are right now..

it's a nice model but there's a few things here and there that would really sell it as really nice. you've got a few shapes that are bordering on 'really cool' but aren't quite making it.

the biceps are a good example. you've got them flowing up right now, arcing away from the body, and it gives this odd feeling like they're floating. i've found personaly that i like to arc them down a bit. it makes them flow a lot nicer into the forearm, and makes them feel like they're being affected by gravity.

the pant legs have this problem too. the insides come up and are stuck to the leg.

the front of the bottom legs is a bit weird-- the part by the ankle is a liittlle bit too tick i think, and certainly the front poly is too thick. the front poly goes from being thin, down to thick at the ankle. what about trying to mess with that? it'd be nice to see that front poly be thinner down by the foot, i think you'd get a much more pleasing flow to him.

i dont like the feet either. they're large, blocky, and don't seem to have any sort of real mass or interesting shape to them. feet are difficult in this way. if you can find a way to have them round out on the bottom, that would help a lot.. then push the curves of the foot untill it brings out the curves, angles and shapes that you enjoy about it.

the fingers too a borring looking. right now the thumb comes out rather strangely. they also don't have any sort of interesting shape to them. if the thumb varried in thickness, tinner closer to the base and a tiny bit ticker right before the end, that might be interesting. the fingers right now are just curves, and they'd probably look like 10X better if you pulled out the knuckles. try playing with the shapes in there so that you break up that soft arc i always see in 3d fingers. what about each finger segment be a small arc the opposite way or something? ending with the knuckle, and then changing angle down? (does that make any sense at all? hahah)

from what i can see i love his eyebrows but it's a little bit far away.

i really dont like the side view of the bottom leg. it's just.. hmm.. very straight?? i see that you've got curves in there... perhaps you need to push them more? i'm really not sure. maybe it's something to do with the way the curves are working with each other. i'd say that the bottom of the leg, before the foot, is again too thick from this view as well however..


anyway i gotta go to work haha. that's what i notice right now. i hope this helps!

nice work bro, keep going on him, this could be a really nice piece if you push it.
there are smaller things as well, like, the top of the pants seems a little bit long to me

jec1183

I will work on the feet, hands, and legs. People seem to hate excuses here and swarm in on them like the pleg but I have an actual reason for keeping the pants the way they are. The pants seem long but they come up past the naval, just a style thing. Also the pants might seem like they are conforming to the leg because they are bunched up at the knees. I think this will become more clear when I texture it. As for your crit with the arms I don't quite understand what you mean about having the biceps arcing down. I fully intended on changing the smooth groups. I thought I posted about that but maybe it was in a different forum.

Thanks for the crits

jec1183

Here is an update. Got the smoothing groups worked out and the character unwrapped. Tomorrow I think I will rig him and start on the texture. Trying to think of some colors to use and what style of texturing I want to do. I am thinking of WOW style, Incredibles Style, comic book style, or more of a realistic harsh stlye. If you have an idea on texture style just throw it out there for me.

Marine

looks like a young hellboy... replace his right hand with the right hand of doom, and release an sdk

jec1183

After I get done with rigging him I will do that for you lol. Should be an interesting turn out. Another SKD for the masses of polycount haha. I will either add the full horns or the cut ones. Might do both.

hawken

once rigged, you're going to have problems with those shorts and the top of the feet. Where the legs of the shorts meet the groin, the deformation has almost no polygons to play with. When the lower legs intersect with the feet, you have a few nasty triangles that break the flow, they won't deform at all. They will possibly spike out.

The upper chest area has a mass of wasted polygons, again with the stomatch and bladder area. The hands could be optimised also, they appear to be made from far too many p[olygons.

jec1183

Thanks Hawken

Here is an updated image of the poly flow. I exported the unwrap but I didn't place it in the jpg so I may post that up later. This image also shows this character as HellBoy lol. I had to with that suggestion. He is already unwrapped in both forms so I will zip up the hellboy version with the uvws and either link to it here or in the sdk section.

Marine

yay! have to skin hellboy when i finish my general. thanks

Mark Dygert

NICE! as a hellboy fan I have to say thank you!

jec1183

What formats should I export him in besides OBJ and 3DS though 3ds seems to have a problem in breaking verts?

jec1183

The SDK is posted in the SDK thread.

I am working on the rig for the low poly hero character and will post him in some action poses later.