Monkey Kid Game Character

KonamiCode

Hi everyone, my name's Steve, I've been following the PolyCount site on and off now for awhile, and been playing around with modeling just as long. I got interested in modeling around the Quake 1 days and just haven't stuck with it as much as I've should, but I always keep coming back to it, and enjoy it quite a bit.

Anyways, here's a game character I'm working on, he's a boy who idolizes the Chinese Monkey King (so he sort of resembles a monkey, and digs up a headpiece to wear). I want to keep his polycount around 2K, it's around there now, but I'd like to add in some more faces around the mouth for facial animation.

Anyhow, I'd love some feedback on the design, the placement of polys, and what can be optimized. I tend to have a tendency to want to over optimize areas and I'll end up ruining a plane change, or I'll put in too many segments around a joint for deformation when it's not all that necessary. Right now I definitely think the back of the head/helmet could be optimized, and I need to clean up the section under the head/chin area, but I'm having some problems with that. Other questions I had were around the legs, does there even need to be a knee modeled if it's hidden under his shorts? Also, the planes of the back under his vest, do they need to be there, or can there essentially be a hole in the mesh if the vest is always covering it?

I'll link the inline images to larger versions on my site. Thanks alot in advance.

KonamiCode

Just for some clarification, I designed him as a character for a platform game concept, something maybe similar to Tak or Herdy Gerdy.

Here's (http://www.zombiemonkey.com/images/saru/saru_comp.jpg) a compilation of the above shots with some of my initial concept sketches.

What I'm planning to do after getting all the faces done would be:
1.) Use Normal Smoothing/Hardening to make the appropriate areas soft/hard.
2.) Map and Texture him (ugh.)
3.) Rig, and then do a couple animations of actions you'd see him perform in a platform style game.

Any feedback/critique on the design, face/poly placement, possible issues/problems would be very much appreciated.
Thanks again.

KDR_11k

The back of the head has lots of unnecessary polygons. And what's with that loop on the top of his head?

Xeto

Yeah the back of the head can be cleaned up and the loops on the face are off a little if you want to be animating it. As for the loop on the top of the head, that needs to be gone. I personally strip model, but if you are going to cut into geometry to make a head then would suggest you box modle, but you can use what ever starting shape you want just remember clean modeling rules. I'll put up a picture I have that breaks down looping when I get back home. If you post a front view of the face and body then we can break down your looping. Your minds in the right place, it just needs to be cleaned up. The mesh can be a lot more efficient than it is now and that will save you tons of polys.

Xeto

Here is that looping thing I was talking about...



Hope that helps you.

KonamiCode

Thanks Xeto, that should help me resolve some features in the face. I was trying to build the face using some techniques I learned in a head/hands drawing class but I didn't succeed in the face/cheek area because I was probably trying to be too picky about where I put faces.

Here are some more shots I've taken (I haven't had much time to work on this yet, so the areas haven't been optimized) of the front areas like you mentioned. The red line on the face is where I'd like to put some more faces to allow for mouth animation.



KDR_11K Is this the loop you're asking about on the top of the head? I wanted the outer one to be the top of the helmet thing, but I kind of didn't know what to do with the rest of it moving into the center, so I think I'll rip that part out and rebuild it to be a bit nicer.



About the vest: Should it be attached (at the vertex level) to the rest of the body, or can it just kind of be parented/grouped and animated to follow along with the body?

Can there be holes in the mesh under the vest, or is it just fine to leave the faces underneath to make up the back?

KDR_11k

You can have the vest stay over the body but it'll probably save some polies to have only one layer of polies.

Xeto

As for that loop on the top of the head it should look some thing like this:



That should actually lower your count and provide a mesh that will let you shape the head to better match your concept.

As for the loops on the face you may want a few more than that if you want to get a good facial animation going on. It's a good first run and you have the idea you just need to get the format down. Keep it up!

KonamiCode

Well I've cleaned up the back of the head quite a bit, and fixed up that head like you suggested, Xeto. I tweaked the face a bit more, but like you said, it'll probably need a lot more before it can be well animated.

Can I ask you to draw like you did on the top of the head to help me resolve the face and the underside of the head? That really helped a lot.


Thanks again for both of your feedback, it's been really valuable.

Xeto

Not a problem... For overal modeling I think this tutorial on Subdivision head modeling will really help:

Subdivision Head Modeling

He does a really good job of breaking it down. Ok for the face and jaw, your looping is actually ok for the number of polies you are using but they could still stand to be aranged in a more organic way, right now they are almost lines that go right accross the face. the loops around the mouth need some work. Try to avoid tris in any place that will be animated. Tris on an animaiton point can cause icky black spots and other nasty things. So try something like this:



All I did here was follow a ring for the forming of the mouth. A structure like this will avoid tris around the mouth. I'm not doing a paint over of yours because my photo shop is busted here at home so I hope this still helps. Maybe you can use it as a starting point for yours... Keep it up.