the thinking man's crumpet
polycounter lvl 18
Have been working on this the last week or so, I am hoping its apparent who its supposed to be. Decided to make the switch from using xsi ultimapper to zmapper for normal map generation and holy shit did it make a difference, no more legs projected onto each other and no more 2 hour waits while it generates and the quality is just as good. At present she stands at 2898 tri's but I might add a few more in for some hair and maybe a gun for when shes posed up.
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The whole mesh is very angular, there aren't many smooth curves, all the limbs and features are incredibly linear, which makes it look much lower-poly than it is.
The face is too narrow in the front view, the cheeks need more rounding out down towards the jawline in the 3/4 view too.
The normal maps aren't really adding much to this character. I don't know if it's the lighting you're rendering with or something else, but she's looking very flat and lifeless. This may be an issue with the eyes that would be fixed when rigged, but I don't know. It's usually best to get a model looking accurate before rigging, then you know you'll have no problems.
The shoulders don't really have enough polys to deform well at the moment.
At a 3000-poly budget, you really don't need that many cylindrical segments in the trousers or shoes, especially when you're not using them to their fullest potential. The trouser legs look really boxy, not natural and rounder like they should be.
The specular on her suit shouldn't be that strong, it's making it look a tad plastic-wrapped - suit materials like what Gillian Anderson wore in the X-Files were never that shiny. Almost entirely matte.
All in all, it's definitely a very good effort, easily recognisable and fairly accurate... however you really need to work on your proportions, polygon usage, and tweaking all the maps (normals, specular etc) so that stuff looks as good as possible.
For a 3000-poly mesh, the end result is looking awfully blocky and low-res.
I have no reservations about reworking if it helps to bring the model up to a professional standard.
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The whole mesh is very angular, there aren't many smooth curves, all the limbs and features are incredibly linear, which makes it look much lower-poly than it is.
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I've had another look at my model and i agree with you in regards to some of the features being hard edged, so to make the model appear more rounded i shall add additional edges into the area's marked in yellow. I know the top along the shoulder is very angular but I feel after rigging it should look right.
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The face is too narrow in the front view, the cheeks need more rounding out down towards the jaw line in the 3/4 view too.
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I have checked this against some of my references and decided to widen the face very slightly. You are right about the jaw line this is something I am definitely going to need to work on.
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The normal maps aren't really adding much to this character. I don't know if it's the lighting you're rendering with or something else, but she's looking very flat and lifeless. This may be an issue with the eyes that would be fixed when rigged, but I don't know. It's usually best to get a model looking accurate before rigging, then you know you'll have no problems.
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Ouch, flat, lifeless and poor normal maps. I did a previous render with FG and in some area's it accentuated the normal map but it lost too much of the specula highlights to be worth while perhaps I should invest a little more time in some more render set ups as the one used for the screens on my first post only involve 1 spotlight. As you can see above I have done a comparison between having and not having a normal map, I believe it adds a great deal to the model.
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The shoulders don't really have enough polys to deform well at the moment.
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Should now be sorted as mentioned above.
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At a 3000-poly budget, you really don't need that many cylindrical segments in the trousers or shoes, especially when you're not using them to their fullest potential. The trouser legs look really boxy, not natural and rounder like they should be.
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Both the arms and legs have 8 segments in each loop perhaps I can lower this to 6 or 7, I will round out the legs a little more but the difference will be unnoticeable. As for the shoes i do not agree with you and they shall remain unchanged.
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The specular on her suit shouldn't be that strong, it's making it look a tad plastic-wrapped - suit materials like what Gillian Anderson wore in the X-Files were never that shiny. Almost entirely matte.
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I agree with you in this statement and will lower the specula levels of the suit, I used one of my own suits are reference for the level of shine and it would seem hers are different.
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All in all, it's definitely a very good effort, easily recognizable and fairly accurate... however you really need to work on your proportions, polygon usage, and tweaking all the maps (normals, specular etc) so that stuff looks as good as possible.
For a 3000-poly mesh, the end result is looking awfully blocky and low-res.
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The proportions are wrong? Do you perhaps have a better reference than mine it was surprisingly difficult to get a good reference for her whole body. Perhaps you would be kind enough to show me how you would distribute the polygons more efficiently as that would be most helpful.
As long as there arent any other crits ill go on and rig now.
I made the eyes more narrow and added a shadow that would be casted by the upper eyelids, sharpened the eyebrows, made the jaw wider, widened the nose, and raised and narrowed the lips a bit. Oh and yeah, you need more loops for the knees and elbows.
Kendo: I'm gonna do some paintovers if I can to help you out with the mesh stuff, should be able to post those soon with more advice.
Actually, now that you've posted a shot comparing the normal-mapped version with no textures, compared to the gouraud-shaded lowpoly with no textures, you're right that the normal map is adding a lot - so I think it must be something else that's making her look unrealistic (especially the face), it may be the diffuse/specular textures, or possibly the lighting setup you're using to render these images.
Toomas is entirely right about the knees and elbows too, you NEED more polys there or they will look terrible when deforming.
Also, it's not a good idea to render on pure black or white - pure white background tends to make it harder for people to judge the contrast in the model/texture itself, and black background means you lose the edge definition and silhouette. Probably best to render on a mid/dark, desaturated colour like blue or orange.
First of all, you do indeed need the extra loops for deformation, as the others have said. And it wouldn't really hurt either, a lot of the polygons seem to have gone in the face, rather than the body. Nothing earthshaking, but 4 extra loops for deformation won't hurt.
Secondly, my original point - she looks tiny. Humans are generally eight heads tall, give or take. Not counting the heels of the shoes, your model is about six heads tall, which is somewhere below 1.40 meters. It may sound a bit cheap, but I like to use blueprints for just about everything.
Da picz0rz
Oddly, Graves, although your paintover makes the hair look way better and more accurate, while the face is more believable in terms of shading (around the eyes especially), I think it loses something in terms of recognisability - the original seems to bear more likeness to Gillian Anderson.
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I'd disagree.
http://www.richardaburton.dabsol.co.uk/images/ga/012.jpg
This shot in particular. Her jawline is quite strong and wider than the model, as is the nose. Her eyebrows are more womenly (refined rather than bushy and 'loose').
Possibly the head could be smaller, but only a tad. I think the main thing that's throwing off the proportions is the cut of the suit, I don't think she ever wore one cut like that (although I'd be interested to see your reference pics, Kendo!).
I did a quick and scrappy paintover for proportions/ideas ... mainly just little tweaks but they should make her look more feminine and natural, as opposed to the fairly angular and obvious "low-poly" look she has at the moment.
You really need more polys in the suit to smooth out the silhouette. Similarly the legs of the suit could be tweaked to have a more pleasing curvy shape.
I think the head is looking good overall, possibly her features are a little high, Gillian Anderson has a bigger forehead than what your model has at the moment. Also the hairline should come down a bit, it makes the model look like it has a receding hairline.
I think a lot of the "lifeless" comment that I mentioned earlier, is coming from the lack of colour and saturation in her skin tones. She just doesn't have a vibrancy that makes her look alive. Gillian Anderson is a fairly pale woman, but that doesn't mean her skin is devoid of colour - it's a tricky balance to get right, but you really need to work on it, to put more life into the skin tones and get them away from the greyishness they have right now.
I can maybe do a paintover to help with that too if you want.
Also, the paintover Graves did shows what I think would be good for the eyes - darker and more defined in general. She's got a bit of a wild, staring-eye look at the moment which isn't doing her any favours. In general you've painted the iris and eye-white too brightly.
Hope that helps some more - keep it up!
Thnom: With regards to the paintover, while Graves has got the jawline much more accurate (he's made it more angular and less of a smooth curve, which is good), he's also made the head appear too wide in the process. Even in the image you posted, it's evident that Gillian Anderson's head proportions are fairly long and thin, while Graves' image has made it more of a square shape.
Overall nice model and I'd just agree with everybody else and there critiques. The suit has an odd shape which mop has shown above. Good though with some good zbrush skills
Toomas limbs should deform better now as i have three edges in the elbows and 2 loops in the knees.
Gravess thanks for the paint over kind of reminds me of a ginger version of Rosie ODonnell, the eyes now have more shadow around them and Ive redone the eyebrows.
Thnom I am still fiddling with the jaw line might make it a tad wider yet.
Comradej as mop pointed she is quite short in real life but still when I compared her to the default skeleton in xsi she was a pretty good fit.
Again thanks everyone I intend to keep working at it particularly the hair. If you can think of anything else thats needs changing I will look into.
Oh and mop here at the refs I used
1
2
having just looked at that render again i've noticed i need to lower the hair down that side.
her face still is slightly odd shaped
The eyes are still looking a bit unrealistic (a bit plasticky - google image search for some photo reference of blue eyes and try and match that).
Also the shape of the jawline/cheek area in this view is very weird - there's a little jaggy bit that sticks out just to the left of her nose and mouth, the cheek area should be smooth all the way down. SHEPEIRO is also right about the hairline, it's still looking pretty unconvincing. Again, photo ref is the way forward to fix this area.
Her upper body is still looking a bit rugby-playerish, I think the way you've done the suit over the breasts isn't working right yet - some simple tweaking of the lowpoly mesh around the chest area should sort that out though. Again, get some more reference (doesn't matter if it's her or not, just a woman in a similar suit). Find as many different angles as you can, to make sure it looks right from every direction.
This site is a great resource, rotatable reference, there's probably a woman wearing a suit somewhere in there if you dig around a bit.
Great improvement though, keep it up!
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normal map, spec map ... mirrored UVs up the middle of the face? I don't get it
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Well you see a normal map is used to add details to shading without using more polygons doing so makes the low poly mesh appear denser. The specular map is there to enable me to control the brightness of a texture's reflection to light and where it is placed. The mirrored uv's are there to get me some additional room on the maps.
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EVERY human is asymmetrical to some degree
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I too have noticed this.
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Even masturbatory fantasy females from 10 years ago
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This version is clearly based on the season nine episode Trust No 1 which aired in 2002.
I hope you found this post informative.
oh, and now i'm gonna dig out that particular episode and get nit-picking on your ass