Thanks all, I'm really happy that you like it.
As for the time I've put into sculpting the cloth, I have no clue. The time just seems to go by unnoticed. But it took a while, I'd say. As you can see above, it took about 6-7 hours to get from blobby version to the more refined one.
I made a necklace and started low poly. Still need to add earrings and bracelet, but I think I'll do that in similar way as the necklace so it all matches. Also, that seam on the neck is very noticeable (but the higher poly versions don't look that bad though) and I'm thinking of adding separate ring of polies around the neck for the necklace and have the alpha on it. That way I can hide the seam on the neck (I need to have the seam there, so I can unwrap whole head in one piece). I hope that will work. I think I'll do the same for the upper arm bracelet, so that I can mirror hands. Hopefully it will give more depth to the jewelry too. Here are some renders:
She doesn't take it off, just as she never takes off her dress I was actually thinking of that but then thought to hell with it, because I'm not even sure how much of it will show in the normal map anyway.
As for workflow for the jewelry pieces, it's very simple. It's similar to what Pascal Blanch
Hmm, I'll be very interested to see how (if?) this lovely intricate jewellery shows up on the normal map. It's only a 1024x1024, right? Extremely fine/intricate lines tightly packed are usually a no-no for normal maps unless they're really high-res. See how it goes though!
mop : if she renders them on a polygon strip and make good use of the repeating patterns on those pieces, she can still get decent details on the normal map, color will do the rest IMO
Well, I'm going to do some tests with normal map later today and I yet need to UV map the low poly, but I think I'll be able to give some more texture space to the jewelry in case the detail doesn't show very well. I'll have to play around with it and see how it turns out. For now, here's the low poly (4967 tris, but need to add eyes and some other details, such as her tarot cards, but won't be above 6k most likely):
Need to do some cleaning up on the normal map. The jewelry transfered fine, but I need to add alpha, as now it seems kind of thick and heavy, but with alpha it should look better. I'll post closeup then. Also, I've given up on AO, as it's way too grainy and doesn't do much on such small details (and I used 128 rays). I think I'll just convert the normal to displacement and use that to darken the color map.
Very nice indeed!
Since this is normalmapped now, you could probably just pull the lowpoly mesh around a bit to fix the arm proportions - at the moment the forearm is way too long, if you bring the elbow down and keep the hand in the same place, that should fix it though.
The back looks fine to me (minor nitpick is that it seems like the back of a very skinny person - bone showing clearly etc. while her front and arms look a lot more muscular).
I'm not a huge fan of her boobs - they look a bit flappy and "stuck on" - the weird thing is, the meshflow of the lowpoly there looks really good, it's just the normal map that's making the cleavage look slightly unnatural, especially for a dress like that.
All in all turning out really well though, looks like an impressive amount of effort!
This is just amazingly nice. I love everything about it so far. The only crit I have is about the back musculature as some others have commented. I think it's a bit inconsistent, as her arms and shoulders look strong, but the muscles of the back appear very delicate. You might want to adjust the arms/shoulders if you want her to look slender and elegant, or beef up the back in order to give her more of a "fighter" look. Superb job overall, though.
Thanks everyone for comments, compliments, crits and everything! I agree about arms and back, and boobies gave me big headache too, because they are just not looking right on normal map, while on high poly they look ok. I tried manually fixing normal map but it just made it worse
As for the polycount, it's actually sitting at 5142 tris right now (she doesn't have legs!). I think I'll do some texture tagging when/if I add some more tied ribbons to the dress and some more hairs, as I don't have any more space on UV map, but I think I won't exceed 5500 tris. I moved the elbows down a bit, and I'll enlarge the hands too, now when I look at them they really are tiny.
Started blocking in some colors. Added eyelashes and tarot cards. More coming soon. Thanks!
And the jewelry turned out alright, I think. Hopefully it will look better with spec.
I think the weird shape of the breasts is coming from your lowpoly mesh itself, you may want to try tweaking it slightly to get rid of it.
have fun with the texture tho, seems she's gonna take you some time with all this detail
Coming along pretty well so far!
The eyes are probably the weakest area that I can see - they're big and draw attention, but they appear to be slightly cross-eyed, and very dull (although when you get to specular this will really kick up the brightness/shininess nicely), I'd consider photosourcing the diffuse texture for the eyes at least a little bit to get them looking really nice and believable.
Cleavage still needs some fixin', but you know about that already... the tarot cards seem oddly large, and look like they need more contrast in the diffuse, they're looking very washed out at the moment.
Once you fix up the eyes and get specular on her though, she'll look great!
I think the dress in particular will be very forgiving if you just want to keep the diffuse simple, since the shininess of the specular (if you choose a nice saturated colour) could pretty much do all the work for you, because all the detail has been sculpted already.
And some progress between packing to move! I can finally see end in sight, and it is pretty close! Yay! Thanks again for comments, everyone.
So here's what I've got... The specular needs some tweaks, and the weight on the skin would require some touchups. I'm particularly unhappy with elbow area, since even though the shape itself doesn't look too bad, the normals of the vertices around the joint get messed up, resulting in nasty shading. So I might have to fix them manually once I get the final pose. The pose below is about what I had in mind, but if you have some suggestions, I'm all ears. There's now simple eye rig in place with eye joints, and so the eyes can be closed half way, although I kind of like the idea of her having big eyes. Firstly, to in a sense show that she can ~see~ the future, and lastly, she is derived from anime design.
Also, I figured I wouldn't make the dress too colorful, as it's pretty detailed as is, so with additional colors I thought it might look too busy (I had blue in concepts but decided not to include it). That's why I only added yellow details and kept entire dress same color. Some areas still need some fixes though. Here's the render:
That's looking really nice, though maybe you could give the tarot cards some rounded corners. Maybe also the bows at the bottom of her dress could be a different colour. I almost missed they were there.
Great stuff!
I think that looks good, but like you mentioned, you can push the spec a bit more especially on the dress I think, to show off more of the work you put into it. The main thing, I think, is that you need a better lighting setup for your render. It looks great!
looking totally sweet. my suggestions are similar to other peoples':
- consider adding new colors to the dress in already-defined areas; like make the petticoat pink and leave the top layer red? and the bows a different color like caseyjones mentioned.
- more specularity on that dress! so many awesome folds! and silk and taffeta (sp?) gowns like this one could be are awfully shiny.
- better light setup in the render! consider this one: http://www.scottduquette.com/tmp/pc_lights_01.jpg
Thanks for comments and suggestions. I guess I'll just add red color then, to break it up a little. I wanted to keep the colors from the original Rose concept, but I guess two similar colors that are broken up with yellow would also work. Add alpha to tarot cards added to to-do list. Ah yeah, the lighting still needs work, that's the same setup I used for test renders from the start, so I'll fix that too, and thanks for the example, Noritsune.
I think I might brighten up the jewelry, or try to really crank up the spec on it, although it's fairly bright right now. I had idea of it to be aged silver, although now with all the parts in yellow, it might be better off as gold, but I'm afraid to make the color too bright, as it would not stand out against the skin.
hey yeahhh good stuff! the jewelry looks kinda cool how it is now, what do other people think? not sure it needs changing.
I'd only question the magenta + crimson color combo on the skirts. I like the way you executed it, but I think the two colors themselves clash. Maybe the magenta + raspberry, or magenta + pink?
magenta and a purple, like the color of her hair in the original concept would be cool. I'm actually surprised you didn't try out the purple hair. Either way, it looks really fantastic. Really great work!!
I like the dark red of the mostly purple dress but use it for the mostly red dress with purple bits. Try making a colored spec for it thats a different color than the dress material. Also put in some pastern into the spec map so that it makes it really interesting.
Good idea TGZ, I was thinking of something like that and here's how it turned out:
Maybe tone it down, so the folds are more prominent? They got kind of lost, but overall I think the fabric looks more interesting.
Anyways, I'm going to submit shortly. Thanks all for kind words and comments, it helped a lot!
maybe tone it down on the purple and up its specular so it pops on the highlight but not as much everywhere. The red pasterns is barely noticeable, so maybe up that ones spec even more too, just don't tone that diffuse pattern down.
It looks great rite now btw. The colors look more like real fabrics now.
Also give her some blush too, her cheeks are looks a little blehh.
Replies
As for the time I've put into sculpting the cloth, I have no clue. The time just seems to go by unnoticed. But it took a while, I'd say. As you can see above, it took about 6-7 hours to get from blobby version to the more refined one.
I made a necklace and started low poly. Still need to add earrings and bracelet, but I think I'll do that in similar way as the necklace so it all matches. Also, that seam on the neck is very noticeable (but the higher poly versions don't look that bad though) and I'm thinking of adding separate ring of polies around the neck for the necklace and have the alpha on it. That way I can hide the seam on the neck (I need to have the seam there, so I can unwrap whole head in one piece). I hope that will work. I think I'll do the same for the upper arm bracelet, so that I can mirror hands. Hopefully it will give more depth to the jewelry too. Here are some renders:
Mind if I ask how you went about the modeling of that necklace? Looks very detailed.
I was also wondering how you did that necklace.
As for workflow for the jewelry pieces, it's very simple. It's similar to what Pascal Blanch
Apologies for the bright nostrils, shadows are off.
I also think the model is a tad too rigid, as that was mentionned before. can't wait to see it normalmapped tho, looks promising
Need to do some cleaning up on the normal map. The jewelry transfered fine, but I need to add alpha, as now it seems kind of thick and heavy, but with alpha it should look better. I'll post closeup then. Also, I've given up on AO, as it's way too grainy and doesn't do much on such small details (and I used 128 rays). I think I'll just convert the normal to displacement and use that to darken the color map.
I just thik the forearm is a bit too long, or maybe the the upperarm/biceps a bit short. Specially in the front view.
But it's a master piece dude! Keep them comming.
Since this is normalmapped now, you could probably just pull the lowpoly mesh around a bit to fix the arm proportions - at the moment the forearm is way too long, if you bring the elbow down and keep the hand in the same place, that should fix it though.
The back looks fine to me (minor nitpick is that it seems like the back of a very skinny person - bone showing clearly etc. while her front and arms look a lot more muscular).
I'm not a huge fan of her boobs - they look a bit flappy and "stuck on" - the weird thing is, the meshflow of the lowpoly there looks really good, it's just the normal map that's making the cleavage look slightly unnatural, especially for a dress like that.
All in all turning out really well though, looks like an impressive amount of effort!
hmm, she's hands looking a little bit tiny to me.
Are u sure, man/miss, what there is only 6k polys in model?
the hands look too small and the arms need to be re-proportioned. Damn fine entry.
Great!
hmm, she's hands looking a little bit tiny to me.
Are u sure, man/miss, what there is only 6k polys in model?
[/ QUOTE ]
The limit is 10K
As for the polycount, it's actually sitting at 5142 tris right now (she doesn't have legs!). I think I'll do some texture tagging when/if I add some more tied ribbons to the dress and some more hairs, as I don't have any more space on UV map, but I think I won't exceed 5500 tris. I moved the elbows down a bit, and I'll enlarge the hands too, now when I look at them they really are tiny.
Started blocking in some colors. Added eyelashes and tarot cards. More coming soon. Thanks!
And the jewelry turned out alright, I think. Hopefully it will look better with spec.
have fun with the texture tho, seems she's gonna take you some time with all this detail
still cool work tho
The eyes are probably the weakest area that I can see - they're big and draw attention, but they appear to be slightly cross-eyed, and very dull (although when you get to specular this will really kick up the brightness/shininess nicely), I'd consider photosourcing the diffuse texture for the eyes at least a little bit to get them looking really nice and believable.
Cleavage still needs some fixin', but you know about that already... the tarot cards seem oddly large, and look like they need more contrast in the diffuse, they're looking very washed out at the moment.
Once you fix up the eyes and get specular on her though, she'll look great!
I think the dress in particular will be very forgiving if you just want to keep the diffuse simple, since the shininess of the specular (if you choose a nice saturated colour) could pretty much do all the work for you, because all the detail has been sculpted already.
Keep up the great work!
So here's what I've got... The specular needs some tweaks, and the weight on the skin would require some touchups. I'm particularly unhappy with elbow area, since even though the shape itself doesn't look too bad, the normals of the vertices around the joint get messed up, resulting in nasty shading. So I might have to fix them manually once I get the final pose. The pose below is about what I had in mind, but if you have some suggestions, I'm all ears. There's now simple eye rig in place with eye joints, and so the eyes can be closed half way, although I kind of like the idea of her having big eyes. Firstly, to in a sense show that she can ~see~ the future, and lastly, she is derived from anime design.
Also, I figured I wouldn't make the dress too colorful, as it's pretty detailed as is, so with additional colors I thought it might look too busy (I had blue in concepts but decided not to include it). That's why I only added yellow details and kept entire dress same color. Some areas still need some fixes though. Here's the render:
Great stuff!
-caseyjones
I agree that you could round off the corners of the cards, I think it'd help.
- consider adding new colors to the dress in already-defined areas; like make the petticoat pink and leave the top layer red? and the bows a different color like caseyjones mentioned.
- more specularity on that dress! so many awesome folds! and silk and taffeta (sp?) gowns like this one could be are awfully shiny.
- better light setup in the render! consider this one:
http://www.scottduquette.com/tmp/pc_lights_01.jpg
seriously cool though, very nice job.
I think I might brighten up the jewelry, or try to really crank up the spec on it, although it's fairly bright right now. I had idea of it to be aged silver, although now with all the parts in yellow, it might be better off as gold, but I'm afraid to make the color too bright, as it would not stand out against the skin.
I'd only question the magenta + crimson color combo on the skirts. I like the way you executed it, but I think the two colors themselves clash. Maybe the magenta + raspberry, or magenta + pink?
Here are some variations, not sure still which one will be the final:
Maybe tone it down, so the folds are more prominent? They got kind of lost, but overall I think the fabric looks more interesting.
Anyways, I'm going to submit shortly. Thanks all for kind words and comments, it helped a lot!
It looks great rite now btw. The colors look more like real fabrics now.
Also give her some blush too, her cheeks are looks a little blehh.