Terry the monster
Hey guys - I've been a longtime lurker and decided I wanted to actually start learning to model as part of my new years resolutions - so I've made a start on something and could use a little help and a few critiques (if people arent too busy drinking the new year in)
The model isnt specifically for any one engine, although I'd like to get it into Q3 eventually with a gun mounted on the back
I could use some crits on where the legs attach to the body (I've included close ups of those areas) as well as if I should keep things like the eyes as seperate objects, or should I be trying to merge the verts of those into the actual body?
The face seems a little heavy at the moment and doesnt have much shape for the amount of geometry being used, the idea is that the lips pull right back to expose the teeth, so i wanted to have enough mesh there for that - but it looks like im using way too many at the moment
anyway - onto the pics - thanks in advance for any help you can give a newbie, this is my first model but I'd rather people were as harsh as possible to speed the learning process (oh, and happy new year)
Concept:
Mesh:
Closeup of legs:
The model isnt specifically for any one engine, although I'd like to get it into Q3 eventually with a gun mounted on the back
I could use some crits on where the legs attach to the body (I've included close ups of those areas) as well as if I should keep things like the eyes as seperate objects, or should I be trying to merge the verts of those into the actual body?
The face seems a little heavy at the moment and doesnt have much shape for the amount of geometry being used, the idea is that the lips pull right back to expose the teeth, so i wanted to have enough mesh there for that - but it looks like im using way too many at the moment
anyway - onto the pics - thanks in advance for any help you can give a newbie, this is my first model but I'd rather people were as harsh as possible to speed the learning process (oh, and happy new year)
Concept:
Mesh:
Closeup of legs:
Replies
lots of wasted polys too. Only place polys where they are needed.
The eyes are a bit weird as they don't really match the surface and loads of extra polys running through the middle of the head for some reason.
you could easily lose at least two of the vertical edge loops.
If i was doing the eyes i would make them totally round and place them carefully in the middle of a square poly, not try and distort them in to human eye shape in situ.
you could make an instance of the eye so you can model it in the front/side viewport, then the changes will run through the ones you place on the head
The shape isn't bad, really, you just need to make a few tweaks, the area's I'd look to focus on are the mouth, eyes and the rear end, I'd make it a bit longer and come to a sharper point, also bringing the point down might make the creature flow better.
Edit: I noticed where you said you wanted to animate the mouth, put edge loops there and you can get rid of the two rows on the back, I don't think the back polies would effect the mouth.. Above the four rows(they could all goto down to one with very little shape change, though I'm pretty new to animation and modeling for animation)
Just some suggestions.
-Steve
I've also taken out some of the vertical loops and didnt really lose any of the shape, I was trying to have a lot of geometry there for the mouth animation but... yeah it was way overboard - I've cut it down but might need to cut it even further
The eyes are weird - I want them to be like spider eyes (again taken from some reference google pics) but maybe it wont be the right approach for the model - when I put them back on though I'll align them to the poly that they are resting on and see how it looks although I might end up just doing some normal eyes instead. Thank you very much for thr crit - its appreciated
SteveM: I've cut out a lot of the polys and added some more into the legs joining the body to make it blend in a bit more, I want the tail fairly stubby though but yeah it definately needs work but I'll probably leave that until last - thanks for the crit!
I've tried to make the way the legs attach to the body be a bit more natural after looking at some reference pics based on Ruz's crit - I've also played around with the front leg shape and foot a bit as well as cut down the poly count for the body. I'd still love crits if people have them - I'm going to try and take this model through to completion (probably without texture as I'm going to be pretty hideous at that too, and its probably best to stick with learning one thing at a time) even though the temptation to start on something else from scratch to put what I've learnt so far into practice is strong
All crits welcome - be as harsh as you like
Front Persp:
Front:
Back Persp:
Side:
Nice,
Steve
Turnaround:
Front:
Front Persp:
Side:
Back Persp:
I'm going to work on the UV's for this tomorrow although I'm not too worried about texturing them so it will probably be a quick job - should be interesting rigging him and seeing where I've messed up on the joints
Put about 3 hours into this little guy so far and have already learnt a hell of a lot. Is it really vital to play with the smoothing groups for models, is it really needed before it can be put into a game engine (or does it add a lot)?
I also have some suggestions
- Think of the silhouette. It is pretty formless, and very much like an inflated balloon. It makes him looks round and friendly. I would suggest breaking up the silhouette to help give form to the different pieces. Something like this;
- The concept has powerful jaws and big teeth. The model has long large lips that cover the teeth something tells me you'll have problems animating those lips into a snarl. If the model is going to spend most of its time bearing its teeth then I would take the lips off and make a permanent snarl, like the concept.
- In the front few, the front legs bow really far away from the model and the shoulder joint is pretty weak. Also think of shoulder blades if you go back to work on this area. Look at some dog, cat, tiger anatomy ref. I would also look at some fossil teeth and instead of having one tooth that is duplicated make them different shapes and sizes. Remember some teeth are for killing, some teeth are for ripping pieces off and others are for chewing.
- Just as a point of personal taste, I would make him leaner, and more boney. This would help people to know he's hungry, and you look pretty damn tasty right about now.
Good start, work on the form, silhouette and mouth and you should be in great shape
EDIT:
You posted while I was typing this up =P I really like the improvements and you rendered some of my comments null, nice work! My crit about the mouth still stands, I can't imagine how you would animate the mouth to open and show those teeth?
Frett, for some reason I love the potential of this model. Simple but cool. Only thing I'd change is the mouth topology, ie adding a loop to define a slight chanfer to help the transition between the outside and the inside of the mouth. I'll make a pic if you wish.
I'm curious to see the direction you will take with the texture.
My only beef now is were the back part of the front leg attaches to the body, I'm not sure this will animate well and could use another set of edges?
The mouth is.... hmmm im trying to explain how I thought about it. I kind of want it like a ragworm, so the mouth is just a small hole, but then the lips/head can slide right back to reveal the teeth underneath, so I'm not thinking of it really as a standard mouth... I'm desperately trying to find some reference to show you but I'm coming up short at the moment... I'll keep working on it. Thank you Vig for the comments on the legs, I was trying to find some nice reference for the legs and was striking out - however while browsing around the forums I noticed MoPs General had the same kind of legs so I got some inspiration from there (sorry MoP, I probably should have asked permission).
The problem you mention with the front leg I'll take a look at in a minute, this is my first model as I usually just animate the rigs that are given to me at work so I'm still not entirely clued up on how to make joints that will animate well, however the poly count still isnt ridiculously high so I will put some more geometry in there to help out a bit
Pior it would be great if you could make a pic to help explain what you mean about the mouth, I'm thinking you mean about where the lips would meet to show some definition there? And as for the texture... im learning to model as I go, and will be learning to UV once I think the models finished - so learning to texture on top of that seems a bit crazy... however I'm going to give it a go and see if I can get the whole model done so hopefully once I get the model done I'll work on the texture
Any crits from anyone on the actual topology of the model? I'm still a bit confused on whether I should be working in quads or tri's as I'm kind of using both at the moment and hoping it wont mess up my chances of getting him into a game engine
I thought it would use too much geometry to actually tie them into the mesh although it would allow me to add a tiny ridge around them, but the problem then is that the eyes would actually squash/stretch with the poly which I dont really want
Just texturing the eyes on would be a solution but I cant help but feel it might be a little flat then - but I do need a solution somehow
Do you think it would be a good move to leave the eyes as they are, then I could always alpha them out and just texture the eyes on, or would the extra geometry to add the eyes into the main mesh be a better option?
Mesh is almost finished now I think (apart from whatever option I take with the eyes) - will definately be finished tomorrow then I'll post an update pic before I start learning how to do the UV's
Thanks again for the crits guys - I#m very motivated to get my first model finished as I've already got some ideas for other models I'd like to make
I'm going to give it another go tomorrow but it is NOT going well, trying to find an acceptable place to have a seam is no fun on it either
euuuurgh
temptation to say "screw the texture" and just move onto rigging is prety strong right now
either way would be cool, but you should decide before you go further.
anywho, just my 2 cents, keep it up.