Jake's Characters

Jake C

Hi there, I havent posted since I signed up! Im graduating from my game program in the next 2 months and I'm looking for more critiques while I prepare my portfolio...then perhaps I have more time to get more involved here, tons and tons of great work around. I can post wires, but I'm mostly looking for overall critiques for textures, lighting etc.

My first is a horrific science experiment...Its a high poly (11,800 tris) piece with color, normal (generated in Zbrush), and specular maps. With some recent feedback I would like to push the textures even further, but I'm not sure exactly how other than adding more stitching and rashes etc. It is currently a 2048 map for my show piece, so there is plenty of detail for the closeups.

I think the lighting may be washing out a lot of the details so I will have to keep testing.



This character is a fantasy themed Arab warrior - I am also working on his giant mount. He is 5300 tris with his weapons. He uses a 1024 map for his body, with a 512 for both his weapons. I plan to add normal and spec maps to this character also. Any thoughts or comments are very appreciated!

Tulkamir

Hey Jake, you already know what I think, but I thought I'd mention that posting some wires and even texture flats might help the people here give ya some critiques.

skankerzero

wow, 2048 just seems like overkill for the spider guy. Unless you're going to zoom in on him really tight.

Just think about how many pixels any one part of him is going to take up on screen.

I mean, as it is, he's not very detailed, and the spider part of him is so dark that you can get away with some pixels.

I don't know, to me it screams 'wasted space' more than 'awesome texture'.

my 2 cents.

Jake C

Hey thanks for replying...yes I just might get some wires and show some textures to get even more feedback when I get a bit more time, thanks bud.

Yes thats true! I just did some tests dropping it to 1024 at the range I would like to render it at - basically a bust shot, and the results were worse than expected.

Since its my 'show piece' and we are encouraged to go all out on one of our characters, I plan to leave it so I can do some close pans of this character.

Im used to using very reasonable texture sizes, have never gone this big, and know it sounds outrageous! but I think I have purpose for it. I hope to keep beefing up the texture to solidify my reasoning

Joao Sapiro

looks nice, but if you keep the texture like that will hurt your portfolio for submission. Its like having a 1024 for a prop and yet it seems to have a 256x256 texture.

Jake C

Thanks Johnny...

Yes thats what I've been contemplating. I suppose that if I do drop it I will just not be able to render very close and will do pretty standard model rotations...if its really going to impact my submission than I may have to.

The top image was cut down to 1024



Few more slightly older images to show some wires

Wells

You keep saying its a show piece, but what exactly are you trying to show? The texture and polycount is rather high for an in-game asset, but way too low for any cinematic work. If we could see the texture I think we could give you a lot more focused crits on how to make it shine.

If the texture looks butt at 1024, thats not the resolution's fault... you need to go in and manually sharpen up the areas, bring out the details you want. People have been making beautiful stuff using 256's that you can get nice and close to.

The texture itself is pretty bland... almost just a two-toned cloud layer with a splorts of the brown dirt over it. And those of course will lose their sharpness, which is really the only thing the 1024 has against it.

I don't mean this to be harsh. Its a great model, but if you want it to be a show piece, as you keep pointing out, I'd say you need to go in and really push yourself, and listen to the crits on this board. If everyone immediately says that a 2048 is way too much... its probably because it is. There's a lot of good things going on here, and I really hope you take it that extra step.

low odor

cool stuff. The warrior looks good..although he has some wonky spots here and there. First thing that catches my eye is that he has a case of pancake hands. Check out these low poly hands made by johny
http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/image.php?9ebee0b5e9.gif
Same thing with the feet..they look like they could use some more shape. The drapery on the robe above the belt looks kind of strange. I would reference the Auron character from FFX he has a similar type costune. The drapery below the belt seems way too subtle.
Cool character overall..just my 2 cents on how you could improve it

adam

You should post the wire flats for this as well - at 1024x you should be getting some high density. If you're not than I suspect that the UV's were laid out inefficiently. You especially do not need 2048x2048 textures for something as undetailed as this.

Nogan

I have to say those are some awesome models, Jake. Much better than I could ever do (but then again, I'm not planning on becoming a modeling & texturing characters;) ).

Having said that, for the spider guy, his skin does seem a little too smooth and flat. Take off the specular and normal mapping and revisit the plain, base texture in its full glory. Give the skin some bumps or whatever using the burn and dodge tools. Also, take the texture map down to 1024. If you do those two things, it should look almost as good as your 2048 model.

Also, bring out the hair in the legs more. If you're going to show off something, show off the smooth curves and prickly hairs that stick out you've made with those polys you've invested into it, and then pull back and show the whole model textured (providing you're going to do some kind of video with this).

Once again - great stuff!

Jake C

I agree with the comments and greatly appreciate them!

Sectaurs: I really should be able to push myself more and get the most out of my textures with more practice...I will defiantely take you advice and see if I can really push up the quality and lower the map size.

AdamBrome: I think your right, I will hopfully be able to drop the textures in the end.

Low Odor: yes the drapery definately needs some fixing! I also am in the process of fixing the hands, they were bothering me a lot.

Nogan: Thanks Neil, I plan to do that and keep working on it!

Thanks a lot for taking the time to help.

moose

I dont agree with it not needing a 2048 However, i dont think you really took full advantage of the 2048.

Give the skin some detail!! if you're going to use that big of a texture, fuck it, put pores, cracks, scars, pocks, veins, discolorations, EVERYTHING! spend some time on that sucker. When you add little veins and other things, keep them on seperate layers and add them to your normal map after the fact. Keep in mind though, if you start adding detail in one spot, it needs to be balanced.

I enjoy the silky surface of the 'man' part of the spider, but i think it really needs some love with more surface. Make him seem more translucent with veins and skin layers.

It is a great model, but i think you could take much more advantage of the 2048 and add some sick detail to it.

Optimize him down about 15-20% if you can too, 11k is high, but 8 or 9 should be acceptable depending on what it is intended for. If its a boss guy, yea, otherwise you may want to shoot for 5 or 6.

I think that we scale down our textures at times to limit ourselves withnot putting enough detail in. Yes, for optimization and performance a smaller series of textures ARE better. But if you want to really show off your shit and what you can do, use a huge ass texture, and really give it life by filling EVERY pixel.

genuine90

just my opinion, but the skin seems to be smooth in most of the areas, making it to sway away from the idea of a experience gone WRONG.

Jake C

I've taken the advice given and made a new texture pass on the head, and a quick job in Zbrush (down to the line going across his chest in the render).

I dropped it to 1024x, and overall it's a much smarter decision to do, so thanks a lot to everyone that made a strong point of it. But man does this guy eat up space with all his appendages and large bulbous body. I suppose that when I first started using Zbrush to create normals(with this model, actually) I didn't think I would have to paint in as much light info into the textures...so hopfuly this has a lot more quality to it

Do you guys cut down the amount of light, especialy highlights, painted into a normal mapped model in general? Thanks again, and I apologize if I was at all stubborn on the matter

adam

"I will hopefully be able to drop the texture..."

What's stopping you?

Jake C

I've decided to take the solid advice as I said above. I didn't mean to be so careless with my words earlier. Thanks for the help

Rhinokey

well look at this it seems you are wasting the potential of your normal maps, they should be used to fake geometry and add extra detail, but looking at the textured version and the woreframe, it doesnt seem like thats hapening, almost all the detail in the model seems to be there in your insanely high poly mesh. you have even modeled in nipples and eyes, and many fine rolls of flesh,, all of which could have been done perfectly in a normal map.. especialy a freakin 2048 normal map, over all it looks pretty decent, but i personaly think theres some bad personal choices in the creation pipeline

Jake C

Rhinokey: Yes there were definately bad choices in my planning for this project...but this is my first normal mapped character so hopfuly I will do more reserach and be that much smarter next time. Let me know what you think of the update and thanks!

I went back to Zbrush and created the normals again, finally getting the hang of it (I think). Smaller texture, and way more detail. Hopfuly this is a lot better as I will soon have to call it finished.

Is he looking too glossy for displaying on a reel? Having more dim lights will almost make it look like its not normal mapped. I've tried a few lighting setups (currently using JSNormalmapper) and I'm not sure how best to improve the lighting - currently directional lights with one casting specular on both front and back, and a decaying point light in front of the eyes.

Thanks for the suggestions, and more are certainly appreciated

dkorch

all I gotta say is go watch pans labrinth and pay attention the child eater...the way his skin hangs off his arms and just his skin in general is fucking awsome and somthing you should definatly should for with this character.

the other thing for me is the brown body...not to sure about it personally. I think you should play with the colors...go into your texture sheet really quick and turn it to a black, maybe with a slight purple even...or some kind of white...the brown just doesnt match imo.

also maybe play with those tiny hairs on the back and the back of the arms...might be cool, try it out. anywho, keep it up. its gettin better....

richkid

on what mr korch was saying, you have the thing going kind of like the old illustrations of mermaids. there is nothing connecting the two bodies, it is just this abrupt line where one half is spider and the other is blob man. if you bring the colors from one side into the other and have it blend more i think this would read pretty wicked.

Jake C

Thanks for the suggestions and sorry I took so long to get back. I wish I could have watched Pan's labyrinth or knew of it when I was working on him! I would have liked to improve the area where spider meets man, but this late in the pipeline and with all the other work I had to do I didnt accomplish it...great point though.


I've updated my webpage with a bunch of 2d work and 3 of my characters for graduation, and wanted to get some general thoughts on their presentation, and any advice for the characters themselves - I may have time to address things and if not I want to know in what areas to improve anyways

I kind of want to delete all the above images because I feel I have come such a long way...now onto making my current work look just as silly in the near future!

My Portfolio Webpage

I have yet to upload my videos but hope to do so soon...here are a few examples

Tulkamir

Damn Jake, hadn't seen most of those drawings. Awesome pencil work man. I love the second one down. The thing has that expression along the lines of "Oops, I just shit myself".