Soul Harvester

Pixelated

Hey guys, thought Id post my character up here see if I can get some running C&C. Having never made a games character before Im hoping you guys can pick me up on some things I might of missed or might need to change.

Brief:
• VERTICES: 0-6,000 (extra detail such as weapons or poly planes for hair can exceed this limit)
• TEXTURES: 3 colour, 3 specular, 3 bump (max 512x512, 32bit)
• HARDWARE SHADERS: A combination of colour, specular and bump

Heres the concept sketch and modeling so far at 5049 verts,

Japhir

i think you spent too many polys on the spine. looking good!

acc

Yeah, the spine could just be a cylinder. Even just a 5-6 sided one.

You can take out some of the sides on the cylinders you used for the pipes (there's also a bunch of divisions along the lengths of them that don't need to be there), and add more sides to the wheels.

Really, in general just remember that the smaller something is the less detailed it actually has to have. A small 5-sided cylinder looks the same as a large one with 20 sides.

And try not to do all your renders on a neutral grey. Blacks just masks the silhouette, often covering up problems.

Pixelated

Ok heres the progress so far. And Ive officially decided I HATE texturing!! Any pointers would be amazing!

Ive been working on the rear part, Ive only laid down base colours for the other areas. Its just taking too long...

Ive done what you said and got rid of the grey/black backgrounds. Your right, you can see the silhouette alot better now.
Also reduced the about of polys on the spine. Polycount is now 4781, I cleaned up other areas as well. Its guna end up lower as I still need to get rid of the back of the skull..



Im looking to put a bumper sticker on the back as well but cant decide what...


Never knock on Death's door. Ring the bell and run, he hates that.


Why am I The Only One On the Planet That Knows How To Drive?


I Hate The Fact That You People Don't Salute Me


Can't feed them, dont breed them


If the screams from my trunk bother you, turn up your radio


What part of "Thou shall not kill" Didn't you understand?! - God


I might put a couple onlong the bottom, just not sure.
Let me know what you think though, all C&C welcome. Mainly after criticism's, only way to improve, and lets face Im no texturing wizard

Thanks in advance to all that reply

Uly

The skull is looking nice, but there are a few nitpicks. How does he turn? The silhouette is kinda boring right now from any of the angles, if anything, kinda goofy. Why not give Death some control apparatus to pilot his lawnmower of souls? I also have a hard time believing spines bend like that... I understand the design aspect of it, but something about it doesn't come off right. (And the spine is going through the cloth on the back.)

chinups

"and lets face Im no texturing wizard"
Do not give up on texturing, you have to work at it, its an art and is essential to 3D. Practice! Practice!

Pixelated

Ok, here he is so far at 5306



Ive been looking at this every day for a while so I might of missed something.

Thankyou both for your feedback,

Ive come across a problem with some of my blades in the middle. The outer ones are lighter than the inner ones. And when they are at the back they looks out of place, I should of given them an extra face to texture I guess. But somethings are learnt the hard way I guess. There isnt enough space to adjust UV's, and Ive stacked some too much as it is. And Im not retexturing.... I probably should but sleep seems more important atm. And the hand in date is friday unless it gets moved.
I guess I could just make the outer blades darker to match the inner, wouldnt stand out so much then

The writing on the left says - Why am I the only one on this planet that knows how to drive?
Its ment to look like its been carved and rusted over. Just something stupid and a bit silly to add abit more character.

Also thought of getting rid of the scythe, would prob at a bit more to the character. More towards some crazy phyco running over stuff, rather than an imposing grim reaper. Plus it would save a bit of time

Turn wise I thought he could lean to one side and go on one wheel.

Its ment to be slightly goofy, its not a serious character. And theres not much I can do on the silhouette now. The spine is ment to of torn through the cloth at the back, should probably work on that part a little more

Any further C&C much welcome

Pixelated

Ok here he is textured and rigged (the texures are still at 1024)



I tried to rust and grime him up. Got rid of the stupid phase that was "engraved" on back. I would like to redo the blades on the side, they look abit half done if that. But I need to start my innovations ssooo..... we'll see
O and I had to chop off his sleeves, rigging problems +its guna save time animating!!

Wells

can we see your texture flats?

it in no way looks like its taking advantage of the real estate a 1024 affords you. Contrary to popular belief, learning to texture on smaller sheets would be easier and more rewarding. So many less pixels to worry about, you can actually focus on what you're trying to bring across to the viewer.

Also - never present your models on a pure white background. That is the equivalent to pooping in our collective eyes; it can make even the finest model look like shit.

I'm glad you're taking this through to completion, but don't stop now!

Pixelated

sure no problem, heres the colour maps and underneath is the UV layout for them. I havnt had to layout UV's for a games character before, so they probably arent brilliant. Ive doubled up the UV's where I thought I could get away with it. This did give me some problems with the ambient occlusion though, so I had to go and repaint some parts

I also had the problem of remodeling parts, so some UVs were lost and some moved around. Problem was I had already started texturing and didnt want to lose the work Ive already done. Bad pipeline I know, but I was learning as I was going along






Just wondering, what would be the best colour to put renders on?
I kinda come from a programming/physics background from the college I went to, so my eye for colour isnt that experienced

StJoris

A neutral gray seems to be good if I'm not mistaken.
I think your texturing could benefit from a backup of traditional arts, drawing, painting, sculpting, as it will really bring things alive alot more, the texture is really flat at the moment. You seem to be painting with your mouse, some experienced painters can do quite well, even in MS Paint, you can see them in a thread. I may be mistaken, so sorry if you are already but I feel using a graphic tablet like wacom really helps.

You are doing a good job, I've been reading a lot of posts here lately, and have been following your progress, and you seem to progress amazingly well:)Keep it up!

Pixelated

Thanks for the feedback, I was told earlier in this thread that I should stay away from mid greys , so Ive given it a slight hue of green.
Ummm I was actually using a wacom tablet
I still need alot of practicing texturing.... this is my second attempt at painting textures, Ive only done one character before this, and that was a very cartoony look so I could get away with a fair bit

Im having a few problems with the hardware rendering (maya) in this project.
Ive been trying to get my transparency maps working, and this is the result.



No transparency, random artifacts and depth sorting problems as well...
Ive checked all the normals....


This is what it looks like in software



HELP

low odor

You have lots of wasted uve space....could make it more efficient by mirroring

Sinistar

Hah this is a great concept, I'm liking the model and the improvements you've made over the thread.

Pixelated

Thanks for the feedback guys
The reason I didnt double up those UV's was because it would of looked too repeated over the model. (I didnt want every blade or piece of the metal guard going over them to look the same). I wanted to try and work abit more variety into the textures.
Although I could of probably halfed the size of the hood and doubled up the left onto the right half

I have to animate some cycles for this character aswell, including a jump . I kinda rushed the rig, I now know thats never a good idea. But I have to more on, too many pieces of coursework to be getting on with.
I know this isnt an animation forum, but Id be interested to hear what you think.
Remember he's ment to be a twisted metal / carmageddon character. So in no way is he ment to be a serious character

walkCycle
waitCycle
jumpCycle

These are all playblasts from the viewport. I cant enable high quality rendering as what Ive posted earlier still happens. So the transparency messes up slightly, but thats just maya messing up. It looks fine when rendered in software, so therefore Im hoping it would be ok in a games engine. Also with out high quality rendering the bump/normals maps and the specular doesnt show up. So thats why most of it looks all shiny.... dam maya's hardware renderer and its compatibility with graphics cards

Japhir

haha that wait cycle is funny.

Wells

Not doubling the uvs for unique texture would make more sense if you had gone in and painted unique texture... as it stands they just sort of have a cloudy gray variant on them, so you could easily stack the uvs with little change. flip a couple horizontally, a couple vertically, a couple both ways, and I imagine it would be hard to tell the difference.

If you're really keen on improving your skills, I would go back in and start hand painting - get good reference of thresher blades and do your best to emulate it.

I'm still of the opinion that you should shrink the hell out of those textures... the space is simply not being used.

Michael Knubben

With the current texture i doubt you'd see much of a difference if you shrank the entire thing down to 25% or less.
The cloudy blobs really just look like something that was crudely upscaled, with little to no detail in there.
I don't mean to be harsh, mind you, should i come across that way, but i say this because there's a lot more potential here.
I'd say: downscale it severely, and get down and dirty with the handpainting, which is easier at a lower res anyway.

Nogan

The rusty cylinders in the back could be improved by using the dodge and burn tools in Photoshop. Darken the edges of the flakes of rust that are higher then the rest of the cylinder so it looks a little more "lifted up" compared to the rest. Exaggerate the texture's depth more. You may not have to downsize your textures if you use up all your space wisely!

By the way: Awesome wait cycle, lol!

Pixelated

Thanks for all the advice guys, in the end I ran out of time and didnt manage to get around to redoing the textures. Too many pieces of coursework to be getting on with

And dont worry about being harsh, I prefer it as long as its constructive crits and not just, that looks crap.... coz that doesnt help any one.

But Ive learned ALOT from this project and from you guys. Even if I didnt manage to put it into practise
Thanks again, much appreciated

Sinistar

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walkCycle
waitCycle
jumpCycle


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I can't see any of these animations inFirefox, but they loaded in IE.

I like the wait cycle the best.