Beautiful looking model fogmann. I like how the helmet turned out. If I was forced to make one tiny crit (and it's tiny alright) I would suggest that you have overdone the posing somewhat in an attempt to give the neutral model some poise. Assuming Z is the depth of the image and Y up, considering the the arm and hand position from all angles, that arm is bent at the elbow in X in a way that is just not quite possible and feels a little awkward. Try it out in the mirror
Oh snap, two more weeks only Well, my computer got f'd and I almost lost this weekend, but it somehow works (although I can't tell if it's really fixed, since I don't even know what is wrong with it, it just uses around 70% processing power without any processes actually using CPU except sys idle of course; all I was able to find out is that it's slow like that because of hardware interruptions). I hope it will continue to work in near future and let me finish this thing at least.
Again, thanks for comments and kind words.
Daz, you are right, as always, and I'll try to address that on a low poly, or just be super careful when orienting the arm joints. And Snowfly, I see what you mean and I'll try to make her a bit bulkier (I guess more muscular legs would work?) on a low poly. Right now it would be a nightmare to try adjusting those things.
Here's the high poly of (most of) the rest of the body. I should really go back to most of the parts and refine the sculpt, but I'll see how much time I'll have.
Beautiful sculping and I really love the overall shape of the character with the big hip pads and stuff. Hate to say somethin after you've made so much progress on it, but the helmet just isnt rubbing me the right way. The sillouhette from the side looks good, but in the front view, for me, the part sticking out is too skinny. If your following snowfly's concept, it looks more like a face mask that is flipped up and i really like it in the concept. Maybe its just me because other people seem to like it but i dunno, maybe just take another look at the concept. Other than that, im loving it. You MIGHT could try to balance out the lower body like snowfly said, but i dont particularly dislike the current proportions. Keep up the awsome work
Many thanks for the words of kindness and encouragement!
And Clint, yeah I know which concept you mean, I liked that one too but thought that with a full mask I might need a few too many polies if I wanted to make it functional. As I mentioned, this one is from the first concept with female rider, where the idea was to have rider's gear mimic the beast (is there a mask there? Now that I look at it, it might as well be!). Either way, I like that idea of echoing mount's shapes, and that's what I got going (doesn't show yet, but hopefully will make more sense when I put the two together), and you're entitled to your own preference of course
At last, I think I'm done with high poly Lola:
Sorry, she is still disfigured, the mirrored parts are missing as I didn't need them in the scene.
Some progress on the mount, it's not quite there, need to add the straps and other little things, but I thought I'd show while it's everything at this level (still under 1m polies though) in one scene, since I'll have to work on piece by piece from here on.
And why nobody told me working on creatures is so much fun
Didn't really use any reference aside some bugs and Snowfly's concept, because it was taking me forever to find something that will be really useful, so I kind of eyeballed all the anatomy, hoping it would end up looking at least a bit plausible.
If you do need any reference art, the Warhammer 40k Tyranid Warriors share a few similar aspects to your beetle horse - Hooved feet, ribbed chest and plated carapace for a start. That said, what you've got thus far is looking about as plausible as a cross between a horse and a stag beetle is going to get. Nice work.
I'd like to see the muscles at the top of both sets of legs integrated into the body a little more... right now they're sort of stuck on - from the side view anyways. Its a touch choice when you've got to blend segmented carapaces with muscles.
His angry eyebrow looks a little silly in my opinion. Kind of takes it into the cartoon spectrum. I'd like to see it as a more uniformed beetled-brow [ha!], if you get my meaning.
He needs some little stiff bristly hairs sticking out of his softer parts. Like flies.
Keep on kicking ass, and you'd better finish this!
Yay, thanks everyone!
Jackablade, thanks for the tip! I'll get back to the mount very soon.
Sectaurs - you made great points. Fortunately, I didn't get the mount quite done yet, so I'll take that into consideration and try to fix him up.
Yesterday I pretty much spent trying to find polies I can shave off from low poly, because I gave myself limit of 3k, so that I have another half for the mount. The saddle will be using weapon/detachable gear budget, so there should be enough. And then UVs, and baking in my bakery all day today. The AO was quite buggy, I need to clean it up, but the normal maps came out pretty well, maybe won't even need much touching up. Here's the AO and normal:
And in case you didn't know, Lola is a hippie and she goes to war only because she vowed to defend the throne of his majesty, Count of Poly.
AWESOME! I can't believe how much detail is coming through in the normal map, and haha nice idea making her a jester but i refuse. a week to get through the mount, weapon, textures and pose... whew, hope you make it!
If you're using max, theres this fucking retarded thing where you have to set you ray distance to different settings for ambocc to render out, dunno whats up with this but it looks like thats the case. So render a seperate ambocc pass i guess. Whenever dealing with max i always run a quick low quality ambocc test before doing final maps.
lol @ Snowfly - didn't mean to make her a jester, but that's a good one It's just that I assigned basic colors to parts to easily separate them for texturing and thought it looked too funky to not post. A week + another week (yay extension!) and I think I'll make it. The low poly for the mount is almost done, and I made some progress on the high poly:
Now I think I'll have time to actually go in and refine it a bit more. As for the wings, I'm thinking of making them look like dragonfly's wings, not as much transparent, but to have that pattern, as the shape already resembles them. Thought it would be worthwhile to try to achieve some nice texturing on there, something like this
Any objections?
EQ: I use Maya and I tried different values for max ray distance, but that didn't help. When the rays are too short, the whole AO map gets much brighter, but the spots are still visible, and also the longer rays make them pitch black. It has something to do with underlying geometry, I have many overlapping parts, although they don't intersect at the outer surface where they are not supposed to. Anyway, it's not that bad and I already painted out most of them, which ended up being much quicker than waiting for mental ray to make the map. I redid some of the maps (there was detail missing on backpack so I rebaked that), but nothing much new to show with that.
nice work so far ... here is a tip:for the amb occ pass you could bake it with mental ray using the normal map on the low geo ... it works only with final gather (dirtmap won't work) but the details are not as sharp as baked from the real geo... you should give it a try though ....
Thanks for comments, gentlemen!
Well, thanks for being persistent in convincing me to go with xNormal, it worked like a charm! And it improved so much since the last time I used it (on my detective character where I still had problems with floating geo, but not anymore!). So I rebaked most of the textures, and also built the low poly of the rest, made some gear and baked that too. Good bye mental ray and your black holes; you're slow as hell!
As of right now, it looks like there won't be any weapons. The gear is at 848 triangles, and although it could possibly weight a little less, I wasn't sure about the weapon and how would I fit it in, and whether it would have to be fairly large to be even visible on the final shot... so, I was thinking that I might add some sprites so that the mount exhales poisonous fumes, or even some sparks and flames, and I also liked the idea that the mount is a weapon.
Anyways... bling bling, here goes the shiny stuff, and sorry for huge image, my entry is so large:
and some closeups:
Off to texturing.
Great stuff - your biggest challenge will be to finish it all on time while retaining your quality. You can do it!
Your entry is the only one I can think of with a full character and mount and you pulled it off very well considering you had to split the polys between them!
Looking awesome Fogman, really flowing well on your low poly mesh. But aren't you over the 6000 tri limit by 778 tris?, as I am seeing the full tri count as 6778. Just was curious before you got to far into your texture.
oh my... One of the best entry of this comp for sure. I second foreverendering by saying that it will be a bit hard to finish everything in time, but I'm sure you can do it !!
Thanks all for kind words, they are very encouraging in the times when my energy is running out, like these days, for example.
To clarify, the characters are under 6k, as follows: rider is at 2962, the mount 2968 and then the rest is gear with 848 tris, using weapon + gear budget, so it is on separate 1024 texture (which I haven't touched yet =(
Blocked in some colors, if you have any suggestions, I'm all ears:
I hope to finish the color by the end of the week, so that I can spend the weekend on the rest of the maps, pedestal, and a pose (I still have that skeleton I built for test, just need to fix the weights, so that at least won't take that long).
Hey fog, this entry is killing it, please please keep going
As for the color, im notfeeling it for the most part...
Try this site for some great color schemes....
http://kuler.adobe.com/
Im sure you already knew of it....
As far as the animal goes, Id say just keep it simple, and stick with an animal that closely resembles yours...The helmet and the tusk of the animal should match though for coninuity's sake
The details, models and textures are simply A M A Z I N G!
I love the mount's wings, very original!
You could add:
1) Some fur(perhaps a crest? or a few widespread? or perhaps make frontal legs hairy?) to the mount extruding alpha-mapped palallel planes, like described here:
2) Some shaders(reflections,specular mod,etc)
About the colors I would change only a few her face(perhaps too pale?) and for the mount's eyes you could make some strange eyes like:
For the mount's wings I could suggest you some kind of iridiscency(or whatever is said ) material:
and make the wings thin ( a plane joint to the bone, saves polygons )
However I would change her pants hips(too big and strange unless have some functional utility)... and less cloth will make her more sexy
The leather and suit marks are very nice! They remind me to Crysis nano suit:
Well these are just some ideas but the scene, as is at the moment, is almost perfect for me
Wow, thanks jogshi! Your xNormal rocks my world, awesome work, and I can't express how thankful I am to have this tool, it's a real life saver!!!
The suggestions all make sense, I still have a few polies to spare, so I'll try adding some alpha fur planes. The problem is that there isn't that many pixels to work with to add a good textural fur detail to the body. I tried adding some skin texture and it didn't look too good, but I'll try something more subtle, maybe it will work. Eyes will definitely have to get some more attention, I'll get back to them, great example!
For now I have the colors blocked in, they are a bit different than in previous shot and I might go back and change the hues around a bit. Tonight I was playing with shaders and tried to get some iridescence going on for the shell parts, but as of now it's only controlled by a ramp and some utility nodes, and I yet have to add a texture map to it, but I like where it's going and will try to add something similar to the wings, as you suggest, and the secondary shell, the one just underneath the main brown one. Anyways, here's a quick render:
There's actually much more detail in the texture than what you can see, but I'll post closeups later.
Quick update, rigged the bastards, still have plenty to do on texture, spec is missing still for the most part, and damn seams are still there =(. Not sure if this will be a final pose, but that's something close to what I had in mind.
Inspiring work there fogmann. That last pose really sets the steed off, if you could incorporate more of the beastie's evilness into the girl too, that could be a real winning pose. The normal maps look beautiful, time well spent! Keep going!!
I think actually much more of the models show from this angle.
Textured the gear, needs spec, and also added a rock pedestal, will try to incorporate some flora to make it more interesting, but just a batch here and there so it doesn't look too busy or detract from the characters.
Not sure how I could add more evilness into the lady, she has to hang onto the reins and sit in there. As for her appearance (aside from posture), I don't think it needs to look evil (would you mean more threatening by saying evil, maybe?) to be evil; really, evil is just a moral trait, and how would one tell this guy was the super evil villain:
Look at those sad innocent eyes and big flappy ears...
I liked the front shot better but thats just my opinion. As for evil you could try and lower the center of the brow a bit and give her some dark eyesockets and makeup. I found that always helps make women models look more evil (at least for me )
Looking really cool, can't wait to see your final shots
Replies
but thats not that untrue..
like the stuff.. (the hips are sooo coool)
Again, thanks for comments and kind words.
Daz, you are right, as always, and I'll try to address that on a low poly, or just be super careful when orienting the arm joints. And Snowfly, I see what you mean and I'll try to make her a bit bulkier (I guess more muscular legs would work?) on a low poly. Right now it would be a nightmare to try adjusting those things.
Here's the high poly of (most of) the rest of the body. I should really go back to most of the parts and refine the sculpt, but I'll see how much time I'll have.
And Clint, yeah I know which concept you mean, I liked that one too but thought that with a full mask I might need a few too many polies if I wanted to make it functional. As I mentioned, this one is from the first concept with female rider, where the idea was to have rider's gear mimic the beast (is there a mask there? Now that I look at it, it might as well be!). Either way, I like that idea of echoing mount's shapes, and that's what I got going (doesn't show yet, but hopefully will make more sense when I put the two together), and you're entitled to your own preference of course
At last, I think I'm done with high poly Lola:
Sorry, she is still disfigured, the mirrored parts are missing as I didn't need them in the scene.
-caseyjones
Some progress on the mount, it's not quite there, need to add the straps and other little things, but I thought I'd show while it's everything at this level (still under 1m polies though) in one scene, since I'll have to work on piece by piece from here on.
And why nobody told me working on creatures is so much fun
Didn't really use any reference aside some bugs and Snowfly's concept, because it was taking me forever to find something that will be really useful, so I kind of eyeballed all the anatomy, hoping it would end up looking at least a bit plausible.
If you do need any reference art, the Warhammer 40k Tyranid Warriors share a few similar aspects to your beetle horse - Hooved feet, ribbed chest and plated carapace for a start. That said, what you've got thus far is looking about as plausible as a cross between a horse and a stag beetle is going to get. Nice work.
looks brilliant!
I'd like to see the muscles at the top of both sets of legs integrated into the body a little more... right now they're sort of stuck on - from the side view anyways. Its a touch choice when you've got to blend segmented carapaces with muscles.
His angry eyebrow looks a little silly in my opinion. Kind of takes it into the cartoon spectrum. I'd like to see it as a more uniformed beetled-brow [ha!], if you get my meaning.
He needs some little stiff bristly hairs sticking out of his softer parts. Like flies.
Keep on kicking ass, and you'd better finish this!
Jackablade, thanks for the tip! I'll get back to the mount very soon.
Sectaurs - you made great points. Fortunately, I didn't get the mount quite done yet, so I'll take that into consideration and try to fix him up.
Yesterday I pretty much spent trying to find polies I can shave off from low poly, because I gave myself limit of 3k, so that I have another half for the mount. The saddle will be using weapon/detachable gear budget, so there should be enough. And then UVs, and baking in my bakery all day today. The AO was quite buggy, I need to clean it up, but the normal maps came out pretty well, maybe won't even need much touching up. Here's the AO and normal:
And in case you didn't know, Lola is a hippie and she goes to war only because she vowed to defend the throne of his majesty, Count of Poly.
Now I think I'll have time to actually go in and refine it a bit more. As for the wings, I'm thinking of making them look like dragonfly's wings, not as much transparent, but to have that pattern, as the shape already resembles them. Thought it would be worthwhile to try to achieve some nice texturing on there, something like this
Any objections?
EQ: I use Maya and I tried different values for max ray distance, but that didn't help. When the rays are too short, the whole AO map gets much brighter, but the spots are still visible, and also the longer rays make them pitch black. It has something to do with underlying geometry, I have many overlapping parts, although they don't intersect at the outer surface where they are not supposed to. Anyway, it's not that bad and I already painted out most of them, which ended up being much quicker than waiting for mental ray to make the map. I redid some of the maps (there was detail missing on backpack so I rebaked that), but nothing much new to show with that.
for the normals and ambocc, you may want to consider xnormal...
Model is looking really good btw, excelent style. Elegant and natural, the design dosent look forced as you see so much, really nice change of pace.
Well, thanks for being persistent in convincing me to go with xNormal, it worked like a charm! And it improved so much since the last time I used it (on my detective character where I still had problems with floating geo, but not anymore!). So I rebaked most of the textures, and also built the low poly of the rest, made some gear and baked that too. Good bye mental ray and your black holes; you're slow as hell!
As of right now, it looks like there won't be any weapons. The gear is at 848 triangles, and although it could possibly weight a little less, I wasn't sure about the weapon and how would I fit it in, and whether it would have to be fairly large to be even visible on the final shot... so, I was thinking that I might add some sprites so that the mount exhales poisonous fumes, or even some sparks and flames, and I also liked the idea that the mount is a weapon.
Anyways... bling bling, here goes the shiny stuff, and sorry for huge image, my entry is so large:
and some closeups:
Off to texturing.
Your entry is the only one I can think of with a full character and mount and you pulled it off very well considering you had to split the polys between them!
Keep it up!
Spark
great work again
gogogogogogo
damn nice characters!
Never thought that xnormal could be that powerfull. Cant wait to see some colour in it.
To clarify, the characters are under 6k, as follows: rider is at 2962, the mount 2968 and then the rest is gear with 848 tris, using weapon + gear budget, so it is on separate 1024 texture (which I haven't touched yet =(
Blocked in some colors, if you have any suggestions, I'm all ears:
I hope to finish the color by the end of the week, so that I can spend the weekend on the rest of the maps, pedestal, and a pose (I still have that skeleton I built for test, just need to fix the weights, so that at least won't take that long).
As for the color, im notfeeling it for the most part...
Try this site for some great color schemes....
http://kuler.adobe.com/
Im sure you already knew of it....
As far as the animal goes, Id say just keep it simple, and stick with an animal that closely resembles yours...The helmet and the tusk of the animal should match though for coninuity's sake
KEEp it up, youre almost there.
I love the mount's wings, very original!
You could add:
1) Some fur(perhaps a crest? or a few widespread? or perhaps make frontal legs hairy?) to the mount extruding alpha-mapped palallel planes, like described here:
2) Some shaders(reflections,specular mod,etc)
About the colors I would change only a few her face(perhaps too pale?) and for the mount's eyes you could make some strange eyes like:
For the mount's wings I could suggest you some kind of iridiscency(or whatever is said
and make the wings thin ( a plane joint to the bone, saves polygons )
However I would change her pants hips(too big and strange unless have some functional utility)... and less cloth will make her more sexy
The leather and suit marks are very nice! They remind me to Crysis nano suit:
Well these are just some ideas but the scene, as is at the moment, is almost perfect for me
The suggestions all make sense, I still have a few polies to spare, so I'll try adding some alpha fur planes. The problem is that there isn't that many pixels to work with to add a good textural fur detail to the body. I tried adding some skin texture and it didn't look too good, but I'll try something more subtle, maybe it will work. Eyes will definitely have to get some more attention, I'll get back to them, great example!
For now I have the colors blocked in, they are a bit different than in previous shot and I might go back and change the hues around a bit. Tonight I was playing with shaders and tried to get some iridescence going on for the shell parts, but as of now it's only controlled by a ramp and some utility nodes, and I yet have to add a texture map to it, but I like where it's going and will try to add something similar to the wings, as you suggest, and the secondary shell, the one just underneath the main brown one. Anyways, here's a quick render:
There's actually much more detail in the texture than what you can see, but I'll post closeups later.
I think actually much more of the models show from this angle.
Textured the gear, needs spec, and also added a rock pedestal, will try to incorporate some flora to make it more interesting, but just a batch here and there so it doesn't look too busy or detract from the characters.
Not sure how I could add more evilness into the lady, she has to hang onto the reins and sit in there. As for her appearance (aside from posture), I don't think it needs to look evil (would you mean more threatening by saying evil, maybe?) to be evil; really, evil is just a moral trait, and how would one tell this guy was the super evil villain:
Look at those sad innocent eyes and big flappy ears...
Looking really cool, can't wait to see your final shots