soooo, this has been running through my head now for about a week...Dominance War Unreal Mod...just tossing the idea out there, everybody teams up with an animator friend, and get this ready for when ut3 comes out.
so, ponder this in all of your pretty little heads and maybe someone with more motivation than i will start a thread trying to get this thing started.
i was thinking the same thing! i would've started the thread, only i don't know anything about modding with the unreal 3 engine, so i didn't wanna take lead of a project like that!
by the way, i like the model alot, but there seems to be some stretching near the pelvis? also, i agree about making the hair more rough. As or the gun... i think u shouldn't make that puff of hair... it makes it look cute. (kinda like those tiny dolls with the bigg poofs of hair in Pink, Green etc.?)
The UT3 mod sounds like an awesome idea! Especially with the popularity of this competition it could be quite successful. Im sure animators would be eager to animate some of the models in this competition, it could be like a dominance war for animators
I really like this character, and it's just been improving. The darkness of the head area means that you can't see any detail there, the eyes don't even stand out from the rest of the head. Make the top of the head a bit lighter, and drop a specular highlight on the eye. This is what I did for my boar model for the last competition:
cool gav, thanks for posting this I think it will help alot in figuring out some of the problems...mainly my problems right now that I see is that all the shapes that you sculpted in are very soft and undefined, and give an all around plastic feel to it.
take a look at spacemonkey's and graff pirates sculpts for this contest...
I know your style is more cartoony, but I think going back to the sculpt and really defining some shapes more, would really help give it a much cleaner, and better feeling.
for some reason this one is poppin sharper, i think it is just my lighting. i also need to put a higher contrast in my lighting solution just to give it that extra pop and depth. thanks for pointing that out darc, we miss you and your bro antics at school.
check out this awesome, im in like my last week of school, about to grad. My ac adapter for the old laptop(my only pc) decides that it doesnt need to give my laptop power anymore. My phone charger is in my friends trunk so i cant call people to try and use their computer or see if anyone has a spare cord, and im falling behind on my finals cause i can't get my work off of my laptop...
i just needed something to vent on, ive got a character test on top of that, i just need a hug right now.
alright everybody, keep truckin on this shit and i will be back in the ranks as soon as possible.
shit gav, that sucks. well get to work on your class and fucking finish school! heh, and as I said a week or so ago, I would stop working on this guy for now and do start that test ASAP. anywho, as for this guy, the normals are still muddy imo. I dunno if it is because of the normal map, or your sculpt, so post up a render of just your sculpt if you dont mind good sir.
Hey Gavin, I am deeply saddened to see no Jack head present in your latest updates. It is essential that you do include a Jack head. Glad to hear you got your power adapter and goodluck with finishing up school and the art test.
Hey man, glad to hear you can work again. If you've got tests and jazz, I can understand that. Though, I am going to make some suggestions anyway. I think some of these suggestions really carry on into all of your work, as the key problems I am seeing have been prevalent in the stuff you show in the Pimp Forum.
The biggest issue is that you are relying heavily on your normalmaps, which a great deal of the time are not actually helping the form of your model much. Others have said it, I don't know how to say it more creatively, but your textures are extremely murky. Here's what I would suggest:
#1 Have some boldness when texturing. Use your histogram, get a good full range of light values (minus whites, and minimal blacks for lighting purposes). Areas like the head, the limbs... you need more contrast between these areas and the rest of the body to pump those forms. Areas like the spots on the back (which I can hardly notice except on close inspection), could have a lot more contrast. Use color theory to increase the amount of design clarity. For example, you can hardly see this guy's head. In the posed shot, he just melds into one blob. Use the texture to pump the form. This is a part of design.
#2 Think bigger. You are adding details like bandage wraps on the arms and tassels on the backpack. These are feeling fairly arbitrary to me. Think about the big picture, start big and work your way down. Get the form right, to the major muscle groups, to the major skin colors, to the clothing scheme. Get those big masses sharp and nailed down before moving on to little tidbits. Remember, those little details are all for naught if the viewer can't easily decipher the forms.
#3 Think about texturing, and plan for it as you model. The straps on the pack suck. If you had them in mind when modeling, you either would have modeled them in or made better UVs. As it is, a better UVW map could hardly help, as the muscle form is fighting it.
#4 Hair is a tough one to get down, I haven't gotten it myself, but one thing I have learned is that I tend to get better results w/ volumetric/geometric hair rather than alpha. As you have it now, it just looks like smudge tool.
In the future, I would suggest trying old school diffuse-only texturing on simpler shapes to really sharpen your skills and get a good grasp on these things without the details mentality that you get with highpoly/normalmaps. It's not to late to really improve on this character in those ways. Again, school would be my priority if I were in your shoes. However I would encourage you to keep going.
i think i found a reason for my normal maps not working that well, im gonna play with that a bit. The texture still needs tightening. I went in and did a little more light dark rythms to seperate the head from the bulk some more.
eric, thank you for the love and time put into that, good calls all around. The strap wasn't an afterthought, just a thought that didn't work out as well as i had thought. I might just toss some alpha straps in there to replace those. Thanks again for the words.
art, there will be a jack ball, you can count on me for that much.
darc, oh darc. The problem with the normal is somewhere in the export, i figured out part of it but it still isnt to its fullest potential.
lots of love kids, i turned in the test and am done with my finals. After my math test friday night i will be out of school and whoring for work. expect some posts this week.
here are some newer shots of the dude. i havnt done a whole lot to him with all of the chaos lately. hit him hard, but hit him well, there are things that im not all that happy with, but thats with the design, i wanted to keep him more tribal, and trying to modernize him kinda made him goofy, but what ever.
duuuder. well, the design is cool as well all agree. but the normals are still reading muddy and flat to me...post your sculpt already or ill come down there and burn your hacky sack!
and in terms of the design as well. I have to crits, one of them can obviously be fixed in the rig, and that is making his back, arched and more dynamic looking. the 2nd is his neck... I think you should make it more dog like, and have get rid of that arch thats happening at the top where it connects to the edge...what if you made it more stream lined?
but yea, I think you need to define your sculpt more, then bring it in to max and a lower rez, and build your model around your sculpt more, that way your bake will read closer, and better...
first of all, my laptop would catch on fire if i tried that one darc. second, i just bought that hack so that would be most unpleasant.
here is what he looks like, there is no way that i am finishing him, too much shit on the mind and plate the past few weeks.
im gonna pick him back up just to do some touchups to some parts later,not happy with a lot of parts, maybe next character through. he was difinatly a good learning stone though, and a fun ride.
Replies
so, ponder this in all of your pretty little heads and maybe someone with more motivation than i will start a thread trying to get this thing started.
ponder away
by the way, i like the model alot, but there seems to be some stretching near the pelvis? also, i agree about making the hair more rough. As or the gun... i think u shouldn't make that puff of hair... it makes it look cute. (kinda like those tiny dolls with the bigg poofs of hair in Pink, Green etc.?)
I really like this character, and it's just been improving. The darkness of the head area means that you can't see any detail there, the eyes don't even stand out from the rest of the head. Make the top of the head a bit lighter, and drop a specular highlight on the eye. This is what I did for my boar model for the last competition:
here are some of the problems i have with it, if you have beef, add to it.
loves
take a look at spacemonkey's and graff pirates sculpts for this contest...
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=179463&page=0&fpart=6&vc=1
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=182023&page=1&fpart=3&vc=1
I know your style is more cartoony, but I think going back to the sculpt and really defining some shapes more, would really help give it a much cleaner, and better feeling.
for some reason this one is poppin sharper, i think it is just my lighting. i also need to put a higher contrast in my lighting solution just to give it that extra pop and depth. thanks for pointing that out darc, we miss you and your bro antics at school.
i put teeth on him...yep...thats about it.
i really need to start the high poly for the gun.
love you all
i just needed something to vent on, ive got a character test on top of that, i just need a hug right now.
alright everybody, keep truckin on this shit and i will be back in the ranks as soon as possible.
*G*
unbelievable whats going on with the hardware in this war
thanks for the love boys, ill update later this week.
The biggest issue is that you are relying heavily on your normalmaps, which a great deal of the time are not actually helping the form of your model much. Others have said it, I don't know how to say it more creatively, but your textures are extremely murky. Here's what I would suggest:
#1 Have some boldness when texturing. Use your histogram, get a good full range of light values (minus whites, and minimal blacks for lighting purposes). Areas like the head, the limbs... you need more contrast between these areas and the rest of the body to pump those forms. Areas like the spots on the back (which I can hardly notice except on close inspection), could have a lot more contrast. Use color theory to increase the amount of design clarity. For example, you can hardly see this guy's head. In the posed shot, he just melds into one blob. Use the texture to pump the form. This is a part of design.
#2 Think bigger. You are adding details like bandage wraps on the arms and tassels on the backpack. These are feeling fairly arbitrary to me. Think about the big picture, start big and work your way down. Get the form right, to the major muscle groups, to the major skin colors, to the clothing scheme. Get those big masses sharp and nailed down before moving on to little tidbits. Remember, those little details are all for naught if the viewer can't easily decipher the forms.
#3 Think about texturing, and plan for it as you model. The straps on the pack suck. If you had them in mind when modeling, you either would have modeled them in or made better UVs. As it is, a better UVW map could hardly help, as the muscle form is fighting it.
#4 Hair is a tough one to get down, I haven't gotten it myself, but one thing I have learned is that I tend to get better results w/ volumetric/geometric hair rather than alpha. As you have it now, it just looks like smudge tool.
In the future, I would suggest trying old school diffuse-only texturing on simpler shapes to really sharpen your skills and get a good grasp on these things without the details mentality that you get with highpoly/normalmaps. It's not to late to really improve on this character in those ways. Again, school would be my priority if I were in your shoes. However I would encourage you to keep going.
eric, thank you for the love and time put into that, good calls all around. The strap wasn't an afterthought, just a thought that didn't work out as well as i had thought. I might just toss some alpha straps in there to replace those. Thanks again for the words.
art, there will be a jack ball, you can count on me for that much.
darc, oh darc. The problem with the normal is somewhere in the export, i figured out part of it but it still isnt to its fullest potential.
lots of love kids, i turned in the test and am done with my finals. After my math test friday night i will be out of school and whoring for work. expect some posts this week.
gavin
here are some newer shots of the dude. i havnt done a whole lot to him with all of the chaos lately. hit him hard, but hit him well, there are things that im not all that happy with, but thats with the design, i wanted to keep him more tribal, and trying to modernize him kinda made him goofy, but what ever.
peace
gavin
and in terms of the design as well. I have to crits, one of them can obviously be fixed in the rig, and that is making his back, arched and more dynamic looking. the 2nd is his neck... I think you should make it more dog like, and have get rid of that arch thats happening at the top where it connects to the edge...what if you made it more stream lined?
but yea, I think you need to define your sculpt more, then bring it in to max and a lower rez, and build your model around your sculpt more, that way your bake will read closer, and better...
here is what he looks like, there is no way that i am finishing him, too much shit on the mind and plate the past few weeks.
im gonna pick him back up just to do some touchups to some parts later,not happy with a lot of parts, maybe next character through. he was difinatly a good learning stone though, and a fun ride.
thanks for all the crits boys
gavin