the model looks decent. however.. ugh, the texture is a glaring horrid mess, you'll need to spend LOTS more time on it. and whats with the lack of smoothing?
First step I'd suggest would be to go into your Windows or 3d package settings and set the display to 24 bit colour so you don't have that nasty gradation in your texture.
Lets have a look at the original design.
Your version of the character is simplified quite a bit (or possibly based on a different incarnation) but the basic design is more or less the same. The problem with what you have at this point it that its more or less just flat colour with some texture overlays. Think about what your surfaces are made of (shiny metal for the most part) and how the light would react on the surface. Build up highlights and shadows throughout the entire model. Don't worry about texture overlays until you've got all of the major areas of detail in.
before that though, you might like to tweak the proportions of this guy. Nightmare quite a tall character and your model looks like a midget. Get yourself some photographic reference of a real person to see where you're going wrong. Most notably the head is very large and the legs are a bit on the short side.
I'd like to see your texture flats. They could really help us to help you, so to speak.
In the meantime, I see some things that need fixing. You really need to fix the smoothing groups. They really kill the model as they are now. I also think he could be bulked up. He's under a heavy suit of armor, remember?
I already have some highlights on the textures. Do you think just shadows would suffice? Also, please note that I'm restricted to a moderately thin skeleton.
That's obviously not how Nightmare's texture was shaded in SC3, is it? If the goal is to look like that, try and emulate the SC series' painting style.
i think you'd do better to merge a lot of the objects onto 1-2 texture sheets. also, the shading really needs to be smoothed out. you have a texture on there but heavily banded colors. not making much sense...
shouldn't be too hard, so you'll get it eventually
having multiple objects does NOT mean you need multiple texture sheets.
in jka, you need at least 9 different objects, as follows:
head
torso
right arm
left arm
right hand
left hand
hips
right leg
left leg
segmenting your model into those objects should be the LAST thing you do, before rigging it to the skeleton. AFTER you've uvw mapped and textured the model, then you can segment it.
you also need to write a .skin file for the model, so you can direct any one of the objects to any texture you like. you could have one texture for the whole upper body, and it would look like this:
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>hips,models/players/Black_swordsman/body.jpg
torso,models/players/Black_swordsman/body.jpg
l_arm,models/players/Black_swordsman/body.jpg
l_hand,models/players/Black_swordsman/body.jpg
r_arm,models/players/Black_swordsman/body.jpg
r_hand,models/players/Black_swordsman/body.jpg
l_leg,models/players/Black_swordsman/body.jpg
r_leg,models/players/Black_swordsman/body.jpg
head,models/players/Black_swordsman/head.jpg
cape02,models/players/Black_swordsman/accessories.tga
hair,models/players/Black_swordsman/accessories.tga</pre><hr />
as you can see, many things pointing to the same texture sheets.
oh, and reading some tutorials on texturing metal might help, a lot. PLEASE don't just slap on a chrome shader.
i thought having some static highlighting on textures was bad? or is it ok if you're just doing the very low level highlighting, similar to shading?
as for crits, the guys claw hand has hoirrble (none?) uv mapping resulting in a swirly mess. the colors just seem too bland. the textures do exhibit too obvious banding, you want to make the gradation changes more... well gradual. and what format on you using for the textures? i can see a ton of compression artifacts on the helmet pic above.
as for 30 seperate pieces... not sure if jedi aca is directx or not, but won't that create 30 drawcalls for just that one character (not including drawcalls created by anything else for the character)? not to mention the fact that form the sounds of things that isn't how jedi aca's system works.
and can we see a wire render or two to make sure he'll deform right?
however, the model isn't too bad imo, just has problems from the technical standpoint.
It's my opinion that you're trying to run before you can walk. You need to learn the basics of texture painting.
3DTotal has a great section on Photoshop and digital painting. I suggest you take a look there for some help. For help on UVW mapping, take a look at Waylon Brinck's tutorial. It's designed for 3ds Max, but it should apply to gmax just fine.
First off, there was a Nightmare model for Jedi Academy. It wasn't ever weighted and released to my knowledge.
You cannot successfully weight Mr. Siggy on crack to the JA Skeleton. PsykoSith confirmed this last time someone wanted to make this.
Next off, Jedi Academy uses very, very specific parameters for geometry and textures... and the skeleton is a SOB to do anything with.
Don't even consider putting this model into JKA. You will have nothing but frustration if you attempt to. Doing JKA models isn't for the timid... and while you do show promise, you ain't Hapslash. The only reason I bring him up is because he's the only person I know of in that community that can talk other people into weighting his models.
That model wasn't built around the character rig, won't fit the character rig, and will take more time to fit it to the rig than doing the entire model again all over.
This isn't a bad thing. You've successfully created a decent character model and everyone's gotta start somewhere. I respect your work since most JKA models are frankensteins where each piece is actually stolen and slightly (maybe) edited together. It's been a long time since I've seen a newly moddled hand from a new modeller, most people steal them.
Keep it up, and don't get discouraged. GET THE SKELETON off jk3files or Psyko's site and build your next model around that skeleton.
Also, your character isn't useless by a long shot. You can rig up a quick biped and learn how to use the skin modifer. This will teach you more than any forum. Try, try, try to get him to bend and deform properly. He won't, but you'll learn WHY he won't which will help you tremendously on your next models since you'll have hands on experience with topology.
Don't be daunted or intimidated, and keep up the late nights moving vertices.
I can't see any readon why you couldn't rig your character to a skeleton. It may not be suitable for Jedi Knight, It should be pretty easy to do a rigid bind with your various armour parts.
Your texture doesn't really read as metal as much as denim. It could be a metal surface but without any context or specularity its not really recognisable as any specific material. Apply it to an object, paint in some highlights or add some specularity and then we'll be able to crit it a little easier.
You'd probably do well to pick up some better software. If you don't want to spend any cash, you can follow Vyalorth's advice and get The Gimp www.gimp.org
Or if you don't feel like supporting the filthy communist open source regime (I kid, Linux kids) pick up a trial version of Paint Shop Pro http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite?p...d=1156169693940
Both of these do more or less everything Photoshop does.
It really looks nothing like metal. If you are just going for a tileable simple metal, your spec map is going to have to do most of your work for you. What you have here is entirely too noisy and blue. You would be better off unwrapping these pieces uniquely and painting in hot and dark spots yourself. Also that banding you have going on needs to be redone, light does not do that to metal.
Photoshop also has a 30 day free trial ... you would be doing yourself a favor if you are serious about this.
Not really. As a basic surface it'll do, but to define metal, you need highlights. Get a lighter colour and paint around edges and anywhere where the light would reflect from if there was a source above him.
Replies
First step I'd suggest would be to go into your Windows or 3d package settings and set the display to 24 bit colour so you don't have that nasty gradation in your texture.
Lets have a look at the original design.
Your version of the character is simplified quite a bit (or possibly based on a different incarnation) but the basic design is more or less the same. The problem with what you have at this point it that its more or less just flat colour with some texture overlays. Think about what your surfaces are made of (shiny metal for the most part) and how the light would react on the surface. Build up highlights and shadows throughout the entire model. Don't worry about texture overlays until you've got all of the major areas of detail in.
before that though, you might like to tweak the proportions of this guy. Nightmare quite a tall character and your model looks like a midget. Get yourself some photographic reference of a real person to see where you're going wrong. Most notably the head is very large and the legs are a bit on the short side.
Good luck with it.
In the meantime, I see some things that need fixing. You really need to fix the smoothing groups. They really kill the model as they are now. I also think he could be bulked up. He's under a heavy suit of armor, remember?
Anyway, I hope this helps a bit. Keep us posted.
please tell me you understand the term banding.
The texture is in 30 seperate peices.
[/ QUOTE ]
... That isn't going to run properly in Jedi Academy.
They're value changes.
[/ QUOTE ]
That's obviously not how Nightmare's texture was shaded in SC3, is it? If the goal is to look like that, try and emulate the SC series' painting style.
shouldn't be too hard, so you'll get it eventually
I made all these in Gmanx:
http://www.dadako.com/skillset.3d.php?page=mapitems
http://www.dadako.com/skillset.3d.php?page=mapitems02
http://www.dadako.com/skillset.3d.php?page=dale02
ok you have a point
in jka, you need at least 9 different objects, as follows:
head
torso
right arm
left arm
right hand
left hand
hips
right leg
left leg
segmenting your model into those objects should be the LAST thing you do, before rigging it to the skeleton. AFTER you've uvw mapped and textured the model, then you can segment it.
you also need to write a .skin file for the model, so you can direct any one of the objects to any texture you like. you could have one texture for the whole upper body, and it would look like this:
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>hips,models/players/Black_swordsman/body.jpg
torso,models/players/Black_swordsman/body.jpg
l_arm,models/players/Black_swordsman/body.jpg
l_hand,models/players/Black_swordsman/body.jpg
r_arm,models/players/Black_swordsman/body.jpg
r_hand,models/players/Black_swordsman/body.jpg
l_leg,models/players/Black_swordsman/body.jpg
r_leg,models/players/Black_swordsman/body.jpg
head,models/players/Black_swordsman/head.jpg
cape02,models/players/Black_swordsman/accessories.tga
hair,models/players/Black_swordsman/accessories.tga</pre><hr />
as you can see, many things pointing to the same texture sheets.
oh, and reading some tutorials on texturing metal might help, a lot. PLEASE don't just slap on a chrome shader.
as for crits, the guys claw hand has hoirrble (none?) uv mapping resulting in a swirly mess. the colors just seem too bland. the textures do exhibit too obvious banding, you want to make the gradation changes more... well gradual. and what format on you using for the textures? i can see a ton of compression artifacts on the helmet pic above.
as for 30 seperate pieces... not sure if jedi aca is directx or not, but won't that create 30 drawcalls for just that one character (not including drawcalls created by anything else for the character)? not to mention the fact that form the sounds of things that isn't how jedi aca's system works.
and can we see a wire render or two to make sure he'll deform right?
however, the model isn't too bad imo, just has problems from the technical standpoint.
3DTotal has a great section on Photoshop and digital painting. I suggest you take a look there for some help. For help on UVW mapping, take a look at Waylon Brinck's tutorial. It's designed for 3ds Max, but it should apply to gmax just fine.
hips and knees
neck
left arm
And I redid the right arm
I don't have photoshop
[/ QUOTE ]
Then surf to www.gimp.org.
First off, there was a Nightmare model for Jedi Academy. It wasn't ever weighted and released to my knowledge.
You cannot successfully weight Mr. Siggy on crack to the JA Skeleton. PsykoSith confirmed this last time someone wanted to make this.
Next off, Jedi Academy uses very, very specific parameters for geometry and textures... and the skeleton is a SOB to do anything with.
Don't even consider putting this model into JKA. You will have nothing but frustration if you attempt to. Doing JKA models isn't for the timid... and while you do show promise, you ain't Hapslash. The only reason I bring him up is because he's the only person I know of in that community that can talk other people into weighting his models.
That model wasn't built around the character rig, won't fit the character rig, and will take more time to fit it to the rig than doing the entire model again all over.
This isn't a bad thing. You've successfully created a decent character model and everyone's gotta start somewhere. I respect your work since most JKA models are frankensteins where each piece is actually stolen and slightly (maybe) edited together. It's been a long time since I've seen a newly moddled hand from a new modeller, most people steal them.
Keep it up, and don't get discouraged. GET THE SKELETON off jk3files or Psyko's site and build your next model around that skeleton.
Also, your character isn't useless by a long shot. You can rig up a quick biped and learn how to use the skin modifer. This will teach you more than any forum. Try, try, try to get him to bend and deform properly. He won't, but you'll learn WHY he won't which will help you tremendously on your next models since you'll have hands on experience with topology.
Don't be daunted or intimidated, and keep up the late nights moving vertices.
How is this metal?
Your texture doesn't really read as metal as much as denim. It could be a metal surface but without any context or specularity its not really recognisable as any specific material. Apply it to an object, paint in some highlights or add some specularity and then we'll be able to crit it a little easier.
What're you using to paint your textures
www.gimp.org
Or if you don't feel like supporting the filthy communist open source regime (I kid, Linux kids) pick up a trial version of Paint Shop Pro
http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite?p...d=1156169693940
Both of these do more or less everything Photoshop does.
How about now?
Photoshop also has a 30 day free trial ... you would be doing yourself a favor if you are serious about this.
I'm not flaming, I'm critiquing here.
First off, there was a Nightmare model for Jedi Academy. It wasn't ever weighted and released to my knowledge.
You cannot successfully weight Mr. Siggy on crack to the JA Skeleton. PsykoSith confirmed this last time someone wanted to make this.
[/ QUOTE ]
my ancient old model worked fine, i just never got round to texturing it (properly).
Hey, look. I found out how to render in hidden wireframe:
Do you mean paint the lightness like metal, or just subtle highlights?
i hate beeing a towel , but i wrote a long time ago a metal texture tutorial :
http://www.3dtotal.com/team/Tutorials/texturing_metal/texturing_metal1.asp
good luck . and keep hammering with this.
Also, here's the texture sheet for the lower area so far. It's 512X512.
More progress.
and here are all the texture sheets.