Demo Reel character (warmachines/ironkingdom char)

seforin

Hey everyone Im on my last 2 quaters of school right now and you all will be seeing several updates from me, the last 2 guys I worked on where my last real practice runs (and as you can see I still have alot to go) but I just have to do the best I can . So Im planing on workin 2 next gen characters and 1 ds spec character (3 actually) and A wii spec character (2k polys etc)

SO first on my next gen character list is another favorite table top minuature game called Warmachines

If your unfamiliar check out this site and the concept art these guys freakin ROCK

http://www.privateerpress.com/WARMACHINE/default.php

So my army is called the Cygnar, and Im modelign out one of my favorite units, which I dont really have a picture of other than the REAL one im holding in my hand at the moment (I'll take a photo of it later)

I plan on doing next gen with this guy, all metals hard surface and reflection maps

now I have a question for everyone, as far as a character like this goes (see picture reference) What size texture sheet would you guys recommend? I was thinking either 1 2048^2 map or two 1024^2 maps.


(weapons will have there own shits , not to be confused) , But a honest recommendation would be really awesome, well enough talking, right now I have just base body built, still working on getting sizing and inital shape down, not to be confused with my high poly modeling that I will start tommorrow

for now heres progress


what im aiming for





what I got




Long road to go huh ?

spacemonkey

dont detail until you have blocked in all the large forms of the character. Compare the size of your guys head in proportion to the size of the chars head in your ref (its much smaller in proportion to the upper torso in the ref).

Make sure you get the size/proportions correct first! There are many area's that need to be tweaked.

PolyHertz

Hands look too much like gloves. Other then that good start

Josh Winn

Are you basing it exactly off the reference? The forearms/hands are way too big. I won't comment on the rest since it's still WIP. Are you keeping the area around the head as a separate mesh? Oh and show some wires next time Looks like a fun character to do, good luck with it.

seforin

haha no no no everyone, I think your all miss understanding.


Im building this as a base body before I do anything, much how I model my humanoid characters I have a gumbi mesh that has the basic proper proportions to a human body (well close enough) that I build pieces upon resize or reskulpt.

Since this guy I dont have that luxuary of doing, I am building a initial base body to get the general shape // pieces where they need to be down. after which I will resize move and then after begin my high poly modeling upon that.


After that is done I will probably split this guy into a few pieces but I plan on keeping it as followed, head, body, lower half. And whatever else is needed.

After tonight or hopefully tommorrow I will have this base mesh built and at proper sizings and proportions . I will begin my High poly modeling hopefully tommorrow once I get this guy all in the right sizings and areas.

But again , I have to ask, what does everyone recommend as far as the texture sheet goes? This makes a big issue when im at the normal mapping faze (give or take a week or so) So I really need to hear some opinions!

EDIT: Oh J.W. To answer your question, Yes Im basing it off the reference..of the real model I have....the model I have I converged from 3 different units, because Im stupid and always have done that with my minatures...Im gonna take a picture of it later when I get a chance to show, the upper picture I showed is close to it but the weapons and arms I have to mine are different

seforin

played with sizing and making the weapons, working on the shield right now, after tonight I will be doing nothing but high poly modeling.:D I think I got the proportions more accurate but The bottom still is throwing me off

seforin

just a informal update

seforin

just another update boys and girls, blue still to be worked on , nice and gray is current progress, feet took some time to figure out how exactly they would move and rotate with this whole steam piston thing going on, its 7 am and ive been workin on this since 10pm. so im a bit done

seforin

Gonna have a update tommorrow, does anyone have any crits on the work so far?

Ged

wow this is going to be lovely, are you going to uv map each part? thats alotta uv mapping!

seforin

no I plan on building a low poly when im done, mainly everything will be chunks except the pistons which will be there own parts since they have to move and rotate on there own. Normal mapping 4 t3h win

well in either case I'll have a update later tonight so keep a eye out

seforin

I figured since Im still working on it I wont post, but I realised its 4 am already ,so I better post something , I should hopefully be completely near done with this guy come tommorrow, Wish me luck everyone

Crits and advice and such are always welcomed

seforin

almost at the home stretch, just need to build this guys hands and then all low poly work from there



any crits and advice welcomed as always

seforin

spacemonkey

keep eyeballin the proportions of the model in the pic and comparing it to yours.

seforin

yeah I noticed that the proportions of the center piece is off a bit, but I noticed if I didnt add more pivits to it it would never stand correctly, what do you suggest I do to fix this problem?

seforin

well starting to do the normal maps right now, these are mostly test on the different pieces Im breaking up so some are at low res and some high depending on the sizing of the map, I plan on making this one giant 2048 for the whole character and the weapons 1024's by themself (weapon+shield)I unfortanetly am running into some issues picking up the details in max with this character,a buddy of mine suggested I should use XNormal on this guy, but Im not sure how well hard edged stuff transfers over on that program, anyone have experience with that?

well heres what I have so far, I plan on making this character split into the following, head,legs,arms,chest,pelvis,piping which will be all on one map, the weapons are there own

heres progress so far

seforin

well I didnt wanna keep posting BS test progress but heres the final model , all together at 9k polys including weapons, weapons are on a 1024 map and everything else 1 giant 2048 map

Im going to begin texturing soon! FINALLY!

Ged

woah did you actually normal map all that? is that green the one cage and the yellow a seperate cage? what are the UVs like?

indian_boy

holy poo-puddles!
thats real great man! can't wait to see some colourszz!

Kayamate

nice work
I know the original concept your working from looks a bit clean, but it would be cool to see some sprayed blood om his staff, shield and arms

seforin

haha thanks guys, nope everything on this is normal maperz, the staff was the only thing that didnt pick up the details as well as I wanted, but once I take this into photoshop , I'll clean up the maps even more


as far as the blood, Im going to do a clean version of the texturing and then a version of texturing with dinks and cuts and scratches, after that I will see if I want to do a layer of blood or not depending on the details.

also the green cage and yellow cage are the same mesh , just seporated because those are all the pipings, the piping Im going to have to build a special bone structure for to make this bend and move correctly,so I decided to keep it different meshes for now but the body is still all 1 giant sheet

seforin

also here are my unwraps, as you can tell I had a easier time with the weapons instead of the character

seforin

oh lawdz is that some updatez?!



still very WIP just Nmaps. and Diffuse, critiqus welcomes as always

Ged

wahey! nice work! well the goldish metal looks very orange at the moment and I think it should be more yellow and lighter have a more metallic/steel hue to it in some places, still use that orangish colour in places. The other metal(legs and struts,feet etc) doesnt have much pop to it and is rather flat, perhaps this will be better with specular though. Your blue armour parts should have a lighter blue highlight on some edges as seen in the reference pic. your probably working on this stuff anyway but I might as well try and help.

Also the head itself actually looks like it is sticking out to far and should be placed deeper into the neck struts.

Davision3D

Great!!
Maybe you can make the normal map of the rivets stronger or it is just the missing specular that prevent them to pop.
The blue stuff looks very wooden to me!?

Ott

Is this max or maya? If Max, change your render filter to Catmull or something other than area filter...it's blurring the hell out of your renders. Same with Maya if it is putting that stupid-ass filter on your texture maps. Either way, some of the renders aren't nearly as sharp as they could be.

You also need to get some lights in there with shadows turned on, or else your normal maps aren't gonna pop as much. Right now it's hard to tell if there is.

There are lots of scratched metal tricks out there, you definitely need more work on your metal texturing. Photo-source, photo-sample...whatever you have to do, you need a lot more work to sell this as metal.

Your modeling and normal maps are good, but this is screaming for some more texture work.

ScubaSteve

i think he has catmull rom on i told him to do it...if he doesnt shame on him...i just helped him with particles for steam coming out the top of the smoke stacks

seforin

thanks everyone, as you can tell its VERY wip still, I just got the backpack more presentable as far as the diffuse goes and the head as well, and I switched my render to catmull now, once I get to do a spec map thats what will really bring these metals out, but for now crappy standard diffuse to the best of my abilities. I'll post a update a bit later to show current level of progress

Digital Ricebox

Your work is getting much better than the last time I saw it. I have a few crits. First off, I think you can cut down on your poly and vert counts by getting rid of alot of usless geometry around the lower legs, forearms, chest, back, and the staff. since youre using normal maps, your detail will come from them. Next make sure you are creating good specular maps to help the model with shine and dullness where needed. Your textures seem really flat to me. I mean that in the way that for a battle robot, it should have more scratches, maybe small singe marks, oil spots, small dents and dings, and so on. the key is in the details. also dont be afraid to make your texture maps big! next gen is pixel based rather than poly based, meaning that your texture work is much more important than high poly counts. Really focus on the grunge and grime in your texture to give your character... well.. character!

seforin

thanks dig' Yea I know I need to post a update of the texturing so far so heres the progress im at now I did clean up the geometry a bit more on the feet and knee caps bu the staff and shield and back pack as you suggest start to lose form/ details of normal mapping if I start to delete/weld pieces


But entire character was lowered a good 1k polys after I was done with it.



Still no spec maps or anything yet, im still painting all my diffuse work, I will do a 2nd pass at the normal maps with crazy bump and clean ups with photoshop plugin once im done with this diffuse, hopefully I will finish this guy up by monday if all goes according to plan

PolyPutty

I like where the model is going definitely digging parts of the texture work. one thing that is bothering me though is certain parts of your metal are very scratched while others are in perfect condition. It seems very conflicting to me, try and stay consistent. you could also add subtle cast shadows like behind the head in that neck region, it seems to light to me.

seforin

well just figure to show a update , all thats left are the upper metals, the pipes and the blackish lining and thats it all spec map from there

seforin

I finally found the make awesome button in photoshop, but it crashed my computer every time I clicked it so heres what I have instead



Right now normal maps were in the 2nd faze were dinks and bumpiness where rendered into it

Spec color was added
Spec level as well
Emissive maps for glow

All thats left is the reflection map and the weapons, but I should have those done in a day or 2 tops.

what does everyone think so far?

ScubaSteve

this this...START OVER...just kidding looks good keep it up

Ged

good work, lots of detail but actually maybe you should ease off on the scratches and go for some smoothness like on the blue metal parts around the neck, they are looking almost like they have a wood grain to them. Like someone has painted wood gray and blue...check out the new starcraft cinematic terran and see how they did his blue metal! it rocks!

Mark Dygert

looking great, I really like it! After checking this out I almost want to go back and work on the warmachine mod I started for Dawn of War.

seforin

blarg! Ive tried to backwards engineer this damn shader to work with the reflection map and my character keeps showing invisible on the screen, Poop, if you read this can you explain to me what im doing wrong, im going based off your shader?

seforin

Finally finished this damn character

character itself

normal map
emissive map
spec level
spec color
diffuse

all at 2048X2048

weapons(both shield + spear)

emissive
spec level
spec color
diffuse
normal map


1024X1024 map

here you go guys




Im now starting on my RTS character from warhammer, making a style character thats based off dawn of war character

what does everyone think?

Sage

I like the guy, think the blue might be too dark. Actually after looking at your reference I think the texture might look better a little lighter. Just and an adjustment layer in Photoshop for example, tweek it a bit. Other than that I think it looks nice.

Alex

PolyHertz

I like it, but their are a few things that bother me with it still. First the 'dents' in the shield don't make alot of sense. Most of the shields wear looks like corrosion instead of damage inflicted in battle, but at the same time the corroded areas appear to have been painted over several times (indicated by the darker paint), and honestly I cant see this guy doing something like that.

The normal map on certan areas doesnt seem to be doing much either (ex: the two bars above his head, the wooden clock-thing on his back). You really need to crank up the spec to make the rest of the normal map worth wile too.

One other thing: This is next gen, meaning everything must glow!:

Mark Dygert

I really like it, its a great piece of work. I do have a few crits mostly with the texture work.

- Paint less shadows and do a lighting bake instead, its just too hard to get shadows right on a UV jumble.
- Things are a touch too dark and contrasty.
- You painted quite a few highlights in the center of the pieces, and got darker toward the edges, normally you want those highlights on the edges.
- Scratches and dents are good to have, but too many makes noise. You want to show the painted material in whole sections with a few battle scratches here and there not really the other way around.
- The scratches you have are more like sand paper marks, millions of tiny scratches. battle damage would be more like big gouges, dents, and a few scrapes.
- It looks like you tried really hard to make it match an actual miniature which isn't a bad thing, but the paint jobs on miniatures are anything but realistic. There are too many draw backs to painting on something that small. People who paint minis have to put the detail in odd places because that is what they can reach. Because you aren't stuck working with a magnifying glass and tiny brush you are free to be more true to the concept art. I would look up some of the WarMachine concept art from Matt Dixon, Matt Wilson.
- With the way the texture is painted right now you're missing a lot of the form each piece gives. The edges of each piece aren't clearly defined and and damage is chaotic. Some scratches go right under pieces that don't have any damage at all? damage reads better if you think about its history, how it got there and what else it would effect around it. Which can be hard to do when working on a tiny UV piece.

Heres a paint over I did.

The good news is you can keep the texture you have and paint up more solid armor pieces by just paint with a solid color over the detail you have, setting that layer to screen, overlay or soft light.

With the glowing textures, take your glow layer, copy it. Gaussian Blur it and set the layer from "normal" to "screen" and use your spec map as a 50% mask. Make that part of your texture and it will go a long way in selling the glow effect. You're fudging the glow effect and baking it into the texture because engines aren't that amazing at doing glows perfectly =P

Also remember while it can be cool to set a paint layer to bevel/emboss and erase bits out, you can over do it, as is the case with the shield.

Good stuff, I look forward to seeing much much more out of you!

Joseph Silverman

Expanding on Vig's paintover, a little suggestion on how you can use your maps. Diff at top, spec at bottom, dx shader in the middle:



(this is really rough and messy, but you aren't really taking advantage of your spec at all, and hopefully this will help a bit. )

Ged

these are some great crits seforin! use them! the work as it is can be labelled as good, but follow these suggestions and it could be excellent!

seforin

thanks everyone, I need to go back and touch this up more, but due to my gay schedule with school demo class I need to crank out 4 more characters in the next like 4-5 weeks


so Im gonna have to skip these last touch ups until next month, but I WILL do these touch ups and post the progress rest assured!