LPC #05 - Richard Kain - Frederic Chopin

Richard Kain

I've decided I'm finished. Here is the final version. I'm not really all that pleased with how it came out. In hind sight, the character selection wasn't very good. This character was a real challenge structurally, but even harder to paint. Eternal Sonata relies heavily on shaders to deliver its "soft" look. And attempting to replicate that affect in a 128 x 128 diffuse map is really difficult. That, and I suck at painting. I'm actually pretty pleased with how the eyes came out, though.

Beauty Render:


Tech Render:

MoP

Err, not next-gen and not 1st/3rd person... still, I guess you can do what you want, it just won't fit the contest brief at all

Richard Kain

Heh, actually, Phoenix Wright games are played from both 3rd and 1st person perspectives. During the court-room sequences you play in 3rd person, and during the investigative sequences you play in 1st person. And technically speaking, the DS is a next-gen handheld system. Although obviously, the question is whether or not handhelds count, or if the DS can even be referred to as "next-gen", what with its ridiculous market penetration.

And, of course, there is the implication that the contest is meant for 3D-rendered characters, which is probably the biggest point of contention. At no time in any of the Phoenix Wright games is the character rendered as a 3D model. If anyone objects to this choice, I'm willing to look for a different character to model. The only reason I would like to do Phoenix is because I'm hooked on that series of games.

cholden

Luckily, I am the authority on what is 'next-gen'. No, Phonenix Wright is not 'next-gen', but I suggest making it anyway because it's what you want to make, and that's all that matter. FTR, Doom 3 is 'next-gen', while not THE first it was one of the earliest.

Richard Kain

I freely concede Doom 3's next-geniness. Regardless of whatever console it's shown up on, the obvious point of Doom 3 was to push graphics. And that is, at its core, the very reason for using the term "next-gen." (sweet-ass graphical fidelity) And in the spririt of that, I am going to change my choice of character. I just haven't come up with a good substitute yet. Regrettably enough, I haven't really played a lot of next-gen games, so I am not especially familiar with some of the more appealing characters. I'll do a little research, I'm certain I will be able to come up with something nice.

Richard Kain

Okay, I have confirmation...this is the guy I'm going to make.

At first I thought he would be fairly simple. But as I inspected the character closer, I realized that his costume is actually fairly complex. This should prove a decent challenge.

Richard Kain

Finally, some progress. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten as far as I would have liked. But I have made enough progress that I'm convinced its worth going the rest of the way. Here's what I've managed so far...



He weighs in at exactly 500 polys at the moment. Doing a character with so much loose clothing really was as much of a challenge as I had anticipated. I had to make interior polys for several different parts of his garb, such as the bottom portion of his coat and his collar. It certainly was a study in optimization.

Can anyone give me pointers or critiques on this. I'm still not very practiced at low-poly modeling, so I'd like a little guidance before I UV map him.

Richard Kain

Bump. I made an update to my progress. But I'm updating the image at the top, so that you won't have to scroll to see the latest work.

Richard Kain

Bump. Updated. The model has been UV'd and the texture painting has begun. I've blocked in a lot of the basic details and attempted to paint the head. The results have only been middling. I'm not really pleased with how the low-poly interpretation reflects on the source images. Sadly, its a little too late to be making mesh changes as this point. besides, I only barely made the 500 poly limit as is.

Richard Kain

Bump. Finished. Put a fork in it. Man, this was a lot more challenging than I thought it would be. It's my own fault for picking the character I did. Smooth shaders are really hard to replicate in a low-resolution texture. The overabundance of two-sided clothing that this character required also ate up a lot of my potential texture space.