WIP- Knight

XenoFei

This is my first post on this site and I just wanted to get a feeling of what you think of my work. I definitely expect harsh reviews and some beneficial critiques. I started with a basic male form and plan on adding parts to it. This is all in Max. Once I have the full bodysuit of the Knight I do plan on taking it to ZB and hopefully end up with a good normal map.

Thanks for any feedback and here are the images. I compacted them so it didn't have to load too many images.

Josh_Singh

Welcome to polycount!
Allright, your model needs a lot of work. Maybe post a concept so we can see what you are aiming for and we'll go from there.

Cody

A helpful tutorial:
http://www.poopinmymouth.com/process/character_tutorial/character_process.htm

XenoFei

These are the concepts that I am basing my model off of. I was going to mix and match between these two images that I drew up. The quality of the images are not that great mainly because they were not scanned but rather just a picture was taken out of my sketchbook and adjusted quickly in PS. But the basic form can be seen to understand what I am going for in my model.

I was not going to be having very much of the actual body showing. I just created the body for a base to create around. That is why it isn't well detailed. I figured since the entire figure is going to be encased in plate mail, there really isn't a reason to put too much detail on the base mesh under the armor.

danr

[ QUOTE ]
I figured since the entire figure is going to be encased in plate mail, there really isn't a reason to put too much detail on the base mesh under the armor.


[/ QUOTE ]

thats true, but until you've nailed the form of the base figure them there's little point hanging anything off him, cos it simply won't be convincing as a person/knight, whatever, no matter how much armour he's wearing. In terms of basic human proportion you're currently way off. A quick dig around the net, or just these boards, will bring up some guides for proportioning standard human figures

Have a good look at how game artists structure their meshes, how the polys flow across a model, how the polys are spread and aren't overly dense or too sparse in specific areas, how they create convincing shapes for bone and muscle structure with just a couple of clever edges. I can't provide links at the moment, but i'm sure a helpful polycounter or two could point you at some choice images (or just scoot through this board for a few minutes)

and, importantly :

Honestly - you'd be much much better off forgetting that zbrush or normal maps even exist until you've practised your poly modelling a lot more - it's a common mistake these days, running before you can walk, and it's most often disastrous. Normal maps are a relatively recent thing to enhance a model under game-engine lighting - but frankly, if the model and its textures wouldn't stand up in an engine that doesn't support normal maps, there's no point in adding them. You need to practise practise practise the basics of modelling and texturing before the next step of extra maps. This is why normal mapping appears so successful in games and presented on boards like this - don't forget that many of these artists refined their modelling and texturing skills for years before normal maps were even around, and newer artists understood this and applied how they went about their models accordingly. For these reasons, normal maps have become a welcome ENHANCEMENT to already cracking models, not the be-all-end-all of them.

XenoFei

I redid my character base and so far it appears to be a much better base mesh to abide by. I hope this seems like an improvement.

I know there is a lot of optimization to do with this model but I figure I should leave it alone until I find out the total poly count. I am aiming for 5k polys with armor and then about 1000-1500 for the weapon. It is at 1454 polys atm.

Valkier

When it comes to modeling a person, you learn pretty quickly that you need to have a good flow going on in your model. Basically the human body is a series of loops. You might say they radiate out from the center of your person, but that sounds a bit oversimplified.

While your new mesh is a step in the right direction, It's still lacking in flow and joint creation. You want to have about 3 or 4 rings, depending on your preference, around your joint areas for easy deformation when it comes time to put in the skeleton.

A good tutorial on simply human modeling is here. I haven't gotten to check out the character modeling tutorial yet to know if they might be similar, but I would imagine walk before you run might apply here. The tutorial is in Maya, but I easily did about the same thing in Max.

One final critique to your model is that there is generally an area between the legs that separates your thighs a bit. Otherwise you get an effect that looks a little too much like pajama bottoms.

You're certainly improving. There are probably people on this forum who can direct you better than I (I bug these forums for help a lot since I started coming here) but I hope this helps you in some way.

XenoFei

Update:
I finally finished the base mesh. I think it looks much better than the original base that I didn't really bother with too much detail.

Is there anything that stands out to you guys that I should change before I start working on the actual armor?

t4paN

You could work a bit on his stance/posture and giving him bigger shoulders + smaller waist, unless you're consciously aiming for a bit of an older character?

/edit also, Ben Mathis has a good mini tutorial on shoulders for rigging etc, you should check it out at www.poopinmymouth.com