roman soldier

dolemite

*changed the html*



hello, I'm a bit new to posting here. I'm working on a 3D Roman soldier for a friend's game. Let me know if I'm doing something horribly wrong.









he's meant to be wearing armor like this



even though this isn't the picture i was working from.

Jaco

You'd get more responses if you post the pics like this:



Looks like a good start, the feet and hands need some tweaking. The fingers are curling in a strange way, modelling them straight with just a slight bend at the finger joints might be better.

Also don't render on a pure black/white background, makes the model hard to read.

Firecracker197

Are you trying to make a lowpoly or highpoly character? So far Id say it looks pretty good, it needs quite a bit of work if your going for a realistic look though id say. He also looks a bit skinny, but maybe thats just because of the angle your rendering from.

Just for my own curiosity, how much experience do you have with modeling characters?

dolemite

hi and thanks for the feedback.

I have a some experience. I work on educational games, but of course I want to graduate to making cool games with zombies, naked women, and chainsaw-sodomy. So I'm trying to improve on my skills. My portfolio is crap.


I have 2500 triangles on him right now, and yeah he looks pretty skinny. I think I'm going to bulk him up a bit, but I don't want him to be gears of war-like.


thanks again for the feedback!

BlackulaDZ

I think he's a little too skinny to be a roman soldier; try beefing him up a tiny bit.

dolemite

I worked on the hands and feet a bit, added accessories and bulked up the body. Crits welcome, thanks again for all the help so far!











does anyone have a way to render off a model with its wire frame overlaying it? I'm just rendering off the wire frame material and then rendering a AO, and overlaying the two in photoshop. I'm not too happy with the result .

Ninjas

So far so good. I think they the arms choke up a bit too much at the elbows

CheeseOnToast

As far as rendering goes : don't do it for work in progress shots like this. This is for a game, so just use viewport screengrabs.

frubes

if you want a wire model a quick way to do it is to duplicate the mesh, add a push modifier, then apply a wire material (just tick wire in the material editor) and apply that to the model with the push on it. You can also set the wire thickness in there. Thats in 3ds max btw.

dolemite

Okay I did the screen grabs and stopped being a retard. I even put it all together in an image and added a title. Was thinking of putting a watermark on it to be funny, but then i thought better.

dolemite

detail of the face and hand.

dolemite

dolemite

more detail on face.

dolemite

If nobody's giving me responses now because this is so mediocre then I'm cool with that. But if anyone sees something blatantly wrong, then please let me know.

Thanks again for all the previous tips, It's my first real thread so I'm still getting used to all the protocol.





so yeh i added teeth and an inside mouth to him. It's at 3772 tris right now.

Xaltar

Hands need work, the hand itself is too short. Basicly the fingers start too soon, get some good ref and tweak it. Other than that its comming along well.

SinisterUrge

Bulk him up some more. The Italian Roman soldiers were short and stocky in build. They would have carried a lot of muscle, because they were well fed, works as labourers and trained as well as took part in combat. Romans tend to have long, straight noses and another thing, give him some knuckles. Looks cool though, I like the subject choice. I have a model of a horse and gaul. Perhaps, we could add them together into a scene in the near future

dolemite

Thanks for all the feedback! Noob needs all he can get. I bulked him up some more, I don't know if I want to make him any more bulky.

Do you think he needs knuckles modeled onto the hands? I was going to save details like that for the painted texture. I'm not planning on doing a normal map for him.

I think tomorrow I will unwrap him and do an AO pass. Can't wait to start painting.

SHEPEIRO

need to pull out the bottom of the neck, peoples necks dont go straight down esp if thy are muscly, look at the reference, yours has an almost 90 degree angle from neck to shoulder while in the ref the is a muscle that provides a "chamfered" angle between the neck and shoulder.

Mark Dygert

Off to a decent start with a little work I think you could pull off something great.

Crits:
He's wirey and his proportions are less then heroic/warrior. At first glance I would say he's a new recruit, a runner (wearing soldier gear) or one of the first to die. If you model heroic features into a character it has a better chance of animating that way, it at least gives the animator a good sense of the character. Of course forcing a default pose that is too over the top will cause problems but if you can nail the proportions it will only help.

- Try to think about what proportions are heroic? He's wearing a skirt, you've got some ground to make up already. Thin fingers, torso and legs are only going to his feminine qualities.

- The torso is a straight tube, if you go for heroic the waist is about right but the shoulders/chest need to be bigger. His legs could carry more bulk without going to a WWE extreme.

- You should rig up the hand and try to make a fist and see how it looks, for a good fist you'll need thicker fingers to fill up the palm area. Some knuckle definition would be good also.

- Do some searches for hands, and know that most of the hands you'll find (especially the ones punching your own keyboard) are probably not used for manual labor, much less gripping a sword all day, every day. He might be a farmer by day, but that only means he works with his hands more.

- Going back to the pose, the stereotypical roman soldier was proud, arrogant and powerful. Look for ways to exploit that stereotype in your model.

Here's a quick knock up in case you're like me, more visual then verbal...



EDIT:
(comparing each arrow from the top down, original first)
Orig Head: Looking up or straight, says I'm at best hoping to be your equal, at worst I'm below you. Typically used to imply adolescence or child like qualities.
New Head: Head pointed down but eyes looking up, says I'm powerful, I'm above you, I'm someone you'll have trouble talking down to, in fact I'm going to rip your tongue out just for looking my way.

It also helps give the eyes an intense look, because to look forward the characters eyes have to look up and through the upper eyelid/eyebrow, putting more of the white of the eye below the iris. Looking straight ahead with equal white space above/below the iris gives people a surprised look.

Orig Shoulders: Squared off and angular, almost robotic, hardly trapezius to be seen, neck looks weak.
New Shoulders: Swept back, helps puff out the chest and fill out the back. Also notice the trapezius slopes from the base of the ear, to the shoulder joint. Necks aren't straight down, especially on powerful characters.

Orig Chest: Points straight forward, is a tube, straight up, straight down.
New Chest: Radiates outward, with the top pointing slightly up, the bottom pelvis pointing slightly toward the ground. Helps give the character weight, and breaks up the straight lines that can hurt a character when viewed at 3 quarter view and side.

Orig Legs: Pointing straight ahead, looks like he's got intestinal issues about to boil over.
New Legs: Point outward slightly (see your armor ref) and feet spread shoulder width apart. Helps the character when views at different angles to keep a powerful stance.

Also the arms on the new are longer then the orig. Hands, fingers and especially the thumb, follow the flow of the arm and are relaxed, not claw like.

dolemite

thanks again! The pics were great vig, thanks!

I widened his fingers and changed his stance. I'm wanting to keep his fingers bent this way because I've had better luck getting limbs to bend when they are near 50% bent. Because it doesn't have to deform very much to make it to fist or open. I think I can wait till he's rigged to relax his hands.

Mark Dygert

Now we're cookin' with gas!

I hear ya about the hands, and posing in general, I do some of the same stuff, as I'm sure a lot of people do. I like to work on hands with the fingers straight out and fanned, makes them easy to rig up. But shortly after rigging, they go to a relaxed pose.

Anywho... looking much more heroic, nice tweaks. Might be looking down a bit too much, but its a posing thing again. I think you're ready to start unwrapping and texturing!

dolemite

I'm working on the unwrap right now. thanks again to all who've helped me get this far!

Neox

lots of space between your chunks, you should tighten that up, and the belt around his chest is really stretched with no resong, you have more then enough space on that page

Mark Dygert

The pixel density is kind of unbalanced, by that I mean the squares you see on the model are not a consistent size. I understand the need to size some pieces up and some down according to importance but that doesn't seem to apply here?

One of the fastest ways to normalize the pieces is to select everything and relax it. Of course that will unstraighten some things.

If you find yourself needing to straighten rows of verts in the UV editor I'd suggest checking out some of the aligning scripts like these two,Align Hoiz & Align Vert. I have these two scripts bound to keys because I use them often.

There is a 3dsmax script MoP put together that would also normalize without relaxing last I checked he was working out the bugs I think he posted a link in the maxscript stickies forum. If its stable and works it can solve your normalize issue too.

As long as we are on the subject of straightening things, some of those long curvy pieces could be straightened, making them easier to paint on and possibly look better.

They may show some stretching and its up to you if that is acceptable or not, but I find in most cases it looks better to have a straight, flat row of pixels instead of an aliased/curved line. It also makes them easier to arrange.

Depending if the characters texture(s) will be mip mapped or not, you might need that extra padding around each piece. The void likes to creep in closer and closer to the visible area with each mip down.

Lookin good keep truckin!

dolemite

well there's my next crack at it. I put things that were going to be the same color and basically no detail on top of each other (insides of the armor are on top of each other, insides of eyes mouth are on top of each other). Let me know. thanks again you guyz!

dolemite

I guess this is the next iteration. Having kind of a struggle with the UVs, I'm still not happy with how they are layed out, but I may just move ahead with the tex.

dolemite

Here's the next iteration. I'm not really happy with the layout, but I may move ahead with the texture anyway.

Mark Dygert

I think you might run into trouble on the chest having it unwrapped from the side. Most models I've looked at and the ones I have done, I run the seam from the armpit to the hip splitting the front and the back. most of the time the arms or shadows will help hide the seam better then running it down the middle of the chest.

Some pieces could have their lines straightened, for that I find these scripts James Haywood put together very useful.
http://www.vigville.com/forum_images/3dsmax/Scripts/
They straighten a selection of verts horiz or vert. I use them so much I have them bound to keys.

dolemite

So here's what I have on the texture so far. I rendered an AO pass and started painting shadows on top of it. If it looks like some spec worked it's way into a "just shadows" pass, its because I'm not a very good artist.


I'm planning to size this down to 512X512 in the final.

foreverendering

I realize this is probably too late, but if you still are up for tweaking the proportions, here's' my suggestion



I'd make the head a little smaller, arms a little beefier, hands bigger, legs a little longer & wider apart, chest wider, and feet a little bigger.

Nistrum

hey man. first. REALLY nice i think the fantastic advice you got helped alot ooh how i envy you :P

the thing i would saty about the shadows can you see his cheek that highlight is a bit too thin.. makes him look a little gaunt try making it a bit larger and softer.. it might make him look less old :P

also im going to say that i think cutting the che4st side to side is good simply because the soldiers armour is split down the middle it was the way it was designed (im a big fan) so you can simply hde the seam in the gap in the armour really nice.. im going to keep any eye on this.. was thinking of making a hoplite :P might post him on here see if i get the same responce

dolemite

so here's the latest. I made a post earlier, it doesn't seem to be displayed. Strange.


anyway, shout out to everyone that's given advice. Keep em coming! I think I'm done messing with proportions for the time being. But I appreciate the paint over.


I think his face needs a lot of work still, but it's getting better. I think the eyebrows aren't dark enough and it makes him look like a burn victim.

dolemite

It just hit me! His eyes are too far apart!


Me is retard.

Harry

what kind of soldier is it meant to be? he's wearing the post marian lorica but i cant identify him.

SinisterUrge

It looks very cartoony. That's fine if its the look you were going for, but it could be more realistic looking. I think you should apply a metal material to the eh metal and the you should do the same for the skin. Also, how about adding normal and specular maps to it, you probably haven't gotten that far yet.

dolemite

I'm not sure what you mean by material. I added some overlays to the metal and skin, do you think I should add different ones? Or should I make them more opaque?

I'm not going to be doing a normal or spec map, this is a "current gen" model. All detail is painted on. Is there a better word for it then "current gen"? Maybe now it's "Last Gen" lol.

Harry: I'm not sure. I have a book on "The Roman Army" and I based the soldier on the examples in that.

SinisterUrge

You can add a material to models in max in the materials menu. I'd post this model as well if I were you, to make it more interesting on the eye. What program are you using?

Mark Dygert

Looking good!
I'm glad to see you're working on this one

Crits:
The face is very V shaped, the mouth looks to be sitting kind of low and the nose is a bit long and skinny. He also looks a bit surprised. If he's not going to be rigged with a jaw bone to close his mouth you should close it.

I suggest,
- Square off the jaw line
- Dropping the eyes down
- Squint the eyes a bit
- Reduce the arch in the eyebrow
- Paint a bit more flesh/muscle into his jaw and cheeks.
- Also keep in mind that noses, normally don't blend smoothly into the forehead (unless you work for Pixar and you're working on the Incredibles2), they start pushed into the face a bit. Not quite as deep as the eyes but still sunken in. The brow line kind of sits on top of the nose instead of blending into it.

Paint over


Keep up the good work!

dolemite

Thanks for the cc! I think tonight I'll work on the face.



Sinister Urge: I think I might play with materials a little now that you mention it. Like SS for the skin, etc. We'll see. I'm kind of wanting to wrap this up and rig it, so I'll settle for materials looking this way. I kind of want to focus on getting the color the right way at this point. I think the arms are a little saturated, etc. I'll rig him by the end of the week and come up with a better pose.

Vig: Again marvelous Paint over! You're too kind! I think tonight I'll focus on nailing the face!

dolemite

face update. I didn't get a chance to paint last night. But I changed the geo a lot. Better?

dejawolf

not a great fan of the coloring on the face. you have those gray areas underneath the eyes, which doesn't look very natural, and very half-life 1-ish.