Tarsier

jrs100000

Going through some of my previous models, Ive come to the conclusion that Im avoiding a few things that I should not be. The purpose of this model is to take me a bit out of my comfort zone and focus on a some new skills. I am attempting to model a tarsier with the primary goal being improvement of my hand modeling, working with fur, fur/skin transitions, and very thin body pieces.

The high poly model is about an hour along with one or possibly two more subdivisions to go.

jrs100000

Ive fixed a few glaring anatomical errors in the face and finished detailing out the rest of the body. Next step is the low poly model, which will probably happen tomorrow unless somebody notices any mistakes that I have already made.

Kawe

looking ath the top view his head looks a little cubeish.

from the side view he seems flat so I suspect the whole torso and head looks cubeish.. flat.

I dont know about these animals but I suspect they are more rounded.

is that the only reference you got? mind posting others if you got?

jrs100000

I think that you are correct about the blockyness. I was going more for "pudgy" but I might have taken it too far...or not far enough. Looking at the references again, I think I have the back of the head wrong as well.

Mark Dygert

I see a rat tail on the ref, but a cat tail on the model. Are they capable of sticking their tail out at a 90 degree angle away from their spine? Why do people always break tails? They are normally extensions of the spine, yes some animals are fairly well jointed and are capable of manipulating their tail that way but pay attention to the ref. I'm not sure if this animal can do that but you should look into it.

I don't think the tips of the fingers/toes are bulbous enough. They're almost like gecko feet on the ref, but you have pointy boney sticks.

The eyes aren't positioned as they should be. These little guys are prey not predators. Prey like fish have their eyes positioned for maximum peripheral vision. The more likely it is that you'll be eaten, the closer your FOV moves to 360.
Predators, cats, humans, dogs ect... survival depends on zeroing in on one thing, killing it and eating it, so their eyes face forward.

You dialed in human predator eyes when they need to be "oh shit... something behind me is going to eat me, isn't it! ISN'T IT!!?? OH shit OH SHIIIT!"

Kawe

Oh wow. I didn't know that about prey/predators... but it does make sense. That's why those fishy guys in Star Wars don't look especially intimidating.. haha.
http://www.starwars.com/databank/species/moncalamari/index.html

jrs100000

Some great advice there. Ive angled the eyes out, made the finger tips heavier, angled the tail down, and reworked the back, neck, and jaw. Im noticing right now that the eyes themselves have lost a bit of their 'spherishness' so Ill be fixing that now.

jrs100000

The first version of the low poly is ready. It weighs in at 4180 triangles. A little bit heavier than I had planned, so Ill be going over the mesh again to see what I can be safely cut. Roughly half of this count is in the hands and feet, so thats probably a good place to start trimming. Other than the hands and feet, Im thinking about removing one loop from around the eye sockets and one from around the chest, as well as simplifying the interior of the ears.

Kawe

the three edge loops in the middle of his torso don't seem to be doing much really.

but well. what is this model going to be used for? easier to figure out what you can cut out.. is he supposed to be able to curl his fingers/toes? will he be animated at all?

jrs100000

Im planning to at least rig and pose him. Im not much of an animator, but I might go that far just for the practice. I would like the fingers and toes to be movable, as well as the ears (if economical). I have no plans to use it in an actual game engine, but I would like to construct it as though I did.

I am a little bit concerned about removing extra loops from the body simply because (judging from the reference pictures) these creatures spend most of their time curled up hanging from branches. The extra geometry might not be doing much right now, but when he is posed it should be fairly important.

I think that the eyes would look much better if they could rotate in their sockets and if they looked like they had some depth (a shiny coating floating over the actual iris and pupil). Is there any standard way that this sort of thing is done?

Kawe

Here's a free video tutorial from the gnomon guys on making eyes in Maya I believe.
http://gnomonology.com/group/11

jrs100000

Im not so much concerned with how eyes are constructed for rendering, more how they can be built in a game friendly way. For example, would setting up the eyes as separate spheres floating inside the skull with a highly specular but transparent outer coating a good distance over them be an orthodox way of doing this sort of thing for a game? Or should I just paint eyes onto the texture and stretch the mesh around with bones to make it look like they are
moving?

jrs100000

Been struggling with this for a couple days now. I tried hand painting the fur to no avail and ended up going photo-sourced. The transparent planes I put in to simulate small tufts of hair sticking out from the body as well as the transparent covering over the eyes ended up causing unending technical problems( probably due to my horrible Intel graphics card). The eye covers were eventually cut out, but the fur tufts remain despite the problems. Final polycount is 4014.

Pictures with diffuse and alpha textures only:









Pictures with Diffuse, normal, and specular textures (no alpha)









Half size textues used:









Here is a closeup of one of the more infuriating errors I had with the transparencies. One side is rendering correctly and the other side is not. Both sides are using the same geometry, the same material, the same display settings and the same texture space.





Overall I cant say that Im thrilled with the results so far. I do have a better understanding of why there are so many hairless orcs and bald space marines out there tho. Hair is a pain in the ass!

Im probably going to take a day or two off from this and then come back to rig and pose it (might as well since Ive already come this far). Maybe it will look a little bit better when its not all stretched out, especially if I can figure out how to display it with working transparencies.