new project (Fantasy Knight Guy)

seforin

ok So I really need to start kicking myself in the ass harder after not landing that gig recently (see previous thread)


So I really wanted to start doing work again for myself (ive been doing a but ton of freelance that really not worth wild nor can I show or just not paying me )


So I was going through my folder of random images and came across this beauty and remembered I wanted to work on him once I discoved a way to do nice chain maile to confrom to a flow of polygons correctly *luckly with the new max plugin Recently in the tech section I got my wish!*


So I figured not only will I be working on a new character I Wanted to do EVERYTHING new


New generic Base mesh to model// sculpt from

New anatomy studys

New technology studys (get him in unreal with additional shader work)


So with that introduction out of the way lets begin


my new dude





And my base mesh so far.




So Very EARLY WIP just getting the height setup and a generic Sub D head.

Im using a cross combination style of heads from Arsh's generic base mesh and a combination of techniques my buddy polyhertz showed me on his super secret base mesh character

(You shall reveal all your secrets to me polyhertz!)


The mouth area topology ring works really nicely for sculpting lips ive seen it first hand. And arshes, ear area is great for sculpting the ear area and such.


Well Everyone I want this to be a new awesome piece so kick my ass take my name kick me while im down I want everyone to rip me as much as possible so I can improve and make something awesome!


EDIT: gleydson is the guy who made the concept and his work is AWESOME! Credit to that man!


"Jack Farrell, all rights reserved".

seforin

got a bit further need to call it a night already (forgot early things to do tommorrow)

Started torso area at this point, Debating about the way the edge flow is going near the back, suggestions on that one anyone?

artstream

Loving the concept, it will be good to watch how close the model comes to it. Is it yours? If not, I'd credit the artist in your first post.

The flow doesn't look "wrong" per se, I'm just curious about all the poles you have. Sometimes they're unavoidable, but (and I'm no pro, so I could be wrong) for sculpting programs, you usually want to avoid them whenever possible.

Neox

i'd definitely remove those poles coming from the nose ending up on the forhead, move that one more onto the top of the head

http://www.polyphobia.de/public/advices/op.jpg
right now having two poles that close together with bite you while sculpting

Udell_I

Hey man how is it going? It looks like you're off to a good start on the basemesh. I would try and apply what Neox said to the body. Try and remove most of the poles on the body so that way they don't get in your way when sculpting. Also I would try and make your edges as evenly spaced as possible, that way when you subdivide it in ZB or mud you'll get an even distribution of polies. Here is a paint over I did of the edge flow. Hope it helps Keep it up.:)

seforin

oh my lawdz its a update!


Got a chance today at lunch to mess with him , fixed edge flow and such and started on the legs

2 issues im having

issue 1 I wanted to add another cut so he actually had a roundness to the ass and not just a point sticking out (it feels to close to arsh's base mesh and thats what im trying to avoid, I want my own base mesh!)


issue 2: Im not sure if the density of the model as far as poly disribution is to much or to little?


never was good at figuring a good amount.

EDIT:

Be good to have the image attached wouldnt it?

Japhir

looks good so far! is it your concept? if so: AWESOME! great stuff! or does "random images" mean you forgot who made it .
the torso is definitely better than the first post.

seforin

Japhir wrote: »

looks good so far! is it your concept? if so: AWESOME! great stuff! or does "random images" mean you forgot who made it .
the torso is definitely better than the first post.

random images mean : I have no idea who made it and where it is I got it from so WHOEVER MADE IT ALL CREDIT TO YOU!

woogity

first of all great concept man thats some cool stuff, secondly the edgeloops on his chest need some work the spacing is funny in the pectoral area seems more like shoulderblades. also for the chainmail issue i have a workaround for you. dont bother with it in zbrush or max,

1 get a good tileable image of chainmail, and desaturate ( not that there is much of that to do with chainmail)

2 increase the brightness and contrast.

3 clonestamp it onto a layer over your nmap( so you can make sure its in the right place)

4 run the black and white mail layer through nvidia's normal mapping plugin for photoshop.

5 adjust the blue level to make your new n map almost a yellowish color

6 lay that layer over your nmap with an opacity of around 40%

( this may need some tweaking but for fine details that are a pain to prep a mesh for this works nicely, good for skin aswell)

gl man

Joseph Silverman

1- base mesh is a good start, keep working.

2- the concept is SIGNED, how hard is it to google 'gleydson' and give proper credit?

seforin

updates (and edit above)


Im thinking this is a good base mesh to start with I changed alot but debating about adding more edges on this or not..

woogity

your arms start strangely out of your chest the arm attaches much higher on the body to the torso, also the shoulders are way too slopey

BradMyers82

I agree with woogity on the shoulders, it looks kind of like the marine guy from Hellboy at the moment (like skin folds going over the shoulders). Also, from the side it looks like he is off balance. You have the feet and knee in the correct place, but his shoulders need to come back more, there should be more of an arch in the lower back, and he should probably have the verts above the point coming out from the ass pulled back so they are almost parallel. I really like your attention to mesh flow though, and I think its coming along nicely.

seforin

ok well not to sound rude but think someone can do a quick paint over (im more of a visual person)


Also a question


the hands : Now ive seen different methods to making the hands for sculpting some straight out some curved and some wide handed


I did semi curved (very suttle) but VERY wide handed,

Is there a better method to making hands for sculpting purposes ? Ive never once really seen this subject touched at all..



Oh yea if this mesh comes out good enough I'll release it to anyone who wants to use it on polycount (after I get this right though, and I know it works well for sculpting)

woogity

your arms start strangely out of your chest the arm attaches much higher on the body to the torso, also the shoulders are way too slopey

seforin

ok a few things were fixed (thanks to polyhertz and his expert skills in base mesh making and topology )

A few things were wrong

mainly I did what he refers to as "midget syndrom" meaning my mesh was to short in some areas, so that was fixed, errors above you guys listed was fixed up, also reshaped out the mesh and made the head more of a correct shape, and fixed the amount of geo so it was even


(thanks again polyhertz)



gonna start testing out some high poly soon

indian_boy

i think the feet should be pushed forward a bit
im not anatomy whiz, but at the moment its as if he's leaning forward

otherwise, it seems okay

interesting project btw. cant wait to see it done!

seforin

well see I did a few tests tonight sculpting wise fixing a bit of proportions and some other things is easy in zbrush with this current mesh


started to test out a method of how to make the chainmail , just a quick test but Im thinking this method can work at a mid poly range..




MUCH wip and more to come!

ae.

cool concept if you dont do it justice your going into my black book! :P

frubes

from what i can tell the concept is by this guy. Gleydson Caetano.

He gets a lot of stuff published in ballistic publications.

http://www.ballisticpublishing.com/bsw/viewEntries.php?bookID=22&l=C

http://www.gureiduson.deviantart.com/

I might be wrong but im 99% sure thats him as the image up top bears his signature.

Mark Dygert

Yep that's his stuff, you can find that exact image in his Jack Farrell 3 Cards Gallery section of his DeviantART page.

Cool trick for the chain mail looks like its working
The base mesh looks like it came out pretty good, a little on the skinny side but we'll have to see how it goes with the armor and tweaking.

seforin

I already gave the guy credit I had emailed him privately and he said its cool just make sure to put the info I did in the 1st post , and to keep him posted as well

Marine

hope you get rid of the ridiculous ab plates

cholden

During the proof of concept phase you should be roughing out the overall shapes and silouette of this model. By jumping into to underlying afterthoughts (chain mail), you'll find yourself with a bunch of generic bits you'll be fighting to make look as good and stylish as the concept. But it'll never happen because your fundmentals aren't there in the first place. Haven't you ever watched b1ll wip something on around here? Every step looks cool because he only does what he need to do to get the work complete.

Vitor

I actually think that the previous update on the base was looking better then this lasted one. He was looking more heroic back then, now looking more like a lazy fat kid. Also I'd sugest to add at least some eye shape first. Sculping eye sockets from nothing can be hard.

And my sugestion would be to take it to Zbrush now and try it before calling it done, change the pose for a more "alive" one, sculp it some and see if you need to change the topology, bring it back to max, rework, Zbrush again and so on...

PolyHertz

Already mentioned (and gave an example mesh) for the face topology, stop being lazy and fix it ya bum.

seforin

PolyHertz wrote: »

Already mentioned (and gave an example mesh) for the face topology, stop being lazy and fix it ya bum.

NEVAH!


ok ok fine Im gonna fix it later tonight , Your ear flow is still funky to me though but I'll create a new one soon.

seforin

ok decided to be stuborn about this and see what the difference between my mesh for sculpting versus the example that polyhertz gave me, I noticed that per sub division even though I was still able to eventually sculpt in the details of the eyes etc I could do the same amount of details with little to no pinch points following the examples 'hertz , gave me.


So I remade my final version of the base mesh (Till I find a flaw with this one) And im going to be begin sculpting the anatomy soon.


also to reference of what was said earlier, the chain mail I had posted was a test of a new plugin for max that was posted on here called slidknit

I luckly have a powerful computer so I ran into little to no errors when using it for a complex mesh as the chainmail...but when you really start doing crazy patterns the thing starts spazzing out when you skin deform it....


Anywho heres the latest version, hopefully tonight will have some sculpting put in.




(oh yea Hertz: I found that the ear like how I have allowed me to sculpt it in easier versus the one you had, and I prefre my guy to smile instead of frowning like yours :P )

Joao Sapiro

apply a relax so that the polygons are evenly distributed

seforin

johny : did the relax before I moved to this step

---

anywho so worked on base mesh got ALOT of details in only sub d 2 , right now I was only workin on form and proportions for this guy


that was before the leg spazzed out....polyhertz did a patch up job but in the process I lost sub D 1...im a bit annoyed about what happened so Just wanted to post some progress....I think im going to start this sculpt again hoping the leg wont spaz tommorrow.


So ignor the tumor/burn/cancer wounds all over him....gonna start a new one tommorrow...

(RAGE)




On a good note new base mesh gets uber details quick in low sub ds which is what I wanted.

but still...


*throws computer*

RAGE!

Japhir

hey that looks pretty good! (except for the burning wounds ) next time i'd move the head backwards somewhat, now he looks like he's been on the computer all day long.
keep it up!

butt_sahib

Hey:)
looks really wicked.
I think you should bring out the wings(Lats) more.
So you finished your dudley?never saw the finals!

Btw, thanks to jhonny for giving up a nice tip never knew that! :P ah the pleasures of being self-taught

seforin

butt_sahib wrote: »

Hey:)
looks really wicked.
I think you should bring out the wings(Lats) more.
So you finished your dudley?never saw the finals!

Btw, thanks to jhonny for giving up a nice tip never knew that! :P ah the pleasures of being self-taught

Until I can get that shader to work dudley is my 2ndary project, I want to finish him but shaders are a new strange alien world to me and ive been trying to get all the help I can get from it but just havent had the best of luck with it.

anywho yea like I said that model you see posted above im redoing due to a mess up in the models geo and the uvs didnt hold on him for some reason (thats necessary for my chain mail part of my model)

Joao Sapiro

dude you are still commiting the same error oooover and oooover, you keep advancing subd levels too fast, thats why that looks a blobby mess , and for christ sake USE REFERENCE AAHHHHHH ( im a gonna kill ur cat now kthnxbai ). Please try to listen this time XD

seforin

Johny wrote: »

dude you are still commiting the same error oooover and oooover, you keep advancing subd levels too fast, thats why that looks a blobby mess , and for christ sake USE REFERENCE AAHHHHHH ( im a gonna kill ur cat now kthnxbai ). Please try to listen this time XD

man johny your the 3rd guy who hasnt read what I posted I swear I need to have everything in picture format for people to listen


anyway like I said it was a quick sculpt and it was only sub d 2 , but the damn mesh spazzed out created a tri point and died, so im restarting tonight, I didnt get a chance to play with forms or anything yet.

New mesh tonight I'll start smaller and work my way up again , and yes I am using reference , I'll pay more closer attention to details, ( I didnt smooth anything out I was just gettin form in)


And I have a puppy not a cat!

Joao Sapiro

ill kill ur puppy. twice.

Vrav

All the scratches and detail and "tumors" at sub-d level 2 are way too early IMO; lower levels are more about shaping the proportion and anatomical forms, where, yes, reference is very useful. Scratches and crazy detail to hide iffy anatomical forms can be added on a higher level at least, where you have more control over their placement.

Keep it up though, don't give up! I can see you getting this where you want, with continued effort. The density looks pretty good to work with. edit: I read your post but might have missed the point, so don't take this the wrong way. Or else.

seforin

I really appologise about the lack of updates but I was pinned with work lately on some new charactesr at my job, so I didnt have time for this guy, but I finally got some time today and I wanted to post a update of the character, Still much WIP but I finally had a chance to touch the face, Im gonna go back and work on the body tommorrow and then on to the armor from there.


Anywho heres the knight guy so far.

bugo

tell me, where did you find this concept? this concept is really nice, i want to have a concept like this.

seforin

im testing out hair today, I was already told about the ears and the bridge of the nose so I will be fixing that, but at the same time im trying to figure out examples or approaches on how to sculpt hair...im debating about makign a new hair toupee' piece for sculpting..



what do you guys say, draw overs and generally beating me up to tell me what to fix is appreciated

yuhMEE

definetly going to watch the progress

almighty_gir

at the moment he looks somewhere in between realistic, and cartoony. i'd shoot for one or the other at this point. either make him look 100% real, or really exaggerate proportions and make his face look cartoony.

EarthQuake

seforin wrote: »

im testing out hair today, I was already told about the ears and the bridge of the nose so I will be fixing that, but at the same time im trying to figure out examples or approaches on how to sculpt hair...im debating about makign a new hair toupee' piece for sculpting..



what do you guys say, draw overs and generally beating me up to tell me what to fix is appreciated

Sammmmmmmeeeeee problem as johny says, progressing sub-d levels WAYYYY TOO EARLY!

Take a step back, look at the cheeks(concaved from the front view, wtf?) chin, neck etc. Those areas are nowhere near solid enough to begin detailing on. But you've already starting doing hair detailing?!? The last possible thing you should be doing!

Also, it really seems like you may spend too much time modeling from one angle, its really obvious with the ears and the cheeks, which actually look ok from the side view, but terrible in the front shot. Again the ears can be attributed to detailing way too fast, before you actually had the shape of the ears formed you sub-divided way too high and did all the detailing.

Really i would say start over, you're not going to progress very fast, or even at all until you can drop some of these bad habits dude. The best possible thing you can do is perfect the basics, that way you have a solid foundation to build up from, right now you're really struggeling to do that.

woogity

shit sorry for the late reply man hopefully this will help anyways. srry man all i got for now, contacts must come out gaaaah


Blue = landmarks
green =suggested edgeloops
red =suggested silhouette

low odor

why would you make those changes to a basemesh?

penrod

more importantly...why do people make small changes to arsh's basemesh, and call it there own basemesh. when it really is just a worse version of the original.

woogity

because he asked for a paintover... the red is overkill but the edgeloops on the hip have a great deal to do with the flow of the overall mesh will help define the lower torso, also, overal anatomy problems should be adressed in basemesh so they dont carry on throughout, just my opinion.

-woog

Michael Knubben

What, and the green on the knee isn't overkill?

low odor

Seems like the only topology issue you should worry about in a basemesh is if it is all in quads(probly an even density as well)- triangles need to be avoided in zbrush. You should worry about deifning your shapes more while sculpting.

Base
Sculpt
retopo
optimise
done

....and why hack up arsh's base.?..its not a big deal....but lets say you took the hands beause you're having trouble modeling base hands...then you probly need to practice hands. I would go back to basics. Building your own basemesh is a pain in the ass...but hopefully you'll learn something from it

seforin

woogity: I appreciate the draw over but I already addressed alot of those issues recently when in the sculpting phaze of things Ive been using this mesh for weeks now for work and for personal projects so I addressed the issues at hand.

low odor: agreed

penrod: your one of my favorite artists on polycount with some of the work youve been doing, but I really dont feel what you said was fair , if you looked at the post since page 1 I started a base mesh from scratch I even wrote word for word "I dont want to copy Arsh's base mesh I want to recreate a new one for my needs"

The only thing that is similar is the ear setup that arsh made that I liked for sculpting , and my new version right now has that modified now thats more simplified and basic topology in the ear / chin area.


I will be posting the new version of the base mesh some time this week I need to change the underarm area due to pinch points ive been runing into.

Earthquake: that comment you wrote has had me working on sculpts at lunch every day, and working at night redoing heads from scratch. I hate the chin area, I dont get how the muscles/ skin form to make a good strong chin. Are there examples you would suggest?

Jeremy Lindstrom

penrod wrote: »

more importantly...why do people make small changes to arsh's basemesh, and call it there own basemesh. when it really is just a worse version of the original.

Because he created this one from scratch... and is learning and at the end can say it's all their own creation rather then use arsh's basemesh and tell everyone it's all their creation.