The monkey and the ball
polycounter lvl 18
Long time no see all, time to pimp some stuff!
So, this is for my buddy hourences who's working on a mod for the 'win something unreal contest', called: The ball
Blurb from the site:
The Ball is a first person singleplayer puzzle mod with an Aztec theme to it. The mod takes place in a mysterious Aztec temple, at the top of a volcano. The player has to use the Impact Gun to move a large steel ball around and utilize that ball to solve puzzles and get around obstacles. Impact Gun aside, the mod uses all new custom art to establish a unique, stylish, and atmospheric experience. The Ball is the winner of the MakeSomethingUnreal contest Phase 1, having won both Best Gametype and Best Use of Physics.
He asked me to make a giant gorilla with zombie-ish/mummy-ish damage and stuff, so here we go, still very much wip:
Ignore the stuff on the chest/belly, that was just trying out a little. The overal damage will be more in line with the arm.
Right now focussing on the arm:
In the end he should have fur and all that jazz, right now, sculpting, tweaking shapes a bit and adding damage/wounds. Still ways to go!
So, this is for my buddy hourences who's working on a mod for the 'win something unreal contest', called: The ball
Blurb from the site:
The Ball is a first person singleplayer puzzle mod with an Aztec theme to it. The mod takes place in a mysterious Aztec temple, at the top of a volcano. The player has to use the Impact Gun to move a large steel ball around and utilize that ball to solve puzzles and get around obstacles. Impact Gun aside, the mod uses all new custom art to establish a unique, stylish, and atmospheric experience. The Ball is the winner of the MakeSomethingUnreal contest Phase 1, having won both Best Gametype and Best Use of Physics.
He asked me to make a giant gorilla with zombie-ish/mummy-ish damage and stuff, so here we go, still very much wip:
Ignore the stuff on the chest/belly, that was just trying out a little. The overal damage will be more in line with the arm.
Right now focussing on the arm:
In the end he should have fur and all that jazz, right now, sculpting, tweaking shapes a bit and adding damage/wounds. Still ways to go!
Replies
I like the progress so far, and I would imagine it must be such a challenge to get realistic muscle anatomy going for a gorrilla, let alone find the references.
Looking forward to seeing more.
The Bodyworlds exhibition included a gorilla,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/manchester/content/image_galleries/220208_bodyworlds_gallery.shtml?5
you might be able to find more reference images if you need any.
Looking forward to updates.
As far as the muscles/anatomy goes, well I did a whole bunch of searching but there's not much to be found on gorilla anatomy. Luckily that which is there shows it's not too different from human anatomy. So, in this case, as long as it looks plausible, I'll settle for it.
Eventually most of his body will be covered in fur (aside from the wounds ofc), so that will hopefully give him the mass he needs in the end.
Pixelmitherer: Thanks for looking this up for me, I already found this one, but not in this quality, so thanks a ton for this one!
Mummy by MrE, I am sure he will post here later himself.
Golden city by me.
Indoor sections by Sklare using my tex/modular meshes.
We are looking for an animator btw, and a programmer. If anyone feels like helping out... - More info: http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=59595
fantastic stuff.
And a lil' update, chugging along!
I use mudbox, and only a few tools: soft brush, flatten, smooth and sometimes bulge. I only alter the size and strength (I tend to work with a low strength mostly tho, very sketchy sculpting style), no different brush tips, no stamps or stencils, just really basic tools.
As for the workflow, well to be honest I didn't exactly know where I wanted to go with the model, just a rough idea, so the work flow is a bit messy.
First I always like to make my base models in max, I've noticed these become less ans less detailed. I find I actually can't wait to take something into mudbox, so much more intuitive to work in!
Alright next, sculpt in all the muscle mass and big shapes, loads of refrence used, humand and gorilla anatomy as far as I could find them. I did know I wanted to have loads of fur planes on this guy, so I didn't bother too much with going to much into detail since most stuff woud be covered anyway.
For the muscles I start with bulge and block in quickly the big masses, the with soft brush I go in between the muscles and make the definitions between them, using flatten to harden edges and bring things gently into shape, then it's usually a bit of smooth to tighten things up.
Next wounds, I didn't want something completely rotten, and since most of it would be covered in fur I decided to just have these open wounds that show the spreading of decay.
Mostly I use a softbrush and dig into the mesh, knocking out the basic shape and depth of the wound (sometimes the move tool if it's a really deep gash), add the edges around it. Then for the muscles, it's easy, very small softbrush and just drag lines (subtract), the more jittery they are, the better! Very simple, very quick.
A bit of flatten here and there along the edges for definition, a bit of smooth, voila.
For the fleshy/tendon bits that go over the muscles, I use the flattenbrush where I want tendons and such to go. make the mesh nice and even, with softbrush sculpt tendons on top, define the edges with flatten and smooth a little if needed.
As for the body, well to be honest it is a bit of a fuck up, I wanted to add a bit more, 'mummy' ancient look to it, but not too much. Only, the 1st idea was to have most of the gorilla to be covered with fur, now more flesh is showing, and now the problem arises that I didn't spend enough time in the basic sculpting face.
I have the big mass, I have the detail, but I miss the middle stuff stuff sort of. (thanx per for pointing that out to me!
So, all in all I'm happy with how this model is progressing, but it's been a learning experience for sure, and at this poitn certainly taught me to think more before I start.
Anyway probably way too much info, hope I told what you wanted to know
Cheers
tim
TPE, holy schmozes!!! Now that's ages ago, welcome back man, great to see you here again
As for the wrinkles. They're actually not all that much work, I'm just taking my time (plus some stuff inbetween). Glad you like him man
Hey kevin, thanks, I'm sure mrE who made him is glad to hear that
The head is like a hammer by the way, it goes back and forth rapidly, hammering on whatever there is in front of the player (usually the ball).
Pesti, the detailing on the ape is great, nice work! If I understand the purpose of this character correctly, its a big boss? If that is the case I think his underlying proportions could be less Sam the butcher and more silver back Gorilla. You might want to be careful on where you gather ref from, zoo gorillas tend to be pretty fat, old and pampered. Wild gorillas are probably a better source for powerful iconic gorilla ref?
It might help to push out the brow line, sink in the eyes, shrink the mouth, and angry up the face. I think his arms, and forearms especailly could be much more powerful and threatening.
Have you thought about removing sections of muscle and showing some of the deep tissue or maybe organs? Depending on the story surounding this character could you patchwork in pieces of things organic or inorganic?
Awesome work guys, its coming along nicely!
The gorilla, yeah in the end I'll make him look a bit angrier, pull his eyebrows and stuff, and I forget to pull back his forehead all the time. It's hard to say where the ref came from, mix of zoo gorilla's and wild ones I assume.
The idea I had (and things have been floating a bit and freestyled) that he'll be covered by a fair amount of fur, especially the arms will be beefed up with fur. Hopefully giving him those massive lowerarms. ( I will have a look at the belly tho', that's prolly what's throwing it off a bit, the butt stays! I love his butt
I specifically didn't want to do too deep damage, I want to go for a zombie-ish look, but not completely zombie. While not completely certain on what the result would be, i'm pretty pleased the way it is now, could be zombie in early stage of decay, or it could be that's he's sick and some virus is spreading or some sort.
All in all, it's a great learning exercise, the sculpt is pretty much how it'll stay, time to finish him up, and get rolling with the lowres and textures. Then, the other cool stuff!
Ow, he's still gettign his teeth btw, so he'll look less like toothless grandpa ( well, i assume hehehe)
These shots are made in xnormal, all have light cast straight on from the camera, except the one in the right bottom corner.
Still loads of work on this to be done. Crits welcome, but might be better in a next update as things will be a bit more solid.. Still crits most welcome if they can help in this stage/next stage)
cheers!
Some inspiration, a dissected cat, possibly not for the sqeemish
Got a bit of a weird question; How did you manage to get such a clear and bright view of your model in mudbox (assuming your useing 2009)?
I'd love to see you'r modelling light setup.
Ride: Sorry to let you down, but this is in xNormal, no mud2009 here. Just the oldschool way of photoshop and xNormal/max.
http://theball.toltecstudios.com/
And we released three new pics, the monkey seen here already, and the weapon (by Tores) and a large elevator (by me).
Great model man, love the other stuff your cohorts are posting too.
And we got some new screenshots!
Gorilla by Pestibug and animation by Whackzero. The indoor level shot by Setheran, and the remaining screenshots are a combined effort from Hourences, Setheran, and Sklare.
The Ball is set to be released on May 7, 2009! We now have 5 large singleplay levels offering at least 4 hours of gameplay to new players!
We are still looking for a voice actor:
-Will be telling our story - our story is less than half a page worth of text so it is not a lot of work.
-A standard male voice with a neutral accent - think Hollywood voice over style
-You need to have a decent microphone and a recording environment with no background noise
Contact me@Hourences.com if you are interested.
http://theball.toltecstudios.com/
# At least twice as big as the previous release
# We have redone large parts of the first three levels.
# More than 4 hours of singleplay gameplay
# 100 Percent all new art and content
# Over 16 secret to discover and one very hard to find shortcut.
# Solve puzzles and fight monsters in a mysterious world deep inside a volcano!
# Previous installments have won a tripple first prize in the Make Something Unreal contest and was awarded "Best Singleplay Mod of 2008" by ModDB.
Here are the final screenshots of how the gorilla from pesti turned out:
Trailer available here - [ame]
DOWNLOAD
http://download.beyondunreal.com/fileworks.php/mods/ut3/TheBall-Teotl.exe
http://files.filefront.com/TheBall+Teotlexe/;13721993;/fileinfo.html
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JAENBEN3 (TEMP)
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The game is fantastic though. Very gorgeous.
Somehow the color style doesnt work for me :S
bleached green and red, almost pink,
the font in the screenshots is a bit.. i dont think it fits in that well.
really looks like some great work though!
def should try this out sometime soon
Pestibug: That gorilla turned out great!