Horse_WIP (Model for Fistful of Frags [HL2 Mod])

BradMyers82

This is my latest project which I just started today. I will be making a western style horse for the Half Life 2 Mod team: Fistful of Frags.
BTW, there is a new release coming out soon which is definitely worth checking out at: http://www.fistful-of-frags.com/index.php

Here is the base mesh I whipped up for a high poly sculpt today. I will post some sculpt work soon.

CrazyButcher

get more ref on the anatomy, photo close ups...

old model I made myself, not the best edgeflow as it's from the days when epoly was started being added to max and didnt have much experience in subdiv hehe. But there is some shapes/flows that you may benefit.

Of course depending on what kind of horse the shape will vary, but anyway maybe helps

Harry

yeah you want a muscular diagram as well as a skeletal one

tadpole3159

http://www.wishuponaster.com/photos/horse0.jpg

you need the muscles dude your WAY off

http://www.horse-diseases.com/_images/horsemuscleanatomy.jpg

so far your biggest problem is the lips. as you can see horses have huge lips. you woudnt get that from your reference image. if you want i can give you some pictures of my horses. i have a few...hunderd :poly124:

Rens

waaaay too many polys.
remove half and block it out properly

samgriffiths

This is just a base-mesh afterall, this doesn't reflect the topology of the low-poly, I think some of you may be judging it too quickly.

BradMyers82

CrazyButcher: Thanks, yeah I just did a really simple base mesh because I find it easier and faster to do a bit of sculpting and then retopologize later if necessary (the base mesh that is). The image you posted came in handy though when I did in fact retopologized the base mesh I showed earlier.

Tadpole3159, Rens: Yeah, samgriffiths is right. I really just was making a base mesh, and for that reason I almost didn't post this thread until I had some sculpting to show. Some times I'll even just make a stick figure and start sculpting, but don't worry, the final low poly should look nice when I get to making it. Thanks for the references though guys.



Been a while since I updated I know; but I have been slowly chipping away at this. One of the biggest problems I have faced is simply getting good images to use as reference. I eventually found this site: http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/WebZ/initialize?sessionid=0&javascript=true&dbchoice=1&active=1&entityCurrentPage=Search1&dbname=Science&style=Science&next=NEXTCMD%7FSortedQuery?&context;&termsrch=(ti%3D+(Veterinary+Anatomical+lllustrations))&fmtclass=gallery&next=html/nfbrief.html&bad=error/badsearch.html&entitytoprecno=1&entitycurrecno=1&entitytempjds=TRUE&numrecs=12%7F

I am really glad I found that site because it has awesome anatomical drawings of horses, and it has been the main reference for much of this sculpt so far. I know its not really the best practice to use drawings as references, but since every horse looks different, its the only way I could see a consitant reference from all differnet angles.

So, I figure I am about 70 percent done with the sculpt as of now. I have to at least add one more subdivision and smooth out some of the lumpyness and make some of the muscle definition more subtle. Here it is...

Harry

Im no equestrophile but i think the buttock shouldnt be concave like you have it.

Rai

Ha, I was wondering what anatomy sources you were using, I have all of the pictures of that site on my HDD.

To me, the horse seems too skinny for refined muscles, the neck dips in a tad too much at the top, and the pelvis is really thin.

Fix the butt!

Vrav

The huge eyes make it look gaunt and creepy, unless this is a young foal I guess. But the eyes are still probably too big and besides, could use more pertness to the musculature, hind legs and butt for sure. Looks more like a dog right now to me.

PixelMasher

from the front he looks really thin and emaciated. add some mass to him and I think it will feel more solid and powerful.

Joseph Silverman

Looking way off in the front, i don't think that horse could support a rider. Its shoulders seem to bow out awkwardly, and it's lacking a lot of bulk in general.

Google up some photo ref, don't stick to just one set of pictures.

http://anthonyhyde.net/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/riding.jpg

Harry

also: veins

00Zero

brad: horses have bigger shlongs than that! lol. pretty sick model. i had to make a horse a while back. pretty hard. finding good reference without buying books is hard.

tadpole3159

horsies are fat. your showing to much muscle definition. the back leg bum muscle is is smooth and round. not like you have it

here's william. hope this helps, simply smoothing your horsey might fix alot of the problems

JohnnyRaptor

^im with him, you got good foundation layed out, now add some fat on top of that

Neox

hm some forms remind me more of dogs then horses, the head works in front but doesn't from the side, the side view works overall better then the front and back angles, it's just way to skinny and thin on the X axis, horses have really massive bodies, no matter what kind of horse they are all pretty massive and gigantic

BradMyers82

Thanks so much for the crits guys, its really helping a ton right now. I totally agree with what you guys are saying here.

00Zero: my girlfreind said the same thing lol, but unless I'm mistaken they only have huge shlongs if they are erect . Thanks though.

Here is the horse with some major adjustments made. Some of the most noticeable differences is the head is much bigger, butt bigger and rounded out, smoothed a lot of stuff out and added mass here and there.

I was pretty much following the references I linked to blindly and that horse is really way too skinny and sort of weird looking. Those references were good for the muscle details though. Anyways, here is where I am at now. There is plenty I still need to fix, and it obviously not done yet, so please keep the crits coming.

Joseph Silverman

Front legs terminate into the shoulders wrong, especially noticeable from the front view. This should be a sturdy, heavy shape, right now it looks way out of balance.

Harry

And why the fuck wouldn't you model it erect dude?

On a serious note,
Out of curiosity, do you see horses in reality much?

BradMyers82

SupRore: Yeah dude, I guess I didn't really listen to your crit from before well enough. Sorry, is this better?

Harry: ha ha, just a matter of time before someone asked that question I guess.
Honestly though, I probably have only seen a horse in person like a dozen or so times in my life. Could be why I'm off to such a shitty start, but I'm intent on getting this right; and I have already learned a ton about horse anatomy.



I'll work some more on this tomorrow.

Harry

that's getting MUCH better
I don't see them all the time, but i see a few when i go for drives to certain areas and shit. I'm also a massive history fag so i see plenty of illustrations and have tons of miniatures of them.
Seeing them in motion really helps too.

Da vinci had some sick horse musculature studies, if you have his notebooks. If not theyre bound to be online somewhere.

BradMyers82

Harry: Thanks. I'll probably see if I can find a miniature next time I make a horse. If the model is accurate I find miniatures and such to be the best resource. I wish I was a history fag

Long time since my last update. I was doing an art test and got side tracked by a couple of other things for a while, but I finally got around to finishing the sculpt. At least I think it's done, unless anyone has a good crit for me.

Right, I'm moving onto making a high poly saddle now and then low poly, unwrap, textures. I should be able to move along pretty quickly now.

InProgress

I LIKE BIG BUTTS AND I CANNOT LIE!

Someone had to do it. Right now, I'd say your horse's ass is too big or it's because of the divide which isn't that visible, or at least I think so. Need to ask someone who owns horses.
Good job though.

Rens

it feels way of to me.

- start of the neck is very thin, looks like his head is about to fall off.
- his lowerlegs look very breakable
- his upper legs.. does this thing have some muscle power?
- his torso/ mid section looks very thin

the shapes and structure is all there, but it looks like hes starving to death.
beef him up and youll have a fine looking model

BradMyers82

InProgress: Ha ha. I think the size is about right, horses do have really big butts, but I think your right about the divide. It really shouldn't be there at the top, I'll fix that asap.

Rens: I see what you mean, but I think part of the issue might simply be the perspective camera in Mudbox. Below is the exact same model, in orthographic. The cameras can play tricks on you, tell me what you think from orthographic.

Thanks for the crits so far guys! Also, thanks to tadepole for the images of your horse you supplied me with, they are very helpful and will be even more of a help when I get to texturing. I think I should mention, (from the references I have gathered) horses vary quite a bit from horse to horse in size and shape. I'm just going for a general horse that looks like it could be real/exist.

Here is the same horse in orthographic view:

BradMyers82

Here is a quick butt fix based off the crit earlier. Next to it, is the only reference I could find from the rear and what I based it off of. Looking better I think.

BradMyers82

Here he is from the side ortho again, with the small edits I just made. I made his stomach area much wider also.

BradMyers82

Alright, I think I'm ready for another round of critiques. If anyone has anything that they can point out to me right now it would be great. As you will see, the main thing I still have to do is make a proper specular map and possibly another pass on the diffuse. The Specular map won't be used in game, but I think it will look better in the end as a portfolio piece if I do indeed create one. Right now there is simply a dark grey color in the specular slot, and these images are all from Real-Time screen grabs within the 3ds max viewport. The standard shader I created for the horse is courtesy of Lumonix ShaderFX v3.0.

Also note, I posted my final sculpt at my website. I don't think its necessary to post more on the high poly; but in case anyone is interested its here: http://www.bradm3d.com/HighPolyHorse.html

I know everyone has DW fever, but please keep giving me those great crits I need . Thanks!

samgriffiths

I very much like the texture, (I feel slightly that the horse would seem kind of small like a pony, but that can't be adjusted now).

I'd much appreciate If you could give a brief overview on how you went about texture creation for this asset, (Skin-wise).

Looks like a solid asset IMO.

renderhjs

the head looks like a dog's head its mainly because of the thin neck or so. And yes some of his legs look like match sticks- easy to break.

nice progression

MoP

Looks good, definitely one of the better horse models I've seen. The anatomy is pretty tough to get right.
I agree that the neck length & head size could maybe be tweaked a little bit to improve the proportions but it still looks pretty correct even without that.

BradMyers82

SamGriffiths: Thanks! Well I could adjust the mesh quite simply moving verts around to change the scale of things. But I cant really adjust stuff like the muscle detail in the normals and such.
As for your question on my texturing workflow with the horses skin:
-I photo sourced as much as I could using only midtones from photos (no highlights or shadows).
-Pasted interesting bits, used the clone stamp and patch tool in photoshop.
-I tried to get a lot of color variation, and keep it in the right places.
-I then do a paint over to clean bits up and get them matching my specific mesh better. ---At this point its pretty much done but there are seams on the mesh.
-So I fire up Bodypaint 3d and use the projection tool with clone stamp to easily get ride of any seams on the texture.
-Then I go back into photoshop adjust levels and hue/saturation and do a detail pass on the texture like little hairs and stuff to make the texture less blurry. That's about it, hope it helps. If you need additional information, my workflow for this is pretty much the same as what Ian Joyner does. He shows it in detail in this video: http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/dvds/ijo02.html

renderhjs: Thanks for following along with this WIP. Yeah, the scale might be off in some areas still, if you could show me the exact areas your talking about I could try to fix it, but I think I am pretty much ready to call this project done.

Mop: Much appreciated, that means a lot coming from you man. Yeah, I did try to tweak some stuff, but couldn't decide if it looked better or worse. In the images of horses I gathered, they varied so greatly from one horse to the next that it was really tough to decide which way to go. I'm really digging your DW entry so far BTW.

Well, thought I would just share the final product. Not a whole lot has change besides some small details, and I made some skin variations. Also, if anyone is interested in seeing more images of the horse, the final presentation sheets are all on my website.