Dwarf pt2

traden

Here is the current model I'm working on. I'm really new to modeling so I made a ton of mistakes along way, rebuilt everything a couple of times etc. It's finally at a point where I happy with the look, but unfortunately I have to find a way of removing 10k tris.

It's currently at 20k, but I want to get poly count to the dominance war specs <10k.

Suggestions would be greatly appreciated (i'll post the mesh in a bit):

traden

here's the mesh

Snader

alternatively you could get rid of the head and make that an alpha plane - saves you 5000 polies right there.

traden

@Snader - thanks for the suggestions. Couple of things -

1) What do you mean by float?
2) are you suggesting making the belt rings 3 sided instead of four?

Snader

1 by float i mean having separate objects for them, like you did with the bolts on the shoulders

2 yeah, this wouldnt work too well with alpha planes because they'd be invisible from profile view. but since they're thin wire objects they dont need a lot of shape

traden

thanks Snader, I'll give your suggestions a try today.

d00kie

very nice traden!
You did a great job completing the mesh, now comes the part i warned you about. Optimizations.
I'd say try and get rid of the bevels/extrusions on the boots and gloves. Only keep the ones that enhance the silhouette: the spaulders and maybe the gauntlets. You can fake most of the geo you have with textures.
For example, take a look at Guild Wars ingame armor art. I know it's lower poly than what you were shootin' for, but this is a good example of how textures can take a model to the next level.

traden

OK, wow, I managed to get rid of 11k tris. it's currently at 9965


@d00kie: thats a good point about the silhouette, I might have been over zealous during the optimization stage.

I have a question : should most of, or the entire mesh be one piece? currently the armor is separate from the head, the legs, arms are separate etc. is there a standard practice?

thanks!

traden

Note: I still have a bit of cleanup to do, there's still some polygon overlap and i need to add detail to his elbow area.

d00kie

well, I model all my pieces separate at first (easier for unwrapping and fixing issues) then I combine them all together in the end as one mesh for skinning/rigging. You'll want it as one mesh so you can skin/rig it.
I'm sure there's other ways of going about it, but that's the way I've always done it.

traden

hmm, I had assumed the model had to be finalize before unwrapping/UVing. so you can unwrap everything, then sew everything together and UV will be fine? I'll have to read up on UVing some more, thanks for the info.

d00kie

yesh, you can unwrap everything then sew it all back together later in your UV space.
and yesh you want to be at a finalized state before you start unwrapping.

You do some trial and error and find a way you like for your workflow. Alot of artists have different ways of going about completing work, im just sharing some of my processes.

I use Maya's UV Texture Editor and you can take multiple seperate meshes and lay the UVS out on the uv space. When you combine the meshes together in the end, they'll all share that space and become 256x256, 512x512, etc. That's what I mean by modeling and unwrapping separately.

traden

ahhh, ok. cool thanks. I'll give it a try tomorrow.

traden

i've started detailing. I'm using zbrush go with modo.

torontoanimator

the only real critique i can make is the breastplate has very little in the way of detail and pieces, i like what youre trying to do with the straps and such, but im sure theres so much more you can do with the armor, like the shoulder pads! those have GREAT detail!

traden

@torontoanimator - ya, I was thinking of adding the detail in the texture, but you might be right. I 'll add some detail to the chest plate in the normal map.

thanks!