Sonic the Hedgehog
interpolator
hey all.. been working on this for about a week and a half now.. trying to polish it up for the mass portfolio export to studios.. worked really hard on this.. hope yall dig, and if you have any more suggestions to kick it up a notch even further, please let me know.. thank u
in my maps page.. it is already duly noted that i should paint the black areas the neutral object color.. like blue.. i have edge padding.. but i know i should correct that, so that studios dont think i dont know what mip mapping is.. but i've been working on it several hours today.. and now just catching it.. i'm pretty tired, i guess.. will update when i have rested up
in my maps page.. it is already duly noted that i should paint the black areas the neutral object color.. like blue.. i have edge padding.. but i know i should correct that, so that studios dont think i dont know what mip mapping is.. but i've been working on it several hours today.. and now just catching it.. i'm pretty tired, i guess.. will update when i have rested up
Replies
It's kind of like some furry art or something...what happened to my cute but rad hedgehog sonic :[
The overall design based from your concepts to final presentation lacks in all regards
a few things that would have helped
That fur you kinda etched in kept it flat, or kept a shader on it to make it transmit more smoother
The posture of your character is so extremely ridged , even though humanoid has no character to it , just look like a plank standing straight
his face is creepy but its due to afew reasons, mainly on the front view of your character his eyes have were shadowing where the eyeballs themself are just floating in nothing
from the side view (based on your drawings) the skull was WAY more defined were as your 3d it again lacks.
shoe design I like no real complaints there
Glove design reminds me of kingdom hearts Im not a fan of the flesh fingers sticking out, but I suppose it could grow on me if the gloves were designed a bit more with details
having the muscles on this guy is fine but heres the thing
sonic is fast
he runs fast
fastest thing alive
Ever watch the saturday morning show you should know that just by the theme song
so tell me why is his ABS SO DEFINED but his legs are just semi defined?
Does sonic run Stomach first into shit?
NO
he RUNS with his legs , he KICKS and spins with his back
Things that would have given it more character legs being more defined and OBVIOUSLY bigger (if your going for that kinda more detailed/ realistic vibe of sonic)
ok lets now think again other notable things with sonic
he attack how?
Quills on his back in a ball right?
Key word there "Back"
His back muscles / back frame would obviously would be wider wouldnt they?
Again more things Im trying to point out to hopefully help you evolve this character more
Im a fan of sonic/megaman/old school games
So I love to see redesigns or tribute models
I really think you should take this model back to concept really define your concept and start in your base mesh again and sculpt nicely
look into shaders that can render fur nicely (Example sonic unleashed had a type of fur shader for night werhog sonic)
Other shades similar to this were ones used for viva pinata
There tons to improve on , please take all my critics/ personal opinions with a grain of salt! But take grains of that salt to make your dish more favorable
That said. The technical aspect is nicelt done in my opinion.
I just don't like the idea of the human like body parts being so anatomically defined. I feel like he should have a dick too.
Funny you should say that, because I totally thought his tail and thumb were c*cks.
Seriously though, the thing buggin' me most is the chin, humanizes him a little too much. Work on the jaw area a bit and i think he'll look a lot better. Interesting take on a realistic sonic but i can't help but think he'd look better without so much fur detail and a little more in his cartoony roots.
I definitely thought the concept and sculpt were stronger than the final presentation. I miss the original hexagonal mesh material the red parts were for sure as well. The three biggest weaknesses imo are probably the eyes, fur material and the Leno chin. Sonic's head has always been so round that the lack of swoop straight from the mouth to the neck totally makes him seem like a different character.
The muscles aside ( cause I think it could somehow work with a little more pinching towards the elbows ), it'd be great if you spent some time silhouetting the original sonic to see what features really characterize him to be the figure he is.
Or maybe just smooth down the hair texture in the normal so it is a little less BAM in your face!!!
A couple things that could be improved:
How the fur fades into the skin, make it more like the concept, it has more variation and visual interest than the model. The transition is too abrupt right now, like he's wearing sleeveless fur overalls.
Texture is lacking variation.
Maybe have the ends of the hair spikes a lighter color or something to give more interest to them.
It needs something on the head to pull focus to it, right now my eyes are getting drawn to the gloves or shoes.
Try sculpt clusters of hair instead. It will make the fur look more realistic, detailed and more interesting. You can even get more personality with the character depending how you do all the curls etc.
Watch this video: [ame]
I see nothing wrong w/ a strong, fast Sonic.. yes as a toon, he's got noodle limbs in the other games and Saturday morning cartoons.. and he's fast.. but he runs.. and runs a lot.. any runner who does it for a long period of time, whether animal or humanoid, is going to have lean muscle.. take The Flash, for instance.. and i think it gives him a very strong silhouette..
there are lots of issues w/ the fur, I know.. I guess i went a little buck nutty in zbrush, sculpting it all in.. and at the time it looked pretty cool.. but i dont think it's workin for me anymore either.. it looks chiseled in.. there's a lot of sharp contrast and deep shadows between the locks.. i actually woke up this morning thinking about how i could get it to work very similarly to Shadow of the Colossus-- the monster's grassy looking fur.. something like that might kick it up a notch.. and sell it better
granted-- he's a hedgehog, and if he were real, his quills would be ridged.. (after thought)
the eyes.. the eyes were giving me issues.. i had initially sculpted them in Zbrush, as u can see.. but then i realized that they would not work for the model.. so i painted them out of the normals, and modeled eyes.. they were a quick fix.. and probably not the best solution.. but i still read an intense facial expression from him nonetheless.. perhaps its the angle of the screen shot.. i donno.. in the comics, and the cartoon.. the eye's are separate from the face.. they glide along the white of his eyes.. like you wonder how the muscles of his eyes actually work, if they worked for real
anyways.. great comments.. i'll take most of them into consideration.. especially the fur.. hehe.. i think this is the most comments i've ever gotten on a piece.. so i hope i've left an impression.. thanks agian
There's nothing more cool than being hugged by someone you like.
But if someone tries to touch you in a place or in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable, that's NO GOOD.
It's your body, no one has the right to touch you if you don't want them to.
So what do you do?
First, you say NO!
Then, you get OUTTA THERE!
*cue Sonic theme music*
Get rid of that nasty-ass T-pose. This isn't school, we're not your teachers. Show us Sonic as we'd see Sonic: Moving, jumping, collecting rings and overall being a cocky hedgehog. The t-pose, while possibly good for you to use while modeling, doesn't help your case when trying to SELL us on who he is. Hell, the classic Sonic pose of his hands on his hips while he taps his foot in anticipation would rock.
The human hands are neat, but I'd completely cover them in gloves. Seeing finger nails reaaaaally fucks with the brain. Is this a cartoon character you've made or some "stylized" creepy Furry about to Yiff some ready-and-waiting Amy?
for me the colour of the fur is whats putting me off and also making it look last gen.
i would imagine him as a bit of a greaser his blue hair greased back into those spikes, slight air of 50s speed demon possibly wears a studded jacket and deffinatly likes the idea of being james dean
anyway if you could pull off a nice specular sheen on the fur and change the colours to suit a bit better i think your on to a winer weiner errrrr winner
little idea of where the colour should be, though im on my macbook and paintings an arse pretend the fur has that greasy plastic look ;-)
It is a bit creepy to look at lol, especially the hands but I think if you fixed up the fur it would look much better. As you said yourself, Shadow of the Colossus is definitely a game to look at even though its last gen they did fur really well. His face is odd, it's not quite in any form of expression so adding something there would help too.
I like your take on him. though, my crit to you is the fur needs work. Right now its just too straight and seems forced. Check out the youtube tutorial that CORV posted and go back and rework it. It would give him a much more natural feel. Also, I think the chest area needs to blend into the fur more. a couple lines coming out from the fur in that area, and around the shoulders, to me, it just looks like a torn shirt or something. Of course, this is just my opinion, and your vision is probably different than mine, but I believe it would make for a stronger character with those changes!
cheers
the fur will definitely be my focus these next few days..
polish and updates to come
i really value everybodys comments
You're using 3 2048 maps. That's a lot of texture information that I think you could use more effectively. I imagine, as the model is now, we wouldn't really be able to tell the difference if you took the normal and spec maps down to 512 and the color down to 1024 or lower. This isn't to say you can't validate those texture sizes, but like Adam said, especially with this kind of polycount and texture dimensions, it needs to look current. That being said, you could also probably afford to lose some polygons. You've got a lot of loops in the "quills" or whatever you want to call his hairstyle when really they're just straight cones. Obviously theyre a large part of the model so you want to distribute your loops evenly since they're a significant percentage of the total, but I think you could afford to lose some, or when you're working with the hair, work the shapes a little so they're more swoopy (or something.) I'm also wondering how his legs work, as the geometry sits now, they would just swing underneath him (which is pretty much how classic sonic moves) but because he has such human-like anatomy elsewhere, it might be worth considering moving his legs up to his sides like a human hip works. I don't know how that would turn out, but it's weird seeing those legs just sticking off the bottom of such a human torso.
The eyes are sort of perplexing. I think that because you've gone far enough to give him human fingers and given him this grimy look, you may want to consider modelling him some eye geometry so that he could even blink. You've taken a lot of artistic license with the character, why not take it all the way and make him really strange.
Basically, you've got the polycount and texture space for a current-gen character, but you don't have the model of one. I think this could be really cool if you really push it to the next level.
his face looks like a kuma (japanese bear), and he is so hairy - its just scary. The eyes look very wrong and almost orthogonal aligned whereas they should be more angled in a natural way like it does in the concept drawing.
The hands are also very scary, like the ones of a hair old strong man - it has almost some gay flavor to it with all the male details but still the close body (hairy) suit concept.
The concept itself however looks very good, in that drawing he is more slim his hands are less scary but more boyish (not hairy manly). His composition is more natural and the face expression looks so much better.
Show this concept a child and he will like it, show the child the 3d version and he will cry or run away.
PLEASE!
Oh my god.
I love it, my girlfriend and I are both sitting here giggling like retards.
(cycloverid: I laughed my ass off)
Next, you have the completely wrong hairstyle. Does this look familiar? Even if you are going with your own edgy design, when that design already exists in the Sonic universe, it kind of doesn't work. Right now you have Shadow or Super Sonic, with the upturned spikes, as demonstrated in the second image. Hair pointing up would cause unnecessary drag and would not really work for rolling into a ball, which is why shadow has some motorcyle and Super Sonic can fly. It looks like you kept the spikes models separate so it should be easy to flip them around and see how it looks.
ok.. i haven't changed anything just yet.. but i am working on the rig.. but this is what i was saying about the difference between tangent and object space normals.. the visual look.. this was the question i was trying to ask initially.. what is the difference between them?.. and if one version is used over the other in actually real time game play, which one do i use?.. and why?..
i have some issues tho, w/ object space nrms turned off.. in the spines.. i get weird lighting info on the tips, as well as on the white straps of the shoes... i've looked over my normals and in all the RGB channels, and there doesnt appear to be and distortion coming from them.. and i've looked over my other maps.. and no issues there either.. however.. i think the problem is either in the OBJ export, or in the engine itself.. when i turn ON object space normals, those issues don't show up.. and that is why i presented Sonic in this fashion.. so.. whether he looks plasticy or flat or w/e.. these were the results i was getting
anyways..i really like the ideas people have been coming up w/.. Sepheiro.. i'm stealing your color idea, and Frump, one of your ideas w/ the spikes turned down.. thanks for everybodys help through this.. gonna continue on and hopefully knock it out of the park
The strange lighting you're getting is likely a smoothing group issue. Check your obj export.