Basic Fighter Model [WIP]
Hey all, just getting into 3d, I really enjoy the texturing side, coming from a 2d background, but am early stages in modelling. So I wanted to do some texturing but if... WHEN, it ends up looking good I'd like to possibly end up using it in my portfolio as I'm not too sure how well received a portfolio full of SDKs would be! 
So I'm after a bit of help and feedback on the model, so any critique would be welcome.
Renders
Wire
Head Wire.
^. I think this is were I need the most help, I basically was just adding tris and stuff to make the face look like what I had in mind, I've heard these new-fangled terms of edge-loops and flow but am still trying to figure out how they work (ie I have no idea!
)
On a side note, I've got an 'upskirt' shot here, with his legs they are seperate elements and just stick into the bottom of his chain skirt. Is this practice seriously un-kosher or acceptable?
Rigging is lightyears ahead of me so this dude is mainly to practice texturing so he'll be just be static as he is, not animated or posed, but theres no point picking up bad habits when starting!
Thanks in advance!
Cheers
matias
So I'm after a bit of help and feedback on the model, so any critique would be welcome.
Renders
Wire
Head Wire.
^. I think this is were I need the most help, I basically was just adding tris and stuff to make the face look like what I had in mind, I've heard these new-fangled terms of edge-loops and flow but am still trying to figure out how they work (ie I have no idea!
)On a side note, I've got an 'upskirt' shot here, with his legs they are seperate elements and just stick into the bottom of his chain skirt. Is this practice seriously un-kosher or acceptable?
Rigging is lightyears ahead of me so this dude is mainly to practice texturing so he'll be just be static as he is, not animated or posed, but theres no point picking up bad habits when starting!
Thanks in advance!
Cheers
matias
Replies
Regarding the face looks fine but you really need to look into edge loops.Paarticularly important for facial animation,even if its something you dont do.
Do a google for "Joan of Arc" 3d tutorial its a little old but walks you through the whole process of building a character.
Regarding the legs,even lo poly stuff should be one continuos mesh.just cut around the skirt where the legs intersect and weld them.Then push up as little the inside of skirt,that should allow a little freedom if you ever decide to animate.
For animation and rigging : I'd add another loop or two around the forearm. When you twist the wrist, it'll help to stop it collapsing too much. This stuff will make more sense once you start building rigs, but as you say you don't want bad habits forming at this stage.
You'd probably want another loop or two around the skirt as well, although you can often get away with surprisingly little geometry in this area. Think about what will happen when you rotate the legs into sitting position. You'd only have one point defining the curve of the arse at the moment, making it very square.
The legs intersecting the chain skirt are fine, unless the hypothetical game you were modeling for spent a lot of the time with the camera in upskirt mode
The hard edges on the face may or may not work, depending on the style of texturing you're going for. Judging by the proportions, you'll be going for a non-realistic style, so it should be fine. "Modern" stylised characters like those in Team Fortress 2 or Battlefield Heroes tend to go for a bevelled edge to deal with harsh directional transitions like this rather than using hard normals/seperate smoothing groups, so it might be worth a try to see which you prefer.
Looking forward to seeing what you do with the texture. Great start so far.
Edit : Edge loops in low poly models are NOT a necessity. Worth finding out what they are good for though, as the above poster mentioned. The intersecting leg thing largely depends on the game engine. Every engine I've worked with (quite a few by now) has supported open edges and intersecting geometry. This isn't always the case though, so when in doubt make your mesh "watertight".
Kunglao: I checked out that Joan of arc tutorial, it was a pretty good guide! Was helpful to follow, I was just concentrating on the face part of the tut but its nice thats its mainly visual, I have a real hard time reading instructions as opposed to seeing them! So I think I've cleaned up the face a fair bit!
Face
Turnaround
I've added and extra loop around his forearm and skirt CheeseOnToast, I hadnt even thought about his wrist turning or him sitting down!
I added a few more polys in his face, I do like the TF2 style and I was going for that sort of proportions but I was actually wanting to do alot more with the diffuse than the stylized blocks of colour in the TF2 style. So I smoothed it out a bit.. hopefully! haha
Upskirt now watertight! (sounds dodgy!) not to clean but I joined the legs up in the skirt, just to be on the safe side!
Also $!nz, thanks for the positive feedback, nothing like getting a confidence boost to get you back to work!
Cheers guys
Matias
http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=46031
and
http://www.poopinmymouth.com/process/tips/limb_deformations.gif
The second one comes from Ben "poopinmymouth" Mathis' site, which is chock-full of great low poly tutorials - well worth a look.
Texture, very WIP!
CheeseOnToast, thanks for the links, I remember Ben Mathis' site, I downloaded his videos ages ago they were pretty good, but I hadnt paid any antention to anyhting about animating, I should have know that the animating process starts from scratch! Was always skipping it thinking, I gotta learn to model before I can even get to animating!! d'oh.
Cheers guys
Matias