Everything is spot on, but he's gonna be a hunchback with those off-centre straps, not sure how well the current straps would hold the weight of the sword, without it slipping, yanking on the crotch strap and giving him an almighty wedgy.
I wish I could say that the hair is done, but it ain't. On my first run He-Man looked like a Japanese popstar (no offense, and sorry, no footage there - erased everything out of frustration) and now I do like it in general but there are still plenty of stuff to criticize.
The skin texture oughta be done so far. Will paint over the seams, some details to it generally and correct some odds and ends in ZBrush.
As long as the assets are concerned, still flat colors - nothing special yet - just wanted to test some colorschemes and I think to continue towards that direction. BTW, fur ain't final neither. I'll hook it up with some alpha planes.
I do have some issues with his armor though. Tried out billions of color variations/combinations and haven't managed to achieve a satisfying result.
The thing is though, that all the hair-planes sharing 3 hair strands in the texture in total.
That'd mean, if I added some shadow to it, all the planes would have the same shading and that'd look totally weird.
I guess, I'll have to paint some shadows in the hair in the final render.
or use 1 of the uv areas for the lower part of the hair, one for the middle part and one for the top. It would illiminate the uniqueness a bit, but since right now it is pretty much the same texture anyways it probably wouldn't matter too much IMO .
Great work! I really like how you got the normals/spec/diffuse to work together without getting the "plastic feel" a lot of people get when using normals.
You're still having bad shading issues, and it is because of a flipped channel. Trust me on this one. The most glaring give away was the inverted nipple. My suggestion is to flip the red.
You guys are right. His hair could have been better, so I'm gonna work on that one again. It's still gonna be a mullet though (just love that style).
About his grizzled face, it's probably too much and definately not as boyish as some would have expected him to be like but I kinda like it, plus now it is such a big step backwards to correct it. I'll try to decrease the wrinkles a bit by painting over the normal map but I'm not putting my hopes too high on this one.
@dur23 dude I totally trust you on the shading problem and I really appreciate you investing so much time and effort for this issue. It's just that I'm pretty new in the game and totally have no idea how to 'flip the red*channel'. Do I have to recreate a normal map or do some Photoshop work to it? Maybe you could help me out on this one ...
And if you don't know how:
-go to your channels palette,
-select the red channel
-press ctrl-i (Image>adjustments>invert)
Or if you prefer it in an adjustment layer (so you can toggle it):
-add a levels adjusment layer
-select red from the dropdown
-at the bottom (output levels), change 255 to 0 and 0 to 255.
If you're curious why this is necessary, it's not that you baked it wrong, it's just that different programs and engines have slightly different ways of reading the maps. One might consider green to be pointing down, another up, and same for red. If you just flip them, it's then exactly the same as if it was rendered that way.
The reason we think it's red in this case is because things are lit strangely on the horizontal axis, which is the red channel.
If you're curious why this is necessary, it's not that you baked it wrong, it's just that different programs and engines have slightly different ways of reading the maps. One might consider green to be pointing down, another up, and same for red. If you just flip them, it's then exactly the same as if it was rendered that way.
The reason we think it's red in this case is because things are lit strangely on the horizontal axis, which is the red channel.
PEA!
There is a very easy way to tell if your normals aren't rendering correctly. Very often i see a lot of people posting next-gen objects with normals and everything. The point of the normalmap is to make the low poly look exactly like the high poly. So putting them side by side for comparison and if the low doesn't shade almost exactly like the high (silhouette withstanding) then something ain't right.
hehe whoops, looks like it was the green. Or maybe both. Just do tests.
Flip green only -> check
Flip red only -> check
Flip both -> check
Remember it should look almost exactly like the highpoly. A good way to see that is to remove your diffuse texture and just make it grey. I'm really not joking when i say they should look almost identical, with the silhouette being the exception.
I'm rendering at the moment. Got a very slow machine ... sorry!
Just out of curiosity, could it be due to the 'occlusionMap'? Since I haven't baked any of the highRes version coz of my lame pc, I created something like an occlusionMap.
I generated two types of cavityMaps from the normlaMap (using your normal map to create cavity maps) baked a lowpoly occlusionMap from Maya, blent them all together and use 'em once in the shaders ambient occlusion channel and in the colorMap.
Here's my colorMap btw
So the one with the inverted green channel only is also done.
I guess it's the one with both channels flipped ...
Well now i'm just confused. Would you mind doing three quick shots with no diffuse texture and a light straight in front of him and up in the air? With all three versions of the nm?
Also that baked diffuse cavity thing is going to give you what looks like shading errors when you might not even have them. IE. the nipple on the right is casting an inward shadow, while the one on the left is casting correctly.
It really looks like your green channel is flipped.... but if you've tried that already, I don't know what to say... Try using Xoliul's viewport shader. You'll see in realtime if your normal map is working correctly. There is also the option to flip the green channel within the shader itself.
Sorry guys, first picture's pretty huge, forgot to rescale it. It's 3.30AM over here in Austria and I am a bit tired.
So, this picture is from a previous version (the one I've made the last renders from).
It has no diffuse, red and green channels flipped (sorry dur23 - no real frontlight on this one).
Now the weird thing is ... I opened a brand new Maya scene (@ r_fletche_r I am not using Max), assigned a blinn shader, plus frontlight and the SAME normalMap as before (the picture above) and VOILA
So obviously both channels seem to be reversed, which can only mean that the right one's the first one (before I flipped any of the channels) ...
... what tell's me again that Maya likes to f*ck me.
Here the other two.
No diffuse and only red channel flipped
and no diffuse and only green channel flipped
Well, thx again guys for helping me out. I still don't know what I've changed in the previous scenes' shader settings but somehow it got all messed up.
Anyway I've been working on a new hair-cut and hopefully afterwards I can call this char finished.
Well now i'm just confused. Would you mind doing three quick shots with no diffuse texture and a light straight in front of him and up in the air? With all three versions of the nm?
Also that baked diffuse cavity thing is going to give you what looks like shading errors when you might not even have them. IE. the nipple on the right is casting an inward shadow, while the one on the left is casting correctly.
Dur is right.
You have too might lighting information on your diffuse for whatever reason. You've baked in directional lighting basically. You need to tone it back a lot if you want your normals to show up and not fight the diffuse.
@ moof Yeah, working on that one already. Actually I'm repainting the whole colorMap without blending in cavity. Bwoyh, that mistake I'll never do again.
@ Barnstable Sorry for crushing your dreams. The inverted nipples will be history tomorrow or so but he still will get no bowl haircut.
@ Belltann I'm not really sure which picture you are refering to but the normal map problem's solved. See for yourself ...
Again, I didn't actually have to invert any channel in the normal map in first place. It was just that somewhen somehow my shader in Maya got f*cked up and it didn't show me the shades correctly. The colorMap showed some weird shading information aswell but that was due to the cavityMap which is blent in.
So, my 2Do's for today are...
- new colorMap
- new hair
- and to feed my cat : ))
A.Ceylan: In future, you might want to preview your model in realtime. Rendering is fine and well when that's what you want for a final image (although I'd argue against that as well, but that's your decision), but for previewing it being able to rotate it and seeing the dynamic lighting and spec responding is really the only way to preview a realtime model, as far as I'm concerned.
And spotting inverted maps is a lot easier this way, too.
Maya is actually really good with normal maps. There's a couple things that coulda messed with your render. Inverted meshs, mentalray/raytracing being an ass. Etc etc. Sometimes when i open maya i find some of my meshs with normal maps are displaying wrong, even though the last time i closed it, it was working fine. All i have to do to fix that is select a vert, edge or poly and move it a mm in any direction and then hit undo, this usually fixes it.
Also make sure you fix that diffuse. You have some questionable lighting in it.
Replies
I know i could kick out a lot of polys, but hey I ain't got no poly-limit.
Next'd be uv-layout.
Cu,
Atilla
I wish I could say that the hair is done, but it ain't. On my first run He-Man looked like a Japanese popstar (no offense, and sorry, no footage there - erased everything out of frustration) and now I do like it in general but there are still plenty of stuff to criticize.
The skin texture oughta be done so far. Will paint over the seams, some details to it generally and correct some odds and ends in ZBrush.
As long as the assets are concerned, still flat colors - nothing special yet - just wanted to test some colorschemes and I think to continue towards that direction. BTW, fur ain't final neither. I'll hook it up with some alpha planes.
I do have some issues with his armor though. Tried out billions of color variations/combinations and haven't managed to achieve a satisfying result.
Stay tuned ...
BTW, I know I suck in rendering
I also hooked him up with 3 different poses.
The all-known He-Man pose ...
... of course is in the game.
Some tweaks left and he's good to go for rendering.
I'll post the stances with the final render ...
Cya,
Atilla
try to add some shadow-gradients in the upper parts of the hair planes, and pose, pose, pose!
The thing is though, that all the hair-planes sharing 3 hair strands in the texture in total.
That'd mean, if I added some shadow to it, all the planes would have the same shading and that'd look totally weird.
I guess, I'll have to paint some shadows in the hair in the final render.
Great work! I really like how you got the normals/spec/diffuse to work together without getting the "plastic feel" a lot of people get when using normals.
@Japhir I'll also might go for a 'plastic feel' version in the final render. Just to see how it'd look. Something like an action figure or so ...
But that ain't in my power, since a friend of mine is gonna do the rendering (hopefully).
Screenshots from hair-sculpt will follow.
Cya ...
Definately am a render noob.
You tell me:
The rest is bad arse.
About his grizzled face, it's probably too much and definately not as boyish as some would have expected him to be like but I kinda like it, plus now it is such a big step backwards to correct it. I'll try to decrease the wrinkles a bit by painting over the normal map but I'm not putting my hopes too high on this one.
@dur23 dude I totally trust you on the shading problem and I really appreciate you investing so much time and effort for this issue. It's just that I'm pretty new in the game and totally have no idea how to 'flip the red*channel'. Do I have to recreate a normal map or do some Photoshop work to it? Maybe you could help me out on this one ...
Flipping the red channel just means you need to select the red channel and invert it.
-go to your channels palette,
-select the red channel
-press ctrl-i (Image>adjustments>invert)
Or if you prefer it in an adjustment layer (so you can toggle it):
-add a levels adjusment layer
-select red from the dropdown
-at the bottom (output levels), change 255 to 0 and 0 to 255.
If you're curious why this is necessary, it's not that you baked it wrong, it's just that different programs and engines have slightly different ways of reading the maps. One might consider green to be pointing down, another up, and same for red. If you just flip them, it's then exactly the same as if it was rendered that way.
The reason we think it's red in this case is because things are lit strangely on the horizontal axis, which is the red channel.
PEA!
There is a very easy way to tell if your normals aren't rendering correctly. Very often i see a lot of people posting next-gen objects with normals and everything. The point of the normalmap is to make the low poly look exactly like the high poly. So putting them side by side for comparison and if the low doesn't shade almost exactly like the high (silhouette withstanding) then something ain't right.
dur23 thx for noticing the problem and Pea for reminding me.
So, whaddaya say?
I've inverted the red channel now. There ain't no paintover but still ... I'd say it's better ...
Flip green only -> check
Flip red only -> check
Flip both -> check
Remember it should look almost exactly like the highpoly. A good way to see that is to remove your diffuse texture and just make it grey. I'm really not joking when i say they should look almost identical, with the silhouette being the exception.
Just out of curiosity, could it be due to the 'occlusionMap'? Since I haven't baked any of the highRes version coz of my lame pc, I created something like an occlusionMap.
I generated two types of cavityMaps from the normlaMap (using your normal map to create cavity maps) baked a lowpoly occlusionMap from Maya, blent them all together and use 'em once in the shaders ambient occlusion channel and in the colorMap.
Here's my colorMap btw
So the one with the inverted green channel only is also done.
I guess it's the one with both channels flipped ...
Also that baked diffuse cavity thing is going to give you what looks like shading errors when you might not even have them. IE. the nipple on the right is casting an inward shadow, while the one on the left is casting correctly.
So, this picture is from a previous version (the one I've made the last renders from).
It has no diffuse, red and green channels flipped (sorry dur23 - no real frontlight on this one).
Now the weird thing is ... I opened a brand new Maya scene (@ r_fletche_r I am not using Max), assigned a blinn shader, plus frontlight and the SAME normalMap as before (the picture above) and VOILA
So obviously both channels seem to be reversed, which can only mean that the right one's the first one (before I flipped any of the channels) ...
... what tell's me again that Maya likes to f*ck me.
Here the other two.
No diffuse and only red channel flipped
and no diffuse and only green channel flipped
Well, thx again guys for helping me out. I still don't know what I've changed in the previous scenes' shader settings but somehow it got all messed up.
Anyway I've been working on a new hair-cut and hopefully afterwards I can call this char finished.
Dur is right.
You have too might lighting information on your diffuse for whatever reason. You've baked in directional lighting basically. You need to tone it back a lot if you want your normals to show up and not fight the diffuse.
Oh, and nice model and color map there
@ Barnstable Sorry for crushing your dreams. The inverted nipples will be history tomorrow or so but he still will get no bowl haircut.
@ Belltann I'm not really sure which picture you are refering to but the normal map problem's solved. See for yourself ...
Again, I didn't actually have to invert any channel in the normal map in first place. It was just that somewhen somehow my shader in Maya got f*cked up and it didn't show me the shades correctly. The colorMap showed some weird shading information aswell but that was due to the cavityMap which is blent in.
So, my 2Do's for today are...
- new colorMap
- new hair
- and to feed my cat : ))
And spotting inverted maps is a lot easier this way, too.
or feed he-man his cat and paint on himself...
Also make sure you fix that diffuse. You have some questionable lighting in it.
Well here's some footage. Somewhen professional renders will follow.
In the meantime I gotta work on my other model.
Cu ; )
edited shots,
and turntables
[ame="
[ame="
Thanks to all for your help, crits and feedback, I'd also appreciate it when you guys comment my new work ...
Lucy the PinUp Girl (nudity) !!WIP!!
Special Thx to Nathalia Cruz & Dietmar (the eye) Hollenstein.