i have never finished a character model.
i've been working with 3d for years (about 5)and i have never finished a character model (by finished i mean,modeled, boned (properly) and textured (well). i always feel ambitious at the start of things but run out of steam so fast once i realize i didn't plan my mesh well enough or i simply don't know enough about boning to make my models move in a way that isn't horrid.
that and i've never modeled something to be the final product (just making a model to have made that model and it would have no other purpose other than existing) and everything i've ever tried has had to be a part of something.
the same has applied to other visual artwork over the last several years. i haven't drawn one image that was to simply be an image, it's always had to be a design or a plan for something else as though one image cannot possibly validate it's own existence and must be part of something bigger.
i know this hasn't always been the case but it's what has become of me. not sure what to attribute it to either, overly ambitious (wanting to make a feature length animated film by myself, create a comic/video game with one other person who would never mirror my enthusiasm.) or the lack of creative peers (never had a chance at art school, moved to a state where i have no friends and no one around me cares or has ever cared about my small accomplishments in visual art) or just undiagnosed depression (no insurance).
i viewed this forum as a chance at gaining peers but so far i've noticed that my posts get less and less responses as people realize i'm not well adjusted and don't have my shit in order (and i guess have too many questions and people here are fortunate enough to be too busy to respond to this kind of shit). since joining this forum i have made major strides in my understading of things 3d related but i just can't apply them to what i want to do and the more i get frustrated the more i forget what it is i wanted in the first place.
they say the creative are never well adjusted and always have at least one thing wrong with them. however it turns out that having a bunch wrong with you doesnt amplify your creativity or give you the direction to actually follow through with something and it doesnt exactly open up opportunities for you to learn either.
it's amazing how difficult it can be to just be ok with what you make, to just let whats wrong with it slide. i respect the shit out of things that are filled with flaws yet i can't let anything i create see the light of day or even be finished if i feel it has even one.
last stupid note: i do realize one of the biggest factors in the divide between me and those i respect is deadlines that force them to finish even if they aren't ready. asside from input from living people who can answer your questions as they are related to your problems, deadlines is the thing that makes art school/real world work such an amazing partner to creativity and something i wish i had the oppurtunity to be a part of. unfortunately i don't respect myself enough to give myself deadlines i'll take seriously.
nice long confession anyone who has ever seen any of my posts could have probably guessed.
that and i've never modeled something to be the final product (just making a model to have made that model and it would have no other purpose other than existing) and everything i've ever tried has had to be a part of something.
the same has applied to other visual artwork over the last several years. i haven't drawn one image that was to simply be an image, it's always had to be a design or a plan for something else as though one image cannot possibly validate it's own existence and must be part of something bigger.
i know this hasn't always been the case but it's what has become of me. not sure what to attribute it to either, overly ambitious (wanting to make a feature length animated film by myself, create a comic/video game with one other person who would never mirror my enthusiasm.) or the lack of creative peers (never had a chance at art school, moved to a state where i have no friends and no one around me cares or has ever cared about my small accomplishments in visual art) or just undiagnosed depression (no insurance).
i viewed this forum as a chance at gaining peers but so far i've noticed that my posts get less and less responses as people realize i'm not well adjusted and don't have my shit in order (and i guess have too many questions and people here are fortunate enough to be too busy to respond to this kind of shit). since joining this forum i have made major strides in my understading of things 3d related but i just can't apply them to what i want to do and the more i get frustrated the more i forget what it is i wanted in the first place.
they say the creative are never well adjusted and always have at least one thing wrong with them. however it turns out that having a bunch wrong with you doesnt amplify your creativity or give you the direction to actually follow through with something and it doesnt exactly open up opportunities for you to learn either.
it's amazing how difficult it can be to just be ok with what you make, to just let whats wrong with it slide. i respect the shit out of things that are filled with flaws yet i can't let anything i create see the light of day or even be finished if i feel it has even one.
last stupid note: i do realize one of the biggest factors in the divide between me and those i respect is deadlines that force them to finish even if they aren't ready. asside from input from living people who can answer your questions as they are related to your problems, deadlines is the thing that makes art school/real world work such an amazing partner to creativity and something i wish i had the oppurtunity to be a part of. unfortunately i don't respect myself enough to give myself deadlines i'll take seriously.
nice long confession anyone who has ever seen any of my posts could have probably guessed.
Replies
one of the problems is i don't get consistant time to myself (i have a toddler and my free time typically begins around midnight). so short term goals or one day projects have either be really really short or split apart though several days in which time i fall out of love or find something wrong with my work thus shooting myself in the foot.
i get hungup on whether or not my topology will work at retaining volumes and i burn out and as embarassing as it is to say; flat out give up.
how long does it usually take you to model something like "the swimmer" or an under 5k model? are these things that should be doable in under 10 hours?
From every project you didn't finish you learned something new. So Apply it to this one. I'm an Environment Artist I do not claim to be a Character Artist. Characters have always looks like fun. I must have done 5 or 6 characters that failed and I never finished them. After my graduation I decided to challenge myself and do a character finally. I would like to think I did a better job than some of the stuff you see in games or at least up to par. I say go for it but plan on putting in a hideous amount of time if you hope for it to turn out. and have it Critiqued constantly! You have no idea dude I tried modeling a chick. Holy crap chicks suck; too damn subtleties (think that's spelled right
Don't get hung up on the individual brush stroke, look at the whole painting. Who gives a flying poop about a wonky area of topology, move on to the next stage. Get the whole thing done then go back for polish. Post it for crits.
I totally understand about the kids thing: most of the time working on any of my projects, my newborn is in my lap, eating or sleeping. My 6 year old is driving my wife nuts, and I have a niece and a nephew who are PITA's. 10 of us in one house and it can feel hectic.
Oh, if you're hanging on to all these little un-finished projects, either commit to finishing them, archive them somewhere or just delete it. Having old shit that's unfinished hanging around can affect your attitude.
Making a character outside of your daily routine can easily take up weeks and weeks of your meagre spare time, and it can be overwhelming really quickly.
In my past I was overwhelmed with :
1) Lack of technical understanding to achieve what i wanted.
2) Would reach a point where i realised i couldnt get across my idea and loose faith
3) Get frustrated at everyone else pumping stuff faster and better than i could
And slowly that list got bigger and more frustrating, but then i realised that i was trying to tackle too many goals at the same time. An instant recipe for disaster.
So i tried smaller things, props for my characters, a chair and table where they might sit, perhaps a sword or weapon they might use, maybe a treasure chest, simple test cases for me to learn and build up my confidence with the tools, and the tech and at the same time not put a huge strain on by jumping straight to a character. It can also lead you to confusing thoughts or even NOT enjoying what your doing at all - which is totally not where you want to be at when your first starting a project!!
So thats how i got around it man, i made my goals smaller, and tried to tackle one thing at a time, this allowed me to slowly build up a love and enjoyment of creating what i create.
I think Pior's idea can work really well too - put the limits on yourself as much as you can until you build up confidence in being able to finish things and move on
What is important is that when you texture the model, you'll realize where you did good work on the geometry and uv's and where you should improve on your next model. When you bone (hah!) the model, you'll realize where your geometry is clean and efficient and where you fucked it up. When you pose it, you'll realize where you need to work on and pay more attention to the next time you create a model.
I think you should finish some stuff, even to a substandard final quality and learn from your mistakes, because frankly, if you don't finish them you don't get to see the parts of the model where you need to be careful for when you want to do something that you're going to love.
It's all about learning through trial and error imo, if you don't make enough trials (and errors) you're not learning enough.
Staying motivated on a project is just a labor of love. Instead of looking at it as a whole character you could take your desire of wanting everything to be part of something bigger and use it to your advantage. One week model a gun, another day model a holster, feeling frisky one weekend and knock out a head, some shoes another weekend. Each of those pieces have the potential to be their own entity as well as being part of something bigger.
I know what you mean with wanting everything to be something bigger, something that gives meaning or has a message but a lot of the things we make won't. However they all have the possibility to be bitching portfolio pieces. Sometimes you have to set aside that desire to be an artist that creates these meaningful pieces and just make something.
If your text is unbearable then I really can understand why you've not finished a model without even reading it. I'm no grammar nazi either.
Plainly put; put time into doing things right and you get something out of it at the end. In this case it would be putting some time into making your case easier to read.
I also agree with pior, this happens a lot when people go in guns blazing with a huge grand vision that would actually take a small army of artists to complete. They are focused on speed and "I'll clean that up later" or "its just a block out who cares".
Speed should come after quality has been met. Once you can do the job, work on doing it faster.
Like pior said trim down that vision, focus on completing quality results and don't worry about speed or organization.
It's never a good time to clean it up so you probably put it off till later, don't be sloppy in the beginning and you won't get to the point of "this could be awesome but I was so sloppy and in such a hurry its like starting from scratch".
It might help to record your progress as you go. Then go back over it and think about what you could change. It can help to think about it like writing a tutorial, somethings become painfully clear when you break them down step by step or review the footage.
I can't remember seeing anything you've done so I can't say for certain but you probably need to work on your critical artistic eye skills. Being able to break down whats wrong with your stuff is probably more important as being able to dream up amazing stuff. Chances are you'll be creating a vision dreamed up by someone else...
Nobody spent 10 hours sitted on a chair without getting up (only those fools of wow/mmo games and a few more), you need to eat and change airs, so you can lose the concentration you started with. To stay more than 4 hours sitted is bad. And of course, to stay too many hours in a computer is not very good, it's horrible! and it can cost you a huge depression.. the worst: loss of vision. If you feel apathy for all, then, you could say you are depressed, so you need to disconect...
Like you, and like almost all, i have dozens and dozens of models without finishing (texturing). If you want to finish something, just focus on one and that's all, put work all the days. Don't worry if you spent 1, 2 or more days, constancy and patience are keys. We usually "procrastinate" because we are bored or because we don't like what we do... so the best advice i can give you, is not to start with silly ideas, at the end, you will regret of them. I like to start all the things on the paper, it's the best filter.
Small and easy projects maybe good, but the compensation won't be enough if you are aiming for something greater.
I usally don't do anything related to 3D on weekends. I really need to disconnect. When we are working in 3D, our "hobby" won't be the same.
All the friends i have in the industry stopped doing personal works when they became professionals
It's unfortunate, but as artists, we seem to be our own worst critics, so I don't know that you will ever complete something that will make you jump up and down for joy. But you can at least gain the satisfaction that you finished something and, since it was small, you were able to do a good level of quality.
I think a major problem is I've never "paid my dues" so to speak and followed a tutorial to fully create a character that I didn't design. Perhaps it's my trying to go right into making my own models from the ground up that has been the biggest obstacle in my way.
I'm thinking it's well overdue that I invest in one of those game character creation DVD's and just follow along. I haven't had any luck with free online tutorials being most of them don't acknowlegde a butt being torn to pieces from simply lifting a leg forward as being problem. The max tutorial (at least in 2008) doesn't go over skinning a model well either.
I'm always hesitant to spend money on things and I've been put off by the pricetags on training DVD's in the past but I think this would be a worthwhile investment at this point because my frustration is starting to really outweigh my enthusiasm.
At this point does anybody have any dvd recommendations? I'm thinking it would be best if I learned from a last gen (ps2 era) character making DVD as I'm really not looking to get bogged down by scripting right off the bat.
Thanks for your replies.
I'm sure there are plenty of character artists that can model, texture, skin and rig their own models, but I'm wondering how prevalent such practices actually are in a production environment?
But let's say you start your day at 10 am on a sunday ... spend maybe 2 hours concepting and looking at cool refs ... it's very possible to come up with a mini project, maybe diffuse only, that can be tackled in one afternoon. Check out simple stuff like MegamanZero references, BOLD things.
The more I think about it, the more obvious it becomes that,it's only the rigging that I have trouble with. If my models have identical edgeloops at deformation points as models that deform well, that means the problem is in my rigging and skinning.
I've mistakenly scrapped so many of my projects thinking that the problem was at the root level when it was really at the end. It's like losing all your lives and getting a game over at the last stage of a game and blaming your failure on your performance in the first levels (which by this point you've memorized and could do blind folded since you've been playing through those first stages for 5 years.)
Maybe what would work best for me is to create as many different characters to just before the rigging and boning stages and just try to tackle them all together so I can focus full steam on modeling and texturing all my assets and then full steam on rigging.
Hell, maybe someone who's great with rigging will see my work and like it enough to actually want to rig it for me. Then I'd have something to go off of or better yet, a partnership I could actually depend on.
Also if you don't want to export to an engine with real animations, you can very well create poses without a rig. You can try the new zspheres2 rigging too.
You've finished every thing that you've ever done-- when you make a model, you probably do it for the creative idea. when you've explored it to the degree that you're interested in, you're done. in that sense, the impulse that created the model was run to it's completion. you're finished.
here's the thing -- finishing something is a completely different emotional domain. you have to find the part of you that wants to finish things and exersize THAT. the different parts of us grow when we exersize them.
what Pior is saying is genious here -- start small. do something really small just for the sake of FINISHING.. when you get accomplished at that you can tackle bigger projects that require bigger and bigger parts of you.
that's how i did it... and i've made a few video games so far, so i'm getting good at finishing shit.
Dont think about the rigging and other aspects you dont enjoy doing at first. Focus on your modeling, sculpting, UVing, texturing, etc. and cross each bridge as you get there. I also dont like rigging...but that's only b/c I'm not good at it. I think it's really important to be as open minded as possible to learning new things, however. Facing new challenges can either be fun or a pain in the ass...if you approach the challenge with an open mind, you'd probably surprise yourself with how much you might actually enjoy it. You dont have to be a rigging hero either...learn what you need to in order to rig to pose. Who cares if it doesnt have all these amazing pixar animation controls? Throw a quick rig on it, skin it and baM...be done with it. And like others have mentioned, start small and work yourself up so you can get more acquainted and comfortable with how it all works. Dont psyche yourself out man...just keep it all in perspective
For a recent example - although not in modeling - I didn't know anything about Drupal (a content management system) but knew I wanted to make a very complex website. So I installed Drupal and just messed around with it a few times, then I started to do very low level experiments to see if the grand idea I had could even work. Eventually I moved on to using this accumulated knowledge on a project.
The same goes for modeling a character. Rigging had always been something I faced with dread. But after following a tutorial a few times, and not fearing the results, I gained the fundamental knowledge of how to rig - it took a few more times at stripping things down, re-doing everything from scratch - but once this knowledge is accumulated it works for the bigger picture.
Some very good advice in this thread.
Why not jump in on the next challenge we have?
@hawken:
I definitely need to take the time and work through a tutorial DVD and get a good foundation going.
I wanted to do the last lowpoly challenge but the ideas I ended up having were all sci-fi
Currently, I'm working on a 2d entry for this years Unearthly Challenge
( http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=66515)
which will actually mark my first visual art piece I've completed for a long time.
If anyone knows any books/dvd's I should invest in tutorial wise, please let me know.
Thanks.
eg build just a simple dummy leg, rig it, and see how it deforms.
as a next step apply your gained knowledge onto a more complex model.
take a look in the lowpoly section.
lowpolys are lots of fun and can be build in just some hours.
The bones aren't the problem... since they are used to pose and animate characters all the time with excellent results. Have you thought about using Biped or some other already made rig like CrypticAR or CAT to quickly rig and pose a character? There are quite a few free rigs floating around that would take the technical headache out of creating a rig from scratch.
If you post some specific examples of issues you have rigging and skinning a character I can probably point out a few things that will help you clean up those issues.
This is the combination of my best practices on a lower poly mesh I've created. I've set absorber bones to be the same size as for ease of viewing and to see change of angle:
These are the best results I've been able to get and I haven't been able to achieve these with just straight weighting and blending between just femur and tibia and I've had to add these bones that rotate in opposition to keep volumes consistant(er).
Where the groin meets the thigh is where I'm least happy and in other models I've included bones set to a path contraint that lift those vertices out of the way of being collapsed but the result's haven't been consistent and I'm sure there are much better solutions.
I didn't do an overlap of bones on model but, the pivot for the thigh is the greater trochanter and the pivot for the knee is set near the surface of mesh at the back of the knee for the least collapse and biggest range of motion that I've been able to reach with my models.
I really want to improve the groin/inner thigh area and preserve volumes where the top of the thigh meets the torso and I'm not sure what the right approach is do these things.
edit: I missed some words in my initial pictures resulting in engrish.
You really don't need much helper bones most of the time. Just remember you need to create the joint areas 'deep' (deep armpit, and so on). Check out the SF4 concept art, its very exaggerated on that title but that was what they had to do to achieve a wide range of limb movement!
What exactly do you mean by "deep"? I wouldn't mind some tips myself ^^
This would probably be helpful. All kinds of good info burried in those images. Weighting, pivot placement, range of motion, mine it for all its worth.
I get the best deformation when joints are placed right down the center of whatever limb/torso with little regard to where actual anatomical bones fall you want what works best not what adheres to some anatomical chart but deforms poorly.
BUT I have to go in and adjust the weighting. When I do weighting with envelopes I position them close to what you're doing with the bones, pushing some close to the surface. Since the default envelop position is based off the bone location this could explain why you're getting better results skinning results but poor joint placement.
By pushing the bones out you're pushing the default envelopes into more or less the correct position but at the cost of bad joint placement. Since you can push the envelopes around and it won't effect the actual pivot point of the bone you can have the best of both worlds.
So try placing the joints down the center, and pushing your envelopes out where you would normally put your bones and see what you get.
After I get the default envelopes set up (it can be a good idea to save them out so you can apply a good default env setup to other characters) I'll go in and paint clean up and blend the trouble areas on an animated mesh set to extreme poses. I have a custom brush set that looks like this:
+1 to weight bones all to the selected bone.
+.5 to add .5 weight.
+.1 to add .5 weight.
-1 to kill the weight to the selected bone.
-.5 to subtract .5
-.1 to subtract .1
Then you use Ctrl+Shift+LMB drag, to control brush size, and Alt+Shift+LMB drag, to control strength. It's important to note strength does not invert, so you can't turn a + brush into a negative lame I know.
Also in your example you're not lifting the clavicle which will make shoulder deformation harder than it needs to be. Clavicles are pretty important and move all over the place, they wouldn't be part of every rig if they where not. http://www.hippydrome.com/ShldrUD.html
I actually didn't rig the arms in this example I just happened to add all the bones when I added the skin modifier and so the envelopes created happened to catch those vertices and the animation on the bones already included the arms moving. Believe it or not I don't really have any trouble rigging a shoulder, it's the butt area I'm not happy with.
Also, I don't use envelopes when I actually get into skinning (in this example I only skinned the leg up to hips), I just manually grab edgeloops and verts and ad them to bones being I never get the control I want from envelopes anyway and this way garauntees nothing flying off into space.
On the subject of pivot points, over the summer when I first tried to get this all figured out through some research, my friend and I painted evenly spaced quad topology over my entire body and photographed me as I when through different ranges of motion (Valuable research even though I'm not brave enough to post pictures of me in a fleshy thong covered in acrylic paint all over polycount)
The photographs revealed a lot of problems with the ways we had been working and made clear that A. 3d Bones shouldn't be placed like anatomical bones (as Vigg already said) unless you're really planning on following all the subtle ticks on motion that real bones go through in simple motion and B. 3d modeling is a surface process but motion isn't simply a surface to bone process as so much happens underneath the surface of skin as our photos revealed volumes jumping from one end of a limb to another and sliding about.
We found that the least distortion surface/volume distortion occurs at the back of the knee and the most at the front as topology is severaly stretched there (in real life). One of the simplest solutions to achieve this in 3d is favor the pivot point towards the back of the knee in rigging as this creates the actual deformation with the least collapse (if you've ever seen or been in a leg brace it actually illustrates this quite clearly with easily readable lines).
That's my reasoning for rigging legs(in the knee region) the way I do and I'm actually very happy with my rigging in that department as legs (in the knee area as well as elbows) are things that are butchered in most shipped titles and my legs don't get screwed up the way I see them get screwed up on other models.
I don't want to come across as ungreatful for any advisement I'm being given because I know that it is all valauble information, I just wanted to state my case for not having the pivot points right down the center of the leg.
I'd be very interested in seeing how it is you (Vig, Pior and others.) place your pivots for the thigh to hips region and what it is you do to minimalize undesirable deformation.
Once again, thank you for taking the time to respond to this thread. This is literally the only place I have to have these kind of conversations and learn on this topic.
I'm Brazillian, there is NOTHING here about CG, I'm game designer(4y degree) without a " industry " and i wish to be a character artist...!
I'm completed alone here...for me to leave my country I need a work visa that is almost impossible to get, especially for the United States.
I don't know speak english very well, but I have a Dream...!
If I will spend all my life to do this, I don't care, I just want one day see 1 character in some AAA game and say " Hey man, That is My Job, that is My character"
I bought a new pc a few months and learned to use the XSI alone reading help, (I see nothing wrong with that.)
I Learn Zbrush after 4 months I can say.
"This character I made from scratch, it's my first."
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/5949/creedv.jpg
I have a little proud of what I did since 4 months ago I knew absolutely nothing about 3D, It's not finish yet but......how cares, I learn ALOT with that.
Think about it !
Sorry my poor English !
Thanks guys
And Dude.............Be Strong !
To tell the truth I have a little shame, I like to see the work of all of you with inspiration.
I still do not have a good level to post i think...
It is an honor to hear it from you Pior, I'll start posting new things:)
I promise Dude
Also, (other may disagree with me here,) you may have heard that you should try to create different unique objects/scenes/characters that are grounded in reality (or something else to demonstrate the ability to texture and follow instructions.) This is so that you can demonstrate to companies that you can do the boring work you will be made to do. (In other words, don't do what you want because that's not what they want. This is so your folio will stand out from the pack of folios sporting generic space marines and orcs. DON'T DO THAT, do what you want to do. Nothing will drain you more than spending your own free time making models that you literally don't care about. The only things that restrict you should be your own goals, art comps, and some tutorials. If you refine your skills making things that inspire you, (no matter if it's been done before,) your passion will shine through, you'll feel good and you'll finish work.