Unofficial: Low Poly UNITE! Saturday Morning Cartoon Collage
This is not a challenge, it's a collaboration. The goal is to make a collage featuring the works of many 3D artists. This collage will then become a wallpaper for anyone to enjoy. No need to compete, just to create something you enjoy and have it showcased along with many other people.
The subject: Saturday Morning Cartoons!
Create your favorite cartoon character of all time. This could be Scooby-Doo or one of the Rescue Rangers or a Smurf or what have you. Any cartoon character that graced the small screen that you want.
Pose your character so he/she is looking at the camera, smiling or waving - something that expresses "Hey, happy to be apart of this get-together!". If it's a villain/bad guy, he/she can be in character. If you are not good at rigging you may have to model the pose. There are ways I can fix it up in post too.
Output a render of your character against a background color that can be extracted easily. I will assemble the renders into one big wallpaper.
The end result, a collage of characters, all in 3D glory.
Because it's not a challenge, I don't want you to get all caught up on requirements. I also do not want this to take up too much of your time.
Ballpark requirements:
One character, 700-1200 Tris
Try to keep texture maps to about 512 x 512 total.
Output a high-res image with the character pose that I can use in a collage.
Post all your work and progress in this thread.
If you have to go a bit overboard with the tris or textures that is okay. I don't think it would be beneficial if one person submitted a mudbrush sculpted masterpiece while another entered a boxy-looking character.
This is just for fun.
With Saturday morning cartoons, there is a lot of breathing room for genre. You can do a Superhero, or a video game character featured in a show, a toy-based show (He-Man), or use a character from a "spinoff" show, like Teen Wolf, Beetlejuice. or Ghostbusters. You get the idea.
Some obscure shows I'd like to see revived: Kidd Video, Megas XLR, Dungeons and Dragons, MASK.
If you have an existing character you'd like to submit go for it. The more the merrier here.
Have Fun!!!
The subject: Saturday Morning Cartoons!
Create your favorite cartoon character of all time. This could be Scooby-Doo or one of the Rescue Rangers or a Smurf or what have you. Any cartoon character that graced the small screen that you want.
Pose your character so he/she is looking at the camera, smiling or waving - something that expresses "Hey, happy to be apart of this get-together!". If it's a villain/bad guy, he/she can be in character. If you are not good at rigging you may have to model the pose. There are ways I can fix it up in post too.
Output a render of your character against a background color that can be extracted easily. I will assemble the renders into one big wallpaper.
The end result, a collage of characters, all in 3D glory.
Because it's not a challenge, I don't want you to get all caught up on requirements. I also do not want this to take up too much of your time.
Ballpark requirements:
One character, 700-1200 Tris
Try to keep texture maps to about 512 x 512 total.
Output a high-res image with the character pose that I can use in a collage.
Post all your work and progress in this thread.
If you have to go a bit overboard with the tris or textures that is okay. I don't think it would be beneficial if one person submitted a mudbrush sculpted masterpiece while another entered a boxy-looking character.
This is just for fun.
With Saturday morning cartoons, there is a lot of breathing room for genre. You can do a Superhero, or a video game character featured in a show, a toy-based show (He-Man), or use a character from a "spinoff" show, like Teen Wolf, Beetlejuice. or Ghostbusters. You get the idea.
Some obscure shows I'd like to see revived: Kidd Video, Megas XLR, Dungeons and Dragons, MASK.
If you have an existing character you'd like to submit go for it. The more the merrier here.
Have Fun!!!
Replies
However I'll try to make a new one or two for this. It's tough to decide who.
If this thing is still going on I might just have to whip something up
Edit: Samurai Jack.
Nope. This is an ongoing thing. Multiple collages will probably be yielded.
My Samurai Jack started looking Batman-ish, so I completed as such. Will still do Samurai Jack, and perhaps revisit some of my older stuff, like Megas XLR. Clocks in at 1094 Tris, left my texture open for future additions (batarang?).
Now I got both Supes and Bats from the 90's cartoons. I'll ease on my posts here...don't want to overrun this thread!
Supes is not yet textured. He has a bunch of toon shaders applied. What I did for Batman was a make a blinn shader with a texture map (with alpha tranparency) overlaying the toon shaders in a layered shader.
And no worries if you'd like to do the same characters. Redundancy is not an evil thing here. Looking at the example posted in the beginning of the thread...there are 3 or 4 Optimus Primes in there for whatever reason.
Well, this is where I'll chime in, I think it would cheer you up to hear you'll have another contribution.
I'm doing Ars
FYI you don't have to use toon shaders...whatever you'd like to run with. There is no fixed style.
Also this is the best place to post if you're a newbie. You get lots of great advice and tips. Check out the other Low Poly Challenge threads to see how helpful polycounters are. :thumbup:
Here is mine so far....
really like the look of those toon shaders, ive looked about the internet about how to do them but not sure about how to go about doing them with a texture map. if you could point me in the right direction thatd be cool
cheers
This is where I learned:
[ame]
I do it on a per-poly basis, meaning I paint by number with the mesh. One toon shader for the skin, another toon shader for the hair, etc etc.
Then I overlay with a texture map of decals in a layered shader...which is not as complicated as it sounds! I made a texture map with the Superman 'S' and belt and other facial features, made everything surrounding them transparent in the Alpha Channel of a Targa Map in Photoshop. Then I applied that transparent texture map to a blinn shader (both color and transparency nodes). Then I made a layered shader, and plugged in the toon shader, with the transparency blinn over top.
And then I apply a toon outline.
if you need help I could probably make a Maya tutorial.
1. Model your character. For this exercise I found some excellent 'turnaround' images, so I recommend you Google image search your character + turnaround. When you're modeling you'll have to model in the partitions for the toon shader colors. For example, Superman's hairline had to be modeled, as was the boot hem.
2. Unwrap and make a 'placeholder' texture. This will be floating all your decals. The main reason to do this is because once we start using layered shaders you cannot properly preview your textures until you actually render. So it's best to lay out all your decals and finesse your UV's at this stage.
So I only really needed the shield, belt, boots, muscle, and facial features as decals here. I made a map that will indicate 'Pink' will be transparent to allow all the toon shaders to be visible. Pink was also 'peeping tom' Supe's favorite color.
The UV's will be a mess...I am only really preserving the UV areas that will be overlaid with a decal. The rest can be squeezed out of the way, as they will be covered in toon shaders for color. To make this transparent, edit the alpha channel to look like this (or make a separate transparency map):
3. Okay next we will apply toon shaders to the model. We'll start with the first toon shader (I used 4 for Superman). Select the faces on the mesh that will be getting the 'skin' toon shader ...the head and hands. And then in the Render menu --> Toon --> Assign Fill Shader --> Light Angle Two Tone. Don't get caught up on the 'Two', you can add more colors.
The Attribute editor will pop up and if you are used to working with ramp shaders or textures, this will be familiar.
(OOPS I mislabeled the Dark and Light - reverse!!) Playing with the slider I assigned 2 flesh tone colors. The sampler will show you what will be affected by light and what will be in the shade. You'll have fun playing with this.
Do a render to see how it looks. Once you are happy with the colors (can always edit them later), we can now apply the decal over top.
4. In the Hypershade make a new Blinn. Plug in your Texture (That has Alpha transparency - or the placeholder with a separate transparency map) into the Color and Transparency nodes.
You can see the belt in the material port! Ensure that Specular roll off, eccentricity and specular color are all reduced to nothing/black.
Now create a 'Layered Shader'. What you are going to do is select your transparency Blinn and Toon Shader and middle-mouse click drag them into the Layered Shader module. Kill the green default material (you can't until another material is plugged in). If layered correctly, you can see your decal texture sitting over top the toon shader. You can move the two materials in order with a middle mouse click drag.
This render shows the face decals sitting over top the flesh tone shader.
I had to make 4 layered shaders for every color of this character: Blue, Red, Black, and Skin. That required 4 different toon shaders but only the one transparency blinn.
Soon I'll talk about the toon outline, but that is relatively easy too!
Oh, by the way, I think I've pretty much finished.
So, hum, here it goes:
EDIT: Uploaded the wrong pic (it had a screwy camera angle that made the legs look way too short), here is the right one:
It was 966 triangles unposed, I forgot to note the count again after I posed it but I had to redo a few cuts on the hands so it might have gained half a dozen more tris.
(it feels heavy but just the cane and the monocle are 100 tris together >_>")
Texture is 512x512, a simple diffuse map with self-illumination to look toon-ish and a lil' alpha for the monocle.
So there!
If I ever get the time, I might be tempted to do Belph
Now I have to rig my guys and pose them to keep up. I hope it spurs others to contribute too. :thumbup:
I... Well, I considered that I am a newbie. ._.
It's my ...7th character ever? And out of those I'm counting two characters I made without knowing how to simply texture, even less unwrap, and actually not even knowing how to properly model objects... so it drops to 5 or less, really...
It's my 2nd character I made out of school, all by my lonesome, too.
So, well, I've always considered myself a newbie so far.
I guess I could start calling myself a beginner or something tough?
Sorry, I didn't meant to trick you. n_n"""
In any case, thank you so much!
You're making me a big compliment!
I think I figured how to do it. I even captured a video to show you but it's almost a gig heavy so it'd take ages to upload anywhere.
I'll try to explain (without screenshots for now, sorry), it's almost 2 a.m. so maybe I won't be too clear, IDK if I'll tell the basics too, probably lots of stuff you know but I must be sure to be clear so sorry (again) in advance. (I suggest you open max and follow closely on your screen):
Basically, you take your model . If you want to use multiple toon shaders, you gotta make sure your topology follows exactly where you want the textured areas to be separated. (ex: a clear line separating the hand from the sleeve) Then you select the polygons (edit poly mode) you all wish to be of a certain shader (like all the hand) and give them an ID. Make as many dfferent poly groups with IDs as you have colors you need. (in case of Supes: flesh, blue, yellow and red shaders)
Prepare a toon shader texture (I believe you'll use the Ink and Paint one) for each color/area you want (I suck at toon shaders so you're alone on that one XD)
Then you pick a new texture and change Standard (top right corner) to Multi-Sub Object. Once this is done, you put each toon shaders you've prepared into the slots with the IDs numbers matching the IDs of the polygons groups on your Topology. (If your hand is ID 2, then the flesh color should be ID 2 too)
That'll be your base texture.
Then you pick a new texture slot, this time you'll make a Composite one instead of Multi-Sub or Standard. In the base material slot, you'll put the base multi-sub texture you just prepared (I suggest making an instance).
Then you'll prepare the texture for the decals.
You'll take your unwrapped character UV texture in Photoshop and put on it whatever decals you want (ex: Superman's logo, his face, ect.) at the appropriate areas. Save this for the diffuse. You'll then make a black and white texture with the shapes of your decals in solid white on black and save this for your alpha.
Back to 3ds Max, pick a new texture slot, put the image in the diffuse and the alpha you prepared in the Opacity slot. I suggest boosting the self-Illumination to 100 to give a cartoony look.
Then back to the Composite texture you had created earlier, you'll drag and drop this new texture (instance) showing your decals floating on it and drop it in one of the Mat slots. The "A" button should be highlighted (not S or M (it's for additive, subtractive and multiplicative I think) and the opacity can be tweaked but I suggest leaving it at 100.
Then, you're done, put this Composite texture on your model and make a render (well, for myself, it doesn't show properly in the viewport) and admire your work!
There! I hope it's understandable! I'm off to bed!
Then in the falloff map play with the mix curve, add two points and pull one to the left dot to the bottom, and the right dot to the top. Make it so the lines are perpendicular to each other.
Change the fallorr type to 'Shadows/Light'.
Voila.
And since I'm not sure how to post thumbnails here:
Turnaround: http://i49.tinypic.com/2ngqwc5.png
Wireframe: http://i46.tinypic.com/29f8gaf.png
Texture sheet : http://i45.tinypic.com/29w1ttl.png
(Hah, I could have done better on the texture sheet. ;p )
I'm learning, I suppose. :B
I rigged Bats and Supes but I hate their capes...I just wanna Photoshop those in, haha. Will have those in this weekend.
Gotta love the 90s for naming, that char is Chance Furlong aka T-Bone.
here is wireframe + one render.
C&C welcomed
For both of you, the 1200 Tri's is not a hard limit, just a ballpark range so that people don't spend forever on an entry. If you need to go overboard to help give your character a little more polish that is no problem at all.
Coldwave: Excellent Marvin. The only thing I'd recommend is spending more geometry on the arm mesh to help with the joints bending and thicken it up a bit so it doesn't look too thin at the wrist. Could be a weighting issue too. Either way I think Marv is almost done. Great work!
Wyldcard: Ah Freakazoid, a welcome addition. His proportions are a bit off, his arm span a bit too long, and his legs are overall a bit too short. If you were to lower his arms, his hands would be sitting by his knees. His geometry flow might make it a little difficult to flex his shoulder and upper legs by the crotch. His face is a a bit too revolved around the smile - you could probably spend more polys there, or if I were you, make it a flat surface and texture his big ol' smile on there.
So when you model in a T-pose, you have to lay out the geometry so it will bend and flex accordingly with joints. As you can see, the mesh kinda flows to the arm pits, as that's where the arm will swivel. Also, you need the leg geometry to not impede on the crotch (unless your character looks like that). So a general rule of thumb I recommend is to look at Spider-Man. His webbing on the costume is sort of a road map to geo flow. check it out:
Ty for the advice tho, I'll get working on that. ^^
This is what I have so far of Tai from Digimon. Thought I could get some critiques before posing him. His tri count as of now is 1070.
Sorry for not checking in more frequently - work beckons me these days. Nice to see we have several entries so far, as well as a few other starts to boot. Might have to whip up the first collage-in-progress soon.
I love what I'm seeing in this challenge. I hope I can add to this post eventually. Either way.. great work everyone!!
I haven't abandoned this thread! I'm still doing plenty of work for it, and I hope you also have something made for it. Heck, you could probably spruce up an existing character you worked on!
I do check repeatedly for any posts, and also feel free to PM me if you have any questions. If you need an idea you could also bug me too - my whole blog is about generating ideas!
Right now the forecast is to get back to full swing once LPC#3 wraps up. Think of this as a "rainy day" thread. When there are no ongoing challenges or competitions, come and visit!
Thanks!
Dibs on Iron Man
Perhaps slightly off-topic, but still wanted to show him off here.