Hey, what a great model to make! Loved SST1, one thing i noticed, is that the jaw looks a bit large, and un-closeable, i will have a look over some references to make sure.
The top part is looking a bit heavy at the moment, especially the mandibles. In order for this creature to move around quickly its proportions have to be relatively balanced (especially its legs). It might not be a bad idea to watch the movie a few times (at least the parts that have the "bugs" in motion) so you can get a better idea of how this creature is supposed to move around.
Long story short: Balance out the legs, make the upper body less heavy.
I can't tell from the source images if it's accurate, but you're going to run into freedom of movement issues with the front most joints if you animate this.
With the way these warrior bugs move, you'll often see those legs fully contracted, which means you need some more space underneath the joint to allow the two exoskeleton segments to collapse in on each other. Take a look at other arthropod legs, such as crabs and mantis for an example.
No you can use the amount of segment like now, just make sure the joints have more space to move.
See how C has a vertical slot in which G can slide for more degrees of freedom.
Great subject matter, i loved these guys in the film. The sculpt's looking good, nice and clean. I think you're missing some serrated edges on the top mandible though? Also i was checking out the ref you posted and looking at your model i think your proportions are front+top heavy. I did a quick photoshop to illustrate what i mean. The legs don't attach properly, but you get the idea.
Keep it up dude, looking forward to seeing it progress!
I agree with BlackulaDZ, there's really not too much to separate the high and low poly models. I would look at what half life 2 did with the Ant-Lions. Striations along the carapace would help it a lot. Look at some real bugs.
I also feel like you made some strange choices of where you left polygons on the lowpoly. For instance, along the back there's a lot of geometry that doesn't add anything to the silhouette (which is all you should be concerned with when using normal maps) Looking forward to your progress
i would pull the saturation a touch anyway... and add more variation in the colour.... incredibly saturated pure colour tones ( ie pure red ) generally dont work well in game textures.... and are also pretty unrealistic (most materials have too many impurities to reflect anything close to pure colour (except diamonds etc)) the way game engines calculate lighting etc tends to accentuate this too so (depending on your specular and bloom modes)
not saying you should make you textures slighty differing shades of grey ...but toning the yellow down a notch or two will help esp with the lighting on the area
Replies
Long story short: Balance out the legs, make the upper body less heavy.
With the way these warrior bugs move, you'll often see those legs fully contracted, which means you need some more space underneath the joint to allow the two exoskeleton segments to collapse in on each other. Take a look at other arthropod legs, such as crabs and mantis for an example.
See how C has a vertical slot in which G can slide for more degrees of freedom.
Keep it up dude, looking forward to seeing it progress!
here is the lowpoly
Conte, Glad you allways visiting my WIPs
Here are baked normal and AO
I also feel like you made some strange choices of where you left polygons on the lowpoly. For instance, along the back there's a lot of geometry that doesn't add anything to the silhouette (which is all you should be concerned with when using normal maps) Looking forward to your progress
Gues what i have? Yep, textures! ^__^
not too much like original, but this is fanart, i think
dude this is great! but fix his yellow camo, cos ot is looking too cute buy not dangerous for me.
not saying you should make you textures slighty differing shades of grey ...but toning the yellow down a notch or two will help esp with the lighting on the area
the films are much more sedate in colour but i like the variation your going for and moosey_g is bang on the money i think with the poisness frog thing
frog tastic
ZacD, it's a 3dmax viewport, only two omnies with black shadows