Anime/mmo style characters?
polycounter lvl 11
Ive always found characters like this interesting, but now im starting to wonder about the workflow. Creating a high poly doesn't seem very practical in my eyes, since these arent next/current gen characters. So does anyone want to help me out and give me some information on this style? Or does anyone know of any tutorials where characters like this are made? This looks like a very creative way to design characters and i really want to try myself :P.
example:
example:
Replies
those characters aren't exactly cutting edge in terms of technology, but the amount of effort put into faces and armor details is making them shine. (Also BLOOM, lol)
spend as much time as you need to make them look good.
Id use 3dx ripper to rip the models and learn from them but i think ijji's hack shield would guard that.
You will separate it during UVing most probably, but it's up to you if you're gonna keep the whole body as a single mesh.
Japanese developers tend to increase polygon density on the faces a lot -
check this Leon's model for example:
http://img.neoseeker.com/v_concept_art.php?caid=49
there's a pack of FFX character models and a specific viewer for those, google it up - they're pretty interesting to look at, especially wireframes and uv packing.
I wouldn't start off with 'I don't think it's THAT bad', though, it's not the best way of thinking. Is it what you're going for, or isn't it?
Now, whether you sculpt this or not is mostly up to your workflow. Personally, I'd sculpt it and retopologise, but only because I love that workflow. Even if you don't end up using the sculpt (and it can therefore be very simple or coarse), it's a nice way of blocking something out.
Or you could polymodel them from scratch if you prefer, either way is fine.
If you're going to use normalmaps though, sculpting's the only way to go for characters, as far as I'm concerned (and many with me).
I can't say for sure whether those characters up there used sculpts for the normalmaps, but I would assume so. Ofcourse, with that bloom it's hard to tell, and the muddy texturing isn't helping either. Either way, not using a sculpt will result in some pretty awful normalmaps, that's as good as given for a character.
I personally dont see any problem with my mesh currently, except maybe the hand. Ill post some wires of that soon. I also wish the lips were.
As for the armor plates i will definitely be using ZBrush.
Here is a very quick test plate i made with 512x512 texture/diffuse Its just 2 colors and i didnt actually spend time on the diffuse and specular map, this was just to see how it would look and how id go about doing it.
His neck is Totally the wrong shape, in your model its a weird cone shape tapering up the head. in reality its made up around 3 major volumes, the sternomastoid coming up from the clavicles, trapezious coming up from the back and then the wind pipe coming from inside the chest. Id atleast have a look at how these fit together. To be honest I think you'd get a better result if stopped modeling and took the time to learn some anatomy.
The crotch needs a central set of loops running between the legs or it wont deform correctly. have a look here
Id also go take another look at the armor. Like i said earlier you need to follow the reference and not just glance at it and copy a couple of details. The plates are not sqaure and they don't have those patterns
If you need more pics of this sort of armor in reality you can google 'gothic armor' and check this site
I modeled this against orthos created from this base mesh: http://nickzucc.blogspot.com/
Im not trying to mimic any of the armor above specifically, and im not planning to include that plate either. I was experimenting to how it would act in zbrush and with baking.
The face is starting to look ugly as fuck and really creeping me out, along with being way to generic. And im not sure if it would match with the armor, even being partially visible.
Better female orthos, without the nudity! seriously, we need to shape up with the nudity here!