Diablo 3 Barbarian WIP
polycounter lvl 14
Hey guys. I'm taking a Game Art Workshop and thought I'd post up the end of each week here to kind of have an overview of the course. Here's where I'm up to so far in blocking out the characters anatomy. Face needs a lot of tlc.
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Do you have any concepts, paint overs, or sketches that illustrate where this is headed exactly?
Might help you get some valuable feedback early on.
It may just be the angle the shots are taken from but depending on how much his arms are bent, they may be too short. The insertion point on the bicep also looks a bit odd, like it should narrow off a bit earlier.
The upper leg is too thick/wide. The Vastus Lateralis is also covered by the Ilotibial Band which would be part of what is superficially visible.
Lower legs are too short, and the muscles at the back of the lower leg (gastrocnemius) might
be a little on the large side.
EDIT: the whole leg might be a little short I think, although the width of them might be making them look shorter than they really are.
Also I am sure you may have boots or something covering the calves, but if they are on show or you have strap sandals take a look at this ref... imo the calves need a little more detail as everything else has been given great attentiuon, other than that I am impressed. Good work
http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/9477/diabloiiiconcept87sm.jpg
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
GOGOOGOGO~ good luck
I think you are getting the forms down pretty good now. The only thing really bothering me is that everything feels kinda blobby. He has no definition. And so he is looking like a bodybuilder who quit taking his roids... and his skin is now kinda drooping.
Tighten up his quads, calfs, ankles/heel, and forearms and I think everything should feel pretty solid.
Keep it up man!
On top of that, I think this is gonna rock. Armor blocking seems great.
Can't wait to see this finished :poly124:
Are you going to bake it to a low poly ?
Yeah the hands need to be worked over definitely. Still lot of work to do on just about everything. Need to work on the lowpoly pretty soon though. Who needs sleep haha
Edit: oops, didn't see there was another page to the thread. Anyway, that was in regard to the clipping issue on the first page.
Model looks real nice
Drakon - For the helmet I was looking at the concept and realized there was no way he could possibly see out of it haha. I played around with it but it didn't look as menacing with the slits more open.
Looks really good !
Normal map is test bake. Having trouble in the areas where two objects meet.
I found the problem with the armor. I had the normals reversed for some parts of the armor.
to be nitpicky recheck your shoulder anatomy the front deltoid doesnt hook up that way, try to put some upper pec definition in there with the delt/chest. that always looks cool.
Some of your topology is kind of odd (like where the neck meets the trapezius), and I wonder if you would be better off keeping the armor separate from his skin.
The straps on his arms are pretty wobbly, and that kind of stuff always stands out to me as a result of a sloppy mesh or render (or both). I think the high res model is looking good though so I'm looking forward to the results of the rest of the bakes.
I made a list and tried going over everything you said. Still a lot of work to do to get the normal maps looking right, though.
The mesh should be pretty evenly distributed. Of course you want more divisions where there is detail/deformation and less where there is not, but generally speaking long triangles/quads might be areas that need more attention. I think perhaps you're over complicating your mesh flow in some areas, so sometimes it's a good idea to take a step back and simplify. Quads are good, but you have to be careful of twisted quads as mentioned before.
Double check your low poly mesh and make sure that it's clean. All verts welded, UV layout is taking into account normal map quirks, normals are unlocked and softened (unless there's a very specific reason not to such as extreme angle changes on the model, etc.). Maya has a tendency to lock normals on meshes imported as .obj files so it's good practice to run Unlock normals, Set to Face, Soften before baking. I suspect this is why you're getting some artifacts on your render where you can see incorrectly shaded triangles.
I think I see some slight normal map seams where the arm meets the shoulder. When it's that subtle it may be a result of one of your UV shells being inverted in relation to the other. When arranging UV shells, in many cases it's perfectly fine to transform them in any way you want, but you probably want to avoid flipping a UV shell unless the borders are hidden well enough that the slight seam is of no consequence. This isn't to say that you can't mirror your UVs because obviously one half is going to have to be considered flipped, but you want it to be consistent per half.
Try rendering multiple normal maps if different settings work better for some areas than others. You can composite them together later for the best results. It's also worth trying to bake using different applications (Xnormal, Maya's Transfer Maps, etc.). I've noticed that the results can vary, and you can use that to your advantage depending on the situation.
In most cases, your normal mapped model should look identical to your high resolution model (except for the more polygonal silhouettes, of course). I think taking some extra time at this stage goes a long way to creating the impression of crispness.
The biggest issue I'm having is I tried making some of the armor look worn but I feel like it's just coming across muddy.
Oh and don't be afraid to literally cut and paste from the concept art and warp it over the UVs in photoshop to get an idea of tones and colors. Even use them as blend layers to stay true to the concept on top of photo reference if you want.
Gonna start with diffuse now.