Dragon/Demon Champion WIP
Hey all. Now this is actually one of my first character models i've created with my full attention. I've spent quite a long time on the high poly model and its looking the way i want it to look now.
The character began as a sort of "next stage bahamut" for the final fantasy games, however with the abitiousness of me as usual... he ended up being a bit too complicated if i kept the wings in. (i may create these at a later stage)
and so he's become more of a demon lord character now.
The style i've chosen is a magma/arcane elemental feel using stone and crystal formations as reference for the feel and look of the skin and bones.
here are a few shots of the high poly model in zbrush.
and heres the low poly so far in 3ds max:
My main question at this stage is however, How many polygons would you say is right for a modern day game character, assuming this character is a main character with close up shots and maybe a few cinematics?
i've looked into Uncharted 2 as their characters are using approx 30-40k polys each, and apparantly CoD MW2 models use in the range of 10-15k polys.
Also tried searching for poly counts of characters in Final fantasy 13 and also Force unleashed 2, however theres hardly any material on those out there that is readily avialable at the moment.
Basically just need more opinions on this matter before i continue
The character began as a sort of "next stage bahamut" for the final fantasy games, however with the abitiousness of me as usual... he ended up being a bit too complicated if i kept the wings in. (i may create these at a later stage)
and so he's become more of a demon lord character now.
The style i've chosen is a magma/arcane elemental feel using stone and crystal formations as reference for the feel and look of the skin and bones.
here are a few shots of the high poly model in zbrush.
and heres the low poly so far in 3ds max:
My main question at this stage is however, How many polygons would you say is right for a modern day game character, assuming this character is a main character with close up shots and maybe a few cinematics?
i've looked into Uncharted 2 as their characters are using approx 30-40k polys each, and apparantly CoD MW2 models use in the range of 10-15k polys.
Also tried searching for poly counts of characters in Final fantasy 13 and also Force unleashed 2, however theres hardly any material on those out there that is readily avialable at the moment.
Basically just need more opinions on this matter before i continue
Replies
I think you should use whatever poly limit looks good for him depending on what kind of game you envision him being in. You can always adjust it later if you're careful. It might be useful to just find a similar character you like and then try to match the quality. Even without knowing what the poly count is, as long as you model practically and achieve a good result then you'll probably end up in the same ballpark.
Yeah i think the arms are a bit small now i look at it from a distance, i've been meaning to enlarge the hands also, so that should give him a bit of upper body bulk too.
The normal map.
This is the area i'm least confident at, and so it's taken me a while to get it to this stage.
Along the way i've encountered multiple problems:
the Spikes on the model were a real pain to unwrap, but now im happy with how they are laid out on the UVs.
I used Xnormal to create the normal map but this caused a few hicups. The 2 mesh's were of the same size and scale however, because of zbrush and me being silly and not using GoZ in zbrush, the mesh came out at a very irregular scale which in Xnormal created a map with projection problems especially around the Horns and neck area. Luckily after tweaking the settings in Xnormal the map came out great and so this is the stage im at now.
Here is the low poly mesh with the normal map so far:
I've seperated the main body and the shoulder plates up into two individual maps, this gives me more freedom with texture detail on the shoulder plates. I can also add a weapon texture to this map if i choose to create one (this could very well happen).
To my knowledge main game characters peak at around 20, but most are below that.
edit: found source http://www.psxextreme.com/ps3-news/5942.html
This is really hard for me to believe.
Here is another couple of links to the uncharted 2 character work for you to have a gander
http://www.ps3center.net/news/4195/uncharted-2-production-work-details/
this one has a link at the bottom to the naughty dog lead character artist's Zbrushcentral thread:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?t=79141&page=1&pp=15
On relation to the topic, the armsTOheadTOlegs are all playing on my mind. I'm thinking the head is a tad to small as are the arms, though this may all be coupled with the fact the legs are larger than the rest of the anatomy, I would assume this is the intention, though aesthetically it does not look correct for the upper body. Maybe englarge the head and try larger arms/wider shoulders? Shorter legs??? I am sure someone with anatomy knowledge will pick up on how to improve the form instantly. Good work mate, keep it up!
Bon, the Anatomy of this guy i have based most of on human anatomy through various studies, however you and a couple of others are right about the arms. So they are now longer and a bit more beefed up to match the overall scale of the rest of the character.
The head i wasnt too sure of however. With it being a small head (the character is around 9 heads tall) it gives him quite an imposing lookand a giant kind of feel to it. I have scaled the head up in the picture below to show which looks better, but in my opinion it still suits him the way his head is currently.
This new update also includes the final part of the model, that being the shoulder plates.
These 'float' next to his shoulders through magnetic arcane forces. This helps to give him a more supernatural look and ultimately helps with unwrapping and texturing in the long run i believe, as well as shoulder movement if it were in game.
I have also started to use glow maps which i gather are basically self-illumination maps?
I'm currently using the Xoliul shader (great shader btw, big thanks to the author) but the self-illumination slot doesnt seem to read colours, only black and white, is there any way around this?
Edit: never mind, just thought the, glow map just dicates what glows and what doesnt >< diffuse governs the colour of the glow if im correct. Just me being silly ^^
I've also put in a reflect map using the diffuse colours of the crystals for it with the actual diffuse map of the crystals being black. These areas are also reflecting a cube map created using the nvidia DDS plugin which has helped alot, and really brings out the crystaline appearance of the spines and shoulder shards.
Lastly it also uses a self illunimation map for the fissures on the chest and the runes down the abdomen and the leg and arm.
As i say its still a work in progress, much more detailing to be done and i also intend to add more colour to the diffuse to bring out veins and possible crystaline effects on the skin.
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Here they are, and below them is the final character textured and rigged.
Hope you guys like him!
(i have changed the size of his torso/arms however it turned out very odd looking even with a slight enlargement and so i think with him as he, he seems larger and more threatening. Any larger and he starts turning cartoony)