Stuff looks great so far, but you're wasting a lot of tri's in those breasticles. I think you might wanna work on eyelids a little bit more if you're paranoid about the face. Still, great stuff, man.
Thanks so much for the praise! I removed an edgeloop on the breasts:
I know the eyelids needs work, but the rest of the face is okay? I think the shading around the nostrils might look bad. Gah... I'll work on eyelids first. More updates on the way!
Blegh... not really satisfied with these eyelids, but they're a start. Also, you can see I added some edges around the nostrils to help them shade properly.
ARG! Curse you unseen extra pages since the first page! Ignore! Abort! Abort!
EDIT:
Okay, wow! Lot's of improvement here! Good job! I like her ears, they're cute! They remind me of the hobbits' ears in the LotR movies. Are you modelling her straight for low poly or are you planning to take this into zbrush/mudbox?
Thanks, guys! Feanix, I actually haven't worked the ears at all! I'm planning on making them look much more human, hehe. Butt_sahib, I removed some more edges from the breasts.
I also improved the area around the eyes and revamped the neck and shoulders. Updates below...
Random concept sketch. Doesn't really give any new information, just though it might be of interest...
1. Does it look like the mouth will deform nicely? I don't have a "laugh line" loop that surrounds the mouth and the nose, but I don't know if that's okay...
2. Does it look like my shoulders will deform well?
3. Is the topology of the breasts okay, or should I redo it as all quads?
Ears aren't really that hard. It's just thinking in terms of looping of quads of how to close it. Just practice modeling faces, even if they are bad just keep trying then you'll get it.
Gah, literally every example of face topology I can find has a mouth/nose-bridge loop. Can anyone tell me from experience whether or not this is really critical for good facial animation? I'd rather deal with it now if necessary than find out its not going to work once I get animating.
hm yea.. right now you have alot of polies that don't really add any shape to the inside of the ear.. if youre going to create a hi poly for normal maps you don't really need to have a whole lot of geometry in the low poly to make at least somewhat convincing ears.
if you wanna capture all the lines of the ear however you need quite a bit more.
since you're trying to keep it low poly, you should only do this if you want to use this model as the basemesh for your hipoly, and will retopo it later.
I disagree I think it's got the right amount of polys, just isn't executed right. Since this looks anime inspired, what is your final presentation going to be like? I see it will look pretty good with no/flat lighting with hand-painted textures. Also, QUICK, fix that ngon, it makes me go crazy! :P
MoreDread, I actually don't want to capture all the lines of a real ear. Like the rest of the anatomy, I want it to be more streamlined than purely realistic. This is meant to be final topology. I might not even make a highpoly, and instead generate a normal map from a height map. Or just smooth the mesh for a general normal map and use a height map for the details (like the ears.)
nightFlarer, The ngon you're seeing is actually a quad! The point on the left is in the foreground. :P I'm planning on hand-painting the textures and using either flat shading or possibly cel shading. (Maybe something like No More Heroes, but not quite as harsh.)
...In any case, the ears will be mostly obscured by the hair, so I really shouldn't be so hung up on it!
Unrelated to the ears, I was wondering what's the best way to go about adding the clothing? Mainly the shirt sleeves and the bottom of the shirt (as shown in the last piece concept art.) How should they connect to the rest of the mesh?
I noticed the way the lobe didn't run into the jawline looked wrong and tried fixing it... Also added more structure to the jaw to keep the edge nice and smooth. In general, I think the ears are "getting there" in terms of shape, but the poly distribution is still wack.
PS: Still wondering about the best way to model clothing at this resolution. Take the shirt for example: should the whole thing be a separate mesh? Or should the polys for the sleeves just branch off the surface of the main mesh? Or should there be one continuous surface (like an "N" shape, where the leftmost line is the surface of an arm and the other two lines form the interior and exterior of a sleeve)?
Now that I've had some time away from this, I'm really not satisfied with the face anymore. I feel like I've sacrificed personality for realism and arrived at some lame, artistically indecisive middleground. I much prefer the face in my avatar (from the earlier concept art) and I'd like to make the mesh adhere to that more closely.
Don't appologise, props for being able to keep up with this for so long, i'd be too tempted to rush it or just forget about it
I like that you've decided to redesign, the character was begining to look too normal but it's alot more interesting now.
One small anatomical crit... she has no arms! :P
Goodluck with this, keep going!
It takes a lot of courage to start over on a part of a project! Good job. I honestly liked your work so far but I'm not a character artist and if you think you can do better then all I can say is "Awesome!".
I like the face's topology, it seems nice and clean. Are those ears separate meshes at the moment?
With your eyes, be careful of painting them on. They will end up looking okay from the from but a bit odd from the side. You'll notice that if you watch anime that eyes are drawn quite differently from the side than they are from the front. You'll probably need to use 3D forms for the eyes, just using anime shapes.
EDIT: Not sure if I should use geometry for the collar of the shirt or not. Thoughts? Also unsure of how to tackle the belts (two like in the old concept, so they will be asymmetrical and overlap.) I have some new concept art that shows what I'm going for with the belts in greater detail, but I drew it on paper and still need to scan it...
Thanks a lot for the encouragement!
feanix: The ears are part of the same mesh. Thanks for the advice about the eyes. I was actually planning on using an alpha channel and having the eyeball texture on a separate layer immediately underneath the face. That way the eyeball can have its own shading group and I can easily animate the eyelid just by changing the texture. (Not drastically different that simply painting the eye, but I thought it was worth mentioning.) I noticed this technique used heavily in Zelda: Twilight Princess and thought it worked pretty well.
Probably not really? I don't think I can change the title though. I suppose I could start a new thread and cut out the old stuff that's not relevant anymore, but I don't know if that's warranted/would be helpful to other forum-goers.
I've seen ingame character low poly models and some of them are quite dense actually. But in the sense of mobile gaming, this is not considered low poly.
That really comes down to if it's a hero character or an NPC, and which platform it's for. For the sake of practice work I think that you shouldn't worry about polycount but rather focus on making the mesh look good and keep the topology clean. Looking back I screwed myself over by obsessing over imaginary polygon limits, just having a general budget in mind is good but feel free to break it if you feel that you need a few more loops to make it look nicer. Knowing how topology effects shading is much more important than trying to keep it under exactly 2k tris or whatever.
I'm glad to know I'm not the only one unclear about terms like "low-poly!" ^^;
Thanks for the advice, Fingus! The topology has definitely been my main focus throughout this entire process. In fact I've probably been a little too obsessive over topology at the expense of actually creating new geometry... oh well. The model is already about 3k tris and I still need to add hair, hands, feet, and costume details.
Update mainly on the legs, which were sadly neglected until now:
Also extruded the belt, tweaked the shorts, and added some edges to the waist for flexibility.
Latest concept art (sorry about the shitty iPhone camera quality):
Boots are still pending, and I forgot the string necklaces. Having doubts about how the skirt "loincloth" thing will actually look... Do you guys like the fingerless gloves better than the old ones? Any feedback regarding the outfit would be GREATLY appreciated!
BLEGH! I tried modelling the skirt/loincloth like in the latest concept art and it looks terrible! I think it's a problem with the design than the modelling. I suppose I could make it more like a full skirt, just with slits on the sides, but that seems like it will create less interesting shapes. What do you guys think?
(Also, this is hard to judge without textures... )
Thanks, Saiainoshi! I have no idea how I'll do it to be honest, so I'm interested to find out as well! xP
I decided the clothing I added was premature and went back to improve the base mesh. I'm also taking another crack at giving the head proper eyes and better ears.
NOTE: No hands and feet because she'll have big boots and gloves (like in the earlier concept.)
I'll try to post some updated concept art soon.
PS: If a mod could rename this thread to "[WIP] Sci-Fi/Fantasy Girl" that would be great. As discussed above, "lowpoly" isn't a very accurate description at this point...
Anyone have any suggestions for simplifying/improving the ear? I want the anatomy to be streamlined, but not to the point that it becomes abstract and geometric.
I could also use some advice on shaping the eyelids.
I thought maybe an inspiration sheet type thing would help people provide feedback on the design so I whipped this together:
corners of what? the eyes? the tear-duct? if it's going to be diffuse only texture, I'm not sure you have the specifically model that geometry - just texture it in.
Yes, the corners of the eyes. It's probably not going to be diffuse only... I'm planning on making a specular map and maybe normal if I feel it's warrant after I've made some headway with the clothing.
Really the only reason is that I started with the expectation of making a much lower poly model and it grew from there. That, and I have no experience sculpting... Even with the learning curve, do you think it's worth jumping ship to Zbrush? Obviously it's been taking a crazy long time to model directly in Maya. >_>
Try lowering the brow ridge a little bit, or narrowing it. I think that'll add a little character. Hope that doesn't contradict your vision.
Also, if you don't mind, could you tell me who the characters are in your inspiration sheet? They look pretty cool. I know Haruko, TRON girl, and Ramona.
The only other characters in the sheet I know are Kimiko Ross (black hair and robotic arm) from Dresden Codak and Rose from Homestuck (profile view, top middle.) The rest I just grabbed from Google image search or Tumblr or what have you.
Really the only reason is that I started with the expectation of making a much lower poly model and it grew from there. That, and I have no experience sculpting... Even with the learning curve, do you think it's worth jumping ship to Zbrush? Obviously it's been taking a crazy long time to model directly in Maya. >_>
Personally I think it's definitely worth it, the learning curve is not as steep as you think. It's a much faster way to work, you'd be able to think about the form itself and just worry about topology when you need it later on. Plus - and please someone correct me if I'm wrong - but character creation for production is long past modeling things this way cause sculpting is much more accurate, faster and it looks better. Trying to become a character artist not knowing how to sculpt is like an aspiring environment artist not learning subdivision modeling or something.
Replies
I know the eyelids needs work, but the rest of the face is okay? I think the shading around the nostrils might look bad. Gah... I'll work on eyelids first. More updates on the way!
EDIT:
Okay, wow! Lot's of improvement here!
I believe you can further take out 2-4 loops from the breasts as mentioned.
I also improved the area around the eyes and revamped the neck and shoulders. Updates below...
Random concept sketch. Doesn't really give any new information, just though it might be of interest...
1. Does it look like the mouth will deform nicely? I don't have a "laugh line" loop that surrounds the mouth and the nose, but I don't know if that's okay...
2. Does it look like my shoulders will deform well?
3. Is the topology of the breasts okay, or should I redo it as all quads?
massive sad face
But speaking of ears, damn they're tricky. Anyone have any pro-tips?
Gah, literally every example of face topology I can find has a mouth/nose-bridge loop. Can anyone tell me from experience whether or not this is really critical for good facial animation? I'd rather deal with it now if necessary than find out its not going to work once I get animating.
if you wanna capture all the lines of the ear however you need quite a bit more.
since you're trying to keep it low poly, you should only do this if you want to use this model as the basemesh for your hipoly, and will retopo it later.
MoreDread, I actually don't want to capture all the lines of a real ear. Like the rest of the anatomy, I want it to be more streamlined than purely realistic. This is meant to be final topology. I might not even make a highpoly, and instead generate a normal map from a height map. Or just smooth the mesh for a general normal map and use a height map for the details (like the ears.)
nightFlarer, The ngon you're seeing is actually a quad! The point on the left is in the foreground. :P I'm planning on hand-painting the textures and using either flat shading or possibly cel shading. (Maybe something like No More Heroes, but not quite as harsh.)
...In any case, the ears will be mostly obscured by the hair, so I really shouldn't be so hung up on it!
I noticed the way the lobe didn't run into the jawline looked wrong and tried fixing it... Also added more structure to the jaw to keep the edge nice and smooth. In general, I think the ears are "getting there" in terms of shape, but the poly distribution is still wack.
PS: Still wondering about the best way to model clothing at this resolution. Take the shirt for example: should the whole thing be a separate mesh? Or should the polys for the sleeves just branch off the surface of the main mesh? Or should there be one continuous surface (like an "N" shape, where the leftmost line is the surface of an arm and the other two lines form the interior and exterior of a sleeve)?
Hope any of that last bit made sense.
Now that I've had some time away from this, I'm really not satisfied with the face anymore. I feel like I've sacrificed personality for realism and arrived at some lame, artistically indecisive middleground. I much prefer the face in my avatar (from the earlier concept art) and I'd like to make the mesh adhere to that more closely.
New face, closer to concept; better edge flow, hopefully:
You'll notice I smoothed over the eyelids. I'm planning to go for a more stylized approach and paint the eyelids instead.
I plan to extrude the edges of the corset, belt, and shorts, as indicated by color.
BTW, sorry for spending FOREEEEEEEEEVVVVEEEERRR on this; my time has been split between way too many artistic pursuits...
I like that you've decided to redesign, the character was begining to look too normal but it's alot more interesting now.
One small anatomical crit... she has no arms! :P
Goodluck with this, keep going!
I like the face's topology, it seems nice and clean. Are those ears separate meshes at the moment?
With your eyes, be careful of painting them on. They will end up looking okay from the from but a bit odd from the side. You'll notice that if you watch anime that eyes are drawn quite differently from the side than they are from the front. You'll probably need to use 3D forms for the eyes, just using anime shapes.
EDIT: Not sure if I should use geometry for the collar of the shirt or not. Thoughts? Also unsure of how to tackle the belts (two like in the old concept, so they will be asymmetrical and overlap.) I have some new concept art that shows what I'm going for with the belts in greater detail, but I drew it on paper and still need to scan it...
Thanks a lot for the encouragement!
feanix: The ears are part of the same mesh. Thanks for the advice about the eyes. I was actually planning on using an alpha channel and having the eyeball texture on a separate layer immediately underneath the face. That way the eyeball can have its own shading group and I can easily animate the eyelid just by changing the texture. (Not drastically different that simply painting the eye, but I thought it was worth mentioning.) I noticed this technique used heavily in Zelda: Twilight Princess and thought it worked pretty well.
well, define lowpoly then
I've seen ingame character low poly models and some of them are quite dense actually. But in the sense of mobile gaming, this is not considered low poly.
Thanks for the advice, Fingus! The topology has definitely been my main focus throughout this entire process. In fact I've probably been a little too obsessive over topology at the expense of actually creating new geometry... oh well. The model is already about 3k tris and I still need to add hair, hands, feet, and costume details.
Update mainly on the legs, which were sadly neglected until now:
Also extruded the belt, tweaked the shorts, and added some edges to the waist for flexibility.
Boots are still pending, and I forgot the string necklaces. Having doubts about how the skirt "loincloth" thing will actually look... Do you guys like the fingerless gloves better than the old ones? Any feedback regarding the outfit would be GREATLY appreciated!
(Also, this is hard to judge without textures...
PS: How are the joints looking?
Thanks, Saiainoshi! I have no idea how I'll do it to be honest, so I'm interested to find out as well! xP
I decided the clothing I added was premature and went back to improve the base mesh. I'm also taking another crack at giving the head proper eyes and better ears.
NOTE: No hands and feet because she'll have big boots and gloves (like in the earlier concept.)
I'll try to post some updated concept art soon.
PS: If a mod could rename this thread to "[WIP] Sci-Fi/Fantasy Girl" that would be great. As discussed above, "lowpoly" isn't a very accurate description at this point...
Key changes:
- Pants!
- Skirt is now a scarf
- Gloves have fingers again
- One belt (instead of two)
- Earings
Still need to finalize the boots. :poly127:
Anyone have any suggestions for simplifying/improving the ear? I want the anatomy to be streamlined, but not to the point that it becomes abstract and geometric.
I could also use some advice on shaping the eyelids.
I thought maybe an inspiration sheet type thing would help people provide feedback on the design so I whipped this together:
Keep going.
Wow, you summed up what I'm going for better than I ever could have! Thanks!
Having trouble getting the corners to look good.
Update on the eyelids:
Also, if you don't mind, could you tell me who the characters are in your inspiration sheet? They look pretty cool. I know Haruko, TRON girl, and Ramona.
The only other characters in the sheet I know are Kimiko Ross (black hair and robotic arm) from Dresden Codak and Rose from Homestuck (profile view, top middle.) The rest I just grabbed from Google image search or Tumblr or what have you.
Personally I think it's definitely worth it, the learning curve is not as steep as you think. It's a much faster way to work, you'd be able to think about the form itself and just worry about topology when you need it later on. Plus - and please someone correct me if I'm wrong - but character creation for production is long past modeling things this way cause sculpting is much more accurate, faster and it looks better. Trying to become a character artist not knowing how to sculpt is like an aspiring environment artist not learning subdivision modeling or something.