Character - Engineer (from HoN) in UDK

ManxViking

Hey Polycount, this is my recreation of the Engineer hero from Heroes of Newerth. For anyone familiar with the game, the characters are low res, around 2k tris with 256 texture maps, however they have really nicely detailed character concept art. I've made my intepretation of their concept with a full scale character as part of a university project looking at character art development between different platforms or genres.

Let me know what you think.

I'm also working on a second character, translating from PS3 and Xbox 360 platform to low poly handheld scale. More engines are starting to implement mobile friendly conversion tools, Unreal and Unity to name just the ones I'm familiar with. I feel, if not already, that the industry will adopt full cross-platform releases, from PC, to console, to mobile. If anyone has thoughts on the matter or experience with it, it would be great to hear. Anyway, cheers for reading.

>> Turn-around video on Vimeo <<

Original Concept by S2 Games
Engineer in Heroes of Newerth






http://www.manxvikingarts.com/images/engineer/engineer_unreal_normals.jpg

http://www.manxvikingarts.com/images/engineer/engineer_wires_front.jpg

http://www.manxvikingarts.com/images/engineer/engineer_rig.jpg

Mike Yevin

wow, awesome job, im really liking the diffuse on this one :thumbup: you did a nice job sticking close to the concept as well

do you have any shots on the highpoly? (im assuming this was sculpted initially)

CJE

Nice Job, I think you hit the concept perfectly

ManxViking

Hey, cheers for the comment, I used a range of different techniques for the normal map detail. I began with a zsphere base mesh and some simple orthographic sketches I drew to work out the general 3d proportions. I sculpted out the general forums and then brought it into max to model in high poly subdiv equipment and clothing.



Then I did some basic sculpting, normally I try to sculpt in most of the final detail, but I wanted to practice some 2d normal map techniques, so I avoided surface detail. Much of normals are edited with nDo.



Finally, after baking I realised my early zbrush base sculpt didn't reflect the proportions of the concept well enough, as well as other scaling issues with the bag etc. I brought the torso, legs and backpack into zbrush and used move to improve the proportions.

aajohnny

So awesome man! I wish I could do characters.

felipefrango

Nice style! Any chance you're posting texture flats? I'm struggling with cartoonish leather at the moment would be nice to see how you did it.

Saman

I love it. Especially the coloring, it looks like a painted warhammer figure. Good work!

ManxViking

Sorry for the late response, and thanks for the comments.

@felipefrango - Cheers for the reminder, knew I'd forgot something. As far as the leather goes, I struggled intially as well, in order to get a painterly style it seemed to require painting over-exaggerated cracked leather due to boiled leather being quite plain. In the end I used worn leather reference images, ran some levels through it to get the right balance for overlay, with additional over painting to push the edges. I'd say I prefer how the boot leather turned out in comparison to the main leather bits, I spent a bit longer getting the colour from concept and played with some extra filters. My first try texturing leather though, so I've got a few ideas for future attempts .

Here's the Diffuse, Specular Level/Colour, Normals. I had a Spec Power/Gloss for the little 256 texture for the cigar and goggles, but I ran a few nodes through the material in Unreal for the main body's Gloss map, certainly not a proper solution, just a last minute placeholder that I forgot to replace.

Crits on the texture work would be really appreciated, always the area I find the most demanding and it's not the neatest texture ever.

Diffuse

Normal

Specular

ManxViking

Hi guys, just an update of the changes I made based on comments etc. Changed the shape of the keg, altered the beard colour to match the concept more, changed the goggles to use a cube map for a more convincing reflection, a light transmission mask to fake sss on the skin, some adjusted specular colour, fresnel rim lighting to emphasise the silhouette, adjusted the normals on the quilted undercoat.

ZacD

wow nice update all those little tweaks make the character stand out a lot more.

graylen

nice! I love the colors. The only thing that I would change in this is the keg color and spec. Looks to me a bit too shiny. Makes t look like its made from plastic.

InMOP

Hey man this looks amazing not much to crit really just maybe add some smoke for the cigar But man this looks Great.