Sci Fi Character
polycounter lvl 15
So this will be my 2nd time posting a thread here, last time was about a year ago. Anyway, I've started something pretty new to me, that is a high poly character. I usually do low poly stuff, but wanted to challenge myself. I also one day would like to work in console/pc games so I know I need to start working on current/next gen stuff.
Sorry for the low quality of the concept... I did this a few months ago on paper. It's supposed to be a little stylized in the proportions, so it's not supposed to look super realistic. Also the suit is supposed to be made of mostly rubber and metal. I've almost finished the base low poly for now, although I'm expecting I'll have to make a lot of changes! I'm gonna be honest, I kinda don't know exactly what I'm doing... haha. What I've done is I've made the whole model basically one piece, except for the shoulder pads, gloves and head thing. I don't know if that is the right way to do this? Should I have every piece separate? Oh, and I would want this to be like xbox 360 specs. Right now it's around 10,000 tris, but i'm not sure if that's too many or not enough. And I know I probably need to move some polys around and stuff, but I want to know if I'm going in the right direction before I go too in-depth.
Also, what do you think about the overall design? The head thing? Should I change that, I'm not sure how I feel about it. And the shoes... I'm not too sure about that either. I'm planning on finishing the base then taking it into zbrush once it's really good. I'm looking forward to hearing what everyone thinks!
Sorry for the low quality of the concept... I did this a few months ago on paper. It's supposed to be a little stylized in the proportions, so it's not supposed to look super realistic. Also the suit is supposed to be made of mostly rubber and metal. I've almost finished the base low poly for now, although I'm expecting I'll have to make a lot of changes! I'm gonna be honest, I kinda don't know exactly what I'm doing... haha. What I've done is I've made the whole model basically one piece, except for the shoulder pads, gloves and head thing. I don't know if that is the right way to do this? Should I have every piece separate? Oh, and I would want this to be like xbox 360 specs. Right now it's around 10,000 tris, but i'm not sure if that's too many or not enough. And I know I probably need to move some polys around and stuff, but I want to know if I'm going in the right direction before I go too in-depth.
Also, what do you think about the overall design? The head thing? Should I change that, I'm not sure how I feel about it. And the shoes... I'm not too sure about that either. I'm planning on finishing the base then taking it into zbrush once it's really good. I'm looking forward to hearing what everyone thinks!
Replies
i think its a good character to get started and getting into the workflow. also you got a lot of space for playing around with the highpoly/texture, but if your gettin sick of the character you can also finish him kinda quick.
one thing about the head though: i would place her lips slightly higher.
in attractive faces the distance between mouth and nose is slightly shorter then the distance betwenn mouth and tip of the chin. + upper lips are mostly "smaller"/ tiltet further then the lower lips.
well maby thats just my personal taste, your decision in the end.
also making all that in onemesh shouldnt be a huge problem, if you know you´ll run out of resolution (dont know what your working with/your machine can handle) you should use polygroups in zbrush.
abouth the x360 specs 10k are okay, but i think you could still get up to 2k out of here, escaciely at the back of the head and at the hands.
edgeflow looks nice, though i always prefer to do a "sculptingbase" and then retopo the stuff when it looks the way i want it.
hope this helps you.
My initial impression of the character was that it was giving off a very 2001 space odyssey / Lost in Space vibe. Perhaps you can pick up on those visual cues?
Keep it up! I'm sorry I couldn't contribute much to the technical side of the model as I'm more of a 2d guy slowly breaking into the 3d realm.
In most cases the workflow for current gen characters is to make a base mesh that is constructed for easier sculpting eg. all quads and no tris, even poly density and so forth. Once you finish the sculpt, you can export your lowest sub division to max/maya and rework the geometry so that it is optimized and deforms properly. What you have now is a great start and a good density, but I would definitely change a few things. For instance, it's always a good idea to split your base mesh into pieces that will become separate polygroups in z-brush, making sure that all your parts are capped with no openings. This makes sculpting easier because it allows you to quickly hide the parts that get in your way. The other big thing is to make a nude model of your character and build the clothing on top of that. Once you sculpt the nude model, making sure the anatomy and proportions are good, you can use it as a reference when sculpting the clothing and placinge her gear.
And like Allan-p said, be confident. Once you start working in z-brush, you'll learn very quickly what works and what doesn't.
Good luck!
If you want to zbrush that model, it would be best to break it up into components. Unless you have a higher end PC, you may have trouble sub-dividing the mesh enough to achieve a high level of detail. This is because a tool/subtool (zbrush vernacular meaning: object) has a maximum level of subdivision, due to the memory/cpu cealing of your rig - similar to polycount in max. This means that it is dificult to scuplt very tiny detail, or polypaint with small details.
The model looks good for zbrush scuplting, because all the polygons are of a similar size, excluding the face and hands obviously. The reason why this is good is that when you subdivide the mesh, the detail will be even across the whole model. By breaking the model up, you can have more detail in the areas that actually need it. You also optimise your scuplting experience because you can hide elements of the mesh when required.
I would break the model into the following groups: face head neck / shoulders chest upper arms / elbow forearms / hands / waist / pelvis upper thigh / lower leg shoes. In zbrush, you can load a base component such as the shoulders, then load the other elements as subtools, then append the base tool with the new subtool.
There are a number of workflow options available to you. You could UV your model before importing, or after scuplting. UVing before allows you to use the UV map to control the creasing angles of edges based upon the UV island. For instance, hard edges are more easily defined this way, but there are obvious limitations. Problems can also arise because zbrush distorts the base geometry when scuplting which can lead to stretching of the UV map. UVing after the scuplt might be your best option. I'm no zbrush expert though, so others may well contradict me.
Good luck on your model!
@Walrus: it's funny you noticed the neck was too big, haha it is actually proportional on the nude, but i made the hood wider cause i wasn't sure i wanted it to be skin tight... but that might end up changing.
So I'll work on breaking up the different clothing pieces, thanks!
Oh also I decided to leave a few things out that were in the concept because they ended up looking weird on the model.
dunno how much you know about texture baking, but thats the way to go here.
theres some good stuff in the wiki here.
The face also looks kind of weird and creepy right now, but when I get to the texture I will fix that.
Sorry for the huge images, I wanted you to see the EYES, haha.
But that last face shot is looking awesome, the eyes have alot of emotion, I love them. I have to keep a eye on this !
With no lights:
i'm gonna go back and work on the hair after i do a first pass on all the textures. I'm def gonna try to do something cool with that.
imijatov, I decided to deviate a bit from the face concept, i used it as more of guidelines rather than something I had to stick to, so as long as the face looks good in the end I'll be happy. I do plan on giving her eyelashes, but I'll do that when I get to the hair. Thanks for the feedback!
So here's where I am now. I still need to figure out the hair and eyelashes, and I have some interesting ideas to make this look really cool. I'll try to post a concept for those ideas soon!
The eyes are twined and the pupils are placed that gives a somewhat cross eyed look.
Still very nice.
So they're like veins, attached and coming out of her. I want them to follow the flow of actual veins in some areas, like the hands and feet, and I want them to glow a little. I'm also thinking of a weapon for her. Something along the lines of deadspace-ish... She would hold it in her right hand and I think it would be cool if it blended with the veins, like her weapon is attached to her. I'm really excited about where this is going.
The veiny looking tree roots there are what I'm talking about.
So they'll be red and sort of like see through and glowing? Hopefully that makes sense. If it ends up looking bad i can always take it off once im done!
I finished the hair and eyelashes, and just started the veins.
The "energy veins" are definitely not creeping me out. It's way more subtle than I was imagining.
Also, here are my texture maps. I'm a little embarrassed about them cause i used pelting tools and i usually don't... I usually just unwrap things manually, but I had to redo the uvs after making the high poly and retopologizing things... haha, oh well: