With a count that high, the few optimization comments I'd make wouldn't make too much of a difference. Do you still have the organic "calf" and foot section under the armor? I see the red wireframe clipping through, so I wasn't sure.
Yes, the whole body remains also under the armor, i thought this model as a nextgen mmo character, so the armor has to be removable or replacable with other pieces in any moment...i'm not 100% sure if in mmo, in the moment u put an armor on your character the under body disappear, but also if it would be like that i suppose it would request some code, so i decided to keep everything
As requested from Artquest (but i hope it will be usefull to many other people) i decided to do a mini tutorial (better to call it "a bunch of tips") to explain my baking workflow.
There isn't really anything more than the things that someone who bake low poly models should already know.
Anyway, let's get started.
Image A:
Here i show in general how is the main retopo and bake process.
I usually import from zbrush 2 different version of the same object.
The first one (1.) is heavily decimated, in order to keep it light for 3ds max viewport, but also in order to maintain all the main volumes of the object, ad it's the object on wich i retopology the final low poly geometry (2.)
The second object i import from zbrush is the same, but with a much higher polycount, in order to keep all the sculpted details, and this is what i'm gonna use to bake the normal map (3.)
The last object in the image is the baked low poly mesh (4.)
Image B:
Here are a bunch of tips i think it's good to keep in mind when you're dealing with your low poly mesh.
1. Choose your geometric details. It means that, while you're building your lowpoly geometry in the retopology process, you have to carefully choose what details of the highpoly model you want to model, and what details you want to leave to the normal map.
In general a good idea i to try to reproduce the big volumes, keeping an eye on the silouette in order to keep it smooth and curvy enough (of course if you have a curved silouette). In the image i show in green how i decided to keep intact certain edges that are probably going to be visible in the silouette. Instead i decided to simplify the red area, cause the normal map will be enough to show the details there.
P.S. Remember also to keep an eye at the polycount
2. Choose your Smooothing Groups. This is foundamental if your wanna bake a nice normal map. Usually i try to keep the SG as low as possible in number to keep things simple in the UV mapping phase. A good way to decide your SG is to start giving to everything just one SG, and then checking where the shading isn't smooth, and changing the SG in that area.
In general angles over 60°-70° needs different smoothing groups, but then of course it's up to you.
In the image i've highlighted the different SG i used.
3. Unwrap (UV map). This is a basic one. The only thing you have to keep in mind while doing your UVs is to break the UV islands in correspondence of an hard edge (due to a change of SG). In the image you can see the green lines in correspondece of any change of SG. Remember to leave enough space for the padding between one UV island and another.
Image C:
This image is more to show some useful tools, and my Render to Texture settings.
First, on the left, you can see i use Outliner Script for 3dsmax.
It mainly show you all the objects you have in your scene, with the option to show them by Hierarchy, Layers, and more. In this case i use it with visualization by layers, so that i can choose the single objects (correspondent lowpoly and bake models) very quickly. If you keep your scene organized with named object, this will save u a lot of time in my opinion.
In the center you can see the cage for the projection...seriously nothing to say about it, no special settings, no tricks. I just increase the amount till i see no more intersections of the cage with the hipoly model. Easy.
On the right you can see my Render to Texture settings. Also here there is nothing particular to point out. The only thing is that i usually bake at double resolution of the one i have in mind for my texture, and then i rescale the bakes in photoshop. I do this to keep the bake quick, instead of using some Hammerslay supersampler that would make the render a lot more heavy (but i'm still not sure of which process is better).
So i bake at 2048 a texture that will be 1024 in the end (this object cover a 512 portion of that 1024).
I also keep a padding of 16 px for a 2048 (keep in mind that it will be scaled to 8 px)
I think i've said everything on how i bake my models, i hope it's clear enough and that my english is not to bad
If you have any questions i'm here to answer them
Cheers
Thx for the tutorial! A few tips are added to my list
I have one question though... is it possible to show the uv of the character and where you put your seams exactly.
Cheers
Working on the texture of the body...
considering i never seriously tried to do a handpainted character before today, i'd like to ask you guys what you think about the result i've achived here, and if in your opinion is missing something and if yes, what...?
Plus, soon enough i'll be moving on the armor texture and of course i'm planning to use the same style...any particular suggestions about how to treat metals with this tecnique?
Superb! though that stretch of muscle across his chest and armpits looks abit like fabric. and maybe the sole of his feet should look hardened and cracked bcos of so much walking.
The stretch is not actually a stretch but i interpreted it as a membrane (from a concept i found online).
For the feet you're probably right, but most of the time it will be covered by the armor anyway so, not a big problem
A little gif i made to waste some time.
This is amazing! Im very new to normal map baking and im currently in the process of doing a high poly for a character, so all the info your giving is wonderful!
Also. Protoss is the best race ever
Edit: I have a question. Im using Maya and Zbrush for my character. How do you create smoothing groups in maya?
Here's a few ideas for ya. Your texturing is looking good so far, it seemed a bit monochromatic though. I'd suggest widening the color palette slightly(paintover to illustrate this point below). Also you may want to look for good areas to do a different kind of breakup than the wrinkles because he's starting to look like he's got really soft, thin skin. Almost like this...
But from most of the concept art they seem to have some sort of scales or hard growths on certain areas of their skin. The head seems to reflect this really well, maybe just bring similar structures down through the rest of the body.
Looking sweet so far, keep it up! I can't wait to see this finished.
First of all thanks everyone for the appreciation and the support
@ Darkleopard: as far as i know maya doesn't have smoothing groups like max, but anyway it should work in a similar way. If i remember correctly (from some stuff i've seen around cause i've never used maya directly) you should be able to decide if you want a selected edge hard or smooth. This is mainly what smoothing groups do, just with a different method.
@ LRoy: I'd really love to try a SSS on it, but i don't know much about realtime shaders that can give that effect, and how many more textures are requested to obtain a good effect (mental ray ask for 3 additional textures for a nice sss)...do u know any good shader that support SSS or a fake version but still good?
@ TheGooza: i believe that is a bake artifact, probably due to some small error in the mesh i used for baking (decimation master did it), and that i've been lazy to fix
@ Artquest: Thank u very much for the repaint, i received other identical feedback about the skin looking too soft, so i've reworked it a bit, trying to give some move variation and the look of a more tough skin...although the idea of the scales is good, i believe that adding them now would request to go back in zbrush and then rebake, so i will probably keep going on from where i am now...
anyway here is the updated version of the skin...i hope it looks better
From my point of view i like it, but i'm afraid it's going more toward a "realistic feeling" while the feeling i wanted to convey was more the one of darksiders characters (last image).
Suggestions?
Looks great man! I really love the new look. Even the texture breakup you added helps it not look so much like hairless dog skin. I guess the best part about the skin looking soft is that you really wont see much of it once you put the armor on. Which brings me to my next suggestion.
Since the head will become a major focal point after the armor is textured... (When compared to the body of your latest update the head seems to be the somewhat dull.) I'd suggest really going to town on his face and head plate.
Looks awesome! I can't wait to see the armor textured!
Looking pretty sweet man! I like where this is heading! Colors seem to be working really nicely together. Only thing that seems a bit off is the greenish spots near the damaged areas. Sorta makes it seem like its made out of copper and has started to oxidize. Also I might work a bit on the edging to push the feel of a hard surface like metal or the like.
I would say the armor is pretty much done...i'll maybe tweak slightly the colors in the next days. Only thig left to do is the psy-blades and a decent pose...
Yeah i agree, and infact i'm spending today reworking the colors again
About the gold suggestion, i went through a lot of protoss concepts and my final idea is that the material the armor it's made of isn't gold, but some kind of yellowish brass...but i probably went too yellow
I had to contribute to this it's simply epic. You've done an incredible job!
I would say that the armor should read more like gold (as autocon said). I see that you've color balanced the armors shadows to be cool, when they would read much nicer and contrast the cool body much better if they were more warm. It would also help to sell it as gold.
Here's what i mean.
Hope this helps. It looks fantastic and can't wait for it to be finished.
Ok so as i said i went through some color experiments and i would say that i'm pretty happy with the last 2 results
I got rid of the blue shadows and tried to make everything go a little more in a orange/red direction. Besides this i tried a more metallic look, and went a bit more crazy with the 2nd color, trying some blue instead of the orange i had before.
I'd be happy to know what u think of the various versions...
P.S. i wanna thank you all for the previous feedbacks, you helped me a lot
@ Coots7: i've divided the texture according to each part of the armor that could be "swapable" like in a MMO. So each main part of the armor (lower legs+feet, upper leg+waist, arms, shoulders) have a 512x512 except the chest armor (+head accessories) that needed a 1024x512 being a little more complex.
Hair and braids are another 512x512 and the naked body it's a 1024x1024.
To make my life easier the main armor pieces (except chest armor) have been grouped in a 1024x1024 so i could texture them quicker.
@ Razorbladder: hey greg, nice to see you after such a long time, and thanks for your suggestions
If its just for a still you could just use an alpha to create the psyblade effect...or if you want to be a complete nutcase you could try do it through particles :O
I didn't have a lot of time recently to work on this, but here it is...
Marmoset, Psyblades, everything in order...the only thing missing is a slightly more decent pose than this...
edit: i just noticed a problem with the metal bands around the upper arm and that apparently is missing some polygons...i don't really understand why it's doing that after trying STL check,reset xform, still has the same problem...ideas?
Wow Amazing work man!
I love Protoss and you nailed that zealot.
also, Thanks for the quick run down on your process it was really helpful!
So Templar next? or colossi? or stalker? DT?....
just kidding great work man
Looking great motenai. The one thing I would say, while the black trim looks nice it dosnt really fit the regular protoss look. Looking at protoss stuff they stay away from black/really dark colors unless its the dark templar stuff. The regular protoss stick to the all gold/blue look very much like the paintover wester posted which I think is the closest representation of a protoss included how saturated and gold his armor is.
Here is an image of a protoss building, all gold, very saturated, with blue in there. To break things up, like in westers paintover some of the areas are done over in darker gold, but the black just dosnt seem to fit as well.
But even if you decied to stick with the black it still looks great! Really love the HP/LP and the details you brought into him in the texture.
@Autocon, you're right they use quite saturated colors, and i actually tried some of those combinations when i was "color-testing" trying to decide the final setup...in the end they looked to me too exagerated, almost annoying to look at.
So i went for a slightly darker mood, chosing a less saturated gold and darker blue (it's not black, it's blue indeed )...anyway thank u for taking time to show your point
@ RiotForQuiet (but also for anyone else interested):
I wrote u a small tutorial on how i created the blades...the the rest of the glowing parts it's actually just a glow (emissive) texture i created...nothing special. If there is anything unclear drop a line and i'll be happy to explain.
EDIT: Of course i forgot to mention that after step 3 i use a FFD box to give the 2 planes the right blade shape...my bad
Replies
Bake looks really nice! Can't wait to see this one textured (and if possible, post the maps 2
Cheers!
There isn't really anything more than the things that someone who bake low poly models should already know.
Anyway, let's get started.
Image A:
Here i show in general how is the main retopo and bake process.
I usually import from zbrush 2 different version of the same object.
The first one (1.) is heavily decimated, in order to keep it light for 3ds max viewport, but also in order to maintain all the main volumes of the object, ad it's the object on wich i retopology the final low poly geometry (2.)
The second object i import from zbrush is the same, but with a much higher polycount, in order to keep all the sculpted details, and this is what i'm gonna use to bake the normal map (3.)
The last object in the image is the baked low poly mesh (4.)
Image B:
Here are a bunch of tips i think it's good to keep in mind when you're dealing with your low poly mesh.
1. Choose your geometric details. It means that, while you're building your lowpoly geometry in the retopology process, you have to carefully choose what details of the highpoly model you want to model, and what details you want to leave to the normal map.
In general a good idea i to try to reproduce the big volumes, keeping an eye on the silouette in order to keep it smooth and curvy enough (of course if you have a curved silouette). In the image i show in green how i decided to keep intact certain edges that are probably going to be visible in the silouette. Instead i decided to simplify the red area, cause the normal map will be enough to show the details there.
P.S. Remember also to keep an eye at the polycount
2. Choose your Smooothing Groups. This is foundamental if your wanna bake a nice normal map. Usually i try to keep the SG as low as possible in number to keep things simple in the UV mapping phase. A good way to decide your SG is to start giving to everything just one SG, and then checking where the shading isn't smooth, and changing the SG in that area.
In general angles over 60°-70° needs different smoothing groups, but then of course it's up to you.
In the image i've highlighted the different SG i used.
3. Unwrap (UV map). This is a basic one. The only thing you have to keep in mind while doing your UVs is to break the UV islands in correspondence of an hard edge (due to a change of SG). In the image you can see the green lines in correspondece of any change of SG. Remember to leave enough space for the padding between one UV island and another.
Image C:
This image is more to show some useful tools, and my Render to Texture settings.
First, on the left, you can see i use Outliner Script for 3dsmax.
It mainly show you all the objects you have in your scene, with the option to show them by Hierarchy, Layers, and more. In this case i use it with visualization by layers, so that i can choose the single objects (correspondent lowpoly and bake models) very quickly. If you keep your scene organized with named object, this will save u a lot of time in my opinion.
In the center you can see the cage for the projection...seriously nothing to say about it, no special settings, no tricks. I just increase the amount till i see no more intersections of the cage with the hipoly model. Easy.
On the right you can see my Render to Texture settings. Also here there is nothing particular to point out. The only thing is that i usually bake at double resolution of the one i have in mind for my texture, and then i rescale the bakes in photoshop. I do this to keep the bake quick, instead of using some Hammerslay supersampler that would make the render a lot more heavy (but i'm still not sure of which process is better).
So i bake at 2048 a texture that will be 1024 in the end (this object cover a 512 portion of that 1024).
I also keep a padding of 16 px for a 2048 (keep in mind that it will be scaled to 8 px)
I think i've said everything on how i bake my models, i hope it's clear enough and that my english is not to bad
If you have any questions i'm here to answer them
Cheers
I have one question though... is it possible to show the uv of the character and where you put your seams exactly.
Cheers
Keep in mind this is the texture for the body only (1024x1024 px) . Hair and armor have other textures.
considering i never seriously tried to do a handpainted character before today, i'd like to ask you guys what you think about the result i've achived here, and if in your opinion is missing something and if yes, what...?
Plus, soon enough i'll be moving on the armor texture and of course i'm planning to use the same style...any particular suggestions about how to treat metals with this tecnique?
For the feet you're probably right, but most of the time it will be covered by the armor anyway so, not a big problem
A little gif i made to waste some time.
Also. Protoss is the best race ever
Edit: I have a question. Im using Maya and Zbrush for my character. How do you create smoothing groups in maya?
would be even cooler if you could get a nice sss shader on it.
But what is that small dot in the groin area?
Cheers mate!!
But from most of the concept art they seem to have some sort of scales or hard growths on certain areas of their skin. The head seems to reflect this really well, maybe just bring similar structures down through the rest of the body.
Looking sweet so far, keep it up! I can't wait to see this finished.
@ Darkleopard: as far as i know maya doesn't have smoothing groups like max, but anyway it should work in a similar way. If i remember correctly (from some stuff i've seen around cause i've never used maya directly) you should be able to decide if you want a selected edge hard or smooth. This is mainly what smoothing groups do, just with a different method.
@ LRoy: I'd really love to try a SSS on it, but i don't know much about realtime shaders that can give that effect, and how many more textures are requested to obtain a good effect (mental ray ask for 3 additional textures for a nice sss)...do u know any good shader that support SSS or a fake version but still good?
@ TheGooza: i believe that is a bake artifact, probably due to some small error in the mesh i used for baking (decimation master did it), and that i've been lazy to fix
@ Artquest: Thank u very much for the repaint, i received other identical feedback about the skin looking too soft, so i've reworked it a bit, trying to give some move variation and the look of a more tough skin...although the idea of the scales is good, i believe that adding them now would request to go back in zbrush and then rebake, so i will probably keep going on from where i am now...
anyway here is the updated version of the skin...i hope it looks better
From my point of view i like it, but i'm afraid it's going more toward a "realistic feeling" while the feeling i wanted to convey was more the one of darksiders characters (last image).
Suggestions?
Since the head will become a major focal point after the armor is textured... (When compared to the body of your latest update the head seems to be the somewhat dull.) I'd suggest really going to town on his face and head plate.
Looks awesome! I can't wait to see the armor textured!
Edit: i've tweaked a few things on the specular so now the first image is updated and slightly different compared to the turntable gif
Overall this is shaping up very nicely!
About the gold suggestion, i went through a lot of protoss concepts and my final idea is that the material the armor it's made of isn't gold, but some kind of yellowish brass...but i probably went too yellow
I would say that the armor should read more like gold (as autocon said). I see that you've color balanced the armors shadows to be cool, when they would read much nicer and contrast the cool body much better if they were more warm. It would also help to sell it as gold.
Here's what i mean.
Hope this helps. It looks fantastic and can't wait for it to be finished.
I got rid of the blue shadows and tried to make everything go a little more in a orange/red direction. Besides this i tried a more metallic look, and went a bit more crazy with the 2nd color, trying some blue instead of the orange i had before.
I'd be happy to know what u think of the various versions...
P.S. i wanna thank you all for the previous feedbacks, you helped me a lot
I also think E with a combination of F's dark blue trim would make for a great alternate texture.
Sweet work man! ;]
Hair and braids are another 512x512 and the naked body it's a 1024x1024.
To make my life easier the main armor pieces (except chest armor) have been grouped in a 1024x1024 so i could texture them quicker.
@ Razorbladder: hey greg, nice to see you after such a long time, and thanks for your suggestions
And the winner is...mister F
Would be cool if you can get the psy blades to look like Zeratul's from SC2, except blue like a normal Zealot has.
Marmoset, Psyblades, everything in order...the only thing missing is a slightly more decent pose than this...
edit: i just noticed a problem with the metal bands around the upper arm and that apparently is missing some polygons...i don't really understand why it's doing that after trying STL check,reset xform, still has the same problem...ideas?
I love Protoss and you nailed that zealot.
also, Thanks for the quick run down on your process it was really helpful!
So Templar next? or colossi? or stalker? DT?....
just kidding great work man
Here is an image of a protoss building, all gold, very saturated, with blue in there. To break things up, like in westers paintover some of the areas are done over in darker gold, but the black just dosnt seem to fit as well.
But even if you decied to stick with the black it still looks great! Really love the HP/LP and the details you brought into him in the texture.
@Autocon, you're right they use quite saturated colors, and i actually tried some of those combinations when i was "color-testing" trying to decide the final setup...in the end they looked to me too exagerated, almost annoying to look at.
So i went for a slightly darker mood, chosing a less saturated gold and darker blue (it's not black, it's blue indeed
@ RiotForQuiet (but also for anyone else interested):
I wrote u a small tutorial on how i created the blades...the the rest of the glowing parts it's actually just a glow (emissive) texture i created...nothing special. If there is anything unclear drop a line and i'll be happy to explain.
EDIT: Of course i forgot to mention that after step 3 i use a FFD box to give the 2 planes the right blade shape...my bad