Megaman

Mikademius

Hey guys and gals.
First off, let me say how incredible it is to browse these forums. The quality displayed and the inspiration value of the work is amazing. I'm not a low poly modeler, but hope you accept some high poly artwork as well.

I have started working on Rock from Megaman, or Megaman as we say out west.
I have been working on his silhouette and I'm taking a few days break to get away from it and give it another look with fresh eyes to tweak it. So far I know I have to fix the relationship between the helmet and head. Bigger helmet. Also, I'm not going for the proportions from the original series. I see him more as a teenager. I also want to go for the slightly oversized cannon
This is a rough block out I'm gonna use as a guideline for the high poly model.











I also felt I had to do a little poly play to see where I might end up detail wise. It will be way more detailed than this of course, but I just had some fun



This is the only mesh I can do without nailing the proportions first. Now I have to get everything else working before I can start. This is a personal project I do for fun when I have time and need to relax a bit. Hopefully I can get an hour or two on it per week
I have no limits so I am able to go all bananas if I want.

I'll keep posting in this thread and if you have any input on the silhouette, please shoot

Mikademius

Couple of updates on... the ear?

Aigik

Don't get me wrong, the ear looks awesome, but my concern is with the baking process. Do you plan on baking maps for this? Or is this going to stay a high poly? Because I think you have a lot of very small details that will get lost in the baking process, and it would suck if you spent so much time on small details like that all over his body only to have them get turned into pixel soup when you bake the normals.

Mikademius

Hey Alglk. I hear ya. So far my plan is to keep it high poly. If you were to bake it, which parts would you exclude? pixel soup

Computron

a lot of your high poly is flush with the surface of the bigger pieces which is not good for normal mapping. you could get around this by making your edges less tight. Normal maps only capture the difference in the surface angle.



also you have small silhouette details which will not transfer into normal maps like the little wires. If you are willing to pay, I highly suggest checking this video regarding modeling for normal baking: http://www.3dmotive.com/training/3ds-max/baking-tips-and-tricks/?follow=true

Mikademius

Thank you Computron. I have absolutely no experience with low poly so I will definitely check out the training video. Maybe I should make this my first low poly experience

jeremiah_bigley

Mikademius wrote: »

Thank you Computron.Maybe I should make this my first low poly experience

Yes! I agree! lol

I was initially put-off by the blocking mesh... then I saw the ear. I was like awww-yeah! I really think you should take this to lowpoly. It is not like you would be taking the quality down by any...

Here is some inspiration...

http://cgsammu.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/brawlzerofinal5.jpg
http://cgsammu.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/brawlzerofinal7.jpg

Mikademius

Thanks for the inspiration. That's a pretty nice Zero.
I wanna go realistic, but also keep the mega man feeling. Therefore I think I will keep the proportions and parts, but pimp them. I think I also see what you mean with the parts that won't bake on my ear.

another quick q: wouldn't you give the cables geo anyway? I wasn't considering baking them.

Computron

Yes, you would give them geo, but it might not be the best way to make them since curves like that are hard to project a cage correctly. I would consider making one froma less curved version and then instancing it into place after you bake. you will save a lot of time with the cage and UV space as well as making it look nicer.

Mikademius

Thx for your input Computron. I hope you will stay on board for this project
I have been working more on the silhouette. I did a paintover to see where I can enhance the
shape. I have touched up the thighs, slimmed the boxer short (or what we should call it) a bit and tweaked the gun and hand. Also, the head is very important and this one is the Megaman I like better. I have also added a couple of pics that show which style I want to go for. One thing that scares the hell out of me is that I don't want to do an anime style one, but I'm afraid the helmet won't match a more normal face. I guess I have to do a pretty stylized one. I might raise the shorts a bit and maybe the gun is a bit long. Like the lower arm is a bit too long compared to the upper one.
Here is the Gif that shows the current changes.

Mikademius

And here is the 3d work where I try to get the proportions more where I want them.
I am starting to like what I have, but at the same time I realize I have a lot of tweaking to do.

Mikademius

Worked a bit more on the helmet volume. Also started the front solar panel. (Did you know the stripe shaped boxes were solar panels?) No lock yet on the front.

jeremiah_bigley

For those little wires... a small strip of polygons would work fine. Then just angle them to face the most frequent view. I am excited man. This is going to look good.

Electro

Or crossplanes and view won't matter so much, twice the polygon count for them as a single strip obviously.

Nice progress so far.

Snader

Based on the first 2 lowpoly shots your char is around 2K triangles so far? I think you'd be better off with making the wires closer to the earcup, and just baking it flat into the cylinder. No separate lowpoly-wires.

Also, I'm thinking that the earpiece might have too small detailing - it feels a tad noisy and busy.

Mikademius

Thanks for the feedback guys. It's funny that some wires are making this discussion. I didn't even think about it, but that's because I am a high poly modeler. I am trying a couple of other versions of the earpiece to get the noise down as you say Snader. I have to go back to those. The first images are just blocking geometry and will not be used for anything in the production other than reference.

I have brought Rock into ZBrush and the rest of the concepting will happen here. I'm gonna work on my hard surface stills in ZB as well as use it for the organic parts.

CandyStripes05

got my interest : )

Mikademius

cool. Hope I won't let you down
Here are some more inspiration I got in the mail a couple of days ago:

Nizza_waaarg

haha, really awsome ear deets ^^

hope you can keep up the same level of detail around other bits of him while keeping his cool original forms/proportions (and easy read)

Mikademius

thanks
I don't like the Megaman X design with all the hard surface parts. I want to stick with the original Megaman design, but I'm also giving myself freedom to go wherever I want on the hard surface parts the original design has. e.g. ears as you have already seen. For the pulse cannon I have a bunch of ideas I want to incorporate and I also want the design to be functional. I don't like it when design is coming in the way of usability.

seforin

Mikademius where did you get those said insperation from....specifically forte...

Mikademius

Seforin. Amazon sells three packs. You don't know which ones you get in advance though. It's a random three pack. Oh, the excitement when you rip them open is fantastic

[ame="http://www.amazon.ca/Megaman-Trading-Figures-random-packs/dp/B004KVJ5GK/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1323926472&sr=1-1-catcorr"]Megaman Trading Figures (3 random packs): Amazon.ca: Home & Garden[/ame]

Here is some of todays work. Did a little work on the legs, just an initial pass. I also tested out a feature I wanna include somehow. I always imagined Rock filling up his energy capsules somehow. I don't know if the center of the solar plexus is the place to go for (In some design drawings I Had Energy bard in the legs. ) but I want him to be able to replace these containers himself. In the final image I want to make he is holding one of these in his hand. I also slightly updated the design of the seam in the suit.

I will be testing various other ways of implementing this of course.

Mikademius

I worked on the plasma cannon today. Harder than I first thought. Keeping a curved surface while
cutting is just something you gotta love Solution is more geo most of the time. Started with the base you can see earlier in the thread in ZB, then did some sculpting to design the look of it. After the volume and basic cuts felt right I brought this into Maya and from there started modeling old school.
I don't feel I got it quite yet. I want to work more on the pipe itself and also the integration between the upper arm and the cannon. I would like to try leather or something similar here. Would be interesting to get another material in there but cloth and metal. Here are some images while we wait

BiggCess

Mikademius wrote: »

I worked on the plasma cannon today. Harder than I first thought. Keeping a curved surface while
cutting is just something you gotta love Solution is more geo most of the time. Started with the base you can see earlier in the thread in ZB, then did some sculpting to design the look of it. After the volume and basic cuts felt right I brought this into Maya and from there started modeling old school.
I don't feel I got it quite yet. I want to work more on the pipe itself and also the integration between the upper arm and the cannon. I would like to try leather or something similar here. Would be interesting to get another material in there but cloth and metal. Here are some images while we wait

Did you ever finish this?

TrevorJacobs

Mikademius wrote: »

Worked a bit more on the helmet volume. Also started the front solar panel. (Did you know the stripe shaped boxes were solar panels?) No lock yet on the front.

Hello it seems like very exciting project.. I know thread is bit old but were you able to complete it? Please share some information

Mikademius

Hi all. Sorry I haven't replied sooner. I have been beyond busy lately... Became a father last summer and changed jobs so it's been hectic

I recently started collecting inspirational material and I would like to blow some dust off these files. I hope I can get some time to start working on the head/face and then develop the helmet properly from that. Also, I would like to concept the shoulder pads, arms and all the details there in ZBrush with dynamesh and panel loops. Would be fun

Mikademius

Here's a little update. I haven't done too much, but I had some fun with the head
It's much easier to continue working on the helmet when I know what the relationship between the
helmet and the head looks like. Megaman is also hard because he is manga and I don't want that, but he doesn't quite look Megaman with smaller eyes so I try to hit some middle way This is just the first pass and the chin guard is also just for fun. Trying to decide if I want it or not

still looooots to do!