Hi Nizza -- I use Maya and Mental Ray, and I do a LOT of cheating. I need a new computer because this one is aging quick. Mental ray renders tend to take a lot of time, so I do things very dirty and on cheap.
Here was my basic process for these ones. You'll see why it's such a dirty shortcut for real rendering.
Another likeness study. Guess the actor I suppose, even though this is off.
Bill Murray.
@almighty_gir
I don't actually see it. His seems to have an okay variety of eye-shapes to me. It does look like the fold of skin above the eye is very similar from model to model, but given that 3/4 of these are likenesses, it's hard to fault him.
Polypainted and worked on model. Made some fixes and added some detail. The likeness is getting stronger. I think I'll go with the Steve Zissou red beanie, with some light hair coming from underneath.
Here is the first shot at realtime bill murray. 3.5 K tris, but I'm not crazy about some of the placement so I might re-topo again. Shader is coming "okay", but needs work.
Generally, your eyes are too wide apart. Pupils (or the center of your eyes) should line up with the corners of the mouth. Once you get that sorted, any other off proportions should jump right out at you.
looks good, one thing i'd say however would be not to bother putting specs like the 2x1024 normal maps etc on the render as it's not important for a bust and makes it seem you're making out that this is a finished piece, which it currently isn't. I would either leave out info like that, and just keep it as a more finished sculpt, or finish it off to a higher standard with some texture for the shirt and hat, and maybe some hair planes for the beard
edit: sorry just read you were intending on adding hair planes to the beard, derp. comment still stands about adding diffuse info for the clothing tho!
i see a recurring issue with all your head models.
the eyes look flat. they lack the spherical curvature. the eye lids should curve around the corners more. the whole eye socket should also push back slightly and center of the eyes should come forward. either you are using eyeballs that are too big causing less curvature on the eyelids or you are not using eyeballs with proper iris shape with more bulge in the center.
one exception to this may be is if you are working on a character of asian descent then the entire eye area tends to look more flat doe to different skin/fat proportions(speaking generally of course).
also, there is not enough depth in the bigger face planes of your model. the cheek bone area should be pushed back a bit. check out this image of bill from the side. notice how the cheek bone area curves back and how the eyes are deeper set. the temple should be further back but not too much.
when you sculpt on your model try to look at it from top angle too and you should see what i mean.
Done. Still things I'd like to change, but I have to move on at this point. Not sure if it'll go in my portfolio or not.
Hat is a separate 512 material so I could use a detail map, and the beard is two level of alpha, one for the main beard, one for stray hairs. I hate realtime hair.
MM, TigerGD & Mr. Ace -- thank you guys for the crits. I'm certainly having trouble lining up a couple of the feature, particularly the eyes. As has been noted, the fronts of the face are flat. It's not so much the curvature of the eyeball or the size of the eye, but the socket I think I get wrong. I wish I had more time to tool with this piece, but I'll be paying attention to it next model. Thanks again for the help.
Updating a really old model and converting it to realtime -- A bastardization of Kaneda, from Akira. Removing the 80's metal biker from him. Needs kneepads.
More Kaneda work: I think he'll get a mullet. I also realized after I did the overlarge single kneepad where I ripped it off from, so now I'm not so sure if I'll keep it.
Great work man. On your last image I noticed that the face might be a bit too long. I used a circle shape in PS with center point between his eyebrows and I believe that the top of your head should be lining up with it. The most upper line should be his hairline- according to Loomis . Check it out might look better.
Great stuff. My critique on kaneda is that he has a pretty European looking head structure, at the moment. His eyes are really the only thing selling him as asian.
There's actually a large amount of difference between east asian and western head shapes. I find that a lot of it comes from the brow and cheekbones. Eastern heads have less protruding & wider brows, and more protruding cheekbones. This causes the face to look flatter or wider. Western heads are much 'pointier', by comparison.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP_X98a6VRs"]A comparison of Chinese and Western headshapes - YouTube[/ame]
Thanks for the references and the video, Dirigible, helped out quite a bit.
Did some more sculpting, started blocking in polypaint in the clothes and face, and am starting to finish up some of the details. I'm thinking of using a different leg strapping, not sure yet.
Got keyshot and messed around with it today. I like it, but I really wish it had an ambient occlusion feature, and or I wish I could find it if it does.
I'm almost done with the Kaneda sculpt, then on to the low-poly.
And basically done with the highpoly. Finish some details and stuff but then to low-poly. Gloves were the last major thing to add, and now they just need detailing, and something to break the blank space on the back of the hand.
So, I basically have no real idea how to pick poses for portfolio shots. Anyone have any common sense guidelines that may be helpful? Is it better to do t-poses, or super dynamic action poses, or relaxed subtle poses?
but I'm wondering if something more dynamic would be better, like this:
bit.ly/WfH9ME
I also wonder about props for the pose? Do I need to do them all to completion, or do people looking at my portfolio know that the character is the focus, and stand-in props are okay? Like the gun below, I just did an approximation.
I feel like a pose THAT dynamic might distract me.
But perhaps a bit more dynamic than what you have.... Try things out, and see.
But hey, the textures are incredibly desaturated.
Most notably, the clothes, in my opinion, could do with some more saturation, but the skin as well is looking very unlifelike as a result.
Not sure if it's a conscious choice, but either way, I'd advice against it.
Thanks Joopson, for the advice on the pose and the desaturation. I'm using marmoset and the lighting is not so great, so I typically turn the 'night' preset up to daytime levels. It washes the image a bit, but the other lights tend to blow any white under 15% white out. I'll try to fiddle with the contrast, saturation and brightness settings in marmoset to try to even it out.
I tried the more dynamic pose out. I think the following might be closer to what I'll use in my portfolio, unless people have suggestions or opinions.
Thanks AimBiz. In my ref he's jumping and aiming with one arm, but because of the weight of the gun I tried to make it a bit more like he's jumping and just holding it, while resting the butt on his shoulder. I don't think either are realistic though, you're right. I also made the gun a bit bigger than in the ref, so it's heavier than even that.
this thread is just great, can't wait to see the final image for this one. The only thing bugging me is that you should give him som hair! Would really give this character a little extra
I did this one as a freelance kind of thing. I only had 1 and 1/2 days to finish it, so I used a couple of pre-sculpted assets that they liked from my portfolio.
I did a new sculpt and added the elements to match yesterday, then today I re-topoed, baked, then textured and finished this afternoon. Probably about 6 hours or so of work.
The specs are 7K tris and a 1024 diffuse, spec and normal.
Hey, dig the face of the new one, and good quality overall. The skin is a bit too much to the orange imo, particularly on the legs but might be the render. The closeup on the face looks better. Anyway, point is, some more color variation on the skin could perhaps be introduced.
Just noticed, something seems to be missing from the ears. I'm not read-in on the names but the bone thing in the center seems to be missing.
Edit: oR maybe it's there but I can't seem to spot it.
Great turnout for such a super-tight deadline though. I'm impressed. Would be cool to see some kind of breakdown of the assets you used to put this together.
Wow, incredible for such a deadline!
I'd have to agree about the ear, I'd say that the biggest problem seems to be that it generally lacks depth and contrast.
Did a really quick exaggerated paintover of the ear since I need to get going:
Still a really respectful and neat depiction of a woman! :thumbup:
Nice work on this so far. Some things about the proportions stick out to me though.
The distance between the waist and armpits seems too long which makes her overall torso seem really long. As well, the center point of the ribs should be moved up higher.
The highlighted distance on the pelvis looks a bit awkward too.
The same torso issues are present in the Hipster girl as well, but the longer distance is between her breasts and clavicle.
your head proportions still look exactly the same as your old character and all the others
hopefully you are gonna alter it enough, however i would suggest you start from scratch to break the bad habit and it will also force you to progress more on anatomy.
Replies
Here was my basic process for these ones. You'll see why it's such a dirty shortcut for real rendering.
just follow the image link:
http://i.imgur.com/7Yv8S.jpg
your eyes (shape) are the same on every model you've made. the nose is close too, but getting different enough. but the eyes man...
Bill Murray.
@almighty_gir
I don't actually see it. His seems to have an okay variety of eye-shapes to me. It does look like the fold of skin above the eye is very similar from model to model, but given that 3/4 of these are likenesses, it's hard to fault him.
And a crappy zbrush render for my own sake.
And you gotta roll with the steve zissou beanie ^^
and churs for the mini tut, I still suck at rendering but learning more all the time
Here is the first shot at realtime bill murray. 3.5 K tris, but I'm not crazy about some of the placement so I might re-topo again. Shader is coming "okay", but needs work.
edit: sorry just read you were intending on adding hair planes to the beard, derp. comment still stands about adding diffuse info for the clothing tho!
the eyes look flat. they lack the spherical curvature. the eye lids should curve around the corners more. the whole eye socket should also push back slightly and center of the eyes should come forward. either you are using eyeballs that are too big causing less curvature on the eyelids or you are not using eyeballs with proper iris shape with more bulge in the center.
one exception to this may be is if you are working on a character of asian descent then the entire eye area tends to look more flat doe to different skin/fat proportions(speaking generally of course).
also, there is not enough depth in the bigger face planes of your model. the cheek bone area should be pushed back a bit. check out this image of bill from the side. notice how the cheek bone area curves back and how the eyes are deeper set. the temple should be further back but not too much.
when you sculpt on your model try to look at it from top angle too and you should see what i mean.
Hat is a separate 512 material so I could use a detail map, and the beard is two level of alpha, one for the main beard, one for stray hairs. I hate realtime hair.
Keep it up, this thread is enjoyable to look at. ^^
There's actually a large amount of difference between east asian and western head shapes. I find that a lot of it comes from the brow and cheekbones. Eastern heads have less protruding & wider brows, and more protruding cheekbones. This causes the face to look flatter or wider. Western heads are much 'pointier', by comparison.
[ame="
Did some more sculpting, started blocking in polypaint in the clothes and face, and am starting to finish up some of the details. I'm thinking of using a different leg strapping, not sure yet.
I'm almost done with the Kaneda sculpt, then on to the low-poly.
I made a check-list and this is with about 1/2 of the clean-up done. Little things, but they take forever.
Okay, finished up everything on my list. Going to work on low poly.
His hair is pretty natty but since he'll have poly hair I'm not too worried.
Keyshot looks like a cool program.
Crits and comments, as always, appreciated.
I tried to do an iconic kaneda pose, I chose this one:
http://animeonly.org/albums/2007_02_11/AnimeManga-Wallpapers/AnimeManga/Akira_-_Kaneda.jpg
but I'm wondering if something more dynamic would be better, like this:
bit.ly/WfH9ME
I also wonder about props for the pose? Do I need to do them all to completion, or do people looking at my portfolio know that the character is the focus, and stand-in props are okay? Like the gun below, I just did an approximation.
Anyways, any advice much appreciated.
But perhaps a bit more dynamic than what you have.... Try things out, and see.
But hey, the textures are incredibly desaturated.
Most notably, the clothes, in my opinion, could do with some more saturation, but the skin as well is looking very unlifelike as a result.
Not sure if it's a conscious choice, but either way, I'd advice against it.
I tried the more dynamic pose out. I think the following might be closer to what I'll use in my portfolio, unless people have suggestions or opinions.
Thanks again.
I did this one as a freelance kind of thing. I only had 1 and 1/2 days to finish it, so I used a couple of pre-sculpted assets that they liked from my portfolio.
I did a new sculpt and added the elements to match yesterday, then today I re-topoed, baked, then textured and finished this afternoon. Probably about 6 hours or so of work.
The specs are 7K tris and a 1024 diffuse, spec and normal.
You've encouraged me to start one myself to improve my characters.
Just noticed, something seems to be missing from the ears. I'm not read-in on the names but the bone thing in the center seems to be missing.
Edit: oR maybe it's there but I can't seem to spot it.
Great turnout for such a super-tight deadline though. I'm impressed. Would be cool to see some kind of breakdown of the assets you used to put this together.
I'd have to agree about the ear, I'd say that the biggest problem seems to be that it generally lacks depth and contrast.
Did a really quick exaggerated paintover of the ear since I need to get going:
Still a really respectful and neat depiction of a woman!
Only thing that jumps out on the torso study is where the side abdomen connect with the lower abs. The zig-zag line seems rather harsh.
Working on a base mesh to do my first stylized project, in a hazardous/EL Scorcho style.
The distance between the waist and armpits seems too long which makes her overall torso seem really long. As well, the center point of the ribs should be moved up higher.
The highlighted distance on the pelvis looks a bit awkward too.
The same torso issues are present in the Hipster girl as well, but the longer distance is between her breasts and clavicle.
hopefully you are gonna alter it enough, however i would suggest you start from scratch to break the bad habit and it will also force you to progress more on anatomy.