looks awesome mate, some of your best work forsure.
Its really suprising how some of the lines are very Haz-esque (the upper legs)
maybe the clothing fold under the butt cheek is slightly out of place?
seems to be pulling upwards in an odd fashion
So cool may i ask how your going about the folds in the A-symetrical sense do you do your folds symetrical then change one side later or do you just leave it like this
Do you think there should be a little more cloth that makes the butt crack less pronounced? If you cover everything except her butt, it looks like she's still naked. Not necessarily over the whole butt. Just the upper half.
Week 4 is the final week of sculpting. by the end of the week we all hoped to be done with our high-poly meshes and begin looking toward making the final low poly meshes.
so this week i spent a little time finishing up the forms of the character, following up on feedback (note the ass crack), adjusting proportions and finally, adding details. details here means wrinkles and folds in the different clothes she is wearing. i didn't want to add any type of wrinkles or blemishes to the skin in the high poly, those will be left to the texture if they're even added much at all.
so now we get onto the subject of wrinkles... folds in cloth. and it's a lot simpler than you might expect. just about all wrinkles or folds can be catagarized in one of three:
Crunching - this is the most common. crunching occurs when material is compacted into a smaller space. it most often happens at joints like the elbow, or when a sleeve is pushed up. but you can even see it in a long dress which looks "wavy" when really the cloth is compacted at the waist creating crunches which are really big and smooth by the time they reach the uncompressed bottom of the dress.
Twisting - like the name suggests, when cloth becomes twisted you can get some pretty interesting folds, they almost always follow the angle of the twist... a simple way to demonstrate this is to create a cylinder in your app of choice, make it 5 sided and no segments along its length, and simply rotate the vertices at one end. the angle of the edges is where the fold would be if it were fabric, and the more twisted the fabric becomes the more extreme the angle.
Pinching - pinching generally occurs when two or more "crunch hotspots" meet. the best example is usually the armpit. you have crunching from the chest fabric AND the sleeve fabric, everything is all trying to get bunched up together and takes the line of least resistance, usually resulting in star shaped folds radiating from the centre.
here's an image of what i tried to accomplish.
i tried as much as possible to simply visualise this on my mesh, trying to think about where wrinkling would occur most, and also to bear in mind the material it's happening on. for example:
the main body of the character is covered in a largely skintight material, like a leotard on an athelete. the wrinkles here had to be subtle, not overpowering or distracting. they had to show that it was fabric, but not that it was the centre of attention.
the boots and jacket are leather, they needed nice big bold creases and folds... the tougher a fabric is the bigger the folds will tend to be as more effort is needed to fold it in the first place.
the gloves are made of silk, silk tends to fold very easily and not be too resistant to force. rogues gloves look like they should be elbow length but they're down by her wrists, this adds up to a pretty big bunch of fabric all bundled above the wrist... being silk this meant lots of folds!
another note here is that it's NOT super important to be neat and tidy. most folds aren't! having "perfect" lines and edges in your folds will make them look un-natural, realism is about imperfections (in my opinion). so loosten up!
at the same time as all of this there were a couple of things i was conscious of:
some of the folds should really only be there if the character were in motion or in a particular pose.
the character can't be in all poses at once so it's important to choose which folds you want in there... it's a functionality vs artistic thing, i guess?
try to make sure that even your subtle folds are going to be picked up by the normalmap, and that leads to...
when your character is wearing a skintight outfit, the cloth must always fold OUT! how can it fold in if there's a human body in the way?
and finally, here's a turntable of the final high-poly.
Hey gir, Could you talk a little bit about your process for creating that big seam on her suit? I'm working on something similar with my current project and wondering if there's some trick to getting a clean mask.
Hey gir, Could you talk a little bit about your process for creating that big seam on her suit? I'm working on something similar with my current project and wondering if there's some trick to getting a clean mask.
Thank you so much Gir That's pretty much just what I've been doing, with a few more steps. Sometimes it's most helpful just to be told "you're doin' it right, just try harder"
Congrats on the weekly recap My God all this info is sooooo good, thank you for documenting everything so well! For realzies! I'm no character artist but I can tell you females are tricky to get right. You are doing a fantastic job.
Following this since week 1. Impressive work and documentation, I really enjoy reading this!
Just one question, how did you do the hair planes? I'd love to know this for my future projects. Another question: are you going to sculpt any detail on the planes? Or do you "just" plan to slap on a hair diffuse + alpha? Looking forward to a reply.
@dudealan2001 - dude, alan, 2001, seriously man... i was blown away to see my work up there with such amazing art. just ask haz or funkybunnies, i totally freaked out haha!
@murphy7 - i'll probably do the hair as it's own writeup, because there's a lot that goes into it and i totally cocked up along the way so i had to redo it. i'd rather that not happen in future! as for sculpting detail onto the planes... i actually have some secret gypsy voodoo magic i'm working on. if i can get it working it'll be SO badass. if not... oh well i'll stick with diffuse + alpha.
pre-note: all pictures here are at least 3 days old and things have changed since.
This week i'm retopoing/creating the low poly mesh. now, one of the big advantages of having the basemesh set up the way i made it was that the topology is already largely how i want it. the biggest issues i had were in defining specific areas.
Now, there's no real budget here. ultimately this course is about making a sexy woman. but i also want a strong portfolio piece which will say to devs "hey... this guy knows his stuff". well... i HOPE they will say that haha.
So let's face it, this is a "hero character", and this particular hero has... well... "heroic areas" hehe. So it's important that those areas look good, right?! This meant adding more edges to the breasts, and arse. to keep them low poly enough that they're within acceptable limits, but high enough that it looks smooth and round... but that's for later. for now here's:
General tips
For retopo i just use 3ds max's built in freeform tools. they're incredibly easy to use! just select your low poly mesh, in the graphite tools area select freeform, and polydraw. set it to "draw on - surface", and then click "pick" and click your high poly mesh. then using the tools within the freeform ribbon you can retopo while all your verts stick to the high poly mesh like glue!
that said, there are some things you should look into doing during retopo:
switch the viewport rendering mode to faceted + highlights/remove all smoothing groups from your mesh.
use a the lowest subdivision of your basemesh as a start to your low poly, it will save you a lot of time!
your aim is to try and retain volume while keeping a good topology.
look out for funky lighting on your polygons.
triangulate specific regions first, then the rest of the mesh.
turn any edges which could lead to funky lighting or deformation.
don't be scared of changing areas of your basemesh which don't work with the high poly. it's a base, but that doesn't mean it has to be the final product.
The Face
so with the face, using the above generalities, i went over the mesh. i looked for areas that needed more definition, that weren't filling out the volumes of the high poly, or were just too low resolution for what i wanted. for example:
i saw that the shading around the jawline was bad, and when i just selected all verts and triangulated it was because the default triangulation was the wrong direction. that's BAD. so i undid, and triangulated hotspot areas for better shading.
i added defining edges to the brow, and moved some verts around closer to the eye so that if she opens her eyelids they're supported by the brow area.
created a planar ridge for the eyelashes. if you look closely (really closely) at an eye the lashes do actually sit on their own plane between the lid and the membrane of the eye.
i added a few edges to the eye to help them keep their shape.
i added some edges to the lips to help shape and define them next to the low poly.
i rounded out the ears and helped define them a bit more.
The Hands
the hands were... well, not fun heh. this was one area where keeping volume was difficult. the fingers were actually really difficult, in fact it's almost impossible to retain the volume on fingers without racking up the amount of sides they have. i eventually just settled for six and i'm happy with the result.
As you can see in the images below, there are a few areas where the fleshyness of the high poly just aren't covered by the low poly. that said, i feel like i managed to retain enough of the form that they'll bake down well, and still look womanly and "dainty" so to speak. here are some things to remember:
use the wiki if you're unsure of how to do certain things.
remember that on limbs (fingers) that only bend one way, you should use 3 supporting edges on the outside of the bend to retain shape, and 2 on the inside to allow it to collapse properly.
remember where the joints are, especially in the thumb. the thumb starts rotating at the wrist, not at the two knuckles you can see.
thought of something! don't be scared to use triangles, the model will end up in triangles anyway so don't be scared to use them now if it makes your life easier.
Other bits
for most of the body i just followed what i've already talked about, but i figured i should mention a little on building a low poly with baking normalmaps in mind, for those who haven't done it or want to try it.
putting it simply, just remember that normalmaps are there to fake internal detail. so when you can save polygons by not trying to define every single bit of that detail, then awesome! but it's just as important to know when you SHOULD be defining detail in the low poly itself.
the best way to do this is just zoom out, any details which can't be seen in the silouhette from "game distance", which is how far zoomed out you usually see your character, can be covered by the normalmap. any details which can be seen that far out should probably be handled by geometry.
an example of that detail and how to handle it with your geometry, the red line is the high poly, the blue is the low poly.
That's coming along great! It's nice to see such a detailed process as well. Just a quick tip, when you are sorting out the edge flipping/triangulation, throw a slightly specular material on there. It will help you visualize the lighting results.
Colored AO? Strong material definition with specular?
Hmm, yes...
I'd put a fabric overlay on her clothes, both in the normal map and (very lightly) in the diffuse. It'll give some nice high frequency detail that will help keep her clothes from feeling too pillowy and soft. If not fabric, then maybe something like leather.
Loving it gir!!!
I'm a HUGE fan of Rogue and your progress on this is stellar!
Quick question.... how exactly did she squeeze her whole body through the neck hole on her suit?
I just wanna a zipper with some sexy 'X' circular zipper puller on it
I'd put a fabric overlay on her clothes, both in the normal map and (very lightly) in the diffuse. It'll give some nice high frequency detail that will help keep her clothes from feeling too pillowy and soft. If not fabric, then maybe something like leather.
Sorry to hijack your thread gir but I am curious how you do your cloth texture overlays Swizzle? If done in PS I find it crazy tedious making sure the scale is uniform over the UV parts and the seams are always really noticeable. Doing it in the sculpt usually looks better IMO but there are cons that way too. You need a really high subD to pull it off for one.
Then I feel like the cloth gets noisy and you end up with some bad moir
Loving it gir!!!
I'm a HUGE fan of Rogue and your progress on this is stellar!
Quick question.... how exactly did she squeeze her whole body through the neck hole on her suit?
I just wanna a zipper with some sexy 'X' circular zipper puller on it
man there's clothes out there that i'm sure NOBODY can fit into, but they do lol.
don't worry guys, there's a write-up to go with these and the final weeks of the course, but i'm a little swamped right now and all i have is notes... in the middle of moving house, baby due this week, new job... so much going on!
so i'm really sorry the writeup isn't ready just yet, but i'll post it when i have a little more time.
All of these guys have been so supportive and helpful throughout the course, they're amazing guys and they're a real tribute to the studios they work/have worked for.
to Pior Oberson for moral support, and for his fantastic statuette which i used for reference when building my base mesh.
and to Laurens "Xoliul" Corijn for his fantastic shader. i hope he gets his website hosting issues sorted soon!
I've learned so much throughout this course it's unreal. it's honestly been a major turning point in my life and i hope i continue to grow and evolve as an artist. i'm looking forward to making you guys proud to have worked with me!
This looks amazing man. I'm usually not a big fan of the "one piece" hero suits but the detail you have put into yours looks great. The only gripe I have and it's super minor is...how does she get into her suit?
Superb work Gir! Only crit is on the final pose - the way her coat flaps up with her arm makes it look like the coat is attached to her wrist or something
Replies
small update on the face.
we've got some catching up to do
Its really suprising how some of the lines are very Haz-esque (the upper legs)
maybe the clothing fold under the butt cheek is slightly out of place?
seems to be pulling upwards in an odd fashion
Keep it up!
Week 4 is the final week of sculpting. by the end of the week we all hoped to be done with our high-poly meshes and begin looking toward making the final low poly meshes.
so this week i spent a little time finishing up the forms of the character, following up on feedback (note the ass crack), adjusting proportions and finally, adding details. details here means wrinkles and folds in the different clothes she is wearing. i didn't want to add any type of wrinkles or blemishes to the skin in the high poly, those will be left to the texture if they're even added much at all.
so now we get onto the subject of wrinkles... folds in cloth. and it's a lot simpler than you might expect. just about all wrinkles or folds can be catagarized in one of three:
here's an image of what i tried to accomplish.
i tried as much as possible to simply visualise this on my mesh, trying to think about where wrinkling would occur most, and also to bear in mind the material it's happening on. for example:
another note here is that it's NOT super important to be neat and tidy. most folds aren't! having "perfect" lines and edges in your folds will make them look un-natural, realism is about imperfections (in my opinion). so loosten up!
at the same time as all of this there were a couple of things i was conscious of:
and finally, here's a turntable of the final high-poly.
[ame="
of course.
This course that you guys are doing is so incredible! I can't wait to see the finished results from all of you.
Just one question, how did you do the hair planes? I'd love to know this for my future projects. Another question: are you going to sculpt any detail on the planes? Or do you "just" plan to slap on a hair diffuse + alpha? Looking forward to a reply.
@murphy7 - i'll probably do the hair as it's own writeup, because there's a lot that goes into it and i totally cocked up along the way so i had to redo it. i'd rather that not happen in future! as for sculpting detail onto the planes... i actually have some secret gypsy voodoo magic i'm working on. if i can get it working it'll be SO badass. if not... oh well i'll stick with diffuse + alpha.
pre-note: all pictures here are at least 3 days old and things have changed since.
This week i'm retopoing/creating the low poly mesh. now, one of the big advantages of having the basemesh set up the way i made it was that the topology is already largely how i want it. the biggest issues i had were in defining specific areas.
Now, there's no real budget here. ultimately this course is about making a sexy woman. but i also want a strong portfolio piece which will say to devs "hey... this guy knows his stuff". well... i HOPE they will say that haha.
So let's face it, this is a "hero character", and this particular hero has... well... "heroic areas" hehe. So it's important that those areas look good, right?! This meant adding more edges to the breasts, and arse. to keep them low poly enough that they're within acceptable limits, but high enough that it looks smooth and round... but that's for later. for now here's:
General tips
For retopo i just use 3ds max's built in freeform tools. they're incredibly easy to use! just select your low poly mesh, in the graphite tools area select freeform, and polydraw. set it to "draw on - surface", and then click "pick" and click your high poly mesh. then using the tools within the freeform ribbon you can retopo while all your verts stick to the high poly mesh like glue!
that said, there are some things you should look into doing during retopo:
The Face
so with the face, using the above generalities, i went over the mesh. i looked for areas that needed more definition, that weren't filling out the volumes of the high poly, or were just too low resolution for what i wanted. for example:
The Hands
the hands were... well, not fun heh. this was one area where keeping volume was difficult. the fingers were actually really difficult, in fact it's almost impossible to retain the volume on fingers without racking up the amount of sides they have. i eventually just settled for six and i'm happy with the result.
As you can see in the images below, there are a few areas where the fleshyness of the high poly just aren't covered by the low poly. that said, i feel like i managed to retain enough of the form that they'll bake down well, and still look womanly and "dainty" so to speak. here are some things to remember:
Other bits
for most of the body i just followed what i've already talked about, but i figured i should mention a little on building a low poly with baking normalmaps in mind, for those who haven't done it or want to try it.
putting it simply, just remember that normalmaps are there to fake internal detail. so when you can save polygons by not trying to define every single bit of that detail, then awesome! but it's just as important to know when you SHOULD be defining detail in the low poly itself.
the best way to do this is just zoom out, any details which can't be seen in the silouhette from "game distance", which is how far zoomed out you usually see your character, can be covered by the normalmap. any details which can be seen that far out should probably be handled by geometry.
an example of that detail and how to handle it with your geometry, the red line is the high poly, the blue is the low poly.
Keep up the damn good work! Learned alot of stuff from this thread in such a short time and for free!
If you open your own mouth wide enough, you can trace the ridge of that laugh line to under your own chin.
^_^
Hmm, yes...
I'd put a fabric overlay on her clothes, both in the normal map and (very lightly) in the diffuse. It'll give some nice high frequency detail that will help keep her clothes from feeling too pillowy and soft. If not fabric, then maybe something like leather.
I'm a HUGE fan of Rogue and your progress on this is stellar!
Quick question.... how exactly did she squeeze her whole body through the neck hole on her suit?
I just wanna a zipper with some sexy 'X' circular zipper puller on it
Sorry to hijack your thread gir but I am curious how you do your cloth texture overlays Swizzle? If done in PS I find it crazy tedious making sure the scale is uniform over the UV parts and the seams are always really noticeable. Doing it in the sculpt usually looks better IMO but there are cons that way too. You need a really high subD to pull it off for one.
Then I feel like the cloth gets noisy and you end up with some bad moir
man there's clothes out there that i'm sure NOBODY can fit into, but they do lol.
don't worry guys, there's a write-up to go with these and the final weeks of the course, but i'm a little swamped right now and all i have is notes... in the middle of moving house, baby due this week, new job... so much going on!
so i'm really sorry the writeup isn't ready just yet, but i'll post it when i have a little more time.
in the meantime though, please allow me to thank again:
Jon Troy "Hazardous" Nickel
Jonah "Mr. Skullface" Gilbert
Chris "Funky Bunnies" Whitaker
Yekaterina "Katia" Bourykina
All of these guys have been so supportive and helpful throughout the course, they're amazing guys and they're a real tribute to the studios they work/have worked for.
to Pior Oberson for moral support, and for his fantastic statuette which i used for reference when building my base mesh.
and to Laurens "Xoliul" Corijn for his fantastic shader. i hope he gets his website hosting issues sorted soon!
I've learned so much throughout this course it's unreal. it's honestly been a major turning point in my life and i hope i continue to grow and evolve as an artist. i'm looking forward to making you guys proud to have worked with me!
ASK!!! and ye shall receive!