Nice job. As for the guy model, I would soften up the muscles a bit, as it's way too hard-edged for my taste, but that's just my opinion. Good job on the models!
Looks really good! The last thing she needs is a slightly more defined lower eyelid, right now it looks like she doesn't have one at all, without the lower eyelid it looks like her eyes are bulging out. Since you're going for stylized the previous progress image was about the right amount of subtle-ness you need.
@alvordr
Thanks
The druid model for the time being is finished. I may revisit the character one day, but I'd mostly redesign a bit and completely resculpt. @Alemja
Thanks, I didn't realize I lost the lower lid in revisions.
Been a long time since I updated on Amber. Her wires so far, probably going to optimize a bit more.
Also thought I'd try out the nifty Sketchfab viewer.
The Reaper sculpts art test closed so Im going back to the Elf Archer.
I specifically had issues with her face and her belt/sash piece.
After separating the head from the rest of her body I was able to dynamesh and close the mouth and eye holes so I could get better detail there.
Next up will be to give her the eyebrows I took away, and do some final passes on all of apparel, specifically her belt/sash so it doesn't look so muddy.
After a bunch of cleaning up and minor adjustments I'm calling the sculpt done.
After decimating I started retoplogizing in 3dsMax with the graphite tools.
So far I'm happy with the head, it's a bit highpoly, but I'll adjust if it gets too high later on.
This is an adjustment you can make after you bake the normal maps: Her head in the side view is too wide, the front of the face needs to be pushed back and the pack can be brought in a bit.
The could also personal preference, but I feel that there is a bit of a missed opportunity on the arrow holsters. The area is just blank and it would be a really nice spot to add some of the swirl designs similar to the ones on the belt.
It definitely is, I was talking to my friend about it the other day. It needs to be half as far forward.
I agree about the quivers, I was going to do detail through texture, but I think I'm going to go back into the sculpt and have attachments/belts too.
I checked it out with a few of my references but they seem to fluctuate a lot.
When looking at my sculpt it doesn't look to elongated, but the low poly really exaggerates it.
So I'm not sure now, but I can always adjust after baking like you said.
From your reference it does line up with the facial features but I think it's the neck that is giving the perception of a wide face. It appears skinnier and starts further back.
If you want more nit-picky things since you are going back to it anyways...
I feel like you should do something about the lumpiness in the belt trim/decoration. A little lumpiness is alright but this stands out IMO. Probably the easiest way to fix it is to retopo just that part and make it as it's own subtool.
I agree about the quivers. Something else I was thinking about is that they are really vertical. Getting an arrow out of there would be cumbersome.
Keep pushing man! It's looking good just don't quit.
I ended up redoing the designs on the belt. I wasn't very attached to them and I thought they were a bit sloppy. I also added a swirl to the quivers as Alemja suggested.
I'm a lot happier with these changes, let me know what you all think.
Thanks nyx702, I separated and cleaned up the straps, I also resculpted the scarf.
Here's a quick base polypaint to see how things look with her colors.
Topology update, moving pretty slow.
I updated the polypaint post with some more browns to have a bit more contrast in her apparel.
My sister loved the sculpt I did of her
that easily can be separated from the mesh, as it's own object, it's going to save you few polys.
2.
look at my geometry, you'll save a lot more polygons. because those aren't doing anything for your silhouette, since quiver is flat, for the most part anyway.
also noticed that your arrows are 6 sided, why? they can easily be 3 sided or 4 at most. arrow feathers thing, they shouldn't be extruded from the arrow, they should be regular planes.
eyes can be cut in half.
"knee pads" haha, a lot of polys can be reduced in that area.
my advice would be to try to get geometry spread across the model evenly as possible.
i'd go for 10k - 15k tris, because high poly isn't that demanding.
other than that, really good topology on joints, i like it.
Thanks a ton, I can't stress how much I appreciate such feedback. I love retoplogizing, but with personal projects I kind of brush over things like this. So thanks again for picking these out before I pushed forward.
1. I may keep this attached, I considered having it separated for animation purposes, but I felt overall it would stay stationary. I'll cut the polys down though.
2. I can definitely cut down those polys, and quickly. The arrows were my imported old file I used for a placeholder hipoly for my sculpt, but I didn't think too much of them, and I'll cut those down to 3 sides.
Yeah I questioned the "knee pads" in the original design way back which it's far from the knees haha, the geometry can be cut easily there too, I'll keep one bevel inward though.
Overall I was aiming to get below 20k, but below 15k should be very easy and I'll lose little to no noticeable detail.
Thanks again. I hope to update soon with updated geometry and my bakes.
Really would work on this more. It could be a really nice piece. The textures currently feel about 50% done. I didn't even know you were using spec until I read that you were. Also the diffuse is pretty flat. I would add some color gradients and an overall gradient to the whole character. I also recommend making it a fully diffuse model and giving it a really nice hand painted texture.
I'm looking up a bunch of stuff my friend is linking me. I guess I was coming to a dead end with my current texturing skill set.
I'm going to use the 3dsMax script posted in the news for the gradients, after that I'll look into how I can handpaint everything with a nice uniform style close to the concept.
I love the contrast the gradient added, and I had a lot of fun tweaking this time. One of my best friends pointed out some ways I can start handpainting in some detail. I turned off everything but diffuse, and it surprised me how little the Normal and Spec was contributing. Here's where I'm at, and I'm a lot happier with this.
Thanks for the critique stevston89, you pointed out a lot of things I overlooked
Really nice looking I think it came out a lot nicer without the normal or spec the texture has a really nice simplicity to it. Just find a nice pose for it put it on a base and pat yourself on the back.
Working hard on rigging to pose her. I also made a few more adjustments to the texture and found a way to get rid of the nasty rim light on the arrows.
I updated the Sketchfab above, and fixed a couple issues I had in there too.
Great work so far lavits, With regards to the archer, I have no crit on the overal model, but the grass should probably be taken out. If you want to keep it, try bening the planes that the grass are on then have them rotated and duplicated closer together so you get clumps of grass. This will stop it looking flat.
Very nice elf, but, i think - with this level of detail you could use much less poly.
At the same place, pedestal have too low poly.
And such long quiver on belt and whide pants are uncomfortable while running.
Hey man! Things are looking really cool so far. I think that your sculpt on your male character is really strong! My concerns are with the female elf. While the colors and all of the work on the texture are working overal, I think you can really increase the level of detail. Right now you have a lot of secondary details, but not a ton of tertiary. If you look at work from someone like Tyson Murphy or Firstkeeper, they really utilize their diffuse map to the fullest by adding little variations in color and details.
Wow! Thanks man, I agree 100%. My texturing skills aren't up to par, I've been learning a lot, but I have a lot of room to improve. The elf definitely has a texture resolution and polycount problem. For her little detail and texture size I can definitely improve each category.
I've been studying a lot of texture painting techniques and hand painted processes. I think overall I have to keep practicing each and every skill and improve over time. I mostly had a lot of issues with where I wanted to go with her. I feel like I met the concept, but was lost after that with extra texture space and polys.
I haven't been as active as I'd like to, but that's because I scored a freelance character position last month.
I got the chance to plug a a few minutes here and there on this guy:
Replies
I tried my best to address every issue, while keeping as much of her faces softness.
I'm going to try and mess around with the eyes some more.
Finally finished her sculpt.
retopo time
Thanks
The druid model for the time being is finished. I may revisit the character one day, but I'd mostly redesign a bit and completely resculpt.
@Alemja
Thanks, I didn't realize I lost the lower lid in revisions.
Been a long time since I updated on Amber. Her wires so far, probably going to optimize a bit more.
Also thought I'd try out the nifty Sketchfab viewer.
I updated the Sketchfab model if you want to rotate around it.
Calling this done.
I also updated the sketchfab link above.
The Reaper sculpts art test closed so Im going back to the Elf Archer.
I specifically had issues with her face and her belt/sash piece.
After separating the head from the rest of her body I was able to dynamesh and close the mouth and eye holes so I could get better detail there.
Next up will be to give her the eyebrows I took away, and do some final passes on all of apparel, specifically her belt/sash so it doesn't look so muddy.
After decimating I started retoplogizing in 3dsMax with the graphite tools.
So far I'm happy with the head, it's a bit highpoly, but I'll adjust if it gets too high later on.
The could also personal preference, but I feel that there is a bit of a missed opportunity on the arrow holsters. The area is just blank and it would be a really nice spot to add some of the swirl designs similar to the ones on the belt.
I agree about the quivers, I was going to do detail through texture, but I think I'm going to go back into the sculpt and have attachments/belts too.
When looking at my sculpt it doesn't look to elongated, but the low poly really exaggerates it.
So I'm not sure now, but I can always adjust after baking like you said.
If you want more nit-picky things since you are going back to it anyways...
I feel like you should do something about the lumpiness in the belt trim/decoration. A little lumpiness is alright but this stands out IMO. Probably the easiest way to fix it is to retopo just that part and make it as it's own subtool.
I agree about the quivers. Something else I was thinking about is that they are really vertical. Getting an arrow out of there would be cumbersome.
Keep pushing man! It's looking good just don't quit.
You're not being nit-picky, I've been trying to smooth it out, but I guess the only way to effectively do it would be through retopo.
I didn't realize how vertical they were and just rotated them quite a big, and they improve the silhouette of the profile view.
I really appreciate the feedback Alemja and nyx702, good feedback is hard to come by and it helps a lot, Thanks!
I'm a lot happier with these changes, let me know what you all think.
Here's a quick base polypaint to see how things look with her colors.
I updated the polypaint post with some more browns to have a bit more contrast in her apparel.
My sister loved the sculpt I did of her
Check her out in 3d:
[SKETCHFAB]c61b3f0f86504cc195b346b9d8574ac8[/SKETCHFAB]
1.
that easily can be separated from the mesh, as it's own object, it's going to save you few polys.
2.
look at my geometry, you'll save a lot more polygons. because those aren't doing anything for your silhouette, since quiver is flat, for the most part anyway.
also noticed that your arrows are 6 sided, why? they can easily be 3 sided or 4 at most. arrow feathers thing, they shouldn't be extruded from the arrow, they should be regular planes.
eyes can be cut in half.
"knee pads" haha, a lot of polys can be reduced in that area.
my advice would be to try to get geometry spread across the model evenly as possible.
i'd go for 10k - 15k tris, because high poly isn't that demanding.
other than that, really good topology on joints, i like it.
1. I may keep this attached, I considered having it separated for animation purposes, but I felt overall it would stay stationary. I'll cut the polys down though.
2. I can definitely cut down those polys, and quickly. The arrows were my imported old file I used for a placeholder hipoly for my sculpt, but I didn't think too much of them, and I'll cut those down to 3 sides.
Yeah I questioned the "knee pads" in the original design way back which it's far from the knees haha, the geometry can be cut easily there too, I'll keep one bevel inward though.
Overall I was aiming to get below 20k, but below 15k should be very easy and I'll lose little to no noticeable detail.
Thanks again. I hope to update soon with updated geometry and my bakes.
She's getting there...
Here's a gif:
I'm going to use the 3dsMax script posted in the news for the gradients, after that I'll look into how I can handpaint everything with a nice uniform style close to the concept.
Thanks for the critique stevston89, you pointed out a lot of things I overlooked
Really nice looking I think it came out a lot nicer without the normal or spec the texture has a really nice simplicity to it. Just find a nice pose for it put it on a base and pat yourself on the back.
Working hard on rigging to pose her. I also made a few more adjustments to the texture and found a way to get rid of the nasty rim light on the arrows.
I updated the Sketchfab above, and fixed a couple issues I had in there too.
At the same place, pedestal have too low poly.
And such long quiver on belt and whide pants are uncomfortable while running.
I did change up some things, but I wasn't too concerned with the quiver length.
I'm moving forward to my next character/challenge.
You can check out his concept here:
http://derekhetrickart.tumblr.com/post/76905472480/havent-touched-siegmund-in-a-while-so-here-have
Here's my WIP:
Keep up the good work man!
I've been studying a lot of texture painting techniques and hand painted processes. I think overall I have to keep practicing each and every skill and improve over time. I mostly had a lot of issues with where I wanted to go with her. I feel like I met the concept, but was lost after that with extra texture space and polys.
I got the chance to plug a a few minutes here and there on this guy:
I also had an urge to go back to this guy and do a paint over.