High Res Sculpt Help - Recreating the Archvile
Hey guys, I'm working on a reworking of the Archvile character from the Doom universe, and I'm kind of stuck. This character looks "okay" to me, but I'm having trouble making it look "fantastic." I think the character needs a "hook," something to catch the eye and make the viewer think more than "hey, another monster humanoid." I think I can do that with fire/lighting and pose, but I think the sculpt needs something too. I don't know if it could be surface detail, like massive veins running to the organs on the hands or maybe something requiring alphas to break up silhouette on the character. I know I don't want to add clothes - no Doom critters wear clothes except the zombies.
Take a look and tell me what you think. Any C&C are welcome, don't be afraid to be brutally honest. I want the piece to succeed more than I want my ego protected.
Take a look and tell me what you think. Any C&C are welcome, don't be afraid to be brutally honest. I want the piece to succeed more than I want my ego protected.
Replies
also my biggest thing and its kinda boring is the head. love the body but the head is a bit meh. i think you can work that a lot more.
http://3dzbrush-obbi.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html
also! actually. look up
neville page.
his work is amazing and he has hundreds of concepts!
http://www.nevillepage.com/
I think you're on the right track with really developing the hands as they are pretty much the focal point of the character, being the conduit for his fire raising and resurrection powers.
In addition, I'd play with the proportions of the face. the features are quite small and almost child-like and it's not coming off as scary or threatening as it could.
You're absolutely right, Jack. I'd never really noticed it before now because I always thought the Archvile was the most fearsome bad guy - the ability to resurrect and almost insta-kill the player made him my favorite enemy (hence my internet handle). But I had never looked at him from an artistic perspective - it's actually pretty lame - just a gutless lanky humanoid with a Martian head and shoots fire.
I tried to spice this design up by making it female, and thinking of him-now-her as more of a motherly cleric role. I found out through my reference gathering the sound effect for the Archvile's death is a heavily synthed and garbled child's voice crying "Why?", as in the Archvile doesn't understand why someone would kill him for protecting his flock. I don't know if I should push further in this direction, or go back to the firey scarey demon look Doom is known for. I don't want to put any cyber modification on her - after trying to decode when/why the id artist's put the prosthetics on the original enemies I come up with a couple reason: 1.) it just looks cool 2.) it amplifies some existing power, ie the pinkys strength or 3.) it adds some form of weapon to an otherwise useless creature, ie the mancubus.
So I thought maybe some cybernetics to amplify the fire ability, but I've decided the fire is more of a religious summoning from hell, stemming from the same powers that resurrect the fallen, as opposed to a manufactured flamethrower. That's as far in the design I've come. What do you guys think? Any ideas?
yea yea np buddy. and yea, maybe some cybernetics would look interesting also. give it a shot. make some block outs and post it
I'm way more happy with my current version, and I'm getting close to a skin detail pass. But I'm not sure what the most efficient way to get a model to sculpt skin detail on, and I was hoping you guys might have some ideas.
With all the indentions and deep crevices, I feel like I should hand retopo it. That would give me all the geometry I'd need, but would probably take forever. I could try Qremesher, but I've had poor luck with that making even geometry - a lot of times I'll get really big squares and really small ones right next to each other. And lastly I could try to a low resolution then subdividing down a few times and reprojecting. Alternatively Dynameshing to a really high resolution and subdividing just once. And lastly I could try the Geometry HD workflow, but I'm not sure I can get that high res geometry to export out to xNormal for baking my maps.
This is my first attempt in making a creature character in a long time - most of my characters have lots of subtools, clothes I can hide seams under, etc. I'm concerned a single subtool with too high of geometry will bog my machine down too much.
Edit: Hmm. I could use Qremesher to get a low res version, lay out UVs in Maya, then subdivide and reproject. Then use Geometry HD to get my super crisp details, then bake out maps from that. ... Though I won't know my final UV layout until everything is ready for low res-ing, and a low res suitable for subdividing isn't always the most efficient for a game mesh. Still stuck...
What do you guys think? I think he needs some thick, leathery skin with liver spots for his scalp and brow, then I think his face is done. Once I give the whole character this kind of treatment, it's on to the low res!
The next thing I'm planning on doing is skin surface detail and then polypaint. What do you guys think?
Any protips on how to texture this guy? Think it's worth splitting him into two or or more texture sheets? I'm thinking two sets of 2048, one for the face and neck, the other for the rest of the body. What do you guys think?
Been retopoing like crazy the last two weeks. Final polycount turned out to be 113,440 triangles... so he's a bit high. It was great practice in keeping everything in quads, ensuring deformability, keeping/terminating/rerouting edge loops, etc. I'd recommend doing something similar to any aspiring character artist.
Anyway, so here's what I have now. All the UVs are laid out, ambient occlusion/cavity/normal maps baked, and shown in standard Maya window.
I've started polypainting in ZBrush, and I'm really liking it. I've usually done all my texturing in Photshop, but I thought I should try this way. I think I'll probably end up doing 50% of this in Zbrush and finishing it in Photoshop. But I'm not sure how I feel about my color choices or placements for the character as a whole.
The second image show sort of what I'm going for. Granted, the colors are mostly just blocked out, but I think my character is overall too saturated. I also don't think the reds in him feel very well thought out. I want the muscles around his jaw to look sinewy and gross, but I think the reds are just too strong. I thought at first it might look weird if those muscles were skin colored, now I'm thinking skin colored is the way to go and leave the reds in the hand and blended into the forearm.
What do you guys think?
Ben
With regards to the colours, I think what you have now picking out the important details could work, it just needs to be worked in subtley. I'd probably keep the reds deeper for the most part, maybe keeping that really vibrant colour for the hands
Cheers,
Payton
Also, I just found the rest of the Aris's work. It took a bit of digging, so for anyone else interested in looking him up, his site is: http://ariskolokontesart.blogspot.com/ and his work is amazing. Thanks for the tip on looking him up, TheWildHunt. The image I had came without a way to find the artist.
Do be careful dredging the web ffor reference in regards to gore. I had a discussion Once with a few colleagues, it became our concencus that most people have been so conditioned by film, that a perfectly replicated wound, can be "inaccurate" or "cartoony" to the genersl audience.
Archvile Recreated (click to view in 3D)
[Edit: hmm, looks like the code didn't work, or at least isn't for me. If it's broken for you too, try this link: http://studio.verold.com/projects/51e3501d80a8d3020000005b ]
Still trying to decide what color to make the veins running through him. I'm thinking a darker yellows, oranges, maybe a touch of red. I think either the organs on his hands need to lose the pink or the muscles making up his torso need more pink (currently leaning on the latter). The face needs work, the AO is too heavy and needs to be something other than a black-layer-with-multiply. Like a light Color Blend, something to push the darks through the skin colors, and not through gray.
Let me know what you think please!
Ben
Archvile (click to view in 3D)
Bitchin'! Agree that the face detail getting washed out is a shame, but the level of work here is amazing.
Love the late reply 😆