It's really up to how you wanna bake/ unwrap. I personally am going to make the waist cloth into 2 pieces and the arm band will be baked on the the arm. The hair should definitely be its own mesh. It is really up to you though.
Personally I just follow some rules of thumb but it's highly dependant on what your target specs are. Higher polycounts will have more room for separate objects.
First i think about how it'll be when rigged. Everything that would cause me to make weird loops and topology to follow its form will go into a separate object.
In this case the bandages on her arm were fine to integrate in the main body mesh but something like the chest clothing would have probably caused some hassle.
If my polygon limit was lower however i'd have baked the clothing into the body without caring about its silhouette much.
Things like hair are usually split (still it depends on art style, and target specs), and since i'll probably give the clothes some joints for animating I'll split it from the body. Also having skirt-like clothing merged with the body is a pain
If you notice in my first draft i left out the shoe laces and the fur. The fur will be a separate object so it wont destroy the polygon flow on the leg and the lace knot will be baked to a plane.
@zicoV: Holy shit I must have stared at the concept art for hours and totally missed that, thanks!
@PyrZern, you're right Ive had a look at it and it looked really off, ive redone that area. In regards to splitting off and baking subtools, if you separate out parts they will pop more. the loincloth I would do something like in the right photo, rather than putting altogether like in the one of the left:
Normally I would bake the armband on, but its a cool detail so Im going to give it some geometry. With your style of hair Id have each "clump" as a different low res mesh.
Thanks for the previous comments, it helped me see some problems.
My 2 cents -
I'm really liking all the different takes on the concept, alot of more realistic looking pieces which is cool.
Pyrzern: I like your sculpt except I think the ears are a bit too large and the hair could be split into separate subtools and worked to look a bit more like hair. Otherwise I really like the cloth.
Pav3D: I love your sculpt but I think the face catches me a bit off guard because its much more sharply defined/realistic than the rest of the sculpt ... it could also be the eyes being coloured while everything else isnt.
jstyles3d: I think your sculpt is my favourite atm however I do think the feet are a tad too large and the fur may be a little overdone imo
I haven't had alot more time to work on this over New Years and tbh I probably wont get a whole lot more time, but I will try to finish.
I'm starting to get to that point in the high poly where I can't see the forest for the trees so any help or comments you can give you be awesome.
This is a new style for me and I'm trying to keep it relatively open and not overly detail things (as you can probably tell) I think a lot of the subtleties with come with the diffuse but there's still a few things to do with the sculpt.
Baking procedure is something quite new for me. How do I know if a certain zbrush subtool should have its own lowres mesh or not. Or should it just be a part of another lowres mesh. Like, say, should all the loincloths be made into 1 LowRes mesh. Or into multiple separated lowres meshes ? Or her her arm wrap at her bicep; should that be its own lowres mesh, or just baked into the body mesh ? Or, *gasps* her hairs ? O o'
Thats is actually a great question. the answer totally depends on your polygon budget. some things you could think about are the following.
- take the cloth whrap on her arm, is it sticking out a lot? does it change the silhouette? personally I would not model it out at all, UNLESS you want a different shader for it.
- the chest wrapped cloth is a bit bigger than then one on the arm though, does this change the silhouette enough for them to at least be modeled out? what is your intended polygon count? do you want to simulate the cloth? if not you can probably just make one big mesh out of it. you want another shader on it?
Everything depends on how "next gen" you want it. the more next gen, the more parts.
Just popping in to say hi. I'm back at work now so I'm going to be a lot slower in updates I've taken what a few of you have said on board and am reworking the fur.
Hopefully I'll have something to show tomorrow evening AU time.
@naturon thanks for the kind words. Yours is coming along very nicely. Looks like she is a little cheeky (butt cheeks on display at the back ) Keep it coming. @Denny personally I wrestled with the face a lot. My base mesh was very much a round face. In hind sight I would have dynameshed a sphere to rough out the shape and retopo'd that. And teeth! I hadn't thought of that yet!! Though now that you mention it I would do something vampirish or maybe halfway werewolf. @Pav3d you are an inspiration. The weapon is kicking arse. Though I feel like the back is missing some of the nice angular planes of the front so it looks a little unloved. @zicoV yeah she has a little bit of ghetto booty I'll check the cloth is hugging it snuggly, but she is keeping dat ass your base mesh is looking great btw. Really nailing the form. @Fnitrox great looking low poly so far. The new neck sits much better with your proportions. What program are you doing the retopo in?
@EveryoneElse keep kicking goals. It was awesome coming home tonight and seeing so much activity here.
Thanks guys for pointing out about the lowpoly. I will find the rest out in a week or two I think O o' I'm not sure I wanna do MidRes or HighRes yet... Hmmm.
naturon The only thing I have for you is, I think her torso is a little too narrow. The rest looks pretty good to my untrained eyes ^^
Denny Kind of both, I guess ? I'm sure I could tweak my face lots more to match the concept art, but I quite like how she looks right now...
I think you're doing great with the face! I was just curious how and why people are doing the face the way they do, my question was probably poorly expressed.
@Denny personally I wrestled with the face a lot. My base mesh was very much a round face. In hind sight I would have dynameshed a sphere to rough out the shape and retopo'd that. And teeth! I hadn't thought of that yet!! Though now that you mention it I would do something vampirish or maybe halfway werewolf.
But then you got a very similar look to the concept! Hard work pays off.
@ naturon - good start. Shoulder pad is looking really big though.
I did a pass on the hair and reworked the fur. Still lots to do on both hair and fur. Also started on the boots. Not quite sure I am happy with the way they look yet.
Stevenson: I really like your hair! i would work on the proportions some more tho, especially in the face. Like make it flatter, tilted towards the camera, (chin back, forhead forward), and push the features down towards the chin in general.
naturon: Looking cool man, I'd give the hands and feet some more love next. The top back part of the hair looks a bit odd too.
I pretty much got mine blocked out now. Since I'm just going for lowpoly with diffuse, I'll probably just do a quick pass on the shoulder pad and call this one done. Maybe some more minor tweaking to the proportions? Anyway, as I said earlier, I'm just doing hp for the purposes of getting the forms down, nothing fancy.
[edit] oh and the ring thing on the bottom is intentionally scaled up. That's one detail I thought should be a bit larger.
@Stevston89: I personally like the direction you got going with the boots.
Also anyone care to share a wire-frame structure of their ear? I'm building one right now and it doesn't look right at all where it connects to the skull.
@jeebs wow man, ur basemesh looks really great @SladeDigital really liked ur realistic model, i just think that right now she is really tall.
Just made a base now, liked her silhouette but i didnt like her face shape at all. I made it in zbrush but looks like its quite dificult to match with the image. Even trying, looks like she is taller than in image. Should i use a software such as 3dsmax or Maya to get better results?
Been trying to get my Comicon Idea sorted. Had some time to make all the low poly bits and do a quick Poly Paint. Still need to do hi poly of the weapon and unwrap bits.
Need to hit the grocery store but when I get back I'll do some critiques!
@thepapercut bit of a mess at the moment where the ears meet the skull. Pushed it around too much.
But HERE they are anyway - The faint pink lines are where I will do some topo cleanup when I get there.
@BradMyers82 super attitude in that block out. Looking forward to seeing your low.
My only suggestion would be to watch out for man hands. But as you say it's rough.
@Dimfist can you post a side view next time? I think her posture might be a little unnatural but I can't quite tell from these angles.
Small update from me. Reworked the fur and gave the boots some action.
Next stop is the weapon.
renanfab: Your doing a good job blocking stuff out so far, but she is looking very stick figurish at the moment. Things are far too thin, so I would work on adding volume in there. If your not sure about anatomy in places (cause the concept won't tell you everything) get some other references and try to mesh it all together. Good luck dude!
PyrZern: I dig yours a lot too, it has a sorta pixar vibe I'm feeling. Only suggestion I would have is if you want to match the concept more push the facial features more towards the chin.
But thanks man, yea I haven't decided on the fingers just yet. Its gonna be pretty low poly but I'm guessing I'll end up modeling something simple in the end there. She only has 4 fingers so its not as much as five anyway. I'm trying to think realistically about how it would run in the game as well, even though it will never actually get in-game. I realize its a lot more expensive to have extra bones, more than anything (like polycount and texture res) which is why I was considering mits. Long winded answer, but this is just the stuff that's running threw my head already.
jstyles3d: Thanks dude, and your right I'll keep a watch out for the hands (I do make them overly meaty some times.)
When I see your painted version, the face really shines. I think you really nailed it well. In general I think your body is stretched a bit wide though. Check the joints especially. Knee is thick, elbows, shoulders and waist a bit too. Great job so far tho man.
Thanks for the tips on the hands guys, I totally missed that. I'll have some updates here in the next day or so.
jstyles3d the sculpting is looking pretty good and I like the face, but you should check the proportions on the clothing/gear. The pauldron ought to be larger, as well as the fur on the boots. And I'd agree with bradmyers, she's wide in the hips compared to the ref.
made a few small adjustments. I think my version is slightly wide so I'll keep that in mind when making the lp. I'm just wasting time if I noodle around with this any further so... moving on to the lp.
@BradMyers82: I suggest seperating out the fur into seperate bits of geo and polygroup the lot, makes it a lot easier to work on each bit. Also seperate those fingers a bit or baking is going to be a nightmare.
Pav3d: yea, I realize I have a wall of text with each post. lol. But I'm tageting Iphone so this hp is just for helping me build a solid low poly. I probably won't even bake with this.
Your low poly is looking very solid though man, nice job!
Fantastic sculpt. Connection between the head and the neck looks a bit off. Maybe try emphasizing the jaw a little more?
Speaking of the head, it's driving me insane. If I try getting closer to the reference and the head looks all blocky and ugly. Maybe final head. Maybe. Also not sure what happened to the fur on the front of the pauldron. I think I'm going crazy, because my fur keeps randomly disappearing during renders.
Bcn: I think the shape of the face is a little off, I find it tends to square off at the bottom
BradMyers: That block out is fantastic, you really captured the spirit of the concept imo. Can't wait to see the low.
Pyrzern: I really like your take on it, its coming along nicely, I'm sure you're still working on it but maybe a little more time could go into the fur on the armour.
jstyles3d: I love it! Especially the ears. Great job although again I think the fur could use a little more love on the boots.
Ok here's mine ... I'm pretty much done with the sculpt, Ready to get into the low over the next week or so.At one point my brain went into automatic and went a bit too realistic than what I wanted to go for so I had to bring it back a little I'm using this as a way to try out some new work flows so hopefully it wont take too long.
Anyway let me know your thoughts, Cheers
@Bacn your calves are thicker than your thighs.
The head is a real pain in the butt, I used a lot of ref from square jawed women. Sui He was one of the main ones. @naturon eyes are better now. I'd pull her chin down just a tad and square off the jaw a little more. Check out those Sui He refs above.
@naturon Thanks man. Yeah I'm not done working on the sculpt yet, so I will definitely work on that. Furs, shoes, sword, etc etc.
Comicon Challenge so far is like a black hole, sucking in hours and hours of my time.. I do enjoy the progress I'm making, but, man, I just wanna climb out of the valley of the suck I'm in.
Pretty much finished with the High Poly for this. Did some tweaks to the face, fixed the fur, and added shoe laces ties. Still might fix up the face a bit. Starting on the sword. I finished the base mesh for the sword gonna start sculpting
Oh yeah almost forgot to crit
@ naturon - That does look better. I really recommend deleting your highest subdivision and work on and cleaning up your shapes.
@ Bacn - Check your proportions and turn your subdivisions down as well. At a glance the calves are too large, the thighs are too small, the head is too big, the hair is too small/ thin, and your feet are way too big and bulky.
From all the posts, the most I like are Jeebs, Arcitecht, Pav3d and Jstyles3d, by seeing all their amazing works I was reluctant on posting something, but well, too late
There's nothing much to show, as I was still figuring out how to do the head (and the hands, obviously), so I took some time and tried to draw some references:
I have to test them, but at least the frontal should be usable.
I'm learning A LOT from this contest, as this is the first character I'm doing (I usually do hardsurface), hope to at least complete the modeling part, even if is not that good to look at, I've to start from something.
Hey thanks Jade, jstyles3d, PyrZern and stevston89 ... Cause I'm trying out some different work flows the plan was to do the low/cage then project the details in zbrush onto that and polish that mesh up because it's much cleaner. It's probably not the best way to go about it but like I said I'm just trying some stuff out.
I do tend to struggle a bit with getting really polished clean edges in zbrush I wonder if anyone has any tips/ tutorials they wouldn't mind sharing
Stevenson: I'm loving that weapon, and your character sculpt is looking pretty good imo but I think the face is a little squarish. Keep it coming
Sonic: Haha I know what you mean, it's a daily struggle to come on polycount and see all these incredible artists and then try to get some enthusiasm going. I try to remember that the person I'm competing with the most is me
@Sonicblue: Nice start, also the head references seem solid. @stevston89: Really dig the cloth folds you got, looks great on the character. @naturon: Love the face, that nose is spot on.
Personally I've been trying to wrap my brain around Zbrush the last day (controls be confusing as ever to nail down). So this is what is of my build so far. I'm conflicted if I should rebuild the whole thing over as there is many parts (the knees and butt.) I don't like they've came out. Thoughts?
@thepapercut: This is for both this model and the Female Character you're working on. I heavily suggest getting used to the ZBrush UI and method of working so you can just sculpt your bodies out. I, unemprically, argue that you may find this a faster process to sculpt and then retopo. I forget why you're poly modeling this out.
I'm still here, been absurdly busy lately so no progress to show. Ill be back Saturday with my finalized blockout and hit crunch to finish by the deadline.
@thepapercut; I totally understand you. For a year or two, I have been HATING Zbrush. I tried it for a bit, and found its UI to be completely idiotic. I been using Maya and poly pushing for so long that's how my mind work.
What finally made ZBrush click for me, and led me to ultimately purchase ZB4r6 was the following...
1. I bought ZSwitch. Which made it a tad similar to navigating around like in Maya. Although I deactivated after I got used to ZB itself. But it did help me for awhile.
2. Customize the UI. Move most used buttons to where you can easily access. Stuff like Brushes, LazyMouse, MatCap, Dynamesh, CloseHoles, DelHidden/Lower/Higher and such.
3. I just found it out later on, MiddleMouseButton plugin is sweet.
4. For awhile, I avoid using Rotate, Scale, and Move.
5. Get used to concept/idea of Polygroup and Masking.
6. Make sure M/RGB/MRGB isn't on when you don't want em.
7. For most brushes, always tone down the ZIntensity.
Now, regarding the model, I think the knees are quite ok. They just need to be reshaped, and add support structure/half loops to nicely bend. For her butt, I do agree a rework will help you.
Ok, now if I remember, tomorrow I will find sometimes to work on this Bunny.
Long time no update! Been really busy lately since i started my new job and stuff.
Finally got around to complete the retopo and fix it somewhat.
Final full character sitting at 12225 Tris. Will start baking today/tomorrow and setup basic texturing, then i'll probably retopo the sword before going on with the textures.
Nice progress everyone!
@stevenson89: may I ask what matcap are you using on your character? also the latest hair looks much better and fits the stile more!
@ Fnitrox - I have been using Marmoset 2.0 to render out my high poly. It's turned out really nice. Oh and for the sword it's called sky metal I believe. I got in a matcap pack I bought.
@thepapercut: persist with ZBrush, its worth it, if its too much try out mudbox, thats a very simple interface, its how I got my head around the whole digital sculpting thing. @naturon: Id make your eyes smaller, try out by going reeally smaller and gradually make them larger till they look right. @Bacn: With the face id suggest a lower/longer nose and a wider mouth, bit just a small amount.
Unwrapping/Baking is over! time for some texturing fun
Is that your low poly Pav? If so it's lookin really nice already.
Nice low poly Fnitrox. I'm still a little weird about your forearms though.
I finished unwrapping and baking today. Now to move onto the texture phase!
@Pav3d: yea, I'm definitely keeping up the fight with Zbrush, It's the UI curve that's a pain right now. Also your current model is really fantastic looking, what is the poly count on that right now? @PyrZern: Good to hear I'm not the only one who thinks the UI is painful to look at. I'll take all the advice you gave and look into these plugins, any tutorial recommendations?. Also your last posted model looks great, you definitely captured the face. @JadeEyePanda: Thanks, and I will push hard on the Zbrush training. Anything you recommend? @stevston89: The attention to the small details in that sword that make it look just plain badass, nicely done!
Alrighty, I got the low polys done. With weapon it comes in at about 20k polys. I don't think that's too horrific considering how much draping we have. The weapon alone is about 2100.
So...I have a base coat on the models, nothing special. Took me quite a while to burn out the AOs and I will probably run another AO pass on the Low poly so i have the shadows from the cloth on the body. I haven't added the Alpha channel yet on either model. That will probably be next. I need to inflate the hair up to give it some volume. Lost some size in the topo. oh yeah, need to do some gradiants too.
Cheers!
@fnitrox - awesome mat. My eyes! Looking lovely although I wonder if in the profile view her wrists are a little thin?
Taken her into zbrush to polypaint. I have a horrid suspicion that now she is in zbrush I am going to add a normal map too...
A question for those who start in Zbrush and retopologise; do you use just remesher, or do you take lower division/remeshed into maya/max etc to work on? I have tried exporting models to maya from Zbrush but if I fiddle too much in maya and try to re-import to lowest division, the higher divisions go bonkers. (I always say yes to transfer of topology or whatever it asks). Can anyone help? Although I have a horrid suspicion you are going to say that I need to do the store MT and re-project stuff, which I have not learnt yet but probably should….
you can use the topo brush to paint in where you want edge loops. Its not always succesful and I find myself having to fix some loops in Max. I also have topogun so if it's not working I just bring it in there.
I always start in zbrush unless i'm using a blank.
Hope that helps a bit.
Got a first pass on the textures, just basic baked polypaint a tiny bit of directional lighting and normals. No AO and probably won't bake it.
Hairs are not baked yet, as I'm still deciding if I'll bake them or just remodel hair strips... leaning more on baking atm.
on the Zbrush topic: For my high polies i rarely get out of zbrush. Since the release of R6 you have all the tools you need to keep working in zbrush with dynameshes and Zremesher. For lowpoly that's a complete different matter. You need proper topology and not just sculptable geometry.
Looking good everyone. @AllyAlbon depends on workflow. If I make a base mesh to work from I try to keep that all the way through. Saves time with retopo at the end but takes longer to start. If I use dynamesh I usually retopo using zremesher or topogun once I am happy with the forms then add all the detail in the clean mesh. Makes the file much lighter.
Haven't had much time to work on this lately, but I finished the sculpt and started retopo today.
Still a lot to do, but here's where she's at.
Replies
First i think about how it'll be when rigged. Everything that would cause me to make weird loops and topology to follow its form will go into a separate object.
In this case the bandages on her arm were fine to integrate in the main body mesh but something like the chest clothing would have probably caused some hassle.
If my polygon limit was lower however i'd have baked the clothing into the body without caring about its silhouette much.
Things like hair are usually split (still it depends on art style, and target specs), and since i'll probably give the clothes some joints for animating I'll split it from the body. Also having skirt-like clothing merged with the body is a pain
If you notice in my first draft i left out the shoe laces and the fur. The fur will be a separate object so it wont destroy the polygon flow on the leg and the lace knot will be baked to a plane.
hope it helps!
@PyrZern, you're right Ive had a look at it and it looked really off, ive redone that area. In regards to splitting off and baking subtools, if you separate out parts they will pop more. the loincloth I would do something like in the right photo, rather than putting altogether like in the one of the left:
Normally I would bake the armband on, but its a cool detail so Im going to give it some geometry. With your style of hair Id have each "clump" as a different low res mesh.
I did some quick block of most of the form, with the rest coming tomorrow. How far back her shoulders are pushed is really throwing me off.
Thanks for the previous comments, it helped me see some problems.
My 2 cents -
I'm really liking all the different takes on the concept, alot of more realistic looking pieces which is cool.
Pyrzern: I like your sculpt except I think the ears are a bit too large and the hair could be split into separate subtools and worked to look a bit more like hair. Otherwise I really like the cloth.
Pav3D: I love your sculpt but I think the face catches me a bit off guard because its much more sharply defined/realistic than the rest of the sculpt ... it could also be the eyes being coloured while everything else isnt.
jstyles3d: I think your sculpt is my favourite atm however I do think the feet are a tad too large and the fur may be a little overdone imo
I haven't had alot more time to work on this over New Years and tbh I probably wont get a whole lot more time, but I will try to finish.
I'm starting to get to that point in the high poly where I can't see the forest for the trees so any help or comments you can give you be awesome.
This is a new style for me and I'm trying to keep it relatively open and not overly detail things (as you can probably tell) I think a lot of the subtleties with come with the diffuse but there's still a few things to do with the sculpt.
Thats is actually a great question. the answer totally depends on your polygon budget. some things you could think about are the following.
- take the cloth whrap on her arm, is it sticking out a lot? does it change the silhouette? personally I would not model it out at all, UNLESS you want a different shader for it.
- the chest wrapped cloth is a bit bigger than then one on the arm though, does this change the silhouette enough for them to at least be modeled out? what is your intended polygon count? do you want to simulate the cloth? if not you can probably just make one big mesh out of it. you want another shader on it?
Everything depends on how "next gen" you want it. the more next gen, the more parts.
Hopefully I'll have something to show tomorrow evening AU time.
@naturon thanks for the kind words. Yours is coming along very nicely. Looks like she is a little cheeky (butt cheeks on display at the back
@Denny personally I wrestled with the face a lot. My base mesh was very much a round face. In hind sight I would have dynameshed a sphere to rough out the shape and retopo'd that. And teeth! I hadn't thought of that yet!! Though now that you mention it I would do something vampirish or maybe halfway werewolf.
@Pav3d you are an inspiration. The weapon is kicking arse. Though I feel like the back is missing some of the nice angular planes of the front so it looks a little unloved.
@zicoV yeah she has a little bit of ghetto booty
@Fnitrox great looking low poly so far. The new neck sits much better with your proportions. What program are you doing the retopo in?
@EveryoneElse keep kicking goals. It was awesome coming home tonight and seeing so much activity here.
naturon The only thing I have for you is, I think her torso is a little too narrow. The rest looks pretty good to my untrained eyes ^^
But then you got a very similar look to the concept! Hard work pays off.
I'm using Topogun
I did a pass on the hair and reworked the fur. Still lots to do on both hair and fur. Also started on the boots. Not quite sure I am happy with the way they look yet.
naturon: Looking cool man, I'd give the hands and feet some more love next. The top back part of the hair looks a bit odd too.
I pretty much got mine blocked out now. Since I'm just going for lowpoly with diffuse, I'll probably just do a quick pass on the shoulder pad and call this one done. Maybe some more minor tweaking to the proportions? Anyway, as I said earlier, I'm just doing hp for the purposes of getting the forms down, nothing fancy.
[edit] oh and the ring thing on the bottom is intentionally scaled up. That's one detail I thought should be a bit larger.
Also anyone care to share a wire-frame structure of their ear? I'm building one right now and it doesn't look right at all where it connects to the skull.
@SladeDigital really liked ur realistic model, i just think that right now she is really tall.
Just made a base now, liked her silhouette but i didnt like her face shape at all. I made it in zbrush but looks like its quite dificult to match with the image. Even trying, looks like she is taller than in image. Should i use a software such as 3dsmax or Maya to get better results?
BradMyers82, That looks pretty solid there. Is she gonna have fingers ? or mitten hands ?
renanfab, I guess that depends if you're better at anatomy, or at pulling poly O o' But yeah, a face is hard.
thepapercut, I haven't made lowres yet, but this is what my ears look like at low subdiv.
Need to hit the grocery store but when I get back I'll do some critiques!
But HERE they are anyway - The faint pink lines are where I will do some topo cleanup when I get there.
@BradMyers82 super attitude in that block out. Looking forward to seeing your low.
My only suggestion would be to watch out for man hands. But as you say it's rough.
@Dimfist can you post a side view next time? I think her posture might be a little unnatural but I can't quite tell from these angles.
Small update from me. Reworked the fur and gave the boots some action.
Next stop is the weapon.
PyrZern: I dig yours a lot too, it has a sorta pixar vibe I'm feeling. Only suggestion I would have is if you want to match the concept more push the facial features more towards the chin.
But thanks man, yea I haven't decided on the fingers just yet. Its gonna be pretty low poly but I'm guessing I'll end up modeling something simple in the end there. She only has 4 fingers so its not as much as five anyway. I'm trying to think realistically about how it would run in the game as well, even though it will never actually get in-game. I realize its a lot more expensive to have extra bones, more than anything (like polycount and texture res) which is why I was considering mits. Long winded answer, but this is just the stuff that's running threw my head already.
jstyles3d: Thanks dude, and your right I'll keep a watch out for the hands (I do make them overly meaty some times.)
When I see your painted version, the face really shines. I think you really nailed it well. In general I think your body is stretched a bit wide though. Check the joints especially. Knee is thick, elbows, shoulders and waist a bit too. Great job so far tho man.
jstyles3d the sculpting is looking pretty good and I like the face, but you should check the proportions on the clothing/gear. The pauldron ought to be larger, as well as the fur on the boots. And I'd agree with bradmyers, she's wide in the hips compared to the ref.
It's bad I can't give any advice to anyone 0_o.
The tedium of retopology is over!
Your low poly is looking very solid though man, nice job!
Fantastic sculpt. Connection between the head and the neck looks a bit off. Maybe try emphasizing the jaw a little more?
Speaking of the head, it's driving me insane. If I try getting closer to the reference and the head looks all blocky and ugly. Maybe final head. Maybe. Also not sure what happened to the fur on the front of the pauldron. I think I'm going crazy, because my fur keeps randomly disappearing during renders.
Comments -
Bcn: I think the shape of the face is a little off, I find it tends to square off at the bottom
BradMyers: That block out is fantastic, you really captured the spirit of the concept imo. Can't wait to see the low.
Pyrzern: I really like your take on it, its coming along nicely, I'm sure you're still working on it but maybe a little more time could go into the fur on the armour.
jstyles3d: I love it! Especially the ears. Great job although again I think the fur could use a little more love on the boots.
Ok here's mine ... I'm pretty much done with the sculpt, Ready to get into the low over the next week or so.At one point my brain went into automatic and went a bit too realistic than what I wanted to go for so I had to bring it back a little
Anyway let me know your thoughts, Cheers
The head is a real pain in the butt, I used a lot of ref from square jawed women.
Sui He was one of the main ones.
@naturon eyes are better now. I'd pull her chin down just a tad and square off the jaw a little more. Check out those Sui He refs above.
Comicon Challenge so far is like a black hole, sucking in hours and hours of my time.. I do enjoy the progress I'm making, but, man, I just wanna climb out of the valley of the suck I'm in.
Oh yeah almost forgot to crit
@ naturon - That does look better. I really recommend deleting your highest subdivision and work on and cleaning up your shapes.
@ Bacn - Check your proportions and turn your subdivisions down as well. At a glance the calves are too large, the thighs are too small, the head is too big, the hair is too small/ thin, and your feet are way too big and bulky.
There's nothing much to show, as I was still figuring out how to do the head (and the hands, obviously), so I took some time and tried to draw some references:
I have to test them, but at least the frontal should be usable.
I'm learning A LOT from this contest, as this is the first character I'm doing (I usually do hardsurface), hope to at least complete the modeling part, even if is not that good to look at, I've to start from something.
I do tend to struggle a bit with getting really polished clean edges in zbrush I wonder if anyone has any tips/ tutorials they wouldn't mind sharing
Stevenson: I'm loving that weapon, and your character sculpt is looking pretty good imo but I think the face is a little squarish. Keep it coming
Sonic: Haha I know what you mean, it's a daily struggle to come on polycount and see all these incredible artists and then try to get some enthusiasm going. I try to remember that the person I'm competing with the most is me
Steveston89, man I really like how yours turned out.
SonicBlu, little too early to give you any critique. Keep at it!
I'm almost done unwrapping the low. Hopefully I can get it backed out tomorrow. Will update when I can.
@stevston89: Really dig the cloth folds you got, looks great on the character.
@naturon: Love the face, that nose is spot on.
Personally I've been trying to wrap my brain around Zbrush the last day (controls be confusing as ever to nail down). So this is what is of my build so far. I'm conflicted if I should rebuild the whole thing over as there is many parts (the knees and butt.) I don't like they've came out. Thoughts?
Everything is looking sweet guys!
What finally made ZBrush click for me, and led me to ultimately purchase ZB4r6 was the following...
1. I bought ZSwitch. Which made it a tad similar to navigating around like in Maya. Although I deactivated after I got used to ZB itself. But it did help me for awhile.
2. Customize the UI. Move most used buttons to where you can easily access. Stuff like Brushes, LazyMouse, MatCap, Dynamesh, CloseHoles, DelHidden/Lower/Higher and such.
3. I just found it out later on, MiddleMouseButton plugin is sweet.
4. For awhile, I avoid using Rotate, Scale, and Move.
5. Get used to concept/idea of Polygroup and Masking.
6. Make sure M/RGB/MRGB isn't on when you don't want em.
7. For most brushes, always tone down the ZIntensity.
Now, regarding the model, I think the knees are quite ok. They just need to be reshaped, and add support structure/half loops to nicely bend. For her butt, I do agree a rework will help you.
Ok, now if I remember, tomorrow I will find sometimes to work on this Bunny.
Finally got around to complete the retopo and fix it somewhat.
Final full character sitting at 12225 Tris. Will start baking today/tomorrow and setup basic texturing, then i'll probably retopo the sword before going on with the textures.
Nice progress everyone!
@stevenson89: may I ask what matcap are you using on your character? also the latest hair looks much better and fits the stile more!
@naturon: Id make your eyes smaller, try out by going reeally smaller and gradually make them larger till they look right.
@Bacn: With the face id suggest a lower/longer nose and a wider mouth, bit just a small amount.
Unwrapping/Baking is over! time for some texturing fun
Nice low poly Fnitrox. I'm still a little weird about your forearms though.
I finished unwrapping and baking today. Now to move onto the texture phase!
@PyrZern: Good to hear I'm not the only one who thinks the UI is painful to look at. I'll take all the advice you gave and look into these plugins, any tutorial recommendations?. Also your last posted model looks great, you definitely captured the face.
@JadeEyePanda: Thanks, and I will push hard on the Zbrush training. Anything you recommend?
@stevston89: The attention to the small details in that sword that make it look just plain badass, nicely done!
So...I have a base coat on the models, nothing special. Took me quite a while to burn out the AOs and I will probably run another AO pass on the Low poly so i have the shadows from the cloth on the body. I haven't added the Alpha channel yet on either model. That will probably be next. I need to inflate the hair up to give it some volume. Lost some size in the topo. oh yeah, need to do some gradiants too.
Cheers!
Taken her into zbrush to polypaint. I have a horrid suspicion that now she is in zbrush I am going to add a normal map too...
A question for those who start in Zbrush and retopologise; do you use just remesher, or do you take lower division/remeshed into maya/max etc to work on?
I have tried exporting models to maya from Zbrush but if I fiddle too much in maya and try to re-import to lowest division, the higher divisions go bonkers. (I always say yes to transfer of topology or whatever it asks). Can anyone help? Although I have a horrid suspicion you are going to say that I need to do the store MT and re-project stuff, which I have not learnt yet but probably should….
I always start in zbrush unless i'm using a blank.
Hope that helps a bit.
Got a first pass on the textures, just basic baked polypaint a tiny bit of directional lighting and normals. No AO and probably won't bake it.
Hairs are not baked yet, as I'm still deciding if I'll bake them or just remodel hair strips... leaning more on baking atm.
on the Zbrush topic: For my high polies i rarely get out of zbrush. Since the release of R6 you have all the tools you need to keep working in zbrush with dynameshes and Zremesher. For lowpoly that's a complete different matter. You need proper topology and not just sculptable geometry.
@AllyAlbon depends on workflow. If I make a base mesh to work from I try to keep that all the way through. Saves time with retopo at the end but takes longer to start. If I use dynamesh I usually retopo using zremesher or topogun once I am happy with the forms then add all the detail in the clean mesh. Makes the file much lighter.
Haven't had much time to work on this lately, but I finished the sculpt and started retopo today.
Still a lot to do, but here's where she's at.