@ PyrZern - I would really recommend putting your sword on a separate texture. You are going to destroy any detail on it by putting it at that resolution. Give the fur a lot less texture space. Remember you want the large/ more detailed things to take up the most space. Also you need to use your space better. If you have extra space it means you have the ability to give your piece more resolution. You don't want large empty areas.
@PyrZern: in addition to stevson's comments on the UV layout, I also think you have the face way oversized. The body will need a decent amount of texel resolution for the blue tattos, while the face really won't need that much more. And to echo what stevson said about the empty space, you really have too much of it in between the "clumps" of islands.
If you want an easy way of keeping your different uv areas straight, use a color mask. I make mine in zbrush by importing the obj, separating the different parts into their own ploygroups (like hair, body, top, skirt etc), then go through and use polypaint to give each group its own unique, bright color that's easily recognizable. Then I use the Multi-map exporter plugin to export a diffuse map (with maybe 4-12 px of padding depending on map size) and use that in photoshop to quickly select different regions of the map, which makes it nice and easy to set up masked folders as well as the initial combining of maps from an exploded bake.
And finally, a crappy wireframe render of my lowpoly. I got the uvs partially done, just need to finish a couple bits then go through and adjust everything. After that will be initial AO bake (no normals on this one) then final mesh adjustment for proportion, cleanness and clipping. Oh and then there's the damn sword I need to finish...
sitting at about 10k tris atm, which was my rough target. I'll probably end up reducing some areas just for consistency and to avoid wasted faces.
Hey guys! I'm a little late to this challenge since I just saw it. I started in Zbrush and am trying to get the proportions and shapes right. I have no idea how I'm going to do the boot laces when the time comes so any suggestions on that would help.
As for some crits:
@Pav3d
Looks great man! The one thing that jumps out at me the most is that the face looks a bit more masculine than in the concept.
@Rafferty_Eggleston
I think the head could be a bit rounder, maybe it would look better with hair tho. Also, i feel like there should be a bit more cure in her spine and maybe bulk up where her scapulae would be a bit.
@jeebs
Nice work man! I had to look at the picture a few times to realize it was not the concept picture and actually your model.
@Dimfist
She feels a bit stiff in her pose. Her head seems pretty large too, kinda like its throwing her off balance. The last thing is the fur on her boots feels a little mushy, maybe you could try to define the tufts a bit more? The face looks pretty good tho!
@Domenico92
Good start. The face looks a little flat and I think you might want to check to make sure the legs and loincloth thing. I really like the fur on the boots tho, it has a lot of character.
@stevston89 Thanks man. I guess I will give the sword its own UV. Maybe 512 x 512 for it ?
@atomicguppy Come on in and join us ;P Can't wait to see more. I think she looks a little too tough at this point.
@arcitecht I just realized I barely understood the process you just described O o'. I mean, I make sculpt projs. and I make standalone lowpoly projs. But I barely get to bring sculpt to lowpoly. Explode Bake. Is that what I think it is ?
Report: I get bad baking from around her hands and fingers, most likely from seams. Half of the furs come out quite nicely. The other half are so bad. Her hairs come out fine. Gotta fix some topology around her lips.
Gotta work more on it.
No rest for the wicked ;P
Right that's what I meant pyrzern, just baking out all the different parts separately in a program like xnormal, then combining all the normal maps together, as opposed to baking all the parts in one go.
Ok good new is I more or so finished body and face. Please have a look and warn about anything I missed people.
So the bad news is... I missed something around eye so that I can't fit a sphere no matter what. Can I morph it a little so that it can fit ? How did you guys do ? A wire frame would be excellent.
I finally had some time to work on this again, haven't touched the hands yet and I believe the torso should maybe be longer. here's my progress :
for the sword I used stevston89's image as reference.
awesome work to everyone! TAN: nice start, about the eye I would probably resculpt the area around the eye to make it fit around the sphere. I also think the arms might be a bit too short.
AtomicGuppy: You may have gone up too high sub-d too soon as it seems a bit lumpy.
Terminator2: Looking like you have prorgressed qyite a bit. Your take on the face is very human but its cute.
Tan: Can't wait to see more progress!
Arcitecht: your low poly looks pretty solid so far.
PyrZern: You don't have actually explode your model. You can detach each piece into it's own object without affecting the transforms. If you move the pieces they will not bake correctly because the objs from zbrush will have different coordinates.
@arcitecht, thanks! I will look more into Xnormal. @TAN, thanks for the link. I guess I will use more texture.
For her eyes and eye sockets, make sure the eyeball is at the right size and placed at appropriately, then just build the shape/form of eyelids around it.
@Terminator2, I don't think the torso should be longer, I think her forearms and legs are a tad too long. Not too sure on this. Check with 7-8 head heights.
@Dimfist, I import lowpoly into zbrush, set the subtools to match the highres tool's subtools, they both explode the same. But I will look more into it. Thanks !
So I took the feedback from you guys to heart and I think it was a big improvement. I shrunk her head a bit, con-caved the ears some and reworked the textures.
@ Dimfist - Nice update. Looks much better. Not sold on the glow on the sword though.
@ Terminator2 - Good start. I would recommend turning down your subdivisions and smooth out the lumpiness. Proportions are looking good, but the head is a bit big though. Thanks for using my sword as ref
@ TAN - Looking nice. It's hard to tell what's going on with that matcap though. Try out basicmaterial or matcap gray. It looks like it might be a bit lumpy, drop your subdivisions and smooth it out.
@ Domenico92 - Looks better. I think the legs are still too long though.
So I finally finished retopo. The model is sitting at 27k tris. Will start unwrap and bake. Hoping to be done with the bake tomorrow, probably won't be done until thursday. Anyways here is a screen. Keep up the good work everyone!
@atomicguppy - Might want to try slimming her down a good deal. Maybe keep an eye on the knees and forearms so that they don't stay too sharp. For the boots I just made a separate mesh and subsurfed it. Would have sculpted it a little after that if it wasn't so small. Best of luck catching up!
@Domenico92 - I think the legs are a little long, too. I'd say just pull the bottom of the torso down farther. Also, the forearms could use some puffing up.
@Terminator2 - Longer torso might help, but it looks pretty close as it is. Very nice sculpt, though! Hope those claws come out well!
@Dimfist - The color change from the upper to lower arm looks a bit unnatural. Also it looks like she's coming down with a mild case of hoverhand!
I swear, I'm going to model soooooo many boots when I'm done with this.
@Dimfist; Looking good! If I had to critique it, there's a little too much blue and red accent in her bra and fur for my taste.
@Bacn: Her ears are looking a little misshapen. Try rounding out the bottoms a bit more. Your image is also really noisy (are you using Blender Cycles?)
Added in some of those other random accessories like the armband, shoelaces, metal bell thing. Working on some basic fold structure for her clothes. Also redid my hair with tubes since I didn't like sculpting it out of a single mesh. ...Still so much to do!
@dimfist, she looks quite happy. And her face appears a little too wide. I think it's her jawline.
@stevston89, very solid topology. So clean I hope it comes out well.
@Bacn, why is it grainy/pixelated O o' Might want to relax her claws a bit. It looks like she has very short crotch, the way her skirt appears.
@darkmag07, so far so good. Can't wait when you finish her face. Her calf appears quite thick.
---
Okay, so, I'm like pulling my hairs now <_<"
I separated head and hair from her body. Will talk about her sword later.
Got quite a few artifacts.
-- Dunno why, her shoulder pad is totally ruined... for such a simple shape. Maybe not enough geo to support the curvature.
-- Maybe same for her top and her skirt in the back.
-- Her arm wraps, as well as the shoelaces, are totally destroyed. It was a subtool floating on another subtool. Should I have dynamesh them into 1 solid piece ? (dynamesh arm wraps to the body, dynamesh shoelaces to her boots ?)
-- Worst of all, it's her face... It's OFF! The baked details are higher than the lowpoly by 1 centimeter O o' How is that possible.
PyrZern -- It looks like your baking cage may be smaller than your sculpt, which is possibly causing the clipping. Did you change your lowpoly UV's and then use an old version of the model for the bake? Maybe the UVs were moved, which caused the face offset?
Still chugging away at this character and trying to hit the deadline. I tried to slim her down a bit like @bacn suggested. I also tried to make her lok less "tough"
Anyway, it looks like you guys have all been working pretty hard too
@tan: I would just re sculpt the eye socket around the eyeball. I try to never get too attached to my eyes because I usually end up sculpting them like 3 or 4 times before I'm done.
@Terminator2: Looks pretty solid man, the only thing I'm not really sold on is the upper lip. It looks a little "puffy". As far as the torso goes, I might make it a touch longer, but not a lot.
@stevston89: That re-topo looks pretty slick man, all I can really say is keep up the great work.
@bac: Her face feels a little flat, maybe try to pull her cheekbones out a bit more? it might give her face a bit of depth. Also, the ears seem a bit think at the tips, maybe try to make them taper a little bit more.
@darkmag07: Her shoulders seem kinda wide and "stuck on" to her torso rather than flowing out of her torso. A bit more curve to her spine might help a bit too.
@atomicguppy Coming along nicely man !! Her thighs look beefed up especially from sideway. Her ab looks a bit overkill. Lose some weight there, or you can push her hips/crotch more forward. Her face seems flat from sideview. Looking at her chest from the front suggests some boobs there, but it's all flat from the side. Looking good though.
---
Alright, update on my struggling with the baking...
I exported each subtools/lowpolys as separated objs, instead of all exploded in one obj. Then I ditched topogun, and went for xnormal. Seems I made the mistake of having all HiRes in there. But the result is much better. I also had Anti-Alias on, since I read it would help with the armbands and shoelaces.
STILL, is there a way so I don't have to manually bake each matching OJBs one by one ?
Nope and to be honest I usually do one set at a time so that I can see if there are mistakes but that is just my way of doing it.
Still,looks like you are getting some bake shadows, like on the shoulder pad. I would separate those fur tufts from the shoulder pad
@Pyrzern - nope you pretty much wanna bake one by one. Though I think there was a batch baking script made for xnormal. I forget where I saw it. It is somewhere on polycount.
FInished up for this evening by blocking in the sword. ...Forgot that red tassel though.
Before that I spent time going over other areas, mostly the hair and fur tufts. I thinned down her calves as suggested (they had definitely gotten a bit puffed). I also tried to do something to the shoulders to make them more flowing, but I don't know if it worked. I will probably adjust the curvature in her spine later on, since she is pretty stiff (it'd be a bother to combine all my tools and do it now though).
Just wanted to drop by and say thanks for everyone who gave me some feedback a few days ago! A new semester started yesterday so my free time to work and practice 3D modeling has shrunk considerably, but I'm still planning on being active as much as possible. Right now the plan is just to finish the model and actually not look like garbage. I should have new progress shots up tomorrow if nothing goes haywire.
@darkmag07: nice block, Zbrush or mudbox? @pyrzern: That closeup face shot, I just have to say well done again. So much character. @atomicguppy: Really like the hair a lot. @Bacn: Yea I'd say your weak point right now is the boots, but everything else looks really good. @stevston89: Nice. @dimfist: Rock solid my good sir.
@darkmag3d, I hope you use ZBrush. You can use Transpose plugin to temporarily merge all subtools, adjust posture around, and then get back to whatever you are doing before without losing any subdiv.
I just baked everything again. No artifact!! I'm quite pumped, honestly. There are, however, some pixelated areas... I blame the small 1024 texture map, but ultimately my inability to do UV mapping well. Oh, well, next project then. I end up not mirroring any body part either.
She looks 'ok' from distance I suppose.
But zoom in and you go 'awww'
BTW,
someone should start voting thread of next month concept. And I say we make adjustment to the poly/texture size budgets of these proj <_<"
Do you use a checkerboard texture to look for stretching? It really helps. There are many custom made ones and maya and max have a default one. Looks much better though.
Sorry far being late people. I couldn't sleep well yesterday so I decided that instead of making a half baked job while half asleep I shouldn't do it at all.
So here are some new screens. According to feedback from you guys I will correct it and I will skip to other parts. Time is off the essence
I would really like some feedback about the face by the way.
@TAN Better late than never. Good start, I think softening the underside of the elbow will make that area look more natural. I feel like the head is a little bit small, but it could be the lack of hair throwing me off.
I decided I'd get in on this challenge and started a couple of hours ago. Still pretty rough but any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
atomicguppy -- really good progress so far. Glad you jumped in! Right now the proportions are pretty far off of the concept and she is looking a little bit like a dwarf. The dwarfism may be due to her width in the side view being larger than the front view (I had the same issue). I would drop down a few sub-d levels and really get the forms worked out and she won't appear as lumpy. There are some anatomical issues that I see as well. It looks like her stomach is pinched down the center and needs rounded out. There is some weird indents in her bicep and quad. These should be solved pretty easily by dropping down some sub-d's and hitting the form. The flow and form of the fabric is looking good so far, but it is also a little lumpy.
darkmag07 -- I like the flow of your hair and form you have in the ears. I would give the same advice as above and drop down a few sub-ds and really get the form knocked out on your fabric pieces. Her shoulders look a little broad and her hands are pretty large. I feel the shape of her head is a little too spherical or baloon like. I like her nose. It looks as though she may be puckering her lips a little. It is hard to tell the shap of the face with just the front view though!
PyrZern -- A lot better! A better unwrap would help with the pixelation a lot. I usually double my working texture sizes until I'm finished with them. For example, I would bake out your maps at 2048 until you've got them finalized. Then save them out at 1024 / desired file size. Looking forward to seeing some texture progress!
TAN -- Glad you joined in! Her proportions are looking pretty good overall. Her upper arm looks shorter than her forearm. I like how you made her thumb join. That is kind of what I am going for. Her other fingers are a little behind :P Her breasts need a lot of attention. There are som big issues with her upper chest/breast. This link should help with that! I would drop down some sub-d's and really get the form of her face how you want it. There are issues with the corners of her eyes. I don't see her jaw bone running up to where her ear will be either so it kind of looks like a sphere at the moment! Keep it up!
4f6f3b -- Nice progress for a few hours. Glad you joined in! Right now she is looking very boyish. Her shoulders are more broad than her hips. Her brow is a little overpowering right now too and I think that is adding to the masculinity. The fabric so far is looking good. I would possibly break the symmetry though! Where her shoulder connects with her chest in the side view looks a little puffed up. I am really digging her boots!
Here is my progress from today. I need to finish blocking out the other few items I've drawn on the screenshot. I took a few liberties with her hair. I added a little more arch to her back and beefed up her scapula as well as other things that I hope are a little more obvious haha
Keep up the good work people! Looking forward to seeing more.
#Dimfist, yeah, I checked with the grid/checker map. That's after moving some UV around a bit to relax things up.
@TAN, nice progress there. You should really get some hair in fast. It's important since how her hair will behave/interact with her face will affect how she will look. I'd say you get her lips very nice. See if you can make her jawline a bit stronger, without puffing up her cheeks. I think her Glabella should be a bit more flat and wider a tad. She can use rib cage, and hip bones too.
@4f6f3b Glad you join us ^^" I think you got her face a little flattened. And her lips a tad too wide. Her shoulders look very masculine, and I think her ab is too flat as well. Love her skirt, btw !
@Rafferty_Eggleston Love what you do with her hair ! I think you can lengthen her claws a bit. Her knees look quite thin from sideway. I think her feet are too flat, man. And maybe too long, since she has small head. I'd bring her hair in the front down a tad to cover some of her forehead as well. (not sure if that's your plan in the screenshot or not.) If her hips lean that much forward from her heels, I think her upper body should lean back more, especially her head.
- Hair: Will be done tonight at most ( Wil Try Hazardous' approach on this one. I always wanted to try that out so it might take a while)
- Jawline: Please check above
- Glabella: Expanded
- Rib Cage/ Hip Bones: Under Consideration ( She is a cartoonish character and I con not find and interprations of these in reference image. So I just put "a little" defintion which would serve as clues pointing these bones to viewer. I don't want to stray too far from the reference)
Dimfist: Compared to the concept, the scale/proportion of her face looks right to me. I'll take another look when I combine tools.
thepapercut: Neither actually. I'm using 100% Blender. I have access to both, but ZBrush's UI makes me want to hurt things (and crashes all the time because of reasons). I still have a student version of Mudbox but the zoom controls in it like to freak out on me and go way too far out or in. You could always just zoom back... but I guess I never got into it.
PyrZern: That would be a nice feature to have. I'm pretty sure I can combine them without losing anything, but sometimes programs are wonky. (The tufts on the boots got a bunch of pinching artifacts when I combined all the different parts into one object.)
4f6f3b: Her lower torso is looking a little too long to me. Lifting up the hips/knees should help.
Rafferty_Eggleston: I will concede that her hands are probably a bit large, but I think I like them that way. I only have about 2 subdivision levels on any given piece. Can you provide a paint over with the areas you find problematic? (I'm assuming you're talking more about the rear view, since the skirts back there are what seems weakest to me. Some of the strands in her bangs are a bit wavy too, I suppose)
I like the approach you took on her hair.
TAN: I like the bony fingers, but I think they could still use a little more flesh on them.
I also figured out how to get MatCap style renderings working so here are some new renders that might help you see the form in ways that were missing in the previous iterations. (Nothing has been updated yet, other than the material.)
Hm I realized the normals on a few strands of hair and fur tufts, mostly ones I mirrored across the x axis, are pointing inside instead of out. That's going to be a problem when I need to bake, isn't it.
Darkmag07: Yes you need to correct the normals or the rays wont hit anything. I think its looking a lot better but I am telling you, her cranium (the part that houses the brain) is massive on yours. Don't mistake big hair for big cranium. Nice progress though!
Tan: Coming along nice. Good changes you made. The elbows are still wonkey.
Kapoff: Looking pretty good so far. Need more angles to really nail down whats needs or doesn't need improvment.
Rafferty: She's starting to look very nice but you need to shortern her feet up too. Also, the leather pieces do not look like leather. That front drape with the ring in it has definite edges to it so try to represent that somehow.
4F6F: Nice start but I think your proportions are off a bit. Her legs need to be longer and her shoulders are a bit to wide.
Keep it up guys! One more week, you can do it!
Think this was already asked, but never saw an answer. Who is creating the concept thread for next month? I only ask because we should start voting soon.
@stevston89, I think Brandon.LaFrance is the one who starts the thread. PM him, maybe ?
@TAN, I guess that depends on who kinda hair you want. If you want her hair like a sculpture hair, just place duplicate another head, and shape it like hair. If you want hair strands, you can use zsphere to do a retopology on her head in the shape of hair strand, lemme look for a video of that real quick.
@ PyrZern - Bake looks pretty good. Glad you solved most of the issues.
@ TAN - Much easier to see in that matcap. The eyes are looking pretty strange right now. The head looks kinda lumpy still smooth it out. Also the finger are looking thin except for the thumb. The hair method you are trying out can be very very time consuming. I wouldn't recommend it if you wanted to be finished by next week.
@ darkmag07 - Looking good. The face is way too small/ squashed together and the forehead is way too big. Also the hands are really big. I think the shoulder pad might be a tad too large as well.
So I got the low poly all baked out. I am pretty happy with how it turned out, though I had to re-bake most of the pieces due to noise artifacts in the normal map. All good now though testing out some hair stuff in this screen as well. Let me know what you think.
edit - Oh and these are currently 4k textures I plan on sizing them down later.
Steveston: Looking pretty solid. I like what you are doing with the hair. I'll give you some more feedback once you get to texturing. I feel like the eyes might be to wide on the face. It looks, from this pic that they are about 1 1/2 eyes spread apart.
Thanks for all the feedback guys! I'll be back after work tonight with some more critiques and hopefully an update on my own model!
PyrZern -- If you're using xNormal, on the high poly make sure that you don't have 'Ignore per vertex color' checked. When it isn't checked it will bake out the polypaint. But I would keep it checked for baking your other maps.
It is a little older, but I believe you should still be able to follow it. I'm at work so I can't really test it out to make sure. Lemme know if you're able to get it to work!
You can download the image plane plugin for free here
Jeebs - Looks great but I wish you hadn't photosourced so much of the original texture from the concept.
Stevston89 - Great bake! I can't wait to see what you do with the textures.
PyrZern - baking diffuse from ZBrush is pretty easy as it is shown above. I don't know if you really want to bake matcaps though. Sometimes it can work well if you're going for diffuse only as you can set a point light or something and bake them down, but when using normals, spec and gloss I think it would interfere with the lighting wouldn't it?
Anyways, sorry I've been gone for a bit. Been busy with the DOTA2 spring contest and family stuff. I'm under the wire to get this done now and I am currently working on the retopo. I don't know if I'll have enough time to finish out the swrord, but I'll sure as hell try. This is the final sculpt I'm rolling with in ZBrush.
Replies
If you want an easy way of keeping your different uv areas straight, use a color mask. I make mine in zbrush by importing the obj, separating the different parts into their own ploygroups (like hair, body, top, skirt etc), then go through and use polypaint to give each group its own unique, bright color that's easily recognizable. Then I use the Multi-map exporter plugin to export a diffuse map (with maybe 4-12 px of padding depending on map size) and use that in photoshop to quickly select different regions of the map, which makes it nice and easy to set up masked folders as well as the initial combining of maps from an exploded bake.
And finally, a crappy wireframe render of my lowpoly. I got the uvs partially done, just need to finish a couple bits then go through and adjust everything. After that will be initial AO bake (no normals on this one) then final mesh adjustment for proportion, cleanness and clipping. Oh and then there's the damn sword I need to finish...
sitting at about 10k tris atm, which was my rough target. I'll probably end up reducing some areas just for consistency and to avoid wasted faces.
As for some crits:
@Pav3d
Looks great man! The one thing that jumps out at me the most is that the face looks a bit more masculine than in the concept.
@Rafferty_Eggleston
I think the head could be a bit rounder, maybe it would look better with hair tho. Also, i feel like there should be a bit more cure in her spine and maybe bulk up where her scapulae would be a bit.
@jeebs
Nice work man! I had to look at the picture a few times to realize it was not the concept picture and actually your model.
@Dimfist
She feels a bit stiff in her pose. Her head seems pretty large too, kinda like its throwing her off balance. The last thing is the fur on her boots feels a little mushy, maybe you could try to define the tufts a bit more? The face looks pretty good tho!
@Domenico92
Good start. The face looks a little flat and I think you might want to check to make sure the legs and loincloth thing. I really like the fur on the boots tho, it has a lot of character.
@atomicguppy Come on in and join us ;P Can't wait to see more. I think she looks a little too tough at this point.
@arcitecht I just realized I barely understood the process you just described O o'. I mean, I make sculpt projs. and I make standalone lowpoly projs. But I barely get to bring sculpt to lowpoly. Explode Bake. Is that what I think it is ?
Report: I get bad baking from around her hands and fingers, most likely from seams. Half of the furs come out quite nicely. The other half are so bad. Her hairs come out fine. Gotta fix some topology around her lips.
Gotta work more on it.
No rest for the wicked ;P
http://hyperdivine.blogspot.com.tr/2013/01/goose-sci-fi-trooper-pilot.html
For example I am making:
- 1024 Body
- 512 Face + Hair
- 1024 Weapon
Ok good new is I more or so finished body and face. Please have a look and warn about anything I missed people.
So the bad news is... I missed something around eye so that I can't fit a sphere no matter what. Can I morph it a little so that it can fit ? How did you guys do ? A wire frame would be excellent.
I love how he takes it so seriously, lol XD
for the sword I used stevston89's image as reference.
awesome work to everyone!
TAN: nice start, about the eye I would probably resculpt the area around the eye to make it fit around the sphere. I also think the arms might be a bit too short.
Terminator2: Looking like you have prorgressed qyite a bit. Your take on the face is very human but its cute.
Tan: Can't wait to see more progress!
Arcitecht: your low poly looks pretty solid so far.
PyrZern: You don't have actually explode your model. You can detach each piece into it's own object without affecting the transforms. If you move the pieces they will not bake correctly because the objs from zbrush will have different coordinates.
@TAN, thanks for the link. I guess I will use more texture.
For her eyes and eye sockets, make sure the eyeball is at the right size and placed at appropriately, then just build the shape/form of eyelids around it.
@Terminator2, I don't think the torso should be longer, I think her forearms and legs are a tad too long. Not too sure on this. Check with 7-8 head heights.
@Dimfist, I import lowpoly into zbrush, set the subtools to match the highres tool's subtools, they both explode the same. But I will look more into it. Thanks !
@ Terminator2 - Good start. I would recommend turning down your subdivisions and smooth out the lumpiness. Proportions are looking good, but the head is a bit big though. Thanks for using my sword as ref
@ TAN - Looking nice. It's hard to tell what's going on with that matcap though. Try out basicmaterial or matcap gray. It looks like it might be a bit lumpy, drop your subdivisions and smooth it out.
@ Domenico92 - Looks better. I think the legs are still too long though.
So I finally finished retopo. The model is sitting at 27k tris. Will start unwrap and bake. Hoping to be done with the bake tomorrow, probably won't be done until thursday. Anyways here is a screen. Keep up the good work everyone!
@Domenico92 - I think the legs are a little long, too. I'd say just pull the bottom of the torso down farther. Also, the forearms could use some puffing up.
@Terminator2 - Longer torso might help, but it looks pretty close as it is. Very nice sculpt, though! Hope those claws come out well!
@Dimfist - The color change from the upper to lower arm looks a bit unnatural. Also it looks like she's coming down with a mild case of hoverhand!
I swear, I'm going to model soooooo many boots when I'm done with this.
@Bacn: Her ears are looking a little misshapen. Try rounding out the bottoms a bit more. Your image is also really noisy (are you using Blender Cycles?)
@Stevenson89: Looking good on the retopology!
Added in some of those other random accessories like the armband, shoelaces, metal bell thing. Working on some basic fold structure for her clothes. Also redid my hair with tubes since I didn't like sculpting it out of a single mesh. ...Still so much to do!
@stevston89, very solid topology. So clean
@Bacn, why is it grainy/pixelated O o' Might want to relax her claws a bit. It looks like she has very short crotch, the way her skirt appears.
@darkmag07, so far so good. Can't wait when you finish her face. Her calf appears quite thick.
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Okay, so, I'm like pulling my hairs now <_<"
I separated head and hair from her body. Will talk about her sword later.
Got quite a few artifacts.
-- Dunno why, her shoulder pad is totally ruined... for such a simple shape. Maybe not enough geo to support the curvature.
-- Maybe same for her top and her skirt in the back.
-- Her arm wraps, as well as the shoelaces, are totally destroyed. It was a subtool floating on another subtool. Should I have dynamesh them into 1 solid piece ? (dynamesh arm wraps to the body, dynamesh shoelaces to her boots ?)
-- Worst of all, it's her face... It's OFF! The baked details are higher than the lowpoly by 1 centimeter O o' How is that possible.
Yeah, not gonna move it anymore.
Lemme clean things up a bit and I will get back to ya.
Anyway, it looks like you guys have all been working pretty hard too
@tan: I would just re sculpt the eye socket around the eyeball. I try to never get too attached to my eyes because I usually end up sculpting them like 3 or 4 times before I'm done.
@Terminator2: Looks pretty solid man, the only thing I'm not really sold on is the upper lip. It looks a little "puffy". As far as the torso goes, I might make it a touch longer, but not a lot.
@stevston89: That re-topo looks pretty slick man, all I can really say is keep up the great work.
@bac: Her face feels a little flat, maybe try to pull her cheekbones out a bit more? it might give her face a bit of depth. Also, the ears seem a bit think at the tips, maybe try to make them taper a little bit more.
@darkmag07: Her shoulders seem kinda wide and "stuck on" to her torso rather than flowing out of her torso. A bit more curve to her spine might help a bit too.
---
Alright, update on my struggling with the baking...
I exported each subtools/lowpolys as separated objs, instead of all exploded in one obj. Then I ditched topogun, and went for xnormal. Seems I made the mistake of having all HiRes in there. But the result is much better. I also had Anti-Alias on, since I read it would help with the armbands and shoelaces.
STILL, is there a way so I don't have to manually bake each matching OJBs one by one ?
Still,looks like you are getting some bake shadows, like on the shoulder pad. I would separate those fur tufts from the shoulder pad
FInished up for this evening by blocking in the sword. ...Forgot that red tassel though.
Before that I spent time going over other areas, mostly the hair and fur tufts. I thinned down her calves as suggested (they had definitely gotten a bit puffed). I also tried to do something to the shoulders to make them more flowing, but I don't know if it worked. I will probably adjust the curvature in her spine later on, since she is pretty stiff (it'd be a bother to combine all my tools and do it now though).
@darkmag07: nice block, Zbrush or mudbox?
@pyrzern: That closeup face shot, I just have to say well done again. So much character.
@atomicguppy: Really like the hair a lot.
@Bacn: Yea I'd say your weak point right now is the boots, but everything else looks really good.
@stevston89: Nice.
@dimfist: Rock solid my good sir.
@thepapercut, thanks kindly.
---
I just baked everything again. No artifact!! I'm quite pumped, honestly. There are, however, some pixelated areas... I blame the small 1024 texture map, but ultimately my inability to do UV mapping well. Oh, well, next project then. I end up not mirroring any body part either.
She looks 'ok' from distance I suppose.
But zoom in and you go 'awww'
BTW,
someone should start voting thread of next month concept. And I say we make adjustment to the poly/texture size budgets of these proj <_<"
So here are some new screens. According to feedback from you guys I will correct it and I will skip to other parts. Time is off the essence
I would really like some feedback about the face by the way.
Uhm ears. And feedback about the face please.
I decided I'd get in on this challenge and started a couple of hours ago. Still pretty rough but any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
darkmag07 -- I like the flow of your hair and form you have in the ears. I would give the same advice as above and drop down a few sub-ds and really get the form knocked out on your fabric pieces. Her shoulders look a little broad and her hands are pretty large. I feel the shape of her head is a little too spherical or baloon like. I like her nose. It looks as though she may be puckering her lips a little. It is hard to tell the shap of the face with just the front view though!
PyrZern -- A lot better! A better unwrap would help with the pixelation a lot. I usually double my working texture sizes until I'm finished with them. For example, I would bake out your maps at 2048 until you've got them finalized. Then save them out at 1024 / desired file size. Looking forward to seeing some texture progress!
TAN -- Glad you joined in! Her proportions are looking pretty good overall. Her upper arm looks shorter than her forearm. I like how you made her thumb join. That is kind of what I am going for. Her other fingers are a little behind :P Her breasts need a lot of attention. There are som big issues with her upper chest/breast. This link should help with that! I would drop down some sub-d's and really get the form of her face how you want it. There are issues with the corners of her eyes. I don't see her jaw bone running up to where her ear will be either so it kind of looks like a sphere at the moment! Keep it up!
4f6f3b -- Nice progress for a few hours. Glad you joined in! Right now she is looking very boyish. Her shoulders are more broad than her hips. Her brow is a little overpowering right now too and I think that is adding to the masculinity. The fabric so far is looking good. I would possibly break the symmetry though! Where her shoulder connects with her chest in the side view looks a little puffed up. I am really digging her boots!
Here is my progress from today. I need to finish blocking out the other few items I've drawn on the screenshot. I took a few liberties with her hair. I added a little more arch to her back and beefed up her scapula as well as other things that I hope are a little more obvious haha
Keep up the good work people! Looking forward to seeing more.
@TAN, nice progress there. You should really get some hair in fast. It's important since how her hair will behave/interact with her face will affect how she will look. I'd say you get her lips very nice. See if you can make her jawline a bit stronger, without puffing up her cheeks. I think her Glabella should be a bit more flat and wider a tad. She can use rib cage, and hip bones too.
@4f6f3b Glad you join us ^^" I think you got her face a little flattened. And her lips a tad too wide. Her shoulders look very masculine, and I think her ab is too flat as well. Love her skirt, btw !
@Rafferty_Eggleston Love what you do with her hair ! I think you can lengthen her claws a bit. Her knees look quite thin from sideway. I think her feet are too flat, man. And maybe too long, since she has small head. I'd bring her hair in the front down a tad to cover some of her forehead as well. (not sure if that's your plan in the screenshot or not.) If her hips lean that much forward from her heels, I think her upper body should lean back more, especially her head.
Amazing output guys keep it up
Anyway, keep the awesomeness at that level guys! I'll try to catch up. I'm really glad about the proportion that all of this took in the end.
OK so:
@ Rafferty_Eggleston
- Upper/ Lower Arm Ratio: Corrected ( Damn how did I missed that ? )
- Other Finger Details: Done ( I tried to add a more "bony" look to other fingers. May need feedback on this)
- Breasts: Reshped( Normally her breasts would be under her garment so I corrected their shapes according to your reference)
- Eye Sides: Smoothed Out
- Jawline: Defined ( I tried to add a bit more definition to it. Although I really need some reference or feedback on hat)
@ PyrZern
- Hair: Will be done tonight at most ( Wil Try Hazardous' approach on this one. I always wanted to try that out so it might take a while)
- Jawline: Please check above
- Glabella: Expanded
- Rib Cage/ Hip Bones: Under Consideration ( She is a cartoonish character and I con not find and interprations of these in reference image. So I just put "a little" defintion which would serve as clues pointing these bones to viewer. I don't want to stray too far from the reference)
Here are screens:
@ Kapoff Don't give up man. You can still do it.
@ PyrZern Just like PyrZern said; you can really increase resulotion of textures. After you save them lower resulotion.
thepapercut: Neither actually. I'm using 100% Blender. I have access to both, but ZBrush's UI makes me want to hurt things (and crashes all the time because of reasons). I still have a student version of Mudbox but the zoom controls in it like to freak out on me and go way too far out or in. You could always just zoom back... but I guess I never got into it.
PyrZern: That would be a nice feature to have. I'm pretty sure I can combine them without losing anything, but sometimes programs are wonky. (The tufts on the boots got a bunch of pinching artifacts when I combined all the different parts into one object.)
4f6f3b: Her lower torso is looking a little too long to me. Lifting up the hips/knees should help.
Rafferty_Eggleston: I will concede that her hands are probably a bit large, but I think I like them that way. I only have about 2 subdivision levels on any given piece. Can you provide a paint over with the areas you find problematic? (I'm assuming you're talking more about the rear view, since the skirts back there are what seems weakest to me. Some of the strands in her bangs are a bit wavy too, I suppose)
I like the approach you took on her hair.
TAN: I like the bony fingers, but I think they could still use a little more flesh on them.
I also figured out how to get MatCap style renderings working so here are some new renders that might help you see the form in ways that were missing in the previous iterations. (Nothing has been updated yet, other than the material.)
Hm I realized the normals on a few strands of hair and fur tufts, mostly ones I mirrored across the x axis, are pointing inside instead of out. That's going to be a problem when I need to bake, isn't it.
Tan: Coming along nice. Good changes you made. The elbows are still wonkey.
Kapoff: Looking pretty good so far. Need more angles to really nail down whats needs or doesn't need improvment.
Rafferty: She's starting to look very nice but you need to shortern her feet up too. Also, the leather pieces do not look like leather. That front drape with the ring in it has definite edges to it so try to represent that somehow.
4F6F: Nice start but I think your proportions are off a bit. Her legs need to be longer and her shoulders are a bit to wide.
Keep it up guys! One more week, you can do it!
I tried an re started 3 times already.
I am trying to do it this way.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wnxQuksWlL8/UFAqfKmj_GI/AAAAAAAAAQs/n4tskRLdJk0/s1600/Page3.jpg
OK people so far I only have this. I will restart tomorrow. And please give me feedback on this. How do you tin it is going ( about hair I mean)
@ darkmag07
You may try Skin04 Matcap for better results for characters
@TAN, I guess that depends on who kinda hair you want. If you want her hair like a sculpture hair, just place duplicate another head, and shape it like hair. If you want hair strands, you can use zsphere to do a retopology on her head in the shape of hair strand, lemme look for a video of that real quick.
http://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=8bgOLGZWF40
@ TAN - Much easier to see in that matcap. The eyes are looking pretty strange right now. The head looks kinda lumpy still smooth it out. Also the finger are looking thin except for the thumb. The hair method you are trying out can be very very time consuming. I wouldn't recommend it if you wanted to be finished by next week.
@ darkmag07 - Looking good. The face is way too small/ squashed together and the forehead is way too big. Also the hands are really big. I think the shoulder pad might be a tad too large as well.
So I got the low poly all baked out. I am pretty happy with how it turned out, though I had to re-bake most of the pieces due to noise artifacts in the normal map. All good now though testing out some hair stuff in this screen as well. Let me know what you think.
edit - Oh and these are currently 4k textures I plan on sizing them down later.
PyrZern -- If you're using xNormal, on the high poly make sure that you don't have 'Ignore per vertex color' checked. When it isn't checked it will bake out the polypaint. But I would keep it checked for baking your other maps.
Overthunking on youtube does a brief rundown on it that might help [ame="
It is a little older, but I believe you should still be able to follow it. I'm at work so I can't really test it out to make sure. Lemme know if you're able to get it to work!
You can download the image plane plugin for free here
Stevston89 - Great bake! I can't wait to see what you do with the textures.
PyrZern - baking diffuse from ZBrush is pretty easy as it is shown above. I don't know if you really want to bake matcaps though. Sometimes it can work well if you're going for diffuse only as you can set a point light or something and bake them down, but when using normals, spec and gloss I think it would interfere with the lighting wouldn't it?
Anyways, sorry I've been gone for a bit. Been busy with the DOTA2 spring contest and family stuff. I'm under the wire to get this done now and I am currently working on the retopo. I don't know if I'll have enough time to finish out the swrord, but I'll sure as hell try. This is the final sculpt I'm rolling with in ZBrush.