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Paul-Improvement Thread Doing some VFX! Critiques welcome

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  • AgelosAp
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    AgelosAp polycounter
    Hey @pmiller001, thanks for getting in touch! You should aim higher than my female Illidan though, haha!
    Alright I did a quick paintover, but I think I can help some more if you provide ortho views & without clothing, and the concept you are working from? Removing the background gradient is also a good thing to help you see better.
    1) relax knee pose, it's on the extreme stretch now and makes for awkward positioning.
    2) Arms muscles need defining, also it's evident on these and throughout that you are working on a high subdivision for building mass which results in messy surface, go down a few subdivs and build there.
    3) elbows are too low
    4) clothing has some convenient but unrealistic bends. When working in 3d some things happen one way by default but they aren't right as a result, for instance the small piece sticking out on here chest brace(under the collarbone).
    5) for blizz style the ropes and some other pieces are too thin, my Illidan has the same problem in places, that's why I want to see your concept references here as well.

  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth
    Hey @AgelosAp ! thanks for taking the time to do that. I i really appreciate it. 
    Today i've gotten to approach the anatomy based on what you've said. I haven't done the other things yet, I'm getting to that now, but i wanted to get an ortho out now so you could see themodel better. 



    edit, had to remove the background!
  • pmiller001
  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth
    I forgot I didnt post my reference before, This is basically the reference sheet i'm using, there are a BUNCH more images on my Purereference canvas. These are the hits though, the main ones i keep going back to. 

  • AgelosAp
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    AgelosAp polycounter
    Thanks @pmiller001
    these screens helped get a better idea.
    Nice work so far, your ref sheet is good, but also has a pitfall that there isn't a central piece being followed from what I gather.
    -1) Edges on armor are sharp, maybe you are keeping it like that for the editing phase, final should be rounded off and apply some damage to corners etc.
    0) The hip armor should rest lower, doesn't look naturally affected by gravity/holding on to her body
    1) If the horns come from the headdress (as I think is on the concept), then the forehead piece should be bigger. Also horn shape should be simplified.
    2) you could go for a more troll hair style, mohawk to the back and perhaps some "little ponytails" in front of her ears? (don't know how they are called sorry!)
    3) Shoulders should be scaled up a tough and pushed outwards, also change spikes to straighter shape.
    4) You could stitch the chest armor to that ring for it to seem more functional.
    5) Simplify the bandage.
    6) A little more shape on her forearm.
    7) This part is huge, and she wouldn't be able to animate both her feet or her stomach I think. Spike shape applies here as well.

  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth
    I totally saw what you meant on the crotch cover, it looks way better, and more functional when its smaller. Thank you so much for the paint over. Here are the changes i made 


    Did i hit everything? 
    also there are two Front and back shots, because one is in ortho and one is in  perspective.
    I tried to do the thing, you mentioned about the hair. However I ran into a few problems. I'm not really sure how to go about it, but since i'm going to end up doing hair cards, I figured it was just important to get the clumps kinda lined up so I know where to put my hair cards for later. Do you think thats a proper way to go about it? Also I went ahead and made the bracer bigger too in addition to all the other changes. I figured that'd look better since we were doing that all around the model anyways. 
    As for damage and rounding things off. Yeah I had planned on saving that for later, I didnt think it was going to be super difficult to do, so i thought that could wait till last. 
    What do you think ? @AgelosAp


  • AgelosAp
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    AgelosAp polycounter
    Nice progress!
    Hair- The rough shape you got is totally ok if you are going to go over it with hair cards, my suggestion was more to the fact that her hair is kind of small compared to usual troll hair which is wild and flying off more.
    Damage- Yeap that's one of the easy parts!
    Things missed- Pulling out the shoulders, lowering the hip armor position, making the hip armor spikes the same as shoulders.
    ps- You may also want to check out her thigh size, I think it might be a little too thick compared to WoW trolls, which seem more nimble.
    Looking forward to the next progress shot!!
  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth


    another update.
    -SO when you said scale the shoulders up, I took it you meant make her shoulders more broad right? to make her look stronger? Thats what I ened up doing. I think she looks way more powerful this way. 
    -I went ahead and lowered the "armor" around her waist as well, I had to move a few things around in the proces. 
    - I also went ahead and added some wrinkles, I'm not too sold on them yet, so this is jsut the first pass.

    I wanted to add some kind of feather to the edges of her loin cloth, her headress and some of her shirt (bra?). I thought that would look rad. Just feathers all around really. I figured I could do that when i'm placing hair cards though. What do you think? @AgelosAp

    Note: I was thinking about the thighs, but I like them thick like that. If you think it goes too against the grain I'll change it, but I'd rather keep it. I think she stands out more, with more muscle than your average female troll. Idk, what do you think? 

  • AgelosAp
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    AgelosAp polycounter
    Shaping up nicely!
    For the shoulders if you see at the area next to "3" on my paintover I had also rotated the shoulderpad outwards.
    I like the details you added on her chest strap, the skirt piece wrinkles look wrong though, they should flow downwards I think, got any ref for that?
    Thick thighs together with a few facial features make her lean towards the orc side, which are more pudgy. In of itself it looks alright though, just a thing to keep in mind. Of course color will sell it as a troll as well.
    ps- you may wanna take a look at her knee-pads, they are only covering her shins, while on most concepts there is either a separate piece for the knee or it goes up to it.
    Keep it up man! I hope my feedback is helping and I'm not being too strict, I'm a bit busy so I might not be editing myself as much, haha!
  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth
    Oh wow I hadn't even noticed the knees, nor had I noticed you rotated the shoulder pads. I should pay more attention .Thanks for that!
    For the skirt pieces. I wasn't using reference on that, I was trying to see if I could come up with some random cool shapes. I'm definitely going to be  using reference for when i get serious. 
    The more i see it, I realize what you're saying about the thighs being a bit too thick. I"m going to have a go at that tonight to see what i can do to subdue it. Maybe really trolify her face too. 
    But seriously, the knees. I think i have a few ideas on what to do for that, really nice catch. 

    All in all , thanks @AgelosAp ! your feedback has helped me really push this thing further. So yeah I appreciate all the time you've taken thus far. no worries about being to busy i TOTALLy understand it. 
  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth


    So I went ahead and slimmed down the thighs. Not too much though. I also enlarged the shin guards. I guess tommorow I'll make a kneed pad type deal for them. I also added some extra detail to the cloth bits as well. As well as rotated the shouldeer Pads. 
    I dont know if its too early but I'd like to start messing with the haircards soon. THeres a few things i want to try out. 
  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth


    just detailing in this one. 
    -still work to do damaging the edges. I'm trying to place them intelligently instead of just random. I think it'll come out better that way. I"m thinking i want to detail the rope too but i'm not sure what thats going to end up doing. 
  • pmiller001
  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth



    I wasnt able to post more shots yet due to some ISP problems at home. WIll update more later
  • AgelosAp
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    AgelosAp polycounter
    Hey man, nice progress!
    I like the details on the armor pieces. You could do a few of them bigger scale, so they are readable from further away, right now it seems like you have mostly medium to small scale detail.
    Hair blockout looks nice, might be that the diffuse is too flat? You can post your maps for them if you want.
  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth
    AgelosAp said:
    Hey man, nice progress!
    I like the details on the armor pieces. You could do a few of them bigger scale, so they are readable from further away, right now it seems like you have mostly medium to small scale detail.
    Hair blockout looks nice, might be that the diffuse is too flat? You can post your maps for them if you want.
    I feel like I keep making things too small haha. Thank you for the comment on the armor details, I'm gonna go back and attack that tonight. 
    I'll have to post the hair maps when i get home! i've never done it to this level before so i'm wingin it. 
    DO you think i should paint the individual strands? Right now the way I have it is a gradient from Dark purple to not so dark purple
  • AgelosAp
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    AgelosAp polycounter
    Yup, I think so, here's my rogue's hair diffuse to give you a better idea.


  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth
    AgelosAp said:
    Yup, I think so, here's my rogue's hair diffuse to give you a better idea.


    OH. Those are some sleek lookin' textures. I figure i'll do taht in layers from "darkest" to "lightest" Using solid colors and masks.. and, then mask away an parts I do/dont need. Howd you go about doing these? 
  • AgelosAp
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    AgelosAp polycounter
    Yeah you got the gist of it, here are my layers, a height map bake is excellent for this. I did these bakes through handplane, can't remember exactly why but I think it gave better results compared to Substance (marmoset didn't have a baker yet then).


  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth
    Ok my hair texture slook nothing like that. i think i'll have to go back and fix them haha. I've been silent fo rawhile cause i've been working on retopo and baking it. This is where i'm at so far, in addition to the first pass at texturing this clown. I'm trying to use unreal exlusively. Cause I know i can make things look decent in marmoset. Also Modo's unreal bridge, as well as Substance's live link to unreal, really made me want to use those tools. 

    I"m trying to paint just the diffuse now, but i'm not sure if thats working....I figured thats what you did on the Blood Elf rogue @AgelosAp






  • pmiller001
  • AgelosAp
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    AgelosAp polycounter
    I think your previous iteration looked better, mainly due to the skin color, but it seems like you have a strong lighting problem here(?).
    Could you post a screen from substance painter with a rather flat HDRI active?
  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth
    hey @AgelosAp
    Yeah i'll have to do that when i get home. I'm pretty sure our hours dont intersect haha. I had shown someone else that last post and they said the same thing. This is what i came up with last night. 




    I was told to focus on getting a good amount of information into the diffuse map,as well as the roughness map. ANd also to add a fresnel to make the skin pop (i did the fresnel in unreal. I'm not sure if you can do it anywhere else).

    I"ll post those flat images tonight so you can see them, as well as the hair, but i'm positive i'm going to redo the hair, because after seeing yours, mine looks janky haha. 


    edit: are you saying her skin should look way more blue? 
  • AgelosAp
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    AgelosAp polycounter
    Yeah, I think the blue skin read better, and also contributed to her looking more troll-ish rather than orc-ish(maybe it's only me that's getting that feeling though).
    It's ok to have some hand-painted info in the diffuse but remember that since you are going for a pbr material, you shouldn't overdo it and have strong light values in there. I see some very dark areas around the model that's why I asked for the flatter lighting as well.
    Keep going man, I see you are making a big effort here glad to give whatever help I can!
  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth
    Man i gotta say i appreciate all of your help.
    When yous ay stronglight values are you talkin, highlights in the diffuse orr, what do you mean by that? And are the dark areas too dark? i'lll postup the things you asked for tonight? 
  • Brian "Panda" Choi
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    Brian "Panda" Choi high dynamic range
    Are you punching in color zones of the body?

    I've got some ref if you need it.
  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth
    Are you punching in color zones of the body?

    I've got some ref if you need it.
    I'm not actually. Yeah i'd really appreciate it. I saw you shared something like awhile ago another thread, but iforgot what it was, or what to even google to find it. 
  • pmiller001
  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth
    those Last images are straight out of substance these are from unreal. been kinda crunched lately but I'll provide more explanation later. 8
  • AgelosAp
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    AgelosAp polycounter
    Yeah your substance previews read better because there aren't any super dark areas, you should add more lights in UE4 as well so you eliminate that(sides of shoulder pads for instance are black and many other areas).
    As for the materials, definitely change the green metal on her wristband it just blends weirdly with her skin! For the rest of your metal pieces, they look just super clean and polished, you can increase the roughness and add some wear and tear.
    Then it seems like you have some baking issues with seams showing, did you use different smoothing groups for each UV island? What software did you bake this in?
  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth
    Hey dude, thanks for getting back to me, to address your statements in order
    -I added more lights, and jus changed the lighting over all. I had some others mention it too even before you got to it, so i'm guessing it was really bad haha. 
    -I'll get to that wrist band tonight, youere totally right. right now i'm trying to do a gold like thing, but i'm really not sure what to do with it. I guess i can start with more dirt?
    -I'm using substance painter to bake it. I was hoping not to have any baking issues! :O. Right now they should all be using one smoothing group. I smoothed all the normals in Modo (program i'm using) but i'll take a gander at that again. Here's my update since last night



  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth

     Still posting stuff in Modo and bringing it over to Unreal. I"m figuring out a better way to present this, I'll probably have it more done by tonight, but in the mean time I wanted to share. There were , sand still a few problems i want to fix, but i think i'm reachignm y personal end on this thing, cause its taking way too long at this point. haha




  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth
    Got some critiques on this from some others, to mainly address the following
    Gradients;
    Desaturate the bottom  some more, so the eyes travel towards the head. Makes the ehad the focus
    highlights
    Paint in some more highlights
    AO:
    Paint in some AO and some more darkspots. 




  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth
    Finally getting a chance to start something new. I'm going to do a prop this time, instead of something thats going to take 5+ weeks. #treat yo self.
    Nothing crazy right now, Just pushing and pulling to get those forms, and focusing on the skull right now.


  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth


    Starting to add details, and some extra stuff. I got a tip from a character artist at Hi rez, about the silhouette, Really trying to push the details on the silhouette. I think as i get closer to the end i'll start adding some stitches and screws to show how the cloth is nailed into the skull.
    Can i Get some thoughts? 
  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth


    Injured my hand this weekend, so i didnt get much work don on this. Also i think i might have made a mistake in making the eyesockets black. I was trying to make them seem like they were empty or something hahha.
  • pmiller001
  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth


    So the bottom one was done in Iray (Substance Painter) and the top one was done in Unreal. I want to make the top one look like the bottom one, but i'm not sure how to go about that.  I'm fairly certain i can figure it out, but the one thing thats giving me isues is , how do imake a shadowcatcher in Unreal? Is that even possible? Its gotta be. 
  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth
    been workignin the material editor for Unreal, and learning some VFX while i'm at it. Stuff is really fun. 


  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth



    Trying to figure out how to do in explosions in Unreal. Having never donet his before, its very difficult but ultimately very gratifying in the end.   The thing I'm having the most trouble with is getting exactly what I want, and what controls I want in the material editor. I"m sure thats a thing that'll come with time, but right now its is holy crap frustrating not knowing exactly what to do. But that's ok. I didnt start out GREAT at modeling So. 
  • pmiller001
  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth


    Cartoon explosions! I was trying to do thish fire technique that I saw in a tal about the FX for that game "RIMe" and I thought, hey I might be able to make a sweet explosion with the material I already have. 
    a few notes
    -the fire shape stays the same for too long
    a little more color varaition would be cool
    -I dont know why the camera is adjusting but i hate it. 
    just an fyi, the rings have a random rotation everytime it explodes, but this is just a gif so its hard to tell. 
  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth
  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth


    Also made this muzzle Flash! Tried to make a stylized one in the same vain as Borderlands, but uhh. It need ssome work :/
  • Brian "Panda" Choi
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    Brian "Panda" Choi high dynamic range
    I'd waant more parabolic travel on the sparks.  I think the muzzle flash "frame rate" would workk if the rest of the game exhibited the same choppiness.
  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth
    When you say parabolic travel? Do you mean more of an arc? 
    And for the muzzle flash, i think i understand. YOure saying it should have more frames then? 
  • Brian "Panda" Choi
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    Brian "Panda" Choi high dynamic range
    Yes, and yes given the rest of the game's speed.
  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth
    Ah i see, yeah. i'm gonna have to try somethign different with the muzzle flash, i thinkas it is its too saturated. :/ . and not transparent enough. Does that make sense? 
  • pmiller001
  • pmiller001
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    pmiller001 greentooth

    So iupdated the gun shot by reducing the life on each particle, adn changing the color of the impact ring, as well as the way the sparks spray out. But i'm fraid its not super noticeable :O 

    I also made this laser to see if i coudl use everything ive learned as well as break down some vfx i found. 


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