I'm working on the dish concept as well. It seems a popular choice this month. Just starting work on the dish part with some detail left to fill in on the tower. I feel like I'm doing well for time, so I'm thinking of creating an environment scene to position it in.
@TangDao Thank you! The Gnomon video was super helpful, used a bunch of the techniques shown in it to revamp the lighting and get things up to snuff, much happier with where it's at now.
I started to texture this guy and I immediately realized that the mouth was completely wrong, so I'm going to have to start over again . This head is so tricky! Hand painted texturing in this style is really fun though! I feel like my enjoyment of the texturing is going to help push me to fix and finish the model .
@BlakeBiehle I feel like your cheek area is way closer than mine so props to you on that . But I feel like it might be protruding out a little too much. Your overall proportions on the blockout seems to be pretty solid though! I couldn't really find any discrepancies between your model and the concept's body. How are you planning to combine the face mesh and head? Just out of curiosity.
@LowerclassRiot I feel like you need to take another look at the concept again. Maybe trace over it so you can see the height/width ratios of everything. In particular, your model looks as if it is stretched out vertically. Make sure you block everything in and it is correct before you begin modelling grooves and vines! Also, it looks like you smoothed everything out. Make sure you have a solid structure before you begin adding polygons/switch to a smooth view. I agree with @Zedblade in that trying again might help instead of trying to fix what you already have. Don't give up! You can do it! The texturing is the fun part; finish your model properly so you can play around with it !!
Nice choices for the props! Yesterday, I was really just looking for other things on polycount and I accidentally saw this topic. Usually I'm not doing hand painted assets so anyway I will give it, too nice concept to not trying. I will hope using just substance designer for the texturing part. (some mixed tool) For the momentI I did just the blockout for zbrush. I will do an high poly base to have some characterisc/ sufarce details from the concept baked on the maps. 1. one critique for my self ... I'm sure that I spent too much time on the block out phase. New area, new things to consider but I like where is going. I did some small, small changes with some edge and bevels (slight deforamtion) . 2. @momomoonscar you just cover all the critique for the bird models You did a good job, in particular the line of the eye, it was tricky that part. Anyway, I think that you can increase the thickness of the wood pool inside. just a little bit and adding some variation on the top .
Hey guys, decided to get involved with one of the smaller props this time in the hope I'll have time to finish it!
I've run into a few issues with my normals, I can't get it to bake smoothly in xnormal. Is it because my low poly doesn't have enough geometry? Or perhaps it isn't close enough to the high poly? But it seems to not be very smooth even though the high poly model is. I'm using XNormal. I've been messing with it for a long time now, but there are too many reasons why it could be wrong!
Showing low and high poly, and then the normal bake. Did I not unwrap it properly?
Hey guys, decided to get involved with one of the smaller props this time in the hope I'll have time to finish it!
I've run into a few issues with my normals, I can't get it to bake smoothly in xnormal. Is it because my low poly doesn't have enough geometry? Or perhaps it isn't close enough to the high poly? But it seems to not be very smooth even though the high poly model is. I'm using XNormal. I've been messing with it for a long time now, but there are too many reasons why it could be wrong!
Showing low and high poly, and then the normal bake. Did I not unwrap it properly?
Did you try to smooth the face normals of the low poly before exporting?
Hello. This is my first time attempting a 3d art challenge. The prop looks the easiest so I will definitely be doing that one. Here is my work in progress so far. As this is my first challenge, I am not familiar with how to submit finished work.
Hi all! I'm kinda new to this and wanted to give it a try. Thx @polypassion for the perspectiv match introduction. This is the closed I could get my camera setup. I tried to match it with an ue4 character as well. Do you guys think I can start from here?
Hi all! I'm kinda new to this and wanted to give it a try. Thx @polypassion for the perspectiv match introduction. This is the closed I could get my camera setup. I tried to match it with an ue4 character as well. Do you guys think I can start from here?
That perspective is very close, the only thing I'm noticing is that the angle of the wall/ceiling transition on the left is slightly off. But honestly, that's about how far off some of my angles were when I started blocking out my piece, so I'd say you're probably fine. Maybe fiddle with it a bit more, try changing the camera settings as that might be your issue instead of actual geometry inaccuracy. But I'd say most important right now is blocking out the furniture and larger geometry like the ceiling beams, door, etc.
Hi all! First of all, I'd like to thank @alytlebird for his fast reply. I fixed the left side! It was way off. Now, the fun of modeling finally begins.
@cician08 Nice sculpting work, its looking good. The one thing that stands out to me with yours is the little square on the side of his head seems really small in your version where as everything else looks almost exact proportions to the concept. Unless it is intentional, it is a really neat part of the concept and might make it more interesting if it were larger. The arm base looks a bit thick too. I really like your bucket, mouth and backpiece. And Nice call on the Orb brushes, I use mine frequently.
I am having a hard time with the grass. Should I use planes or sculpt it in zbrush with a snakehook. I have never done grass.
I went with Zspheres for the vines. Still need more work but they are there. WIP.
I am slowly but surely plugging away at the hard surface environment. Just finished up the bulk of the structural pieces (walls/floor/ceiling), just got some texture and lightmap issues to sort out. Excited to finally get to a stage where I can focus on props and the fine details!
Well, well, well...... we have some very good progressions here. In particular, it's nice to see quite a few entries on how participants are tackling the Hand Painted totem since that's where I'm going to be spending my time. This little guy has been deceptively difficult, though I'll admit I'm a bit out of practice when it comes to modeling in Maya (something I haven't done in about 10 years).
I've got the rough blockout mostly done. I'm not feeling as confident as I was, since matching the concept art piece by piece is a bit of a challenge if taken too literally. I want to say that my proportions are mostly there, though the perspective matching always throws me for a loop.
I'm hoping to really use this project as an exercise to not only reacquaint myself with using Maya (I normally use Modo), but to see what I can do in Unity (instead of Marmoset) and Substance Designer for material creation for the grass. Additionally, I'll be using Z-Brush and Substance Painter.
Update time. I spent most of the evening sculpting in Brush of the Z! Of course, having not touched ZBrush in about 4 months, I've already forgotten a whole bunch, but I seem to be getting there. Still having to finish the head, I'll probably spend tomorrow doing that and making tweaks to the mesh. I had to already adjust some proportions and what-not. All in all, this has been a fun little project to learn the various software out there.
I've decided to partake in this challenge, this is the first I have taken part in and I have to say I really like these concepts. What do you guys think of this so far? I've changed up the concept on the nose of the satellite a bit and haven't finished the cylinders and such at the top yet but it's a (wip) jewski-bot I'm liking the sculpting you have going, it looks good! can't wait to see it with finished materials!
I've decided to partake in this challenge, this is the first I have taken part in and I have to say I really like these concepts. What do you guys think of this so far? jewski-bot I'm liking the sculpting you have going, it looks good! can't wait to see it with finished materials!
I've decided to partake in this challenge, this is the first I have taken part in and I have to say I really like these concepts. What do you guys think of this so far? jewski-bot I'm liking the sculpting you have going, it looks good! can't wait to see it with finished materials!
Hello everyone! I decided to get started with the totem. I haven't really made anything completely hand-painted, so my personal challenge this time is to finish this prop that way (With some help of a high-res sculpt). @jewski-bot said, , this asset has been more tricky than I expected.
Update Time again! Aside from lacking the vines (which will be added), I'm reasonably happy with where this guy is at, though there are some things I really wish looked better like the nose. I wasn't able to quite sculpt the shape for it so it seems kind of flat. To get the curvature, I might need to extend the beak out a bit more, but I think that wouldn't look right from other camera angles.
In any event, I used Decimation Master to do a quick Unity test render and I like showing the evolution from the Maya Blockout to the ZBrush Sculpt side by side.
Now on to some feedback for my peers....
@fsanin, your low poly base looks good so far and is probably more accurate than mine was. Also, the addition of some of the primary forms early on will probably save you from running into odd quagmires like getting the shape of the nose.
@Toafaloaf, I feel that you've done a very good job capturing the essence of the totem prop and while not an exact copy of the concept art, still manages to offer a fine translation. Your edges are very nice and crisp and I think that they lend themselves well to a cartoon style. I look forward to see how your materials and renders will pan out. As for your final output, you need to have the model rendered in a real time engine such as Unity, Unreal, or Marmoset Toolbag.
@cician08, yours is probably my favorite of the totem entries. Excellent brush work, your surface detail looks amazing with the weathered stone. That's something I still haven't quite got down yet as I have a tendency to cut too deep with the Damian Standard Brush. I really am looking forward to seeing how your final submission will turn out!
@DeathstrokeFTW Hey buddy, that's one of the trickier parts of the mesh for sure. The top part you can use a sphere, and delete the middle and bottom part, and attach it to a cylinder. The disc on the side needs to sink into the main mesh a bit or else it doesn't physically make sense. If you want, I can send you the obj file I created for that piece so you can take a look at it.
For everyone doing this piece, I'd like to stress that this structure is 40+ feet tall. A lot of the details probably shouldn't be normal mapped because of how large they actually are. A lot of the smaller details on the concept image are still a few feet in size, and I don't think this large of detail should be covered by normals.
Hi folks! Lovely progress so far from everyone. I'm a little late to the party but I'm doing the 'bunker' room Here's my progress shots in Unreal. Nothing fancy yet, other than the cloth bakes ^_^
@Thistle Eyyyy, another friend doing the Hard Surface enviro, that makes a whole three of us! Your progress is looking solid so far. Definitely a faithful adaptation of the scene, cloth is looking great. I'm interested about your process with that; did you use Marvelous at all, or just sculpted/painted it in? Also, any plans for what to add to the back wall (behind the camera)?
Hey guys how did you model this part of the tower? I tried it off a cylinder it sort of worked but it didnt look good 
I started with a cylinder for the Base, added a circle for the disc on the side, duplicated and scaled it up for the bigger curves. Deleted the lower verts and bridged between the circles. Added a couple of loop cuts, moved and scaled to get the curves between them.
I'm finishing off straightening out the last of my Uv's. Hope to get onto texturing this weekend. The test bakes I've done so far have come out nicely.
@alytlebird Woo! Proud to be part of the crew :P Thank you!! Cloth is very much the marvelous Marvelous Designer :'D Baked in Marmoset. Created the low poly in Marvelous too. I did have some issues with the AO projection on the bedsheet fold over but nothing a bit of manual painting cant fix The back wall: Im still not 100% sure honestly but I know that I dont want to create a window because, imo, it wouldnt make sense. Ive interpreted the room as a hideout/bunker. Adding more windows would take away that trapped/claustra feeling the concept gives off. I'm thinking of putting stacks of ammo crates against that back wall since there are a few guns littered around.
@Thistle Hey, cool work so far. Something about your hammock isn't sitting right with me. I think where the strings connect to the hammock, that bit should be more relaxed, whereas right now it seems to have something keeping it open.
Hello all! Jumping in here, cool to see so many little totem/fountain guys. I started mine last night, had trouble negotiating the edgeloops for the mouth and nose and making all that work. Slept on it and got him in a good place today.
Here's the first progress shot, worked with a cube, extruded the mouth and worked with the eyebrows to get the rough proportions, then cut it in half and added the eye, which is a 4-quad plane with the edges extruded and bridged in place. Added crease loops afterwards.
And here's where I have the head now. Made the eyes larger and more true to the concept. You can see the eye topology has caused a bit of a "cheekbone" in the smoothing. Once I had the mouth size correct-ish I separated the mouth geometry off so I could add it's own edge loops for that bottom shelf thing.
The top fins are just blocked in, once they're cleaned up it's on to the rest of the body, which I'm hoping will be pretty straightforward. My plan is to have a clean model in Maya, do minimal cracks and chipping (and vines?) in Zbrush, and let the rest of the detail come through the texture--probably Substance Designer but I need to learn Painter, so maybe that too.
@Thistle - Your scene looks great! I was considering doing that one. I think it's definitely some sort of cyberpunk apartment / hideout, I imagined it *really* high up. If you do get rid of the window will you need some other source of "key" light? Excited to see more of it.
My last few days have been focused on texturing some of the paper-based props, redoing a few lightmaps, and diving into vertex painting for the rail system on the walls.
I also looked into gradient-based material variation to make the book colors randomized across a specified scale. (Also happy with the dust on top of the cardboard box!)
Finally, a fun little easter egg for any fellow SCP Foundation readers out there. ^_^
Moving on to computer screens next, then junk food containers!
I made it through and finished the bakes. The garish colours are courtesy of Marmoset I worked on setting out the UV's for this one, I'm really learning that good topology gives much less distortion when unwrapping.
Currently working on the carpets of the bunker room, making fun patterns with JRO's Ornament Alphas. Ive been reading a lot about how to create a realistic rug in UE4 so that it doesnt look like a flat plane. I cant wait to get started on the shader! But for now, trippy patterns ahoy :P
I'm at baking right now and asides from some obvious errors, I think that this is coming out quite well. Things that need to be done are getting proper UV map layouts established (I just automapped) and some cage corrections to make sure everything is properly covered. Also found the geometry only after pushing out the cage, so some more thorough cleaning on that end is in order.
I'm hoping to be completed by this weekend. I still need to take a look at cranking out material making in Substance Designer for the pedestal disk, but I think I should be about 90% finished with the totem itself. I'm very much enjoying just taking my time to really process how the Maya-ZBrush-Substance-Unity pipeline works.
Below are the initial bake-outs from Substance Painter for the normal and ambient occlusion input maps.
It has begun! Texturing in Substance Painter that is.... I might need to rebake at a higher res though as this is only 1K. Noticed some nasty seams,but I'm thinking that it's due to not having proper edge padding.
Replies
On top of that, here's a gif of the security camera's blinking light: https://i.gyazo.com/003f40f4569dde33f82fbb633d5977fd.mp4
I started to texture this guy and I immediately realized that the mouth was completely wrong, so I'm going to have to start over again
@BlakeBiehle
I feel like your cheek area is way closer than mine so props to you on that
@LowerclassRiot
I feel like you need to take another look at the concept again. Maybe trace over it so you can see the height/width ratios of everything. In particular, your model looks as if it is stretched out vertically. Make sure you block everything in and it is correct before you begin modelling grooves and vines! Also, it looks like you smoothed everything out. Make sure you have a solid structure before you begin adding polygons/switch to a smooth view. I agree with @Zedblade in that trying again might help instead of trying to fix what you already have. Don't give up! You can do it! The texturing is the fun part; finish your model properly so you can play around with it
1. one critique for my self ... I'm sure that I spent too much time on the block out phase. New area, new things to consider but I like where is going. I did some small, small changes with some edge and bevels (slight deforamtion) .
2. @momomoonscar you just cover all the critique for the bird models
I've run into a few issues with my normals, I can't get it to bake smoothly in xnormal. Is it because my low poly doesn't have enough geometry? Or perhaps it isn't close enough to the high poly? But it seems to not be very smooth even though the high poly model is. I'm using XNormal. I've been messing with it for a long time now, but there are too many reasons why it could be wrong!
Showing low and high poly, and then the normal bake. Did I not unwrap it properly?
The prop looks the easiest so I will definitely be doing that one.
Here is my work in progress so far.
As this is my first challenge, I am not familiar with how to submit finished work.
That perspective is very close, the only thing I'm noticing is that the angle of the wall/ceiling transition on the left is slightly off. But honestly, that's about how far off some of my angles were when I started blocking out my piece, so I'd say you're probably fine. Maybe fiddle with it a bit more, try changing the camera settings as that might be your issue instead of actual geometry inaccuracy. But I'd say most important right now is blocking out the furniture and larger geometry like the ceiling beams, door, etc.
@Toafaloaf I like your version with the big "hair"
I am having a hard time with the grass. Should I use planes or sculpt it in zbrush with a snakehook. I have never done grass.
I went with Zspheres for the vines. Still need more work but they are there. WIP.
I've got the rough blockout mostly done. I'm not feeling as confident as I was, since matching the concept art piece by piece is a bit of a challenge if taken too literally. I want to say that my proportions are mostly there, though the perspective matching always throws me for a loop.
I'm hoping to really use this project as an exercise to not only reacquaint myself with using Maya (I normally use Modo), but to see what I can do in Unity (instead of Marmoset) and Substance Designer for material creation for the grass. Additionally, I'll be using Z-Brush and Substance Painter.
I've decided to partake in this challenge, this is the first I have taken part in and I have to say I really like these concepts. What do you guys think of this so far? I've changed up the concept on the nose of the satellite a bit and haven't finished the cylinders and such at the top yet but it's a (wip)
jewski-bot I'm liking the sculpting you have going, it looks good! can't wait to see it with finished materials!
@Ashervisalis thanks for the tip, i went ahead and did just that
quick update: here's my take, fully textured and (i hope well) presented, i'll likely post a combination of close ups later
I've decided to partake in this challenge, this is the first I have taken part in and I have to say I really like these concepts. What do you guys think of this so far?
jewski-bot I'm liking the sculpting you have going, it looks good! can't wait to see it with finished materials!
I've decided to partake in this challenge, this is the first I have taken part in and I have to say I really like these concepts. What do you guys think of this so far?
jewski-bot I'm liking the sculpting you have going, it looks good! can't wait to see it with finished materials!
I decided to get started with the totem. I haven't really made anything completely hand-painted, so my personal challenge this time is to finish this prop that way (With some help of a high-res sculpt).
@jewski-bot said, , this asset has been more tricky than I expected.
In any event, I used Decimation Master to do a quick Unity test render and I like showing the evolution from the Maya Blockout to the ZBrush Sculpt side by side.
Now on to some feedback for my peers....
@fsanin, your low poly base looks good so far and is probably more accurate than mine was. Also, the addition of some of the primary forms early on will probably save you from running into odd quagmires like getting the shape of the nose.
@Toafaloaf, I feel that you've done a very good job capturing the essence of the totem prop and while not an exact copy of the concept art, still manages to offer a fine translation. Your edges are very nice and crisp and I think that they lend themselves well to a cartoon style. I look forward to see how your materials and renders will pan out. As for your final output, you need to have the model rendered in a real time engine such as Unity, Unreal, or Marmoset Toolbag.
@cician08, yours is probably my favorite of the totem entries. Excellent brush work, your surface detail looks amazing with the weathered stone. That's something I still haven't quite got down yet as I have a tendency to cut too deep with the Damian Standard Brush. I really am looking forward to seeing how your final submission will turn out!
For everyone doing this piece, I'd like to stress that this structure is 40+ feet tall. A lot of the details probably shouldn't be normal mapped because of how large they actually are. A lot of the smaller details on the concept image are still a few feet in size, and I don't think this large of detail should be covered by normals.
Here's the first progress shot, worked with a cube, extruded the mouth and worked with the eyebrows to get the rough proportions, then cut it in half and added the eye, which is a 4-quad plane with the edges extruded and bridged in place. Added crease loops afterwards.
And here's where I have the head now. Made the eyes larger and more true to the concept. You can see the eye topology has caused a bit of a "cheekbone" in the smoothing. Once I had the mouth size correct-ish I separated the mouth geometry off so I could add it's own edge loops for that bottom shelf thing.
The top fins are just blocked in, once they're cleaned up it's on to the rest of the body, which I'm hoping will be pretty straightforward. My plan is to have a clean model in Maya, do minimal cracks and chipping (and vines?) in Zbrush, and let the rest of the detail come through the texture--probably Substance Designer but I need to learn Painter, so maybe that too.
@Thistle - Your scene looks great! I was considering doing that one. I think it's definitely some sort of cyberpunk apartment / hideout, I imagined it *really* high up. If you do get rid of the window will you need some other source of "key" light? Excited to see more of it.
I also looked into gradient-based material variation to make the book colors randomized across a specified scale. (Also happy with the dust on top of the cardboard box!)
Finally, a fun little easter egg for any fellow SCP Foundation readers out there. ^_^
Moving on to computer screens next, then junk food containers!
I worked on setting out the UV's for this one, I'm really learning that good topology gives much less distortion when unwrapping.
I'm hoping to be completed by this weekend. I still need to take a look at cranking out material making in Substance Designer for the pedestal disk, but I think I should be about 90% finished with the totem itself. I'm very much enjoying just taking my time to really process how the Maya-ZBrush-Substance-Unity pipeline works.
Below are the initial bake-outs from Substance Painter for the normal and ambient occlusion input maps.
It has begun! Texturing in Substance Painter that is.... I might need to rebake at a higher res though as this is only 1K. Noticed some nasty seams,but I'm thinking that it's due to not having proper edge padding.