My first WIP post ---The T-Rex in High Poly
polycounter lvl 17
My first WIP that I've felt comfortable posting and getting feedback. The model is pretty much finished. Next comes the displacement and texture. Let me know what you guys think.
p.s. For those of you that don't know.....if the image appears small....save it to your computer and so you can zoom in and what not.
http://www.filelodge.com/files/room12/305596/rexlp.jpg
http://www.filelodge.com/files/room12/305596/3sidesrexwire.jpg
http://www.filelodge.com/files/room12/305596/3sidesrexsolid.jpg
p.s. For those of you that don't know.....if the image appears small....save it to your computer and so you can zoom in and what not.
http://www.filelodge.com/files/room12/305596/rexlp.jpg
http://www.filelodge.com/files/room12/305596/3sidesrexwire.jpg
http://www.filelodge.com/files/room12/305596/3sidesrexsolid.jpg
Replies
The first thing that strikes me about this is that the whole thing looks as though it's made of a marshmallow. There's little suggestion of underlying anatomy anywhere. The proportion of the various limbs is decent in most of it, but it's lacking a sense of balance and life.
Here's a bit of a paintover. It's easier to explain with drawing than it is with typing
If you're going to use that many polys, you want to make sure that there is enough detail in your model to justify using them. As it stands, there doesn't appear to be much reasoning there.
Here's a nice little reference picture with skeleton and a silhouette of flesh.
Love the subject, for sure
You're right that it's often easier to put limbs in straighter poses for ease of rigging, but that's not the problem here - the anatomy is inaccurate. You could have a more believable creature without compromising how easy it would be to rig, just by tweaking the shapes that already exist.
Also, your mesh is pretty inconsistent. You have far too many polygons in the arm area, and your edge loops around the legs could make more sense.
It's not a bad model, I just think you need to do more research (look up illustrations, sculptures and museum exhibits of T. Rex) and apply that to how you're modelling.
You should really concentrate on making the "source mesh" as effective and accurate as possible before going on to making a displacement map.
Are you planning on using ZBrush for doing the detail, or some other method for generating a displacement map?
Good luck.
Nick, you're totaly in 3d and that's fabulous. there's not many people who can do what you did and quite frankly, i applaud you. get that displacement on there and show us how it's done!
What I was saying about the polygon distribution (especially in the arm) is what will cause some headaches when you take it into ZBrush. Ideally your source mesh should have fairly consistently-sized polygons before going into ZBrush, since it subdivides the whole mesh each time, so by the time you've subdivided the mesh down to, say, 5 levels - the arms are gonna have more polys in them than the rest of the mesh added together, which is gonna annoy you when working on it, and it's just unnecessary.
It makes far more sense to just make the base mesh with pretty evenly-spread polygon distribution (maybe with more polys in areas of focus, like eyes and mouth), and just use Zbrush to sculpt the anatomical detail in as you go through subdivision levels.
And yeah, if your instructor said that the mesh you have now is acceptable, then yeah, he's right - you can go ahead with the mesh in that state, however like I said you will run into headaches and inconsistencies when ZBrushing, and if your instructor thinks that mesh is "good" for ZBrushing, I'm afraid he/she is a little mistaken - it can be used in ZBrush no problem, but it could be a lot better.
I'm guessing you're pretty new to the whole ZBrush workflow, so even if you don't believe me now, I think you'll find that what I'm saying makes a lot of sense when you do your next 4 or 5 models in Zbrush
I look forward to seeing how this turns out.
Check out Glen Southern's site for more appropriate reference i'd say: http://www.southerngfx.co.uk/
And just a social warning, take this how you want. No one is going to take you as serious with that avatar and the myspace sig. Build a real portfolio site, and link to the myspace from there perhaps? And break up the renders ffs, get rid of the black wasted space. If you want crits, present it well.
never take crits personaly, no matter how proud you are of a piece of work, it can always be better,
this is a good start and with an open mind you can push it to excellent.
i have no problem with your avatar, or myspace sig..
i'm just now starting to realize the extent of my ego and come out of it. the minute you stop being proud of yourself is the minute you'll realize that you can acctualy learn and better yourself. i remember being in grade 10 and thinking 3d logos were cool because i 'knew' 3d. it impressed my classmates. i thought i was smart or good because of that sort of shit. not so. art is nice because every time you do something new you get a smack in the face a few days later when you realize it's abysmal shit. if you can't see your work for what it is then it's going to take an obscenely long time in order to get to where you're going. and as soon as you don't judge comments that are put in your direction, what you can learn from them multiplies a thousand times. do you want to become a good 3d artist or do you want a congradulatory back slapping? if it's the later i'd suggest that an internet forum isn't the best place to recieve therapy.
i really dont mean this to sound cruel but it's important. 'nick in 3d'? people have a tendancy to utterly associate with something they enjoy and part of that process is to claim that you're an athority on the subject. there is nothing more HORRIBLE than this if you want to learn. i keep making this same mistake reguardless, but i'm getting better.
on topic:
that dino is certainly a good start, but it needs a lot more work. the anatomy is wrong in many areas and could be fixed if you got a hold of some reference and acctualy tried to understand it. the arms are a great example. it's not okay to have the arms comming out of the generaly correct area, they've got to be correct. if they're jutting out strangely it's going to kill the piece. the coments Jelmer gave you is a great example of the level of understanding nessisary to make every section of this beautiful. right now, however, almost ever section, from the smooth, fragile brow, to the flat, straight, undefined legs, speaks of quick gestural expression of a form hat you haven't taken the time to quite understand completely. you really do have to have and understanding why what elements are where they are in order to re-create them..
take your time. that mouth is so thin and fragile. i totaly remember making stuff like that and it's PROBABLY because you're not chunking small enough. learn to enjoy modeling JUST the mouth, focus on a bit at a time, and express things properly. everything has a mass. shapes fit into each other. learn to enjoy this.
that's just my 2 cents, from where i stand now.