Helipack Girl!

Quasar · Sep 2006

Hey all

Dang, it's been a while since I posted any work, but anyways, here goes nothing.

I am currently attending the Art Institute of Vancouver-Burnaby and I am working on a 'folio piece which I am pimping here. I want to make an HL2 resolution character and so far I have blocked out the body and started detailing the head and neck. The rotors are pretty much complete, I just have to add the parachute pack on top of the mast as you can see in the thumbnail drawings. The helipack itself is just a rough version too, it's missing some parts as well.

I would appreciate it if you fine folks could give me some feedback, specifically on the construction on the geometry or the design itself. Thanks

Ninjas · Sep 2006

The shapes are really nice, but it looks like you could use a lot more polys on the girl's body to bring it up closer to everything else, or cut down on the detail for the rotors on the backpack. I mean, you have 4 quads for the girl's ass, and as many for the tiniest details on the rotors.

The concept and modeling look very nice though.

Funky Bunnies · Sep 2006

[ QUOTE ]
I want to make an HL2 resolution character and so far I have blocked out the body and started detailing the head and neck.

[/ QUOTE ]

Look's like he's planning on beefing her up. I really like the details on the rotors, but it seems like a bit much to me. Of course I've never worked with a HL2-level cap before so I may not know what I'm talking about. Lookin' forward to updates

JKMakowka · Sep 2006

The Rotor is way over detailed... you could bake a normalmap out of that

How many polys is that thing alone? 5k?

P.S.: Have a look at this real world version for design ideas:
http://www.engadget.com/2006/08/25/gen-h4-personal-helicopter-is-for-realz-and-for-sale/

tremulant · Sep 2006

Wow, your concept looks beautiful. The model is a let down in my opinion. Add more polys and pay careful attention to get a really nice and smooth face. Female bodys and especially faces are hard to nail. Keep at it. Post more conepts. Love your style/

Quasar · Sep 2006

Ninjas - Thanks. I will be doing three LODs, the body is currently low res, the head and neck area is in the medium at the moment and I've already finished the high version of rotors, although I will to have optimize it as most of you have pointed out.

Bunnies - I will be posting updates during this week and beyond as my teacher wants to see progress as well

Makowka - Well maybe not a normal map, but I know what you mean

The rotors add up to around 3.5k right now, but now that I look at the renders I posted, I can already see areas that can be reduced. I would like to keep all the parts for the highres LOD and fake them in the lower LODs with alpha planes or something. I'm thinking of posing the rotors using reactor for my 'folio to show that it is in fact functional. Thanks for the link too by the way, I never saw that thing when I was researching. The Gen h4 is too much like a vehicle for me though, I'm aiming for more of a "jetpack" look. It's interesting how they solved the pitch and roll controls though.

tremulant - Thanks man. Can you explain what you mean about smoothing out the features exactly? Do you mean try to smooth out the geometry I already have, or add more polygons?

Thanks for the feedback guys, I will be posting updates soon!

Quasar · Sep 2006

Pretty much finished the back of the scarf. I'm wondering if it would be better to just normal map the folds, or leave as is for the high res LOD. Thanks!

almighty_gir · Sep 2006

normalmaps sometimes look weird if there is no modeled depth at all, especially on folds. its ultimately your call. but i would say to leave it how it is now.

tremulant · Sep 2006

Hey broseph, If this was my character, I wouldnt normal map it. The folds you have look excellent... if you are going for the style you have in your drawing, I'd say dont use normal maps, use a great texture., and give it a reasonably high tri count...maybe around 5000 to 6000...I worked on a half life mod, and characters in the 7000 range are," A okay". Maybe more, although I haven't seen many characters that high without normal maps, but if you can get your style to carry over on the model, this will be a spectacular portfolio piece...

The modeling of the face has a pretty nice flow, but if you compare it to the concept, her cheek bones are not nearly as strong, also looks like her nose maybe needs to be slightly longer, or maybe thats the lips...either way too much space between the nose and upper lip.

The body on her looks good, it just needs waaay more polys to it. Just look at the silhoutte, and keep adding loops till it is smooth. Lastly, her lower leg looks like it is disproportionate to the upper leg, as you have it in her concept.

Thats all i can think of now... Keep goin.

Tulkamir · Sep 2006

Looking great Julius.

The scarf turned out great. Keep it up man, this model is turning out awesome.

conte · Sep 2006

That is very good work!
Keep going!

Quasar · Sep 2006

For the time being I'm going to be focusing on the head. So far I've finished up the face and I'm moving on to the helmet, would also like to point out that I changed my ref pics so the face is diferent from the last one. She's Japanese too, I forgot to mention that in my first post...

CMB · Sep 2006

She looked more japanese in the first post. Now she looks all bloby. Japanese chicks are scary anyways, I stick with chinese and thai girls if you know what I mean.

tremulant · Sep 2006

Yeah , I didn't really like the head before, and now I don't like it at all. Look at your concept, it has a great head. It has a beautiful quality to it. The model does not. Try and capture those cheek bones, and regain some of the clearly defined forms. This looks to blobby.

Quasar · Sep 2006

Good feedback guys, it definitely needed work. I did a lot of work shaping the face yesterday so I think it looks better now, I'll be posting an update later today.

Quasar · Sep 2006

So here is the newer face.

I realize that my model's face is quite different from my concept, but the truth is that I used the pics I made the model with to draw my concept, so the drawing is in fact supposed to look like my model, I just didn't get it accurate

The woman I'm using as reference (Chisato Morishita) fits the character I have in mind so I'm going to stick with the face I have now and see if I still like it when I'm finished texturing it. Would like to point out as well that the face in my drawing is actually too small compared to the head and that changes the look considerably, I am going for correct proportions so I don't want to sacrifice proper anatomy too much over style

I strongly believe that the textures will help a lot once Im finished. Would like to hear your guys opinions. Thanks.

conte · Sep 2006

Quasar newer face is not really better. Look on her eyes,mouth.
Do u really can't see what's wrong?

JKMakowka · Sep 2006

Typical case of an "over-worked" model.
Set it aside and work on something else, maybe in a week or two you will be actually able to see what is wrong about it.

EarthQuake · Sep 2006

do you have reference for her besides the concept?

btw: the forehead is a mess, wtf?
Actually some loops seem to be pretty bad, they dont actually follow any logic, and end pretty randomly. Eyes and mouth, and forehead are strange

Ninjas · Sep 2006

The face looks like a South American native. If that is what you are going for I think it looks quite accurate.

fogmann · Sep 2006

I think you should keep the first face you made. It looks much nicer, and aside from this latest one having issues that others pointed out, I also think it has way too many polygons.

Quasar · Sep 2006

I see what you all mean. I'll restart the face and fallow my drawing more closely. Will be updating soon. Cheers!

conte · Sep 2006

Quasar, nice decision.

JKMakowka · Sep 2006

No no no .... don't just do it again! You have to realise what is wrong with it first, otherwise you will end up with more or less the same errors again.

My advise would be to work on the rest of the model, until it is more or less complete, then get some good (!) photo references for a asian head (NOT only the face, and don't forget the 3/4 view) and THEN redo or fix the face.

I would give you actual hint on what is wrong with the head you got, but to be honest I don't even know where to start and I am way too lazy to type that much.
Anyways... don't get discuraged, it is technically not bad at all, but the anatomy is quite a bit off.

JKMakowka · Sep 2006

Okok... here are some hints:

As general pointers (not ordered in any way):

1. Recheck the relative position of the face compared to the rest of the head/hat. It seems to be a bit off... can't say for sure but I think it is a bit too low and bit too far forward (for example imagine the googles on her face instead on the forehead... it just wouldn't fit right now).
2. The eyes and eyeballs are also to far forward.
3. (connected to the issue above) the 3/4 siluette is off, because the eyes are too far forward, the cheekbone is too little pronounced/too low and I would also have a closer look at the eyebrows in that area.
4. The entire nose is a problem. First of all the root of it is too low, than the shape just extents from there like a wet lump not like a nose at all. I think it needs to be broader on the middel, and then you need to model proper nostrils and a different tip.
5. the mouth seems pretty fine, but the egdeloops at the corner are questionalbe

So to sum it up... there is a major problem at the center of the face that innterconnects all the problems above. Due to the eyes that are too far forward you get problems with the cheekbone and the cheek bone give you troubles with the nose and the otherway around... and last but not least it also feels a bit elongated for an asian face due to the nose problem.

Yeah I know this is probably hard to gasp given this is all text, but I suck at overdraws

Oh and take it with a grain of salt... I am not 100% sure if that are really the (or the only) issues with it as the general anatomy seems off and it is hard to pinpoint what is causing it exactly.

rooster · Sep 2006

hey man, I just want to add that while the face could use a bit of attention, the rest of the model, and the concept rocks. it will be sweet when you nail it

Quasar · Sep 2006

Thanks for the fallow up Makowka, I agree with you about the eyes after looking at my photos. For now though, I think I'm going to work on the body to clear my mind

Thanks Rooster

I'm going to be working on the model today so I should be posting an update either later today or tomorrow. Thanks again for the replies, it's very helpfull to get another perspective on things.

Quasar · Sep 2006

Just a small update

rooster · Sep 2006

I'm just wondering looking at that, will those subtle creases dissapear as soon as you have anything other than white lambert applied? it could be worth having nicer edgeflow and just texturing details like those. I know myself that its easy to get caught up with those details at this stage, and find they vanish later

anyway just something to consider

Quasar · Sep 2006

This is the high LOD, so it would be viewed close to the screen. I just thought that the modeled folds would make a difference at a close range, correct me if I'm wrong though.

Slum · Sep 2006

What he's saying is that even though it'd be close up, when you have a texture on it, the subtle modelled detail will be broken visually, and harder to read.

rooster · Sep 2006

well, I think you know what you're doing I'm just throwing the thought into the ring

-as I've modelled in folds before only to find you couldn't see them in the end product. our engine lighting sucks though

edit: yeah thats what I mean

Quasar · Sep 2006

You know, now that I think about it, what I should do is make the model without the folds, texture it, and cut the major folds into the geometry using the texture as a guide. I can also see which folds are necessary to model since I can see the ends result

Quasar · Sep 2006

Updates

Going to start UV mapping and painting something on, then do the final detail pass on the geometry as I outlined in my previous post. Should have some updates soon, got the whole day tomorrow

Quasar · Sep 2006

UVd the body

Here's the actual layout. I will be filling out the gaps later on, somehow.

tremulant · Sep 2006

looking great man, i gues you are worried about the mirroring of normals..?

Quasar · Sep 2006

Just want to make the textures asymmetrical, that's all. You'll see. The final size will be 1024x1024 by the way.

Quasar · Oct 2006

Finally got a texture going, there's still a lot left to do though.

Emil Mujanovic · Oct 2006

Great start on the texture dude. I love the folds on the clothes.

-caseyjones

rollin · Oct 2006

jep.. like the way it´s comming along

Quasar · Oct 2006

Thanks guys!

Here's what the finished face looks like, minus the eyelashes. Material is set to 100% self-illumination.

JKMakowka · Oct 2006

me likes

especially the eyes are well done.

Mark Dygert · Oct 2006

Scarf and a helipack, is she suicidal? It's looking good but really there are reasons helicopter pilots don't wear scarves. I'm reminded of the scene in the Incredibles where the little costume maker discusses why capes are bad.

(insert that convo here)

Maybe change it to a thick collar, or tuck the scarf in. Maybe just button it to the back of her coat.

Quasar · Oct 2006

Maybe Vig, but it looks cool

If you look at my concept you'll see that the ends of the scarf are sandwitched between her back and the helipack so it's unlikely that it will fly off. It's also too late in the game to change a major design element like that anyway. You make a valid point though, I'll give you that

Also, anyone know why I'm getting a halo around my alpha hair when I render? The background colour on my texture map is black, the hair also shows up fine in the viewports.

mbullister · Oct 2006

Your alpha channel is affecting your diffuse.
If you're using Max, just set the Alpha source under your Diffuse map dialogue to None (Opaque) and use the proper Opacity slot to control opacity.

Tulkamir · Oct 2006

Hey Julius, looking great.

Keep it up.

For the texture I do have one critique though, it could use some more contrast. There are no real sharp shadows or highlights. I think that a couple of sharper shadows on the wrinkles under the eyes and places like that as well as some highlights could really help this out.

Great stuff though.

seankaremaker · Oct 2006

nice work so far julius. i like how you are using flat areas of color in the texture. i think retaining some detail as you are doing with the folds adds some relism to the style. im looking forward to seein the end result

onelung · Oct 2006

face is looking really nice, looking forward to seeing the progress.

Quasar · Nov 2006

mbullister - D'oh! Thanks man, that did the trick.

Mitch - Tried it, doesn't really fit the overall style. I want the shading to look fairly matte like in my concept

Sean - Thanks, I'll try that out. See you in class!

lung - Thanks.

More to come soon, deadline is next Tuesday $:\$

Uly · Nov 2006

Looking good Qules. The presentation is very Nolf2'esque. I'm curious how you're going to try to keep with the overall style when you get to the actual helipack itself. The one thing that sticks out in your presentation is that there seems to be a lack of any eye catching highlights, but I'll wait to see some more WIP shots and see what happens then.

All in all, looking good!

Quasar · Nov 2006

*Update*

Goggles and hands still left to do.

Helipack Girl!

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