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Old game character redesign

JR
polycounter lvl 15
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JR polycounter lvl 15
Hi guys. I'm new at this forum and at low poly modeling, so I'd appreciate some crits on this work.
I'm doing an old game char redesign, for a challenge (@www.3d4all.org). I chose Tesse, from the little known "Waku Waku 7" arcade fighting game. There goes some images:

The original character:

tesse_ref.jpg

My redesign of her (bad and anime style):

tesse_concept.jpg

Basic mesh of body:
wire_02.jpg

Mesh with clotes, almost complete:
wire_03.jpg

Any help or tips with edge loops, refinments, or whatever are pretty welcome. Thanks in advance.

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  • JR
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    JR polycounter lvl 15
    No one comment?

    Well, for now modeling is complete. On the challenge we have 10000 tris as limit. She and her weapon are using 6000. I'll problably use the 4000 remaining to do a pet for her. I'm thinking in do an little eletric dragon.. What do you think?

    wire_04.jpg
  • animatr
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    animatr polycounter lvl 18
    I think it looks great! nice silhouette, nice poly flow. good work! looking forward to seeing the texture!
  • eepberries
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    eepberries polycounter lvl 18
    For one thing it looks like the boob and general shoulder area could use some reworking. Right now the boobs look oddly pointy and not big enough for the character. Another thing I notice is that the rod with ball things on top of her head looks too small. It looks like they should be both longer and meatier (thicker).
  • poopinmymouth
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    poopinmymouth polycounter lvl 19
    Nice silhouette and general flow. I think with the boobs, its' not that they need to be larger, it's that they need to be more volumetric, right now they are cone like, and they should be more like bean bags, hehehe.

    I'd like to see you take this to the texture stage for sure, and a pet dragon would be cool.


    poop.gif
  • boobs
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    i agree with poop.. the boobs need to be very very larger indeed.. they need to have alot more volume in there..
  • CheeseOnToast
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    CheeseOnToast greentooth
    Poop, you still got that little sample pic of good knee/elbow poly flow kicking around? It's just a minor thing, but I've used it for years and it makes rigging those bits nice and easy, and you get a better shape when the limbs are bent. Basically, keep the 3 edges around the front of the knee/back of the elbow, but collapse them down to 2 edges at the back of the knee/inner elbow. It helps keep some thickness around the joint when fully bent, and avoid the "folded cardboard tube" look.

    You going to go for a hand-painted toon look, or use a shader? Having just dicked around with the lightwarp stuff in the Source engine, I'd suggest trying out a toon shader. It's really satisfying to see the lighting in real time laugh.gif
  • JR
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    JR polycounter lvl 15
    Sorry for such delay in answer.. I was trying to figure out how to make normal maps work on Maya. It seems there's no easy way to attach a normal map in a material without having trouble. Now I'm using JS NormalMapper node, and it looks to work fine. But my sculpture on ZBrush is lacking details, because it seems my computer don't deal well with models with more than 1,000,000 polys. I'm working to solve this now...
    About it was said, I'd like to thank you for your crits and comments. I don't think my char needs super sized boobs. I usually draw woman with medium size, what's the reality. I don't think every woman needs to have giant breasts, variety is good. And besides that, my char is a teenager, although I forgot to mention. But I do agree with poop (BTW, I'm your fan, man smile.gif ), the question is not about size, but about shape. Her boobs needed more balanced and rounded volume than before. I tried to work on this, and apreciated comments again.

    This is my Zbrush model. It lacks more details yet...

    Tesse_01.jpg

    I started texturing.

    Tesse_02.jpg

    And here, I'd appreciated an opinion. In my concept, I made her with white-purple hair. But it seems the blonde hair offer better contrast, and is closer to the original look. What do you guys think?

    Tesse_comparison.jpg
  • jaalto
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    jaalto polycounter lvl 13
    Great job, I like this a lot. Blonde ("yellow") hair is better in my opinion. Because of the contrast as you also said.

    Maybe its just me, but I think the skin looks a bit too "plastic".

    Nice work smile.gif
  • JR
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    JR polycounter lvl 15
    [ QUOTE ]
    Maybe its just me, but I think the skin looks a bit too "plastic".

    [/ QUOTE ]
    No, it's not just you.. I haven't made "dirties" on her skin yet, or added a specular map. I'll solve this soon. Thanks for your comment grin.gif
  • Pedro Toledo
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    Pedro Toledo polycounter lvl 17
    Really cool Amauri!

    I like the blonde version, but I preffer the white/purple one.

    The blonde is nice, but it looks like a regular girl in a made's dress, she doesn't look as someone walking around with a deadly six feet tall lighting weapon laugh.gif
  • ElysiumGX
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    ElysiumGX polycounter lvl 18
    Don't worry about the boobs, Polycount is full of pervs. laugh.gif

    I'll just add that the whole thing looks like a cheap plastic toy. And her eyes are completely lifeless, if they can even be seen. You should probably give more attention to her facial structure. I can still see the edge of the alpha channel on the ends of the hair. The work done in Zbrush is very bubbly, and did nothing to improve the appearance of the character. Maybe you shouldn't have used Zbrush and instead gone for a more colorful approach.

    Just to be fair, the edge flow and silhouette on your low poly mesh is very good.
  • JR
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    JR polycounter lvl 15
    Pedro: Thank you very much. I'll keep the white look, I think the same as you!

    ElysiumGX: Yeah, I do agree with you. In fact I wasn't so satisfied with her. I think she she was looking a bit childish, then I decided to restart my project in another approach. Please take a look. There's no textures yet, just part of my old and unfinished.

    This time I made a new concept, with more adult facial features, and slight volume changes on her body, trying to make her more attractive.

    Tesse_new_concept.jpg

    Then I rebuild her geometry, to better represent this new shapes. I want make a consistent model, that look good aside of colors, normal or other kind of maps.

    wire_05.jpg

    And here's the coloured version. Unfortunately, I lost great part of may previous mapping, so I'm going to map and paint textures again. But no problem, if this make her look better smile.gif

    Tesse_03.jpg

    Please let me know what do you guys think about the changes.
  • zenarion
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    zenarion polycounter lvl 17
    is it possible to bring out the nose a bit more?
  • JR
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    JR polycounter lvl 15
    She's an anime style girl... I think the nose is in a good size.

    I remapped her and start to paint the definitive textures. don't worry about the quality, i just started. But i'd like to take some opinions about ther new colors. I was trying to make her appear more evil and a bit more real, as much is possible for an anime char. Suggestions or crits, please.

    Tesse_04.jpg
  • ElysiumGX
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    ElysiumGX polycounter lvl 18
    this is a great improvement from the first, and so far I like the new texture very much. good proportions on the figure. try to give the hair a little more shine, so far it's always appeared dull. excellent job texturing the knees, and the clothing.
  • jaalto
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    jaalto polycounter lvl 13
    I love this evil version!

    However her boots are a bit "flat". How about same kind of straps to boots than there's in her corset? smile.gif
  • JR
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    JR polycounter lvl 15
    Hi guys. Thanks for your feedback and sorry for my disappering.

    ElysiumGX: Thanks man. I think her color texture is pretty much finished, except for some tweaks. And when I put the specular map, the dullness will be solved.

    merecraft: yeah, man, that was part of the plan!

    There goes a new update.

    No lights (Maya's viewport)

    Tesse_05.jpg

    Tesse_06.jpg

    MR renders (cause my first game models deserves!)

    Tesse_07.jpg

    Tesse_08.jpg

    Tesse_09.jpg

    By the way, do you guys know some software I can use to preview her like she would appear in a real game engine? Is there some plugin in Maya with this purpose?
  • Wendy de Boer
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    Wendy de Boer interpolator
    Before you call it quits on the color map, I'd add some shading to the skirt as well. Because right now, it looks more like a block of concrete. I think some subtle folds will do the trick. Something like this:

    Tesse_example.jpg
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    I like how this is turning out, I agree with DemonPrincess though, if you do something on the dress, similar to the shading style you have on the arm-gloves material, it should bring it all together nicely.
    Great how much this has progressed though, good job! smile.gif
  • ElysiumGX
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    ElysiumGX polycounter lvl 18
    I think the red draws too much attention to her eyes (i thought they were placeholders), and they look more alien than evil. Try something with a pupil and sclera. I looked her up to find she's a robot, so an unnatural eye color may help.

    I think the hair and apron could use slightly more highlight. So far you only have a mid-tone and shade.

    Hope you don't mind, I also did a paint over to show what you could do to spice her up:
    tesse.gif

    Notice the slight reshaping of the mouth.

    Keep up the great work.
  • JR
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    JR polycounter lvl 15
    DemonPrincess: Thanks. In fact I forgot to paint her skirt... confused.gif but now this is fixed.

    MoP: Thanks man, glad you like it smile.gif

    ElysiumGX: Thanks a lot for your paintover. As you can see, I made a lot of changes on her hair, antennas, and eyes. Do you think I must to do the hair more white than it's is now? I appreciate your suggestion for eyes, but I'll insist a bit more with the red ones. I really don't want that she look like a regular girl, with a maid uniform. She's an evil robot, with a 6ft long weapon!

    What i'm trying to do are eyes like those of Dark Phoenix, on the last X-men movie. They were pretty dark, but you could see internal structure on them, with pupils, iris, etc.. But if you really don't find them appropriated, I can try a more regular approach.

    EDIT: Ops, I forgot the mouth! Next up, it will be fixed.

    Tesse_10.jpg

    No lights

    Tesse_11.jpg

    MR render

    Tesse_12.jpg
  • ElysiumGX
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    ElysiumGX polycounter lvl 18
    I notice the improvement, and it's nice.

    I need to repeat, something about the eyes still bothers me. Besides still being somewhat undefined, I think of that scene from the Final Destination movie where the dude is choked by the shower curtain wire. They look blood red, far beyond stoned or evil, and it doesn't seem to fit her design.

    But now I see what you're aiming for. Would you be willing to do something more along these lines?

    tesse2.jpg

    Outlined the white (pink) of the eyes in red, added spec (eyes are wet), added a more vibrant shade of red to the lips to match the eyes, and brought the medial portion of the eyebrows down a bit. I got it from this reference.
    pheonix.jpg

    Sorry to bug you about it, but I believe eyes are very important in character design. And so far this model is much better than plastic toy it use to be.
  • JR
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    JR polycounter lvl 15
    Wow, incredible paintover! smile.gif I think with this appearence she looks much evil, and still looks sexy. I think this will solve the eyes question definetely. Thank you very much, ElysiumGX. Next up will come soon.
  • JR
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    JR polycounter lvl 15
    And there goes the ElysiumGX eyes version.

    Tesse_13.jpg
  • ElysiumGX
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    ElysiumGX polycounter lvl 18
    I admit, that looks better than my paintover. Awesome work you've done here. Glad I could help. I hope the characters you do from now on are as good, or better.
  • hawken
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    hawken polycounter lvl 19
    easy fix for the eyes.. cover them with the hair
  • JR
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    JR polycounter lvl 15
    [ QUOTE ]
    I admit, that looks better than my paintover. Awesome work you've done here. Glad I could help. I hope the characters you do from now on are as good, or better.

    [/ QUOTE ]
    Thanks again for all your help, man. smile.gif

    There goes some rigging I did, as well as the weapon's texture. Pose is provisional, I'll think in something better later. And rigging.. well, I'm not a master of rig, So any advices are welcome.

    Weapon texture

    Tesse_14.jpg

    Pose

    Tesse_15.jpg

    Slightly diferent angle

    Tesse_16.jpg
  • animatr
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    animatr polycounter lvl 18
    Great work man! It's been fun watching you progress on this character. Must feel nice to have it all done and looking badass eh? Great work!
  • JR
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    JR polycounter lvl 15
    Thanks animatr smile.gif
    There goes my final images, unless someone has some crits to do.

    My uvs and color maps. On second map there's some empty spaces, cause I had intention to make more elements for this char... Maybe I can do next days, I don't know.

    Tesse_UV_1.jpg

    Tesse_color_1.jpg

    Tesse_UV_2.jpg

    Tesse_color_2.jpg

    Maya viewport (wires)

    Tesse_viewport1.jpg

    The same, without wires

    Tesse_viewport2.jpg

    Directional light + 3 point lights, no ray trace. I think this render looks too dark...

    Tesse_3lights.jpg

    FG render

    Tesse_FG.jpg

    A large image, showing some modifications on her weapon. Click on image, for a larger version.

    Tesse_arma_small.jpg

    And thats it. Thanks for all those fellows that commented and helped me here. smile.gif
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