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Character : Face Hugger

I got a suggestion on another forum to work on some different stuff outside my usual box (and someone from someone else's concept) so I decided to make a face hugger. Even though i haven't had time to work on my main project, I have had some side time during lunch at work to work on this. It's currently untextured, just the Normal Map. I'm trying to tie up some projects before I jump head long into DWIII.


facehuggercrouch.jpg

facehuggerjump.jpg

Comments critiques etc. as always appreciated.

Replies

  • Slum
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    Slum polycounter lvl 18
    hey, this looks pretty cool. Some of it looks quite a bit poly-heavy (like the end of the tail).

    Your normal map also seems a bit faint in some areas. Nothing a little crazybumping cant fix. I'd suggest making it a bit deeper, so you dont lose a lot of the detail once it's textured. That was one issue with older games when normal mapping was pretty new. For example, half life 2 didn't render normal maps very well, and they weren't too deep to begin with, so a lot of times they just got crushed by the textures.

    Nice start though smile.gif
  • ImSlightlyBored
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    ImSlightlyBored polycounter lvl 13
    PS its destroyer.

    Cant think of anything else to really say apart from Slum's comments. Looks nice man.. any chance of spec map in the final thing?
  • Thegodzero
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    Thegodzero polycounter lvl 18
    A quick paintover.

    paintover2.jpg

    lots of wasted polys. If a poly does not add to the form or to animation its pointless. I would aim for 1200 or less with out loosing anything in its outline.
  • SheriffNotic
    @ slum - yeah the normal map is a work in progress as well,e specially on the tail and in a few other places here and there. I'll crank that up to 9 and see what I get.

    @ ImSlightlyBored - blast my fingers and their sloppy typing. I think a spec map would be very appropriate for the final thing, esp considering how slimy these things are supposed to be.

    @ Thegodzero - Yeah pretty much no poly cleanup done on this yet. I know I have some fairly pointless and minute details in there right now for geometry. I'm definitely at least going to try to cut the poly count in half. 1200 sounds like quite a challenge, but I'll give it a shot. Thanks for the paintover.
  • Richard Kain
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    Richard Kain polycounter lvl 18
    I'm thinking that the tail is too short, and too fat. Also, I think a little more variation in the thickness of the "fingers" would be a good idea. Essentially, have them a bit thicker close to the body, and save the most slender section for the tips. Aside from that, its looking pretty good. You seem to have blocked out the basic proportions really well. I especially like the way it looks from the angle where it's coming at you. Looks very close to what you see in the movies.
  • Electro
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    Electro polycounter lvl 19
    cool work, the body is nice so far
    the tail needs more segmented love.. looks pretty low poly when it's bent compared to the legs etc.
  • SheriffNotic
    @ Richard Kain - Thanks for the suggestions, the tail has been changed significantly. I played with the fingers a little bit but not a lot, it still needs to match up with my high poly model.

    @ Electro - thanks, yeah there have been a lot of changes, see below.

    Updates : Here is the updated, poly-optimized model with the tail fixed, a new unwrap, and normal map updated. Still untextured, let me know what you think.

    facehuggercrawl.jpg

    facehuggerleap.jpg
  • SheriffNotic
    Updates - Ok, so I've really been pushed to reduce the polys further. One suggestion was to get it down to 1200. Here is where I'm at, it's not 1200 but I honestly don't know where I'm going to find 500 more polys and still have it look like a face hugger -_-^ Suggestions welcome.

    facehuggerattack.jpg

    facehuggerchoke.jpg
  • Thegodzero
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    Thegodzero polycounter lvl 18
    Very nice! I say go for 1500 and then get to work on that diffuse.

    The take a look at the finger tips for optimization, the bottom of the other joints only need one square at the base, and the first joints coming off the body. Lastly maybe some from the under side.

    Remember 1500 is not a hard number if you start killing the silhouette in the name of a poly budget its not worth it.
  • Richard Kain
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    Richard Kain polycounter lvl 18
    Oh, yeah, that's looking a lot better. I like the changes you've been making. The optimizations are working out pretty well too. I still think the fingers are getting too skinny where they meet the body, but it isn't terribly noticeable. I agree with Thegodzero's comments about the silhouette. That outline is the most important thing as far as the polys are concerned. You need to preserve that first. A lot of the finer details can be handled by the texture.

    And a note on the texture. I think the detailing you've put on the texture is great. No complaints there at all. However, I do think you would benefit from some more color variation, especially on the underside of the face hugger. The underside of the face hugger is supposed to have a lot more pinks and marroons in it. I believe they used fish organs, kidney skins, and a few oyesters for that area in the original Alien film. So I'm thinking a little more variety in the coloring would punch it up a notch.
  • SHEPEIRO
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    SHEPEIRO polycounter lvl 17
    the vigina which is very rarely seen unless its flying towards you =D could deffinatly loose a few polys, also you would never see it in profile sonearly all the form could be held in the normal map
  • SheriffNotic
    @ Thegodzero - I've been thinking about where I can clean some stuff up, Tonight will be the last round of polycutting, Lets see if I can hit that 1500 (IDK but we'll see!)

    @ Richard Kain - The fingers actually got worse when I did the last optimization, I'll figure that out tonight. As for the texture, It definitely needs more color variation, but there isn't any...because there isn't a texture yet. The normal map is carrying the whole thing. Once I have the model geometry nailed down, I'll hit the diffuse and spec map to finish this thing. Those are good ideas for things to look at for color inspiration, I'll definitely do that.

    @ Shepeiro - Good point, will definitely hit that.

    Updates later tonight! I want to get this hammered out so I can really start on my DWIII entry.
  • SheriffNotic
    Updates : This is my last round of Polycutting. I've gotten it down to 1424, which is under my 1500 target and close enough to the 1200 that was suggested for me to be happy. Some details of the silhouette are beginning to suffer, esp in the fingers and a few other places so this is as low as I plan to go. I appreciate everyone's continued support, Now to get this buttoned up so I can hit DWIII hard next Monday! Tomorrow, Textures!!!!

    facehuggerstammer.jpg

    facehuggerhopping.jpg
  • Lee3dee
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    Lee3dee polycounter lvl 18
    looks really nice!
  • SouL
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    SouL polycounter lvl 18
    You can probably get the polygon count lower without having your silhouette suffer. If you want to get down to 1200, you can simplify the knuckles and make the diameter of the fingers 3 sided. That would only affect the cross section of the fingers which would rarely be seen. You also have details on the underside that you can probably do without.
  • SHEPEIRO
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    SHEPEIRO polycounter lvl 17
    theres still two un-needed edge loops around the "protrudrence" (SP)
  • SheriffNotic
    @ Lee3dee - thanks, Colonial Marines looks sweet! You guys make me want to work that much harder! You should let me know if any junior level art positions open up wink.gifwink.gif

    @ Soul - Wouldn't bringing the fingers down to 3 sided jack the mapping for the normal pretty badly? It might not be too bad if I re-render it...

    @ Shepeiro - It's supposed to be flexible, however I must admit I've been barely moving it when I do pose it. Could definitely cut some of that out.

    On to the updates!

    Second to last update, I hate being behind on my personal stuff, I've has some other projects I had to work on first. This is getting pretty close though, here are the updates.

    facehugger1.jpg
    facehugger2.jpg
    facehuggertexturesheet.jpg
    facehuggerlods.jpg

    Every hand painted attempt at the texture was failing, so I ultimately decided to render out a lightmap from max, use that as a base, then just change the color. This way it looks pretty good without the normal at all, with the normal just adding to it. Seems to work out pretty well. I'm going to do one or two more tweak passes on this from the feedback i get then call this one done so i can move on.
  • Davision3D
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    Davision3D polycounter
    Nice work.
    But your textures are very strange. There is much too much ambient in you diffuse, there are allready black shadows in it! You allready defined the lightsource with that and a the dynamic lightning and the normal makes not much sense anymore! Same with the specular, There is almost only black and white. Dont know why the specular isnt showing up in the screens though, didnt you put it in?
    When you change the diffues, make the ambient much lower and change the shadeing to a brown color. Also make more slightly hue changes in the texture.
  • vertexguy
    The model looks pretty good. I like the lower poly version best. The texture and normal map could still use some tweaks. Take a look at the scene from the original Alien movie where they autopsy the face hugger for close intimate details. You need a lot more color variation in the creature. The spec is also wrong for the surface type. Some areas (like the mouth) are much smoother and shinier than the top skin. Also all of your shadows are fading to a black in your texture map. Fake some ambient occlusion and radiocity to make features pop more with the normal map. The mouth area should have red tinted shadows and the body shadows should be more of a brownish green. Also the coloration is a bit off on the main body. It's a lighter tan in the movie. The lighting in general on your map is wrong. It looks like you mirrored the texture which inverted the lighting on half of the creature. For the normal map, tone it down a bit. A lot of people make the mistake of having 1 uniform height level on a normal map which actually makes things look a bit flat. This happens a lot if you are using photoshop to paint your normal map instead of rendering it out. Even in a render though, do some extra tweaks to the map afterwords to push and pull details. The veins are popping too much and all of the wrinkles seem to have the same depth.
  • conte
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    conte polycounter lvl 18
    oh, another vaginatic monster, how interesting...
  • gauss
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    gauss polycounter lvl 18
    conte: snide comments aside, he's doing a rendition of one of the absolute classic vagina-monsters. if you're going to do one, might as well do the best. smile.gif
  • vividly_pathetic
    I agree with Davision3D about the shadow stuff. Other than that, I don't know if it's beautiful or revolting! haha Good work.
  • demoncage
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    demoncage polycounter lvl 18
    can't resist commenting on a facehugger.

    i agree with vertexguy's comments about color variation. the diffuse could use more surface complexity in that regard, and also could use a better feeling of density. i think you would be better off using a gloss map to tighten your spec map instead of trying to fake hilites.
  • SheriffNotic
    facehuggerbeautyshot03.jpg

    @ Davision3D - toned down the baked in shadows and still playing with the spec, thanks for the comments.

    @ vertexguy - Thanks for the color suggestions, they were really helpful. I still need to address the normal map a bit, that will probably be the last thing I do.

    @ Conte and Gauss - I get that response a lot, especially from people not familiar with the Alien universe.

    @ vividly_pathetic - thanks for the comments.

    @ demoncage - could you elaborate on 'density' for the surface complexity? I'm not sure I get exactly what you mean, thanks for the help!

    UPDATES:

    Made some major map adjustments. My spec still isn't quite done, but getting close. Also, no more max screens/renders. Here is the model in Unreal3. The background assets are from the packages that ship with UT3, just showing off the facehugger model.

    facehuggertexturesheet02.jpg

    facehuggerbeautyshot01.jpg

    facehuggerbeautyshot02.jpg
  • Ged
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    Ged interpolator
    haha it looks great in that first ut3 shot, I think the specular could have some more sharp highlights not just middle grayish all over just to make it pop out a bit. Like if you took your old spec mapm thats almost black with the shiny white bits here and there, and placed it overlayed on to the new one you have in this latest post.
  • TorQue[MoD]
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    TorQue[MoD] polycounter lvl 19
    This looks awesome!

    And I agree with Ged, if you combine your first and last spec maps it'll look much better!

    Great work, especially on the details of the high poly mesh.
  • Sean McBride
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    Sean McBride polycounter lvl 18
    Also throw some color in your specular. If you look at any of the epic assets they'll almost always use color in their specs. Another neat trick is multiplying it by 2 in your material so you get some pop when the light hits him.

    Looks good. smile.gif
  • demoncage
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    demoncage polycounter lvl 18
    failed to mention that the model looks great, especially the detail on the underside. looks nice in engine.

    what i meant by density was just that i think the surface could use a finer surface, in the form of slight noise in addition to what you have so far. but definitely more color variation would look cool:

    Alien_facehugger.jpg

    To Sean: I never really understood why people use color in their specs. It always seemed that the color of the light source mixes with the surface color in about the same way as I've observed in reality.
  • JordanW
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    JordanW polycounter lvl 19
    In-engine screenshots are way dark, it's hard to really see your work in those images.

    The normals and diffuse are a little harsh for this to be an organic slimy object. The diffuse map especially looks like paper rather than some sort of flesh, try softening the shading your diffuse and have it shift hues more instead of darkening the map in the wrinkles.

    There are also some very visible seams on the bottom of the side "flaps".

    Giving it a better specular map like the other's mentioned will help as well, also increase the specular power value to make the highlight tighter, it'll help the illusion that it's this slimy organic object.
  • SheriffNotic
    @ Ged and TorQue[MoD] - Thanks for the comments, the suggestions of combining the original and the new worked out really well, I also used the same map + multiply to add a little contrast too. The new spec is getting there IMO.

    @ Sean McBride - I'm used to seeing the old school greyscale spec maps I think, I'll definitely try adding color to the spec on my next project, fiddling with it now might be dangerous -_-^

    @ demoncage - ah, I get you now, sorry for the misunderstanding. I added in a little bit of freckles and such to it, but it's pretty subtle (unreal really washes out that kinda stuff) and if I come back and spend some more time on this, I'll definitely paint in some little details to break up that skin a bit.

    @ tinman - Thanks for the suggestions, I had been putting off fixing those seams, I addressed it this evening, although even with a consistent value along those seams, it still shows up at the wrong angle. I think the problem is in the unwrap it's self (where I choose to make the seam), next time I'll use the leading edge. The new spec map helps a lot with the tighter highlights (along with some adjusted setting in my material editor in unreal)

    UPDATES

    Ok, so I've decided this will be the last round of updates to this for now. I'll definitely come back and revisit this once I've gotten a few more things finished, I want to make an egg pedestal for it and implement a few more of the suggestions give here and elsewhere. I've been working on this for awhile and I need to move on if I ever want to get that portfolio together so I can get an art job (I can't do QA forever -_-^). So here are the last round of updates for now. I still would love feedback, as I will return to this in awhile. Thanks for everyone's feedback and support up to this point, I really appreciate it and have learned a lot!

    facehuggerbeautyshot04.jpg

    facehuggerbeautyshot05.jpg

    facehuggertexturesheet03.jpg

    And for those who might be curious, my next project will be to complete my Dream Painter model's textures. She's almost done too!
  • Ged
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    Ged interpolator
    its almost there but the colour variation seems a bit arbitrary. Why not stick to the kind of organic fleshy colours , like light pinkish white, desaturated red and blueish areas for veins/things under the flesh. you could also define muscle or bone shapes under the skin of the model in the diffuse map even more. I can show you a quick paintover if you like?
  • Michael Knubben
    Now there's too much colour variation, and it's all a bit random. Actually, funny bit of trivia: on the picture DemonCage posted, that's an unpainted rubber model, by request of one of the concept artists (not giger, o'bannon)
    I think the key here is nailing that translucency, and maybe just carying the colour in the spec amp, if that'd work.
  • Davision3D
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    Davision3D polycounter
    Yeah the greenish is too much!
    I think transmission would be very cool for this, you can make that quite easily in the UT3 Material System. Define with a black and white Transmission mask where the light can scatter through and put a red textur in the transmission slot. Make the Transmission where the model is thin and where bones cant stop the light from shining through.
  • SHEPEIRO
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    SHEPEIRO polycounter lvl 17
    [ QUOTE ]
    Yeah the greenish is too much!
    I think transmission would be very cool for this, you can make that quite easily in the UT3 Material System. Define with a black and white Transmission mask where the light can scatter through and put a red textur in the transmission slot. Make the Transmission where the model is thin and where bones cant stop the light from shining through.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    QTF- do it
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