WIP zbrush hell .. (player model)
**Current**
so im trying to build this model modularly, so that when i throw this ingame i can have a few variations of the model by swapping out legs/head/arms etc..
now the problem im running into is not with the arms but mostly with midsection/legs ..
in the front im getting diaper boy, in the back im getting thong man .. see for yourself.
so im hoping someone out there has some ideas for solving this riddle, maybe i just havent had enough sleep but i cant think of a nice way to hide the he-man leg joint problem..
**note** still under heavy wip'ing
so im trying to build this model modularly, so that when i throw this ingame i can have a few variations of the model by swapping out legs/head/arms etc..
now the problem im running into is not with the arms but mostly with midsection/legs ..
in the front im getting diaper boy, in the back im getting thong man .. see for yourself.
so im hoping someone out there has some ideas for solving this riddle, maybe i just havent had enough sleep but i cant think of a nice way to hide the he-man leg joint problem..
**note** still under heavy wip'ing
Replies
the diaper area needs to give a little where the legs would "rise up" if the character was running. as is....the functionality is not there.
do you have a concept you could post?
i understand what you say about the static look of the body currently .. its something im working on, however the spine is curved look closely please. i think the problem is that the front of the body is too flat and doesnt follow the curve of the spine enough.
The real problem for me atleast is how to make a modular player model that has legs that dont look totally ridiculous when you attach them to the hip area. any ideas ?
"the diaper area needs to give a little where the legs would "rise up" if the character was running. as is....the functionality is not there." <--- exactly the functionality isnt there .. do you have any ideas how to bring it ? i think also the back area is a bigger problem then the front.
hopefully when i get some time today or tomorrow i will try to fix the body to look less static. thanks for help.
Here is a closeup of the chest so far.
o also keep in mind the functionality of your detail, if there isnt a reason for something to have mass amounts of intricate detail, dont throw it on there it will look way busy and un-thought out. it seems like u have simplified the concept alot in the sculpt which is a step in the right direction.
-Woog
the hip area is currently my nemesis it still looks quite bad.. im sure the proportions in general are still slightly off? hopefully they are a bit better by now..
also i havent put the spit shine on this yet.. still just using clay tubes brush for blocking..
also decided on how to do the legs modularly .. which is to have robocop legs
For instance at the moment the back view is more successful than the front view in my opinion since it has stronger areas of rest. You can see that very easily on robocops shoulders and pecs.
It also helps if you keep the underlying primitives as readable as possible (again, like on the robocop shoulder)
(In short : less Z, more design!)
and no post should be complete without a shot.. so heres a teensy tiny update, adding a neck!
also inflated the hands a bit since people were complaining about hand size, i think the hands look pretty good now? i think the detail on the tube around the arm needs to be cut down since its mostly just deforming the tube oddly and doesnt make sense. and the wrist area needs to be cleaned up. also need to throw a helmet on him .. and a part of me just wants to start over hah !
there is a slight dent at the nose are its just hard to see.. and as far as the low forehead.. well ive seen my fair share of human faces and honestly with this one i wanted to experiment with a weird looking face and not the typical grizzled marine.. or chizzled marine.. or whatever marine..
but most people arent too hot on the face from what ive gathered so dont worry most of it will be covered by a helmet asap !
http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/070816/robocop_l.jpg
The proportions are off there... Just from the front view I can see that the eyes are too wide, the nostrils too big/wide, and the mouth is too narrow.
When doing faces you have to be pretty carful with these things otherwise it will quickly make everything look weird.
I would suggest you take a few screen shots from front and side perspectives and do lay overs of general proportions to find out what exactly is off.
Save loomis has some amazing ebooks and images that can help you.
check it out: http://www.alexhays.com/loomis/
Other than that, its coming along nicely. Your showing really good improvment.
i agree on what everyone says about the face.. i mosty just liked the face becasue it was ugly but stylized.. or maybe its because i easily get attached to my sculpts(oh no that couldnt be it:)?
anyways im going to be giving this fatty pants a full helmet so the face is going away, but my opinion still holds that ive seen far weirder faces in real life then this one
heres one last shot of the face complete with a failed helmet test i did .. the helmet was not powerful enough to hide his messed up nose though! the helmet was sortof inspired from how crab armor is put together but in the end it probably just looks more like a conc shell. also didnt really fit as well as i had hoped with the rest of the armor.
I mean, while what you are making looks cool, its becoming more and more difficult to recognize what's what. By this I mean, all the detail you are making, while being cool; is making it kind of noisy and not aiding to add to the overall function of his suit.
Like in the last image I can't really tell for sure if its his front side or the back side of his head. Maybe if you did a paint over of your own to add more functionality it would help. If you have seen the movie Iron Man, I really like how his suit really seams believable and functional in the movie. You might wanna borrow some ideas from there.
Good luck, and keep at it!
i am a bit confused on the helmet silhouette though as i thought that the changes to the helmet were an improvement actually. the reason for the current silhouette was to account for ears, and also electronic equipment in and around the ears. that's why the helmet comes out a bit right there. or is it something else about it that doesn't look right to you? i also tried to flatten out the helmet while still trying to maintain the ornate design somewhat. for this armor in general i wanted the armor ornate. this model is for the imperialist faction and most of the art we have for the levels is ornate, rich, flashy. that said im still trying to find a proper contrast of detail, no detail.
i will probably have another go at the lower half. The lower half was inspired by some Japanese armor a bit since they often have armor that often times look like an exaggerated face. anyway i guess the experiment failed, time to try for a new one! this helmet stuff sure is touchy, i think ive gotten the most criticism of it over everything else.
also i think i will remove a lot of those inset holes where theoretically screws are put in to keep the armor together, i suppose a few are ok but i probably went overboard on those.
thanks for the crits, its very informative.
not sure if i should add little greebly details to the helmet or not .. maybe i should first try and delete a bit of greeble from the rest of the armor first ?
not detailing is very hard.. but at the same time its also quite fun working with these larger shapes
I'd like to point out how the head is sitting on the shoulders, and what that conveys.
By raising the head up off the shoulders,giving his traps some armor, you'd essentially give the character more strength and confidence in his general posture. Which is something you may consider if making a sleek stealthy soldier type character (Looking at your robo-cop reference, notice how they gave him more of a neck so that his chin wasn't resting on his chest) Also this allows more flexibility in how dynamic a pose you can put him in while animating.
Shrugged shoulders and a lowered head, usually conveys signs of being tense, having low confidence, weakness,timidness, and even fear. Probably not what you were intending for in a soldier with such cool looking armor.
It's a small adjustment, hopefully it's not too late in the modeling process to accept a critique like this
also did another quick helmet sketch this time with more visor and less ghost in the shell faceplates .. so im also wondering which helmet people like better
Drawing your attention to one point, that was lost in translation from concept to model.
With the 3d model, currently the flow of the silhouette grabs focus and throws it at his chin in a Dead 7 angle, however, the eyes are more appealing to have the attention go to, which is what we see in the concept..
Having a look at the legs a few things can be seen
See how the back of the calf extends farther out than the rest of the body in the back, but the tip of the toe is in line with the pec?
There is a curvature the body as a whole, that is distinctly absent in your figure, which is causing a torrent of issues ( including the granny butt! )
the gesture has to come before the form. even in static t-pose models that are going to be rigged. You can fix this model. Pose, stretch, and move the model and stop with the detailing altogether. Once, you nail the proportions, start re-sculpting, and you'll notice that a lot of your problems are gone.
Don't get me wrong, detailing is the biggity bizomb shiznat, and its fun as hell. But there is work to be done beforehand, or all the beautiful detailing in the world won't save the dude.
And if it seems like a lot of info to absorb, here are a couple of key phrases to help you along:
"GO GO GO"
"there is no try, there is only do"
"YOU CAN DO EEEET!"
"what do you mean you stopped for coffee?"
If not applied to this model (understandable) make sure to study it, and apply it to the next.
http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=4338&page=3
http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications/2007/NPAR07_IllustrativeRenderingInTeamFortress2.pdf
http://ve3d.ign.com/videos/14485/PC/Team-Fortress-2/Developer-Diary/Team-Fortress-2
Obviously you don't have to take it this far, but there is a load of info to be gleamed. Such as a strong silhouette, well defined shapes and an almost minimalistic approach to modeling and textures. Remember you zoom into the poly level and spend most of your time there, players are going to see your model from across the map most of the time.
Adding too much detail is like doing a FPS weapon and never checking what it will look like from the player pers (looking down the stock/sight). Don't overlook the only thing the player is going to see for the sake of "art" or "pushing the tech envelop".
(added pretentious BS)
Boundaries are NOT there to be pushed, they're there to keep the game from crashing. Every attempt should be made to help stay under those boundaries and make the game enjoyable. Not every artist has to be Maverick flying Mach 5 with his hair on fire. Besides its feels damn good to read "I was under the min spec for the game and bought it anyway, to my surprise it runs great!"
so hope you enjoy his nakie legs, hopefully tomorrow or sometime ill be able to go back to adding in armor features to it. oh one last note, i also took yet another stab at nixing the granny butt.. what do you think of this? (don't mind the cellulite around the leg/butt connection)
and thanks for the help on this, learning things about anatomy i never realized in cold hard facts.
It's certainly not perfect, and I tried to take the bulk of the armour into consideration, but you can see how he has some weight to his stance now, rather than looking like he's tilted forward. (which will still come through even after he's rigged and posed, so it's better to fix it first)
For future projects, if you're creating armour, and not cybernetic replacements, it's good to keep in mind that the armour sits over the form of the body, its doesn't replace it. Like the boots, the boots are going to be bigger and a little bulkier because the guy's foot and part of his leg have to fit inside of the structure.
whip's second comment is good. if u have the time sculpt the armor as subtools over the basemesh, this will significantly improve the proportions and weighting of the armor, caus its one less thing to worry about.
-Woog
In future projects I would suggest you draw some simple orthographics before you get into all of this. Using Saving Loomis orthos like WhipSwitch did is a great place to start. It would probably take an hour max to draw the orthos, and you wouldn't fall into any of these proportion problems. In the long run, that one hour spent on orthos could save countless hours of tweaking.
Anyways, I like the new direction! Keep at it!
its 6am and i think the legs are looking good.. heres a beauty render of the whats been kludged..
and here is a more technical shot *note* front view is perspective side view is ortho..
whipswitch, thanks for the drawover it really helped me get more of a grasp on proportion alignment, was something i never really thought about in terms of proportions so thank you.
i reduced the size of the head a bit, and made the feet bigger and also tried to line up the feet to look more underneath the player. i didnt however make the butt/lower torso area pulled down/bigger because once i got done with the legs things looked pretty O.K. but its 6am so i its hard to concentrate on the subtelties of proportion right now!
its about 700 tri might have to reduce its polycount even more depending on the polycount of the rest of the armor. but for now that's what it is.. i may also just have the most closeup lod level be relatively high, like 5000 polies and then have a very fast lod step down so only in the most closeup circumstances would it be that high.
anyways head is "done" there are still some thing to cleanup some normal map artifacts.. and then there is the dreaded texturing .. bah ! but yeah first piece done. now to move onto the chest?
phew i finally got this finished.. total polycount for the lowpoly is 4724 tri . I will have 3 or 4 lod levels to go with this the first lod level will probably go to 2500-3000 tri and then after that probably 700 then something like a cube for the last level .. the way lod levels work in the game engine is you have to put a pixel level threshold for them to change at which was actually something i was wondering what peoples thoughts on where.. meaning at what pixel size should it reduce lod .. and by how much?
as for LODs, they change based on how far the object is from the camera. i was told at work that a LOD should have 1/3 the verts of the LOD above it. and i wouldnt make the last one a box. last one should be a really lowpoly character, and then eventually it would disapear if you get far enough away from it. but it all depends on the engine. are you going to put this in game?
also the level is a test level thats why its so fugly
And if you aren't willing to drop the red light altogether, then tone it way down at least, it shouldn't overpower the color of the texture. If all you have is normals at this point, I'd stick with a white light to test with. It'd prolly be a good idea to stick with white light well into the texturing process for a while too..
That's said, its great to see him making progress.
mostly looking for crits on the texture, or ideas .. this is one of my more serious attempts at texturing so im still learning quite a lot methinks.
and one more