DWIII - 3D - Firehazurd - Rustmancer

[Firehazurd]

I'm still doing sketches and working out ideas in my head. But I've fallen in love with the idea of a mage of some sort that controls atrophy, or more specifically; rust.

Those robots better watch their shiny metal @$$3$ ;)

Current Concept

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k153/Firehazurd/Rustmancer_Concept_012.jpg

[Firehazurd]

Concept image! Lemme know what you think.

[Firehazurd]

Here is a character spread of the Rustmancer... and he's neked!

Clothes coming soon!

[setschaos]

Nice stuff, I always envy your caricature capabilities! Keep it up.

[Firehazurd]

Now he's got some cloths. I chose the Blue/Grey color cause I figure I should plan on it being the "Team Color" and since none have been officially chosen, I just went with the only color available... plus I like the color.

The Gauntlet will probably be part of his artifact, though the actual bulk of the artifact will more than likely be a long chain wrapped all around his body with various metal objects attached to it rusting away feeding the artifacts power!

Teehee!

[BiG ToE-3DT]

I know this is just the first day/first minutes, but you will want to push your design to the limit. It is cool now, but I'm sure with some kind of rusty leg armor, or more tattered clothing over his arms and legs could help out. He might even want a mask of some sort

[Firehazurd]

I agree. I'm trying to pace myself a little bit as the competition hasn't even really started yet. He's going to get the chains wrapped around his body so that will add some interesting complexity. I was also thinking of doing some minor head/face armor, but not quite as concealing as a mask.

I think I will use some rusty armor here and there also... I really should decide what class he is as that would probably help with the equipment.

At any rate, I'm heading to bed now so I'll work more in the morning.

Thanks for the input, expect more updates in the morrow. :)

[killadee]

great start! you have been busy.

[Firehazurd]

Nother update!

Not sure yet, but I think I'll have his right side unarmored but laced with magic glowing-ness and runes or something.

Lemme know what you think.

[Firehazurd]

I think I'm going to abandon the Turtle-esque appearance and go for something more alien.

Here's a sketch I did at work.

[McKronic]

what are your plans for the rest of the body? are you still keeping the shell idea?

[L3XICON]

hey Firehazurd nice concepts so far :) I like the shell idea, be great if you played with that on your new alien concepts. Natural thick armour. Be great also to have it so when in danger it can shrink itself down into the shell like a tortoise does :D portable bomb shelter.

[Robbelibobban]

armored ninja turtles! our win is secured!

[Firehazurd]

The general body shape will remain the same. As for the shell; I want some sort of hard covering back there, so I'll either put up some metal plating or make some kinda alien carapace... maybe something like a nautilus shell or something.

Will update soon.

[setschaos]

Hey I got projection to work, call me if you want to see if I can get it to work for you too.

[Firehazurd]

Here's some more work on this guy. I'm feeling really good about this concept. I think he'll work out well.

[Firehazurd]

Starting on some meshwork :D

[Firehazurd]

Work work work...

[Star_Scream]

Faaasssttteeeeerrrr :D nooo am joking.

[Firehazurd]

He's evolving. Got some naughty triangles around the neck but I'll be working them out once I do more to the head. I just had to reduce the number of edges when I extruded to make shaping the head initially a little cleaner and easier.

[Firehazurd]

Nother update. Respec!

[Firehazurd]

Update.

[MonteCristo]

Yeeeah!. Doing good. But pace yourself. Are you sure you've squeezed everything you can out of that concept? It's definitely cool, and I like the colour pallette a lot. But this is a long war, and I just want you to be sure you're done before you leap into the 3D part. When you posted #9 you made a big leap with the details. I still think you have that in you again.

Just my 2cents. :)

[Firehazurd]

I am letting my excitement get the better of me. I'm going to have to force myself to redraw the character after like every day of work. Or maybe even several times a day. However, I am very happy with the base anatomy of the character and probably won't change that much if at all. So I felt comfortable enough to produce that bad boy.

I will have to churn out some alternate designs for his apparel. Bah!

I'm gunna start doing that now.

Thanks.

[Jido]

The race/creature design is awesome and you should stick with it. But the armor seems forced, as if the armor wasn't created by his own people. I'd think it be interesting if the armor was made of enchanted and augmented shell fragments of deceased warriors and powerful ancestors that have been passed on through the generations of the last millennium.

[Firehazurd]

New design for his outfit. I'm pretty happy with this. Any suggestions?

[setschaos]

Very nice, I'm partial to the golden and the silver one, seeing as how you will have plenty of texture space to play out the rust, why not go with a stark contrasting apparel style to get the eye to jump around!

It's very nice to see how it's progressing.

[Rych]

You know I love the concept but the one thing that I feel is that he almost feels like a water style beast more than a fire style beast you know?

I mean the look from him is almost like a squid style guy, it almost doesn't make sense for him to wield fire magic. I am not dogging the concept at all but if your going to go with fire try to bring out a lot more ferociousness in him, fire is the element of passion and anger. Let people feel that in your concept feel the rage of the flame!!!

Baron

[Firehazurd]

True, he is a fire guy... but it's not fire in the typical way. He'll never burn anyone. His magic will atrophy and decay all those around him. He speeds up death by age. The most feared, yet peaceful death.

I will try to intensify him however. Anyone have an suggestions?
I was thinking of giving him glowing veins or something.

[Rych]

Well there are many ways to really intensify the character without taking away from what you have, Maybe you could put really dark rings around his eyes like this magic is really wearing away his body you know, Like this is some powerful magic! And try to intensify his pose really push it and make it more dynamic, push his right arm up like he is really pulling the magic out of him, and his left looks really limp give it more of a struggling pose like that arm is clinching to help the the other arm as he wields the magic.

Baron

[Puckducker]

Wow, great improvement on your concept image...your new stuff really gives the character a lot more life to work with.

Maybe to make him more intense, you could create his one hand to be much larger than the other. Just something to offset the design slightly.

[Firehazurd]

Here's a cool concept I did at work. I might color it later.

[setschaos]

I think that it's a good style and nice to play out on that idea, however, the story says that machines no longer work in the universe, that an ultimate weapon knocked 'us' out. So maybe replace the little "Iron Giant" with a gremlin with alot of armor that is rusting off with his touch.

I think that that should do it. I like the development of your character, try hitting up some really crazy, almost useless, details in the concept so that you almost seemed overwhelmed by the small amount of triangles you are given.

Keep it up (now go post in mine ^_^ ) :P

[lampshadehead]

I read the briefing to say that 'our' technology was knocked out by some weapon, but later new emenies started coming from some machine planet through a wormhole. So we have no technology, but have to fight against a force that does have high technology

[setschaos]

ahh i see, I take it back then ^_^

[Firehazurd]

New update. Thinking of ditching the shell in favor of some more interesting back gear. Gunna do some concept drawing and work it out.

I am really happy with how his hands and feet are coming out. they just need some fleshing out I think.

[BiG ToE-3DT]

how great would it be if he had some think/skinny tenticles coming out from somewhere. Real long ones that he could grab people with and reel them in, slowly, so he could enjoy their screams. You could even toss an oppacity on there, which would mean they don't have to be attached to the main body at all. to make the tenticles look like they are just floating/waiting for someone/thing to attack. With the oppacity map, you could fade out the back portion of the tenticle so that it looks like its made up of water or something.

[Puckducker]

I really like the shell, it something fairly unique.

I think it'd be really cool, to imagine this character as a 100ft tall giant, and on his shell, maybe you've got little communities or buildings....like he's got maybe a whole city on his back. Sorta like Chronos from God of War....that could turn out well.

[Firehazurd]

I like the idea for more tentacles. I have been tossing it around some. Maybe some coming from his back to visually act like a cloak or maybe from the back of his ungloved hand for more gripping action...

At any rate. I'm acclimating myself to Z-Brush in hopes of using it for this comp.

[Firehazurd]

Made the main piece of armor. Working on the rest.

[Firehazurd]

So I'm doing some experimentation with Zbrush and I am having trouble getting the program to create a Normal Map... there is an option to "Create Normal Map" but as far as I can tell the button doesn't do anything. Not sure what I'm doing wrong.

I have mapped the objects UVWs and Zbrush recognizes as much, so I dont know what to do. Any ideas?

[setschaos]

1. Export your sculpt from zbrush as a .OBJ file.
2. Import the .OBJ file into your original .max file.
3. Make sure the Unwrap UVW modifier is in the stack on the low poly model.
4. Select the projection modifier from the drop down and select the sculpted high poly model as the reference geometry.
5. hit the '0' key on your keypad, its the hot key for the 'render to texture' menu.
6. Follow the short list of numbers that I have included here.

When you have rendered to texture, you can open the material editor and in the bump section, select normal, then select bitmap then use your unwrapped normal as the bump. You should be all set then. Don;t forget to use lights and shadow, otherwise it will look like trash.

[Firehazurd]

That would be great except the object I'm using would be like a hundred thousand polys and would freeze max... I thought there was supposed to be some way to directly export a map from ZBrush.

[BiG ToE-3DT]

before you do that, make sure your pc/max will be able to handle the mesh. The highest I've ben able to import was right around 750,000, with a 1gig of ram. The import will take some time, so unless you see an error message, let the machine "do work"

[Star_Scream]

But what if you get an error like this?

[BiG ToE-3DT]

thats fine. Wont screw with anything. Its just saying that you haven't told Max where you want the map to be placed in the material editor.

[Firehazurd]

New Concept Image!

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k153/Firehazurd/Rustmancer_Concept_012.jpg

[Firehazurd]

I still have to incorporate his chain in a pleasing way... I'll be doing some sketching.

[miclepickle]

looking really awesome.. love the colors but the mechanical right hand doesnt seem like it belongs on the rest of the character.

[Firehazurd]

The glove is still under production. I plan on having a better design after work tonight. Thanks.

[Firehazurd]

I cant manage to get this projection thing to work out.

Ive got a model I imported from Z-Brush but when I attempt to pick the High Poly model for projection it pulls up a max script and highlights a line

pmodInterface.autowrapCage()

then I cant click on anything in that section. Very strange.

I've done the same with a copy I mesh smoothed to test it out and it worked fine. So I'm a little confused. Any ideas?

[Firehazurd]

Ok I fiddled around with the object and did some smoothing and, for some reason, that worked.

But I gotta admit, I'm not getting the results I want and it's not really looking that hot. I don't understand how people use this system and get good results.

[Firehazurd]

I'm getting pretty reliable results using simple bump maps. I think I might stick with them.

[miclepickle]

looking pretty good

[setschaos]

can we see a render of your "not so hot" normal mapped rustmancer?

[Firehazurd]

The reference geometry from Z-Brush is a lot smoother than what this would lead you to believe. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better.

This is just so messy, and I projected to 2048! I'm not sure why it's appearing like this.

[setschaos]

Try taking your .TGA file and opening it into photoshop and smoothing and smudging the areas that look choppy on the normal map. It will still keep its normal quality, but the edges will be smooth as opposed to having the square look that it gets when you put it into ZBrush. If that doesn't work, export at about 3 iterations, work in zbrush, then when you import again into max, slap another iteration onto the high poly model. Usually I won't go above 4 iterations because of my machine's laziness.

Also, I'm not sure, but it seems like you don't have any lights on besides the normal light. Try putting three or four omni lights up at the top of the model with shadows on. That should help it out a bit too.

edit: try the lighting first.

[Firehazurd]

I do have a couple lights. I'm doing some experimentation and will hopefully have results soon.

[setschaos]

The lights should really be at the top of the scene or the bottom or both, giving too much light in the middle of the object will make it so that you end up not getting the shadow desired which is all normals are about, light tricks. I have this little tutorial that I found on youtube, it's dubbed, but it gets the point across quite simply.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX_yfoLHkKU

It's quite useful actually.

[setschaos]

Stop sleeping and get back to work!!!!

Let me know how things are going.

[Mr.T]

Great concept! Did you decided how the glove will be made or not yet?
Love the colors. Btw if the hand is mechanical watch out to not make
it against the story (you know 1000years ago.. mechanical and electrical
devices stopped working etc...)

It has been 1000 years since the disappearance of machines. All electrical and mechanical systems continue to malfunction

[Firehazurd]

I'm going to keep looking up info on normals. For now though, I need to take my current concept and kick it up a notch. I think it's a little bland and amateurish (even though I am an amateur).

The nature of the concept will mostly remain intact, but I need to make it more interesting. Any suggestions are extremely welcomed.

[BiG ToE-3DT]

ideas, break the back armor into 3 or 4 parts instead of just the two. The squid like thing in the front of the face, have it come out stright from the face instead of the way it is now. Maybe turn his arms into 3 or 4 tenticles that all come out at the same spot, like one big thick tenticle that breaks up into smaller ones, but they need to be long, like touch the ground while standing straight up long. Could even do the same with the legs. More eyes. The ones you have now are cool, they have this evil feeling, so to get more fron that, add more eyes. Could almost be like an eye for every tenticle, maybe not. But three eyes on each side of the head, there will be no blind spot.

[Firehazurd]

I'll begin drafting some sketches.

[Firehazurd]

*climbs up from page six*
Whew. Okay! Here is a more complete mesh. I plan on adding a lot to what I've got, but what does everyone think about the long arm weapon thing. I'm not entirely sold on it, yet, but I think it has potential.

[setschaos]

I think that the arm has ALOT of potential. If you can maybe make the chain fly from there, making it even more elongated. I think this is a big step forward in your character development.

On a side note, if you wanted to make a nice wife frame shot of your model:

1. Select your whole mesh
2. Using the move tool, rotate tool, or scale tool, shift click (do not drag) and clone your entire mesh.
3. With the cloned mesh selected, add a 'push' modifier to it (the mesh <.<) and play with the amount, not too much that it comes off the original mesh, but so that it is maybe a pixel off of it.
4. In the material editor, apply a new material to the cloned mesh and make it a wireframe.

Try to use a light material for the base mesh and a darker on on the wireframed material.

[Firehazurd]

Been a while since a real update. Going with a nice, easy to manipulated, predictable bump map for the details. Lemme know what you think.

[Firehazurd]

Burnin the midnight oil!

[setschaos]

I'm not sure if your just running through the basic texture and bump phase or not, but if you are relatively done with the head texture, you should think about running back and using the burn and dodge to make some sort of color variation. Try using the mid tones option for both, it just lightens the color and darkens it, it doesn't turn the palette black or white.

Keep burning that midnight oil.

[Firehazurd]

Yeah this is all preliminary bump work. Thanks for the tip though.

[BiG ToE-3DT]

you will want to use more than just dodge ans burn on the face to add color variation. You will want to use other colors aswell.

[L3XICON]

love the elephant trunk-ness of the bump on his / its... well trunks :P I agree with Big Toe. some colour variations to simulate thicker, thinner skin areas would really bring the diffuse to life :D looking forward to updates

[Firehazurd]

Nother update!

[Firehazurd]

Still a lot of work to be done, but he's moving in a direction I like :)

[Firehazurd]

An update!

[Firehazurd]

some work done on his arm piece. I'm gunna mount a nasty maw head thing on the end of that sucka.

[crasong]

Im liking it so far, except the rust aint looking too rusty yet... not quite sure what it is... but im gonna throw this in to see if it help you...
http://hq.dpics.org/49__BioShock%2C_Big_Daddy_and_Little_Sister.htm
Keep on going at it :)

[Firehazurd]

Added some noise... kinda hard to see might do some more.

[Firehazurd]

Some changes in the coloration. Rigging is mostly done just need to put in some constraints. Will begin the Pedestal tomorrow.

[ryvick]

you got some very nice coloring goign there. maybe shine the metals a lil bit towarsd the edges as if they are brushed.

[Firehazurd]

Taking some time to work on the pedestal.

[Firehazurd]

Collateral damage!

[Firehazurd]

Beginning to work out the pose. I might add some cloth to him.

[crasong]

Cant have an awesome pedestal without good ol damage. Nice!

[lampshadehead]

Looking good. I think I remember in the rules that the pedastal can't have anything that the character could pick up. I don't know if that means they aren't allowed to hold onto it as well

[Firehazurd]

Got some more work to do, some artifacts to take care of... but this is pretty representational of what the final winning pose would look like.

lampshadehead: Yeah I thought the same thing you did. Big toe said the tree wouldn't really fall into that category. :)

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k153/Firehazurd/Rustmancer_WIP_030.jpg

[Firehazurd]

Update. Working on some stuff for the layout.

http://i29.tinypic.com/28cqa7l.jpg

[setschaos]

no TREE!!!!!! I DEMAND TO SEE THE TREE! Also, what happened to his whip like thing that was his artifact from before? I wanna see the dynamics that I know you have.

Good job so far, it looks really good and you did an excellent job showing the moood through colors and lighting. Kudos.

[Firehazurd]

I felt like the long arm extension thing wasn't really going to bring anything together and with his body shape and dynamics there wasn't any real good looking way to make it all come together organically.

As far as the tree is concerned, I really liked it and wanted to keep it... but I also felt that it was important to get as close a look at the character as possible. The tree forced me to zoom out to fit it all into the frame, which meant I was sacrificing the character for the tree. Obviously the character is more important.

[Firehazurd]

http://i27.tinypic.com/ioqcr5.jpg

[Firehazurd]

Going in a little bit of a different direction for these pages.

http://i28.tinypic.com/21r39i.jpg

http://i27.tinypic.com/242d7bt.jpg

http://i32.tinypic.com/10ih0sh.jpg

http://i29.tinypic.com/i2rdih.jpg

http://i30.tinypic.com/m9buis.jpg

[Firehazurd]

Any suggestions? I basically have to submit tonight because I work tomorrow night right up to the deadline.

[grindill]

I'd say everything on the character looks sweet. I'm really loving the curly-cues on the armor.

My only nit-pick would be the robot head in the beauty shot. It doesn't compare to the rest of the model and looks sort of out of place. I'd spend a little time on texturing it and it'll really fit it. Put some rust stains on it where the tentacles are. Show it disintegrating before our very eyes.

I erally like how you used oxidation as your power. Very nice concept. Unique. Bravo.

[setschaos]

It really turned out awesome! i think the only crit that I would give besides the texturing of the robot head like previously stated, would be to rotate the render of that same beauty shot so that the knee of your character does not intersect with the head of the robot, make it so that they don't blend together so well, when I first browsed through to get the feel of the renders and not to judge at first, I didn't even realize the robot head. I really like the rigging in the tentacles though, it looks very smooth.

Good luck, and good job actually finishing, that seems to be my number one problem <.<

[Conejo Blanco]

A rich color palette, a unique take on the whole assignment, and an original character... well done man, you should be proud of this one, I really like this a lot!

[Firehazurd]

Thank you very much. I very happy with how it turned out, especially since I couldn't use Z-Brush in the end. Next year though, I should have my rockin new computer with twice the graphics memory, twice the processing power and four times the virtual memory. I should be able to do some nice stuff with that kinda hardware :D