DWIII - 3D - Puckducker - Pillar of the Earth

[Puckducker]

Just doing some initial mock-up silhouette work. I've done a little thumb nailing, but I find it really more beneficial for me to start knocking out something in maya first..find it a lot easier to get the shapes I want.

So, this is where I'm at in the initial stage. Not quite happy with the shape of him yet....I want a much more grounded shape to him....I think I'll probably add some sort of flowing robe/cape to his lower half.

No story yet either....we'll have to work on that and see what we get. I do know he's going to be a very large, armored knight. I really like the idea of taking a rather cartoonish/anime'ish style of impractically large armor, but detailing it up as intricate and ornate as the most luxurious set of real life armor....Sick amounts of detail, that's what I'm good at, and what I'm planning on working with.

[EDIT] Updated with latest image.

[Jido]

I like your idea of converting from anime to something more natural. All I can say at this point is maybe bend some those straight edges to get a a bit organic feel to it.

[Puckducker]

Updated with a full concept. Much happier with this design. Still feel it's not entirely together just yet, but I'm happy with how it's progressing.

I gave him a spear/lance for now...partially perhaps because I haven't seen too many other lances, or perhaps because I've been playing entirely too much Fire Emblem and I love my Lance Generals. I liked the idea that he'll have one extremely heavily armored side, which he'll use for defense, while his lance arm is almost armor free, allowing better mobility with the weapon. Added a lot of asymmetry that I was looking for. The robe to one side at the bottom helped too.

[jettmx]

I really like the style-- almost reminds me of samurai seven. I wasn't sure I saw the earth element coming through but I think the robe flowing down with the organic feet armor and the spear really make that come through more.

[akimba]

I really like this design also.. The asymmetry really adds to his character and it's well balanced between the robe and armored arms. I agree with jettmx about the earth element also...There's something very grounded about the combination of his armor and his stance.. He may not wield any magic, but it seems actually MOVING him on the battlefield would be DAMN hard.

Keep it up, I can't wait to see the detail you put into this armor.

[Ghosty!]

I love it too... I'd like to see some colour though.

[Puckducker]

Thanks for the comments!

jettmx: Yeah, I'm not quite 100% on the name really....the idea of Pillar of the Earth was more supposed to indicate how strong and unwavering this character is...but seeing as this contest is all about different elements, I think that idea is probably going to be taken as if this guy is supposed to be using earth/vegetation power.

akimba: Thanks. I love putting in nice flowing robes, I think I'll probably add a bit more....creates a really dynamic look for a still figure.

Ghosty! Yeah, he's just black and white for now....I'll do up some colour concepts probably after I finallize this design a bit more, but I'm thinking he'll be fairly mono-cromatic, with blue accents to give him the 3Dtotal look.

[que]

I'm digging that concept man. I like were your headed with this one.

[DemolishMan]

I love this one, its Sauron-ish, nice job!

[Puckducker]

Heh, yeah, I was kinda going for a Sauron like effect.

[Rych]

Yeah the flow in the concept is awesome, very dramatic, if you can reproduce that in the 3d model man that will look awesome!!

[markus_omega]

nice :) i like it. its kinde a mix between sauron and samurai 7 . great stuff :).

keet it up

[pingu722]

Hello mate

I like your skirt design, It must be cool when it turn to HiRes model in Zbrush

:haha:

[Puckducker]

Been working on the concept stuff still, but no new updates to post as of yet. I'm still kinda struggling trying to implement the elemental powers into my character/weapon. Any thoughts? I was thinking trying either ice or air.

[setschaos]

Looks amazing thus far. If you're really open to suggestion... I can see this guy as a summoner, ice-water with a lance (not the polearm). He would be awesome with an ice mount and a lance, I'm sure there aren't many who plan on using a mount as part of their entry, only because of the tri limit. However, if you are feeling ambitious and want to challenge yourself, it would definitely make for an awesome entry.

[Puckducker]

Thanks for the idea Sets...not quite the direction I'm wanting to take the character, but it's interesting none the less. I was very much considering a mount though...however it's not the tri limit that has me worried, but the pixel resolution of my texture, if I needed to use the same texture space to texture a horse or something as well. I haven't drawn them in, but I'm planning for the armor of this character to be extremely ornate and detailed, so I need all the texture space I can afford.

That being said though, I think I'll probably stick with the ice/water element, and perhaps just try to included it in the colour selection. Speaking of which, I've done a little colour work here, and added the new design for the lance, which is more of a voulge/spear combination now.

I've also wanted to add more flowing capes/robes to the guy....really like the way they look. I've done a couple silhouette shots with a couple designs. I really like the first one, but I also think the last one with the full cape isn't bad either. Any thoughts?

[Puckducker]

Changed the helmet design, and added the cape and flag. Added a bit more of a spartan look, though I'm not entirely sure what'll go under the mask...but this way, at least, I get to put something there.

[khemist000]

Im loving your concept. Knights always have fascinated me. As far as your element/power, I like Air. Its not often done and if you come up with something creative it would be awesome, maybe like a golem familiar made out of clouds.

Good luck!

[khemist000]

Puck, being a fan of Samus Aran and all things Metroid can you PM me your render from "Take Control" I cant find it on the boards.

[Puckducker]

Latest update. Started modelling....this is kinda a mix between low poly WIP and proxy work for scaling....I'm still playing around with a few ideas.

The cloth probably won't go in until I pose him out...I'm really trying to make the cloth one of the highlights of this piece, I think I've worked out a really effective way to make very realistic low poly cloth...but it'll take me a bit to get it working. I'm thinking though of having his cape drape over his right shoulder pauldron, just to put it in the scene a bit more.

As always, any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

[goat]

Something i would like to see is the rips in the cloth in all of the cloth or none of it. looks a bit weird to me with half with rips and half not. Either way looks good i think just needs to be one or the other. Character looks good hope to see some more.

[Puckducker]

Goat: Yeah, totally agree. All the robes will probably have the torn, battle weary look to them....I just didn't feel like totally fleshing that idea out to all the cloth in the concept. We'll have to see though, once the cloth goes on, since that'll pretty much all be texturing.

[que]

The model looks good and I really like the idea of shreaded cloth. Keep it comming!

[khemist000]

Your mesh is looking good! Man, I need to get going on mine...:dunno: One thing I was thinking about is your shield. I think you should waaaaaaaaay oversize it, especially since you plan on going intricate with your designs. I feel like the size of the shield is too small for a champion warlord.

[Puckducker]

Here's an update with the robes in place. These robes/capes are strictly meant for proxy purposes...the real robes won't be modelled until the character is posed, so these are just to give me an idea of the shapes I'm looking for. I really liked putting the cape around his right shoulder, I think that will play well with the normal maps. I also changed around the helmet shape slightly, I think it works better.

Now that I've got everything in place, I'll do some scaling and moving around of pieces and then I'll start the real modelling.

khemist000: You know, I had originally ruled out the idea of using an overly large shield, but I really think you're right. My initial idea was that his shield was more of a half shield, to be used as an extended piece of armor, and not to weigh him down to much. I tried re-sizing the shield though (not in this update though), and I really liked the look, so I think you're dead on there. I'm a little worried about texture space though, as all these unique robes and a large shield are going to eat up tonnes of pixel res, so that's going to make things tricky if I want to get in really fine details....but, oh well, we'll see what we get when I try rescaling shield up to a full shield.

[Weiryknight]

lookin good! nice clean poly arrangements. May I suggest that his ****** drape be a little worn as well?

[Budello]

Cool, but i think it's REALLY Warcraft style. Not properly a bad thing, but if I were you i'll try a more "dirty" look.

Your work is excellent,anyway.

[ballo]

Beatiful concept with a medieval king arthur armature, I love it!, with the clothes have a look very dynamic. I think the character is part of the class air, maybe for the colour blue. With his spear could produce wind. But the water/ice is cool idea too.

[redonix76]

I'm loving the cape and cloths!! Very nice and clean mesh with great polygon distributions. Can't wait to see him finished!!

[akimba]

You're headin in a good direction with the changes you've made. I like the redesign on the spearhead and the helmet changes, it will certainly add to his silhouette. Poly flow looks really good.

The spear certainly stands out as the artifact, but it may need something to make it feel more special or magical. This could certainly be done with a color pass or when you make a detail pass.

Keep it up!

[Holo]

Awesome, I really love the Armor design youve come up with, and im happy u didnt go too over the top with its complexity.
Makes it look much cooler.

If i could give any advice though, id say do something about the Tunic, i dont know why but it reminds me of an apron for some reason.

Then again il have to wait til u refine it a bit, im sure it will turn out fine.

Keep it up man.

[omnicypher]

looking pretty sweet! looks like a mix between eastern and western styles. it seems like theres alot of wind under his ****** tho. also seems like he could use some detail in the middle, like a big belt or some kinda crest/symbol.

[Puckducker]

Thanks a lot for the responses all...getting a lot of solid stuff to work with. Much appreciated!

Weiryknight: Heh, yep the, uh, "****** cape" will most definitely be as worn as the other.

Budello: I've never actually really thought about the warcraft style, though I can see where you're coming from. But, yeah, I think the texturing will set him apart design wise, and he will be fairly grungy.

ballo: Yeah, I think I'm going to keep him air/wind class perhaps, and design a couple elements around that.

akimba: Thanks for the comments. I hear you on the spear, I was thinking the same thing after I finished the last concept for it. I think it still needs some design work, I'll probably need to design it with the artifact right inside...we'll see how that goes later on.

Holo-3DT: Yeah, the tunic isn't quite sitting right at the moment...I don't think it'll fully play with the design until he's in a pose and I can model it in properly there.

omnicypher: Yeah, I think I'll probably add some sort of geometric detail to his torso, though I think I'm going to be getting pretty detailed with the texture of the armor, so it won't be totally flat regardless.

[Puckducker]

Ok, so I did some scaling of this guy...try to give a bit more presence. I've done a bit of scaling to the shield, and I'm not entirely sure what works best. I really like the large, full body shield, but I think it'll cover too much of his body, and maybe eat up too much texture space. I like number 2, but maybe it's too small...number 1 is the original shield.

Any thoughts on the shield size? Perhaps a between 1 and 2 would best.

After this, I'm going to start refining the model down to the final low poly model now that I have everything in place and scaled.

[platypus_green]

I think having the shield a tiny bit smaller than 1 would work well. 2 looks a bit small.

[melvinsqualor]

I like shield number 1. The others look very weak compared to the amount of armor he has on.

[omnicypher]

3 looks more like a big gauntlet rather than a shield and #1 looks pretty good and makes him seem more badass, but i wouldnt go any larger than 1, or it would be hard to see the character behind the shield. if you use a large shield, i would suggest a large weapon to balance his attack/defense personallity and keep him well rounded. nice shield design by the way, its rare to see an asymetrical shield, and you pulled it off really well. cant wait to see what details will be in the texture. anything from glowing red norse runes, to asian symbols, to english lions and floral patterns would fit well with the armor design. the silver/blue has a very noble feel to it, maybe the shield and weapon could use some blue accents. you still have room for a touch of a third color, like gold, or brown for the straps holding the armor together. looking great so far, keep it up!

[akimba]

I prefer number 2. It has enough size to add more to his already daunting and stable form, while not totally overpowering (or blocking) the rest of his frame. With the amount of detail Puckducker is most likely planning to put in, it could start to fight with the character if it's too large.

[L3XICON]

i love the huge-ness of shield 1, although I think it may be a smidge too large, maybe halfway between 1 and 2 will be ideal. also with 1, it may hide too much of your superb character!

[Puckducker]

Thanks for the responses guys, lots of solid feedback to work from. Much appreciated.

I think I'll probably go with the larger shield then, perhaps sized down a bit...it'll take some creative thinking to get it and the cloth to fit in the UV space without taking up all the room, but I'm sure I can figure that out.

Going to start doing the full model now, so it'll be few days before the next update.

omnicypher: You pretty much nailed the look that I'm going for. I'm going to try and get in some very strong floral and 13th century european luxury armor designs for the fine detailing. That's why I'm a little concerned about the pixel res-with all those cloaks and the big shield....but I think it'll be fine in the end.

akimba: Yeah, that's my main concern. I think I'm going to go with a smaller version of one, because I really like the standing shield look on him, but I'll try to do it in a way that it's not blocking the design too much.

L3XICON: Thanks for the feedback L3XICON, glad you like the design. I'll try to pose him so the shield doesn't do too much blocking, but where I can still retain the large standing size of the shield.

[schreck]

Hey man this character is so strong yeah...

[soapy]

Really nice model. He has a little but of that Warhammer thing going on. Great progress.

Shield 2.

[khemist000]

I LOVE the scale of shield 1 but I have to agree with your worries of taking up too much Tex Space and covering up your model. Shield 2 is just about perfect or follow L3XICONs approach and do a size in between 1 and 2. I definately think your on the right track. Just the shield scale alone gives this knight so much more presence and Bad-Ass-ed-ness!

[Puckducker]

Ok, got the low poly model here nearly wrapped up I think. The cape and robe are still only proxies, so they haven't changed and won't till I've got him in a pose...but the rest is pretty much ready to begin unwrapping I think.

Ended up keeping the larger shield (though scaled down slightly from the last version)...I'll just have to get creative with my UV space to ensure a high pixel res, but I enjoy doing that.

The feedback has been great so far. Looking forward to more comments.

[Robbiek1000]

Haha, your spear looks a ton like the one I made, only mines textured :P
http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k187/Robbiek800/texture_weapon.jpg

its all looking pretty good though, so far. I'm curious to know what your try count is right now.

[Puckducker]

Heh, yeah, you've got a nice looking lance here too.

The poly count right now is just shy of 7000...going to use the other 2000 is going to go into the cloth.

[Puckducker]

Alrighty....got a rough pose in place here. Lots of things that need tweaking and moving about, and the hands aren't close on the weapon/shield yet....but I'm pretty happy with the striking pose he's giving off right now. Gives him a bit more attitude.

Funny enough though, I tried several poses, and not one could I get where the front of the shield was visible, yet not obscuring the body too much at the same time....so it seems I've solved some of my texture space issue, given I won't need to allocate as much to the shield as it won't be as detailed.

[Hirokugawa]

That looks SO good.

[damageINC]

You could save a ton of poly's by making all the fabric a single sided plane and then turn on force 2-sided within your renderer.

[Firehazurd]

Looks good! Very true to the concept :)

[Puckducker]

Thanks for the input.

Damage: Actually, the cloth is already a single side poly...I'm actually planning to add a lot more polys to the cloth too.

[poopipe]

that's niiice

I do think the pose could be more dynamic though - get a bit more bend and twist into his back and splay everything out a bit more


just a thought...

[Conejo Blanco]

looks great man! Really good pose, spears/halberds aren't used well enough, and you've done a great job with it.

[BenniKImmel]

I see a pile of dead machines behind him :D

[ryvick]

Can't wait to see your take on the cloth that you have planned.

[khemist000]

Like the pose and the expression that the head exudes. Looks Badass! What are you going to have in place of the box his foot is on? Robot skull perhaps?

[Sebiomegas]

Very impactfull!
I love it!
Post the wire for your UV sheet after you're done with unwrapping,
I am curious to see the way you tackle this poly layout.
Keep it up!

Did you pose using the biped ?

[Puckducker]

Gah! Who took my 5th star!? I know it was one of you....hmm, well I guess I'll just have to earn that back then on my own. These stars are like children to me.

Anyways, got my low poly model pretty much wrapped up here. Got a lot of work suddenly dropped on me, so my production on this guy has slowed somewhat....but I'm still determined to push on. Hopefully have him unwrapped in a couple days and then we can move onto the fun (and long) phase of high poly baking...yahoo!

Still got about 300 tri's left. Not sure where to spend them...I might just leave them be for now, might come in handy right near the end...but for now, building anything else means that something else will take up texture space and the precious resource of time, so I'm refraining from that for now.

poopipe: Yeah, I tried to get a bit more bend into him....I partially wanted his chest fairly pushed out, but not so much that he has to lean back to far (otherwise, he can't lower his helmet to eye level of the camera). I've tried to tweak him a bit for the final pose to give him more gesture, but I think with all this rigid armor, I'm stuck on this...but I'm happy with that.

Conejo Blanco: Thanks..I tried out a couple halberd designs, but came back to the lance...glad you liked it though, I didn't think there were too many lance designs either.

khemist000: That's the plan! Or something along those lines...not sure how much time I'll have to construct a robot though. I thought it might be cool, to have his boot resting on the defeated body of Taehoon's Big Gun from last year...but then I figured given BG was 3D total's champion from last year, that wouldn't be cool.

Toxic: Thanks! I'm actually curious how the UV's are going to lay out myself...should be interesting. As for how I posed him, I'm a maya user, so I just made up a rig myself and posed him.

[lampshadehead]

Looking sweet. I did the pose. The box his foot is on should be the dismantled corpse of one of the machine invaders :)

[crasong]

300 tris left eh? its a sign i cant ignore, cause i was about to suggest that you refer to the movie 300 for pose refs :D those spartans do love to stick out their chest dont they? xD

[subdivmaniac]

Cool character!... and sweet pose!
Keep it up!

[Puckducker]

Got my guy all unwrapped now. Some people wanted to see the UV layout, so here it is. Not everything is mapped to the same pixel res, but I pretty much got the resolution on all the parts that are needed.

Let the high poly fun begin!

[omnicypher]

nice work on the unwrap, you used up almost every pixel!

[Puckducker]

Omni: Thanks! I'm going to need every pixel on this guy.

Well, I'm getting to the point where I might need to make a tough decision. I've got a lot of extra overtime right now for work, and that's really eating into my DW schedule. Right now, thinking of what I want to do with this guy and how much time it will take, I don't believe I will be able to finish him in time for the contest deadline....at the same time, I don't want to rush what I have left and end up with something that is not as good as it could be....

So I'm going to keep going on the high poly as scheduled, and really try to push it as far as I can, and if I can't make the dead line, I may just opt to take an additional week or two and finish him off properly then.

Until then, I'm still going strong. Here's the normal cape and robes now normal mapped. You'll have to imagine the tattered ends that I will add later. Didn't turn out too bad...I tried a new method for sculpting the cloth, which got good enough results for me. I would have liked more time to tweak it, but time is not an ally right now.

[ryvick]

the cloth came out pretty decent.

[Crab People]

I think you were smart to do the low poly first. I think the rest should be smooth sailing, I wouldn't let work get you down. Keep it up man, I like the way the cloth is turning out, can't wait to see more details on this guy. I would like to see a couple more chains or belt straps to help hold the armor together (maybe when you are texturing him) - my only crit.

[omnicypher]

pose is awsome and the cloth is comming out great. the specularity on the cloth could be turned down, the low poly cloth looked more fabric like a few posts back. any more wind under that cloth and he will be posed like marylin manrow, lol. keep up the good work.

[Holo]

Cloth looks excellent man.

Everything else is just as good, and i love how tight your UV sheet is.
Milking that 2048 Map for all its worth, nice.

[akimba]

The cloth looks awesome! I agree that you should just go to town on the high poly and detail him out just like you want to. He's coming together. Maybe it's possible that you can get him to a good level of detail just in time for the deadline.. I'm keepin the faith! :)

Lookin good.

[L3XICON]

the cloth looks excellent :D looking forward to seeing the detail you add to the armour!

[Puckducker]

Latest update. Still got the chest and boot to work on, but most of the other armor is in place. It was fun zBrushing the underarmor that the guy is wearing, but when you see it in the whole model, it's hardly visable!

So here's the low poly normal map....I don't really have much of a high poly to show off, because my normals are created from a veriaty of sources. I personally don't build a single high poly, but several, so the normal map is created from a couple different layers of high poly bakes (one for the beveled edges, one for mechanical additions, one for decals).

Still grinding away though. Really trying to get this guy done for the deadline.

[Dannat]

This is coming out awesome! I love the feel of the character and the movement of the garment is really nice. For some reason I feel like this character should have a evil hawk or raven on his shoulder or something. Probably not good for this competition because of the poly cap but maybe in a future project. It would make a nice beauty shot.

[ryvick]

the arm and leg clothing is too loose, it does not reflect the one in your concept.

[Conejo Blanco]

Looks great man! My only thing is that I wouldn't get so caught up in the fine details in the armor all over... the fine details certainly add a lot, but you'll want to make sure you don't put in so many small details that the big forms and such get lost.
Also, with the cape around the head, sticking up, you're treading dangerous ground... this at first looked fairly cartoonish, but as it's going it's looking more realistic... but then that huge collar on the cape makes it look cartoonish again... I would alter it at least a little to get a feel for whether you're going serious or not with this guy.
Otherwise, truly excellent, I really enjoy watching this progress.

[Steamtrooper]

Looking good Puckducker, like the spear and gauntlets especially.

[Puckducker]

Thanks for the comments.

Dannat: Yeah, I can totally see this guy with a hawk or something. Perhaps instead of the shield, just having a hawk perched upon his arm will look pretty cool. Might be something good to try out after the comp.

ryvick: Sorry, not quite sure what you mean there. The arms and legs are fairly hidden, so I don't think the cloth looks terribly loose on them, since it's so obscured...unless you meant something else.

Conejo Blanco: Totally agree. Actually, I think part of the issue is just the fact that I took a screen grab and all those little details ended up with some horrible ailising and muddied up the look. In any case, they really are too overpowering and messy looking. They are supposed to be more a subtle look, like acid etched detailing. Dense in detail, but really not leaping off the model too much. I'll try toning them down.

Steamtrooper: Thanks....I was hoping that the spear/lance design wouldn't be too overdone, so my guy would stand out a little bit. Seen a few others, but so far it seems to be mostly great large swords.

[Puckducker]

Ok, so here is the update. Normal map is pretty much complete here and so I think I can start on the diffuse map now. I feel the details are sitting down they way I'd like them to finally.

I've got a quick occlusion and diffuse map on him, but other than that, it's just a straight normal map.

I've been having some trouble with viewing transparencies on Maya's high quality renderer. I'm trying to get the torn up look for the cape, but it's effecting other parts of the cloth in a negative way. I know it's only on the viewport render, and it'll be fine with a software render, but this is how I view and present most of my work (the final submission might even be in viewport, I'm not sure), so I'd love to get this sorted out if anyone has any thoughts. I've posted a picture and you can see on the cloth around his leg, the transparency sorting is not correct. I've tried seperating them out as separate objects...it helped, but did not entirely fix the problem. Any thoughts?

[Tank[NL]]

i am loving this model and the pose. it just looks and feels epic. awesome work, puck

[Sebiomegas]

He looks mighty! :grr: Almost feels like it doesn't need any more colors!
Great looks!


DWIII entry Black Hole Witch
http://forums.3dtotal.com/showthread.php?p=616397#post616397

[MonteCristo]

Sweet jeez. You've been very busy. And it looks so nice. Keep going bro. :D

[Incredibo]

thats looking great dude. I think if you add a little dark grit inside the details it will take it to the next level. good job. cheers

[kicksachi]

Great work on the cloth...Hoping more detailing on the armor.

[Puckducker]

Texture update. I'd say this is 90% complete diffuse map here...still some polishes I need to make and some things to add. I tried to add a face to the guy today, but the results were less than stellar, so I'll have to take another shot on the weekend.

I added the rips to the cloth too. I decided to keep it fairly sublte, rather than big dramatic "spawn" type tearing. It just removed too much of the cape, and it suddenly became a non-element in the design....next time I'll have to make it much much bigger to start with.

He's in desperate need of some lighting, so forgive the simple default lighting for the moment. The tips of most of his spikes are capped with snow/ice, which has a subtle illumination map to highlight them....but with everything fairly evenly lit, it doesn't show up quite as well I hoped....so that will have to wait.

Tank: Thanks....I hoped the pose was imposing enough.

Toxic: Yeah, I wrestled with adding some more colour, but in the end nothing looked better than keeping it fairly simple. I've added some light teal, but I think the silver/blue of Threedy's colour scheme is working really well.

Monte: Thanks, yeah it's been a busy couple weeks here. Just one more till the deadline, but I think I'm close enough that it won't be the mad dash that I had once envisioned.

Incredibo: Agreed. I've tried to incorporate some of that here. What do you think? I didn't want to separate the details out too much, I figured it would just be too much small detail and overpower the rest of the design.

kicksachi: More detail!? Almost every square inch of his armor is covered in engravings.....I'm not sure how much more could be added. Heh, but I do hope you referring to texturing, i which case, I hope I provided the wanted details.

[L3XICON]

still one of my favourite entries so far :D incredible fabric work and dramatic pose!, great colour choices as well. the subtle ice blues on the tip of the weapon, and on the spikes really add something without being too obvious :D with some equally dramatic lighting it will really bring this guy to life :D great work mate, and glad you got the transparencies working too. although a few 'spawn' like rips and tears can't hurt either ;)

[Tetsuya]

excellent work my friend, one suggestion though, his armor seems a bit monochrome with only blue and silver, try adding some gold? especially in the outline of his armor?

btw: anytips on how you created all those folds in the cape? >.<

[Puckducker]

L3XICON: Thanks man. I really hope I can get the lighting to where I want it to be. He's got a lot of complex shapes on him...nice for capturing lots of shadows and highlights, but a nightmare to get those shadows and highlights to appear in the right spots. It'll be a fun challenge though.

Tetsuya: Yeah, I'm trying to get a bit more colour into the armor....I like the monotone silver, but I'm trying to add some intense aqua's and light blue's in their to help guide the eye a bit more.

The cloth, I tried a new method for this model and it turned out really well. I modeled it low poly by hand first....posing it the way I wanted the basic shape to flow. Then I dupe it, and subdivide it up to about 30,000 polys or something, and turn it into a dynamic cloth simulation. Now, the tricky part is to run the cloth simulation to get some nice and realistic folds....but without the cloth moving around too much, which would effect the low poly when baking. Just takes a lot of pinning verts, and changing wind dynamics to get it right.

Beyond that though, the simulation isn't enough. Gives realistic results, but I want them to be a bit stylized too, so I pulled the highpoly dynamic cloth shape into zBrush to intensify and model in more stylized folds and shapes. After that's done, I use that model, back in maya as my high poly and back a normal map with my original low poly cloth.

Bit of a tricky process, but I liked the results...and it gets simpler with time.

[ryvick]

wow your process for making cloth has been very interesting to read. i will see if i can try that sometime.
crits:: your ice is like slushi, maybe it shouldnt have that much teal to it? or maybe more specular on it. also what if you showed your icing in your cape and cloth as well, since they are so close to the ice emmitter objects (i am guessing your armor has the ice power and/or the spear) also i like how you added the logo on his cloth but it only shows as a triangle rather than the 3dt logo.
also i have never done snow or ice so i could be completely wrong :P

[Conejo Blanco]

Looks great, but I'd try to add in crisper coloring, the overall composition looks great but seems a bit muddy overall.

[poopipe]

agreed - perhaps throw some browns in on his underclothes etc. to warm it up a little.

I dunno if it's too late or not but can you raise the shield arm so he looks a bit more triumphant - I can see that making a more interesting silhouette

[Puckducker]

ryvick: I tried adding some ice to the tips of his cape, but the result didn't turn out well for me. It made the fairly flat simple colour of the cloth a little too chaotic. I've tried to make the ice a little more "icy" looking, by giving it just a hint of illumination. The triangles on the bottom of his cape though are just that, triangles. Wasn't actually going for the threedy logo there, guess it was just kinda a coincidence. He's got the logo on a couple small spots, but I'm going for the threedy colour scheme more to fit in with the rules.

Conejo: Yeah, something I've been struggling with. Hopefully with the little illumnation bits added it pulls things together somewhat.

poopipe: I tried the brown, but it clashed too much...given he's an ice alignment, I'd like to stay away from the warm tones as well. Raising the shield arm was definitely something I played with when I was posing him. The current pose is what I thought looked best. With the shield raised up more it appeared as though he was trying to hold it up to block enemy fire or something.

[Puckducker]

Ah, texturing is pretty much done here. Some stuff I would like to have taken more time on and clean up, but I really need to get this guy setup/lit/rendered for the final deadline on saturday...still have to do the base too (just a temp one here for moment)

The face....I tried playing with giving him something more substantial, even going as far as to fairly realistically texturing a head....nothing seemed to work well though, and nothing looked as effective as the empty "witch king-esq" black hole in the helmet. A little lazy and cliched? Perhaps, but if it's working better for the design, who can argue with results? I added little glowing eyes, but as for the rest, I think I'll leave it blank.

[poopipe]

I can see why you wouldnt want him looking defensive so yeah - that makes sense...

Sorry to bang on about this but...

The pose is looking a little unnatural to me for some reason or other though I think it's cos I'm having trouble getting a specific mood from it - eg. has he just belted someone with the big stick? is he triumphant? does he regret something ? does he have gas?(joke)

you see what I mean though right? - The pose isn't screaming out a particular mood and I think that's detracting from the quality of the rest of your work.

[Conejo Blanco]

I agree somewhat with poopipe... is so damn good, but there's still room for improvement... first off, when I first saw him developing, I figured he was good, but now he looks evil... that's fine, good or evil, I'm happy, but you'll definitely want to switch the pose at least slightly to try to get him on one side or the other... is he defending a person, or is he about to execute someone? Is he threatening or proud? His very cold color scheme is going with the evil thing, and I dig it, but again, it makes things seem a tad confused mood-wise.

[Calcuttason]

Don't mess with this guy. Fantastic character design.

[Puckducker]

Yeah, the pose is supposed to be more a "strike a pose" type deal where he's just trying to look impressive rather than evoke a certain mood. Initially I liked when he was staring straight down at the camera, as though he were saying "You really don't want to mess with me". Some of that may have been lost as the texture is a little busy, and the camera angle has changed...I still like it, but I think I can get a little more distance out of it with just the presentation of the shot.

I also feel that the eyes were detracting from the piece. As much as I hate to leave a blank empty void saying "meh, didn't feel like making him a face", I really think it's the better design choice. Any thoughts on the eyes? Not too much I can do now, more just looking for general opinions. I'm excited that he's going to be wrapped up for deadline though, didn't look like I was going to make it there for a while.

[Sebiomegas]

Congrats! He looks primed and ready for war!:smug:

[Conejo Blanco]

I think the eyes were a good choice, and it looks great man. This is going to be a real contender.

[omnicypher]

red glowing eyes might look cool, and you could always try pointing his head upwards, arrogantly in a noble kinda way. the sole on the foot on the rock seems perfectly flat and level, if you tilted the foot, added an arch to the foot, bent the toes up, or just reshaped the rock a bit, his stance might read better. adding a backlight might define the silhouette better. its really looking great, and this is a very strong entry. good luck in the competition!

[poopipe]

what might add a little drama is to just pull the camera left and down a bit so he's looking at it again. He's another one of those big imposing characters that needs looking at from underneath

[Puckducker]

Yeah, the camera definitely needs to be nice and low to get the right impression. For the beauty shot, that's how I'll have to pose him.

For now though, I'm having a bit of trouble with the final shot. Because you need to have both the front and back of your character in the shot, and my character takes up so much horizontal space because of the large cape, it's difficult to fit it all without the characters being too small.

Here's a temp shot of my layout. Any thoughts? The best I can do is have the cape on the back shot somewhat cut out of frame. To get it in the shot, he'd need to be nearly in the center of the frame at that size, so it's not just an issue of nudging things. My feeling is the front view is more important here, so I'm showcasing that more. But I'm open to any idea's.

[Puckducker]

Any thoughts on the layout? I'm going to try and finish up a lot of it tonight...anyone?.....Bueller??

[Conejo Blanco]

Here's my thought: If the wind is as crazy as the billowing cape suggests, I would want to see the kilt blowing back against his leg, almost hugging his leg.. I think that would give a much greater sense to there being a real atmosphere and wind, rather than just drama...
Also, I hate to say it so late, but you may want to add just a touch of a warm color... as is, the blue is really bringing it down, and you always want just a TOUCH of the contrasting color, which can really make that blue pop so much more!

[Puckducker]

Yeah, unfortunately it's too late to put in any modelling or major texture changes for me. The colour though, I wanted to keep it fairly monochromatic to help emphisize the ice artifact of the character by using a lot of cool blue colours (also works well with the threedy colour scheme). Contast is nice, but I didn't want to break the design by introducing warm colours into my cold pallett.

Anyways, here are the final and beauty shots. Pretty happy with how these have turned out. Probably a bit more tweaking to do, but I think for tomorrow I just need to finish up the last 3 submission images. I can't believe the war is finally winding down, it seemed like I might not make it a few weeks back.

[Puckducker]

The construction, texture and concept sheet. A few more revisions and these will be set out tonight as my final submissions.

[L3XICON]

great work puckducker. love the beauty shot, real feel of an Oblivion character for me :D many congrats on completion! and really impressive work.

[Puckducker]

Thanks L3XICON. It's been a long journey on this model for sure.

And thanks to everyone who game me comments and crits throughout the competition, it really provided a lot of inspiration and kept me working away to the wee hours of the morning, even when it looked like I wouldn't finish. This has been a long and enjoyable competition and I'm very happy with my final product. And now with the final images submitted, I shall kick back, relax with a solid glass of scotch and savor this new found free time I have....and perhaps even consider my character for next year's competition.

Congratulations to everyone who entered, and I hope to see everyone again next year.

Here's my final beauty pose for THEED - PILLAR OF THE EARTH

[Warlock 279]

Well done. I think your final shots turned out great. The lighter background made all the difference in the world for your final shots I think.

I wasn't totally sold on you character, even as last as post #91. He had lots of coolness going for him, don't get me wrong, but he hadn't quite arrived yet. Once you started using the lighter backgrounds, and it also looks like you maybe added a rim light, he really started to pop and came to life I think. Those two changes really kicked it up a notch it would seem, funny how that works sometimes.

Anyway, congrats on a job well done, and best of luck in the judging.

Don't get thinking too hard about next year's character yet, I'm sure they'll throw a monkey wrench in there somewhere with the brief. ;-)

[chris_solo]

Magnificent work! Notably on textures, the modelling also is very successful, by hoping to see itself on next Dominance War, and maybe to cross itself on 3Dtotal!

[MonteCristo]

Well done PD. You stuck to the concept so well. Have a big pat on the back from me. :D :dance:

[Lukavi]

Congrats on the finish, I was watching how this came together for a while. I knew we were doing somewhat similar entrys so it was cool to see how you brought yours together, I think it looks great and good job on the cloth.

[ryvick]

really nice. good job for finishing a marvelous piece.

[Conejo Blanco]

Extremely well done, congratulations man... enjoy the upcoming summer up there in Ontario, you deserve the nice weather.

[ballo]

Congratulations! The pose has many stregnth

[Steamtrooper]

Nicely done Puckducker, it came out great.

Dang wish I was in Ontario, was planning to emmigrate to closeby 2 years ago but plans had to go on hold, due to babies. May yet make it yet.