Blizzards protodragon

[Creator]

Hi there again,

well i didn't put this in my melotaurthread because it's a whole different character.
I'm talking about the protodragon from blizzards world of warcraft.
For me it's just an awesome design so i had to make a detailed version.
Well the sculptingprocess is in a very early state. I just worked about a day on that, but it's going my ways so i'm very excited to show you the actual state of the modell. The proportions need to be corrected on some areas, but can't wait to hear your opinion.
Hope you like it and c&c are very welcome.

[SR_6274]

Looks great so far. Seeing your other works, I just know this is going to turn out awesome. Waiting for more updates.

[himadri_sm]

looks very good.....keep the updates coming.

[Freespace-3DT]

Is this Deathwing?

[Creator]

thanks for the nice comments. You really encourage me to keep it on.

@freespace: No the Protodragon is a flying mount

[Creator]

hi there,
so here is the first update.
I detailed the head and the overallskin.
Hope you like it.
c&c's are welcome

http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/7827/pdragon.jpg
http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/6218/pdragon2.jpg

[Creator]

another update:
http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/7164/protodragonwip.jpg

[SR_6274]

Holy ............

This is coming along great man, keep it up!

[Bob Marley]

Looking great man, please can you tell us the technic you used to make the scales, thanks.

[ivojovchev]

Looks great , keep up the progress...

[Creator]

Thanks for the comments ^^.

@Bob Marley: I simply used an alpha for the scales and painted it with the stitch and drag brush over.

[Creator]

So another update.
I made a quickpose to give it a more natural look. Hope you like it.

http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/7827/pdragon.jpg

[Freespace-3DT]

Hahah, where were you when we were having the Dragon sculpting challenge :)

It's looking awesome, what's the polycount?

[Rych]

Wow looking awesome, I would almost thing though you would want the wings up in the air. It would make the dragon look bigger and more menacing, with the wings down it is almost submissive.

[VonGeist]

Wow looking awesome, I would almost thing though you would want the wings up in the air. It would make the dragon look bigger and more menacing, with the wings down it is almost submissive.

In the game the proto-dragons use their wings almost like front feet for walking and their small front legs are used solely for manipulation of food and such.

From the guide: "The proto-dragons were sort of the early version before dragons really evolved into the sentient, beautiful majestic creatures that they are known today."

[Rych]

ahhh Gotcha...I guess that would explain the wings down.

[JuST]

Really awesome! Thanks for showing this to us.

[Creator]

Thanks for the comments. I just thought my thread would go under because of the many other good works here ^^.

@Freespace: Well i did start to participate on the smc but anyhow i lost my ambitions due to work and other projects and so i didn't submitt a final piece.
I regret it now xD.

Anyway startet retopologizing and it's a lot more difficult than i thought.
Maybe i will stop this for now and make first the polypainting.

Till then i got a wire from the actual lowest res modell for you.
It contains about 20k polys.
Maybe a retopologize isn't necessary.
Would be glad about some opinions.



edit: ahhhh forgot. The polycount of the highresmodel is 10 mio

[3division]

Really cool detail man. Looking great. But in my opinion the basic anatomy of the beast isn´t that accurate.

[Creator]

Another update.
I made some texture and another quickpose.
Just wanted to share and read your opinion about it.

see ya

http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/4642/dragoned.jpg

[Bob Marley]

Texture is lloking good, maybe you could texture the teeth with a brigther color as they blend a bit to much with the skin texture I think, aswel as the spikes.
About the pose I kind of prefered the other one, if you spreaded the legs a bit more and brake the symetry, as well as the torso that could be a bit rotated, but I m sure posing if Zbrsh must be quite a pain.
ABout the Retopo, why are you doing it, you want to rig him or you want to put it in another software to pose him and add disp map etc???

Last thing maybe you havne t done them yet but I think some realistic eyes wouldlook better then just the green color.

Keep it up man.

[Creator]

Hey,

thanks Bob for the advise. I will try to make the difference more clear.
Well retopologizing because i want to render it in 3dsmax with a normalmap or displace, not sure yet.

Anyhow i have to unwrap it, but there is a problem that appears to me very often, also on other models. When i export the model, unwrap it in 3dsmax and put it back to zbrush it always messes my model up really and also with reproject higher subdivs and a morphtarget it is mostly not the same result as it was.
Maybe in the ex- and import i'm loosing some parameters.

Maybe you have some advices, i can't find a solution at zbrushcentral either.

[Freespace-3DT]

I don't know about Zbrush, but Mudbox has a Load UVs function. You don't have to reimport the whole object, just UVs for it. Zbrush has to have this feature too, you just need to find it.

[Bob Marley]

Hey Creator, well I m at the moment sculpting my character in zbrush and trying to export the Disp map, but I always get artafact, or the render never look like how it looks in Zbrush, so when you ll get to that stage, let me know the setup you r using : )

About exporting the model from Zbrsuh to max and back to zbrush, I never done that so I really cant help you on that one, but yeah its always been a pain to do this exporting between ZB and Max, compare with Maya it looks a lot easier ; (

But still people manage to do that with Max so they should have a look at your thread and help us : (

Good luck man, I ll keep checking out your updates and hopefully we ll figure it out : )

[mel_danes]

Well here goes my sanity.
1.) Figure out what version you want as your lowpoly, Sub 2 or 3 probably. Delete lower subdivisions.
2.) Export out your obj from Zbrush.
3.) Take that into Roadkill and UV map it. Save out the new uv mapped obj.
4.) Back into Zbrush import the new UV'ed obj into your scene, while you have the original model at the same subdivision. It should re-import over your base and maintain all the subdivision levels.
5.) Recreate the lower subdivision levels.

The Max Zbrush import problem stems usually from renamed vertex's. nasty bit o work there.

Hope this helps.

[Creator]

thanks for the advise mel_danes, but i already figured another nice way out to do this.
There is a Freeware that can import u'v from one to another objectfile. Don't know the name atm cause i'm not at home but i tried it already and it worked fine for me.
It fixes the uv's and there's no recreation or morphtarget needed.