chinese guy(wip)

[ash]

I'm making this character for my game, current polycount is 2722, aiming to keep it under 3000.
so what do you guys think of him?

I removed the old pics, check for updates on posts below:)

[Emperor]

Looks hellanice. One thing that bothered me tho is the size of the hands. They seem WAY too big. Other then that nice work!

[Mormegil]

I don't know about the head, he looks now like a child if that was the idea then it look like it should

[SniperMaster]

the right sock look a bit quished outward dont it?

[ash]

Thanks for the input guys, a little update (added the hat, errr...hair cloth thingy) and reduced the size of hands.
His age would be around 18-20, I tried making him look a bit older, how's it now?

I removed the old pics, check for updates on posts below

Oh yah, can anyone tell me how to make a plane/poly double sided? So that, for example, u can see the plane from both front and back, and not just one side?
And render the mesh with its wire frame?
I use MAx5.0. thanks!

[MonteCristo]

Generally to make a poly visible from the back, you make the material 2-sided. Alternatively, you just mirror a clone of it.

I think this is a good model. All you really need to do it sowrk on the smoothing groups. Polys that turn more than 70 degrees from each other should not really bee in the same group IMO.

[Emperor]

Yeah smoothing goups division would make it look even better....Now for that hari thingy. It looks japanese...never soon that on a chinese :D!

Are u planning on importing it somewhere?

[ash]

hmmm...smoothing groups, i'm a new b and juz started playing with MAX, so i'm not really sure what's that, any tutorials on the web that you would recommend?

[Mike-3DT]

If your model is an editable mesh or editable poly model, go to poly sub object & scroll to the bottom of the modify panel. You should see the smoothing groups control panel, with a whole bunch of numbers. You can get max to auto smooth the model for you, but more often than not it will just try to assign one smoothing group to the whole thing, which is what you have now, give or take. As with many things in 3d & computing generally, you should let the software do as little as possible for you really.
Smoothing groups are really simple to use, but to give you more of an idea of what they are, I'll try to explain.
All polygons have surface normals. These are mathematical perpendiculars that project outwards from the face of the polygon & basically tells the software which way the polygon is facing. In order to get smooth shading across the surface of a model, (instead of a faceted look,) the software needs to interpolate shading between polygons. With me so far?
It uses normals to get the information needed for the shading algorithm to interpolate the shading & get the smooth look.
You can assign your own smoothing groups to models to help define areas or to introduce lighting discontinuities. Why would you want to do that? Well for high poly models it's not needed as much, if at all where you can simply model in more detail, but for realtime models, it's a good way of appearing to have more detail on a model by defining certain areas without having to add any more polys.
Say you have a sphere and you want to create a crease along its equator line. You can't model it in & you're not allowed to texture it. By simply selecting the top half in poly sub object mode & giving it one smoothing group (by pressing a number,) and a different one for the lower half, (by pressing another number,) you will get that lighting discontinuity, making a crease. (actually in this case you would select the top half and see what number it already has (it will show up as pressed,) and then only select the bottom half & reassign.)
Great you think, but how is that useful for a character?
Well you can give the eyeballs a group and the face another, defining the eyes from the face. Or you could take it further and create seperate groups for the eyelid rims, the eyes, the inside of the nostrils etc etc.
The great thing about max is that you can have a large amount of smoothing groups, (I've never needed to use all the numbers,) rather than say, maya which only has the option to make edges soft (smoothed) or hard. Also, it doesn't matter what numbers you choose as long as they are different. You can have the face as group 1 and the eyes as group 23 if you like, it doesn't really matter, although logical progression is probably best. You can also select groups of polys by their smoothing group, which can be very handy.
The general rule of thumb though is to have as few smoothing groups on a model as possible, but never less than 3. I can't remember where I read that - possibly Paul Steed's book, but I use it. It is just a rule of thumb though, so feel free to experiment.
The way to keep the number of groups down is to look & see if you really need another group or if you can reuse an old one. To make a cube with all sides unsmoothed for example, you would only need 3 groups, not 6. Try it & you'll see - give opposire faces the same number, (top & bottom group 1 for example,). as long as you don't have two groups of the same number touching it'll work.
So working from that you would make both eyes group 1, the face group 2 and then if you wanted to make the lips stand out, you could make the top lip group 1 (it's not directly touching the eyes so it won't smooth with them, but it is a different number to the face,) & then the bottom lip group 3 to distinguish it from the face & top lip as well. Using this method you should be able to go round the entire model, defining areas, (eyes, lips, hair, ends of sleeves, soles of feet etc) using 3-5 groups total.
Hope this helps.
As for the model, I like it a lot, but I think the neck should be longer & thinner & the head should be slightly larger.

[ash]

Whoah! thanks for the detailed explanation Mike! It was very helpful! :D
I'll experiment with smoothing groups and post an update with textures (hopefully...) as soon as possible. Thanks again guys!

[ash]

Phew...school started and i've been very busy. Anyway, here's a little update. Played with smoothing groups and UVW mapping, oh, and skylight (I just love it!!).
The texture is temporary, its just for learning how to use UVW mapping.
http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home2001/801128145293/test.jpg

[ash]

woo hoo! posed him, a refreshing change from the "T" pose.
I must say, I'm very impressed with character studio! It only took me a while to setup the biped and posed him and he deform quite well too (still have to do some tweaking though...) I used to spend hours and hours on rigging in lightwave to get a good deformation, that totally took all the fun out of animation!
http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home2001/801128145293/posed.jpg
http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home2001/801128145293/posed2.jpg

[Emperor]

Yup...character studio is highly intuitive, user frienly and most of all...GOOD!!

[ash]

Ok, I'm out of ideas, could'nt think of a weapon for him...I was thinking of a sword, but that's too "normal", not exciting enough, or a huge sword, but that would be too common as well (like the character from Final fantasy 7).
So, anyone have any ideas for a cool weapon?:)

[Seldaek]

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/oicw-001_s.jpg
that's uncommon, but totally unrealistic so what... realism is common, u'll have to deal with that i think :eek:

[ash]

hmmm....but I don't care about realism here, the weapon can be some crazy wacky instrument, in fact the more crazy the better! :)

[ash]

A lil update, worked on the texture a bit, still only colour map though...and done some tweakings.
Let me know how I'm doing so far, ok? Appreciate it!
http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home2001/801128145293/guy1.jpg
http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home2001/801128145293/guy2.jpg
http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home2001/801128145293/guy3.jpg

[Seldaek]

maybe a little problem with the mouth but except that it's damn nice well done =)

[Mike-3DT]

Hey Ash, it's coming along pretty nicely but to my mind the midsection needs work. It gives him an hourglass figure, which makes his waist look too small & exagerates his hips. Short story - he looks like a girl. The overhang from the shirt makes it look like he has low hanging breasts & the facial features don't really help there either as they are quite androgynous. I'd make the waist section wider & maybe think of some ways to add some male indicators in the face texture - a dimpled chin perhaps or something.
As for it just being a colour map so far, what other maps are you thinking of including? Some games allow specular shaders or even bump maps but the vast majority still rely on just a colour map for the entire texture. That being the case, I think you should put more detail & lighting information into the texture like wrinkles & areas of shade to deliniate form and mass.
Anyway, just my opinion, but good work so far.

[ash]

Thanks for the feedback, I've been looking at it for sooo long that I could'nt see the waist problem...now that you've mentioned it, he does look like a girl....hmmmm

I've adjusted the waist and the face to inject some manliness in him! How's it now?
http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home2001/801128145293/test20.jpg
http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home2001/801128145293/test16.jpg