timberwo7ves - Battle Chess

[timberwo7ves]

Looking very vampirey at the moment :( Probably due to the dodgy dress and poorly replicated mouth-of-sauron mouth. I've got an outline for the torso underneath so I can get started on that first :)

question: when making game art characters, with a base mesh, and then clothes on top, before saving out the model, should the unseen faces be deleted? or will renderers only care about the polys which are visible?

[AlucardAssassin]

Those are some pretty creepy references...can't wait to see what you come up with!

[TonyClifton]

Looking forward to see more. The Coraline movie is fantastic!

I did not really understand your question.

[Kaiune3D]

I would delete any unneeded faces. With Game Art since poly limits are much higher than they used to be its not as "necessary" for poly restriction purposes. But you usually you have to have the character, gear, accessories, and often minions and mounts all on one texture sheet. With a 2048 limit the more space you can save the better.

[timberwo7ves]

Looking forward to see more. The Coraline movie is fantastic!

I did not really understand your question.

When building characters, I was taught to build the base mesh first, like a naked body, and do clothes on top to better define the form; with in-game models trying to save tris, I was asking whether it would be suggested to delete the unseen body, such that (simplified example) you only have tris which represent the head, neck and hands, and the rest is clothes (i.e. delete the actual arm if there is a sleeve on top).

And as an aside, would it still be true if you were creating for animation? Would the renderer only take the time to process the faces which are visible, or will unseen faces also slow down rendertimes (in MR/Vray, not in-game renderers)?

Thanks for the comments, I was planning to quietly withdraw as I've not got much time :s but I'll try to continue, and finish it even if outside of the competition :) Was mulling over what poopipe said in the main thread, and want to spend more time on the design, learning about silhouette value and color passes in design stage :D

[AlucardAssassin]

I believe that the renderer will process faces, even if they are hidden underneath, say, a sleeve.

[timberwo7ves]

Thanks Alucard. This news is disappointing and seems ridiculously inefficient of them :( Tangent though.

Some silhouette evolution. Reading the brief again, realised she needs some kind of weapon or way to fight (battle chess, who would have thought they'd need to fight :S) so rather than melee weapons, I would go down the route of devastating witch-queen, with a tome of spells perhaps and some casting instrument like a bone-wand/sceptre or magic rings.

[Raul]

One thing i would say, is that you gotta watch for crazy forms on your 2d drawings. They may not translate well to 3d. Specially if your just going for extreme exageration and crazy curves that could possibly add a lot value to the silhoutte, but have abosutely nothing to do with the integrity and support of the actualy model.

In otherwords, if it looks like crap in paper, its gonna like crap in 3d.

I do like what ur going for. Its gonna be nice seeing you evolve this into a final textured asset!

[timberwo7ves]

One thing i would say, is that you gotta watch for crazy forms on your 2d drawings. They may not translate well to 3d. Specially if your just going for extreme exageration and crazy curves that could possibly add a lot value to the silhoutte, but have abosutely nothing to do with the integrity and support of the actualy model.

In otherwords, if it looks like crap in paper, its gonna like crap in 3d.

I do like what ur going for. Its gonna be nice seeing you evolve this into a final textured asset!

haha it's going to be nice finishing my first character ever! (Possibly first fully modelled and textured object ever??)

Can you see any forms which might be difficult to translate at this stage? I've never really made a 2d design -> 3d before so I'm not sure what I should watch out for; that said, I've been trying to imagine a 3d form whilst inking these so hoping that it's doable. Also, never worked taking notice of tris before; is it a direct 2x correlation between quads and tris?

[Raul]

If you have a Face, or a quad. A quad has 4 sides. Then its divided into 2 tirangles. So if u had 2 quads, you would have 4 triangles. I honestly dont even look at the quad number anymore. Unless im in zbrush and i need to export something out. Wanna make sure i can bring it back into my modeling app.

If you are working in games, is always a good thing to only keep tris in mind.

As far as your question about any forms which might be difficult to translate at this stage? Perhaps, but its too early too tell. Although, you should really sit back, and have fun man! Its your project man, so have fun with it and learn!

[timberwo7ves]

Thanks man, I'm trying to :) Finding matching up a front view to be quite difficult lol but it's pretty cool doing something in a group with loads of others too :)

cool render in #15 in your thread btw, it's coming along nicely :D

[timberwo7ves]

Made a start on the base mesh, want to get most of the forms blocked out before I continue with the 2D sketches, just to see if there could be any dodgy areas translating to 3D before I get too carried away.

I've left the eye circle like, as I'm contemplating sticking a button in there.

I'm not sure how to distribute the tri quota, i.e. how many (ish) to reserve for different parts of the body like heads, hands etc. I guess it's different for each model but I'll try to download some low poly meshes just to see what can be achieved with x number of tris.

edit: Checking the SwordMaster tutorial shows I've already got too many. I'll fix it up in the next upload.

[AlucardAssassin]

If you have Zbrush, you should give a thought to using Zspheres for your base. They are quick and easy, and give relatively low polycounts. Just a suggestion. Keep it up!

[timberwo7ves]

I don't know how to use it :) It's on my list to learn after maya, nuke and pftrack :)

[Kaiune3D]

I'm not sure how to distribute the tri quota, i.e. how many (ish) to reserve for different parts of the body like heads, hands etc. I guess it's different for each model but I'll try to download some low poly meshes just to see what can be achieved with x number of tris.


Don't really worry about the tricount in the rough out stage you can always remove loops once you get toward the clean up phase. Just remember that the tricount doesn't really matter until you turn in your piece. That being said you don't want to model unnecessary parts like seems in clothes or other small items that can be done in modeling/sculpting.

[timberwo7ves]

Don't really worry about the tricount in the rough out stage you can always remove loops once you get toward the clean up phase. Just remember that the tricount doesn't really matter until you turn in your piece. That being said you don't want to model unnecessary parts like seems in clothes or other small items that can be done in modeling/sculpting.

Thanks man, I'll try to ask my tutor about Zbrush for the finer details.

Need to add a nose :D

[paulius-st]

looks interesting. head reminds me of alien :) . i suggest you taking another look at eye part of the head. edges are twisted there. it might cause unwanted issues latter.

[timberwo7ves]

edges are twisted there. it might cause unwanted issues latter.

Thanks Paulius :) What cases might there be issues with the eyes? I was planning on having fixed buttons there, like with the Other Mother from Coraline (first post), so no deformations there (that is, from rigging to blink etc), and I'm assuming with game art/low poly stuff there shouldn't be any further auto smoothing (e.g. mesh smooth/turbosmooth) which might have been the cause of some issues?

Regardless, I'll clean it eventually; I just wanted basic everything blocked out first, but wanted to know (for learning reasons :)) what issues it could cause :)

[paulius-st]

in various cases it causes bad reflections, pinches, bad deformation when animating, bad smoothing and finaly for a pedant as i am it simply looks awfull. no offence. :)

[timberwo7ves]

in various cases it causes bad reflections, pinches, bad deformation when animating, bad smoothing and finaly for a pedant as i am it simply looks awfull. no offence. :)

Thanks, ofc none taken - I asked so I could learn, not for you to lie :D Is this better or will I have to move the inner verts too? I wanted to leave them alone as they were evenly spaced from a cylinder; I know it's not going to matter too much as I'm not smoothing this, but still wanted them ready to add a button :)

[paulius-st]

here is a comparision of your eye topology. i thinki you'll get it :) . well they dont seem to be evenly spaced. in comparison i made a quick cylindrical eight sided topo to show a ideal placement. and in right is your topology. and in the middle it a little warp that shows how your edges flow. i hope it is understandeble :) . ofcourse its not wery bad where you are now but its good to know the right way for future.

[timberwo7ves]

attachment :D

edit: that attachment wasn't there before? I'm not crazy am I?

[paulius-st]

naaaaah, not crazy. as allways i post and forget to atatch a pic(damn my fast work habbits) :D . so after a minute i atatched the pic.

[timberwo7ves]

lol haha good :)

I've attached (I'm sure ;)) another version, but it's very similar.. I deleted out the loop just outside the inner one and extruded out again so that it's evenly spaced around the initial octogon.

I still need to add a nose so I think I'll be adding another loop around the eyes anyway (or across the eyes), so I'm not too worried at this point til that's done. (A job for tomorrow as I'm starting to feel sick from too much Maya today haha)

Thanks for your help and advice everyone, I hope by next year at least I'll be able to reciprocate with some useful gems of my own :)

[paulius-st]

now it looks better but why another loop for nose when you have enough geometry to start building it now? just extrude polygons :) . as for geting sick form maya - get use to it :D . modelers job is to sit and model for long hours. for egsample me - this whole month i'm modeling for straight 19-20 hours a day :D.

[timberwo7ves]

If I was doing a regular high-res head, I would have added another eye loop so I could fill out the space and make the bridge of the nose more defined. Which of the two following should I continue with? Is there much difference between them, in terms of what could be done in the end? (awful sentence).

Which of the two would you continue with (no third option :D), or would they not be much difference? Gosh, my ability to convey my thoughts has gone shot, how can you work 19 hours..

My plan is to add a bit more definition to the nose, and then try to continue into the neck as I've never done this before and don't want to take too many edges (I've succeeded with another hi res model in this respect, but I terminated so many edges at the back of her head, she'd better hope she doesn't ever lose her hair :()

[paulius-st]

in my opinion second one is better. i like how smooth is the transition fron forhead to the nose. it gives more style to your character than the first one. as for 19-20 hour work - the project i am participating in is a big scene and i am a lead modeler so i have to create some very detailed stuff. and the deadline is closing so you want it or not you have to work untill you pass out to make it in time. and allso i am a robot :D .

[timberwo7ves]

crazy, I hope there's a lot of pizza during your 20 hour stints.

update on the base mesh. Going a bit slowly as erm.. I'm not very fast. sitting at 1.1k tris so far which gives me a better idea of the amount that 15k is :o I'll continue this as basically as I can and then start adding in detail, hopefully going back to do a super-low version too after the comps over.

[timberwo7ves]

2.8k tris, need to add arms, hair, breasts and clothes, but may leave off the feet as I'm going to try and work the base of the piece into the legs somehow. Looking forward to start texturing it; I'm going to keep the model as lowpoly as I can - not looking to win, just looking to finish! :D

[Raul]

coming along nice! i also like your attitude! :)

the only thing that pops at me is your approach on the head isnt neccessary all that bad. You should model it with the mouth closed and make sure that the anamtony is right. Right now it looks like someone scared the crap out of it, and the ears got pushed up from the scare. The stance is also really weird.

[timberwo7ves]

Thanks Raul, definitely agree on the ears, I ought to have noticed that one :) With the mouth, would it be better to work on the inside (teeth, tongue), and Then close it?

The stance is difficult to get right on account of the crooked spine; I tried standing like this (as best I could :D) and it seemed the best way to keep her standing up without falling - the feet could probably do with coming a bit back in line with her butt/between her butt and back, which would also make her a bit shorter. This could all be fixed during rigging anyway?

[timberwo7ves]

So slow. Spending more time on a class project. But will eventually finish this up, learning and practising throughout this project, with the bulk of it remaining, so definitely worth it even if past the deadline.

Arms are literally cylinders, I know :) At this stage, need to work up the design and finalise it in my head/paper, before continuing with the modelling. Then fix up, unwrap, and texture :d