Dominance War Post Mortem - The Chillout Zone (Post-War) for bruised & battered Three

[Buzzy]

Sorry for stepping on toes, was just acting on a request

Haha...no biggie. Just so people have a place to discuss the aftermath. Thanks for putting my thread up here! Makes me feel all warm and special inside.

Toe, you reverted your avatar already? Too soon man, too soon.

[Joseph Pomeisl]

Ha ha...Sorry, Lynette. Didn't mean it that way.

[Warbringerd]

Well I'm happy that its over and those who finished.....Good job. I can't think of something that I didn't learn. I will say though that it was a great way to have me finally jump into Zbrush and learn it, with a deadline looming there was no messing around and I was forcd to just get down and dirty. Which is great, after doing things my way and then reading how other do it I have a better understanding of a ecent workflow for Zbrush.

I'm not an increible texturer by any stretch of the imagination, but I can get some decent stuff out, yet I have never had to deal with normal maps or spec maps or any of thier ilk, so I was able to work through alot of issues(there is still much room for improvement though) and I was just totally stoked that I could even get my glows o turn out since I really had no idea what i was really doing.

So where to next.....Well I have a few projects on the go and with this new found wealt of information I think I can put it to use on those particular projects and keep on posting.

Good Job all!!!!!!

[poopipe]

I learnt that there's little point forcing yourself to enter cos you won't want to finish

moan time...

I'm pretty sure where it went wrong for me this year. The relaxation on shader/rendering rules (even if it was only for the beauty shot cos we all know thats what actually gets voted on) and what seemed like a total lack of creativity put into the brief robbed me of a lot of enthusiasm early on. After that it basically just turned into an unreal-em-off again and kicked the last of it out of me.

I'm not knocking anyone's entries - you do what's needed to win and there's some really good stuff again this year, I just didn't really feel like being a part of it.

I'll be around in the low-poly comps on threedy but I doubt I'll do another war unless something significant changes.

wow, I'm a miserable sod sometimes

[Joseph Pomeisl]

Turn that frown upside down man! Like this....

[washka]

First war too, but not last...

Negatives points:
- I started too late, bad time management.
- I've lost too much time in concept part but I still want to make more... It's a real trap for me. Can't cure this?
-I've spent too much time on little obsolete details, bad workvalue estimation.
-So much to learn about zbrush, I couldn't even get some real result with normal map (next try), maybe I need to install Xnormal...
-In a general way, I've got a really bad workflow.

Positives points:
-I knew I couldn't finish my project in time so I made some consolation work because I really wanted to submit "something".
I didn't believe it, but I could finish this "something" in two days, the work is just an horror but I could finish it, and I did it, It was submitted. (I'm ashamed)
And even if it doesn't count a lot of poly, it counts a lot for me because this "something" was finished. You can blame me, and throw me stones. I actually need moving rock sounds for my precolombian animation track, so...

-I've learnt a lot, with fantastic people, with awesome entries. And even if I couldn't see and post some comments on all the entries, congratulations everybody!!!
Definitely a great war around the world.

Maybe see you next year to fight again!

[Warbringerd]

Xnormal was a god send, I watched the tut on it that is on thier web site and I was good to go, I found it gave great results (sometimes a bit of editing was necessary but pretty decent without) and it helped out alot, a definite must have for these comps and future work.

[poopipe]

Originally Posted by Joseph Pomeisl

Turn that frown upside down man! Like this....

im alright - I got drunk, played computer games, drove fast and spent time with my family instead of forcing myself to work on something I wasn't really into

[ryvick]

This one was a huge knocker.
- Conceptualizing really helps no matter how much you want to avoid it.
- Having a good color scheme helps in moving around faster
- knowing your programs limits helps. (3dmax 2009 is not friendly to deep uv or xnormal) would have saved a lot of time
- presentation is crucial. this goes for all the post production on your beauty shot and your pose.

Good things
- tried a highpoly in max only no help from zbrush. could have done a lot a better.
- had great concepts and ideas but could not follow through with it.
- textures came out better than expected.

[hicomehere]

I found I really hard to show good details in 1200*1000 pixal with 350k,try a lot to fit it

[Puckducker]

Positives:

- Give yourself plenty of concept time. Others have already said it, but I'll just add my voice to the choir. I spent a full week just doing concepts before opening a 3D program.

- Stick to a schedule. It can be really easy to want to go off track, especially when you see awesome work other people are posting up. You see their work, and want to rush through your stuff just to post the next update. But if you stick to your schedule, give yourself the time needed to finish things, and don't rush thing simply to get more done, you'll do well.

- Never be afraid to hit the delete button and start again. I think in total I probably made my character 2 or 3 times over. Almost every piece I would make, I would wake up the next morning and not like it. Rather than shoehorning it into the design, I just deleted it and started over again with the knowledge that the last path of design choices I made ended up getting me a result I didn't want. I was thankful for the extra week at the end as it allowed me to re-do my texture, from near scratch, about 3 times.

- Have faith in your own skills. A lot of times I was worried I was modeling myself into a difficult position, knowing the shapes I was choosing was going to give me a difficult bake, or that I had so many pieces I wouldn't get the required texture resolution in my UV's. My girlfriend can attest to this, she probably heard me yell out "Why do I keep adding more and more cylinders!!?? I don't have the poly's for those!!" More than once. But I didn't want to compromise on my high poly, so I simply accepted what I was doing and tried to assure myself that come time to bake and unwrap I would figure out the problems and overcome them and arrive at a design that I was happy with.

Things to improve:

- Though I was able to carry through my design without sacrificing a lot of the individual pieces I made, I do feel I was ultimately making my design complex for the sake of being complex. Rather than build large surfaces with a lot of surface detail for normal maps, I made a lot of small individual pieces that had little surface detail. My design is very busy. Next year I really want to keep things simple, or at least simpler. Keep some of the complex details but balance them out with larger area's that make up a more cohesive design.

- Break away from my design mold. Beyond just the above, my DW3 character is very similar in design to my DW4 guy. Now, DW is about creating badass war lord characters, so that's going to automatically skew most designs to be similar. But seeing how amazingly creative some people have been, I really want to push a good creative design next year. This year I fell into the same design trap I did last year, creating a design that substituted "creativity" for "coolness".

Final thoughts:

Had another great time again this year, and again it's so wonderful to see so many designs go through the full design process. It's great to see a fantastic concept move into an amazing high poly and then get translated flawlessly into a perfect low poly with a great texture. Then you look back over the whole thing and see that the final product is much stronger than the initial concept led on.



Congratulations to everyone who participated, and I thoroughly enjoyed working with all of you. See you all next year!

[DJdude]

Originally Posted by washka

First war too, but not last...

Negatives points:
- I started too late, bad time management.
- I've lost too much time in concept part but I still want to make more... It's a real trap for me. Can't cure this?
-I've spent too much time on little obsolete details, bad workvalue estimation.
-So much to learn about zbrush, I couldn't even get some real result with normal map (next try), maybe I need to install Xnormal...
-In a general way, I've got a really bad workflow.

Positives points:
-I knew I couldn't finish my project in time so I made some consolation work because I really wanted to submit "something".
I didn't believe it, but I could finish this "something" in two days, the work is just an horror but I could finish it, and I did it, It was submitted. (I'm ashamed)
And even if it doesn't count a lot of poly, it counts a lot for me because this "something" was finished. You can blame me, and throw me stones. I actually need moving rock sounds for my precolombian animation track, so...

-I've learnt a lot, with fantastic people, with awesome entries. And even if I couldn't see and post some comments on all the entries, congratulations everybody!!!
Definitely a great war around the world.

Maybe see you next year to fight again!

I thought your "something" was awesome.

[Loafie]

Poor time management was my largest problem. There was a period for about 3 weeks where I never even opened my project, and then once I did I became swamped in schoolwork. My biggest disappointment was that I had left myself so little time to complete anything, I gave myself maybe just a day to work on the highpoly mesh, and that was only in half of the model

This was a great learning experience for me, mostly in how to use Maya and being exposed to Alchemy. I really need to learn all the facets of the different texture maps and how they are implemented. I also learned that xNormal is a godsend.

Overall I was just satisfied with the fact that I had something to turn in, perfect or not. This was my first War, and I feel so proud to have been able to carry a character from concept to completion. The whole experience allowed me to streamline my pipeline and point out what areas I need to improve upon.

Congratulations everybody, and good war!

[chris_solo]

I'm very pleased to have participated on 3dtotal as in the previous year to DW because here the help we can find is really warm and friendly. I have learned things here technically. Mind here is really creative and relaxed, I really appreciate that. There is a great respect in relation to each and sometimes a dose of humor has a relaxed atmosphere.
On other forum you can not find it and sometimes we do not appreciate when you do partly by a certain former club ...
On 3dtotal, everyone is the same and that's why the strength of its exchange between people This can only make progress in all his art.
A big hurray to all, and thank you for help and support I have received as well as new friends.

[Psycho Mantis]

note to myself: dont move to another state when its wartime. thats what i learned - it takes much time, and when you cant work on it at least 6 hours a day, chances are bad you can make it to the end...

had no time due to the move, i could have entered 3 weeks before deadline - it would have been to little time.

so next year, i stay where i am - and then will hopefully trash enemies lights. (and kneecaps)