Vinsanity -- Gender Bender -- Princess of Persia

[VinsanityV20]

Alright fellow Threediers! Here's my low poly thread for this comp! My character? The Prince of Persia, so flipping the gender gives you the princess of persia - that's the easy part

I'm specifically going after the Prince from the Sands of Time trilogy. REALLY specifically, flipping either the one from Warrior Within or Two Thrones:





Not sure where I'll put her yet. Something I learned back in the Dominance War was that I should play around with some different ideas: having them together means comparing and contrasting is much easier and you can pick better elements. Therefore I'm playing around with the design on a generic "lady" model:



You can see that I've only really gotten around to playing with hair styles. I'll come up with a few different costume designs though. Then actually do the character render and model sheet.

One final thing is that I want to cel shade this model when I'm done, in a nod to POP's more illustrated look. The newest POP, actually:



Been looking up tutorials for that (like this one: http://cellshading.blogspot.com/2008...-10-20min.html), but if anybody knows of a great cel shading tutorial, please share! I can't seem to find a toon shading tutorial that lets you add a diffuse map, instead opting for just pure colors. Naturally, this is not what I'm looking to do. And since I've never done a toon shaded model before, I wanna play around with it loooooooong before I get to the texturing phase.

Well that's all for now. I hope to update again after the weekend, so y'know, I'll actually have some progress and stuff to show

Good luck to all!

EDIT: First Cel Shading test. Didn't play with too many variables, just wanted to see the Ink N' Paint filter in Max in action, and see if/where a diffuse map would go. Naturally, I don't like the inappropriate outlines, but whatever - it's just a first experimentation:

[chris_solo]

HI Vinsanity! , good choice, I opt for the hairstyle 1 (less polys!) I also like the treatment 2d, I also decided the same treatment for me but I don't know yet..., so I would follow this thread

[dark_maggot]

Man the new Prince of Persia game was just beautiful. Cant wait to see what you come up with.

[goast666]

hair style one.
A - less polys.
B - Pixie cuts are cute
C - shorter hair = easier rig

[goast666]

oh yeah. If you're messing with cel shaders Shader FX 3.0 has a beautiful cel shader that lets you incorporate whatever you want.

Anyway, free plugin for Max 8+ That lets max's realtime shaders be node based!
http://www.lumonix.net/shaderfx.html
email download link at the bottom in the middle.

[VinsanityV20]

Finished four concepts - I'll put 'em up here and check back after the weekend to see critiques and comments:

First, a little splash page with a few reference pics for good measure:



and a little bigger, just the outfit concepts


(hmmm, that should be bigger. Maybe photobucket just needs some time to refresh...)

Thanks for the comments so far, guys!
Chris_Solo and Goast: thanks for the hairstyle inputs. I definitely like the shorter hair, I'm just a little worried that she'll look a little generic that way; I mean, the short hair has been seen on Elika from the PS3/360 game, and Yuna from FFX and FFX-2. I DO like it though, so I guess I shouldn't worry about it. Thanks for the input!

Goast666: Thanks for the cel shader stuff! Gonna play around with that now! Though my first imipression is that it's too complicated for me; I HATES me some programming. Hate it in all it's forms. Hate it with a fiery passion But still - I'll definitely check this out!

For any and all visitors, keep the comments and input comin'!

[silverflame]

I'd say the second outfit with the shorter hair would look the best and be in keeping with the prince

[VinsanityV20]

Oh and I found these, guys:

http://www.davidgould.com/Illustrate...lustrate52.htm

http://www.cebas.com/

http://www.davidlanier3d.com/index.p...der-xtoon.html
(man, that was a hard one! Found the link to the forums on google and had to work my way back to the website, which was then in French. Man....)

Anyway, thanks Goast666 for the terminology. Googling "cel shading tuturial" didn't really net me anything worthy; it wasn't until I started searching "toon shader, 3ds max" that I started getting anything useful. I know it's a small thing, but help is help, so thanks again, mate

Chris_Solo: maybe you'll find something you like in some of these links too, man!

[BiG ToE-3DT]

you could, in theory do her in 5,000 tris with a 1024 map, if you wanted to and not get DQ'ed, but, the idea for these comps is to learn and more importantly, create art for your portfolio. So a more up to date character would do you more good than a lower tri count character.

[chris_solo]

much detailed work, I love this kind of concepts, good work man! for me, I prefer the one or four.

[Darchand]

I am envying your conceptual skills. Some how I have lost all of my books (damn moved and never moved again I need a job). Anyways I think this is a great character for this competition. I like the 3rd outfit looks cleaner yet has style.

[Darbruce]

the evil princess! done. and I vote for the same shaggy haircut as the evil prince as well, maybe a bit longer.

[VinsanityV20]

@BigToe: *grumble, grumble* - stupid western gaming world. Ignoring good low poly work and painting textures well and thinking only of excess. FINE, I'll do your stupid Xbox360-spec model, ThreedyTotal! You've won this round

Well, alrighty then. Let's see the critiques:
Outfit 1: I
Outfit 2: II (? - I'm not quite sure which one is the 'evil' princess, Darbs)
Outfit 3: I
Outfit 4: I

And as for the Hairstyles, I'm getting a vibe to go with the shorter style, or at least, no longer than the Prince's hair

Guess I'm looking at a Warrior Within-style Gender Bender here! Though I gotta admit, I'm gonna try and see if I can do a palette swap-kinda thing when this is all over, that would be neat But for now, I must focus! Going with the leather armor from Warrior Within (and for some reason, the movie that's based on Sands of Time) and shorter hair. Now, to the model sheet!

Thanks for the input guys! Silverflame, Darchand (thanks for the kind words, man!), Chris_Solo, Darbs, Goast666 - you guys rock! Love the comments!

[VinsanityV20]

Seriously though, you'd figure the industry would've hit it's apex lately. I mean, PS2, Gamecube and Xbox generation games could be gorgeous with the proper effort put into them, and they didn't take 5 years to do, 100+ man teams, multiple studios collaborating, and 15 million dollar budgets. Even though the iPhone, DS, PSP, PS2 and Wii are all viable platforms nowadays (and also certain PC games, like MMO's and In-Browser stuff, and downloadable titles for XBLA and PSN), why is it that low poly means 10k models and 2048 textures? Wouldn't you figure that low poly would mean the lower end of the spectrum in the games' industry?

>>>>>>Sorry, felt like ranting. I hate doing model sheets, and well - we've all procrastinated, haven't we?

[BiG ToE-3DT]

I see what your doing, anything other than modeling.