Character for DVD tutorial

Hahaha, it's funny because you like Paul Steed, most sumeans will see where you get your steed influance from. Big bOObs and look big boots to. hahah.

But it looks good man, nice work.

i like it doord, good stuff, as for the big boots - boobs thing,.. i dont reckon thats too bad, ive seen plenty bigger booted and plenty bigger boobed models, that look kinda stupid really, but i reckon what youve done here is just right.

;)

Agreed. If you think those boots are big then you don't look at enough other 2d/3D art. On the other hand she is going to have a real problem if those buckles break. So I should just give a bit of friendly advise and tell you not to make her do any sirous jumping around. (Star jumps are out of the question!)

Quote: keep up the Groovy work [;)]

It is for a video tutorial for video game characters and like it or not this is what people think video game character are like, and in most of the classic game this is the kind of character you see. And that is the reason that my character is kind of old school game art, so when people see the DVD they will know that the character is for a computer game, and if they are interested in this kind of thing they are more likely to pick up the DVD and look at buying it.

But with that said, I'm not happy with with any of my art right now (besides the little normal version of the comp, but that is for reason other then art.) I have good digit art but not good art. The thing that I have worked out over the last 6 months is that the main reason game art is not normally seen by most of the artist committy as good art in the true sense of the word it isn't good ART. Because of the lack of felling you get from most of the characters/art in-games. That is the different between technically good art and real good art.

The character I have here can be turned into good art by posing and lighting her in a way which makes people feel something about the character. Yes you can look at the character now and any artist and most people can tell the kind of personally she may have, and this is something we do every day (no matter how much people say it is a bad thing to do, you know the "book by it's cover" thing.) But I'm talking about making people feel something, this is what the difference between art and amazing art is. This is what I have to work on.

But the bottom line here is that this character needs to be technically good.

oh and big boots?? she has one boot and it is not big, in fact I seen three people today with boots that size or bigger and they had two on. But yeah she has nice cans, but is that a problem boys??

I also like to point out that a nice Physique on a female character is not a bad thing, this has been done now for 1000's of years. Any well known female painting had been based on what the people of that area wanted in a woman, this is because the artist get to draw on a feeling in the people which see there work easier and in a more profound way then they would without it.

Thats a nice model Doord.

I for one have never been a great fan of the busty, big boot girl thing but for what you are aiming for, an accessible model that isn't to complex and has a "game feel" I think its a great choice, theres a reason Steed chose it. [:)]

My only major critique is that I don't really like how you modelled the breasts or the flow of the face.
Technically I think it could be cleaner and since you said techique is the important underlying factor in this exercise I think you may want to have another look at it.

Good luck on the project though, look forward to seeing the end product. [:)]

I have a question that's going to make me sound like a total amateur, but I don't mind. How do you render out your model with the thick black edge lines like that? It's not a wireframe setting I know that much, is it simply a case of unwrapping the UV's, using texporter to draw the black lines, then assigning the bmp as it's material? Something simpler?

I'm guessing that info will all be on the DVD, Doord can't give away all his secrets for free.... lol[:P]

looks good Doord :)
Although, and this is quite small, I think the breasts arent quite at the right shape, they sorta look too "cylinderie"
Good work :)

Malus, the poly flow is not important in low-res mesh it is a waste of polys. I do go into this in the tutorial, poly flow (edge loops) are important in hi-res character modelling to keep the character smooth when using the mesh smoothing tool of what ever way you model hi-res meshes, but look at the smooth version of the this character can you tell that the edge loops are not right, NO I don't think so.

I use poly flow in my model to get the weight which helps a lot (which is in the tutorial also) but they are not needed in the final model.

Wizenedoldman: this is not in my tutorial because it has nothing to do with modelling game characters. So what I do it select all the edge in you character click the make shape button which will make a spline cage (you what liner not smooth) and then select the spline and make it renderable. Many poeple have problem working this out, I don't know many poeple which to it this way but I find it the best.

Personal opinion I guess, I think flow in a face isn't a waste of polies, guess its how you go about it.

It has always seemed important to me and helped actually keep the polycount down as I only put in the polies that,
(A)define the silhoutte and (B)help deform the mesh during animation, I just think like everything its knowing when and where to use it.

But in the end its your project on how you do things not how I do. [:P]

Like I said before, good luck with it.

Sorry Doord, but I've got to agree with Malus. Poly flow in low poly faces is equally important as in hi-poly faces. As Malus said bad flow around the mouth and eyes will result in poor silhoutte's and deformation during expression.
If your having trouble finding poly's how about removing some from the bra ( as they don't help in the silhoutte.) and puting them back in to the face.

Toasty
Animator/Modeller

hey there

My name is Daniel Keating and I sit across from Doord here at Irrational. I have been working in the low poly modeling industry for 7+ years. Brendan brought your comments to my attention and basically I think you are wrong. I did all the morph targets for our last game and am currently doing the expressions for the current game.

In a 3000 poly character you're not going to get much in the way of facial expression without massively sacrificing the body. So unless your game is focused around that sort of thing you may as well just accept that you're going to get maybe a happy, sad, and angry. So sacrificing polys from the rest of the body is a waste of time and a sign of mismatched priorities. You can always use a separate model for cutscenes.

As for the idea of 'edge loops' for game models it's a learning tool and that's it. It's not a goal - it's what you do when you are trying to understand the relationship between polygons and faces. It does have some use in arranging quads on a subdivisional surface model for rendered output but in games is a totally redundant concept.

The knees look a bit screwy though. Is she half goat Brendan?

maybe I should get an account here...

If your worried about sacrificing tris in the body for the face, which I never believe I said should be done, just a bit of reorganising from what I can see, maybe take from the belts that do little for the silhoutte and add those to the face.

I'm glad you've been in the industry for 7+ years, I've been in it for around 8 months but how does that affect your argument? Experience doesn't necesarilly establish ability, I'm sure you are great but its a defunct point.

Like I said before its personal taste I guess, Toasty and I believe its important you and Doord don't, it was only a personal observation.

But if he is going to post his "new standard of in-depth tutorials for 3D art for games " then he needs to be able to take some form of opinion, when it ships he'll get alot more than ours. [:)]

Daniel, maybe you should get an account, nothing better for the industry than active discussion on techniques.

This is Doord. Dan just wanted to put his two cents in. I think you should note that Dan has talked to a lot of artist in his time about this (and many other things) and there is no one I have talked to about it that thinks poly flow is important for low res meshes.

I think the bottom line is that for low-res you should remove anything that doesn't add to the mass of the character that includes polys added for flow.

The belt will be animated and jump and flap around, so it will end up adding more to the silhouette at times. If you are looking for polys that could be remove by just looking at the shots I have given then look at the legs and arms there are a few which look not to be needed.

Yes and the knee do look bad in the render. But that could very well added in the animation tutroial because that kind of thing happens a lot were character have to me made on a deadline.

Thats fair enough, I myself have talked to many artist over the last few years regarding poly flow and most of them agreed that it was important.

Now just to clarify, like many techniques, its not something you should stick strictly too, its a tool, like other ways of modelling it is a technique that helps the mesh work as a whole.

I myself tend to work in quads but you will never see one of my models made up completely of squares, it just wouldn't be effiicient, same thing goes with polyflow so my argument is more that its not the be all and end all of modelling, its an important addition, mainly for accurate muscle structure deformation during animation and in my history it has helped lower my polycounts not increase them.

As for the face of your model, there are literally 3-4 edges that if turned would create a nice flow for animation purposes, no adding of geometry etc, how is that unefficent in your opinion? your mouth has no crease from the edge of the nose to the edge of the mouth where it will deform during animation (I think the muscle is called the maxilla, correct me if I'm wrong, I probably am.)

Now if you don't intend to animate this character with lipsyncing then fair enough but if that is the case then I would actually decrease some potriangles from the cheek, nose, eye area since they are not needed for silhouette.

Anyway, my comments weren't meant to offend, quite the opposite, if you release something that is meant to be the new standard then its a good idea to listen to other peoples techniques.

Good luck again.

quote:Originally posted by Malus


Now just to clarify, like many techniques, its not something you should stick strictly too, its a tool, like other ways of modelling it is a technique that helps the mesh work as a whole.

[:)] One of the main points of my tutorial.

Face is not going to animated, I have try to remove the faces you have talk about and found that they do damage the mass of the character face so I have left them in.

looks good.. I'd add a few more polys around the shoulder, elbow and wrists to aid in deformation.. as for the face It'll probably work just fine unless you want to put extra bones in it and have it fold up like an elbow, at least with morphers you'll have fine control over the mesh.. which will let you work around most problems...

modeller until ones death!!!!

cheerssss!