Sumea Challenge #6 -3D- Discmage

looks good so far, i like the concept and think it would be great for the the theme but im not really into survival/horrors so im not sure, id say you need a second opinion.

Here is a slightly updated version to the head for effect :)

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/Discmage/200471832939_Head_02.jp…]

looks really cool, but then ive allways liked manic grinning characters like that (blame it on spidermans green goblin and steve ditko)

Hmmm... An horific jester. I like.

Might want to cull the size of those images man.

Go the saggy bottom lip! get that lip drooping like crazy!!! Thats a great concept, I love it! [:D]

Yeah, sorry about the size. Will cut them down from here on in :)

Thanks for the heads up guys :) Will be getting to the modelling soon :)

OK, here is more of the character with it's body

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/Discmage/200472235737_Body_02.jp…]

Story is as follows...ish:

In the somewhat distance future with developments in psycholgy and science, a method of creating dreams into virtual reality was created. Soon, further highly advanced methods could turn these dreams into ACTAUL reality was created in order to play out peoples dreams and imaginations in a temporary controlled environment. Initially this was used on sane people, those of the rich. With the ability to guide peoples thoughts through subliminal triggers, relaxation and other techniques...most people could pull up whatever environment they wanted. Those who had lost love ones could be with them once again, even for short periods, recalled places they had been or fantasied about, the benefits were quite extensive in many areas from entertainment and beyond...

The sex industry, of course, blossomed with the new technology... :)

They also started testing patients in insanity wards in order to try and tap into their dreams and find if they could find the true reason for their mental state. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it did not. ALL tests on patients were under strict conditions, and therefore regarded as safe environments and worth the risk for saving the mind of the mentally unstable. THey also used drugs to temper the nightmares to reasonable levels before testing...

The game starts with the player rising from the bed wired to the dream machine (as they call it :) and finds his head clear from the daymares and troubles of the past years...looking for those around he walks to hte nearest door to find a scene of hell incarnate, blood and gore and people piked to the ceiling and other atrocities...at first he thought his nightmares were back in his head...but he knew they were not there anymore...they were out here...

The Helljester is a leader figure in his dreams, now reality, he is neither an enemy or friend...he just rolls out the nightmares as he sees fit. Throughout the game he gives you riddles that can snare you or help you, kill you or save you, make you feel better and make you feel in so much pain you have nothing more to scream bar your own bones creaking under the weight of his maniacal laughter. This is why there are two sides/two heads to him, although you never truly know if he is helping or hurting.

With the Hell jester free from his bonds of the players mind, he starts to distort this reality into his own forsaken creation.

You do meet him, and eventually battle him...but for most of the game he is always on the fringe of your sanity. Luring you to the other side once more. The more you start losing to his puzzles and riddles, the more you feel as if THIS reality is where you always were and eventually give up and die a painful horrific death.

The game uses riddles extensively, puzzles, and FX to make a character hear things, do things they would otherwise not do etc...much like Eternal Darkness i think it is called.

So yeah, that's my bit. I'll probably get to modelling now, make the flipside of him as I go along :)

I like the torso and arms but for some reason... the legs and wings dont seem to connect for me (put my hands over the legs and ignored the wings and i liked it like that)

i do however really like the story, the character being neither friend nor foe nor nuetral but all at once! :o

And here is the start of the model...looks a treat with meshsmooth on! :)

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/Discmage/2004722104550_jester_01…]

In regards to the arms and legs...they are more practical than for looks, I will be adjusting proportions as I go along (and I think that will help considerably), but as the character has two sides...and I mean 2 actual sides (two faces), his arms and legs can dislocate and move to the other side of his body...hence the huge rent in the wings to pass his arm through. The legs are double jointed with cloved feet facing two ways...basically it adds a whole new dimension to ambidextrous :)

Other things to note...you can see his heart through the chest bones that a there, but his heart is inside a cage swinging from a chain. His intestines snake around his singular middle spinal colukmn with pieces of leather nailed to his torso and pelvic region for added tension if he gets pushed around by the girls at school.

And in THIS nightmare...you don't want to see the girls at school :)

I actually drew that image on an A3 and it STILL wasn't big enough to get the detail I wanted in a full body...so I'll just get it in as I model. I know what I want now :)

Interesting concept, seems a bit of a mish-mash of different ideas, but it should look cool if you can pull it off. The head looks a little too cartoony for a survival horror but you can probably work on that with the model and texture.

Here is the latest update...I did a meshsmooth version too cos it just looks so damn cool...well, in my opinion anyway. I won't waste time with that from here on though.

I plan to texture the side of his neck etc. to include stitching all the way down as if he was actually pieced together and then nailed to be sure it stuck.

[img]icon_paperclip.gif[/img] Download Attachment: [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/Discmage/20047238312_jester_02.j…"]jester_02.jpg[/url]
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Hnnm Its well executed, but its really not very scary. I think you could probably make things a bit more disturbing be giving him more relatively normal sized teeth and having a vast stretch of rotten gums. Check out the Mr Crow/Harlequin model from UT 2004 - its a similar design but manages to be quite scary while keeping a cheerful smile...

I hoping the scary element will come in with the texturing.Blood and stitching...I'll probably try and make it look so the patches of the Jesters clothes are actually made of skin...or each patch is a neatly cut strip of skin...allowing blood to seep from each square.

I'm going to be going the S&M look, with nails, leather and chains all over the shop. But I just realised the poly count is WAY over...so I'm going to have to start watching that.

At the moment it looks very light hearted...but In truth the final effect should be pretty ghastly.

That?s a pretty cool background story you created for it. I like the idea that the game doesn?t quite take place in reality.

As for the character model, I think once you?ve finished it, it should come across as being pretty scary, as long as you keep that psychotic look to his grin. [:)]. Keep up the good work. (And watch that poly count!)

OK, change of gampeplan...

[img]icon_paperclip.gif[/img] Download Attachment: [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/Discmage/200472483813_Body_03.jpg"]Body_03.jpg[/url]
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I might be going against the brief even further...but I'm playing on mentality here rather than looks...so what I have done is converted my psychotic Helljester to create an even MORE psychotic Helljester by moving away from the generic demonesque type character and going for the plain insane. I like the idea of a different slant on the survival horror...but with the texturing and stuff (blood splatters and a few other ideas up my sleeve) I think it will still fall under the horror for sure :)

The fear factor comes in with texturing, with the straight jacket covered in blood splatters as if he is still capable of horrific deeds even tied up.

Now I do this cos a) I wanted to get away from the demon/body destruction thing...it's not really me and b) It appeals to my mentality and c) I have developed the actual game idea further.

What happens is to get through the game the purpose of the game is to actually survive your worst fears as they get progressivelly worse, but to save the real world you must get through to the fulfillment of your deepest and darkest fears...as then all the things in the real world will then get sucked back into your head...but to do so you must unlock the Jester to let HIS imagination run free...which in turn makes your reality even harder to deal with...there lies the difficulty curve (and crazier and crazier creatures to survive)

Hence the very large padlocks on the chains...each one represents a level key which you acquire by beating the level bosses. Each key given gets the jester to teach you a really cool trick against the marauding imagination...only for him to dream up even more things and throw them at you :)

The model of his face now has two sides...the eyes closed and the eyes open...each has a personality of it's own. I have also lowered the poly count..it's still quite large for 'just a head' but I think it is the more important element of the character so I will keep it and adjust down if I need to later on.

[img]icon_paperclip.gif[/img] Download Attachment: [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/Discmage/200472483947_jester_03…"]jester_03.jpg[/url]
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looks great so far, the only crit i have is his feet and legs. perhaps you could add a bit more to them as they look a bit comical and bland right now. thats all though, otherwise its shaping up well.

Nice. Hey don't forget a coat of arms, jesters always wear them. I mused over the jester idea and thought he could have a coat of deformed arms he had cut off of other players. Some rotting and some just bones. This way he could have many different attacks based on the arm. my 2 cents hope it helps you stand out.

that looks so much better, great concept :)

absolutely love it...i think it's much better than your original

I like the new one a lot more. The older one just looked to mashed together :)

Glad to hear you guys agree :) The character is a lot more interesting to me now so i'm going to enjoy it a bit more...which is y main point of entering the comp...enjoyment and learning...

Having the possibility of MAX at the end just gives me extra incentive to at least FINISH it...which is my biggest flaw with personal projects. I decide to do something, learn what I need then move on to another project. I'm trying to start focusing on finished works more often of late.

I still suffer from project creep though, where I get a new idea and pursue that...I think I have 5-6 projects when I'm trying very hard to keep it to a maximum of 4.

But anyway, thanks for your support on the revision :)

And another update. Took me two goes to get the arms where I want them...one as seperate entitities and this one where it's all one object. As the arms won't be moving much, wriggling at a maximum, I didn't see the point in wasting all the polys underneath the arms.

I'm thinking one side has all the blades on the belt (sharp knife, meat cleaver all bloodied up) and the other I was thinking of either having body parts or a bloodied chainsaw hanging off his hip...any thoughts?

Now I will be focusing on the chains and padlocks...any ideas as to a good way I could pull chains off without wasting all my polys??

I was thinking just a strip with a bump, opacity map...but wouldn't mind something with at least a little more depth. Thoughts would be appreciated..on model so far and chains methods.

[img]icon_paperclip.gif[/img] Download Attachment: [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/discmage/200472894823_jester_04…"]jester_04.jpg[/url]
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There was a guy on Polycount a while back who did some really good chains using opacity planes on a 3d version of the Pitt comic book character. I'll see if I can dig it up.

Here you go, shows more or less how he did it.
[url]http://www.bryansilva.com/images/pitt_lp/low_poly07.jpg[/url]
[url]http://www.bryansilva.com/images/pitt_lp/low_poly17.jpg[/url]
He was going to do a tutorial on how to make the chains, but I think he got a new job and hasn't gotten around to it.

models looking great, if you have enough polys to spare (and time) you could look into modelling the chains as 3d objects, but more then likely youll probably need alpha mapped surfaces.

That's great jackablade...I think I might use that for now unless I get a better idea.

Thanks for the word up Moonunit...I'm pretty happy with it so far too :)

I don't think I could afford the polycount for that...I want a LOT of chains :)

Here is the latest version with the chains..not much of an update but I was so impressed with the initial results I thought I'd post them :) So thanks again Jackablade for the links to those images, they really helped out.

In truth I think I'm up to the refining stage and final consideration as to what hangs off his other belt. That way I can have what I have look better, rather than trying to come up with more gimmicks :)

I think the legs need a lot of work, but now that I've made it so his head spins round, rather than there's two whole sides to him figured that'd be creepier (slow turning head ringin' a bell anyone?) and in essence more practical in regards to deformations and making him 'tick'.

[img]icon_paperclip.gif[/img] Download Attachment: [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/discmage/2004729101553_jester_05…"]jester_05.jpg[/url]
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good work on the chains, there looking nice :D

Here is the other side of the head...it's sort of a belligerent 'friendly' face, if a little twisted as his eyes are stitched closed. Blood will be oozing from the lids also.

THe horror element comes in when the opposite side comes in, imagine getting tips or help from this side only for the manic side to suddenly twist around and laugh in maniacal glee that you fell for it...

I kind of like the idea that you can talk to this character as long as you want and he will either help or not...but the longer you stay, the more chance there is of the other side coming to the fore. Sometimes it takes a while and you get some really handy information, other times his manic side comes straight out and rips into you. so it's sort of like a gamble as to if you get the best out of him or not.

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/discmage/200473104919_jester_06…]

Just to make it official...like sands through the hourglass these are the unfuilfilled promises of our lives...

Unfortunately I won't be finishing this little beasty. A huge project came through halfway and I also decided to focus on a mod I'm doing as it's not getting anywhere either. Figured a completed mod with multiple models is better for folio than one model (although Max WOULD have been very nice if I had a chance at winning :)

I wish everyone the best and I'm certainly impresed with a lot of the works here. Keep it up!