Sumea Challenge #7 - LiveWire

hey dude!
awesome!
i'll have a roughish csheet for this guy up either tonight or tomorrow if that helps.
post it in the concept section.
i feel i've go a bit too ancient with the ideas are you thinking more futuristic/ military?
it will be great to see what you change or add using bits of this as a base.
cool!

:)

one thing that has got me wondering from this guy and the medusa design is are they living or robotic? they have gears and other such parts. i guess i see it as a robot with it's design based around an ancient Greek theme, or something. the mod doesn?t have a story/plot yet, but whatever it is it will involve two heavily armored military teams going at it - so any character's basic design should be based around combat functionality first and foremost. i think this guy looks like a pretty mean soldier as is, but i'll probably change the feet to something more practical and less elegant. i'm thinking also that i wont give this guy many specific glowybits on his amour, but rather have glowy things in the construction underneath which illuminate though the open areas i the amour. i guess open areas sort of reduce it's combat effectiveness, but they look cool, so i'll just say it's light amour designed to protect the internals from bumps and light fire.

no rush on the model sheets though, unless there are other people looking at this one too. I?ve got some assessments for QANTM to get though before i commit myself seriously to this challenge. but QANTM finishes in four weeks, and we have 3 months for the comp so i should begin this guy in a couple of weeks when my assessments start to wrap up, if i cant find time sooner.

Hey there,

umm, i was thinking they are robotic with a bit of grey vat grown flesh for protecting the mechanics to a degree..
like the terminator but the technology is more archaic like da vinci's spring and gear based machines. so the majority of their insides are clockwork cogs and things.
made with finely crafted brass, steel and wood.....then the addition of the glowy stuff that could be modern fuel or eerie ghost energy..
:)
yeah plot wise i was thinking a future Deadelus had re-incarnated the spirits of dead gods through his technology and being a nasty future version he wants to take over the universe.
muah-ha-ha-ha-haaaar.

i dunno.. I'm really interested to see what you come up with!..I mean it'll be cool to see an idea realised in 3D and fascinating to watch it evolve into something better and more aligned with the ideas for the mod..

anyway there are super-rushed csheets in the concept section and i'll post an alternative head..it's cheesy but i thought people may not like the spartan thing or want to use it on something else..

awsome dude. cant wait to start modeling it. i now have three weeks of qantm left with my two major assessmnts due in the next couple, so it shouldnt be much longer now until i get a start on it :)

also, i like the helmet, but i also like the alternative version! choices, choices... i might have to see if i can come up with a compromise...

I love this concept from Sumeacool. Can't wait to see you have a go at it!

yesterday i was looking up stuff on ancient greek mythology for some ideas, when i started to get some ideas for a back story for him, which then went on to get bigger and bigger, such that it would be a backstory for his entire team/race.
a story for the sumea mod is probably not nessesary, the game is fairly simplistic and all we really need is a premis for the combat, setting, etc. but if i ever write it down i'll post it up here as a possible idea.

Yeah I'd agree with what Livewire said. It's hard to pin a design when there's so many other sub genres and nuances of "futuristic".

ok, finally finished qantm and had the celebration weekend, so now it's time to get on with this. however, i'm going to begin learning maya, so i'll be doing the model in that.

i've watched a bunch of video tuts, and the modeling part seems pretty straight forward, problem is they skiped over the hypershader, meanig i have no idea how to get a texture onto my reference planes to begin modeling in the first place! can anyone explain to me how to do this, or point me in the direction of some tuts so i can get started? i'm about to go looking for some now myself anyway.

so far maya looks pretty interesting, cant wait to get something going...

Check this link out Live Wire http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1908 .

thanks a bunch, i also just got a video tut on the hypershadder and materials in general, which should be good

No worries.

thats cool!! i was going to go for a medievil knight look aswell, i have another idea anywho.
i agree on your metroid prime statment it rocks!!!

GARH!!! maya is giving me the shits. this interface is going to take some time to gt use to. Just having to use Alt to move the cmaera around everything is confusing.

I have a question though: i set up image planes, but i couldnt figure out how to move them around (i didnt want them intersecting in the middle of the viewport) so i just used their attributes to make them invisible, which turned them off in the perspective viewport and not the others. however now in the orthographic views anything behind the veiw planes i can select but not see, so i was going t oahe another try at moving them but i cant select them in the orthographic views, and therefore cant turn their visibility back on.

i figure once i'm able to navigate the viewports and fix these irritating problems i should be right for modelling, especially now that i have MJ Poly Tools installed. But it's just getting to that point in the first place that's the problem!

EDIT: another question. is there anyway to make geometry transparent. in max you can simply hit ALT+X to make an object see through, making it very easy to work with image planes, i'm hoping there is a way to do the same in maya

Just make a polygonal plane instead of image planes (much easier) and attach the image to them. Simple.

As for double sided, press CTRL-a to bring up the attribute editor, search the tabs for one that say render stats and tick double sided on.

Transperancy is under the shading tab, top left on every viewport, look for X-ray and turn it on.
Alternatively just make a hot key that runs this script.

$p[0] = `getPanel -wf`;
modelEditor -e -xray (!`modelEditor -q -xray ($p[0])`) ($p[0]);

I'd advise going and getting some tutorials as these problems are pretty easy to solve if you just do a basic google search.

Wait until you get onto harder things. [:P]

thanks Dean.

and don't worry, i've been searching every time i get stuck, but i also post as there's a chance of getting both an answer and advice, such that script you just posted.

also i've watched several hourse of video tuts that came with the UT2004 dvd, which were realy handy, but skiped over things like setting up image planes or using the hyper shadder. once i get well into modelling i think i'll be right, with only the different tools and interface to get the hang of. then once i've got a basic hang of it i'll start re-arranging the shortcut keys to make it easier :)

EDIT: right, i've started my scene again, using image planes again cos texture planes run terribly slow for some reason, and dropping the render quality means i cant cant see the detail. but i've figured out move te images planes now (found it in a tutorial eariler today), so hopefully i can get started modeling now...

yes, still no pictures, but i have a reason: this is turning out to be one of the ugliest models i've done. i blame it on not knowing the tools - at the moment i'm having trouble re-ordering the flow of polys or adding detail. it seems that the methods available (at least that i've found so far) in maya take twice as long to use than Max, but maybe it's just my incopetance stemming from less than two days using the program. hopfully i once i've got the model blocked out and a bit o detail added, i'll have gotten used to the tools enough to make it look good [:)]

i guess the worst thing about doing the comp in Maya is knowing that if i was using Max the mesh would be almost done by now!

anyway, i'm sure few of you really care about my experience with Maya modelling thus far, so back to work...

Have you tried downloading the MAX7 demo? it gives you a free 30 day trial

I don't know maya at all, but i've heard the polymodelling isn't as intuative as it is in max...but that could just be extremist max fanboys talking.

It's hard enough modelling and texturing a character without having the learn the program at the same time [:0] Good luck with it!

Looking forward to seeing some pics.

yeah, got my copy of max 7 earlier this year, love some of the new tools.

i'm starting work at Krome in just over a week now, where i'll be using Maya, so i want to get into it as much as possible before i start to ease the transition.

oh, and still no pics, i decided i needed a few days off for R&R and games, seeing as i just finished qantm and am about to start full time work.

ok.

since i started work i didn't think i'd have time to finish the comp (foiled again!) but it seems i've had a reasonably amount of time to spare and i've been able to work on my entry afterall.

i started a few weeks ago when i was first learning maya, but scrapped that and began again a couple of days ago. reason being my original model was terrible, since i knew nothing about maya. now that i understand and have gotten over the interface and know a lot more of the tools i'm better.

in the end i'm still not happy with this model compared to some of my other work, namely my smaus model, but again i blame that on my proficiency in maya, and i can see in the model a timeline of improvement progressing from the earlist parts to the latest.

obviously still a bit to go, and once all the parts are done i'll be ging back over it and fine tuning it as much as time allows. though since there's less than a month to go that probably wont be a very large amount of time.

polycount is currently 2462 tris, not that that counts for much at this stage with a fair bit still to go and tweeking to be done.

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/LiveWire/20056222844_SWorking.jp…]

oh, and one more thing, i'm going for a hybrid between the original concept and the reference pics, as you'll see latter. i figured i've bored you with enough typing already that i probably should explain even more.[:)]

Hey, are you kidding? **Very nice work** on the model!! You should really try to finish this one, it's definately a contender, I reckon!

really liking the neck details and upper torso, but it progressively loses continuity from there down. The knee and inner thigh area especially needs some attention -- use smoothing groups to define some hard edge surfaces like the major muscle group changes

yeah no smothing groups on it yet, all flat shadded. it's got arms now and i've had to take out some detail in some areas cos i had exactly 19 tris left with which to do the head. i want to add detail tot he torso to get the concave groves looking better, and i want to add all the little accesories aswell. i'm going to shange how the legs join the body to, i've never been happy with that since i started.

thanks for the crits though, i'll definatly have to look into the poly density/distribution. probably have to take some out of the neck to stay within the limit.

ok, still a lot to go. it's 3599tris at the moment. pleanty i can take out of the head (i worked from a smoothed cube cos a sphere didnt give me what i wanted) and a few other places. i went with the original head design simple cos i didnt have the polys to do the other one. i want to add accessories such as the shrukin (sp[:P]) and the loincloth, and a few other details.

but, that'l do for today- it's beer o'clock!

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/LiveWire/20056322156_working2.jp…]

Looking Good. looking at the head it reminds me of the gladiator.

Keep it going.[:)]

looks awesome, the head does look a bit... seperate in the sense that ofcourse it came from a seperate concept, perhaps just modding it a bit to fit in with the rest of the body a bit more.

Looking great so far, but I'm not a big fan of that big cylinder of a left arm. From a distance it just looks like a clunky old cylinder.

done and done... almost. if i change anything else it will be minor tweeking.

still not entierly happy with it. i'm sure i could have done better, but i'm ruing out of time to get it done so this will probably do. crits still welcome though cos i might adjust a few things before i finish unwrapping it.

at the moment i think th legs look too short, or too wide, or something. might be the loincloth making them look fat, but i think i'll lengthen them a bit. i'm leaving it all for now though until i get some futher oppinions.

oh, and i'm not sure if i should do the belt as a texture (see post above for a concept pic of belt). at the moment that's what i plan to do and i have placed two splanes accross the gap between the torso and the leg to paint on. that's not really who i would normally do it, but in this case that would involve quite a bit of detail and and my detail level at the moment isnt really that high cos i need all the polys for the mechanical parts, etc. any comments/ideas?

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/LiveWire/20056603649_spar1.jpg[/…]

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/LiveWire/2005660374_spar2.jpg[/i…]

That looks really cool Livewire.

I think you do need to lengthen the legs. From the side he looks properly proportioned, but from the front it looks off, and I believe this is because of the long arms. Basically the leg proportions should match the arm proportions. If you think of a normally proportioned body, with the arms resting down, the hands would rest about mid-thigh, but with your guy they are down to the knees. I think if you just make the legs the same kind of length as the arms, so that the hands rest mid-thigh, it would look right. Extremely tall and lanky, but properly proportioned, and very cool. IMHO, of course.

Great job on the model.

heh, yeah shortly after posting this i looked at it again after a short break. i realised that the arms are far too long. normally i would model the arms at 45 deg. like above, but in this casei modeled them straight out like on the concept, and after rotating them down at the very end it showed how long they really were. i intend to shorten them and lengthen the legs a bit, then start unwrapping.