Sumea Challenge #2 - 3D - Dan Ward

[IMG]http://www.steelkey.com.au/beta1.jpg[/IMG]

for those of you too lazy to click. [;)] Looking fantastic!!!

Looking good dan, remember that proportionally, a basic adult humanoid character needs to be around 7 - 8 heads tall. I think the legs could be made longer to resolve that.. :)

After a few hours of tweaks i decided to treat myself and slap some materials onto the mesh to see how it would look ..

[img]http://www.steelkey.com.au/6.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.steelkey.com.au/beta3.jpg[/img]

-edit found a couple of earlier renders figured id post them up as im having serious thoughts about starting a new entry for the challenge (i even did a concept for this one) and not sure if this guy will progress further.

looks cool I like him :) he reminds me of a GI-jo I had when i was a kid ..one thing though make the armor on the back the legs drop away.. so if he were to bend his legs it wouldnt hit together.and have u thought of texture burning that shiny metal?? cos that helm looks cool

If by texture burning you mean "render to texture" within max then yeah i was going to see if i could work out how to do that :)

if not .. what is this texture burning you speak of?

yeah render to texture or textur baking as its called in help is easy to use ...well it was the other day but now its all fucked up when i use the maping i put on my oject ..i think it must be bazil stuffing it up ahh well thats my prob no t yours..just ask if u have any probs

looks a bit chucky, but cool none the less

Well I finished my new model and im really happy with the results.. only one problem, I decided to give poly modelling a try (as opposed to mesh) and forgot to take into account that 1 poly = 2x tri ...

hence my model is almost exactly 2x the poly limits for this challenge :) doh!.

still, im going to finish this guy he's definitely my best model yet.

[img]http://www.steelkey.com.au/s2.jpg[/img]

looks good.
better start optimizing though :)

Woah.. I like what you've done with this model.. very detailed. I think thinning the legs etc, making it less humanoid and more robotic was a good choice. Looks fantastic!

Woot! I have cut over 3000 polys from the model above and have got it in under the 3k limit, and i didnt loose that much detail that i wont be able to pick back up with the texture.

[img]http://www.steelkey.com.au/ts.jpg[/img]

now time to UVmap.

edit - that should be 2997 polys total the 2097 is a typo which im to lazy to fix :)

2097 polys...you still have 900 to play with.

looks real good though :)

Good stuff Dan. Nice optimising.

Whoops :P Still good though man. [:D]

boy does he look fun to i.k
all those cables, spring modifier baby is all i can say.

nannoo nannoo

Awesome work. Very cool model, and excellent optimisation. I can't wait to see it wearing a texture.

Scott.

Finally finished mapping and made a start on the texturing.. final mesh is 2999 polys :)

[img]http://www.steelkey.com.au/texture_1.jpg[/img]

great start :)
1 day left.

go on...use up that last polygon :)

edit - few larger images for your viewing pleasure

[img]http://www.steelkey.com.au/s2/candy.jpg[/img]

Finally finished, I could keep playing with the texture for another few hours but to be honest im sick of looking at this model and i need a break, enjoy :)

MODEL
[img]http://www.steelkey.com.au/s2/dan_ward_s2_final.jpg[/img]

TEXTURE @ 512

[img]http://www.steelkey.com.au/s2/dan_ward_s2_texture.jpg[/img]

C&C would be appreciated

wow!!

this is a mammoth improvement..

wow!!!!

That looks awesome!! Post some closer shots if you have the time!

Just wanted to reply to a couple of comments that have been made in the voting thread about my texture sheet looking monotone and not very impressive.

My rant is: does it matter what the texture sheet looks like if it works on the model?

When I create my textures (this being the second texture sheet I have done) I am constantly rendering out shots of the model to see how it looks, I see no reason to make your texture sheet look all snazzy if on the model it looks like junk. I have no issue with just adding a box of colour over a section of the map if the corresponding polys on the model don't require any detail.

In my opinion its how the model works in the final engine (in this case Max's renderer) that counts.

I was trying to get my renders to match the vision I had for this model, that being a semi futuristic "techno soldier" that has been well used on the field of battle.

Sure critique my UVMAP I know I have a tonne of improvement needed before im at a professional level, but in all modesty I think I really lucked in with the texture it came out way better than I expected and suits the model/concept perfectly.

P.S - If your interested in downloading a rotation of my model (350k DivX)
point your browser at http://www.steelkey.com.au/s2/rotation.avi

Dan,
I think the biggest thing is that it looks good at a certain distance but up close it will be very flat, its ok if its always going to be further away. I feel mine suffered from the opposite, it looks really detailed up close but blends into a washed out mess of colours in the far distance as my posts have shown (wish you guys could see it in Maya viewport uncompressed on my 21 inch monitor lol).

You may be right about detailed textures being wasted if it looks crap on the model but I tend to think the more detailed the texture the better it will look in a decent engine. (a 1024 x 512 jpg compressed at 56% isn't going to do anyones work justice.)

Hope my critique didn't offend btw, I just tell it how 'I' see it, I tend not to sugar coat because I find it patronising.

Not offended at all malus, the reason I post here is to get feedback :)

However in this case I beg to disagree, ive rendered out some high res shots of my model (one of them graces the desktop on my 21inch monitor) and I gotta tell ya it looks even better close up, especially seeing that we are talking about a low poly "in game model"

Id be more than happy to post a high res shot if you would like to see it.

I'm not arguing with you that my texture sheet looks "dull" my point is I don't think its relevant to the end product.

Great work Dan, and a massive improvement over your first comp entry. Well done!

About the only thing that nags at me is that the thighs look a little crooked. Texture looks good although there's room for a bit more detail in the dark metal areas I thought, the spine area looks a little empty.

Are you gonna rig him?

quote:Originally posted by Dan_Ward

Just wanted to reply to a couple of comments that have been made in the voting thread about my texture sheet looking monotone and not very impressive.

My rant is: does it matter what the texture sheet looks like if it works on the model?

I agree, it doesn't really matter. I just thought I'd give an observation anyway. People are just giving some thoughts, that's all.
I think it really is limiting if we can't comment on the concept, or texture (except layout) now. There's not much really left to comment on. Maybe next time everyone can just make their vote, and that's it.

Thanks Vibes, yeah the legs are a little knock-kneed its one of the things that im not totally happy with on the mesh, and yep to be honest the texture is only about 70% complete I was running out of time and wasn't really in the mood to do it on Friday night so I had to just rough in areas that otherwise would have been more detailed (especially the exposed back area).

As to rigging it .. i would if i could, i havent got as far as rigging a model yet :)

Souri that's cool im not angry or whatever about those comments, as I said before C&C is why we are all doing these challenges. I just wanted to know if it was considered important for the texture sheet itself to look "polished" regardless of what end product looks like.

People are always going to be defensive when it comes to commenting on creative works its all part of the fun, and probably the reason its so hard to get people to comment because they don't want to have to justify their comments :)

Anyway thanks for taking the time and effort to run the challenges, I know I get a tonne of benefit by participating in these things and I would assume everyone else does, bring on challenge #3 i need a new project!

Souri: I don't see the point in just voting without critiquing, what happens when you do a model in development and your AD tells you its all wrong are we going to have a cry, its important to be able to take comments and read them for what they are, if you can't then you really aren't going to make it in a very critiqued industry.

As for people getting defensive, I can only speak for myself but I tend to get my back up when people comment on unconstructive personal views (ie. "I would have given her a bigger gun") or disregard the rules of a vote completely.

I actually got a decent critique from a guy named modeling_man on CGtalk, it was mainly negatives about my texture but it was well thought out, mature and constructive so I took it onboard as it 'helped' me understand what I needed to work on. More people should learn how to critique / vote constructively I believe.

Dan: you should try rig him if you haven't got that far yet, good practice.

attempting to bone him now(and i mean that in the nicest possible way), il keep you posted as to the results :)