I've been dragging my heels on this project for too long, and I figured having an audience might pressure me into picking up the pace.
Anyway, my concept is an anachronistic sort of futuristic chariot racing where the horses are essentially motorised unicycles and the drivers are centurions in scifi get up and wield whips. I'm shooting for a 6000 polygon limit; thus far with the three horses, chariot, whip, chains and stoic futuresport hunk (sounds like a recipe for fun, eh) I've got about 500-700 triangles left to play with, which I'll probably expend on the horses, and maybe the chariot, pictured here:
[img]http://members.ozemail.com.au/~styerman/chariot.png[/img]
I think I need a bit more engine related paraphenalia on the horses (flywheels, extra pipes perhaps) and I'm a bit ambivalent about the overall shape of the horses, it doesn't quite seem aggressive enough.
Anyway, after doing that much of the modelling on the chariot, I moved onto the rider and got stuck into him hard. He comes to 1420 triangles.
[img]http://members.ozemail.com.au/~styerman/cents.jpg[/img]
That's meant to be a Saturday Night Fever pose, by the way. Here's the texture (there's a separate 16x16 texture for his little targetting HUD over his left eye):
[img]http://members.ozemail.com.au/~styerman/centurion_flat.jpg[/img]
As you can see from the wireframe bits in every shade of the texporter rainbow, there are still bits I've not painted yet. I'm tossing up between a tinfoil skirt and chainmail at the moment. I'm really not pleased with my usage of the texture space. Too many unused areas I think. Any UV packing tips out there? This is the first time I've really painted any skin textures, and that's at least one thing I thought turned out OK. I have a lot of trouble with faux-shiny metal though.
Here he is with the texture on (it's 1024x1024, by the way. I'm figuring on using two more 1024 square textures on the horses and chariots and other paraphenalia):
[img]http://members.ozemail.com.au/~styerman/centfbsp_tex.jpg[/img]
So if you've any comments or suggestions, that's pretty much why I posted. Any good advice I don't end up implementing in this project (things like drastic changes to the mesh that'll mess with my vertex weights and UV maps for instance) will definitely make it into the next. Just let me put on my protective goggles [8D] and give me a blasting.
if i could comment on the colour choice - theres just something about that sky blue colour that doesnt do it for me, if it was more like the helmet i think it would be better.
the skin tones look a tad 'glowy' to me.
The overall concept is really cool tho i like the idea - could be really funny :D
As far as unwrapping tips etc - this is the only one i can really give, when you concept your character even right back as to when the idea is in your mind, think about how you will paint the texture - that in turn will dictate how you unwrap the character, and hopefully make life a bit easier - if you just build the guy then unwrap him willy nilly as it suits - you might find your self with a difficult unwrap - and an ever more difficult packing job.
hope that helps some.
Get some dark tones into your flesh, like Hazard said, its a bit glowy. Give your flesh some saturated browns/reds for shadows and less saturated highlights (like more white, they are pretty yellowish at the moment.) Some harder shadows would be good for under the nose, shadows for where the end of the cloth meets start of the skin, etc.
I really like the chariot :)
Thanks for the feedback, guys. I'll be pushing and pulling bits of those ponies to try and make them look meaner.
I'll also bring the skin down a couple of f-stops and add some extra shading detail. Is the general idea to get the shading plausible at 100% self illumination? Here's a render of it at 50 (plus a tinfoil skirt -belt's coming): [url]http://members.ozemail.com.au/~styerman/cent50si.jpg[/url]
It's a good thing I've still got my skin split into 50+ layers at the moment. :)
Youve used the dodge tool i think for the highlights in the skin - and from my uber NEWB experience, it always gives the wrong highlight colour for skin tones.
and although haveing 50 + layers for a painting is good for undoing things - ive just learnt to paint on a few layers ( 4-5 ) as i used to find my files getting really large and cumbersome - even with a few gig page/swap file and 512 ram. 50 isnt so bad tho - man i used to have files with 150+ layers :D, now im just more confident and know a bit more about the tool that photoshop is i can confidently paint on only a couple.
I also just had another look at the horses and i thought you might wanna spend a few extra tri's on defining the ribcage, give them a bit of a gut etc.
Also the headers on the engine - i think use up a shitload of your tri's you could probably save a few on the area where they meet the engine block.
Yeah, the dodge tool's the one, Hazard. I found keeping the dodge, but then desaturating the highlights gets rid of that gold tint. I've reduced the highlights a bit too, and added extra shadows under the helmet, under the skirt, at the top of the midriff, under the pads etc. The helmet is a different shade to the armour 'cause the helmet is (meant to be ) shiny whereas the armour is a matte-ish painted metal; however a bit of desaturation made it a little less lurid, so I'm glad you pointed that one out. Your input has definitely improved my work, and with only a bit of fiddling; thanks guys.
Here's a render with the fiddled texture at full self-illumination: [url]http://members.ozemail.com.au/~styerman/textureprog4.jpg[/url]
V6 ponies! I agree with your suspicion about the horses not being aggressive enough. They look like merry-go-round ponies to me! In a way they match the 70's disco stylin' chariot pilot. You could easily push the whole thing to a comic/humourous style.
I like the overall concept though.