Work in progress

Just noticed the alpha shadow tracing and the volume light fucked up the transparency on the small tentacles in the renders so you can slightly see the planes. If I remove the volumetric light effect it's fine though, so go figure. I don't really know how to fix it other than maybe moving the lights and tweaking the density of the lighting.

Dane Brennand - Texture Artist

No one has ANY opinions they wanna share? I won't bite if you think its shit, just tell me what specifically.

also, update:

Seriously, any crits I openly welcome.

Dane Brennand - Texture Artist

Your update fixed up the one criticism i had from the non-artist perspective, the peacher "white" thing looked like it was just sitting there, now its blended in better.

The clothing under the arm looks very semetically rounded. Aka I could imagine if he lifted his arms it could get stuck at the moment, aka very tight. The pant endings look like they are wings, seem very rigid.

Face looks good from my perspective, looks realistic. Texturing on the top looks realistic.

Sure others with a art background can crticise/praise appriopriately though.

Thanks man. Just to clear things up though, the body is modeled in a rigged state so the rigging and animating people have more geometry to work with. In the game the coat tails would actually be handled by physics, so they'd hang loose and swing around as you moved.

I also agree with you on the arms, the modeler on the team could have done those a bit better.

Dane Brennand - Texture Artist

Would they use cloth animation in the in-game physics for the coat tails? Or would the coat tails be done using traditional animation?

It would be set up with nodes and handled by the Physx engine in UT3.

Dane Brennand - Texture Artist

awsome character, great concept

could be tidied up in a few places, but overall great job

Looking good. Post a money shot when you get him all rigged up.

P.S. - I Love the evil looking pistol.

id hit that :P na tis awsome model I do think that theres something wrong with the chin maybe it's just annoying me :P

Ok, criticism. It's fairly self explanatory. The proportions are way off, it does vaguely resemble a female character, but to be quite blunt here, I'd restart the whole thing. You probably know that though.

Also, what on earth are you doing modeling in mudbox from scratch like that. IF your planning on putting that in an engine, good luck. Model in something else first, then export that model as a .obj to mudbox and sculpt a hi poly, then bake it to a normal map and get some nice stuff happening.

Wow, pretty rough, I didnt model it in mudbox from scratch, it was modelled in 3ds max, and that was exported as an obj, and this will be baked to a normal map... You know, WIP for a reason...

How about providing some constructive criticism rather than just "Its shit start again." And
I'm interested in hearing what proportions are way off because it was modelled off reference images.

From a non-artist perspective, the body looks about right, the face looks off though..

It looks more "robot"ish. I think its more the chin area, where it recedes in so much.

Whoa, calm down. Your words not mine.

And the proportions are wrong. That shouldn't be debatable. Unless you modeled the reference off an out of proportion woman.

I said start again, because it would be much quicker to do as such, rather than aimlessly trying to fix what you have.

Also, I thought it was modeled from a mudbox sphere because the character looks too primitive and hasn't got much definition. That is not said in offense, that is a notable observation on my part.

Just.....leave it for a week, and come back look at it objectively, not subjectively. You'll see what I mean.

Seriously, if you blew up at THAT remark, you've got little hope of improving. I went easy on you o_o

Dane Brennand - Texture Artist

Maybe you can show us your side / front photo reference you used in your viewports so we can have a geezer ?

It is hard to tell without a front and side view i could do alot more redlines for you. So ill just have to go by what looks wrong.

The breasts are shaped strangely and look weightless, you can fix this by making them more round towards the bottom of where they sit and more graduall from the top.

her clavicle angles down very sharply it should be more straight and the line that connects the breast to the arm should continue up to form that shoulder muscle. It almost looks like she dosen't have a ribcage either, and her hands seem to large.

Her groin to belly button area looks pretty short it should be almost 1 head length atm it looks like half a head. Getting the proportions of a body correctly relies completely on the head size, get it in there asap.

from the knees down looks like the wrong shape but with out side and front I cant suggest what to do to fix it.

You have done a nice job on the lips and nose and i find them the hardest.
First off i shortened it vertically it seems really stretched beforehand. The cheek juts out in a very strange shape and she looks like shes frowning (maybe intentional). Theres no skull or area at the back of her head for a brain to sit in XD and the jaw line seems unrefined atm. Yellow lines are spots I found strange bumps in. Need an eyeball then you can shape the eye correctly :)

Yeh thanks for the comments everyone, really appreciated, ill work on it a bit more and give you an update one day.

great start man :)

Some ppl are just bastards. I can see its good and your not done, because i can see what it could look like textured, and ears added etc and it will look good. Some of what they say is correct but some is also the unique look you want, otherwise everyone that follows the "this is how you should do it" is gonna churn out the same boring bimbo's.

it's pretty good seeing as you have not modeling in some time, but I would have to agree with a few of the comments, your proportions a off, you can easly fix them up in max then go and try again in mudbox, the next try will look better...practise make perfect ^^

Ok, I'm not sure if you were aiming for a characture, but It's came out looking very out of proportion.

Ok, the nitty gritty:

You poly distribution is terrible, more importantly around the face, and the model is incredibly subdivided for it's silhouette. 7000+ is by no means epically gigantic these days, but for a character of that detail, you could have gotten around 1500 triangles at least.

The textures need to be pushed further than photosourcing and slapping basic mats down.

I'm going to jump ahead here and assume this is one of your first bipeds. If so, it's pretty decent as a finished product, but you really do need to just keep making more stuff and push yourself further.

Thanx for the comments yeah its only my 3rd finished character and my 1st one in maya. Im not much of a drawer, which is why its probably out of proportion. Thank you for your honesty, ive been studying at AIE melb and they seem more interested in the money im paying then actually helping and giving advice on how to do things properly, hopefully over this next modeling challenge i can post some WIP and pick up a lot of tips from the more experienced people on this forum =)
do you know of any good tutorials i could look at for game characters??

once again thank you for the honesty

Hey Brad, its me Cody from lasts years class:) How are you? Hope AIE is going good..... Anyways, nice job on the character, espically when its only the 3rd one u have completed. I am assuming you already know where the flaws in this model are, mainly the poly flow and distribution. You could of easily got the same result with a lot less tris. Search through the net next time and try find some good orthos and squish and squash your own to try match the correct ones.
The textures don't fit eachother, you have photosourced pants and it seems to be hand painted textures for the other parts and of the model. Keep consitency with the model, look at other models similar to the one you are creating and understand how they modeled a certain area or how they achieved that texture.
Looking good though man, keep it up, best of luck at AIE....
www.poopinmymouth.com is a very good resource, i pretty much self taught myself of that website, give it a go:) PS: Do you have MSN? If so add me, codyalday@hotmail.com

www.3dbuzz.com may be a good resource as well.

Hey cody, yeah im not bad trying to keep everything moving along for the course while working to try pay for it lol.

Yeah the texturing was a kinda rush job to get it done, i might re-texture it yet.
MSN is ork_11@hotmail.com ill add ya when i get home

Yeah dude, tbh those institutions are a total load of shit and are just there to push paper and keep people in jobs. If you really want to get good at 3d or game art, really devote yourself to learning, and apply for mod teams, get experience with other people and really develop further.

90 percent of the big game companies don't care at all about degrees and certificates, hell, I know a guy I used to work in a mod team with who's now working at epic games as a hard surface modeller, had no qualifications other than his high school diploma.

Also, get registered at some forums.

www.polycount.com is probably the best. Pro game devs from all sorts of studios, bungie, epic, rockstar, raven, loads of em go there and share work and critiques. Hang around there long enough and work hard enough and you'll start developing a higher standard of work, and maybe meet some people if they like your style and think you have promise.

Dane Brennand - Texture Artist

Think you mis-understand what 3dbuzz is, its just a bunch of training videos not a "certificate" place.

Oh they sell some DVDs for training videos for like $50, but the majority of them are free, just youtube style flash video with training on various stuff.

Have friends taking 2nd year programming, whoare experiencing similar experience on "taking money and let you defend for yourself" type feeling.

Aka they seem to be learning more from doing their own stuff than doing AIE related projects. I try to help em out at times as well when I can (bit tricky working full time as a programmer myself though)

I wasn't responding to your post, otherwise I'd have quoted it. I was talking about the AIE being a load of shit, obviously.

Dane Brennand - Texture Artist

... when can I move in? O_o

Wow man looks fantastic, keep us posted on when you release it :)

Looking good mate. Mine shafts sound awesome, and will add a new level of game play and variety to the level.

Watch out for texture tiling especially on the buildings.

Cant wait to see the finished level.

Looks pretty cool, mate. You know, I haven't played Unreal 3 or looked into user generated content since, well, getting bored of it a week after I got it near release day. How's the map and modding community behind it going?

Heh, yeah I don't blame you for getting bored of it quickly - it's been done before. I pretty much bought the game for the mapping/modding aspect, and have only really played the game to get a feel for how it works and to assess the standard of work from Epic that I have to try and meet. The community behind it is actually pretty good. http://forums.beyondunreal.com/ is useful and Hourences is an encyclopedia when it comes to the Unreal editor. He also has his own site with some helpful tutorials - http://www.hourences.com/book/index.htm

I like this map man ^^ looks very sweet, i'll have to play around with the unreal III engine some time but in the mean time it's QW for me ^^

Updated above :)

Solid start Angel, a few things you might want to look at:

on the coffee table it looks like the outer edges are perfectly cut. For more realism you might want to add a small chamfer, even 1mm will take the sharp edge off (i wouldn't want to catch my leg on those corners).

Are you limited by the number of poly's u can use? If not, you might want to add more to the curves on the sofa for a more smoother appearance.

Good work.

Solid start Angel, they should look awesome once textured. A few things I noticed:

The corners on the coffee table look very sharp, you could add a chamfer, even 1mm would do (those corners look deadly).

Are you limited by the number of poly's you can use? If not, you could think about adding more to the smoothing of the sofa to reduce the number of flat faces on the curves of the cushions and back rest.

Good work.

Thanks heaps threedninja :)

I'll chamfer the coffee table and smooth out the sofa a bit - I don't really have any poly limits, it's just for fun. Show you the results soon.

So, I haven't added more polys to the sofa, but I did chamfer the coffee table, made some side tables and lamps, added some walls/roof + lights, plus the insets with lights on the wall. Still untextured - after I'm done with having some modeling fun, my BF's gonna teach me to UV, then to do the whole texturing thing.. so til then!

Added a shelf too. Any suggestions for what else to add, other than plants?

Hi Angel,

Those changes look great, a few things to consider; add some bump maps to all of your materials (even a flat painted wall still has the roller marks and imperfections in the wall). Bump maps help to add inexpensive realism to your 3D models.

Add in any props that make the room looked lived in, that a human is/was in the room. Maybe put a coffee mug on the table with a couple of magazines. A painting on the wall, a few nick knacks on the shelving units. The sky is the limit really. Try a google image search for interior design display rooms to get inspiration for your props.

Souri tipped me off on how to get image to show in posts, here is his wisdom:
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(img src=http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/9176/mech5fa0.jpg)
Use < and > instead of the curly brackets
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modeling looks good.

Ok, getting there.

The low poly and the UV's are done and sitting at 5451 tris.
Working on the diffuse texture at the moment, the leather work needs some wear and tear on the edges to make things pop. Then I can work out the skin.

looks cool. any chance to see how you done this ?

once I've finished tinkering with the process I might make a tutorial if popular demand and spare time are available.

I decided to upload a few more samples (see initial post). These are very close in look to what I am producing for a mobile interface I'm currently working on.

The yellow, diamond thing. No idea what it is or what it represents - needs to provide immediate visual feedback about what it might do, ie more descriptive of its function.

I would also play around with the angles, so you are seeing the icons more straight on. Try an angle of about %5 and post those for comparison?

Thanks for the comments LaughingStock. Everything i have posted in this thread is experimental rather than actual icons (or WIPs). The yellow diamond thingy is not of anything, just an experiment in style and procedure. Hope that clarifies things.

The latest additions of emoticons really are very close to the icons I am producing at work (I exaggerated a little with the last post saying they were 'very close' to the actual items). They are also about the size the icons with this treatment will appear in the application.

Looking forward to seeing some regular posting from ya bboyc3p0.

while studying architecture i kept drawing implements and sketch book on hand perminantly and would draw while waiting on public transport/ in library looking at reference or when when looking at buildings. not carefull/pretty drawings, but records of form and concept....



ended up with over 30 sketch books fool of little drawings, was quite a useful habit for a while (as a programmer now, just have not pads filled with class interfaces and dance choreographies, but life is change)



if you miss a day, don't give up

Cool, looking forward to seeing how you progress! There have been a few sketchbooks on here which has been a pleasure to follow. Particularly when you can see improvements and progress made over time.

strom robot here

scout robot:

medium robot:

helllooo nurse,



that is really good, and wow, 20hours, that is some fast work.



i do admit to being a profesional pervert, so would prefer to see the suit streched between the breasts rather than skin tight (but that makes it much more difficult to reuse the model for other textures)



the shadow under the edge of the rib cage is possibly a bit too dark, though if you start adding really subtle shading, a bit of a smudge for the conture change of the belly button and vocal box/ collar bones could help hint at more form detail than is in the model.



people seem to like buttocks which are spherical, however they have a divot towards to side if not even a bit tappered towards the top (just a thought/ then again have met a few latino girls where the did look spherical..)



guess it is part of the beauty abstraction of this medium to make the knees thinner than realistic (width in left-right) (not a complaint, helps empisise curves and distance of medium needs some exsauration)



meet a girl vaugly this shape in sydney while there for salsa congress, an instructor from NZ, her breasts where not quite as high (going for a 'implanted' look?) and a tiny bit more of a tummy, but this is still anotomically possible



head/ bicepts seem a bit small for neck/ rest of proportions, but not certain if changing that will make it look better though (though neck does seem quite wide?)



hmmn, recognise the problems with getting a texture to fit accross that much realestate.



nice workdavidcoen2007-08-20 06:20:06

any news about the game design?

This is the new physically modeled levels.

 
This an early shot of the shock wave shader.

forgot to show my WIP girlie

That's some nice work!

I think I like the really rough negative space one the most, you obviously use a tablet... I've got a nice big wacom myself.

I've recently subscribed to this imagineFX mag, a bit pricey but I've found it great.

Keep it up!

i like the first one the best (lobster boy) possibly due to the translation of the adominal muscles into mechanical form and the claws.



fun fact, lobsters have one of the smallest brain size to body ratios of the animal kingdom...

oppsie, ment to include a design query as to the purpose for these robots, seem to be a anotomical translation rather than a functional recration of human attributes. (ie, they have 10 digit hands? where as a robot may just have the minimum functional specification to be able to do multi purpose tasks, either interchangable limbs/ hands or less digits, as cost/ production costs conflict with huminisation....) just a thought

some unfinished stuff... no time to finish it

oh my god, forgot to update this one ... posted as alwayas at sumea forums
some latest stuff here:

fast mecha sketch

evil mecha fellow

support mech

i am really dont like thread and editing system of this forum, this is my latest post here...

cool, keep posting progress for us.

Just a detail on the wings, they look like they are parallel to the viewing plane (ie. like we are viewing them from the top down) rather than the trailing edge receding into the distance. The eagle head is 'protruding' nicely, would be great if the wings could aid with the illusion of depth equally well.

Hey, what happened to the picture

Hmm not sure, I'll put it back up. I am actually working a game project now called Manadon so I have my hands full with that atm, so haven’t had any time to work on this pic.