Work in progress

lol you moulded blue tac!! nice :P

that dragon thing looks pretty spiffy, and allthough i havent put a cape on a pic of myself im also attempting to draw myself constantly.

They are cool Brain. I really like that blu tack monster :)

haha, the blu tac is awsome [:D] Do you have any experience with clay or anything?

Moonunit: Succumb to the desire. Draw yourself!!
Aven: Ta bruz @:-)
denz: Not... hugely. Barely any, now that I come to think about it. Hmm...

More...
[img]http://www.artofbrain.com/digital/self-21stjune.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.artofbrain.com/digital/self-24thjune.jpg[/img]

nice, particulary like the stencil one

lol, love the casual talk.

more MORE! [:D]

wow that rocks, keep it up!!

oh and try colouring one of em aswell :D

some more- with a small bit of text.

[IMG]http://members.optusnet.com.au/alti3/studio/lobeastathon.jpg[/IMG]

-alti

Alti - i mentioned previously that you should consider writing and printing a comic. Are you taking steps to do something like this ?

I was 100% serious when i said you should at least attempt to do this, your storytelling and artistic ability work extremely well together, and i think you should definately evolve that.

In QLD we have an association called the artworkers union, which offer services and advice on what to do and where to go for almost anything to do with ideas / freelancing etc. I will ask Matias to send you these details.

As for your work, id suggest getting together a complete story with illustrations.

I think you could go a long way with this, IF thats something you would like to persue.

Keep it up man, i really look forward to seeing your work everytime there is a new post by you. [:)]

HazarD > I draw and wright just about all day every day, my lack of contacts in the industry gives me somewhat less confidence but my hope is to churn out a book soon. It's just a matter of getting a publisher interested so it's not me just wasting months and months that could have been spent on something elce.

- I am working on concept art for a company me and a couple of freinds started up in San Dieago- yet i still live in Australia.

If enough people see my art and are into my stories i am hoping to get something going(freelance or otherwise). it's just getting the right people to see them that is becoming my problem.

Comics are awsome but i think my project would be in the grey area of a graphic novel and full illustration work. aimed at mature readers. 17- and up.

all i have right now is time , so if you know of anything or anyone that would find my stuff interesting and marketable i'm open for suggestion.

-alti

i like you stuff, its very unique, but *please* run it through a spellchecker.
it would only take an extra minute

Reminds me of some designs for Cthulhu. Looks like it could end up being quite cool once hes been made. Definitely stick with the tenticles.

Is it going to be high or low poly? and i hear you about the lack of time thing, i barely get any and when i do i can't bring myself to actually do any 3D, instead i play games. But holidays are nearly here so that's a good thing.

bullet, as its going to be a UT2k4 character ive got room to breathe as far as polycount goes, but its not going to be one of those largly detailed highpoly characters no.

aven: yeah i didnt actually think about cthulhu, this guy was more based on some alien research work i was doing for a game project for someone (which unfortunatly fell through), the tentacles were actually a result of a warhammer40k tyranids influence (i used to play em).

He looks like he could fit into the UFO: Enemy Unknown world [:D]

Am interested to see how you go moony [:)]

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/simages2/349_oltholdahead1L.jpg[/img]

da da! the head, the tentacles were made entirely out of the extrude tool (after making a grid of the face where they would extrude from with the split pologon tool) and there not terribly flashy but i really dont mind :) More or less thats the only tools that have been used, otherwise it was just moving verteces, edges and faces. Im pretty happy with how it turned out really :D

Nice Start mate, The tentacles are looking great. It's great for the first model, which you are just learning from, but if you do want it i just suggest a bit more detail in the eyes and so on, but otherwise awe4some job

at this stage i thought the eyes could be left to a texture under the brow there

You're getting off to a pretty good start. The outer edges of the eyebrows looks a little odd, but I'm not too sure if it is the look you are going for. It just blends into the side of his head a little too abruptly.

The tentacles look good, but you may want to make them less grid like. Maybe shift them around and delete one of the tentacles from the middle. Rearrange them around and make them look a little more random.

Also. Be careful with Maya's Face counter. I'm not sure if you realise, but it doesn't tell you how many triangles there are. It tells you how many nGons you have. You will need Bonus Tools or a script to get Triangle counting. If you need the script, I can post it up here.

the brow does look like it ends kinda ubrubptly but look at the wires, its just softened some edges (sorta thing.. u know, i forget the proper term for it) and not others on the edge there. I know the tenacles are rather grid like because for the sake of simplicity thats how i set them up, they may change later if i really thinkt they need too (i get the feeling they will get tweaked eventually when a body is made and so on). That script would be nice (and how to impliment it, install it etc) thanks :)

Nice start MoonUnit, Im interested to see how the animation for the tentacles comes out.

The MEL Script is called cdf.mel and the author of it appears to be French. It was found at http://www.highend3d.com/maya/mel/?group=melscripts?ion=modeling

There are a whole bunch of free Scripts and Plug-ins available there (for many different apps).

Here is the Script. Just Right-Click, Save As. 1.8k (tiny)
http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/cdf.mel

In your My Documents folder, there should be a Maya folder. In the Maya folder, there will be a version folder. Copy the file into a Scripts folder within the version folder. ie:

Version 5.01 on my system looks like
C:Documents and SettingsMattMy Documentsmaya5.0scripts
Version 6.0 looks like
C:Documents and SettingsMattMy Documentsmaya6.0scripts

Now just run Maya, and select your mesh or meshes that you wish to have counted. Type in cdf in the command line (down the bottom of the UI). In the bar next to it, it will give you the count. If you have troubles or want to set the script up to be effected by a Hotkey, let me know.

all im getting when i run it is "Aucun(s) Polygone(s) selectionn?(s)" in the box, not actually any figures

You have to have the mesh(es) selected. Are you running PLE? If so, let me know and I can check on my friend's comp.

oops didnt have it selected, my bad :P
according to your script my count is as follows
Triangles: 492 Faces: 284 Vertex: 270 Edges: 552

so it was pretty much fine

Phht. Not my script :)

Just in case you ever need/want to check how many triangles you have in it :)

Keep us updated with your efforts.

allmost completed the toroso :) Just gotta bit more tweaking to do (eh, ive been tweaking for hours :P) Also done some tweakage on the head. With the tentacles, im gonna fiddle around with them after ive mirrored it over so the "grid" is not entirely simetrical, ive done a bit of tweakage allready tho.

i take it your the only maya enthusiast here aven :P ive used max and well it was max 3 but maya is so much easier for me (well with what i know how to do in both) and im kinda following along with the UT2k4 SE tuts. Ill probably learn max eventually, but maya is my stepping stone into the 3D world atm :D

btw any way i can do nice wire shots which are all spiffy with large black lines on the edges and so on that you know of, atm im just selecting in object mode and hitting print screen :P

I'm in a similat boat to you. Used Max 3.1 (some 2.5, but very little) at the AIE for a bit over a year. There were a few things that irritated me about the program. Did the Maya course. Loved it. Programs can make a major difference, but there isn't one supreme 3D program :)

As for Wireframe rendering. My friend wrote this up a while ago. It takes a bit of setting up, but it works really well.
http://www.jozvex.com/tutorials/wireframe.html

He is more interested in the technical side of Maya than the artistic side. He also has some other mental ray tutes there that are very handy. I'm still bugging him to finish them off :)

Moonunit - good start
Question in regards to the concept though, did you want to have a 'normal' sized character, or a fairly short, dwarf sized one?

If its the latter, you're doing fine.
If not, check these out
http://www.fineart.sk/photos/figure/014.JPG
http://www.fineart.sk/photos/figure/015.JPG

Won't talk too much, hopefully, if you need it, the pics will help

hes going to be "normal sized" but he is after all a moster of sorts and my first model, so im not being too strict with his proportion. Also im not being to strict with following the concept, i just kinda need it to get me started. I am terrible at just working from nothing. Thanks for those handy pics though :)

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/simages2/349_oltholdatorso1L.jpg[/img]

torso complete!! i cant beleive how well that went, oh sure the shoulders are a mess and the like but hes pretty round (started with a box) and all and even if he is a bit "cartoony" thats allways been me so im not too bothered :P . He looks pretty wide when i mirror it over though... im hoping that once the arms and legs are in he wont look so wide, if he does... more tweaking XP

oh and btw, i know the spine things from the concept arent there, they may or may not be added in at the very end, ill decide wether or not i want them then

Cool start dude... good to see some maya going down :).. don't forget to delete the mesh history everynow and again to speed things up!

oh yeah, thanks for reminding me, i was gonna do that after i welded the head on but i forgot :P

before most of you have even seen the torso or even a lot of you have seen any progress the modelling is complete!! Ive done a bit of work with normals but im not too fussed, once the textures on it wont be that noticable anyway. He has been triangulated so thats why his poly count has suddenly risen dramaticaly.

oh and Bob, u were right, his proportions were a bit odd, his proportions are now different to the concept. I just made everything to concept then rescaled a bit and the like.

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/simages2/349_oltholdacomplete1L.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/simages2/349_oltholdawiren1L.jpg[/img]

EDIT: errr ok for some reason its cut off my wire image at the bottom there... even when i re-upload, thats weird :S

Pretty good for a first model.

His legs look a little scrawny. They don't look like they would be able to hold up that beer gut too well. Thickening them up would help out a lot.

The feet look like they are lacking a lot of detail. When you look at the concept art, you had all the toes in. On the model, there are only two toes for each foot. It is really noticeable because you have all his fingers in there.

You may want to tweak the palm of his hands just a little. He doesn't have the dip in the palm or the pads on either side.

Depending on how many vert influences you have per bone, you may have troubles with his deformation areas (joints). EDIT: Sorry. Other way around. How many bone influences for each vert.

And..... he needs some arse cheeks :D

Those are just little picks. It is very cool for a first model, and you can only get better :) BTW, is it your first model full stop or your first Maya made model?

Looking good, keep it up, but I am not sure, but your renders look poor for some reason, like low quality, or you just compress it?

yeh if i sat down to do the best that i could do then theres lots of things id go and fix up, like i said ive never really been good with hands and feet (tried them before and boooooy was that a mess, the hands actually took two attempts here). Unfortunatly i forgot to make a save before he was triangulated and mirrored, which would have been easier to edit. No doubt ill make another one (not the same character mind) after this is over anyway. Oh and yeah its my first model model, ive messed around and made a terrible messy torso in 3Ds Max and made a character entirely out of basic geometric shapes but otherwise my experience is pretty much naught :P oh errr and he did have a crack... i think i killed it when i was welding his legs and forgot to make a new one.... oh well :P

the renders are straight renders of what i have in my perspective frame, there is not lights or anything added, they are saved as tga files then transported to PS where i make the 800x600 images which are then saved as Jpegs. dunno why u get that impression.

Lol he looks funny as! Good job for a first model Moony.

I think what cody is talking about is the fuzzyness around the edges of the mesh. Probably comes from the compilation process in photoshop, something to do with the selection by the looks of it.

Congrats on your model Moony, I am astounded by your persevereance, you had the model finished in a couple of days. I bought the paul steed book ages ago and still can't get it finished. I'll start in the holidays which start this week, great job too.

Ah that's cool. They were just little suggestions more than faults anyway. For the hand thing. Just sit down and try modelling just a hand or just a foot. Nothing else. Try one with as much detail as you want, and then go down from there. This way you are just trying to pay attention to one area of the body. You can consentrate on getting the volume right for it.

For the Hand, here is a video grab by Martin Krol
http://news.cgland.com/ntimg/noorungy/hand.avi
For the foot, here is something by Stephen Stahlberg
http://www.3d.sk/tutorials/Modeling_a_foot_in_Maya.htm

Neither are really tutes, but they are a start :)

If they are just plain renders, you probably have your anti-aliasing settings too low. Just go to your render globals and bump them up a bit. Either that or just click on the Quality drop down box and select 'Production'. When you down sized the image in PS, it just tried adding in it's own AA :)

Looks good dude.. a few problems here and there... like with proportions.. from the renders it looks like you have vertices that still havent been welded together properly, especially around the ankle... you should also select all your faces and under >editpolygons>normal>soften/harden set your normal smoothing to 120 or something.. that'll make it nicer....
but as Aven stated.. you should go back a few stages and concentrate on different parts of the model....
it might be worth at this stage to start learning how to uv map in maya as well..
anyhoww... keep it up...

Hazard/cody: Cant say where the fuzziness around the edge of th mesh comes from, i save them as tga's so theres no background, allthough its probably from resizing, not sure if those ones were re-sized.

Bullet: thanks, his arms and legs are nothing more then cylinders that i messed with a bit though, as he didnt have and detail on his limbs. Also i was off sick on thurs so i spent some of that time working on him.

Aven: thanks for the links, might get working on some just hand and feet models sometime soon.

Me109: yeah i think the ankles thing might have to do with normals, there all welded properly and everything.... Most of the model is on a pretty smooth normals setting, but some areas i left a little sharper because it looks odd and blobby with a high normal setting (like the face).

Ive got my fair share of school work but the holidays are coming up so ill have him in UT2k4 soon enough... i hope :P

thats a very handy guide there john, thanks for that :)

THANKYOU :)
Its given me a guide to use for my next drawings! :)
You work light to dark for all your marker work? This will feel odd as I always work dark to light.
*saves to HD*

wow, thanks johnN :D

Light to dark as the general rule for all transparent media, including markers. To break the process down further into distinct proceedures you could:
1)line drawing and everything that is black
2)fill in everything except white highlights with the light marker
3)fill in all shadow areas with dark marker (ie going over some sections of the light marker)
4)touchup and add reflected light with gouache and/or white pencil

this would allow you to focus on each tone individually. Handy if you are not 100% sure what to make light and dark before you commence. The other handy step that i didn't do in this case is to scan and do multiply prints of the line drawing. Takes the pressure off if you know a mistake is not going to ruin your original line drawing :)

Yeah 3 lotr posts! :)
looks good, though the back of the ring is too out of focus for my liking, other then that it looks fine :)

edit: I think the floor texture doesnt fit the theme, it looks like the ring is sitting o carpet.

hmm, now that you mention it... it does look a bit like carpet... damnit!
It's actually concrete, very high res as well... I guess the blurring kinda kills the look.
...think i'll have to render it off again fixing a few things :)

nice, very photoreal on the ring, but yeah floor atm is a bit off for theme

whats the reflected image?

That looks great, photorealistic as well. What the hell is DOF?

Bullet- Depth Of Field, in laymens terms it's a blurring of an image over a distance, it's a 3D programs attempt to mimic a photographic phenomenon.

Looking good though Urgund, good to see you got the text glowing. One thing though, the DoF is probably a bit over the top for such a small object.

yeah, alhtough the body is seriously twisted. Look at her back leg and the angle its on, compare that with the chest. Maybe tweak the leg so its facing the same direction as the knee (on the left). The face looks a bit "man-ish"
REally like the design of her though, espacailly the swirly stuff on the weapons.

Very nice.

Wow, that looks awesome [:D] (Yay, my favourite type of fan art!)
You?ve captured the look of the fighting Uruk very well. The first criticism that comes to mind for me is that the lower section looks a bit odd without much covering, but that?s how they were in the movie, so that?s cool. Though I thought they wore some kind of boot, but it doesn?t matter anyway because the bare feet look good.

I love the white hand on the chest plate! Nice touch.

I?m curious, did you photosource those textures? They look great. [:)]

Man, I wish I could make models (and textures) that cool? [:P]

Well done Metro3D [:D]

very nice metal work there. The white hand of Sauron isnt that clear though, not quite looking like a hand. Flesh work is pretty good althouhg the uraki are darker skinned arent they?

looks cool... though i'd make the viens more subtle, they are too "in your face" at the moment
nice texture work :)

bloody oathe, that is mad, i have the same question as above about whether or not you used phot sourcing for the texture. It is so cooool.

The only crit is that it took ages for me to load the image on broadband :P

Hi guys!

Thanks for crits.
Actually it's not a final version of model and textures.
I going to work more to make them better. I'll tune skin tone and make boots and armor for hands. I also still thinking about weapon. My first inclination was to make him arbalest but now I more intend to make sword and shild. I am not decided yet what is better [:)]

On textures I used photos for fingers and for chain mail.

Best regards,
http://metro3d.narod.ru

sweet

what res is the texture?

saw this on another forum, u never responded, how did you give the metal a dented look? its very nice!

very nice. although i dont like all the reflections in its nice shiney surface. I feel the palantiri should give you the impression of looking through a big hole, and the reflections sort of take this away..however, knowing nothing about 3d molelling, u should probably ignore my comment and carry on as-per normal.[:D]

needs more fire!

why is sauron always connected to fire! u stereotype him as a villan! he's just misunderstood![xx(]

Yeah, Sauron is a nice guy! All he ever wanted was peace on Middle-Earth.

Actually, from the books I always imagined Sauron as an eye -surrounded- by fire, not -made- of fire like in the movies (the eye isn?t really him in any case [;)]). With this I was trying to make the version I imagined when I read the books - a little bit different from the movie - so I wanted the flames understated. I think it actually needs less fire. It still looks too much like the film. Maybe some clouds on the surface might work? ..but that was in the film also.

As for the high reflections on the glass, I put that in so it still looks a bit like glass when reduced to 64 * 64 for my forum avatar. I have a much darker, earlier version without the reflections, but I'm on a different computer, so I can?t post it right now. I'll try and get some sketches for a stand done also.

- multiple edits to sound more coherent

sounds good. Yes i really dislike wat the movies have done. Anyway good work.(leaving out old bombadil [:(!])

Yeah, but I don't think people would have understood that character - he's a bit, err, odd. They did use some of his lines in the Two Towers extended edition though - the bit where old man willow buries Merry and Pipen alive and Tom saves them, is done by Treebeard in the movie. But I missed Saruman?s death the most - have to wait for ROTK extended edition for that one.

That was kinda odd topic, but me likes me rings [:P]

YES! i HATED how they left out the scouring of the shire, easily the best chapter...O well, better luck next time..:P

I think the iris or whatever its called (the black vertical line on the eye) needs to be clearer. Looks good though

LOL!! I didn't think you were a 3d buff moony! That little truck is a better effort than some who call themselves "industry standard" [:D]

no no no i didnt make the model, heck i wish. Its just the skin i made (like i said for the game trackmania)

Cool, a sumea mascot! [:D]
Looks great. I particularly like the space invaders guy on the roof

Very well presented.

heh heh just customized it so that the horn now goes "sumea!!" in a fast chipmunk voice instead of the normal parp sound :P

Looking really nice moonunit.

One thing for me though, Some of the places where objects intersect look like there floating. Like where the pole pink poles meet the tray. Some soft shadows would make it work better IMO.

and yeah cool theme :D

UPDATE
[img]http://www.vooks.net/moonunit/sumeacarskin2L.jpg[/img]
decided not to host the image on this site cause id allready put one allmost identical one up and i didnt want to delete the other one because theres bits shown there (like the back with the tray) that arent shown here.

As youll notice on the texture sheet (reduced in size ofcourse) theres only the body of the car, so i cant edit bits like the poles and wheels unfortunatly.

Decided to change the horn again, its now just a little "doo doo da doo doo" noise from pacman :P

Nice :)

That looks pretty cool. You are missing the bright red eyes though ;)

Just out of interest, what app did you use?

It would be insane to not use illustrator 10 or higher for that.

Should of used the pen tool more to make more curves and the direct select to adjust them.

Let me repeat that this is my first attempt at vector art.

It was made in photoshop 7 and yes using the pen tool, im kinda using this as a bit of a jump start into working in illustrator (because ive allways wanted to try using illustrator).

Good start into vector art. I think you will find Illustrator (and Freehand) much much better/easier for working with vectors.

As you have probably relised, vector art is not good for realistic rendering of organic forms such as people. but great for stylised renditions and graphic images. I also find vector art excellent for illustrating mechanical devices- esp things with smooth curves and surfaces.

Get your hands on a copy of Illustrator or Freehand ASAP, even an older version ie freehand9 or equivalent illustrator. They are both very good for what you will be wanting to do, but say no to Corel Draw, the interface is not as good for work flow. If you are looking to work between programs this might influence your choice in vector art program. Illustrator intergrates with Photoshop better BUT Freehand intergrates better with Flash.

yeah i dont really plan to use vector art for realistic organic pictures, then pen tool has its uses however in 2D work, like line art.

Woow, that's cool, it has a very anime look to it and kinda looks like on of the DBZ characters.

Just one crit, the forearm looks kinda awkward, i think it's cos of all the shadows, same thing goes for his trouser legs. Other than that it ownz.

Great drawing there mate, one thing, I think you went a bit over board with the rippage in the for arms, still good though.

yeah i agree with the comments above, its a great drawing but the forearms look odd.

Agree with comments above, and also - judging from the size and physique of this guy, it needs balancing in his legs, his quads are passable, but from his knees down looks pencil thin and more bony than toned, you could fix this buy bulking it up a bit, or buy shortening that section of the leg only.

Also the bunched-up-ness of the pants around ( and paticularly below )the knee doesnt make too much sense to me, being that the clothes are rags or material, they should be of a more loose fitting nature, not unlike the area of cloth just above, covering his quads.

Still a nice piece of comic book work [:D] show more!

Edit: I've just noticed something else, try and stand in the pose that you have drawn this guy, to me the weight should be on the shadowed leg, but the hip placement has the weight on the opposite leg, thats minor, but I'm just being picky to help [:p]

Thanks for your comments guys. Yeah, I agree I kinda stuffed up the shadows on the forearms, I drew it some time ago, but have only just coloured it. Here is a pic of a party of characters that I also drew awhile back but have just coloured. As with before This will probably only be up for a couple of weeks ( I have placed it on my Uni's server), but you can find the larger version of my site http://dlucas.freewebpage.org

[img]http://kali.qcas.gu.edu.au/~aaa/compvis_gc/1406144/images/Group2_colour…]

Very marvel like! I like it reminds me alot of Stan Lee's work.
Would have liked to see more of the mage chick though.

Great drawings but you go a bit overboard with the muscle structure.

quote:Originally posted by HazarD

Very marvel like! I like it reminds me alot of Stan Lee's work.

Stan Lee was a writer, he didnt do any art. You might be thinking of steve ditko or jack kirby (he worked with those two a few times). Me = marvel fanatic

yeah i agree with Rahnem. You seem to et very carried away with detailing the muscle and eventually you have parts looking like they are boiling or something EG: the archers right bicep.

I hope you dont take offence or something it's meant to be constructive, but other than that your work is reall y good. Make the improvements and you'll be sweet.

Moony: I stand corrected [:P] your 100% correct, John Buscema is the artist i was thinking of.

heh your only saying buscema cause he did some thor :P everyones favourite hammer weilding caped avenger :D

woah, thats some great detail [:)] My favouritye is the troll dude. Great work.

Thanks for all your comments. No offence has been taken at all. I've posted here to get feedback on my work from people in the areas I want to get work in character and conpet art. After I finished my IT degree I tried getting into 2D art job in the games industry, but kept getting rejected. What I wanted to know is if it was that my art wasn't up to standard or that I have no previous experience.

I can see what your all saying about to much muscle tone, I suppose that can happen when your main drawing influences are super hero comic books. The main artists that I like are Joe Madeuria, Andy and Adam Kubert and others (I collected mainly X-men comics)

Here are some examples with less bulging muscles (as with before I don't know how long the link will be up)

Cadderly for R. A. Salvatore's Cleric Quintet novels
[img]http://kali.qcas.gu.edu.au/~aaa/compvis_gc/1406144/assignment3/images/c…]

An original creation (with a quick colour job)
[img]http://kali.qcas.gu.edu.au/~aaa/compvis_gc/1406144/assignment3/images/L…]

love the cadderly character, you should give that guy a colour job

Cadderly was a very cool character, I'd like to see more renditions of Forgetten Realms characters!

RE your lack of success with concept art jobs, all i can offer is this, get good at concept, DAMN GOOD. Then familiarise yourself with either modelling or animation, as sole concept art jobs are pretty hard to come by.

You might also like to try some different themes, maybe something more mechanical. You have shown that you can make character concepts but most employers needs to see a full range of design styles.

I have spoken to some industry professionals (guest lecturers at Uni)and they all say the same thing that I will have to get into modelling or animation. I have some modelling experince in Maya and am now starting to teach myself 3D Studio Max and will be doing two animation subjects at uni next semester.

I have coloured Cadderly, and am trying a new colouring technique I got some tutorials about from the net using 'cuts'.
[img]http://kali.qcas.gu.edu.au/~aaa/compvis_gc/1406144/images/Cadderly_comi…]

And here is something of a different theme Springer from Transformers generation one
[img]http://kali.qcas.gu.edu.au/~aaa/compvis_gc/1406144/images/Springer_LA_s…]

nice soft colouring on cadderly

heh transformers are a bit popular round here atm with the ATARI game and whatnot :P so youve made a good choice there

Yeah, transformers rocks, I just played the game at my mates who is nuts about it, and it is a massive adrenaline rush.
You have done a great job on both dejl, i hope you are going to coloour the second one to. I'll be looking forward to it. oh an Optimus Prime was the best character.

I just finished colouring Springer and here it is

[img]http://kali.qcas.gu.edu.au/~aaa/compvis_gc/1406144/images/springer_col_…]

DEJL - http://dlucas.freewebpage.org

heeeey, now thats flashy, definetly your best colour job yet.

That looks pretty good Dejl, but i dont think any metal could have so much anisotropy.
I think it would look better with fewer more well placed high/low lights.

car paint...

For the past few weeks, after Uni exams finished, I have started teaching myself to model in 3D Studio Max, using the tutorials that came with the program and the Joan of Arc tutorial at www.3dtotal.com. Here is my first model, my warrior monk named Dallen. The first is the lower polygon version, using meshsmooth with iteration set to 0. The second is a higher poly version with iterations set to 1.

As I have not learnt texturing yet I have used just basic materials.

Lower poly version
[img]http://kali.qcas.gu.edu.au/~aaa/compvis_gc/1406144/images/dallen3d_lowp…]

Higher poly version
[img]http://kali.qcas.gu.edu.au/~aaa/compvis_gc/1406144/images/dallen3d_high…]

My gosh that is good, keep the good work up.

thats looking pretty good, few crits tho
his chest seems to extend out unaturaly from his waist to his armpits, it needs to be not so drastic and come out where the pecks are. Also along those lines i think the waist could afford to be lower. Lastly the face you have on your model looks a lot younger then your concept. But you certianly seem to have gotten the hang of modelling

Does this look a bit better

[img]http://kali.qcas.gu.edu.au/~aaa/compvis_gc/1406144/images/dallen3dnew.j…]

yeah heaps, really you can tweak to your hearts content, no matter how amazing a model is you can allways find verts you wanna move around and so on :P

It's luke skywalker with a shaved head, and a somewhat stiff wooden looking shirt on [:P]

I remember you saying last night that it looked like a chicks sweater, now i know what you mean lol. [:D]

Youve come along way with your mouse texturing skills, all credit to you!! It already looks better than a few textures I've seen painted with a tablet, keep it up [8D]

Edit : something ive spotted, his knees look really low on the leg, infact now i look at it a second time, his legs looks really short overall, compared to the hieght of say his waist to his neck.

good work, but yeah cant say im liking the jacket texture all that much

looking good, I like the pants texture. I agree about the knees.

k ill fix the legs got to fix the arms and jacket texture and add hair and probably get round to modeling teeth and stuff becasue i can animate the mouth but.... im lasy and facial animations aint my thing just yet :D

2 512x512 textures for that?
You could probably have gone for one 512 or even say 3 256 textures (one for lower body, upper body and one for head). The texture is coming along well though, especially the pants :) Although the black line, is that stitching or just a black line? if its stitching or a seam, then try to paint it like stitches, etc.
The blue on the boots might be a bit much compared to the colour scheme of the clothes, a brown-red colour might go well, but thats more of a personal preference.
Keep it up :)

ahhh dagnamit no matter what place i go to host pics i can never find one that works. anyone know what i've done wrong????

Tight mesh man! well done, sweet polyflow and distribution. I noticed that your profile says " i wouldnt consider myself a texture artist" well thats a damn fine job considering man, full marks!

no crits from me. i think it will fit UT perfectly!

Re the pics : they all work good for me [?]

what? so the pics showed up? theuyr're not working for me!

as for the texture artist bit, i guess i've improved a fair bit in the last year, but that still took me a fair while to complete, so i'll call myself a texture artist once i can do it to a better standard and in a reasonable timeframe.

you have to copy the urls into your browser

hey thats awesome, i love it

figures, that makes geocities and tripod useless for forum linking now. sooner or latter i've got to come accross onethat works.

Looks topnotch livewire [:)] definately UT feel. The boots r my fave part.

Livewire, you've got a Sumea profile account.. You're free to upload images on Sumea for show in the exhibition area of the forum too. Just remember that the images you upload have your member id added to the filename.. so if your member id is 343 and you uploaded man.jpg, you'll find it at http://www.sumea.com.au/simages2/343_man.jpg

hey man awesome work, thats the one of the best appropriations of a theme into the UT universe ive seen. Plus your textures are awesome, good luck with the nvidia comp!

Thanks Souri i was wondering about that! I'll remeber that from now on. I'l still have to figure out sothig to do about other websites, but at least that's this one sorted!

Good work mate, keep it up.

i have to say i love the little bald spot in the middle of his head. a nice roman touch. [:D]

This mesh is tight. Good stuff [8D]

That's nice, just one question, i'm trying to learn unwrapping myself, do you use max and is so, do you use a series of planar projections for unwrapping.

i apply the uvw unwrap modifyer, open it up, and move everything out of the way. i then go about selecting the faces i want and hitting ENTER to planar map them, like front, sides, and top for the head, then then stich them together. then move them outofthe way and move onto another part.

i find this way quicker, as if you go applying cylindrical or whatever unwraps on everyhing (which takes ages) and then go into the UVW unwrap and tweek it all, it takes so much longer cos you need to adjust it so much anyway.

other people will likely have other ways

Now I know why you were so mad at qantm forums when I said your avatar was scarier than Berg's avrilberg avatar. Sorry but he is scarier...because avrilberg is meant to be funny.

Nice work though. I can never draw textures like you.

mad? nah. i only get mad at computers, not people.

Good work.
Though I think some of the gold trimmings and the flesh could use some more working on. His eyes look a little too bright (too much white).
Nice model and design though :)

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/simages2/343_Tib-sheetL.jpg[/img]

[:0]brilliant - man i love that story and would love to see it continued!!!!!! along with concepts of course!! [:D]

thats cool, reminds me of the animatrix..in a way

hey man awesome concept, spin us some pics in your style of some of these bad ass bots ;)

quote:spin us some pics in your style of some of these bad ass bots

hehe will do.-

i wanted to take the story of alien civilisation one step further and make it a blossoming empire of rediculious galactic proportions.

Human beings are barly a blip on the radar for these mecha civilisations that are so compleatly ancient.
The idea that a virtual mind is eternal just got me thinking to how massive a civilisation like this would be- with virtually unlimited resourses and a sentient machiene brain, they would be godlike after a few billion years.

Wow, very cool sci-fi universe you?ve created. It?s pretty rare to see sci-fi set in truly massive scales. I really like the idea of A.I. mech?s (or mecha, whatever) growing into massive galactic civilisations.

The idea of A.I. rising is always fascinating sci-fi, and though its been done many times, rarely (if ever?) do we see the concept of A.I. after billions of years of development. It?s thought provoking stuff. What would such super-civilisations look like?

I think any civilisation that had billions of years to evolve, grow and consume the resources of the galaxy, would have incredible super-structures throughout the galaxy, which would be visible everywhere ? even from places out in the sticks, like Earth.
[:D]

Anyway, I really like your concepts and look forward to seeing more.

Nice one, you signed up for a class..

Looks like you have some interesting models. The ones we have are pretty much all cast from the same mould.. Mid 20's, and thin. It gets to be a bit repetetive.

Anyways, nice job on them, how long were you allowed per picture? and were they just pencil and paper?

cool mate. I wana take some life drawing aswell. How big are those drawings? Keep it up [:)]

as you can see ive only seen two different models so far (multiple sessions but just 2 diff models, we will see more as time goes on) and yeah they do make for interesting drawing, all the same id still like your mid 20s thin model for the sake of variety in their somewhere.

the bust shot of the old woman was a 30 min pose all done with a HB pencil (decided to stick to what i know to pull of the best i could)
the foot was some 10 minutes as was the one on the left of the bottom set
the other drawings except for three (which are basic outlines that were 30 seconds) were 5s

usually we go 30 seconds poses (i dunno 20 odd) then on to 5s then 10s. Sometimes it differs though

the drawings are all on A2 peices of paper (sort of basic canvas size as i draw on a easel) and there drawn with a combination of pencils and charcoal.

quite Gigerish :) the cheek detail is very much like the skin from his classic Alien designs

those artifacts on the top of the head look to be double edges, or open edges.

Nice texture by the way man !!

Just had a look at the polycount comp - i see the reason for those artifacts - its basically as i said ( i hope [?] ) that the hair pieces you have removed from her scalp have been extruded out of the edges in edit mesh mode, which i think is casuing the prob. But i could be completely wrong although hope im not [:0] Ive come across this thing once before and cant remember quite how i fixed it but im sure it was somthing along those lines,

If anyone can confirm please do so - im all curious now!! [?]

The texture is awesome, i love the little flesh opening on the cheeks, it's a brilliant idea. Good stuff

Looking really sweet Makk. Reminded me of Eve a soon as i saw her :)

The folds under her eyes look a little flatter than the ones under her cheeks.

As for the odd mesh problem, it looks like it could just be smoothing groups. The original character has smoothing all over her, so it is probably just left over info from when you deleted the hair.

Looks cool, it reminded me of Giger before I even read your post.

As for the artifacts, check your smoothing groups, and if it all seems right there then run and STL check modifier on the model to search for open edges and stuff.

Stu

actually just watching independence day on the TV recently that reminds me partially of their aliens (not the big ones with the tentacles, the one they find inside the stomach of the big 'un). Oh and nice work adapting flesh tones to this colour scheme

looking awsome makk [:D] Keep it up

thats a pretty small window youve got there for the mov but it looks pretty cool.
was this just a personall project thing?

That looks pretty good, Me109 :)
I like that first layer with the basic design - then seeing the technology fall into place on top. Good visualisation.

If I can offer some constructive criticism though, I just think that maybe the screen (that is a screen, isn't it?) needs to look more like a screen. The way it is now it kind of looks like a static image. Maybe you could do something like have the screen start out blank when it falls into place, and then have the screen image fade in?

Good job nonetheless.

I was curious, how did you make this? What software did you use?

Hi.. yeah the whole thing was for uni.. I whipped it up over a couple of days.. I wanted to render it out with mental ray.. but it wouldve worked out taking two weeks.. and i had to hand it in the next day :)

Its done in Maya 6 in poly's and one camera
the background is a sphere using an ocean shader (looks real good using mental ray)
output: tiff sequence compressed through quicktime using sorenson 3

Yeah I will be doing more work on it, like actually making the screen dynamic.. I've been looking into quicktime a bit, and you can set up hyperlinks and text to make the movie interactive, just don't know how easy it is ;)

I'll try throw up a larger version in the next couple of days

cheeers guys thanks for the comments! :D

Yeahh.. larger version of this file for anyone interested
1.5mb..
[url]http://student.ci.qut.edu.au/~n4675215/KIB809/movies/ID_ID_MB.mov[/url]

cheers

That looks cool matias. :)

Now this is a silly comment, but, uh, he looks like he's scratching his arse! [:P]
You could call it "Wacky anatomy man with itchy bum". [:D]
Maybe the weapon needs to be in a different position or something?

But its pretty damn good for a quick sketch.

LOL [:p]! I didnt get any impression of him scratching his ass until i saw palantirs comment.

It kind of looks like he is concentrating really hard to scratch it. Nothing like a good scratch, especially after you have broken free from chains [;)].

Anyway, it looks good despite the itchyness [:p].

(And yes, i spelt arse as ass, personally i prefer ass more then arse, anything to save me typing another key.)

awesome for a quicky but like... dude... his pecks are swallowing his head... and i think his underarms have their own abs.

heh im sorry it just had to be said, very very neat pic though, hes not so traditional barbarian yet theres an obvious recognition with the theme. I think its cause hes got a head like a shaolin monk or something :P

get back to work! [:P]

BAD ASS! (or should that be arse?!) its very 'hulk like' in style and pose. looking good- the axe position is good for the composition. looks like he is warming up his triceps more than bum scratching to me.

hehe, very nice [:D]

Looking good, but where is the X in his belly, if you are showing tum, you have to show the X.

Pantmonger

thats cool. The bottom one reminds me of the version of Ajax from age of mythology.
You say u aim at the jaffa stargate figure, but these are not space-y futuristic drawings. anyway who am i to criticize good drawings? hell i can't even spell properly!

Dude on the right gets my vote :) he has extra coolness factor over the more egyptian guy.

yeh id go for tweaking the guy on the right (or is it a gal?), it offers more originality where as the other guy looks like he could have come from so many games (like age of mythology or even the egyptain characters in unreal tournament)

Moonunit you're obsessed with unreal tournament, everthing looks like something from UT or could look like something suitable for it :)

Anyway, i think the second one is the most suitable for it. The first looks like na aztec and the third a Zulu. So the second one get my vote.

I had some spare time today so I was able to do some more work on this guy. Thanks for the comments. I will use the last one with a few adjustments like adding some armour plates to make him more futuristic. I have been working on a helmet/head for him. I have started to make him in Max, here is what I?ve done so far.
[IMG]http://img31.photobucket.com/albums/v92/Schlumpy/ZuluWarriorHead.jpg[/I…]
[IMG]http://img31.photobucket.com/albums/v92/Schlumpy/Prowl.jpg[/IMG]

Great start Schlumpy. [:D]

This is a very cool character design, and deserves to be finished!

Here's an update. I'm going to try spend a least 1 hr working on this each day.
[IMG]http://img31.photobucket.com/albums/v92/Schlumpy/Prowl2.jpg[/IMG]

I have to comment, I love that shape of the lions head. I think youve captured it perfectly, i dont think that amount of polygons could have been put to better use. Well done, cant wait to see it all finished! [:D]

1 hour everyday? now thats commitment (well for a hobby piece), i work on so many different projects at once i allways end up taking ages with anything.

Great stuff with the model, that will look amazing if you get some really good texture work done for it!

Woo that's awesome, how many tris is it on, great job.

I did some more work yesterday. Now he has a nice little skirt. Tell me, are tough guys still tough if they wear a skirt?

Bullet: He is around 1700 polys at the moment. I'm aiming for 2500 to 3000
[IMG]http://img31.photobucket.com/albums/v92/Schlumpy/Prowl3.jpg[/IMG]

very cool [:D] keep it up. He is starting to have that stargate feel.

Something i noticed, if a warrior is going to wear that as headgear etc the position it is currently in would mean the head and neck of the character would be out of place if you built it according to your concept, with the front of the characters face being in line with the sides ( mane ) of the lion headgear.

If his head is set quite far back into the headgear however, the other thing to think about would be the poor buggers line of sight, [:0]pretty slim at best.

Other than that i think its tops [:)]

Yes, tough guys are still tough if they wear skirts, but only if they are ancient warriors or scots :). Great job, nice to see your still working on it, i have a motivation problem where i would work on something then soon as i come across a problem i stop usually for a while.

But i thought there was meant to be a human face somewhere, or ahven't you gotten to it yet?

[IMG]http://img31.photobucket.com/albums/v92/Schlumpy/GraahTX1.jpg[/IMG]

I did a bit of texturing this weekend on this guy, mainly just working on colours and shadows. I have got him running around in UT 2004 with a dirty physique just to see how he looks in game.

With he?s head?He?s head is in the neck to the lion mask. You can?t really see it but it is there. I think I should make that more apparent. The idea is that lion head is like a big pair of goggles that, where the lions eyes are the lenses.

looking good so far, the mask particulary

I really like this model! And the first detail pass on the texture looks good, but i would loose the blue/purple, it doesnt say LION-WARRIOR to me at all, and really doesnt fit with the rest of the texture.

Today I?ve been working on the alpha map for the grassy end bits. Still have to finish them off. Following HazarD?s comment I have removed the blue colour and replaced it with brown, which I think makes him look more tribal and wild. I have also started to add some texture on the yellow orange parts. I haven?t touched any of his skin or legs yet, so I?ll start to work on that next. Here?s the pic

[IMG]http://img31.photobucket.com/albums/v92/Schlumpy/GraahTX2.jpg[/IMG]

There we go! Thats looking really good schlumpy!! What size textures are you painting up ?

looks great, dont forget to give us a flat once your done :)

Sweet man, you make it look so simple :)

Dude, that's rockin'! @:-D *thumbs up*

that looks great, but i still can't see the human head, or haven't you done that part yet?

Hi all! It?s been a while since I?ve posted and update. So, what have I been up to?.physiquing (yeah!), exporting and touching up the skins. I now have him running around in Unreal Tournament 2004 using the default animations. If you would like the UT2k4 files you can get them here. http://daniel-schlumpp.customer.netspace.net.au/utmdl-Graah.rar

Here are the flats 1024x1024 (thinking of making them 512).
[IMG] http://daniel-schlumpp.customer.netspace.net.au/GraahAlpha.jpg [/IMG]
[IMG] http://daniel-schlumpp.customer.netspace.net.au/GraahBody.jpg[/IMG]
Bullet: here is a picture where you can see his real face.
[IMG] http://daniel-schlumpp.customer.netspace.net.au/Graah_Portrait3.jpg [/IMG]
If you would like the UT2k4 files you can get them here.

Regards Schlumpy

great work man :D did you move the skeleton around at all when you rigged it up and did you actaully take those proportions into account before beginning? (cause i made my character for UT2k4 recently)

Nice one danno

May want to clean up those texture seams though - lotsa black lines in there!

MoonUnit: Yes I did move the skeleton around when I was rigging him. This has caused a few problems, so I tried to minimize to amount of changes that I made. The biggest problem I had was with the clavicles, they where rasing his shoulders too high when he was in the game. I didn?t worry about his proportions compared to the UT skeleton, just as long as the model looked alright.

Schlumpy

gday, looks really nice mate [:D]. Looking forward to ur art pipe line test. I'm looking at learning normal maps myself.

I'm with you Doord, Z Brush is great. Now if only ZBrush 3 would have decent interfaces and navigation tools. [:)]
Nice job by the way.

zbrush 2 interface is pretty straight forward.

love the web site, the animations even better

quote:Originally posted by Malus

I'm with you Doord, Z Brush is great. Now if only ZBrush 3 would have decent interfaces and navigation tools. [:)]
Nice job by the way.

You do know that the interface is completely customisable. I have mine interface the same as max right now but I watched a tut yesterday on ZBrush and now I have some very cool ideas to speed up work flow and get more working space.

quote:Originally posted by bullet21

love the web site, the animations even better

What site are you looking at bullet21?? There isn't any animation on the site just an .avi of a model.

Inglis/Doord: Yeah I know the interface is customisable, its just not friendly, more focus on pretty than workflow.
I like clean simple interfaces, maya, max photoshop etc, it just feels like I'm always in a sub menu, hey I love the program just think the interface is more about looks than functionality, just like Bryce urghh!!.

Hey Doord, whats the chance of you posting your interface setting file? BTW how did you guys go at E3 with T:V?

I can do that. You will have to wait until monday, I have no zbrush at work (right now) and I have a day off for my 21st tomorrow.

Happy Birthday doord [:D] !!!

Nice model to btw - really like his arms !!

Thanks man you have jumped the gun by a day but thanks :)

Yeah I like the arms also they were the last thing I worked on and because of that they have a extra layer of detail on them.

+1 early happy birthday!

awesome model, the muscles are great and the whole thing is really one of the best models ive ever seen

thanks man :)

I'm happy to see/hear that you all think so highly of the model, I have been a bit scared after seeing what is possible with ZBrush and if I could keep up with what was being done.

I'm starting to feel a little less scared and that I'm on the right track. Thanks.

Happy b'day man.
If you could post those files monday that would be great, cheers man.

I'm actually using zbrush to make a normal map for that spider demon I never finished for an old comp on sumea.
I love zbrush, its like sculpting, its the way modelling should be. [:)]

All the kudos for your model are spot on man, you should feel like your on track.

you better post that spider demon Dean! i need to see it [:P]

Lol, if I ever get it done.
Shes become my little test subject for all the things I want to try out. [:P]

ahh okay so shes mutated, has one arm thats 50 tri's and the other is 50K tris, half normal mapped and the rest is bog standard diffuse! excellent need to see it even more!!! [:P] post it post it!!

Damn, I forgot two days in a row now. I will remember the UI file for ZBrush one day, would you be able to wait until next week, I planing to doing alot of ZBrush on the weekend and therefore the UI will be update from ideas I have see in zbrush videos and new tools I have found out about which look to be very useful.

Doord: no worries man, you're doing me a favour sharing a decent UI.
Hazard: Egads no, shes ugly. Maybe when I actually commit my time to a full model. [:P]

yeah but your defination of "ugly" is like JI's definition of about 60% done. for the rest of us its pure [:O] [:o] material!!

hey mate, thats looking really solid so far. Poly usage on the model is pretty good as I can see and the texture is coming along nicely. Keep it goin [:)] Oh and for the character, I think he looks pretty damn cool but I'm a sucker for ninjas [:D]

who isnt a sucker for ninjas :P
good stuff man, theres been so many dodgy ninja models made (as they are a popular character as you would no doubt know) but yours is really good, make sure to show us the final render!

yeah spent today working on finishing off the uvw been destracted by games :(

only got hands ( now with 4 fingets and a thumb ... due to ppl making fun of my 3 fingers on other forums ) and part of the head and should be ablt to squees them into the layout lol

lol @ 3 fingers and thumb [:D] good job on the texture so far man, a decent effort for a mouse texture [:P] i like the model too, but something about those boots doesnt work for me.... i think the texture might change that, but to me they dont look apart of the rest of the model.

concept would help here [:D]

SWEEEEEEEET, the mask is cool. Awesome job. Please though give him an extra finger

[img]http://www.polarhome.com:793/~rastus/wip/text-almost-finished.jpg[/img]

ther it is almost finished
i know what u are saying about the boots i wasent to happy with them eigther
now to get rig of seems and fix up the dodgy bits

Pretty cool
There is a funny bit where the arm meets the forearm band, at the moment you painted as flesh and due to the shape of that area of the model, it looks like he has huge forearms. You should make that a shadow. Here is a quick paintover to show what I mean- [img]http://members.optusnet.com.au/~rowanfamily/arm.jpg[/img]
Im not a big fan of the white spots on him though.
Anyway, its coming along well, the flesh tones are nice :)

lol yer good point Makk, heh heh his arm suddenly widens quite drastically there :P
this guy wouldnt looks that out of place in UT2k4, hes a neat looking character. He could use some more diversity in his armour (ie not just four or so different textures on different areas) but thats just a thought. Are you planning to texture some eyes in there or leave them spiderman mask style (ie plain colour as a part of the mask).

oh and i just noticed, his waste from his pecks seems to come in quite dramatically, and from the back view it looks allmost like he has a __flat__ stomach.
still cool design tho :D

the textuers are going to be fixed up my mate is helping me the waist is more stylised than i normally do but i think it loos cool um the eyes wont be painted i want the mask look and the white will be made more icey than it is ther mate show me how to do it the arms will have a bit more detai in them and yeah but thanks for the comments

I like how youve picked a few colours and stuck with them, but i have to say overall it looks pretty bland man, perhaps a few more detail passes, to make materials look more convincing. ie making cloth look like cloth, and hard plastics look like hard plastics etc.

Even something as small as a ninja clan logo or something sewn into his cloth - or painted onto his armour would go far in terms of giving him more character.

Nice flesh tones though they look good as [:D]

I think you should do something with the eyes/face, to differ it from the rest of the character. Top work on the skin.

damn they look nice man..... love the detail in the saggy skin etc !!

Thats cool, i would crit you about the ears being to inset into the head but there dead so....

nice work

thanx guys :) Yeah the ears are way too high and inset on the right one. sorry, wish I could apply the crits heh.

Hey Denz did you create those from scratch in Z-brush or did you import the mesh and then work on it?

I found modelling in Z-brush very fiddly and really wanted to try out importing a mesh and detailing it but the demo doesn't allow that function. : Oh well.

hey wizenedooldman. Nah I didnt do any importing, I just used Zspheres.

Those heads are just one zshere then subdivided, played around with, then subdivided again and so on. [:)]

I might just dump all my 3d in here [:)] Heres a lopoly wip of some guy.

I'm using 3dsMax and for some reason, it wont let me 'cut' into him anymore, the tool just won't work. It will work on other objects in the same scene however. Has anyone ever had this problem? or know how to fix it?[:D] I guess I'll just use connect's. oh, and it's editable poly.

Might try normal map aswell.

[IMG]http://img59.photobucket.com/albums/v180/denzil40/bleble.jpg[/IMG]

Ok. It's bedtime and this is what I've done on him. Almost blocked him out. heh, I take faar too long on these things. Right now he stands at 1548 triangles. I'm having a bit of trouble with the arms but I'm pretty happy with the face atm, first time Iv'e got all quady goodness but I'm sure that will change [;)]

Also I wanna give him a devily creature look so I'll be giving him bit larger then normal hands and maybe some horns of some sort. Open to suggentions and of course crits.

[IMG]http://img59.photobucket.com/albums/v180/denzil40/Untitled-1_copy.jpg[/…]

id like to see how this progresses, keep going denz :) although he is at blockout stage at the moment, shrink that head down just a tad, its a bit large at the moment, and the neck is a tad thick too [:D]

Ill comment on other areas, when youve gone a bit further, but thats a pretty good start man [:)]

That looks great so far, but im sure that there are a lot of wasted tris especially on the head. But you probably arent optimizing while your doing it. But it's great, nice work.

haha, EVERYTIME I make the head to big, I don't know why, it's always the first thing people comment bout my models. anyway, thanx for picking that up, I'll be sure to shrink it down along with the neck.

bullet, yeah I usually leave major optimizing till last, where do you suggest the wasted poly's are?

thanx for your comments.

Ok, modelling is done. I gave him combat boots, don't know why but i thought they looked cool. Onto UV's and texture next. Any area's need improving?

edit: woops should attatch images. 2446 triangles.
[IMG]http://img59.photobucket.com/albums/v180/denzil40/guyf.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://img59.photobucket.com/albums/v180/denzil40/guy1.jpg[/IMG]

Thats your first model?? its pretty damn good man...

Heres a few things from a look at it..some minor - but then again im pretty picky [:D]

1) If it were me id increas the length of his arms about another half hand length.

2) The polygonal distribution is heavy in some areas and really light in others, which doesnt matter all that much, depending again on what you are planning for this guy. Areas like his thighs look barren of polys compared to say his knee and calf region.

3) the area below his calfs on the boots looks a tad spindly, while hes not a huge dude, i would beef them up a bit - to even out the characters weight.

4) the polyflow is a bit hectic in some areas, which will make animation difficult, esp in the hard to animate areas like the shoulders etc.

Apart from that - im pretty impressed with the head model - although i cant see it all that closely it looks pretty good from afar - but as bullet21 said - it does look poly heavy compared to the rest of the model, but once again thats perfectly fine depending on the application. Ive found that most jobs give me a budget and specs, and i have to build with those in mind. I think that helps to produce a better end result, as you know exactly how the character will be viewed, and youll have a better idea of where to add detail and spend that extra 100 tris you have left over when youve blocked out the model.

thats my 2 cents anyways [:D]

Anyways its a great start man - im pretty impresse d keep goin!

hey thanx. I didnt say this was my first model though heh [:p] I think you got mixed up with zbrush.

With the poly distrobution, yeah I know what you mean, I think I put too many into the arms, probably cos I've never modeled muscle definition in the arms before and wanted to give that a shot. With the calves, it probably looks like its heavier cos I chucked loops in there for knee deformations.
I'll definately try and clean that shoulder up, animating the shoulder always gives me problems.[:(!]

I'll also have a look with the proportions you mentioned, calfs, arms.

I've given him teeth aswell, so I guess he would be a character that would have facial close ups in cinematics or whatever.
thanx[:D]

yer as hazard said the legs look a bit spindly, and at the moment you boots look like gumboots, maybe a buckle or two or perhaps just have a look at a real boot and try to recreate its curves and such.

and as weird and odd as it is it has to be mentioned, his butt crack is going up his back, it should go down to between his legs (or perhaps i just cant see all of it very well). But if its being covered by a loincloth thingy (seems to be in wireframe dump) i dont supposed it really matters.

hehe yeah gumboots. Hopefully the txture will bring the combat out of em [:)] Also I got some ref of boots and refined the shape a bit, thanx.

Hmm, I'm not quite sure what you mean by the butt crack? Anyway, loinclothes do the trick [:D]

Finished UV's, texturing away

ah well, dw about the arse then. Heres some handy boot help if u want:

http://www.newrockstore.com/zona1/catalog/images/102_IT_NE_AN_AC_TO_NE…

http://www.newrockstore.com/zona1/catalog/default.php?cPath=1&osCsid=c0…

FINALLY finished the texture! Thanx moonunit for the refs [:)]. they helped out even though it might not show to well heh.

Thanx for the crits hazard n moonunit, I extended the arms and widened the boots along with some other stuff.

The UVlayout is a bit stuffed. I gave the legs WAY too much texture space, not to mention the hips which are covered by loin cloth anyway.

1024x1024. Crits welcomed again [:D]
edit: 100 self illumination is probably better.
[img]http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/1568/Untitled-1copy23.jpg[/img]

[IMG]http://img59.photobucket.com/albums/v180/denzil40/guyFace.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://img59.photobucket.com/albums/v180/denzil40/devil_copy.jpg[/IMG]

Comment : first impressions are that its pretty good man, well done (y)

Crits : Theres a lot of wasted space on that 1024x1024. With urban Brawl, the specs and amount of rendered objects and enhancing features - i only have a single 512 for each character, and trust me i use every single bit of that acreage i possibly can :D

Secondly even though he is a demonspawnish type guy - it almost looks as though hes spent too long in a tanning salon rather than have demonish skin. The face and legs look like you have painted them in one hit, then lost your palette anf had to start again for the chest - as the colours are quite different for the torso. also the highlights on the torso look a tad to harsh - the legs look heaps better IMO.
NOt sure if you used a noise filter to give the skin a pore-ish look but i think its a bit harsh, once again IMO.

Other than that - i think its a fairly decent shot man! and i like the iris texture quite alot too!

thanx hazard [:)]

Yeah I definately agree with the uv layout. I guess I was just being lazy. Next time i'll take a bit more time laying them out. theres alot of wasted space there[:p]

hehe, well I actually did the chest first, and yeah I'm not entirely happy with it even though this is probably my best texture so far.
With the highlights they are pretty harsh. It was intended but I took it over board with the chest probably, came out cartoonish. I'll try and tone it down a little if i can. With the skin, I used an overlay, I'll see if I can tone that down a bit too.

thanx again [:D]

With the normal map, I really wanna try and see if i can do it but no promises, cos I don't know if I will have the time. I have the lighting values on a seperate layer in photoshop so I can tone it down. I'm guessing you wouldn't want lighting information with a normal map?

well i think hazard covered most of it, the harsh highlights on the chest and the whole thing looks like its come out weird in the same way things look after you add a noise filter, i dont know if you did that to add texture to his skin or whatever but it id go without if you did.

other then that he looks pretty cool, its a neat little design youve got there and despite the technical hitches (well sorta technical) with the skin it actually looks pretty neat. oh and your welcome (for the reference pics)

yeah, i'll try n tone the texture of the skin down a bit. thanx [:)]

The colour of the skin reminds me for some reason of those old EGA games, they were along the same kinda colour weren't they. The texture of the abs looks way to defined if you know what i mean same with the wrinkles on the pecs. The transition from his head to the horns seems to quick as well. It kinda just looks like they've been Auto-Grided.

But other then that you've doen an awesome job. Especially the detail on the shoulders and face.

yeah your kinda right about the horns bullet... hmm i wonder if its even possible to play around with the UVs in a way so you could have the horns on the same texture peice as the head/back
probably not effectively

Not quite sure what EGA games aer, but cool heh [:)] Yeah I'm quite unhappy with the front of the texture, but I think it's better to move onto the next one and rectify my problems there, then redo this one.

With the transition of the horns, they do look abrupt, but I don't think I could really avoid having no seams on the head. Too much distortion so I went with seams. I think whats lacking is a soft shadow, Theyre sort of just floating there.

Thanx [:)]

EGA was like a predecessor to VGA i think, it only had a couple of hundred colours. I'd think your right aboout the lack of soft shadow thing, it does seem a bit harsh.

http://cs.upj.pitt.edu/bilitski/directedstudy/game/dxtutor1.html

Colour depth guide.

Agian very nice. Welcome to the boards, btw
Textures could use some overlays to give a more realistic and less "painted" look.

Now thats some nice work matt [:)] and i can only see one thing that niggles me, and that is - if you look at the texture space youve allowed for the turret vs the size you have allowed for the track housings, its about half, yet the track housings and turret are relatively the same size.

In that closeup shot you can see it a bit more clearly - the tracks look alot more blurry compared to any other part of the tank, especially the bolts etc.

But as i said, thats some nice work - i really like the texture - nice colours, they make the tank look really solid!! good job! [:D]

edit : ive just noted something else - when using default photoshop bevels / embossing - make sure you follow through using the one lightsource - ive noticed that the bolts on the tanks have different shadows [:D]

Thanks for the feedback guys... [:)]
This tank model will be shipping in the next version of 3ds max (7) as I used it in one of the new tuts I did for Discreet.

I am thinking about doing some more work on the model/textures and then having a go at animating it.

Nice work dude, I love the concept. How many poly's is it?

Stu

P.S. You write tuts for discreet, you rock dude.

Once again, it is awesome a walking tank give it to the u.s they'll probably mmake one. That is one of the coolest tanks i've ever seen.

Thanks Stu [:)]

The model was made for a web comp and it had to be around 5000 polys.

[img]http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~mjps/images/Tank/Wireframe.jpg[/img]

I like it. Nice design, seems like a good idea for a semi amphibious tank. Looks like the start of a great UT2004 mod. You could use the spacebar to raise the tank and the left shift to lower it.

Hah, that is really nice :)
The nose of the ship reminds me of a knife, which helps give a dangerous feel to it. Wether it was on purpose or not, its a very nice touch.
Good stuff

Nice work there, but if i could comment a bit on the design....

1) the ships engines have intakes ( im assuming thats what they are ) yet the body has been structured so that aerodynamically the intakes would be starved of airflow.

2) the feet used as landing / docking gear, look to be under immense stress being at such an angle, especially with only 2 of them, perhaps another set of gears aft, to counteract the imabalanced look.

Nice work though [:D] and welcome to sumea!!

welcome to sumea
Thats really good, like Makk said the knife design is great.

Wow that looks cool, it looks like an actuall plastic figure of some sort, are you sure you did it in 3D :)

nice work :)
I like the combination of the forms, works well.

Something else - is it a manned or un-manned spacecraft ? if manned - i dont see a cockpit of any sort - or any forward facing looking out area [:D] i suppose they could fly blind if they had that tech anyways!! but its nice to be able to see sparkly tractor beams flying towards you [;)]

What is the ship ? cargo ? interceptor ?

Also appologies for commenting on the rear landing gear - i didnt read your original post clear enough and it does state you still have to model them !

very nice matt [:)] only crit would be what hazard said about the landing gear, other then that, cant wait for some textures!

Thanks for the comments [:)]

HazarD... The idea behind the ship is that it is a single man stealth scout ship. The upper surfaces are going to be coated in a reactive camouflage so that it matches the ground it is flying over. Stealth was also one of the reasons the engine intakes are hidden in the front view.

I hope to get back on to working on this soon. Im in the middle of a big contract job and it is sucking up all my free time. [:(]

Nice start man [:D] keep going... go go go !!!!!!

a polished start, now where have i seen this before... :P ;)

Why does it look smooth though, i can't get it to render faceted if you know what i mean.

In 3ds max you use smoothing groups.

Great start by the way. I also have a copy of Paul Steeds book but have been to busy to work through it.

ok if your asking how to get the wire in the render over the smooth shaded here is how you do it ( thanks to hazzard he showed me >.<)

ok convert you mesh to editalbe poly
select all the edges
click create opject from selection (loads max to check names of things )
you want to create a linear opbject shape thingy =)
then select your new shape and go to the rendering tab and tick renderable..
i normally set the thinkness to 0.3 nice odd number
then make sure the opbect is the colour u want in the render ( u can use a material )

and wala wire over your render

and if thats not what you were asking u owe me 5 minutes of my lafe back stooped typeing....

Bullet21 -

1) select object.
2) select polygon sub object level.
3) ensure ingnore backfacing is OFF.
4) select all the faces.
5) scroll down in the right hand side until you find the polygon properties rollout.
6) Under the smoothing groups section, check the clear all box.

But thats for max6.0 im sure something like that is found in max3.0 - 4.2 [:D]

hope that helps.

Easier than that, just tick the 'faceted' box in the material editor, it's in the first rollout along with 'wire', 'face map' and '2 sided'.

I used your method wizened old man, and it worked like a charm, i'll start doing the torso today, hopefully

nice start mate. Just one thing though, I don't think it is good idea to have so many edges hanging off one vert like you do on the forehead. It would cause problems in animations I think. Now get that torso done! [:)]

Nice start mate, the face is way better then mine, good work mate.

Well, seeing as it's holidays, i managed to keep myself away from all other distractions to get the troso finished. I tried to upload it on the main site but it was to much of a pain in the ass seeing as i had already made the image a differant size than 800x600.

Anyway, it is sitting at 752 polys , i use the spline method for the torso and was surprised at how good it was, very easy and gives good results. Soo here are the pictures, some nice global illumination for ya!
[img]http://img7.photobucket.com/albums/v18/bullet21/Callisto_Headbody.jpg[/…]

I hope to have all of Callisto finished by the end of the holidays. 2 weeks left, i have to do arms leg, boots, optimizing and texturing. Should be plenty of time. Ohh and i love this book, well worth the 110 dollars.

EDIT: note the extremely Paul Steed sized breasts.

Try no to rely on sky lights to light your scene. If you want to use it, cool, just have another key light in there. It makes it very difficult to see her breast contours. They look fairly flat across the front. The only thing that ruins that is that you have a big dent in the bottom.

I'm guessing that she will be wearing some tight sleaveless tshirt (standard Paul Steed fair)? If so, smooth out the bottom and have it stretched out at the bottom of her breasts. The only way you will end up with that much defenition with something that tight is iff it has some draw strings tied down the middle and hooked to her neck :)

As far as the proportions go, they look pretty good. Considering the source :p

honestly its no wonder the guy gets so much crap from people if thats his idea of proportions -_- (steed that is).

looking good though bullet keep it up :D

Looking good, keep it up. With the Breats, scale them down a tad, you can see in the Book that her breats are on the Guide Lines, then later on, there before them. Anyways, good work.

[img]http://sumea.com.au/simages2/355_Callistofaceted1L.jpg[/img]

Here's a faceted verision it's a lot easier to see. I also managed to get it in the main moddeller section :D

coming along nice. Good on ya for giving yourself a deadline [:)]

I managed to get the modelling part finished today, after 3 days of solid modelling, and i know it's taken a lot longer then it should have. But anyway she is at 1598 tri's and is now ready for texturing (the hardest part). I'm really proud of this render as well, managed to work out how to use GI properly [8D]
[img]http://sumea.com.au/simages2/355_CallistoL.jpg[/img]

EDIT: The boots were a pain in the anus [:D]

lol the boots look like a pain in the anus :P
nice work man, great to see you got it finished :D
gonna texture it?

Nice work Bullet21 - Wheres the section of hair that falls across her face ? the part that is to be opacity mapped ? just curious [:P]

quote:Nice work Bullet21 - Wheres the section of hair that falls across her face ? the part that is to be opacity mapped ? just curious

It's in the actual Max file, but i didn't render it cos it gets in the way of the face[:)]

quote:gonna texture it?

I plan on doing it, but the books method sounds quite insane, so i'll probablly do it by myself

I just wanted to know if you did that fucked up hi-res to low-res for the boots, bull shit?? I looked at it and said to myself, "That has to be the hardest way to model anything" 3D connect the dots [?]INSANE[?]

Doord: No, i said the exact same thing, with a few more profanities, connect the dots is hard enough in 2D, it can't be done mate[:D]. I did like one of hte pieces that way then said F*%@ this, and did it with a cylinder. I dont even see the point of doing that Hi res as a template thing, it doubles the frustration and time.

lol well atleast you learnt something from that book, and thats that there is so many bad tutorials out there with obscure methods :P (something i learnt a long time ago lol, thats why the i shouted with glee when i got the 3D buzz tutorials from UT2k4).

That is Damn good, when I was doing it, it took me so long, I was so Lazy, but you are straight into it, and that is good. I hope you do a good job on the Texture, aslo, you going to Animate it?

I'll try to animate it, but first i want to get my head around this texture conundrum, quite a pain in the ass. The books method or what he calls the "Steed" method just sounds gay.

LMAO
the 'steed method'? your right it does sound gay :|

hey bullet i really like this model aye, heaps better than nething i could knock out even if i had the book :P
hurry and texture it :):) r u gonna specularity map her aswell for xtra shiny pain in the anus boots?

quote:Originally posted by bullet21

I'll try to animate it, but first i want to get my head around this texture conundrum, quite a pain in the ass. The books method or what he calls the "Steed" method just sounds gay.

[url="http://www.addall.com/author/3484714-1"]Which of Paul Steed's book do you have[/url]? If it's any of the ones published in 2001 or 2002, then I'm sure the texturing tutorial in that would be extremely out of date (unless you're using the same 3ds max version of course).

"Modeling a Character in 3Ds Max", it's published in 2001, The "steed method" is separating all the parts of the model in seperate element, then moving vertices, so you can planar project, then tweak UV's and funally export it. I just thought, "NO.....HOW ABOUT, NO" there's gotta be a better way.

[:p]

quote:Originally posted by bullet21

"Modeling a Character in 3Ds Max", it's published in 2001, The "steed method" is separating all the parts of the model in seperate element, then moving vertices, so you can planar project, then tweak UV's and funally export it. I just thought, "NO.....HOW ABOUT, NO" there's gotta be a better way.

And you had to hide a duplicate version, remember the order of the pieces you detached so you can re-attach them again, then morph it back to the hidden copy.. Yeh, that's the really ancient way to do it. If you have 3ds Max 4.2 or greater, it is much easier.