Work in progress

Nice, easy to navigate layout. Big fan of your 3d modelin' @:-)

Only crit is put a link to your demo reel a bit more prominently. I only happened upon it due to looking through ALL the site. If I never wanted to contact you, I'd never see it. And the reel might make an employer want to contact you.

Great work Dan.

But where is Anubis/Egyptian Dog dude and the Beast from Hail? They rocked -especially the beast with animations.

Be nice to see the centerror with finished textures on his hands and weapon rather than the textporter smoothed normals shading.

Downloaded Demo reel , it pauses in the first couple of seconds.

Thanks for the replies and checking out my site. I have fixed a few things and made some changes. Made the link to my demo reel more prominent as suggested by Brain. Mutant_fork; I went through my old back-up CDs from Tafe a found the Hail game animations. They are now uploaded on the movie page.

www.dschlumpp.com

*laughs* Love the yoyo @:-D Some really great stuff going on here. I'd want to read indepth about these characters, so you've definitely got me fascinated.

thanks for having a look. i'l try and pick up the pace with the updates. i'm working on putting together a big sketchbook this year, with some art tips and stuff in it, its just a spare time thing.

[img]http://members.optusnet.com.au/altiquek/altievo6.jpg[/img]

[img]http://members.optusnet.com.au/altiquek/altievo7.jpg[/img]

looking great alti. Ive seen some awesome work done where people regarded the sketchbook itself like a work of art in its entierity. I think the term for these is supposed to be visual diaries or some such, in any case im about to start keeping one myself for uni

really digging your recent pencils -- seems you're working up gradually just in tones after a loose sketch nowadays? Either way, it's working for you - you're getting quite a bit of control and incidental detail from the forms you're pushing in there, especially on walk the dog, and mr. back scratch.

I'd love to see what you could do with a fine tip eraser pen to put some tight highlights in there, or whatever those cardboard pencil things are called (the name escapes me) that you use to smudge but with clean edging.

keep it up! [:)]

[IMG]http://members.optusnet.com.au/altiquek/skitter.jpg[/IMG]

ah an update, sorry for the slowness work is crazy.
cheers
-alti

having some fun

[IMG]http://members.optusnet.com.au/altiquek/skitter2.jpg[/IMG]

dark god of dice concept - random realy - what you think ?

[IMG]http://members.optusnet.com.au/altiquek/godofdice.jpg[/IMG]

the colour is brilliant! it adds so much to the overall image, the overall use of light around that area was well structured (the silouhetted border like shapes, the light shafts etc, it looks great). The creature could have used a tad more definition but then again that seems to be your style. It just depends what kind of purpose you intend to direct this towards (ie its ok if this is just supposed to be a fine art kind of thing)

[IMG]http://members.optusnet.com.au/altiquek/shader.jpg[/IMG]

critic welcome.

[IMG]http://members.optusnet.com.au/altiquek/craze.jpg[/IMG]

work is crazy right now.

thoughts and critic very welcome.

[IMG]http://members.optusnet.com.au/alti/flyunited.jpg[/IMG]

some more work from dead city comic.

thoughts and critiques:

colour = sexy

it's great to see you working in a wider and more vivid range of contrast - would love to see more of the brush work that you where doing a while ago though (kinda sparth-ish). I think you could really develop your style further with your own brush work.

keep it coming!

i'd love to do a texture for somebody if they have a texture sheet i can work on, i'd just like to see how i go with it.
i got a whole bunch of gnomon dvds on texture painting and it looks preety far out.

... I love. They look fantastic. They sort of remind me of this film called Mirror Mask. Have you seen it?... Sort of remind me. Well that's the first thing I thought, but anyway. If you haven't seen it, then you should. BUT I really, really like your stuff. So obscure and [I quote J.I Styles] the colour is sexy.
Please sir, I want some more.
-Parka

i just got painter 9 so this is the first thing i've done, great program, i'l devote my efforts into getting alot more proficiant.

i feel like i'm at the bottom of a very big hill. but its all upwards from here. :)

thoughts very welcome.

[IMG]http://members.optusnet.com.au/alti/landscapepaint.jpg[/IMG]

this is the second one i just finished.

thanks for looking.

[img]http://members.optusnet.com.au/alti/birthing2.jpg[/img]

[IMG]http://members.optusnet.com.au/alti/landscape3.jpg[/IMG]

painter landscape 35 mins

Awesome work man, I like them a lot. Keep it up please.

These are great. Nice colours.

still getting my head around painter 9
thanks for looking, i'l put any more robots up here when they are done.

cheers.

[IMG]http://members.optusnet.com.au/alti/robots.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://members.optusnet.com.au/alti/cyborg.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://members.optusnet.com.au/alti/cyborg2.jpg[/IMG]

love your work! they're great!!!

well someone's having fun ;)
good job man!

painter is definately your friend... compliments your style beautifully. keep it up mate.

thanks for looking, critics welcome.

[IMG]http://members.optusnet.com.au/alti/ship.jpg[/IMG]

-cheers
alti

dam straight its all fun

painter 9 - about a half hour.
any thougths or critics are welcome.
cheers-
alti
[IMG]http://members.optusnet.com.au/alti/nosferatu2.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://members.optusnet.com.au/alti/nosferatu.jpg[/IMG]

abit of a work in progress, any suggestions along the way will help alot.

Good luck mate, i've had to give up on my entry - been to strapped for time - but I hope to see you finish.

Thanks livewire, its a pity you wont get to finish yours but its understandable.

Update-
Progress on the legs...
[img]http://members.optusnet.com.au/~rowanfamily/general/low_poly_02.jpg[/img]
[img]http://members.optusnet.com.au/~rowanfamily/general/low_poly_03.jpg[/img]
Im planning on mirroring them, though I know that cuases a seam with the normals, though I think you can use the edit normals modifier to fix this. (Saw it on one of Ben Mathis vid tuts [url]http://www.poopinmymouth.com/[/url] ).

Hey Makk,

Cool character dude.

Being new to the whole normal mapping thing myself, I thought I would raise a question. I notice Makk has done his high res model first, which he is using as the bases to construct his low resolution mesh. Personally, I would always create the low res first and take into zbrush.

From observation, I have only ever really seen ppl model low then create their high res from that. So, my question being, is it wiser to create the low or high first or is it just personal workflow?

Thanks.

I think its just personal workflow. Dont think it really matters as long as you can get the end result looking good.

Reason why I create the high poly first and on a seperate mesh is becuase when doing the the high poly, Im only concerned about surface detial. No need to worry about building so it animates correctly, etc. Plus you can get away with building it in separete pieces and have it just floating there.
Also, you have too model differently as well. Like specifically when dealing with sharp/soft edges since that depends on the placement of them.
Finally, its generally a bad idea to have traingles, but (mostly) ok to have 5 sided polies in high res stuff. Where as the low poly you can have triangles but not 5 sided polies.

Make sense?

Oh and I just noticed I havent given him any eyebrows! Speaking of, I was going to use the PS normal filter to generate the hair strokes on the hair and eyebrows. Anybody had any experience with that? and how did it turn out?

Some um yeah...

Hated the old one so I started this on friday nite.

[img]http://members.optusnet.com.au/~rowanfamily/general/newgeneral01.jpg[/i…]

No normal mapping due to time constrants.

Bleh [B)]

so did you end up getting it in on time?

in regards to hair and eyebrows, I strongly suggest doing barbie hair in either max or zbrush first, then doing fiber strokes in post the nv filter -- I have done hair fiber in zbrush before, but it takes quite a few million polys to get a nice flow, and a whole lot of fiddling around in projection master to smooth it all out and looking good. Too much hassle than it's worth.

err...whats barbie hair? Is that like doing it in lots of of seperate planes? I did try doing in zbrush with the fiberbrush, but yeah, it was too fidly and didnt look like proper flowing hair.

Livewire I probably could rush it since Ive just got to finish off the boots and gun and add a a base, but I really feel it just isnt worth it anymore. However I WILL finish it.

So I was playing around with the posing (using bones and the skin modifier) and is it the mesh itself or is the poor rigging making his arms stretch out longer then what they are...

[img]http://members.optusnet.com.au/~rowanfamily/general/newgeneral02.jpg[/i…]
Here is the wires to compare..
[img]http://members.optusnet.com.au/~rowanfamily/general/newgeneral03.jpg[/i…]

Oh and ANY crits would be good since I cant seem to get anything from polycount board.

barbie hair equals:

[img]http://www.nancysdreamhouse.com/listpics/busyken1.jpg[/img]

molded large mass approximating the hair volume. Only tackle individual hair fibers in zbrush if you're willing to make custom brushes to use in projection master to get correct layering and then dick around with the flow where you drop and pick up on edges. I strongly suggest against using the fiber brush for this sort of thing since it's just a mess [:)]

As if that is dodgy programmer art! You put the rest of us programmers to shame [:D]

It's probably not even in MSPaint zoommmggg!

I like it [:)]

heh, there's no way I'm getting the katamari on the rocks song out of my head now... KATAMARI BEAT BOXING FOR ALL!!!

*laughs* I hired out We Love Katamari the other day and have fallen head over heels for it.

However, the lass has been driven crazy due to the theme bounding about her cranium. Na, na na na na na na nah, na na na nana naaa...

Looking good.

Kinda reminds me of the art style they use on the cover of the GTA games... a collage of characters like this.

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B0009I7KHY.08.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

I like it.

Scott.

quote:I'm not really an artist of any sorts

Pffft [:p]

Theres talant there so keep on sharing the love and do some more drawings to show off [:)]

Here's another pic that I'm working on:

http://romijade.com/Connie_3.jpg

It's for a friends RP character.. I've yet to do her teeth and I've still gotta fix the shading and such. Not to mention add the bottom.. but feedback would be appreciated. Y'know when you draw something, you can sometimes get too close to it and it's hard to see it from an outsiders perspective.. well those are the things I'm tryna find out.

I cant be the greatest critic of digital painting technique but one thing that stands out.. her eyes! they arent level. Id say its the left one thats off, it needs to be moved up and inwards.

Oh yep, agreed! Thanks MoonUnit :)

This is another one that I've started quickly:

http://www.romijade.com/RomiWIP.jpg

I've just got concept scribbles for the body but I've started working on her head.

Like the others, they're all just hobby sketches for fun.

~rj~

im not great for crit on anything other then what jumps out at me and again its the eyes. The (our) right eye is rotated as if her head was straight and dead on. Essentially it needs to be rotated to the right slightly. To see what i mean cut out the image in PS and rotate the head so it is actually straight on. In situations like this it can be usefull to check youve got everything setup correctly (another common problem is having on cheeck actually higher then the other).

Thanks for the tip, it's a good idea. I've been having trouble lining the eyes up properly in all the sketches I do, so hopefully once I get a few of them right then it won't be a problem for me anymore. I appreciate the feedback :) Maybe I should do the line art and before adding any colour, just make sure that the anatomy is correct.. making changes would sure be easier at that stage.

Looks good. The modelling of objects looks well done.
The lighting is good, though this is more of a personal taste then a critique, the lighting is abit bright. You might want to play with softening the ligthing and creating some more shadows in there.
Looks good how it is though :)
Whats the poly and texture stats?

yes looks good, definatly agree about the lighting though, a bit more intense than usual, clearly seen from the hotspot in the centre of the floor, which might be a little shiny too - not that there couldnt be a floor that shiny, it's just that i wouldn't want to try and walk on it while wearing socks.

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the comments!

I will post a new render in the days to come. The lighting is probably a bit too bright and the floor could do with a little less shine.

In terms of the polys and textures Makk, the scene is roughly 6000 and textures are shared between standard max materials (just things like the couch)and a few photosourced objects like the remote. No textures over 512x512.
Cheers.

I'm no artist, but I do spend all day looking at interior scenes :)

That's excellent work, the floor's typically "real-estate-glamour photo" polished to within an inch of it's life which is actually not unrealistic. Your skirting board is casting some slightly odd shadows though, I'm not sure what the profile of it is, but it looks quite unusual. The remote's also a bit flat-looking (it doesn't look thick enough to have batteries in it!) but that's probably not a mistake - only wishful thinking :)

I've attached a quick shot from [url="http://www.myvirtualhome.com.au"]MyVirtualHome[/url] which I knocked up in a few minutes. if you're interested in mucking around with lighting of interior scenes this is a pretty quick way to do that...

[img]icon_paperclip.gif[/img] Download Attachment: [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/mcdrewski/2006226234933_Screensh…"]Screenshot047.jpg[/url]
139.58 KB

Hi mcdrewski,

Thanks for the comments! Do you work at MyVirtualHome? I just applied for a job there.

I believe the skirting board is casting those shadows due to the fact that it is T Style skirting whereby the edging at the top overhangs the rest. In terms of the remotes thickness, I'm basing it on my DVD remote which is very slimline with super small batteries. It can easily be fattened up though :).

Thanks again.

Bit of a change:

Took your advice guys and dimmed the lighting slightly. Also took the shine down on the floor.

All comments welcome.

[:)]

[IMG]http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/7143/interiorsplash80023gb.jpg[/IMG]

lookin good.

Hah! you and Shape (eightbitnasty) are foolish in joining the sinking ship known as teamCgChat! The black and green army wil rule the universe >insert evil laugh here<

Seriously though, it looks like a good start and the texture should be good. Though maybe the torso isnt wide enough...or maybe its that the arms might be a bit thick. Not sure, have a play around with it.
And goodluck...........................cause CgChat are gonna need it!! ;) *evil dance*

don't lisn't to Makk! We may look like we have some catching up to do.. but slow and steady wins the race.. and we only need one winner to dominate!

hehe

But yep I agree with Makk on the crits.. keep playing with the proportions and mass a bit for sure. Could help in giving him a bit more stature.

Good work, when modeling the low and high poly model for normal mapping avoid 90 degree angles for nicer normal maps also make sure the unwrap is best as possible.

I'm kinda struggeling a tthe moment with normal mapping him. having never done it before i've done a few tests on spheres and mirrored and various shared texture space geometry. But by the looks of it this first attempt isnt goig ot come off to well. I think most of the areas should be fine, but a few areas - such as the sholder guards - have open edges (and basically no back) which so far has caused some pretty ugly results trying to get the normal mapping in max to work (the cage dosnt capture all the normals from the high poly, and if i extend it so it does other normals end up moved to the wrong place). can anyone offer any advice when i comes to normal mapping objects with open edges?

i'm not sure what you mean Delmo by making sure the unwrap is as best as possible - not as it relates to normal mapping. Here's my unwrap i packed last night (full version will be 1024): very little stretching and seams where they can best be hid, as i would for any model. There is a lot of things sharing texture space but hopfully this should look alright (i did the shared space normal map test prior to packing these).

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/LiveWire/200622233834_unwrap01.j…]

At the moment it dosnt look like i'm going to get this done in time for the comp, but i'll keep trying anyway. If i dont i might finish this or perhaps do a simpler model for the purposes of getting normal mapping right before i attempt a full character with lots of bits and pieces and accessories again.

I can?t offer any advice about normal mapping sorry ? I haven?t been brave enough to attempt it yet?
I just wanted to say that you?ve got a pretty nice looking model there; I really like the style he?s got going on. Tight UV packing as well. Good luck with the competition.

I'd love to see this guy when he's fully textured.

Is it the low poly that has the open edges? I was told that open edges on high poly were fine..hmm could someone clear that up?
If it is the high poly could apply a shell modifer to it.
lol, being a normal map newbie myself I cant offer much in the way of help :)

Looking good Limewire, good model with a nice flow to it, good luck with the comp. For normal maping, I can't even have a chance to start it as my versionn of Max can not do it, but I hope you figure it out.

When normal mapping u can really see how well you unwrapped your model things can't overlap beside mirrored objects, but remember the normals will be inverted on the mirrored side due to how max mirrors mesh. To correct this in max you can give the mirrored polys a different material ID and in the bump slot make it -100. If your normal maps are rendering parts that you dont want you can either edit the cage manually and make sure it doesn't extent further than needed or u can detach sections of the low and high and put the normal together in photoshop. I like the look of those UVs though little space wasted.

open edges are on the low poly model as well as the high, but i can cap it easy enough, i think it's the low poly one that'sthe problem though as that's what creates the cage. I'mthinking of capping it and moving the new UVs off the baking it and deleting the cap, but that comes off as a pretty dodgy work-around rather than a correct solution.

thats one tight UV map and a really good looking model too, well done

As just mentioned in Makk's thread, i've had to give up on this entry - been to strapped for time, and staying up until 1am or so wasn't working so well when it came to getting up for work the next day. I was also out all last weekend, leaving me with a lot to do and little time to do it.

Granted, I could still finsih it anyway, dispite the comp, but instead i'm going to start another model. I havnt been very happy with this one and i want to do something less complicated for a first normal mapping attempt. In retrospect i think that neither my workflow nor model were properly suited to normal mapping, so i want to start again and get it right on something simpiler before attempting a character with complicated UV mirroring and accessories of which i wasn't sure i could rather have normal mapped or not. I'm sure i could get my general finsihed eventualy, but i think taking my lessons and starting again is a better course of action and will probably see better results.

Sorry to hear that man but its understandable, believe me.
I feel pretty much the same way about my model as you did yours.

hey LiveWire hope it all goes well with some new work for you.. just keep in mind that normal maps can take some adjusting if rendering out from a high poly source. Just incoorporate some cleanup/tweaking time into your workflow. Don't be too against editing the map in photoshop if things don't quite line up or if fine detail is lost (learn which colours represent up/down/left/right..).

i know im not very good, but i'd still like some comments please.[:(]

Hey man, dont let the lack of replies get to you. This can be a very quit messageboard at times :)
The arms actaully look good.I like the material definition going on.
They could do with a few different colours for the brown, say some red in the shadows and yellow/orange in the highlights. Speaking of which, if your not going to use a spec map for them you could paint some more lighting in there, at the moment they are a little bit flat.
Some loose hanging folds in there could help bring out a more realistic look. If you look at the in game shot, it doesnt quite have that natural look, its too flat and cylindar looking. Same with the fingers on the glove, they are a bit too straight.
As I said above, this actually some pretty good work, so keep at it.

Yeah, it sucks when you don?t get many/any responses, but don?t worry, this forum seems to have been very quiet lately. I guess if people don?t respond to your work, you can assume it?s because your work is good and they can?t find anything to crit :D

I can?t see much to crit ? it?s a pretty good-looking texture. Is it all photo sourced?

thanks guys , apreciate it.

Makk - ill try and work on wrinkles and creases on a later date.
not very good at them...yet.

palantir - everything is hand painted.

thats really good man, especially for matching somebody elses full body skin

Hi LOOM

Like Makk was saying do think your work is bad if you don't get any feed back. It looks good to me but as makk was saying there is a bit more you could do to it just to make it just that much more better. It just one of them things that you get to see up close in game so its good to add a bit more detail to it if its needed.

But well done, And send Simon a big KISS from me he likes that kind of thing. LOL

yeah, this place has got twenty times the lurkers then it does those who stop to comment and were all really guilty of it ourselves too. dont take it too close to heart

i will do, 3darty. lol[:I]

thanks for the feedback guys.

Nice work Lloyd .. only crit is area around eyes could be rounder.

Thanks Kratos.

Will have a look at smoothing this out.
--Lloyd--

Cool. Are you going to model their bodies?

actually, I don't think I am at this stage.

It was really just for a bit of fun. I actually just want to practice some hand painted texturing. Hopefully I can texture them sunday. I'm still looking for a job at the momement so I'm pumping out as much work as I can right now.

Thanks.

quote:It was really just for a bit of fun. I actually just want to practice some hand painted texturing. Hopefully I can texture them sunday. I'm still looking for a job at the momement so I'm pumping out as much work as I can right now.

Quality over quantity!

I absolutely agree HazarD.

Sorry, I didn't actually mean these guys were part of the work I was doing for my folio.

I just meant I'm pumping out work to keep my skills up so I'm at least doing some form of 3d everyday.

....Quality always comes before quantity. This was just a little piece for fun.

Lloyd.

haha, fukn spot on.

any chance of SDKing this sucker :)

Keep up the good work mate.

Hey guys,

Textured the turtles today. Was a fun little project.[:)]

All comments welcome.

WIRES:

[IMG]http://img390.imageshack.us/img390/5751/turtlewires2pv.jpg[/IMG]

SPLASH PAGE:

[IMG]http://img390.imageshack.us/img390/2315/turtlessplash0ck.jpg[/IMG]

sweet!

cowabunga.

awesome, the only thing left to know is whose your faveourite :P mines donatello, gotta love a quaterstaff fighter

Thanks Moonunit. My favourite is DON aswell. He was always the best to use in my old Ninja Turtles game on my Amiga 500 lol. Because of his staff, you could always reach the bad guys withought getting hit haha. Cheers.

Looking good and clean HazarD. Head looks really clean and detailed

pheeeeeeeeew, boy are they ever getting their moneys worth. Looking good

excellent mesh layout. Very Clean, well done.

good work mate.
Are those hands going to be used for the first person view?

i kinda lose a bit of respect for studios who get other studios to clean up all their models and wat not.
But hey, it gives you a job! hehe
[B)][:)]

ninoth: Cheers [:)]

Moony: Thanks man [:D]

Lloyd: Cheers! I just finished playing Tales of Symphonia (GameCube) - Great game, main character is called Lloyd so hows that for a random fact of the day! [:P]

Loom: These hands will be used for normal view - A higher detailed set of hands for FPS view.
Ive made up a rig and animation, to testing the articulation - They deform a treat [:)]

Not sure why youd loose respect for a studio who outsources - perhaps they dont have artists in-house? or perhaps they hired another freelancer to complete the job, but they were unsatisfied with the result. Happens all the time!

A note - The head up there is goign to be the base model for all the high poly variants which I'll create for normal mapping in Zbrush.

Update again soon.

Hey Troy nice work :)
Any updates on the head? Just wondering how it will turn out. If you could tell us what brushes/method you use to detial would be helpfull, Im currently trying to do my own in zbrush and Im looking for any tips (especially in regards to generating realsitic looking wrinkles).

Hey Mark, Cheers!

No updates just yet - tweaking the head a bit more and client has UPPED the budget on the hands so I'll be pushing some more detail in there, will post some updates soon.

Still a little while away from the high poly stuff just yet - but will get those up as things get approved and locked off etc.

nasty little creature, he could sure give you a fright if he came loping towards you in atmospheric conditions. good work! if i had any crit it would be allthough hes supposed to be pale skinned i might like just a little more contrast in the flesh itself (not the cuts and blood, just the skin itself). Allthough that might ruin the effect.. not sure

Very nice. Will you be rigging him up ?

Nah not for now, I threw in a really quick rig and he did ok so I'll just move on to a new model.

Will you be normal mapping your next model ?

Yeah I think so :) My last next gen model was interrupted when my machine went down. I'll either pick that up again or start something fresh.

Nice textures....Do you know any sites for texturing?

Nice work, like the model...
haha! I noticed you jioned CgChat for the Dominance War.....Bad move buddy!! Polycount is going soO going to kick your asses! :) (I plan on entering for Polycount myself)...BEH-RIIIING IT!!!

ok Makk. This time it's not just CG vs PC. You're goin down buddy, and on your HOME TURF. YOU KNOW IT.

ussmc, what sort of thing do you want to know about? For this one I made a little palette of 6 or so skin colours, placed them down, added top down lighting while defining muscles etc and then overlayed/multiplied the lumpy and splodgy bits over the top. I painted true res to maintain the sharpness I painted in with small hard brushes.

quote:Originally posted by ussmc

Nice textures....Do you know any sites for texturing?

You should look in the 2d tutorial thread in artist discussion section. Cgtalk also has a bundle of tutorials on their forums here http://forums.cgsociety.org/

quote:Originally posted by eightbitnasty

ok Makk. This time it's not just CG vs PC. You're goin down buddy, and on your HOME TURF. YOU KNOW IT.

ussmc, what sort of thing do you want to know about? For this one I made a little palette of 6 or so skin colours, placed them down, added top down lighting while defining muscles etc and then overlayed/multiplied the lumpy and splodgy bits over the top. I painted true res to maintain the sharpness I painted in with small hard brushes.

I'm crap with texturing. I wanted to know how you did those lumpy and splodgy bits. Thanks for the info.

no probs.. do you have wacom? Some people are really great with a mouse but I find that tablets are really important for texturing.

For the lumpy bits (let's just say they are warts) I think I used two techniques. First one is to just pick a slightly lighter colour than the skin you want to place the wart onto, and in a new layer for your warts, just put down a few pixels of that lighter colour. This is the protruding bit that catches light from above. Then, pick a darker colour and paint it directly below, this give the impression that those pixels are in shadow, and below the light protruding part.

The other way is to create a new layer, lay down lots of light dots (using a hard brush with a large scatter), duplicate that layer, make it darker than the skin tone underneath, and move it slightly away from the light source. Has the same effect as the first method, but there is less variation as the dark parts are all duplicated so doesn't look as nice. Doing it this way is faster but I'd still go back and lightly smudge / erase some of the warts in both layers to add variation. Both layers can be set to overlay for ok results.

For the darker splodgy bits of skin, I picked a dark colour, and used a medium opacity brush to paint in the sort of patterning I wanted. In this case I feathered it out from a collection of large connected spots to smaller isolated ones, so it blended with the lighter skin tones (see shoulders -> pecs). Then this layer was set to multiply, and the layer opacity was adjusted to allow more of the shading and colour come from below. On top of this I put a slight noise layer to break things up a bit. Here's a little section near the top of the bicep.

[IMG]http://www.artbyshape.com/cgchat/texture_help.jpg[/IMG]

Hope that helps! Like I said the texture took way longer than the model and unwrap. It takes a while doing it this way rather than using photo overlays but with a wacom it's not too slow, and the results are more controlled.

heh, pretty sweet. reminds me of LoTR

That's a lot of typing you did. Thank you so much, this will help me a lot. I don't have a wacom but i'm considering buying one.

thanks again.

yeh sure, post the highs... always good to see how others 'compose' the high poly.

for example, I will often make sepereate pieces and bake them out. I find it helps clear alot of the glitches when there's a lot of concave areas on a model

Hi ninothe,

Models looking good. I have one question which you may be able to answer for me as I don't really deal with high poly.

Should there be such a condense cluster of edge loops around the eyes? I mean, unless its for the actual shape of the model i guess it's fine. However, when you go to animate, wouldn't the mouth generally move much more, and if so, should you possibly put more edge loops there instead?

Cheers

I agree. I think it is important to put enough edge loops on both the mouth and the eyes. I've reworked the topology a bit in the model. I added a bit more detail on the mouth and spread the loops around the dead more.

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/ninothe/2006218326_head_02.jpg[/…]

Nice head. Only crit is the spacing of your polygons. Their not spread out evenly across the face .. and probably a bit to many polygons on the forehead .. as when its smoothed that amount doesn't really show the deformation your after. You need to lower the polygon count in that area.

Example of polygon spacing .. from high resolution to low resolution areas.

[img]http://supraservers.net/leffa/annat/51.jpg[/img]

[img]http://supraservers.net/leffa/annat/55.jpg[/img]

Thanks Kratos. The spacing of the polygons are based off some of the heads I've studied. I want to give this head a lot of expressions and from the example you've shown me, I wont be able to do something like a worried pose or an angry pose.
Here is a quick example of what I mean. It's a shocked/worried I think...

[img]http://art.tafe.vu.edu.au/naniceto/wips/head_03.jpg[/img]
[img]http://exacto.blogspot.com/shocked_face_234234.jpg[/img]
[img]http://art.tafe.vu.edu.au/naniceto/wips/head_04.jpg[/img]

Excellent! the ground work is all done, but I think the presentation could benefit from more room, dont have text over the top of drawings etc - makes some parts hard to read and gives the whole thing a really cluttered feeling - give the document some more whitespace! dont fear the whitespace!

Use this format to show off all the pieces in your folio and your ideas should be really simple to follow. A KEY ingredient to any good game designers work.

Good Stuff!

quote:Originally posted by HazarD

Excellent! the ground work is all done, but I think the presentation could benefit from more room, dont have text over the top of drawings etc - makes some parts hard to read and gives the whole thing a really cluttered feeling - give the document some more whitespace! dont fear the whitespace!

Use this format to show off all the pieces in your folio and your ideas should be really simple to follow. A KEY ingredient to any good game designers work.

Good Stuff!

Thanks tons mate for the compliments and pointers. the size is already at a large 1000x1000 pixels. i made it this way to not give to much greaf to those running on 800X1200 and lower.

i found it quite a pain to get everything in. it does suffer form clogging. that'll be refined in future flash concepts.

thanks mate.

looks like youve captured him pretty well, i love todd mcfarlanes characters.

Hey MoonUnit,

Thanks for the comment.

---LLOYD---

For those interested,

Here are some Specular and Wire shots.

All crits/comments much appreciated.

Cheers!

[IMG]http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/3298/orthographicviewsspecular3vo.jp…]

[IMG]http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/5203/orthographicviewswired1ce.jpg[/…]

I dont know much about Spawn, but this looks really nice. Well done.

Thanks for the comment ninothe.

A few crits for you:

model:
Fairly well made, only big crit I'd give is his base T pose is too stiff and doesn't give much in the way of character or personality at the base level; his spine is quite straight and doesn't seem to be holding his own weight -- general good rule of thumb is to give your character an "average" feel to him in regards of how he holds his weight, and his pose, in regard to what he'll be doing the majority of time when he's rigged and animated. This way you avoid extreme distortion in texture and mesh later since he has enough slack in the uv's and mesh for deformation. It also means he'll look good for presentation shots like this without having to rig and pose him just to show him off how you intend him to be.

texture:

I'd say too much reliance on overlays, not enough hand painting in the texture; especially in the cape, you've got a perfect referance from the toys of how the cape is curled and folds, so I'd suggest studying it. Also, the cape could really do with some alpha love to make it a bit more tattered like the source material.

Hey Styles,

Thanks for the great feedback. I can definitely see what your getting at. Before I rig him, hell get some nice alpha to his cape also.

CHeers!

Been a bit busy this week. Just finished a test for Krome. Hope all goes well.

I decided it was time for Spawn to get rigged. I also gave his cape some alpha.

Thanks guys!

[IMG]http://img58.imageshack.us/img58/8380/spawn7xb.jpg[/IMG]

Nice goin Lloyd boys. :)

Much cooler in pose.

Thanks Denz ma Man.

First attempt at normal mapping. Still having some trouble when rendering (the render is coming out with wires over the top.)

Heres what I have for now:

[IMG]http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/9972/spawnlayout0dm.jpg[/IMG]

much darker, i actually prefer it this way. well done

nice, love the heavy feel, the cold atmosphere, only crit would be the length of her arm, a little short. Her skirt is wonderful.

looks really nice, but the lgiht grey shadidng agains the dul background makes it really hard to see detail. could you post it again against a clearer background, and possibly with wireframe

pretty impressive cody, i really dont have anything to crit here

I like it [:)] You've got a nice thin atmosphere feeling in there (far roof has that atmostpheric wash on it, and you have the cooler temp receeding shadows), which is looking really nice, but it needs reflective properties! Most all material types have some level of glossy fresnel reflection (The angles facing the furthest away from the 'camera' should be the most visibly reflective).

Other than that, a bit more work on the clouds outside to suggest where the light source is coming from would've also helped.

Thanks for your comments, i thought about the reflections at some point of the process but at the end i just felt like it was finished.. :S Probably i'll add a couple of things (like reflextions) before uploading it to my portafolio. Also i got a little too lazy with the clouds, they were one of the first things that i did and after that i got focus on something else... thanks a lot for the comments! :D
Rizo

looking neat, how close are you looking to get to your reference picture? Is it like a challenge to replicate or is it just infact a reference

Well trying to get as close as possible. Heres another update. Fixed lighting and added more polys to some objects.

[img]http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c137/segax/western_scene2.jpg[/img]

what kind of polycount are you going for? Becuase you could probably add quite a bit more for even current-gen spec. Your proportions look more exaggerated compared to the picture too

Hello,

Heres an update on my progress so far. Polygon count wise I'm aiming for a gun sort of level. Added some more polygons and adjusted proportions. Thanks for the feedback so far [:)]

[img]http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/6701/westernupdate36ev.jpg[/img]

Hey Kratos.

Nice work so far. Next render I would consider dropping the bump on the gorund texture a little (unless this is the look your going for of course) .

Good stuff.

Cool :) thanks for the feedback !

get some secondary light in there! Western and flash photography don't go too well with each other [;)]

It's obviously a rendered scene, and you're going for game environmental range of specs, but consider using mental ray and doing some gi/ambient occlusion... if nothing else because most static geometry has baked radiosity solutions for level developers, so don't think you're cheating with it [:D]

very nice as usual. out of interest, how are you doing the tire tread? I'm thinking of a few ways looking at it, so i'd like to know what you came up with.

LiveWire: I made a small section of the tread then i copied it 50 times attached all the mesh and welded. Then I used the bend modifier and angled it 360 degrees and theres your tread.

yeah, that's what i thought would be the best way.

Hey all, Here's what I've come up with. The first render is outdoor and the second one is indoor studio lighting my attempt at it anyway. Hope you like the renders.[:)]

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/delmo/2006228351_MercedesRender1…]

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/delmo/20062283557_MercedesRender…]

looks fantastic man, youre mechanical modelling skills look top notch to me

Thanks moony.

very nice Delmo.
What renderer are you using?

Cheers Makk, I'm using the mental ray renderer.

All i can say is theyre looking really good. Weapon modellings allways been an interesting thing for me to observe because a weapon being a prop you would presume to be easier then say a character. Consequently theres a lot of variation in the quality of weapon models but from what i can see yours look pretty good! (though im no gun nut to check for real life comparisons)

Looking good Cody. I can?t see anything to crit.
What kind of poly count are these?

Some more quality work!

Like moony I'm no gun nut either but that severely sawn-off shot-guns handle looks a few inches too thick!

Onto the textures!

Thankaz for the nice comments All. Most of the weapons are not exactly as in real life, as the reference pictures I used weren't the best, so I had to improvise a bit. They are around 1600 - 1800 tris.

Uvmapped and started to texture the grenade model a few nights ago. Still a lot of work to be done to it. Comments and crits appriciated.

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/simages2/1918_AL.jpg[/img]

Hey Moony, good to see you back on the 3d wagon (now if I could just do the same).

This is coming along well, I wont crit the mesh work as there are far more experienced sumeans who could do that.

There are a few proportion issues that could be tweaked-
Basicly in profile view, the head equals three and a half the times the height of the forehead, so in profile the size of the head can equal an exact square-
[img]http://members.optusnet.com.au/~rowanfamily/headgrid01.jpg[/img]

Using this grid on your mesh we can see a few things that you could tweak-
[img]http://members.optusnet.com.au/~rowanfamily/headgrid02.jpg[/img]
Basicly-
nose could be pulled out more in profile
forehead too short
move eyes up tad.
lips lowered or chin brought up
neck/jaw area lowered abit so his chin isnt as pronounced

For the front view, its slightly different. divide up a grid as 3.5 units high and 2.5 units wide-
[img]http://members.optusnet.com.au/~rowanfamily/headgridfront01.jpg[/img]

We can see a couple of things that you might want to tweak-
eyes could be a bit wider (also check the shape of them, the highest point of the eye should be towards the outside, where as yours look a little to far inside. ugh! cant explain well, just check some ref!)
..and well, you can have a go and work out the rest yourself!! :)
Heres is a pic to help out-
[img]http://members.optusnet.com.au/~rowanfamily/headgridfront02.jpg[/img]

And to show you them how they both all line up together-
[img]http://members.optusnet.com.au/~rowanfamily/headgrid_both.jpg[/img]

phew! if you have managed to read all of this thanks, I hope you get as much out of it as I did. Also, I apoligise if Im wrong! Im still learning all this stuff.....and its really late and Im tired!! :P

Thanks a heap for that makk, thats helped a lot. Unfortunatly my print screen buttons... gone weird on me and all ive managed to get is this side shot for the minute :S

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/MoonUnit/200619225140_sideupdate…]

as you can see though your pictures have helped imporve the proportions alot (speaking of which i was wondering if i could get a copy of the silouhette one without my guys mug in it). On the mesh side of things ive edited a tad and everytime i post an image i can allready see things that need changing so rest assured thats coming together slowly but surely aswell allthough your crits are allways welcome.

That is looking better Moony :D

Here is the image you wanted-
http:members.optusnet.com.au/~rowanfamily/head.jpg

[img]http://www.jistyles.com/content/temp/forum%20images/moonyhelp_head01.gi…]

Heya Moony, as promised, here's a quick paint over -- don't take it as gospel since it's totally from my head. Red is a "classicism" proportioned head, and blue is what's called the effect marks... so basically, red is the stereotyped proportional relations between features, most notably different is the eyes sink in, the browline is formed, and the male head is more biased in the temple... then there's a few other more minor feature landmarks etc. The blue is a bit more hard to explain. The effect marks are the mid points where the myological layer (muscles and skeleton) interacts. It's not the skull line, but the connection between muscle and skull and how they interact. There's a lot more to it than what I've drawn, but these are the main points, and it's open to interpretation depending on your character (eg, more pronounced with age). So, the blue you don't necessarily see depending your character, but it affects the surface topology.

thanks makk, and thanks for helping out styles :) Your paint over is helping me see the niggly things i knew were there that were keeping my head from looking like a more realistic one (lips and eyes definetly looked wrong). Ill have to update him soon as i just finished a short project (posted in the speed3d thread) so now i can spare some time. Wouldnt have a link to a overview of some theory on muscles and the myological layer would you? sounds like something worth understanding properly.

OK! I'm going to leave this window open for a while and just rant [;)] ready? GO!

Unfortunately there's only a trickle of truly useful resources on the net compared to other places - most all traditional study sources are housed away in books and crammed inside teachers heads in places like Art Schools and Ateliers - sooooo, I'd recommend grabbing a few $10-30 books from your local Dimmocks or A&R. There's usually a heap of cheaper drawing ones which go over basic anatomy and structure, and then "anatomy for artists" type ones which just show pictorially the forms (it's then up to you to study that and make note of them - I found these the most use... just sit down for a day and copy each and every drawing out on paper; you learn quick! [:)]).

In terms of what you 'need' to know, and a direction to head in, try and concentrate on your primary forms and then start to recognise secondary ones. Everybody knows the primary forms of the face (eyes, mouth, nose, ears), but actually knowing how and where they sit in relation to each other takes time to get used to mapping out. Secondary forms are different - not many people consciously recognise them, or even acknowledge them, but they certainly know when they're wrong or missing. Secondary forms are things like the muzzle shape (how the lip forms lines through to the nose), the V indent of the forehead connecting to the browline, and the upside U shape of the muscles seperating the lower lip and chin. At this point, I may as well say it - knowing names of muscles is useless compared to knowing where they're attached to. I'm trying to communicate certain muscle groups, but it's much easier to just describe a "V of the forehead" than say the frontalis terminating to the orbicularis oculi. Most people would just smile and start backing away slowly[:D]

So, in terms of the head... it's the most recognisable thing you're ever going to try and communicate, so it's difficult to say the least to effectively portray something realistic. Getting the primary elements spot on is absolutely essential, but it's not until you've got a good grip on secondary forms is it going to start to all come togethor successfully and be "right". This means that it's a bit frustrating because it takes a while to get to that point until suddenly it starts all coming togethor, so on closing I'll say keep at it - even if you don't feel like you're making much progress at times, keep going and it will all start to make sense and eventually become second nature.

good luck! And please excuse the ranty-ness of this post, it was pretty much a brain dump of my thoughts on the subject and what I think could help you out [:)]

hey im allways thankfull for a brain dump. Its a pity every time i cruze by here i dont actually have time to work on the thing >.< but thanks again for your help man, thisll steer me in the right direction

EDIT: well ive had a chance to play around a little, heres what he looks like now:

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/MoonUnit/20061262478_postjiupdat…]

im really starting to like how he looks in the side view, the front is yet to really seem acurate though... any helps apreciated! also his ears are staying the sorta flat things they are for the moment. I had a shot at detailing the ear in 3d and that ended up rather messy. I did say i wanted this guy to be middle ground ingame quality so i dont think extensive ear detail is necesary...

very nice!
are you planning on making a lowpoly version and using this version to generate normal maps? Or will it just be high poly?

Im in the process of taking it into a sculpting program and making it a lot more high poly.
Not planning on going low poly with it.

3DnuTTa

Here is an update on this project.
I've just recently taken it into Mudbox and started the sculpting =)
Lots to go, all crits and comments welcome.
[IMG]http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c359/3DnuTTa/Lena/lena02.jpg[/IMG]

3DnuTTa

Looking nice 3DNutta, keep up the good work. There is something bugging me though, it looks fairly muscline, and I think it is the neck, traps area, not really sure though.

From side on she looks like should have a really wide shaped cranium. Like the highest point of the skull is too far forward. Did you model her in this position? Got any profile shots?

Hey Makk,
Yeah I modelled her in this position, I'll have a look into the shape of her crqanium.
I've got photo ref for this so I can check =) cheers!

codyalday,
Still got lots of work to go on this, I'm only 2 hours into the xculpting process.
The girl who did the pose for me is on the athletic side and she does look like that. ;)

thankx guys.. more to come

After further progress in Mudbox, more to come....
All crits and comments welcome. =)

[IMG]http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c359/3DnuTTa/Lena/lena03.jpg[/IMG]

Wow. Love the assorted bumps on the face and the refinements on the ear. It's looking great!

hey souri thanx for the comment I've got more to go,
I don't think Im quite to the half way mark yet =D

I've been working on some other stuff the past few days, so I've only got a small update. I've started on her shirt, will show that soon.
Going to get onto her hair soon. Not sure if I'm going to sculpt it, or make a hair system? Any thoughts?

This is just a screenshot in Maya:
[IMG]http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c359/3DnuTTa/Lena/lena05.jpg[/IMG]

nice !!just one question though ??what is mud box and were can i get it ??

Mudbox is a sculpting program, kinda like z-brush but so much better!
Its not out yet, so you'll have to wait. =)

Had a bit of fun playing with this in Maya.
I'm going to get back on this shortly I promise,
been a bit caught up with the concept car Im working on too (link in sig.)
all crits n comments welcome, enjoy! =)

[IMG]http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c359/3DnuTTa/Lena/sss3.jpg[/IMG]

Finally got some more work on this done..
I've done a lot more around the neck, will show another view soon showing this.
Fixed the ear up (still needs some more)
Been doing some more finer details and imperfections.
The shirt is just a start, needs lots more work...
[IMG]http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c359/3DnuTTa/Lena/lena12.jpg[/IMG]

all crits n comments welcome!

-Josh

wow .. thats a really good model . It would be good if the side of the head and ears had more detail to them .. just a suggestion.

Awesome work man. All your work is beautifull, keep it up. Wondering what the tri count is on this?

final tri count was 2600 which includes his variation detachables.

This is nice dude [:)] full marks!

Its great to see some work from you again, looks great as usual :P Was the pale green for the skin hue your decision or something you had to do to keep him in theme with the games other existing assets? Im not saying i dislike rather im wondering with all the variations on the term orc amongst fantasy lore where the decision was made.

whole design was pretty much cliche's but a different take on style - so the green specifically is a part of the cliche recognisable design elements, then the high saturation was more to fit in with the brighter world and lighter mood.

So in the end, a mix between direction of style and fitting in with the traditional this-is-what-an-orc-looks-like crowd.

edit: personally, I think he'd do a bit better as a goblin king (minus David Bowie spandex and huge hair from Labyrinth). [;)]

heh thought it might be something like that. spandex never fails to make me shiver :S

Those links are awesome man. I found it insightful seeing how the texture progresses and understanding the workflow. Kudos!

I?m always amazed at the quality that pros can create in a matter of days.

Nice work Styles :)
REally like the metal work. Any tips for doing that? I like all the little colour varition going on.

not really a tip for the metal, but a general chunk of info - just take into consideration that the majority of what you're seeing is the environment it's reflecting... this doesn't work for games at this spec (flat diffuse). So faking it comes in by assuming a vanilla world (eg, top down light, blue sky, green/brown earth, brighter horizon line), and a glossy surface where it's blurred enough that any details aren't visible, it's just a suggestion of it all. If it's a worn material, pick out your detail in the perturbed surface to the point where it's perceptually the more "interesting" thing, and the eye never catches on to your cheating ways :)

The above goes for most surfaces, but is relevant most for glossy reflective surface types.