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My take on a Zombie


greebo

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Since Diego lost his zombie model files I picked up my own again. This is my second version which went through a few iterations already. The low-poly base mesh is about 7200 polys which is of course a bit too high but should be enough for a proof of concept.

 

Front view:

zombieshot10.png

 

Back view:

zombieshot11.png

 

It's not nearly as detailed and finely drawn as Diego's take (can't match that of course), but maybe this is enough to replace the skinny one from Doom 3.

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Missing the Like button on the first post, too, so *thumbs up*

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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Nice! Where is the like button?.. I'm serious, shouldn't there be a like button? All other posts have one lol

 

Accepting suggestions and some criticism? :)

 

The first thing that strikes me as off is the anatomy. Of course, learning anatomy isn't something that happens over night, I'm stil learning so I tend to cover my models where I'm not sure how the shape works there.

 

What software are you using? I use mudbox and it allows you to navigate through subdivision levels, this is very useful. I see you have a lot of fine details, like tiny wrinkles and things like that, and they look fine. To create shapes that communicate an underlying structure, like skin over muscle and bone, you don't need that level of subdivision though, so if you intend to tweak this kind of things don't do it on the highest subdivision level because it's harder! go back a few levels. Also, this way you won't lose any fine details from higher subd levels with the eventual use of smooth tools.

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greebo's like button is missing for a very long time I think he disabled it for some reason? Anyway, this zombie is lookin' good to me, keep it up greebo! :)

 

btw. I'm not fan of variety unless they are very similar in style and quality. Since these zombies are from different artists(greebo and diego) they are already different. In order to keep coherence, only one of them should be included in mod imho. We are lucky to have most of our existing charactermodels made by same artist(Oddity) in this manner.

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It's a great draft. I think some of the proportions might still be tweaked.

I liked Diego's version too; I wasn't clear if he lost all of it or just a lot of work on it.

Anyway, it will feel good to get it under our belt so we don't have to worry about it anymore.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Accepting suggestions and some criticism? :)

Yes, I'll listen to everything, but don't expect me to follow everything. :) (It will and should be a fun project for me, not a diploma thesis.)

 

The first thing that strikes me as off is the anatomy.

Details? Which parts? Do you need a frontal orthographic shot of it?

 

What software are you using? I use mudbox and it allows you to navigate through subdivision levels, this is very useful. I see you have a lot of fine details, like tiny wrinkles and things like that, and they look fine. To create shapes that communicate an underlying structure, like skin over muscle and bone, you don't need that level of subdivision though, so if you intend to tweak this kind of things don't do it on the highest subdivision level because it's harder! go back a few levels. Also, this way you won't lose any fine details from higher subd levels with the eventual use of smooth tools.

Blender here. It has the same functionality you described, you can sculpt on separate levels without bothering the other levels (in theory, sometimes things can still go wonky).

 

I don't quite get what you're trying to say with the small wrinkles - I can only do those on higher levels, since the subdivision would be too coarse on the lower res levels. I do understand that I need to capture the desired shape on the lowest possible subdivison level, but maybe I read your sentences wrong, I don't get the point.

 

It's a great draft. I think some of the proportions might still be tweaked.

Details? Which parts?

 

I liked Diego's version too; I wasn't clear if he lost all of it or just a lot of work on it.

I'm only continuing to work on this because Diego's lost his and told me he's not going to pick it up again soon. Otherwise it'd be pretty pointless for me trying to come up with something when he's able to create something better in a much shorter timeframe.

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Ah, then you're doing a great service.

I'll be happy when we can gut the D3 zombie & heads from our package.

Yeah maybe a frontal T-pose would be a good shot, because from those screenshots the arms look unduly tapered thin. Is the neck a bit long? Can't be sure; maybe it's ok.

And the legs look a bit... far apart & straight, but maybe that's because it'd be good to see them with the knee and ankles a bit bent like someone standing naturally. (Edit: Maybe I'm thinking making them a bit bow-legged would be good.)

But overall I'm very happy work is getting done on it.

Yeah have fun with it and it's already looking very good.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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I'd pose the model in a slightly more relaxed position so it's easier to base your sculpt off of reference material. Overall it looks pretty good but the hands look flat and the ribs are a bit too well defined.

 

Also, since you're using Blender there is a very detailed zombie bust I saw on blendswap.com if you care to use it here. I don't know how you feel about borrowing bits and pieces of other people's work but I would totally nick this head because it's bad ass.

 

http://www.blendswap.com/blends/characters/zombie/

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Yeah maybe a frontal T-pose would be a good shot, because from those screenshots the arms look unduly tapered thin.

 

Here's a frontal orthoview:

zombieshot12.png

 

Is the neck a bit long? Can't be sure; maybe it's ok.

I think it looks ok, but admittedly I haven't studied that many necks so far.

 

And the legs look a bit... far apart & straight, but maybe that's because it'd be good to see them with the knee and ankles a bit bent like someone standing naturally. (Edit: Maybe I'm thinking making them a bit bow-legged would be good.)

I see what you mean about the hips and legs. I might look into narrowing them a bit.

 

I tried to match up the mesh against the revenant model, first because it's another undead, and second because the zombie has to be rigged to the same proguard skeleton as all our other humanoid ones. I figured it'd be much more work to generate a new animation rig for the replacement zombie and to apply existing .md5anims onto that - and my intention was to avoid that kind of work.

 

Here's a shot with the revenant's body mesh in black:

zombieshot13.png

 

I'd pose the model in a slightly more relaxed position so it's easier to base your sculpt off of reference material.

I don't have any skeleton or poses yet, so I'm using the revenant's T-pose as reference. There may be ways around it but I wanted to keep it simple for me, I'm no way near a properly trained modeler/animator.

 

Overall it looks pretty good but the hands look flat and the ribs are a bit too well defined.

You mean the hand's bones are too flat? Aren't all hands like that? (I used my own stretched hand as reference.)

 

I see what you mean with regards to the ribs, they might be a little overdone. I might inflate a few of the cavities a bit.

 

Also, since you're using Blender there is a very detailed zombie bust I saw on blendswap.com if you care to use it here. I don't know how you feel about borrowing bits and pieces of other people's work but I would totally nick this head because it's bad ass.

Yes, this is a nice face. Though I hate ripping off other's work, even if it's free to use. I'd rather do my own, even if it's not as good, I guess that's my own pride getting in the way.

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I looked at that head, and it is really nicely done. Maybe it's possible to make the head swappable, which is not really easy when it comes to naked characters without possibility to cover up the neck area.

 

One cool thing about that blendswap head is that it is sculpted asymmetrically, something I didn't do for my own so far (I had the mirror constraint on). I was thinking about removing that constraint in the final touchup to add some asymmetrical features like open wounds or something, but this might be tricky when it comes to re-using the texture space (like the D3 zombie does).

 

As an experiment, I ripped off the teeth from that model and imported it into my own head:

 

zombieshot14.png

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I looked at that head, and it is really nicely done. Maybe it's possible to make the head swappable, which is not really easy when it comes to naked characters without possibility to cover up the neck area.

 

Heads should be swappable, ideally. Otherwise there is no way to rig any joints on the head, so the mouth wouldn't be able to move. Not crucial on a zombie, I suppose, but it would be nice. It does make for some tricky texturing, but if you line the seam up with a prominent tendon, or perhaps the clavicals, it could work. I've also seen seams under the jaw that have worked well.

 

 

I was thinking about removing that constraint in the final touchup to add some asymmetrical features like open wounds or something, but this might be tricky when it comes to re-using the texture space (like the D3 zombie does).

 

I would definitely encourage asymmetry, especially in the head. The mirrored textures of the D3 zombies were their weakest feature.

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Here's the screenshot of the rough in-game import, with and without bump, but beware this is going to be replaced by a completely new lowpoly mesh anyway:

 

zombie_with_bump.png zombie_without_bump.png

 

It has a lot of issues, like bad use of U/V space, seams, wrong weighting and bone placement - I haven't had a chance to work on it for almost a week now. And it hasn't got anything like a proper diffusemap at all, so this is just the normalmap. Still a long way to go.

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It is awesome to see the WIP in game, amazing work!!!

 

IF (and only if) you are still looking for suggestions (and considering all the changes that are necessarily going to happen anyway):

 

 

 

 

These suggestions are merely from an artistic point of view, this in nothing takes away from the work already done, just a couple of anatomical points that you might or might not find useful.

 

1- The head seems to be placed too far from the colar bones, and the neck seems longer than usual.

 

post-8474-0-98492400-1344369795_thumb.jpg

 

2- The shoulders could be made to be clearly separated from the chest/ribcage area; a good option could be to make the shoulders more angled upwards to suggested the bone beneath, and the biceps/triceps area could be slimmer (to contrast again with a thicker elbow area). Artisticly, and I might agree in this instance, Doom's zombies have menacing powerful hands, so maybe increasing them in size might be good. The ribcage could be bigger and protude more, at the botton (like the upper half of a wood barrel, well, an eliptical one hehe).

 

post-8474-0-43708000-1344371469_thumb.jpg

 

3- "Powerful" characters generally have long legs, at least half the size of the body. Maybe its simply the perspective angle, but long legs with thick joints and maybe farther apart would suggest more power. Also, the connection with the hips could be made to be more clearly separated, right now the leg seems to extend from the hip, instead of connecting to it as a separate shape.

 

post-8474-0-87345500-1344370425_thumb.jpg

 

post-8474-0-79992200-1344370443_thumb.jpg

 

Just to put all "suggestions" in the same picture:

 

post-8474-0-85624500-1344370477_thumb.jpg

 

 

 

I really like where this is going, thanks a lot for posting the pics.

Edited by RPGista
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Greebo, can you make the legs longer? In the first pictures, I felt that the torso is a bit too long/tall, but in the orthogonal view, everything looked normal. Now, when I look at the last zombie picture, I feel that the legs are grossly too short. The zombie almost looks like an imp. Just my two cents, though.

My Eigenvalue is bigger than your Eigenvalue.

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