SeriousToni's head model

[Baddcog]

Did you move the bones any to fit her face?

 

Whatever it is she doesn't look to happy about it.

[Springheel]

The normal map is fine

 

The normalmap doesn't really seem like it's adding much detail. The eyes, for example, look concave, and the eyebrows, the lips, etc, don't seem to have any volume to them. The normalmap should be creating the detailed topography of the face, creating shadows around the eyes, nose, cheekbones, hair, etc. Look at the comparison below (the normalmap for that head is not terribly well done, actually, but you can see how there are far more shadows and definition and looks less smooth and flat.

 

Decent normalmaps are the hardest things to make, but they're more important even than the lowpoly geometry.

[Baddcog]

^ *I think he was not using normals in that last pic due to earlier problems

[SeriousToni]

There is a normal and height map applied on this already which I made out from the diffuse texture. I can try to paint it but I don't know if thats possible. We'll see. At the moment the bones f*ck up everything which makes me wanna puke!

 

If I rotate the bones in my 3d software, it works nice (e.g. on the mouth). but ingame it's all gone to hell. I made a new skelleton for this but guess what happened ingame: the head went away / invisible again.

Edited February 26, 2013 by SeriousToni

[Springheel]

There is a normal and height map applied on this already which I made out from the diffuse texture.

 

A normalmap made from a diffuse texture will never provide any useful topography to make a low poly object look more detailed. It's useful for fine details like rough skin and hair, but for characters you need to make the base normalmap from the high poly model...that's what the high poly model is for.

 

See here: http://wiki.thedarkm...itle=Renderbump

 

As for bone rotation, it depends on your software. I know that in Lightwave has a different plane as "up" from Doom3, so the head has to be rotated to an odd angle. But if you're using the same angle as the other existing heads there shouldn't be a problem.

[SeriousToni]

I doubt that it is the angle, because when I weight only the head bone to 1 for the whole head, the head behaves correctly in the game (including idle animations). But as soon as I try to use one of the other bones, I get these strange things.

Edited February 26, 2013 by SeriousToni

[SeriousToni]

This tutorial explains how to use the built-in renderbump command in the Doom3 console

Place your two meshes such that they are sharing the same 3D space - the high-poly model should "envelope" the low-poly one.

 

How do I place them in Doom 3? Is it meant to make a room with the two models palced in each other and run the map in doom? And whats the command for running goofos ASE exporter script?

Edited February 26, 2013 by SeriousToni

[Springheel]

How do I place them in Doom 3? Is it meant to make a room with the two models palced in each other and run the map in doom?

 

The Doom3 Console, not Doom3 itself.

[SeriousToni]

I was able to make a heightmap and a normal map now, see here.

Still the bones aren't working.

[Baddcog]

I doubt that it is the angle, because when I weight only the head bone to 1 for the whole head, the head behaves correctly in the game (including idle animations). But as soon as I try to use one of the other bones, I get these strange things.

 

believe me, the bone angles are VERY critical and can be VERY fussy. y-up and z-up DO NOT get along.

[SeriousToni]

believe me, the bone angles are VERY critical and can be VERY fussy. y-up and z-up DO NOT get along.

 

Okay I'll make another skeleton with just the bone origins as the same position and won't change scaling or rotation, then I let you know. I don't have the experience you guys have, so thank you for any tips.

 

I remade the mesh a bit, but these low poly versions never seem to stop looking weird to me

Edited February 26, 2013 by SeriousToni

[Springheel]

Yeah, something is not looking correct there. Not sure if it's inverted normals or what. Are you making the normalmap from the highpoly mesh?

[SeriousToni]

Yes I made a normal out of a high poly version, made some changes, see here:

Can it be that her face reflects lights much more then the others do?

 

EDIT: My normal map orientation is: Red=right; Green=up.

Edited February 26, 2013 by SeriousToni

[SeriousToni]

Yes, you have a good eye, Springheel. The normal map colors were not correct. Reg-right, Green-down is the correct way:

 

EDIT: Haha! Now THAT looks hellofa right face - now it's time for some alcohol!

EDIT2: fixed the ear.

Edited February 26, 2013 by SeriousToni

[RPGista]

Though I like the way the normals work for the mouth, cheek area (they do give her kind of a older lady look because the cheek line is so strong and the upper lip is so thin), I think the eyes specially need a lot more "volume" to them, they look like they go inwards (middle picture to the left) when they should protude slightly. Im not sure if this is fixable with normals only, would be a good idea to have the eyes as geometry, but I havent seen your low poly mesh to comment.

 

The hair's normals should also look significantly different from the face's, you can see right now that the hair volume is quite smooth and there's no gradual transition between different textures (as it should be) when you follow the skin to the hair area. I think you could achieve a good normal for the hair by simply grayscaling it in photoshop/gimp and converting to bumps. Playing with levels/contrast would give you the right balance.

Edited February 26, 2013 by RPGista