Screens/progress Of The Thief Model

[Springheel]

I actually LIKE the shadowed look under his eyes. Makes him look tired and world-weary.

[DeepOmega]

 

Leather detailing increases! Note the gloves.

[LiquidBronze]

damn!

 

deepomega the character is looking very nice.

this will look damn sweet with textures, espeacilly the leather armor

 

great job

 

peace

LB

[oDDity]

It's coming along very well now, but you seem to be trying to bevel all the detail into the main body mesh, rather than making everything separate parts.

That's ok for a low poly character, (even then if you look at the UT characters for example, every detail is a sperate mesh)but for a high res one there is no poly limit, so it's looks better if you model all the detail separately. Studs, straps, belts etc.

Also try not to make everything look so perfectly geometric, mess the verts around a bit.

What program are you using?

[DeepOmega]

3DS Max - the detail actually isn't beveled in, except for the gloves and the boots, plus the wrinkles around the arms. It's all separate elements, for each part of armor/clothing/whatnot.

[oDDity]

Ever tried Lightwave modeler? Much better than max at that job. But I suppose if you're alreay used to max, it's a pain to learn another app.

Maybe its just the flat lighting in those shot than makes it look like one contiguous mesh.

How many polys so far?

And a thought that just occured to me- since this is first person, we aren't actually going to see the model in-game?

[god_is_my_goldfish]

:lol: That was already brought up a few pages ago.

[oofnish]

The thief model would probably be used in cinematics, body awareness, and potentially the spy-orb if we have one.

 

But yes, for the most part it wouldn't be seen in the game from what I understand.

[DeepOmega]

I tried lightwave over the summer, and absolutely hated it. Ew ew ew. The flow is so ridiculously different from Max that I really can't get anything done with it (not to mention the godawful user interface). It probably is the flatness of the lighting, combined with the subdivisioning, that make it look continuous - I'll have to work out an actual lighting setup.

[oDDity]

I tried lightwave over the summer, and absolutely hated it. Ew ew ew. The flow is so ridiculously different from Max that I really can't get anything done with it (not to mention the godawful user interface).

Ahh well, it' your loss. THe flow is actully much better than max's, which is why I can model that priest in 8 hours, no one EVER switches from modeling in lightwave to any other program once they get into it.

Many companies keep lightwave just for the modeler and don't even use the animation program. idSoftware and Epic both do this, which is why the Unreal and Doom engines both directly import the .lwo format. They used Maya and Max respectively for the animating and FX.

It's just that you've become so accustomed to being whacked over the head with a hammer than you miss is when it isn't there

Godawful user interface?? What, you mean a column of buttons with text written on them telling you what they do?

You prefer all those dinky little icons in Max?

[Domarius]

I'm glad I read your post there, oDDity.

I now wish they taught us Lightwave at Uni instead of 3DSMax. I suppose I can teach myself anyway. Always worked before

 

What version of light wave did you use to model that Priest?

[sparhawk]

Ahh well, it' your loss. THe flow is actully much better than max's, which is why I can model that priest in 8 hours, no one EVER switches from modeling in lightwave to any other program once they get into it.

What about Maya? I found this much better then Lightweave and Max. But now I prefer Blender :lol:. It's open source and can do all that I need. Which is much less than the app provides anyways.

[oDDity]

Maya is the best overall 3d app available yes, but I spend a lot of time hanging around the CG commuity, forums etc, and Lightwave is regarded as the best poly modeler available. It has it's shortcomings obviously, no history, edges or NURBS are the main ones, but it's just so fast and intuituve once you learn it, and you can also virtually 'sculpt' in it , in a way not possible in other apps, apart from ZBrush.

I used Lightwave 8, but it's virtually identical to lightwave 7 and 7.5, most of the changes in the newer versions were made to Layout, character setup and animation.

[jay pettitt]

What is it with 3D apps and incomprehensible, overly complex and non standard user interfaces? Its as if they feel the need to justify the silly price tags by making them as unfathomable and proprietry as possible. Cinema 4D is heaven in this respect. Standard UI and elegant simplicity abound. Everything else is the spawn of satan. Shame on you software engineers Don't get me started on audio apps. All those hundreds of tiny tiny dials and sliders you're supposed to interact with via a clumsy mouse. WTF is that all about. Bastards

 

 

edit - looking good omega

Edited October 21, 2004 by jay pettitt

[DeepOmega]

That's just it - the columns of text are an overload of information. Icons are much better, from a graphic design standpoint, since you can "read" them at a glance.

 

I was kinda put off by the whole selection paradigm in lightwave, as well - the different sublevels didn't feel *integrated* somehow. It's really hard to explain, but it felt totally stilted to me.

 

When it comes right down to it, the tools aren't what makes the art. It's the artist.

[oDDity]

True, but in the area of CG, some tools can really speed your workflow up...and of course memorising all the hotkeys

I the end I think it's just that some apps 'think' the way some indivisuals think, so some apps seem more natural than others for some. Even though I say Maya's the best all round app, I absolutely hate using it.

[DeepOmega]

 

Latest render - tried to give the armor a lest injection-molded look, plus added a lot of little details - eyeholes on all of the belts, seams, folds and wrinkles, and such. Comments on the face would be nice, as that's the only real modelling work left.

[New Horizon]

Looking great. The face you say? Hmmm, the only thing I can see is that it seems a little too rounded around the chin area. It may need to be firmed up in that respect, made a bit more angular.

[Domarius]

Comments on the face? Reminds me too much of those robots from "I Robot", starring Will Smith. It's all in the subtleties. I'm thinking its just too rounded in too many areas, and the lips seem very straight and unnatural.

 

Maybe the cheek bones need accenting more, and the lips need to be more bowed. (Lip-shaped)

[Renzatic]

lol, or the stark white skin tone, the poor guy gives even the whitest albinos a run for their money.

 

Dom, I'm thinking it'll look ALOT more realistic when it's been skinned and shaded. Imagine the face with realistic flesh tones and highlights and you'll see that it's gonna turn out fine.

Edited October 22, 2004 by Renzatic

[oDDity]

The overall shape is great, the proportions are perfect, it would be excellent as a low poly game model - but isn't this supposed to be the high res version to source the nomal maps from?

You seem to be very tight-fisted with the polys, when you should be writing blank cheques.

The main problems as I see it, is the geometric uniform nature of the organic shapes - legs and arms are not perfect cylinders, leather in real life is not flat and perfectly smooth. Eceyting need to be messed up a bt, like it's had a long hard life. And as you say youself, and I pointed out earlier, a lot of the detail still looks injection molded like it's all been beveled out.

I have to say, and this is possibly my worst crit - it looks like you're trying to emulate the T3 Garrett model, which I considered risible when I saw in untextured in Lightwave.

[Domarius]

Dom, I'm thinking it'll look ALOT more realistic when it's been skinned and shaded. Imagine the face with realistic flesh tones and highlights and you'll see that it's gonna turn out fine.

Yeah but the guy asked for critisism. I've seen plenty of models before and after texturing, and done a few myself, so I know that texturing has a lot to answer for.

But I'm an illustrator, had life drawing classes, and I know what to look for. It might look "fine", but it could look "even better".

 

Compare that face with oDDity's hammerite priest's face. There's quite a difference in quality. There's nothing wrong with that, but I know DeepOmega can do better with practice, cause I've seen how much this model has improved since he started.

 

I'm just giving constructive critisism - not paying the guy out.

Edited October 22, 2004 by Domarius

[DeepOmega]

Compare that face with oDDity's hammerite priest's face. There's quite a difference in quality. There's nothing wrong with that, but I know DeepOmega can do better with practice, cause I've seen how much this model has improved since he started.

 

Thanks for the support, Domarius. You should see my old work to copmare this to - even in the past month or so there's been a huge upgrade in quality.

 

oDDity, my biggest issue now is actually hardware-related - I can't work on the subdivided mesh, since it's about 200,000 polygons and brings my 3-year-old computer to its knees. I am now accepting donations for my upcoming hardware upgrade. My plan is to develop some high-rez displacement maps to generate the ridiculously detailed mesh. If I had ZBrush, I'd use that, but unfortunately I don't, so it all has to be done in Max. The cracks in the leather, texture of the cloth, and so forth will all be displacement mapped, unless I can find the money to scrape my new computer together within the next two weeks or so.

[oDDity]

Heh, yet another reason for lightwave.

The subpatch function is very handy, not so sore on the computer, and you can eep everything in separate layers as well. That priest model is only 30k, and most of that is in the little details which you'd hardly miss.

[Springheel]

DO, can you post a picture of just the sword? I'd like a copy for the Approved Model thread.