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New Proguard_02 (still WIP)


ascottk

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Re: shadow

 

(gah! the atomic blue! and hey, TDS has subtitles? who knew) shows some decent Garrett-shadowyness at about 8:12-8:20, then again going up the stairs around 8:50.

 

Versus ours below. Again though, I realize we're not supporting it. Realize also though people are using it (I recall seeing it in several fans' (and members') screenshots even recently). A lot of the prob also comes from the fact that ours isn't animated to be shown off, while Garrett specifically is.

 

Anyway, just sayin' for info, not arguin'.

post-58-1239296145_thumb.jpg

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You could remove the noshadows line from the Thief material shaders if you want to get an accurate shadow, but it will come with a performance hit (that wouldn't effect the animations you see though).

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Another update:

post-476-1239305208_thumb.jpg

post-476-1239305873_thumb.jpg

 

I decreased the width of the upper body, resized the arms, modified the pauldrons that still suck (I may replace them with something more appropriate or just get rid of them), made some texture updates (nothing major), and trying out a new helmet (modified proguard).

 

The shadowmesh is clipping through, the overall textures need to be desaturated a little bit, and the back is a little boring.

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Is there something off with his eyes? They are so wide opened, and they are so white. He looks like somebody does something in his back.
It's the texture/material. I'm not sure if I made them less startling when I uploaded them about two years ago or so. I'm going to fix them when they are more of a priority.

 

Argh . . . .

 

models/md5/chars/heads/common/*.tga are the eyes and they look a look whiter than when I saw them last. I put in a lot more grey so they'd fit the mod better but apparently they went back to their gleaming whiteness. weird.

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A redesign:

post-476-1239674193_thumb.jpg

Fixed eyes textures, new armor, new pauldrons, lengthened the back cloth, revised textures based on oDD's style (still WIP). no normal maps. This is a quick rig so I can see him in-game. I also used a reference model so I can match proportions.

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Definitely improving. I still don't like the face (it's too neat and smooth and non-wrinkly - almost cartoonish) but the body textures are starting to get there. The shoulder anatomy looks better than it was, too.

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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yeah the face reminds me of Monty Phython and their goofy faces. But I like the armor, especially the hammer symbol on the chest.

 

Badass royalty

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happycheeze.deviantart.com

 

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Facial features will likely look a lot better as soon as it gets a normal map.

 

I do like how this guy's shaping up. The shape of his torso-shoulders looks a bit like he's an body-builder; I can't decide whether I like that or not. The belt and tunic covering his thighs also look really nice with the new armor.

 

I'll just give you a friendly nit-pick about the color scheme. He looks a bit...busy (maybe its only me). Silver ringmail, black cloth, tan trim, gold armor, and red back cloth make it a little distracting to my eyes. Then again, I suppose he's to be of a higher rank with a bit more show.

yay seuss crease touss dome in ouss nose tair

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The geometry is a bit busy too, especially that two-piece breastplate. Which might actually be too shaped now (manboobs :ph34r:). Yeah, I know I was complaining that it wasn't sufficiently shaped before. I'm hard to please. :laugh:

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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Definitely improving. I still don't like the face (it's too neat and smooth and non-wrinkly - almost cartoonish) but the body textures are starting to get there. The shoulder anatomy looks better than it was, too.
Yeah, no matter how I dirty the face up, he still looks clean <_<

 

 

Facial features will likely look a lot better as soon as it gets a normal map.
I always have a hard time making a convincing normal map for a face. Hmmm . . . or how to best accomplish that . . .

 

I do like how this guy's shaping up. The shape of his torso-shoulders looks a bit like he's an body-builder; I can't decide whether I like that or not. The belt and tunic covering his thighs also look really nice with the new armor.
People wanted a heftier dude, well . . . he's been spending more time at the gym than guarding anyone ^_^ The breast plate adds to the illusion too.

 

I'll just give you a friendly nit-pick about the color scheme. He looks a bit...busy (maybe its only me). Silver ringmail, black cloth, tan trim, gold armor, and red back cloth make it a little distracting to my eyes. Then again, I suppose he's to be of a higher rank with a bit more show.
I'm trying to decide how the colors are going together. The last version had the red cloth covering half his torso which tied things together along with the gold borders.

 

The geometry is a bit busy too, especially that two-piece breastplate. Which might actually be too shaped now (manboobs :ph34r:). Yeah, I know I was complaining that it wasn't sufficiently shaped before. I'm hard to please. :laugh:
Hehe, you should've seen him before the breast lift . . .
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It is definitely improving, especially now that you're using the original builder arms and legs. It still has some major issues, however.

 

1. The face textures are very cartoonish, as Crispy mentioned. They are too smooth and too uniform in colour. The goatee does not look like hair at all--if there is any texture there it is impossible to see. It also, as others have mentioned, needs a quality normalmap.

 

2. The eyes are extremely wide and white and there is far too much eyeball showing. The iris and pupils are too pale. The eyes also look awfully high on the face but that could be perspective distortion.

 

3. The neck looks like a straight cylinder, without any definition or shape. It should at the very least flare out a bit towards the bottom. The texture there also needs some shadow and some general roughing up--under the chin tends to be very rough in males, with stubble, blemishes, etc.

 

4. The armour redesign is more interesting than the first version, but it doesn't make a lot of sense. The breastplate looks more like sci-fi armour than anything that would fit in a vaguely medieval setting. It also doesn't make a lot of sense to leave the majority of the lower torso bare---he's just asking to be stabbed in the naval. The shoulder armour is interesting but looks like it's just sticking onto the arm. The texture on the armour is a bit flat and oversaturated, and the symbol looks like it is just pasted on--it needs some normalmap support to look embossed, or something. The armour also looks cut out...if you compare the chest and shoulder armour to the helmet, arms and legs from Odd's models, you can see how the latter has trim along the edge. The former doesn't, so it almost looks like it's just clipping into the stomach (especially that lower plate).

 

5. The cloth areas don't register as cloth because they are totally flat. You need to use normalmaps to give them folds and wrinkles.

 

6. The belt looks very tight, and it's not clear without a buckle or clasp how he gets it on.

 

7. The shoulders appear very flat and suspiciously broad...there is no slope towards the neck at all, as if he does not have clavicles. This accentuates the sense that the neck just sits on top of the shoulders, rather than being a part of them.

 

8. The chain mail texture is quite large, especially on the legs. Take a look at some museum pictures of chain mail. Chain mail also drapes, rather like cloth, so I would use some normalmaps to create folds and bunches, specifically on the torso.

 

9. Artistic and style issues aside, I'm also not exactly sure how this character would fit in with the rest of the builder faction. Aside from using the same arms and legs, he looks totally unlike the other designs. His colours are different, his symbols are different, his armour is different, and he doesn't have the classic builder motif of high, restrictive metal collars. Builder armour and clothing is designed to be restrictive and punishing. This guy looks more like a regular guard (which is fine if that's the intent, but then it seems odd that he wears builder boots).

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It is definitely improving, especially now that you're using the original builder arms and legs. It still has some major issues, however.

 

1. The face textures are very cartoonish, as Crispy mentioned. They are too smooth and too uniform in colour. The goatee does not look like hair at all--if there is any texture there it is impossible to see. It also, as others have mentioned, needs a quality normalmap.

No normal maps yet. I'm designing this guy as I'm modeling & every change I make required a uv map tweak so it's no use doing normal maps yet.

 

2. The eyes are extremely wide and white and there is far too much eyeball showing. The iris and pupils are too pale. The eyes also look awfully high on the face but that could be perspective distortion.
I think the helmet adds to the illusion too.

 

3. The neck looks like a straight cylinder, without any definition or shape. It should at the very least flare out a bit towards the bottom. The texture there also needs some shadow and some general roughing up--under the chin tends to be very rough in males, with stubble, blemishes, etc.

 

4. The armour redesign is more interesting than the first version, but it doesn't make a lot of sense. The breastplate looks more like sci-fi armour than anything that would fit in a vaguely medieval setting. It also doesn't make a lot of sense to leave the majority of the lower torso bare---he's just asking to be stabbed in the naval. The shoulder armour is interesting but looks like it's just sticking onto the arm. The texture on the armour is a bit flat and oversaturated, and the symbol looks like it is just pasted on--it needs some normalmap support to look embossed, or something. The armour also looks cut out...if you compare the chest and shoulder armour to the helmet, arms and legs from Odd's models, you can see how the latter has trim along the edge. The former doesn't, so it almost looks like it's just clipping into the stomach (especially that lower plate).
I was going off this design:

post-476-1239728959_thumb.jpg

 

5. The cloth areas don't register as cloth because they are totally flat. You need to use normalmaps to give them folds and wrinkles.
Changes to the mesh require changes to the uv map so I'm not bothering with normal maps yet.

 

6. The belt looks very tight, and it's not clear without a buckle or clasp how he gets it on.
Easily fixed & I'll probably use one of oDD's buckles.

 

7. The shoulders appear very flat and suspiciously broad...there is no slope towards the neck at all, as if he does not have clavicles. This accentuates the sense that the neck just sits on top of the shoulders, rather than being a part of them.
OK

 

8. The chain mail texture is quite large, especially on the legs. Take a look at some museum pictures of chain mail. Chain mail also drapes, rather like cloth, so I would use some normalmaps to create folds and bunches, specifically on the torso.
I've been using tweaked chainmail found in the md5/chars directory. They do need to be smaller.

 

9. Artistic and style issues aside, I'm also not exactly sure how this character would fit in with the rest of the builder faction. Aside from using the same arms and legs, he looks totally unlike the other designs. His colours are different, his symbols are different, his armour is different, and he doesn't have the classic builder motif of high, restrictive metal collars. Builder armour and clothing is designed to be restrictive and punishing. This guy looks more like a regular guard (which is fine if that's the intent, but then it seems odd that he wears builder boots).
If a high ranking noble or some royalty were in town, wouldn't they want a guard with a Builder's reputation? Especially if the noble has some religious affiliations. & wouldn't that noble want something classy but not too classy?
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If a high ranking noble or some royalty were in town, wouldn't they want a guard with a Builder's reputation? Especially if the noble has some religious affiliations. & wouldn't that noble want something classy but not too classy?

 

Would the builders hire out to the noble class?

|=-=------=-=|

happycheeze.deviantart.com

 

Moddb

 

Gamers Outreach, a nonprofit that uses videogames to raise money for chairty.

|=-=------=-=|

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If a high ranking noble or some royalty were in town, wouldn't they want a guard with a Builder's reputation?

 

Builder guards are members of the clergy, though. They don't work for money; their work is part of their service to the church. The church gets money from tithes and donations. In fact, it's very likely (though not explicitly stated anywhere) that builder guards would not be allowed to hire themselves out to lay people, just like monks were not allowed to earn wages.

 

Which isn't to say that there can't be elite guards that protect archbishops and the like, but you'd still expect them to follow the same motifs as the rest of the builder faction.

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So you're going for a more decorative look for the armor?

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happycheeze.deviantart.com

 

Moddb

 

Gamers Outreach, a nonprofit that uses videogames to raise money for chairty.

|=-=------=-=|

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Don't you make concept art before starting to model? I think it's easier to change a drawing than to change a model, especially with the many comments on this.
It's an improvised design. I would've loved some concept art & was tempted to do some myself. But actually I find it easier to change the model :blink:

 

And for the head, can't you use some photo reference to make it look real?
I found some photos but I haven't worked on the head texture in a while.
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I like the color scheme in that last pic. It helps to tie-together the general look of the builders: Red cloth + silver ringmail.

 

He still definitely has the look of authority to him: after all, he has a cape!

yay seuss crease touss dome in ouss nose tair

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How many polys is that head, btw? The ear seems to have a lot of detail for a basic mesh.

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