Hey Andrew,
Thanks for the advice, I am going to sort out the dog's head mesh, but I had to get the model to a "finished" state for this term's project hand-in, which was today (June 15th). So just thought I would would put the turntable on youtube. Have got a few things i know I have got to change, but pretty happy with it. Was really unsure about the texturing side, if you have any suggestions they would be much appreciated.
Cheers,
Dan
Friday 15 June 2007
Tuesday 12 June 2007
Hi Andrew! Thanks for your advice, it's a big help.
For the eyes I used two primative spheres, one inside the other. For the outer one I applied a phong shader with transparency and bump map and the inner one has a lambert with a colour a bumb map. The inner primative also has a hole in the middle that i've extruded and folded inside a little to try and get a softer fall off. I tried to make sure their was a slight black fade on the colour map so that it looks like there a fade into the pupil, It still needs a lot of work. lastly i put part of a sphere behind the pupil with a black lambert. I experimented with a light rig at the same time. Gonna try some subsurface on the eye too!
Decided to leave the hair alone, weaving it in and out of the snakes and getting it to look really good might take me forever. Also it will give me a bit more time to work on the modeling and texturing.
If I was building this, I would create a single snake (as you have done), UV and rig it. Then I would simply duplicate them all off, position them around the head. Once happy with their positions I would cut out holes in the female head and join to the bottom of the snake.Let me know if my explanations are a little hard to understand. I can always draw some images to help.
I will have a go at this andrew when it comes to it and then i'll email you the obj, if thats ok ?
Thanks again for your help and i will speak to you soon.
Ritchie
For the eyes I used two primative spheres, one inside the other. For the outer one I applied a phong shader with transparency and bump map and the inner one has a lambert with a colour a bumb map. The inner primative also has a hole in the middle that i've extruded and folded inside a little to try and get a softer fall off. I tried to make sure their was a slight black fade on the colour map so that it looks like there a fade into the pupil, It still needs a lot of work. lastly i put part of a sphere behind the pupil with a black lambert. I experimented with a light rig at the same time. Gonna try some subsurface on the eye too!
Decided to leave the hair alone, weaving it in and out of the snakes and getting it to look really good might take me forever. Also it will give me a bit more time to work on the modeling and texturing.
If I was building this, I would create a single snake (as you have done), UV and rig it. Then I would simply duplicate them all off, position them around the head. Once happy with their positions I would cut out holes in the female head and join to the bottom of the snake.Let me know if my explanations are a little hard to understand. I can always draw some images to help.
I will have a go at this andrew when it comes to it and then i'll email you the obj, if thats ok ?
Thanks again for your help and i will speak to you soon.
Ritchie
Monday 11 June 2007
AM- Ahmed Robot
Hey Ahmed
Good to see a post from you. The concept is looking great, and don't be too bashful about your drawing skills :)
Don't worry too much about the centre piece, things like this always evolve before your eyes in 3D. It's a shame Transformers is not out yet because it would be great reference for you. Has anyone seen the trailers yet? It looks incredible!
Anyway, your model is looking really impressive. Overall the model appears very clean and user friendly. Some of the areas have been created very simply so far but generally I think the design can get away with this approach. Maybe for some of the areas with intersecting geometry it might be worth spending a little time integrating the geometry. It would be great to see something done to the spikes on his shoulder pads. Even if you just add something simple like a few rubber O-rings to the joining surfaces.
The general form and structure looks sturdy but also agile which is definitely what you want from a machine like this. I will be interested to see how you join the arms and legs to the main body.
Be careful with making your cables. They seem a little dense. I think they add to the look of the machine so keep adding them. Maybe even bind a few together with metal cable ties?
Also, make sure that when you add hydraulic pistons that you really think about there purpose. The ones positioned around his waist seem a little flimsy considering the weight of his upper body.
Other than that, keep the updates coming. If you have time, do a quick occlusion render so you can really see how much you have done and allow you to focus on the areas that you feel need your attention.
cheers
Andrew
Good to see a post from you. The concept is looking great, and don't be too bashful about your drawing skills :)
Don't worry too much about the centre piece, things like this always evolve before your eyes in 3D. It's a shame Transformers is not out yet because it would be great reference for you. Has anyone seen the trailers yet? It looks incredible!
Anyway, your model is looking really impressive. Overall the model appears very clean and user friendly. Some of the areas have been created very simply so far but generally I think the design can get away with this approach. Maybe for some of the areas with intersecting geometry it might be worth spending a little time integrating the geometry. It would be great to see something done to the spikes on his shoulder pads. Even if you just add something simple like a few rubber O-rings to the joining surfaces.
The general form and structure looks sturdy but also agile which is definitely what you want from a machine like this. I will be interested to see how you join the arms and legs to the main body.
Be careful with making your cables. They seem a little dense. I think they add to the look of the machine so keep adding them. Maybe even bind a few together with metal cable ties?
Also, make sure that when you add hydraulic pistons that you really think about there purpose. The ones positioned around his waist seem a little flimsy considering the weight of his upper body.
Other than that, keep the updates coming. If you have time, do a quick occlusion render so you can really see how much you have done and allow you to focus on the areas that you feel need your attention.
cheers
Andrew
AM - Ritchie Medusa
Hey Ritchie
The concept drawings are great. Make sure to include drawings like this when applying for jobs!
I'd be interested in seeing how you created the eye. It's an impressive start, but eyes are so complex and I know there is lots of simple things you can do to really push the realism. It still amazes me how much time and money goes into creating eyes at studios like MPC. But when you think about it they are the first thing you look at and can truly make or break a characters appeal.
General comments would be that your cornea seems to have a noise texture applied to the specular which is too fine. Also, I personally think it would be worth pushing the saturation of the colours, increasing the overall contrast of the texture and increasing the white point of specular.
You can see on the images below how vibrant the colours of the eye are. You'll also notice that the specular is a lot cleaner that yours. The side view might also help you come up with some improvements yourself.
For this project I was thinking of morphing the character from a beautiful medusa to an ugly one or doing something with her mouth similar to the reaper in blade! Just wondered what you think to either of these ideas? I’m in two minds at the moment in terms of what an employer would like to see!
Both these ideas sound great, but I'm concerned about the complexity. Morphing can become quite complicated and involves a lot of texture work too. I would recommend just creating a few different facial shapes eg: angry, moody, sad. These are harder than they sound, but if you get one right you will impress everyone.
Quick side story... :)
I remember when I was studying and trying to complete my final project. I came up with all these huge ideas and eventually never had time to finish them until after my course was finished. The stuff I did get done in time was good, but in hind sight I would have been much better to just do one thing well than 3 things mediocre.
Remember, that it's not how much content is on your demo reel, its the quality of the content!
I once hired a modeler who had a background in sculpture and was relatively new to 3D. All he had on his demo reel was one cg character which he showed on a turntable. He presented it in wireframe, default shaded, and then textured. The whole thing lasted less than 30sec but it was more than enough. It shows employers more than you can imagine. It's kinda sad, but you really can judge a persons skill level by the first 3 seconds of their demo reel.
Its all too common for students to put everything on their demo reels when they first go looking for a job. I even did it myself and it makes me cringe at what I showed :)
Keep it simple and do one thing exceptionally well! If you have more than this, then that is awesome but employers aren't expecting students to know everything. We just want to know that you have some raw talent, an eye for detail, and dedication.
I’m a little unsure when it come to attaching the snakes to the head! Would I be best making local subdivisions and leaving holes for the snakes to connect too? And I’m unsure about the snakes and their uvs when it comes to duplicating them and merging?
This depends on whether you will actually see the join where the snake meets the head. If you don't see it, don't commit yourself to an integrated position on the head. I'm assuming most of them will be hidden by hair, so you should only need to join the snakes at the front of the head. If you do join all of them, your head should have enough topology to handle all the extrusions and not rely of local subdivisions.
If I was building this, I would create a single snake (as you have done), UV and rig it. Then I would simply duplicate them all off, position them around the head. Once happy with their positions I would cut out holes in the female head and join to the bottom of the snake.
Let me know if my explanations are a little hard to understand. I can always draw some images to help.
I’m gonna use displacement and bump maps for the detail. Would I be best splitting the uvs of the character onto separate maps because I sometimes have trouble with the detail coming through on the displacement maps or is their a better solution?
If you can't get enough resolution then don't be afraid to created separate UV tiles. On 10,000BC we have 16 x 8K maps for one mammoth And that is just for colour!
cheers
Andrew
The concept drawings are great. Make sure to include drawings like this when applying for jobs!
I'd be interested in seeing how you created the eye. It's an impressive start, but eyes are so complex and I know there is lots of simple things you can do to really push the realism. It still amazes me how much time and money goes into creating eyes at studios like MPC. But when you think about it they are the first thing you look at and can truly make or break a characters appeal.
General comments would be that your cornea seems to have a noise texture applied to the specular which is too fine. Also, I personally think it would be worth pushing the saturation of the colours, increasing the overall contrast of the texture and increasing the white point of specular.
You can see on the images below how vibrant the colours of the eye are. You'll also notice that the specular is a lot cleaner that yours. The side view might also help you come up with some improvements yourself.
For this project I was thinking of morphing the character from a beautiful medusa to an ugly one or doing something with her mouth similar to the reaper in blade! Just wondered what you think to either of these ideas? I’m in two minds at the moment in terms of what an employer would like to see!
Both these ideas sound great, but I'm concerned about the complexity. Morphing can become quite complicated and involves a lot of texture work too. I would recommend just creating a few different facial shapes eg: angry, moody, sad. These are harder than they sound, but if you get one right you will impress everyone.
Quick side story... :)
I remember when I was studying and trying to complete my final project. I came up with all these huge ideas and eventually never had time to finish them until after my course was finished. The stuff I did get done in time was good, but in hind sight I would have been much better to just do one thing well than 3 things mediocre.
Remember, that it's not how much content is on your demo reel, its the quality of the content!
I once hired a modeler who had a background in sculpture and was relatively new to 3D. All he had on his demo reel was one cg character which he showed on a turntable. He presented it in wireframe, default shaded, and then textured. The whole thing lasted less than 30sec but it was more than enough. It shows employers more than you can imagine. It's kinda sad, but you really can judge a persons skill level by the first 3 seconds of their demo reel.
Its all too common for students to put everything on their demo reels when they first go looking for a job. I even did it myself and it makes me cringe at what I showed :)
Keep it simple and do one thing exceptionally well! If you have more than this, then that is awesome but employers aren't expecting students to know everything. We just want to know that you have some raw talent, an eye for detail, and dedication.
I’m a little unsure when it come to attaching the snakes to the head! Would I be best making local subdivisions and leaving holes for the snakes to connect too? And I’m unsure about the snakes and their uvs when it comes to duplicating them and merging?
This depends on whether you will actually see the join where the snake meets the head. If you don't see it, don't commit yourself to an integrated position on the head. I'm assuming most of them will be hidden by hair, so you should only need to join the snakes at the front of the head. If you do join all of them, your head should have enough topology to handle all the extrusions and not rely of local subdivisions.
If I was building this, I would create a single snake (as you have done), UV and rig it. Then I would simply duplicate them all off, position them around the head. Once happy with their positions I would cut out holes in the female head and join to the bottom of the snake.
Let me know if my explanations are a little hard to understand. I can always draw some images to help.
I’m gonna use displacement and bump maps for the detail. Would I be best splitting the uvs of the character onto separate maps because I sometimes have trouble with the detail coming through on the displacement maps or is their a better solution?
If you can't get enough resolution then don't be afraid to created separate UV tiles. On 10,000BC we have 16 x 8K maps for one mammoth And that is just for colour!
cheers
Andrew
AM - Phil, Head/Face Feedback
Hey Phil
Human heads will always be one of the most difficult things to model. Don't be discouraged if you're not getting it straight away. The key is, if your having problems modeling something then stop working on it, move onto something else and come back to it again with fresh eyes. Sometimes it's even better to completely delete entire sections and start again. It sounds drastic but really helps and it's always faster second time around!
And of course, use reference!
If your having problems with the eyes, then get some images off the net. There are heaps of resources out there for modelling. Get a side and front photo of a model's head then start a new scene and model the skin around the eye. Also, remember to create a temp eyeball first. This is very important. It's difficult to model eyes without knowing where the eyeball actually sits and how big it is!
The integration of the girl and creature is starting to work, but it's also highlighting a few areas that could do with modifications. It just feels to me that she is really uncomfortable. Also, don't forget that you should also think about how she gets into her riding position. Are there steps, a ladder, will she hit her head? I know it seems a little over the top, but this type of thinking will really take this model to the next level.
Check out Steven Stalhberg's rider pick. See how her body position feels natural. Her head is also facing forward instead of down. Also, you can visualise how she gets into this riding position and that she looks secure and safe. The additions of the restraint bars across her shoulders and the seat belt really add to the illusion that this beast of a machine really cranks along. Try to use this as a guide and modify your creature to work with it. You might even need to add some sort of restraint that stops your rider from lifting upwards out of her seat if you consider that your creature more than likely will jump.
One more thing I forgot to mention before. The legs of your creature look a little flat and stretched at the knee (if you call it that). I'd check out some images of crabs and try and match what nature already has. Check out these crazy spider crabs!
cheers
Andrew
Human heads will always be one of the most difficult things to model. Don't be discouraged if you're not getting it straight away. The key is, if your having problems modeling something then stop working on it, move onto something else and come back to it again with fresh eyes. Sometimes it's even better to completely delete entire sections and start again. It sounds drastic but really helps and it's always faster second time around!
And of course, use reference!
If your having problems with the eyes, then get some images off the net. There are heaps of resources out there for modelling. Get a side and front photo of a model's head then start a new scene and model the skin around the eye. Also, remember to create a temp eyeball first. This is very important. It's difficult to model eyes without knowing where the eyeball actually sits and how big it is!
The integration of the girl and creature is starting to work, but it's also highlighting a few areas that could do with modifications. It just feels to me that she is really uncomfortable. Also, don't forget that you should also think about how she gets into her riding position. Are there steps, a ladder, will she hit her head? I know it seems a little over the top, but this type of thinking will really take this model to the next level.
Check out Steven Stalhberg's rider pick. See how her body position feels natural. Her head is also facing forward instead of down. Also, you can visualise how she gets into this riding position and that she looks secure and safe. The additions of the restraint bars across her shoulders and the seat belt really add to the illusion that this beast of a machine really cranks along. Try to use this as a guide and modify your creature to work with it. You might even need to add some sort of restraint that stops your rider from lifting upwards out of her seat if you consider that your creature more than likely will jump.
One more thing I forgot to mention before. The legs of your creature look a little flat and stretched at the knee (if you call it that). I'd check out some images of crabs and try and match what nature already has. Check out these crazy spider crabs!
cheers
Andrew
AM - Emma, Model WIP
Hey Emma
It's looking cool. I like the idea of doing something timelapse!
Which are the areas that you are having problems with buckling geometry?
It will always come down to the topology and usually means a little tweaking or smoothing is required. If you have time, can you upload a wireframe and shaded of a troublesome area. Or even send me an obj file, I can then fix it and send it back...
Don't worry too much about poly counts. For something of this size you really aren't going to save a huge amount of time rendering by optimising dramatically. XSI is great for dealing with high poly counts anyway. One thing to keep in mind is that it will be worthwhile creating a high resolution and low resolution mesh for all your main components. This way you can use the low resolution mesh in the background where no surface detail will be seen and place the high resolution stuff right up close to camera. You could even dump something right up close to camera and add some displacement to it. This will help show to everyone how detailed and intricate all the structures are without doing it to all of them.
What are you planning on building at the base of your structures to connect them with the ground? I think you could work something in nicely here that will really give the structures a sense of scale and the appearance of a sturdy foundation and support mechanism.
keep it coming!
cheers
Andrew
It's looking cool. I like the idea of doing something timelapse!
Which are the areas that you are having problems with buckling geometry?
It will always come down to the topology and usually means a little tweaking or smoothing is required. If you have time, can you upload a wireframe and shaded of a troublesome area. Or even send me an obj file, I can then fix it and send it back...
Don't worry too much about poly counts. For something of this size you really aren't going to save a huge amount of time rendering by optimising dramatically. XSI is great for dealing with high poly counts anyway. One thing to keep in mind is that it will be worthwhile creating a high resolution and low resolution mesh for all your main components. This way you can use the low resolution mesh in the background where no surface detail will be seen and place the high resolution stuff right up close to camera. You could even dump something right up close to camera and add some displacement to it. This will help show to everyone how detailed and intricate all the structures are without doing it to all of them.
What are you planning on building at the base of your structures to connect them with the ground? I think you could work something in nicely here that will really give the structures a sense of scale and the appearance of a sturdy foundation and support mechanism.
keep it coming!
cheers
Andrew
AM - Phil, Helmet & Canopy
Hey Phil
The canopy is looking cool, and you have used Zbrush for the right amount of detail.
Tip: You can use more than one displacement map from Zbrush. You can use the one you have at the moment, and then also add a higher resolution map on top of this. You might not get close enough at render time to benefit from this, but keep it in mind.
Helmet: In order to make your life easy and also to help with shading and texturing its important to model different materials with different geo. eg: metal helmet, glass visor, rubber edging.
The helmet you have created is looking great, but it will really benefit from being split out into different objects and then grouped. This way you can also intersect geo and not have to worry about creating a clean topology that works for everything.
cheers
Andrew
The canopy is looking cool, and you have used Zbrush for the right amount of detail.
Tip: You can use more than one displacement map from Zbrush. You can use the one you have at the moment, and then also add a higher resolution map on top of this. You might not get close enough at render time to benefit from this, but keep it in mind.
Helmet: In order to make your life easy and also to help with shading and texturing its important to model different materials with different geo. eg: metal helmet, glass visor, rubber edging.
The helmet you have created is looking great, but it will really benefit from being split out into different objects and then grouped. This way you can also intersect geo and not have to worry about creating a clean topology that works for everything.
cheers
Andrew
Ritchie WIP
Hello Andrew! How are you doing?
Thanks for your comments last time Andrew, sorry it been so long, since then the weeks have just flown by. I’ve been hard at work doing a mixture of concept design and testing to prevent running into problems later on down the line. Instead of just drawing my concepts I also decided to use XSI and zbrush to sculpt a design. Doing it this way has allowed me to knock the mess around so I can look at different forms. It has also allowed me to look at texturing elements, lighting, and I even played around with putting hair in-between the snakes. At first I considered doing medusa with a masculine physique and big hands, but since then I have opted to keep the body more feminine. I’m pleased with the head design but I think the body needs to be curvier and some of the proportions need sorting as well as the texture. I’m in the process of re-modelling the character so that the typology is better according to muscle flow. I’m modelling the character as a normal female so that it will give me the option of morphing with targets and displacement!
For this project I was thinking of morphing the character from a beautiful medusa to an ugly one or doing something with her mouth similar to the reaper in blade! Just wondered what you think to either of these ideas?
I’m in two minds at the moment in terms of what an employer would like to see!
I’m a little unsure when it come to attaching the snakes to the head! Would I be best making local subdivisions and leaving holes for the snakes to connect too? And I’m unsure about the snakes and their uvs when it comes to duplicating them and merging?
Other technical issues include:
I’m gonna use displacement and bump maps for the detail. Would I be best splitting the uvs of the character onto separate maps because I sometimes have trouble with the detail coming through on the displacement maps or is their a better solution?
I’ve put some of the things up for you to have a look at. The pastel medusa is what I did prior to the start of this project. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks again!
AM - Phil, Quick Questions...
At what point do i create my UV's
I usually just do them at the end, when I'm happy with the model. It does however depend on your model. Sometimes I UV a low resolution version of my model before I add in the high resolution detail. This can make things a lot faster, but either way keep UVs in mind when modelling and you will be ok.
I'm told its best to create my own uv's rather then use Zbrush for texturing, would you agree with this?
Hell yeah :)
Create your own UVs. Don't rely on Zbrush UVs!
In the industry, how much is a program like Zbrush used?
Both Zbrush and Mudbox are used by all leading Studios. It's a skill that is beneficial to have up your sleeve, so learn as much about it as possible. Especially in terms of extracting displacement maps etc.
The problem is that lots of people can sculpt geo in Zbrush from a Zsphere and it looks amazing, but they usually can't do anything more with it because it hasn't been constructed with skinning in mind. The best approach to take when applying for a modeling position is to show both a low and high resolution model created with Maya/XSI etc and then show these with the displacement map you created in Zbrush.
If you really feel comfortable sculpting in Zbrush, then create a high resolution model and take it into XSI and shrink wrap a clean topology over the top. Then use the displacement map and transfer it to your clean mesh.
cheers
Andrew
I usually just do them at the end, when I'm happy with the model. It does however depend on your model. Sometimes I UV a low resolution version of my model before I add in the high resolution detail. This can make things a lot faster, but either way keep UVs in mind when modelling and you will be ok.
I'm told its best to create my own uv's rather then use Zbrush for texturing, would you agree with this?
Hell yeah :)
Create your own UVs. Don't rely on Zbrush UVs!
In the industry, how much is a program like Zbrush used?
Both Zbrush and Mudbox are used by all leading Studios. It's a skill that is beneficial to have up your sleeve, so learn as much about it as possible. Especially in terms of extracting displacement maps etc.
The problem is that lots of people can sculpt geo in Zbrush from a Zsphere and it looks amazing, but they usually can't do anything more with it because it hasn't been constructed with skinning in mind. The best approach to take when applying for a modeling position is to show both a low and high resolution model created with Maya/XSI etc and then show these with the displacement map you created in Zbrush.
If you really feel comfortable sculpting in Zbrush, then create a high resolution model and take it into XSI and shrink wrap a clean topology over the top. Then use the displacement map and transfer it to your clean mesh.
cheers
Andrew
AM - Phil, Body Model
Hey Phil
You've been busy!
The female body is starting to take shape and is looking great. The only areas that I feel should have a little more work put into them are the legs, arms and breasts.
Leg: Add a few more edge loops and define the knee area a little more. This will help when it comes to skinning.
Arms: Keep an eye on the profile shape. They are looking a little too perfectly cylindrical. Chop in and define a little bit of muscle and most importantly add the wrist twist as shown below. This is always overlooked by modelers but is fundamental to a good human topology.
Breasts: They are not really a problem, they smooth up correctly. I just wanted to show an alternate way that will eliminate multiple edges converging into a vert.
cheers
Andrew
You've been busy!
The female body is starting to take shape and is looking great. The only areas that I feel should have a little more work put into them are the legs, arms and breasts.
Leg: Add a few more edge loops and define the knee area a little more. This will help when it comes to skinning.
Arms: Keep an eye on the profile shape. They are looking a little too perfectly cylindrical. Chop in and define a little bit of muscle and most importantly add the wrist twist as shown below. This is always overlooked by modelers but is fundamental to a good human topology.
Breasts: They are not really a problem, they smooth up correctly. I just wanted to show an alternate way that will eliminate multiple edges converging into a vert.
cheers
Andrew
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