Hi there!
I’ve started working on a new character. The main goal, is to make a high poly char, and it’s low poly version in few stages, that is, first, sculpting high poly head, than the rest of the body, after that, making a low poly version of the head, and a low poly version of the whole body. At each stage, I may produce a “final” render, and compare low and high poly versions of the model (ofcourse, if I’m not going to make each render completely different in terms of lighting and background, which may happen, or I may do one render at each stage for comparison purposes, and second for fun… well see about that).
So far, I’ve got a high poly sculpt, which at the moment is being textured. On below images (they’re just printscreens from viewport), Chuck has no eyes, but they’re kind of fireballs, and showing them to you know would hide some of the sculpt.
So, next to do is fininish texturing the guy, and render him.
Sculpt is made with multires mod.
Any comments and critiques are highly welcome!
Cheers!
Ok, a first update - test with textures and shaders. I made two veeeery rough light set ups, just to see which direction I’d like to follow (light from below, or above the model). Also, I added eyes, but without the fireflames yet (still need to play with smoke sim).
Things to do next:
Improve textures (I’m prett happy with the colours, but not quite, I mean, I think I can improve the look of Chuck’s face)
make his eyes burn!
set the lighting
decide about the camera angle
rig his mouth, and pose it - grinning demons are somehow cooler than those sad ones right?
make some background (I’m thinking about fire pillars surrounding the guy, or just a firewall behind him, we’ll see about that)
In this case, the ‘from-above’ light setup feels slightly better for this - but it might be less about the direction, and more about the tones and light/shadow play. The front/bottom light is just too yellowish and strong.
Other than that - cool work! I like the regularity of the skin texture’s bumps, feels very meticulous and “realistic” (whatever that word means ).
I really like the murder look in his eyes in the second image, but the lighting if way better in the first. This is one case where less lighting would be better. The more you suggest, the scarier it gets. Some ideas:
Thanks for your comments, I now see it clearly, that you’re both right on the lighting, and I’ll probably be trying to achieve a final effect close to the first image, with Chuck’s murder eyes in their place ofcourse
Januz, there already is a SS on his skin, but a fake one (Greg Zaal has a tutorial on how to do a simple fake SSS - and I used the same method) - the reason for that is, that currently, as far as I’m concerned, SSS in cycles doesn’t support bump mapping. And I really need that bump on Chuck. But I may try to tweak the settings a little bit.
I like the gradiation lines idea, but the scars… How could I not think about the scars myself?! Thanks for that a lot! This monster will get scars for sure!
I didn’t really have time to work on this one for the last 3 days, and the contest deadline is closer every day, so I may upload new images more often, and will be counting on your comments and critiques!
Thanks swift502! Making characters for Half-life would be a dream come true for me…
But, before I start working for some great game company, please find below some new renders (that is, images from viewport).
Let me know, which do you like best. And please, ignore that cursor on the third one…
I added some scars and tatoos on my demon’s skin, also tweaked lighting a bit, though I don’t think it’s perfect yet. I’ll tweak it when I decide which version of lighting I like more.
…or maybe you’d like to see Chuck on more firy background?
Still have to make his eyes burn, and think about that gradiation on his horns.
Let me know what you think, I’d love to see some comments, critiques, and possibly good ideas on how to improve this image
Need to scrap the eyes. That is a very good model and it deserves the same lvl of detail in the eyes. The eyes probably more so than the rest as that is where your attention will land first. Great model!
Thanks for nice words and contribution! Still a lot to do, and as Brent mentioned, the eyes are most important part of any character. And yeah, I remade them, and will be trying some different options (already have tried few, but effects were far from satisfying), experimenting with fire etc. If I have enough time that is… In the meanwhile, I’m uploading some different eyes desing (not too different, but still…) I’m not, how to say, perfectly happy with it (though I may not be changing it necessarily if I decide later on I like it enough…), but please let me know if you think the direction I’m taking is ok in your opinion. I may not see things clearly today anymore…
Januz, this background and lighting was also my favourite, for more less the same reasons as yours… And if there’re two of us, I think I won’t be changing this one a lot. Well, at least if nothing better comes to my (or someone else’s) mind…
More comments and critiques are highly welcome!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vnhwjgtekto1b7y/Fire_AtCam_02.mov Download this video and try and use it as a texture. You might have to change the format. I’ve never tried to use an actual video file as a texture in blender. I use these videos in After Effects and set them to screen or overlay (I forget which). This is a video from the Action Essentials DVD. According to the license agreement you can use it as long as you don’t sell your work.
Man, I’ve been playing with those eyes and fire, and still, I’m far from the effect I’d like to achieve, but at least there are new ideas coming to my head. Thanks for that vid Brent, but I can’t download it, tried several times, and each time it took about 30-40 mins of dowloading just to give me “download failed” message… Any ideas how to download it? Have you any had any problems with dropbox before?
Ok, time’s running, and there’s still so much to do, but at least I’ve come to the moment, where I can start tweaking/playing with textures and lights, and not inventing “how to make the firy eyes look like actual firy eyes”. Suprisingly, I think it’s easier to make realistic human eye with all these tutorials online, than burning one. Why nobody cares about demons anymore?
I’ll still have to decide, whether I want to see my model looking straight, or at the camera. In the second case, rigging the neck and posing it will be necessary. What do you think? Which pose will be better? I think the guy (?) should look straight at the camera. And as I mentioned in some earlier post, he’ll grin. Or at least there’ll be some pose on his lips, breaking current symmetry.
Here we have an example of how the eyes are created. Not a very good quality, but gives some idea. Still some tweaking on the eyes is needed (I’ll probably repaint the textures), as well as on the light they produce, but that’ll be pure fun after three days of fighting the smoke simulator (which is cool BTW).
As always, I’ll appreaciate all the comments and critique, so don’t be afraid to post them here!
Ok, fixed the eyes a little bit more. It was bothering me, why a single eye (like in the post above), can look so much better, that the ones with exactly same settings on the render with Chuck. The answer is: the scale of the objects. It seems, it matters when it comes to smoke/fire. It looks as if the settings were not relative to the scale of the object, so making small eyes gave me strange effects in comparison with larger ball… Maybe that info can help some of you.
Ok, one of the last updates before calling the high poly head model done (and takin part in the Blender Cookie halloween competition).
In the last two renders I tried two different eye textures (well, you can’t see the details on them in low res). Which do you like better?
I;m also thinking about changing the fire colour to red, but don’t know if I find time for it. I won’t be able to work on the model tomorrow, so everything has to be done today.
Also, I changed Chuck’s pose a bit (and will try to change his grin a tiny bit - we’ll see if I like it, if I do, I’ll post it here), and tweaked lighting just a tiny bit, but I’m feeling I’ll have to tweak it a little bit more though.
Okay ladies and gentleman, don’t be afraid to tell me what you think and what can still be improved! (but keep in mind my time limitations hehe :-))
Ok, and an edit with a third version of the eyes, and also little bit changed mouth. This probably is the last one before I decide which way I want to go with the eyes, and the mouth look. After that, this piece will land in finished section… So it’s my last chance on getting some opinion from you…
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