Hey there… here is my latest project I have been working on and I submitted it to the Naruto Challenge competition over at gameartisans. Everything is done in blender and photoshop except for the normalmaps which are created in Xnormal.
Requirements for the competition was following:
No more than 5000 tris. Weapons, effects, pets, assets included.
1024x1024 textures. Diffuse, Normal, Alpha, Spec, Emitt maps are allowed.
The character must on some sort of podium, which has no poly limit.
File size limit, 200kb.
Image size limit, 800w x 900h.Images: 3 Winning poses & 1 beauty pose with multiple camera angles.
Amazing! I could easily imagine this him in an commercial game! Top noch! Great Textures! Only critique that I can (possibly) think of is that the rasngan (Is that how you spell it?) is kinda small. But that just opinion matter.
Red Yoshi: Thanks. I think I will go on wihtout any changes to the model… I just want to select the winning pose
Dudebot13: I will not win since there are so many awesome in this contest, but it was a very nice experience. I have trouble picking my final winning pose though and could need some advise. Deadline is tonite.
I’d go with the first pose, it shows off the hands, feet, face and costume details the best. The second pose isn’t as dynamic, and the third one showcases the giant toad. Really excellent work.
Only critique is that it seems that the rasengan should be shedding more light on his clothes, especially because the environment is pretty dark… Also, the environment is not very Naruto-ish! You should do him in a non-serious pose too, seeing as he is quite a comical character most of the time
I’m just getting into proper modelling in blender now, and i’ve noticed that low poly models seem to require lots of knowledge of how to use loops efficiently etc. It seems quite hard to get into… Are there any good tutorials or studies out there that would help me on my way?
Thanks. The background is not very Narutoish since I decided to do Jiraiya in his serious persona and not his comical one. I guess most fan boys wouldn’t think I did a wise choice though.
BgDM:
Very good point. I had a huge problem with Blender and tangent space normal maps. Somehow it’s alot harder to make the normal map work for your model in Blender than let’s say Lightwave. I don’t know much about Maya or 3ds max in that area though. I also had loads of trouble getting the low poly / high poly workflow to work as I wanted. I tried to export .obj into Zbrush and use Blenders own sculpt tool together with Xnormal. But I didn’t had enough experience of neither one to get a good result. I also had alot of trouble setting up the light to make those folds pop out properly.
All and all it was a great experience anyway but I wouldn’t set 5 stars on myself. It’s more like 3 or something.
Don’t score yourself down tef. I didn’t know who Jiraiya, Naruto was until my daughter pointed it out to me earlier today (should have looked at the reference sheet). It’s a tremendous piece. We all know the limitations of our own work but others don’t see what we think could be better. Without knowing you could push this further it’s definitely a 5 star piece.
Thanks. I am allways trying to improve myself and compared to some entries in that contest my entry didn’t stand a chance. I am happy getting 5 stars though, no reason not to be, even though this forum is very generous in that aspect.
Tef as you say other forums are much more critical. Compared to other work on these forums this is definitly a 5* piece. (Sometimes I wish the rating system would allow to have a 6star rating for true excellence for those true masterpieces ). I don’t think your piece is a 6Star but if I would be only half as good as you are I’d be proud of myself. Going with the rating skala of this forum you are definetly not Average but Excellent.
Keep up the good work and good luck on the contest!
