For a larger project I won’t want to spoil, but I figured I’d dump all my WIP for it in here. I’ve been planning it on paper for a few days now, so I’m on to the asset-creation phase. I have sworn to myself that I will finish this one.
I think the feet are too long from back to front, and I’m going to have to do some editing after I apply the mirror, so some of the details I’m not going to add for a while, and the collar of his jacket will be heavily modified at that point. I’d post the sketches, but my scanner’s not alive ATM (I lost the cord, and too lazy to look for it). He’s a little ‘military’ dude. Sorry this is kinda early, but I am about to sleep. This is about a half hour and one false start in
So how long have you been studie blenders modeling and which techniques are the best for character design low poly or high poly …either way I like your character for its feet.
GOOD LUCK!
I think I wanna get the fingers into a more natural position before I attach. Now I just wanna add a few more little things and then I can apply the mirror and do something about the collar and pants…
thanks for the encouragement I will probably need it as I drag on.
@Key Shiroi:
I’ve been using Blender for two or three years, but most of what I’ve learned about 3D has been in the past year or so. I dunno exactly what you’re asking about the techniques, but I always work in low poly (the lower the better). If you’re learning, the best thing to do is just to get in there and start making stuff. Look at what the pro’s are doing, look at their topology and make a lot of stuff. After you screw up enough times eventually it starts getting easier
Applied the mirror, adjusted the collar so it looks more like he’s wearing a jacket now… added some other little details and such. Calling the modeling for this one pretty much done. I might hold off on the textures, tho, until I have a better idea of the overall style I want to do them in. I have a ton of other models to do for now, tho, so I’m off to start the next one
But seriously, they won’t matter. I know for Sub-D stuff tri’s are evil, but I think there’s a lot of irrational fear and hatred of the noble triangle. It’s the building block of Euclidian math (they define planar surfaces). Show some love.
Damn I was just about to write a long post about why triangles aren’t always evil and why there’s nothing wrong in having them in a game model, but you beat me to it.
Actually I think those arm joints will work great. They’ll preserve the shape quite well with very small amount of extra polygons. And I think you haven’t wasted any polygons as far as I can see(except the belt buckle might work with just a texture). Oh and I really like the way you did the jacket.
What size of maps you’re planning on using with this? 512 or just 256?
I’m not really sure what size I’m gonna do the textures at. Probably a 512, cause I want to see if I can give it a sort of painterly style. Originally I was going to do this at an obscenely low res, like <500 for the characters and 128’s or less for all the textures, but now I’ve got an itch to do something a little more detailed, so I dunno.
This is all really a sort of test. I’ve got a really large project that I’ve been doing on the side, and it’s getting to the point where I’ll need to solve some of the more complex texture / animation issues really quickly, or I’ll be stalled out. I figured I’d switch gears and pump out this little project as a dry run, so I can just go nuts and figure out the best way to go about doing stuff like animated textures, 2d/3d combinations and animated 2D sprites … stuff like that…
I’m working on some props and crap at the moment, I’ll have some posted up later tonight. I have several more little characters to do as well, but this guy was one of the most important ones. I’ve got two or three more that have a pretty prominent role in the thing, and then everything else is basically background stuff.
Couple new little props done - minus the textures…
TV’s play heavily in this thing, and I’m gonna try to model at least a dozen of them so I can have a lot of variety, especially a couple of shots require a number of them.
For you youngin’s… the second one is called a “console television”, which were sometimes in Black and White, and those round things are called “knobs”, which was the precursor to the remote control.
EDIT: And, yeah… the console isn’t optimized. I’ll have to go back before I UV it. If anyone wants the models I can put them online somewhere. I’ll probably have a fair collection of little props that might be useful for games and such by the time this is done.
Every quad is technically made of two tris anyway. I think sticking to quads
only makes you think you’re doing things in a more organized fashion.
So if you think you’re only using a model with 200 poly based on tris, then you
have to times it times 2 and then you have the real number of poly in your model.
(did I say that right?)
I mean it does made it look a little less cluttered not having those extra edges
visible.
At least that’s what I’ve been told by someone who is very into game modeling.
I used to think tris were bad till I got slammed.
It’s one of those things I kind of knew subconsciously but it did not make sense with
my logic so I never gave it thought. When modeling with quads I always end up
placing the vertex in a way sometimes where if I tilt the cam I can see that the
faces are actually creased in a way that reviels the 2 tris.
For example, Add>Mesh>Plane.
Then in Edit Mode take any 2 vertex from opposite corners and move them forward or backward
and you will notice that it is made up of tris and is not really a quad…but Blender keeps that
edge hidden unless you “convert to tris”. Even thought they are there the whole time.
Ghost Train- Evil triangles only apply to Subdivision Modeling (subsurfing). I like to stick to quads in all situations, just because it looks more organized on the UV map, but it’s fine in this case where it isn’t going to get any more divided.
I’ve brought this up before only to get slammed here…though the proof is in the pudding in sites like the sub-d modeling forum/cgtalk/other various 3d forums I can’t member right now:o. Even in sub-d tris are not evil. The MISPLACEMENT of those tris is evil (eg don’t put a tri near a curved surface). They also have some nice studies at cg-talk and sub-d fourms as well showing how following proper topology isn’t a necessity, but learning where proper topology is needed IS. Now don’t listen to closely to my rambling about this as I am not a pro at modeling like that, I’ve never tried it. I have been taught that proper topology and all quads is a necessity and I have been modeling in light of that teaching just like most here. However, you can research the studies for yourself. But when you find those studies, be quite about who you “inform”, because on this forum they’ll tear your head off because they’ve all been taught that proper topology and all quads is a MUST in every circumstance besided the GE. They’ll even provide nice screenshots that show how tri’s in sub’d is evil…but when you look at where the tri is placed you wanna say, “no shit moron”.
I’m sure I could find some of these studies if you couldn’t and still required solid proof. But don’t ask me to explain it any more than i have here or the “theories” behind it…like i said…i’ve never tried it, and those meshes that were created for the studies looked absolutely ugly to me.
We interrupt this topology debate to bring you a turnaround:
Apologies to those who have crap connections… this image is 1 MB…
I was playing with the new AO and trying to see if this thing would look decent when lit. Funny story, tho… I’m probably not even gonna use him. I’ve had a bit of an epiphany, so now I have to make him again, lol. I was playing with another test model, doing some lighting and texture tests to find some visuals that would work, and I stumbled upon something by accident that hit me so hard I literally had to stop what I was doing and take a walk to think over what I’m doing here.
The project is still on, but I this model doesn’t really fit anymore… I still need the guy, but I have to re-model it, me thinks. Which is actually kinda cool, cause it’s so much fun.
I can tell he’s an alien fighter by the head shape. This looks good.
I will probably need it as I drag on.
Damn I was just about to write a long post about why triangles aren’t always evil and why there’s nothing wrong in having them in a game model, but you beat me to it.
