Durham Red

[zogthedoomed]

Hi all. First post here. I'd been posting on Zbrush Central for a while hoping to get feedback but its apparently not the way to go.

I've been working in VFX for a few years as a generalist, bits of this and that. But I'm looking to get back into a bit of games work. Its been a good few years since I've done a game character and things are a bit different now so I was hoping some of you may throw out some advice and opinion every now and again. As critical as you want.

So this is where I am so far .. I've a hi res zbrush model and a low res ..

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and the low res ..

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The game mesh isn't UV'd yet or have its hair polys done. Those and the poly painting is the next process and I was wondering if theres anything I should watch out for before I take it any further. I'm particularly concerned about the poly flow of the bum area. I'm not sure how much control there is in U3 for bone weighting and whether I should just take the polys straight across horizontally. And the laces at her neck and chest .. would you recomend modelling them or using a poly with alpha? It currently stands at just over 7400 tris.

The plan next is to use xnormal to bake out the maps and then get it into Marmoset or U3. I was thinking that I could bake out the stockings separately and then layer it over the normal, spec and colour maps. Thanks.

And this is the reference by Mark Harrison. I'm not trying to get it spot on but near enough.

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[zogthedoomed]

Quick poly paint block out so I can see what I want to be doing with the colours. Debating whether to go realistic or cartoony. I'm edging towards realistic.

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I'm seeking constructive crits so fire away.

[kskovbo]

Haha I feel you about zbrush central. Its cool for posting new works and get some exposure, but for feedback, no way.

If you are going realistic I would suggest some improvements.

Waist is not wide enough. I know the the drawing its like that.. but definately not wide enough.

Arms seems a tiny bit too short as well.

Nose seems a little wide. Could use some work.

And then the hair is just not a favorite. I would go for making the hair with strips.. I dont know how that would with udk or marmoset though. It just seems like a big block on her head right now.. and I am afraid it will look like that even with the normal map on.

my 2cent

Klaus

[zogthedoomed]

Hey Klaus. Thanks very much for the crit.

Just to quickly mention the hair, thats purely standin so I can see its volume and colour. I'll be hand painting the hair on strips over a simple volume as you say. I didn't think it would be possible to do high res hair and then bake it out to strips. Maybe I'm wrong there. The strips aren't on the low res yet

Your other points really hit on a problem I've had from the beginning, her proportions. When I first blocked her out I tried shaping her the same as in the ref but it looked terrible so I went for realistic proportions. I thought a good deal of the effect would be achieved through the perspective. But by the time I'd finished the sculpt I was aware of just how ordinary she looked so I decided to try and push it towards the ref. Through out the comic she varies a lot but she's always got this tall, muscled but vaguely emaciated look. I was hoping I got to a compromise but maybe not. I'll revisit that.

Interesting you should say that about the arms. I modelled the base mesh to a 3DSK photo and then stretched them as I changed her proportions. Maybe its the pose and perspective but I think you're right.

I'm not sure about her nose though. The bridge is far too thin which maybe making the nasal area look too wide and maybe the jaw and mouth are too narrow but I'll have a look.

So thanks again for the crit.

[PascalR]

cool character:thumbsup: I think her rib cage bulges out a bit too much compared to the waist, the transition seems smoother on the reference. I would watch the deltoid shapes, they seem to go down too far , especially from the back.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_VZhB9JmvpXE/TDs3AlEI8ZI/AAAAAAAABFY/dJqZmmqaSVw/s1600/deltoid.jpg

Her hands feel a bit small but could be the perspective, any close up of the face?

Keep it up:sw:

P.

[zogthedoomed]

Thanks Pascal. Yes you're right. The deltoids have got a bit stretched as I've pulled her arms about and they're not as pronounced as the ref. I'll sort that.

I see what you mean about the ribs area. The ribbing things I've done on her bustier are not as pronounced as in that ref. They're a mixture of other variants from the comic. Thats not helping. I pulled them out to give more of a shape but I wasn't watching the underlying form. Thanks.

I can't get a shot of her face just now as I'm at home. Its a bit rough round the edges though and the more I look at it the more I think Klaus is right about the nose but thats not the only issue.

The hands do look small there, you're right. Yet on the close up pic they look bigger. I don't think the perspective is doing them any favours but they may well be small. I've got to revisit them anyway as theres no cloth wrinkles on them yet so I'll check that out.

Cheers.

[zogthedoomed]

Before dinner I went over the points you both mentioned. I've enlarged the hands a few times but they still seem small in the perspective view. I remodelled the nose, the deltoids and the waist. The arms are a little longer but not much. I tried them down and they're proportionately long enough.

Here's a coloured and a grey shaded. I found the colour was too distracting and without it her face is looking decidedly odd. It needs some lovin.

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[PascalR]

That looks much better, very nice work overall:thumbsup:
It looks like her mouth corners are going quite far to the sides, making her lips feel a bit too small, especially with the lip stick on. She has a strong jaw but I like it, it gives her more character. Are you going to do fully rendered hair for her?

keep it up!

P.

[zogthedoomed]

Cheers Pascal.

Shortly after posting this I pulled her mouth corners in but to be honest I messed up with the mouth. The original base mesh didn't have a hollow mouth and when I added one and reimported it was a bit of a job getting the new mesh in the right place. I went about it all the wrong way but I'll know for next time.

I don't know about the hair. I'd like to do some hi quality renders but at the moment I need to get it into U3 or Marmoset as a priority so I expect I'll be painting some poly planes.

I like that she's looking a bit older.

[zogthedoomed]

Did most of the poly painting today. Mostly bits of straps and details to do. I might do a proper pass on her hair so I have a decent base. Her bodice thing is a little too green for some reason but I'll fix that later on.

Crit away. Be brutal.

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[zogthedoomed]

OK so this is about good enough for now. The main object was to learn the zbrush to UDK/marmoset pipeline. I got a bit carried away but leaned and relearned a lot of things in the process so its been a good study. Lots of errors and the heads too big, and the ankles too thin and the shoes too small, too many polys (8.4k tris) and too many textures 2048x2048 col, spec, normal, transparency,glow .. but thats enough. UDK next.

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[PascalR]

nice work, her eyes are glowing a little bit,
but thanks for sharing the low poly result :beerchug:

[zogthedoomed]

Yeah you're right about the eyes. She's also totally useless as a game mesh, as I found out last night trying to get her into Marmoset. The poly flow needs to follow the different materials. Which it doesn't. For some reason I thought that with game models needing to be optimised that there'd be some clever textural way of defining materials. Instead you have to literally break the model up into bits/chunks and apply materials just to those chunks. At least I know for next time.

[ianucci]

Patrick, you can get a pretty decent range of surfaces just using the spec and gloss maps. She shouldn't really need multiple materials unless you wanted to use marmosets fancy skin shader or something like that.

I like your model, I was a big fan of Mark Harrison back when I used to get 2000ad. I agree with you own critiques, I would have been tempted to make her a bit more curvy but I would say the same about the original art. Great work on the clothing.

[zogthedoomed]

Thanks very much. Yes I was hoping to use the various shaders. I'm not sure if the UDK has them as well as I've not tried it yet but I've seen a lot of work done on real time skin shaders so thought I'd best try and make use of them. I've spent the last few years doing high res work so I'm playing catchup with regards game models. I'd imagine most studios would still have fairly unique requirements but I thought Marmoset or UDK would be a half decent bench mark to aim for.