Dark Knight

[Thegodzero]

Here is my next little project. Hes supposed to fight along side my demons. I'll unwarp him tommorrow and try to do his texture before the weekend is over then its back to classes. I might just move up to a 1024 texture....maybe..
http://www.tgz3d.com/knight-ren2.jpg

[ironbearxl]

oh awesome model TGZ, he needs a segment at the middle of his knees though so they deform properly.

[Thegodzero]

Knees fixed
Sword
http://www.tgz3d.com/sword.jpg

[Sean McBride]

/images/graemlins/smile.gif looks good. The sword is very cool but the blade is to thick.

[Jerome]

woah, thats cool

[Thegodzero]

little update.
http://www.tgz3d.com/knight-ren3.jpg
blade is fixed already.

[IceWolve]

Haha, nice i modeled that same Dark Blade too. Ya the blade is too think, the blade should probly be made seperate from the rest so you can have it thinner easier.

[Thegodzero]

Well here is a quick update.
http://www.tgz3d.com/knight-ren4.jpg


I really want to try to have this guy done by wensday, having some important gamming industry people over this week (at my school) and want to impress them. After all i only have one more term untill i have my BA.

[Jackablade]

He's got that Metroid dislocated shoulder look to him and his body is a bit on the short side, but you've got a nice overall design going there.

[Zeldrik]

His helmet really reminds me of Sauron which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
I really like his pose, It has alot of weight and definitely adds to the cool factor.
My only crit is his legs, I think that they are a bit weak from a design perspective. Perhaps try and look for some reference to make them more practical and interesting.
Cant wait to see him textured.

[Daedalus]

nice model godzero but i dont like the lower body. feel incomplete. his leg look more like the belong to a space marine IMO. maybe its the roundness of the thigh. look like a chubby baby.
some knee pad wouldnt hurt .

good averall job

[Mr Smo]

awesome! i like the look from the side, looks so tuff.

[nealb4me]

I like the sword, but I agree with Zeldrik about the legs.

[poopinmymouth]

Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with the legs comment. The upper body and arms just have a great dynamic to them. The lower half, just looks entirely too generic. See if you can echo the shoulder pads into the knee pads, It might be a good repetition of form. Looking hot, man. Keep it up.

[moose]

aw man i thought this'd be batman. /images/graemlins/frown.gif

cool sword! the arms look like they could use more silouette to pop 'em out.

he should have a pink texture too.

[Thegodzero]

little update, not sure if this is better or worse.
http://www.tgz3d.com/knight-ren7.jpg

[Zeldrik]

I think its better but the legs still lack that dynamic you have captured with the upper body.

[Jeff Gran]

Looks good so far. The texture will make or break it. Make it!

[Thegodzero]

long time no update
http://www.tgz3d.com/knight-ren12.jpg

[John Warner]

looks cool /images/graemlins/smile.gif he can't bend forward or he'll spear himself.. but aside from that /images/graemlins/smile.gif

the hands look wrong.. they're too chubby somehow. are you using ref? I think the arms are maybe too short? the bicep section perhaps... the bicep section also looks too skinny from the side... hard to say tho.

good work /images/graemlins/smile.gif keep it commin

[Thegodzero]

Well hes done, now for his weapon (not using the one i made already as its tacky as all hell), and shield.

Body uses 2 512x maps (difduse, specular) Will really just be one file.
Cape uses 2 256x maps (diffuse, alpha) Will really just be one file.

http://www.tgz3d.com/DKren7.jpg

And here is a fast rotation with the spec map on it.
http://www.tgz3d.com/DKrot.avi

[KMan]

Are you going to put any seams on the armor pieces? I only see the one set in the front on the upper legs. How is he supposed to get in there?

Also why is the render so krinkly looking? It looks like you rendered it without filtering on, but then the jpeg'ing artificed the crap into all your little details.

[Sparky]

It makes me think more of a polished coat of arms inside a castle as opposed to a knight that's going out to combat. Unless of course, that is his purpose. :S

[HonkyPunch]

call him crom, dark knight..

[killingpeople]

pretty cool Thegodzero.

*napoleon dynomite voice* i really like the shoulder plates and cape's design.

my onion:
i would like to see something different on his chest plate, i don't like the angry eye thing. i personally feel that they are disruptive to the rest of the armor's design. i would rather dynamic ribbing or groves, like something you would see on weird bike helmets, something that would help flow the eye out to his sholders and arms, rather than draw them in.

[Jeff Gran]

Wow i like the texture. God job.

[Joshua Stubbles]

Glad to you you're done with that bad boy, TGZ. Now get crackin on that low poly nazi! /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Awesome mesh, and an even better texture. Nice work /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[Mark Dygert]

Thats not Batman? But it looks really cool. I do have a few crits hopefully these won't discourage you, because you have made a really cool model that seems to be really well built. Reminds me of the fallout armor...

Crits:
- He is called the Dark Knight, but his skin is a light grey, making him the not so dark knight. I would play around with the brightness/contrast until you get a true "Dark, Knight (http://www.vigville.com/forum_images/DKren7_01.jpg)".
- Next up his feet look like they are too small to support his massive frame. When going into battle you don't want to be knocked off your feet easily, you want a low center of gravity and you want a solid base. Think of it this way would you rather have someone try to push you over when you're on your tippie toes OR when you have your feet in 6 inch concrete boots? This boy needs some concrete boots. Right now is feet look about normal sized if he wasn't wearing armored boots. But putting on armor it would almost bulk the feet up 25% more than what you have.

Really those are minor crits and the longest one was about the feet, which could stay or go, the model works either way. If it was my model he would have some big sh!t-kicker boots, but hey its your model.

[Cubik]

I agree with Wig, the texture needs to be a whole lot darker. Nice model.

[MoP]

I love the model. However I think the texture is letting it down.

As Vig says, the general grey colour of the armour is too light. It's also fairly ambiguous as to what material it is... yeah it could be some sort of iron I guess, but equally it could be shiny bumpy plastic. I reckon you'd do well to examine some reference images of armour more closely, or dark metal objects, and try to replicate that shading in Photoshop.
The gold edging of the armour is... uhh... pretty yellow at the moment. I don't think gold actually looks like that. The highlight tends to be much less saturated, with a strong yellow/brown midtone and brownish shadow. You've kinda got it going from bright yellow to deep red, which isn't really a very natural colour.
Especially compared to the desaturated, gritty realism of his cloak, the gold edging really stands out as cartoony or a different style. Not very consistent.

I still don't understand the little white highlights around the edges of the grey/gold metal border... they're going in every direction, when (if they're really necessary at all) they should only be found on upwards-facing surfaces, where a sharp narrow edge catches the light. It doesn't make any sense for them to be anywhere else (such as currently, you have them on what should appear to be downwards-facing surfaces, but it's giving a weird effect instead).

I also think the texture needs some consistent lighting, there's no overall shading on the armour pieces really, especially the legs seem pretty flat when viewed fullbright. Some more contrast on the grey metal would probably help that.

I'd also have liked to see some colour variation in the metals, maybe some battle wear and tear, subtle mud/blood splats, this guy looks like he should be in the thick of the fighting, yet he's perfectly clean and (IMHO) that makes him pretty boring, since his armour is essentially monotonous grey.

I'm also unsure of your texture usage. 2 512's and 2 256's? To me this looks like it could look identical with 1 512 for the body and 1 256 for the cloak. The kneepads especially look pretty pixellated, and I wouldn't expect that when you're using 512x1024 worth of pixels for the body... any chance we can see the flats?

Yeah, it's good, but I reckon you could do better. Still, getting things finished is a vital skill to have /images/graemlins/smile.gif

MoP

[LordScottish]

The model looks very cool. But I would suggest to make the pommel of the sword a bit larger, this way it could not be used as a sword

[Thegodzero]

Here are a few updates:
Render with diffuse, specular(armor only), and alpha(cape only)
http://www.tgz3d.com/DKren8.jpg

Textures
http://www.tgz3d.com/DKtex512.jpg
http://www.tgz3d.com/DKcape.jpg

updated rotation file
www.tgz3d.com/DKrot.avi (http://www.tgz3d.com/DKrot.avi)

Kman, there are no seams on the legs and arms because you can slide those parts on. Well that’s what I kept tell my self while I textured it… And I don’t like having filtering on, but for you I turned it on. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

Sparky, hmmm true… might add more dirt later, but everything I do is just so dirty….

Jimmies, ok for you I will.

Kill, show me what you mean, and I’ll try it.

Jeff, thanks

Vass, I still have the weapons to do before he’s done, then yes.

Vig, is that what you were looking for in the color area? The feet, nah they are just rite other wise he looks like a clown, trust me…I tried..

Cubik, Wig?

Mop, like I said before, the white lines, I started with, but by the time I new better I had don it too many times to not call it a design element. I thought I was doing well with the lighting, shit! More dirt, but everything I do already look too dirty I’m told, but if you want I can always add more.

Lord Scottish, Don’t worry that ugly ass sword is not going to be used anyway but I’ll make sure the new one has a nice big pommel on it.

[Irritant]

Looking pretty sweet /images/graemlins/smile.gif

What game/engine is it for?

[Cubik]

Bah, Vig then. Just look at his reply, he put a pic in there to show how dark he (and I) think it should look.

[Thegodzero]

Irritant, its for a renagade mod, but really its just for my portfolio.

Cubik, thanks, i didnt see it...not sure how i missed it but i did. Personaly thats too dark, and would look wrong in the sun lit outdoors. If it was at night or someplace darker, then id go for it.

update:

finished sword. (256x diffuse with specular)
http://www.tgz3d.com/DKsword.jpg

sword texture.
http://www.tgz3d.com/swordtex.jpg

Tommorrow its shield time.

[poopinmymouth]

I think some very valid crits have been brought forth if you truly want to bring this model/texture to a good quality level, and you seem to be ignoring most of them.

I think the most valid are the overall greyish color, and the material type. What exactly is it made out of? I shouldn't have to ask. The color, specular falloff, dirt wear, and shadow color should tell me. Right now it's just grey "ish" stuff. The overall lighting is not helping definte the forms, especially in the under crotch area, that should be much darker to show that it's not recieving much light at all. Same with the yellow bits not looking like gold.

I know you probably want to call this done, but you need to ask yourself, were you doing it to get it done, or were you wanting to create an awesome folio piece? If the answer is the former, pat yourself on the back. If it was the latter, then I think you should go in and really address the crits brought forward in this thread.

[Mark Dygert]

A few more crits, I don't mean to bash or slam your model but you are reallllly close to having a kick ass model. It sounds like you are 2 inches from the finish line and kind of think that is good enough. Maybe you need to work on something else for a week then come back to it. I know when i think I am finished and it looks like the most perfect thing I have ever made, when I come back to it weeks later I see a ton of mistakes or things I didn't see before. Nomrally I would say "buckel down, get it done and don't give your AD grief he is trying to get a specific something out of you don't hold it back." But since this is isn't a paying gig just a forum, I say step back, come back to it in a week.

Is this a human warrior with 5 digits on his hand or 4? I could see incorporating the low poly design into the armor, that’s kind of a nice touch. But it looks like the larger part of the finger cluster only has room for two fingers? Which would give him a grand total of 8 fingers? Personally I would be in favor of separating the fingers either on the model or on the skin so they just appear separate.

So I guess my question is, how many fingers should he have? 10 or 8? If its 10 where are the other two fingers? Because they don't seem to be on the model?

Also going back to the texture, the scratch pattern you have has too many small scratches, unless you where going for that brushed metal look? If that is the case I think you went a big overboard and need to blur some of it out. Some of the "brush scratches" are almost as deep as the gold detailing. If they are battle scratches then his delicate gold ribbing would be more banged up and he would have a lot more bigger scratches and dings to his armor. Which would blend more naturally with the ratty old battle worn cape he has.

Also the scratch pattern makes it look as if there is some texture stretching going on, most notably in the shin armor.

If it was my model I would blur out those stretched scratches, then I might apply some noise to the whole skin 1-2% nothing big, just to break up the metal a bit. Then depending on how it looked on the model I might take a darker and lighter line and put some bigger scratches in. Making sure to blur out the edges of the lines so it fades into the armor. Of course it depends on how the texture looks because it is mirrored.

Adding details to mirrored models:
You MIGHT want to copy one or two polys on one leg and move them into some un-used space and apply scratches to just those polys? That way you can get scratches on one leg without them showing up on the other. On the texture just copy the area around that poly and don't mess with the edges. This way you use up some wasted space, give it more detail, AND still keep 99% of the model mirrored. I only do this as a list step.

And of course as I said before I would darken it up so he is not the grey knight. You might want to turn your brightness up because I have a good feeling what you are seeing is darker than what we are seeing. Also what mop and Ben brought up about the lighting is very valid but sometimes tricky to do. Don't let it freak you out, but don't let it hold you back either.

Here is a quick example (http://www.vigville.com/forum_images/DK_02.jpg) of what I would do (minus the UV scratch tricks).


One last thing before I shut it, I wouldn't work on a black background. I know when I do it makes things look darker than they really are. I would change it to a dark grey, only slightly darker than your armor. Just out of curiosity if you changed the background to white would you still think the skin is dark enough?

[Irritant]

On looking at this a few more times, to follow up Vigs suggestions, which are really good, but I think that there is not enough reflectiveness conveyed in your specularity. Metal, even brushed, when rounded, has a stronger specular property to it. Right now, while I see that it is brushed metal, it doesn't quite look like metal in some areas, mainly in the legs.

[Thegodzero]

Ben, i'm kind of on a tight time budget, as i'm making two demo reels before GDC one for my characters and one for my level props. So this weekend i have to have the character demo reel done for the characters. That means some drops in quality , that and i have been working on this bastarrd for WAY too long.

Vig, thanks for the ideas. I tried your super black texture on him, i liked it but i just couldnt live with it that dark, sorry. I used a few of them, but not all. As the hands and feet thing, that is something i would have changed back when he was still must mesh, but now that he has texture, its too late. Mirroring idea, i like and might go back and do after GDC.

Oh yeah i forgot to say that this guy is just a grunt, sort of a death knight/evil knght, not anybody special. I only called it that for lack of a better name. Just felt i needed to say that incase that changes anything in your minds.

Now for the udpate:

Using the 1024x texture for the knight as was asked of me by the mod leader.
http://www.tgz3d.com/DKren9.jpg

New rotation file
www.tgz3d.com/DKrot4.avi (http://www.tgz3d.com/DKrot4.avi)

The shield is 256x
http://www.tgz3d.com/shield.jpg
texture:
http://www.tgz3d.com/shieldtex.jpg

any other ideas?

EDITED: New renders for everything with the new gold trim.

[jdevin]

I say put the gold trim on the shield. It's on everything else. Without the gold it doesn't seem to match the rest of the armor.

[Thegodzero]

Ok, i'm calling him done. I might come back to him after GDC to make some changes like Vig said. Now to pose him and start rendering my demoreel.