Just Finished,Cloud

[fuxer]

nice subject huh? :P
Here's my latest project,it took me 2days to model and 3 to texture,with a big 1.5 week gap between the two lol
http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/7028/cloudfd1.jpg

[Mark Dygert]

Great work! Nice pose, amazing face and hair.

Crits:
- Spec is too shinny and looks to be the same level on everything, making it all look like plastic.
- The feet look off, the heal specifically looks like it just disappeared. If you scaled the boot toe up alittle it might help capture the anime boot look without compromising the realistic style.
- The shoulder armor could be thicker. It also needs those little cylinder spikes.
- He also needs his glove/wrapped hand, it was kind of important to the story I think...
- The fingers holding the sword are losing shape and not posed correctly. You should thicken the fingers up since you always lose mass when bending the links.
- Some of the style is being lost, the hands/gloves should be bigger to capture more of an anime look. I understand you're going for a more realistic approach but you want to capture at least some of that style in the hands, it will help balance out the character.
- The pants look filled full of helium, gravity and more extreme angles on the pants can help that along.
- The texture on the sword looks more like concrete then it does metal. Too many cracks, and not enough scrapes/cuts.
Ref I was looking at:http://www.creativeuncut.com/media/ff7-cloud.jpg

Looks really good as it is but a few hours of clean up work and it'll be FF quality =)

[fuxer]

this is exactly the crits i needed,thanks alot Vig.
I have some probs with the rig,wich is giving bad deformation on the feet and hands but im fixing them.
Just added the armory on the hand and gloove,makes him look cooler,thanx for reminding me that.
I'm posting a new pic very soon

[Joseph Silverman]

Specular map looks almost worthless. Why is it all black and white, and why doesn't it have any details in it? All of that wear in your metal could be defined in it, with a much flatter/cleaner diffuse, and not only would you not be wasting your spec map, it'd look a whole lot more convincing. Even if you're planning for an engine with grayscale spec, at least do something with it. Right now you may as well just have diffuse and normals only.

The diffuse and normals definitely look pretty good, but without making the most of your spec there's only so much you can do on a normal mapped model.

[fuxer]

here's an update following crits
Suprore tnx,i understand what you say and i'll see if i can fix the specs again,tnx though /images/graemlins/smile.gif
http://aycu21.webshots.com/image/32380/2001006649491566137_rs.jpg

[Sectaurs]

Looks pretty good, here are my crits:

-the overall shapes look a little unrefined bubbly, mostly in the legs and feet. He looks like he's standing on top of a fan, filling his loose pants up with air so they puff out like that. It doesn't look like the material/shape could achieve that look on its own. His ankles look a little broken, like you grabbed the feet at one point and rotated them without retouching the ankle verts. This could be the rigging, though.

-the rigging could be touched up a bit. It's a great pose and goes a long way towards the presentation, but it needs a bit more love. The hand holding the sword is bent unnaturally at the wrist

-how are his pauldrons attached? they seem to just be floating. I'm not real familiar with Cloud's original design, but it sticks out to me.

-I think it is the smooth, curving scratches that are making the sword look concrete... where would it get such a crack? scratches would come from other swords [presumably] which would leave straight scratches. uv layout is wasting a lot of space. I would have probably cut the blade in half and broken the uvs that way, to maximize the texture space. can get tricky with the seam, though.

-the shape of his face looks off to me. too spherical, maybe? hard to determine from this shot, though. but it definitely feels 'off' to me.

I really like the addition of that bangle-thingie onto his wrist. it turned out great, and took care of my other complaint, which would have been how thin his wrists were.

Any chance of getting some more shots of the model, preferably before rigging?

[D4V1DC]

Wow this is looking really nice, wish we could get a nice shot of the sword.

[fuxer]

tnx Sectaurs
Here's the model without the rig,as i imported him in max.Im going to sleep now,but i'll work on him tomorrow,thanks alot /images/graemlins/smile.gif
http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/8113/kopc1.jpg

[Sectaurs]

hrm, his face looks pretty good. guess it was just the angle /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[vahl]

he only has one shouler pad (on his left shoulder) and only the left strap has a wider part on it.
the right glove should be different, wider and more open around the wrist, no bandages but a piece of cloth underneath it.
the tip of the shoes should be wider too, try to place them on top of a foot picture to see if that can fit in.

I don't know if you're looking for realistic proportions or not, but if you want to make it as stylized as the ref, you should make the legs longer, even for realistic proportions, legs are too small overall, i'd scale that up a little (wider hips, longer legs, etc)

why the double belts ? I think it makes the torso look longer, thus the legs shorter (again), they don't really "mark" the waist as they should.

just my 2 cents tho, nitpicking, etc, keep it up man, looking good.

[fuxer]

hmm there is some kind of missunderstanding,mostly bcz i didnt explain it very well /images/graemlins/smile.gif
The Cloud i did is not from the movie,not from the psx game and not from the old concept of him.Im making the youger one that appeared on Crisis Core for the psp.Here's a screen of the cloud i did.I'm really going to redo the specs diffuse on the clothes as they look bad,i must admit it /images/graemlins/smile.gif
I'll be sure to kick in another update tonight thanks to the crits from you guys,those helped me improve it alot since the first version i showcased /images/graemlins/smile.gif
http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/9379/koqw4.jpg

[fuxer]

i hope im doing better now...?
http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/9448/cloudtc9.jpg

[Mark Dygert]

Big improvements, the metal sword material is looking great. Adjusting the spec maps is really paying off, nice work =)

[fuxer]

thanks to you guys,i'm really thankful to your crits /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Joseph Silverman]

Spec is looking a whole lot better, good work!

I still think you can push the detail in the spec a bit more, a good specular map can carry a ton of surface information. But it's definitely looking good as is, and that may mess with the clean/animeish look.

[fuxer]

yeah tnx /images/graemlins/smile.gif i'd love to see some good spec map work if you can suggest me anything,i'm not that used to normal mapped characters as im still learning.

[Jeremy Lindstrom]

too bad you removed the originals, I would of liked to have seen the progression.

[fuxer]

sorry about that,its up again at the top
Here's the sword for the guy who asked about it /images/graemlins/smile.gif
http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/4590/busterek5.jpg

[almighty_gir]

http://kaiser.morning-songs.com/wtfgackt.jpg

your buster sword is wrong. cloud took the one zack is holding.