There's been a lot of talk in the [Civil War] Spark vs. Gav vs. Hazardous vs. Slipgate thread about doing a community character project, so let's have a crack at it, eh?

So, what is this?
First and foremost, this is NOT A COMPETITION. There will be no registration, no individual threads, no judging, no winners, and no prizes. This is strictly an exercise to get the community involved in something fun and creative while we wait for the next big character challenge (DomWar? A Polycount challenge? Who knows?) to take place.

If you choose to take part in this thing, you should be doing it because you want to learn and improve your skills. It's also helpful if you're doing it because you want to help others. Polycount has a long history of giving hard critiques and tons of helpful advice to people who are looking for it. We want to continue that because it strengthens the community and encourages people to make amazing art.

ATTENTION: RULE CHANGES INCOMING

After some discussion, it's been determined that changing the theme of this thing would be a good idea. Therefore, the rules have been updated to reflect this. There are important changes, so please read up.


Brief

Create a hero or boss character that would fit in the Warhammer Fantasy or Warhammer 40K universes and make it as awesome as possible.

There will be no entry threads, judging, prizes or winners. This is just for fun, but it will be structured like a normal contest.

Again: Do not make your own thread! Keep everything in this one!

Specs

- 20,000 triangles. All characters, weapons, mounts and effects such as flashy magic crap or bullet tracers must be, total, 20,000 triangles or less. This is a big number, but it doesn't mean you have to meet it; using less is always fine.

- 1 2048x2048 material. Any and all textures are allowed as long as you'd see them in a current-gen game on a character. Basically, if it isn't displacement, it's probably okay. Breaking up texture space is A-OK. For example, using a 2048x1024 for the main character, a 1024x1024 for his weapon and a 1024x1024 for his mount is fine.

- For the final image, any and all realtime effects are allowed as long as they would work in a modern game engine (UDK, Crysis, etc.)

- Your character MUST BE POSED for your final images, but how you do it is up to you. Rig it, pull verts around, whatever.

- Pedestals are optional and have no texture, shader or polygon count limits.

- You must post all your WIP shots in this thread. No starting your own thread, no last-minute stuff with finished characters that nobody saw WIP shots from.

Deliverables

- A final beauty shot larger than or equal to 1024x768 using the above restrictions.

- A construction shot larger than or equal to 1024x768 showing how your character was made. This can (and should) have wireframes, textures and multiple views.

Restrictions

- Mounts of any kind are allowed and encouraged. Mounts' polycounts and texture budgets cut into the overall budget.

- Characters must be recognizably from either the Warhammer Fantasy or Warhammer 40K universes, but this does not mean you are required to make a space marine or giant orc dude with a sword. Everybody has seen the Blood Angels and Ultramarines, so give the Eldar, Tau, orcs and orks, elves, dwarfs, tyranids and lizardmen some love, eh?

- Gore and nudity? The more the merrier. Keeping it tasteful would be cool, but not strictly necessary. Actual depictions of screwing should probably be kept to a minimum.

- Post all your work in this thread. Don't start your own thread. We don't want to clutter Pimping and Previews any more than it already is.

Soft Deadline

March 7th, 2011

If you don't finish your character by that date, we won't think any less of you. Well, actually we will, but we won't tell you to your face.

What are the Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40K universes?

...Warhammer [Fantasy] is notable for its "dark and gritty" background world, which features a culture similar in appearance to Renaissance Germany crossed with Tolkien's Middle-earth. Chaos is central to the setting, as the forces of Chaos are attempting unceasingly to tear the mortal world asunder. The world itself is populated with a variety of races such as humans, high elves, dark elves, wood elves, dwarfs, undead, orcs, lizardmen, ogres, and other creatures familiar to many fantasy/role-playing settings.

...Warhammer 40,000's space fantasy setting spans a vast fictional universe. Its various factions and races include the Imperium of Man (a decentralized, yet totalitarian, interstellar regime that, as of the main setting of the game—some 40,000 years from now—has ruled the vast majority of humanity for millennia), the Orks (similar to Warhammer Fantasy Orcs), and the Eldar (similar to Elves in Warhammer Fantasy Battle), among others

Relevant links
Species of 40K
Races and nations of Warhammer Fantasy

PS: Don't start your own thread. Post everything in here.
PPS: Seriously, though, DO NOT START YOUR OWN THREAD. Keep it here, unless you and a couple of other people are doing your own personal challenge completely unrelated to this one.

Yea I'm down I'm working on a environment right now so I might add that to this aswell. I am reading up on Shadowrun and it seems like Dues Ex meets Warcraft.

tnx for the thread swizzle
i'm in ! Now i'll have to decide if i'm going for sexy boobs or giant brute, would try a combination but i don't think those two will match ^^

second wiki:
http://wiki.dumpshock.com/index.php/Main_Page
Artist Portfolio:
http://markzug.com/

Hboybowen, those images aren't showing up. You may want to either turn them into links or rehost them with links to the originals.

Best of luck people! I would join, but I've only limited myself to two dimensions The woes of a draughtsman.

Originally Posted by Swizzle

Hboybowen, those images aren't showing up. You may want to either turn them into links or rehost them with links to the originals.

should be better?

Oh, Shit. Thumbs up for being Pro Active, I'm down Swizzle.

i'm in

I am fucking in.

"Joo keel my Fader...Prepare to dieee!"

I need to have a character done around that date anyway, so I might theme it around Shadowrun. Not really sure what to do but there isn't much that wouldn't fit the theme. Two birds with one lazy arse stone.

Related to Shadowrun, I made a low poly troll not that long ago.


Anyways, good luck to all. Will be nice seeing some more great work being posted up.

I guess I'll give this ago. I've been wanting to actually do more 3D stuff after going through a month of learning it everyday and burning out. This should be a good way for me to learn the basics in an interesting way!

Definitely joining this! YEEHAW!

I think I might be in for this. Love me some Shadowrun to death.

I'm definitely in on this. Tons of sweet ref to choose from. I found another link that has a decent number of images. http://www.wiredreflexes.com/sr/shad...lery/index.php

I'm in! I'm thinking I might do the Wild Hunt or a ghoul


But I'm not 100% sure... so much to choose from

I'm so in

Should everyone start their own thread, maybe in the Contests and Challenges sub forum?

Since this is completely unofficial, I don't think starting new threads is a good idea unless you're going to do something with a small group of people like the guys who inspired this did. I think it'd probably be best to keep everything in this thread so there isn't clutter in any of the forums.

Yeah yeah, I was just thinking It might get crowded.

Originally Posted by Swizzle

no individual threads

Nah we're keeping all the WIPs in this thread

*edit* nevermind Swizzle beat me to it

This sounds like a fun idea. Only RP themed thing I've ever dabbled with is more generic fantasy DnD varriants, models and entertainment wise.

I'll have a go!

edit* Actually, I have no time...

edit* Actually, I'll have a go. I'm more interested in the Warhammer theme and it is two months after all..! I don't think I'll go all the way to 20k polys, but I'll try to make something cool nonetheless.

It will be a Tau mech of some sort.

AWWW, hell. Haven't done any kind of challenge... or even any kind of low poly... since I almost finished my Dom War IV entry.

And this way my old character, Oni No Tsumaru (aka "Three Horn") will get a pic, finally!

Be prepared - for the motorcycle ridin' troll sumo wrestler physad!

Originally Posted by DKK

Yeah yeah, I was just thinking It might get crowded.

I know this thread's going to get real cluttered real quick, but I'd rather just have one thread that's cluttered than an entire section of clutter. Maybe if this gets Adam's blessing or something, people can make some threads in the contests subforum.






Speaking of clutter, let's start adding clutter, shall we?

The idea at the moment is to make a punky elf chick with a huge handgun not unlike Hellboy's. Expect thigh-high socks, miniskirts and tattoos. Oh, and less shitty concepts. Well, hopefully.


And here are a few of the refs I've been collecting: