Hi Polycounters,

Thought Id share a personal project I'm working on, speaks for itself I hope. As a way to learn ZB I thought Id combine a few of my favourite heroes into one character, specifically Briareos but mixed with a couple of other favorites of mine.

For those unfamiliar with Shirows work on 'Appleseed' -

more info- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appleseed_(manga)

[UPDATE 13.9.12]
[IMG]Quick polypaint to check out my scheme, I have desert and derelict urban in mind for the setting. C and C welcome[/IMG]

Took a break on blocking out to create an organic for the final composition -



Modeled and textured in ZB

I am sure it is just not yet finished, but the torso clothing is seriously low poly compared to the rest of the character. Overall, he feels a bit rigid, perhaps give some weight to those accessories on his torso and thighs. Is the groin supposed to come to such a sharp point? It looks a bit strange.

I think your idea of combining heroes is definitely interesting and unique though.

EDIT: Butterfly was added while I was writing. It looks quite good, I like the wing texture.

it looks like the "forehead" part blocks his vision, unlike the original design.

Thanks Seano'Connor. Dont worry about poly density, its all blocking in, I took the head a little further as I had a pretty clear idea what I wanted. You wont be seeing that crotch - just something to grab extracts from and draw masks and sketches onto.

Still a lot of decisions to make -



EDIT: Blaisoid: Book two Briareos has a rebuild and the forehead blocks his central sensor, although it is hinged to move out of the way and I suspect his central sensor isn't for vision anyhoo - but fear not there will be a lot of work done on the head to make things work.

Update - little more blocking in and roughing out more details -

A 'Lil' aside for a sumbission for upcoming comic series. It also serves as a practice ground for sculpting the two 'cubs' for Briareos.

'Lil' Tank Girl -

Back to Briareos and the final Pass - Heres the Low Poly BaseMesh of the 'Beowulf Mk II - Battle Rifle' A squat and hardy low maintenance Rail Weapon, powered from interchangeable Cells and/or External Generators.



Now to ZBrush with it.


C and C Welcome

Some mods to Basemesh, Longer barrel, tech inserts for readouts at sides of scope, monopod added and anumber of other small changes.

Added the Bipod and into ZB for the HPoly sculpt - not much time today but hope to get a good start over weekend -



C and C welcome.

it looks really cool, keep it up.

i actually started reading the manga few days ago cause that torso thing attached to him looks pretty intriguing. i assume it also appeared in original?

Thanks Blasoid, keeping it up muchly

The chest attachment will be a Segue/Papoose for one of the two 'cubs' / babies that Briareos is carrying, the other is on his back and is slightly larger - these two Segue 'Baby Carts' are self aware survival vehicles for when things get a bit 'difficult' out in the wilderness.

Glad I've sort of inspired you to read Appleseed, but you wont find the Baby Carts in their, there are some baby pods though and more in Shirows 'Dominion Tank Police', which is well worth getting imo, its light hearted stuff but fun and great ~Art.

Update coming soon.

[UPDATE]
Started the High Poly Sculpt of the 'BeoWulf II' Railgun, sculpting it in extended form for ease and hoping it all fits neatly together still when folded.



C and C welcome

Update - made some changes to the LP after a few test sculpts on various parts and learnt my lesson about corner edgeflow and T junctions in ZB the hard-ish way.



Crits and comments welcome.

[Update]
Enlarged Bipod and tested folded mode, added some cabling placeholders and some other general furniture.



C n C welcome

Pretty much finished with the factory shipped HP. A few things to tidy and add, mostly grip surfaces and hints at different materials then onto wear and tear.

Still need to add a Eye and Wrist Jacks and cable and the external power cables to link to Briareos.



C and C welcome

Nothing to say, it's just good imo ^^.

Thanks Texelion.

I think Ill call the HP done for now, primarily as it was just a way to test and bed in the new ZB and I want to get the LP done and textured while working up Briareos.

Ill be texturing it using tried methods as a factory perfect version first then using some different techniques to create the battered and weathered later.



C and C welcome

FYEAH Appleseed

Continue

Thank you for the encouragement Alismuffin

As a test of HP to LP workflow I thought Id make some Speedloader pouches, a simple object to test and rough polypaint to test workflow and pipeline. But Ive got a wee problem!

After doing some HP sculpting I decided to go back and change the UV's a little and now its giving me trouble.

-I thought I could just import it into div 1 of the already sculpted Speedloader subtool but it doesn't seem to like that.

-I tried copying UVs in ZB and pasting and again but NO GO.

-So I tried dividing it upto same divs and projecting the detail with many small tweaks of PBlue, Mean etc and I still find it unsatisfactory. Is there a science to Projection now ? does anyone have any suggestions on this or another method? Or should I just keep tweaking Projection and hope I can get there eventually?

TBH It was only a very fast sculpt to get something for testing the whole workflow so I'm not precious about the sculpt, in fact its pretty raw imo, but Id like to be able to get out of this fix if it occurs with other more complex sculpts later.

Suggestions please?

A quick screengrab of what I get when I import the New div 1 with new uvs into the old HP - any thoughts?

Hmm well you could use xNormal to bake normals since it only requires that you have UV's laid out for the LP

But I am sure it shouldn't do this when updating the basemesh though...

Thanks Alismuffin, I could and often do for comparrison but my chosen method is Max and cageing, but Im trying to reduce the number of steps and apps for the process. Besides Im intrigued as to whats occured here, there isnt even a seam on the front where the effect is most obvious, no layers, no even a morph target or masking, but its such a regular pattern that there must be some logical reason. The main reason for doing this was to use the ZB uv master to quickly output normals for testing.

Any suggestions?

Hmm how are you exporting and importing this. I have not tested it myself but perhaps if you use GoZ it might work?

Hi dis, thanks for dropping by I was imp/exp as obj with all the goodies, BUT dont worry, the problem has been solved after a good few hours of trying various ZB functions I just exported the HP div 1 to Max and copied the UVS over there and imported it back in as div 1 and everything is good. Thanks once again chap.