Home Contests & Challenges Archives

[Dota 2] - Phantom Assassin - Death's Harbinger

polycounter lvl 8
Offline / Send Message
Caldria polycounter lvl 8
Ahoy, I've changed heroes quite a lot since the contest started, then settled on Lina - but last night had some cool ideas for Mortred, I hope.. Overall I like it more than what I had in mind for Lina. I'll post some concept's later today/tonight.

I'm going to try bring out the "death" part of Mortred's beliefs/duty etc. She's supposed to be the best of the phantom assassins according to her story so I thought she could look cool with a more death-like ceremonial outfit or something.

Replies

  • Caldria
    Offline / Send Message
    Caldria polycounter lvl 8
    Rough concept. Not entirely happy with the weapon yet, but it's getting there.

    MortredWIP01.jpg
  • danidem
    Offline / Send Message
    danidem polycounter lvl 11
  • Caldria
    Offline / Send Message
    Caldria polycounter lvl 8
    Thanks danidem, your Disruptor concept is look pretty sweet!

    Tiny update cus I felt like I should post something - the design is pretty finalized now (still wondering whether I should do a belt item or not)

    I will refine and colour it next (going to try bring in a little more of the lighter teal colours)

    MortredWIP02.jpg
  • DD-best-D
    Looking pretty good.

    The skulls are all really nice touch to making a great theme based set.

    A belt with a skull buckle might be a bit generic, but it is always something to consider.
  • Danglebob
    Offline / Send Message
    Danglebob polycounter lvl 15
    Those concepts are great. Great use of skulls on both the weapon and the cape. very nice shapes.
  • Caldria
    Offline / Send Message
    Caldria polycounter lvl 8
    @ DD-best-D - Thanks man, only issue is that the bladed buckle is part of her base model, if I added some kind of buckle it would have to be big enough to cover the default one.

    @ Screwonhed - thanks ^^

    Got in some colour, to show kinda what I'm planning - I think the concept is good enough to start on the modelling next, I didn't want to refine it too much, since I might add/change a couple things during the modelling process.

    MortredWIP03.jpg
  • gilesruscoe
    Offline / Send Message
    gilesruscoe polycounter lvl 10
    Awwwwww yeaaaa that cape is bad ass man
  • Nix
    Offline / Send Message
    Nix polycounter lvl 13
    Ooh I like it. Very darksiders-y, hehe.
  • Beezow
    Consider that she strikes with both sides of her weapon. I cant tell from your design if the bottom part is also made for striking.
  • Caldria
    Offline / Send Message
    Caldria polycounter lvl 8
    Ok, I'm not dead xD
    I haven't touched this until yesterday, finished the base model and started sculpting today.

    @ gilesruscoe - Thanks man :D
    @ Nix - Thanks, I do love the style the skulls had in darksiders.
    @ Beezow - Yea, thanks man - I went and watched a couple more games with PA in and I saw more of her attacks, I've adjusted the bottom blade to be more... "bladey"

    Early-ish WIP

    MortredWIP05.jpg
  • Spudnik
    Offline / Send Message
    Spudnik polycounter lvl 11
    That is one scary ass cape... stares right into your soul, man.
  • Caldria
    Offline / Send Message
    Caldria polycounter lvl 8
    @ Spudnik - hehe, that's a good thing I hope :P?
  • crazyone
    Offline / Send Message
    crazyone polycounter lvl 5
    reminds me the door from darksiders 2 in the word of dead xD
    love the idea with cape )
  • Caldria
    Offline / Send Message
    Caldria polycounter lvl 8
    @ crazyone - hehe, I haven't seen it yet, I'll keep a lookout. And thanks :)

    Little more progress.

    MortredWIP06.jpg
  • Caldria
    Offline / Send Message
    Caldria polycounter lvl 8
    I think the HP for the armour is done now, if anyone has any crit or suggestions - lay 'em on me. Weapon next.

    MortredWIP07.jpg
  • Arthur Ramazanov
    Offline / Send Message
    Arthur Ramazanov polycounter lvl 12
    Lookin great so far :)
  • danidem
    Offline / Send Message
    danidem polycounter lvl 11
    Looking really awesome man! Really like where this is going, I'm a fan of that cape. I wonder if there's a way to make it look "ethereal", like comming from the underworld!
  • Caldria
    Offline / Send Message
    Caldria polycounter lvl 8
    @ Arthur Ramazanov - Thanks!
    @ danidem - Thanks man, unfortunately she doesn't have alpha enabled so that limits it somewhat. But I do plan on having self illuminated glowy sections for sure!

    Weapon sculpt is done (I think) and the armour low poly is done too.

    WeaponWIP03.jpg
  • iRYO400
    i like it, so amazing concept
    "add to favorite"
  • Caldria
    Offline / Send Message
    Caldria polycounter lvl 8
    Hey man, thanks!

    Bakes for the cloak are done, just slapped on a base colour too.

    CloakTest.jpg
  • Klumpmeister
    Wow this is my favorite thus far.
  • Caldria
    Offline / Send Message
    Caldria polycounter lvl 8
    Thanks Klump! :D

    So I've almost finished the Cloak now, but the masks are not being nice to me. For some reason it feels like the Blue and Alpha channels on Mask 2 are not working correctly once imported.

    On the left is the result in Maya. the specular tint channel (Blue) seems to not be taking the colour, instead having the default white/gray specular. And the specular exponent channel (Alpha) doesn't seem to be tightening up the specular.

    Not really sure what I'm doing wrong here - and the masks seem to be working as expected in Maya, though that doesn't help me since the end result is the one that is wrong. Also, all the other channels are working as expected, both ingame and in maya.

    CloakIngameTest.jpg
  • D4V1DC
    Offline / Send Message
    D4V1DC polycounter lvl 18
    short version:
    Basically just trial and error as the rest of us are doing. :(

    Long version:
    Looks good in-game you just got to play around with the settings, they probably have additional elements to their shader just got to find a happy medium and I don't think just because maya renders things fine doesn't mean they will come out the same in DOTA because we don't have the Dota shader, your using the custom shader someone posted in the dota workshop thread?

    That's as close as we are going to get to the actual shader unless the SDK comes out and or they provide a render install such as marmoset but only using the 4 maps and shading to preview our work.

    That would be awesome on the fly updating while saving in photoshop, the possibilities of production would be endless but I think that would require them to part with their shader and they don't want to do that.
  • Caldria
    Offline / Send Message
    Caldria polycounter lvl 8
    Yeah, thanks man - I realise the maya result would not be identical to the ingame outcome, and yea, I'm using that custom dota 2 shader as it does have a good indication if the masks are at least working.

    Also, the specular tint channel is only black or white, and on the skull section I have it as white. It just doesnt seem to be taking the colour from the colour map and tinting the spec - not quite sure what more I could change there but I'm still going at it ofc.

    anyway, thanks man - hopefully I can sort it out soon.
  • MMKH
    Offline / Send Message
    MMKH polycounter lvl 11
    That cape looks really nice with the skull and glowing eyes. I tried something like that for my Pugna entry but it didn't work well with his animations lol. Keep up the good work. :)
  • Lennyagony
    Offline / Send Message
    Lennyagony polycounter lvl 14
    Im not 100% sure about this but try fiddling with the metalness mask, it may just be whats pulling the colour from your spec.

    Looks brilliant in game btw :thumbup:
  • Caldria
    Offline / Send Message
    Caldria polycounter lvl 8
    Thanks guys!

    After quite a few attempts to sort out the spec tint, it seems the previewer on the pedestal has some different shader or lighting setup compared to the ingame angles.

    Anyway, I reckon I'm just about done with this soon, wanna move on to other stuff : P

    Helmet, Shoulders, Cloak, Weapon - so far
    InGameProgress01.jpg
  • BrontoThunder
    Offline / Send Message
    BrontoThunder polycounter lvl 13
    That cape... that fucking cape.

    Beautiful set!
  • Caldria
    Offline / Send Message
    Caldria polycounter lvl 8
    Thanks man.

    Been working on a nice presentation pic while trying to figure out how to view all the armour pieces together ingame.

    Just using marmoset with the LoD0 models and the 1024 maps.

    Death%27s%20HarbingerBeautyShot01.jpg
  • Pina
    Offline / Send Message
    Pina polycounter lvl 5
    I can honestly say this is the best set for the Phantom Assassin on the contest. Congrats.

    As for presentation I suggest you go take a look at the final collections on the Steam Store. I did my cool pics for the store but when I finally saw them actually there I changed them all for slightly different versions due to the size and cropping that goes on automatically. Logo placement is also important since the store can cover that too :p
  • ACap
    Offline / Send Message
    ACap polycounter lvl 9
    Fantastic job, man. Agreed with Pina. Very good idea and execution.
  • naruSol
    Offline / Send Message
    naruSol polycounter lvl 18
    Only suggestion I could possibly come up with to improve this design is to grab some of that silver from the breastplate and belt buckle and work it in somewhere.
  • Lennyagony
    Offline / Send Message
    Lennyagony polycounter lvl 14
    Lennyagony wrote: »
    Im not 100% sure about this but try fiddling with the metalness mask, it may just be whats pulling the colour from your spec.

    Looks brilliant in game btw :thumbup:

    Just to add onto this, i had some similar issues last night and after some fiddling it looks like the alpha from mask2, the specular exponent, also has a pretty large effect on the specular color.
  • bounchfx
    freakin' awesome! The helm, cape, weapon, it's all great. Well done!
  • EtotheRic
    Offline / Send Message
    EtotheRic polycounter lvl 18
    Nice job, the cape and shoulders work really well together.
  • Caldria
    Offline / Send Message
    Caldria polycounter lvl 8
    Thanks so much guys, really appreciated.

    @naruSol - yeah I did originally try to get in some of that brighter silver on the blades of her weapon and somewhere on the shoulders, but a silver that bright just didn't seem to fit well with the overall tone of the set. To be honest I don't like that silver at all, even on her breastplate - it seems out of place imo, but thanks for the crit!

    @Lennyagony - thanks for trying to help man, gave me some ideas, unfortunately none seemed to work. I even sat in the google hangouts with a bunch of others and they couldn't understand either. I tried quite a bit of different approaches but none worked, it would seem PA just doesnt allow it or something.

    So I finally got the set submitted (I can finally move on to other stuff now xD)

    http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?edit=true&id=110605629

    I'm struggling to get the background image on the collection though, Clicking Edit Background Image and Video just refreshes the page : /

    DeathsHarbingerPresentation.jpg
    PreviewShots.jpg
    IngameShots.jpg
  • naruSol
    Offline / Send Message
    naruSol polycounter lvl 18
    Yeah. that breastplate/scale mail torso texture, like the default textures for a lot of other characters, is pretty out of sync with the rest of the design and kind of sticks out like a sore thumb. Just feels lazy. Hopefully they'll revisit it at some point in the future.
  • Clyptic
    Offline / Send Message
    Clyptic polycounter lvl 6
    Ya it's weird how they have it set up, Edit background image seems to do nothing. You have to click on "Edit Basic Collection Information", after making sure that page is correct "Save and Continue". The next page to come up will give you the option to upload a collection image.
    On another note, did you double up the poly in the cape to get it to show both sides? I have yet to figure out how they do it.
  • Caldria
    Offline / Send Message
    Caldria polycounter lvl 8
    Yeah thanks, got the background image in now, it really is weird how that works.

    And yeah the cloak is made up of two of the same meshes, each one's normals are facing in the opposite direction.
  • Lennyagony
    Offline / Send Message
    Lennyagony polycounter lvl 14
    Caldria wrote: »

    @Lennyagony - thanks for trying to help man, gave me some ideas, unfortunately none seemed to work. I even sat in the google hangouts with a bunch of others and they couldn't understand either. I tried quite a bit of different approaches but none worked, it would seem PA just doesnt allow it or something.


    Anytime mate, and you could be right about PA just not allowing it. I find the shader system, once you dig a little changes a fair bit from character to character, and each time i feel i know a trick or two it doesnt work on the next character.

    Amazing set as well, really love what you have done with this :thumbup:
  • Gareth_Thomas
    Great set! Is't cool to see another Capetonian in the mix.:D Nicely done.
  • Caldria
    Offline / Send Message
    Caldria polycounter lvl 8
    Thanks man! always awesome finding more SA polycounters.
Sign In or Register to comment.