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Gladitorial Fighitng Game Character

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polycounter lvl 9
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AlexKola polycounter lvl 9
Current Progress

AlexKola-Combatant-InitialBake.jpg

Accidentally erased the original post when updating progress. Regardless you can see how far it's come from the post below, which is a long way! Thanks PC

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  • Jigsaw
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    Jigsaw polycounter lvl 12
    Looks pretty good! The arms look a bit stumpy but it may just be the angle/perspective throwing things off a bit. The overall anatomy looks good as far as I can tell.

    I like the concept, the design of the armour looks really cool. Looking forward to seeing more designs!
  • AlexKola
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    AlexKola polycounter lvl 9
    Hey, Thanks for the comment Jigs. The arms are bent at the elbows a bit. I've never modeled a character in this relaxed, palms forward T pose before so I've been playing with them a lot trying to get them to look right. After work I'll post some more angles maybe pull some shapes around.
  • Clark Coots
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    Clark Coots polycounter lvl 12
    i like the muscle style you got going on, lots of nice planar breaks.
  • AlexKola
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    AlexKola polycounter lvl 9
    Sharpened up the legs, Let me know if maybe it's getting too planar. Also I added some orthos to better judge the proportions.

    Front.jpg

    Side.jpg

    Top.jpg

    Portrait.jpg
  • KIDFaiz
    I diggin' your style, bro.
  • butt_sahib
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    butt_sahib polycounter lvl 11
    Yeah its looking great!


    However, you need to be consistant with your hard edge:soft edge ratio in all areas. Maybe you havent gotten to it yet, but those fingers and toes need flattening!
    Also, the face has a facet contour that feels different from the rest of the body. While the body follows the contour of the muscles, the face doesnt. I personlly like the flats on the face :)

    Good luck! Wish the design were stronger though. Wouldve been alot more fun for you and rewarding aswell!
  • acitone
    What software do you use? Nice work.
  • AlexKola
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    AlexKola polycounter lvl 9
    I agree b_s some places feel a lot more planar than others. I want to keep some of the smooth round shapes (as in the butt) but yeah I think the extremities are feeling a little off stylistically. I'll work on it! ;)


    Thanks acitone, I have been working only in zbrush so far using dyna mesh to sculpt which has been great. I would like to use the new Qremesher in 4r4 to fix the awful dyna mesh flow, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

    Every one is telling me to use topo gun so I think I'll give it a try when it's time to make the game mesh, but I usually just re-topologize within zbrush as well.
  • acitone
    Nice. I'm new to all this :) I find ZBrush to be inredible but unfortunately it doesn't run well for me - when I zoom in and begin to pan the view the framerate is considerably lowered plus - I think ZBrush is best when used with a tablet, which I'm guessing is the method you use?
  • AlexKola
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    AlexKola polycounter lvl 9
    Hey found some time to complete what will be the base character over which I plan to make varied armour styles.

    BaseModelSculptA.jpg

    BaseModelSculptB.jpg

    BaseModelSculptC.jpg
  • Stoop_Kid
    Sweet! I love your style and I'm digging the clothes... Keep it up, I wanna see this complete! :D
  • Natland
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    Natland polycounter lvl 9
    Good job babe! His underwear look less like a diaper now! <3
  • AlexKola
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    AlexKola polycounter lvl 9
    Thanks Stoop Will do.

    Lol Yeah Nat, the line between gladitorial loin cloth and diaper is thin and irregular, I'm doin my best. :D
  • woogity
    Hey man, its looking good!

    just wanted to reiterate what butt_sahib said earlier, if you look at the size and frequency of the detail in the body compared to the face the planar style you are working on here isn't consistent. I think the characters face could really benefit from having the same level of detail as the body in terms of the amount of musculature and from present vs the planar styling. Right now I am really digging the body but the head just seems too simple to fit with it. Hope it helps, you have some very interesting base work going on here.


    -Woog
  • Fomori
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    Fomori polycounter lvl 12
    I agree with woog. I think you especially need more detail around the eyes. but if this is a starting point/base mesh for other characters then I guess it makes sense not to inject too much "character" into the face yet anyway. Loving the look of this so far though. Very cool.
  • AlexKola
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    AlexKola polycounter lvl 9
    Yeah, I think it's a fair critique. While I really like the face that is there, and was going for kind of a G1 transformer face from the get go, I do think it's worth exploring and taking it further since a number of people have mentioned this. Thanks guys.
  • LRoy
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    LRoy polycounter lvl 10
    Some of the face planes are a little off. I agree that you oversimplified it a bit. It stands out more since the clothing had a lot going on. Maybe something like this would work better.

    http://philippefaraut.com/store/reference-casts/planes-of-the-face.html

    http://philippefaraut.com/store/reference-casts/male-planes-head.html
  • AlexKola
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    AlexKola polycounter lvl 9
    The First piece of armour is 95 percent in there. I'd still like to add some torn cloth and etch in the designs that were in the concept. Also, I made new hand wraps that match the wrapping at the shoulder because I thought they should be consistent and I liked the new rougher looking ones better. AND I took the detailing of the face a little further as that was a pretty consistent critique.

    AlexKola+Overall.jpg

    AlexKola+Back.jpg

    AlexKola+CloseUp.jpg
  • garriola83
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    garriola83 greentooth
    Have you figured out what kind of gladiator he is? There are different types, you know. Also, is the body just a base mesh for other gladiators? The angular style and the armor seems to be, imho, not going in the same style or theme. Good luck.
  • AlexKola
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    AlexKola polycounter lvl 9
    I'm not aiming to recreate a specific type of gladiator from x point in history. It's more Gladiator inspired fantasy.

    The game that I intend to prototype with this guy focuses on building a warrior as opposed to selecting from a roster of characters. So, I wouldn't call it a base mesh, but If I were to make body variations down the road I would certainly work from here to ensure sharing animation is as effortless as possible. I haven't elaborated too much on the idea yet because I've really only just started.

    You could be on to something with the armour and body styles. Maybe the leather rounds off too often? Hopefully more feedback rolls in. Thanks.
  • Jigsaw
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    Jigsaw polycounter lvl 12
    Personally I think the armour and the body work together just fine, but I completely agree they're not a perfect match. Maybe it's slightly exaggerated/stylized in terms of how thick certain parts are, but it doesn't seem like the armour would look all that out of place on a more realistic looking body.

    Simply put, the defining characteristic of the character's physique is that certain parts that you would expect to be round or smooth on a real person is chiselled and angular on your model, and I don't think that quality is reflected in the armour. Maybe it comes down to how there's so much of his body and so little of the armour, I dunno, but I don't think it's unfair to say the style isn't entirely consistent.

    Like I said though, it's not something that bothers me. You should probably try to keep it in mind if/when you get around to equipment with more clothing and big fabric folds and whatnot though. Overall I think the dude looks great. I like the changes you made to the face, I think they bring it much closer to the look of the body.
  • AlexCatMasterSupreme
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    AlexCatMasterSupreme interpolator
    I fucking love this style.
  • AlexKola
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    AlexKola polycounter lvl 9
    Hi again, It's been a little while but I realized I had to go back and tweak a few things. Most importantly, when I started adding the shin guards I noticed the Thighs were looking off and that large thigh muscle on the inside of the knee was too high up and looked odd sticking out of the knee wraps.

    I got rid of the thin hair layer and just gave him some stubble up there.

    The Paldron was lacking something so I decided to age it and incorporate some more metal accents into the design.

    So he's nearly done, just thought I'd post him at this stage before I add the finishing touches to the boots in the form of damage and riveted straps.

    AlexKolaTheCombatant.jpg
  • Natland
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    Natland polycounter lvl 9
    Looking good, what kind of hair do you plan on giving him now that you are farther along?
  • AlexKola
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    AlexKola polycounter lvl 9
    I think I'm going to go with a Statham-esque stubble hairdo.
  • AlexKola
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    AlexKola polycounter lvl 9
    I never know what to say, anyway here's the final sculpt...

    AlexKolaFullCombatant.jpg

    AlexKolaCombatantBoots.jpg

    AlexKolaCombatantBust.jpg

    AlexKolaCombatantPauldron.jpg

    Hope everyone likes it so I can confidently move on to texturing. Thanks for having a look.
  • Natland
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    Natland polycounter lvl 9
    Looks great! Can't wait to see more!
  • AlexKola
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    AlexKola polycounter lvl 9
    So as per Nats suggestion I revisited the sculpt of the face, which really has come a long way since the first post. I cringe a little when I look back on it now lol. Thanks everyone. Anyway, I've started painting the diffuse in zbrush and here's where I'm at so far.

    PaintingProgressAlexKola.jpg
  • TorQue[MoD]
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    TorQue[MoD] polycounter lvl 19
    He reminds me of Jason Statham. Love the hand painted look of the texture. Much nicer than if you had just photo sourced it. Great job so far!
  • Tobbo
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    Tobbo polycounter lvl 11
    His pose looks like he's saying, "Are you not entertained!?" Haha, okay maybe not but, he's looking good. Keep it up.
  • AlexKola
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    AlexKola polycounter lvl 9
    TheCombatantAlexKola.gif

    Base character is pretty much painted. I've been painting in Zbrush on the hi res. Still some tweakages but not much. Getting started on painting the first armor set right away.
  • LRoy
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    LRoy polycounter lvl 10
    good stuff. now get some eyes in there. :)
  • Clark Coots
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    Clark Coots polycounter lvl 12
    hey nice paint! I remember liking the sculpt of this character a while back, glad to see you're still working on it. one thing you might consider is breaking symmetry on his torso. nice work!

    Also greetings from Vancouver! I'm currently at VFS.
  • butt_sahib
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    butt_sahib polycounter lvl 11
    Looks purdy!

    Crits:
    - I think the texture should be just a little less saturated
    - A little faked SSS never hurt anyone ;)
    - Even if you think that a trimmed haircut suits your character, id advise against it. its usually seen as an excuse not to get into hair and alphas in general. As a portfolio piece or a practise piece, the aim is to show off/learn as much as you can with each project. Id recommend going in and giving him a conan type hair or some russell crowe from gladiator hairdo. That way youll learn hair/alpha etc in the end aswell.
    - Photoref or diffuse only? why not both? Maybe youve got it plannned but i jjust thought i should have my say :p i think you could use both. photorefs can be helpful even if your doing a 100% handpaint only. Especially for inorganic textures like a leather overlay for those trunks
    - Looking for blood and gore man...dont have him so clean. Id prefer a battle worn gladiator to a clean one any day of the week. Even if you didnt give him deep skin wounds etc (which i think you shouldve), put some blood on the diffuse.
  • D4V1DC
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    D4V1DC polycounter lvl 18
    butt_sahib wrote: »
    Looks purdy!

    Crits:
    - I think the texture should be just a little less saturated
    - A little faked SSS never hurt anyone ;)
    - Even if you think that a trimmed haircut suits your character, id advise against it. its usually seen as an excuse not to get into hair and alphas in general. As a portfolio piece or a practise piece, the aim is to show off/learn as much as you can with each project. Id recommend going in and giving him a conan type hair or some russell crowe from gladiator hairdo. That way youll learn hair/alpha etc in the end aswell.
    - Photoref or diffuse only? why not both? Maybe youve got it plannned but i jjust thought i should have my say :p i think you could use both. photorefs can be helpful even if your doing a 100% handpaint only. Especially for inorganic textures like a leather overlay for those trunks
    - Looking for blood and gore man...dont have him so clean. Id prefer a battle worn gladiator to a clean one any day of the week. Even if you didnt give him deep skin wounds etc (which i think you shouldve), put some blood on the diffuse.

    Agree with this ^ nice piece over all.
    This adopted style is always a winner.:thumbup: Can't wait to see the final results.
  • AlexKola
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    AlexKola polycounter lvl 9
    Here's another update. The paldron is all done then moving on to the boots.

    Thanks for all the ideas and crits. I'll definitely do a color correction pass after the baking, but since I'm Polypainting the dif there's not a lot I can do at the moment, unless there is some color correction functionality in Zbrush that I'm not aware of. If anyone knows of a good tutorial please pass it on.

    This character will definitely be a 100% painted only diffuse so I don't plan to blend any photos into the textures.

    I agree with the blood and gore, I think I'll add some staining in some areas but I want to avoid major damage like scars and splatters because I'd like to incorporate that sort of thing dynamically in the eventual game.

    About the haircut. I don't plan to change it at the moment. While I will definitely include this guy in my portfolio, I like where I'm at with Ironclad Games and I'm not working on this piece to find a job. So it's not a big concern if it looks like I'm dodging hair or something. The intent is to create a character that can be built upon and customized for a side project. That said extra hairdo's would make sense later on.

    AlexKolaPaldron.jpg

    At Lroy's Suggestion I painted some eyes on as well.

    AlexKolaWEyes.jpg

    Going forward, I think I'm going to stay with the blank ninja turtle eyes because I don't think eye ball animations will add much to the final project. I believe that head gestures will read well enough for targeting. So a bit of a time saver and I like the look.
  • AlexKola
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    AlexKola polycounter lvl 9
    The eye's do look better shaded tho. hrmm..
    shaded.jpg
  • AlexKola
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    AlexKola polycounter lvl 9
    Ok so the diffuse is polypainted for the base and first couple of armor deals. Finally.

    The+CombatantFlatAlexKola.jpg

    CloseUpsFlatAlexKola.jpg

    I'm going to actually start baking something now, actually looking forward to it.
    I'm really comfortable with zbrush retopo but Netland really thinks I should use Topo gun. Does 3D coat have a retopo? It's probably a good opportunity to learn something new.
  • Fomori
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    Fomori polycounter lvl 12
    I like the painting job on his armor. Very nice. Was that all with Polypaint?
    And did your friend say why Topogun is better than Zbrush for retopo? I've tried both and not sure if one is better than the other....
  • MGM
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    MGM polycounter lvl 12
  • Ravanna
    i'm blown away by your sculpting and ability to colour the armour, this is eye candy my friend.
  • harricool
    skin tone looks better than ur turntable one..His abs in turntable reminded me of giant Gonzales in WWF
  • AlexKola
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    AlexKola polycounter lvl 9
    Giant Gonzalez lol. I remember that guy. Yeah spandex Abs lol.

    So I wanted to do one more turn around before I start retopoing. I composited a few mat caps and the polypaint in after efects. took me forever to figure out how to mask in AE. lol sheez

    I tried like hell to get a depth pass out of zbrush with turntable plus but it's bugged out in 4r4. I also tried just stopping the turntable and rendering zdepth but I couldn't get anything to work and it was like 1 am so I quit. IF ANYONE KNOWS HOW TO GET A TURNTABLE ZDEPTH OUT OF ZBRUSH 4R4 or R5 PLS LET ME KNOW! It's killing me. yeah that would make my day.

    TheCombatantAlexKolaLong.gif
  • AlexKola
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    AlexKola polycounter lvl 9
    Fomori wrote: »
    I like the painting job on his armor. Very nice. Was that all with Polypaint?
    And did your friend say why Topogun is better than Zbrush for retopo? I've tried both and not sure if one is better than the other....

    Thx, yeah I have been using polypaint. I had to make a color picker hotkey to really make it worth it but it still took a few seasons of breaking bad to get it done lol.

    I hear topogun allows you to insert edge loops and such which sounds nice but I'm pretty comfortable retopoing in Zbrush. Should probably step out of my comfort zone and learn something new tho. :/
  • AlexKola
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    AlexKola polycounter lvl 9
    Here are the results of the baking process, I was pretty happy that I retained all of the detail, and by polypainting there was almost zero cleanup.

    As I look back now I feel like I should probably reduce the facial topology a little bit because I'm just not sure it's 100 percent optimized, but before I do that I think I'll have a look at Street Fighter V's facial topology since I'd really like to match their range in motion in the face.

    AlexKola-Combatant-InitialBake.jpg
  • DashXero
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    DashXero polycounter lvl 11
    SFIV's characters have A TON of geometry in the face. More than you'd probably initially think... But when you consider that they each have to take a Metsu Shoryuken (or get punched in the face by Dan) it kind of makes sense considering the amount of facial deformation required to really give those hits to the face some "Ooomph!"

    Depending on whether you'll be able to see this guy's facial reactions, and how close the camera gets, you may want to keep what you've got.
  • AlexKola
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    AlexKola polycounter lvl 9
    DashXero wrote: »
    SFIV's characters have A TON of geometry in the face. More than you'd probably initially think... But when you consider that they each have to take a Metsu Shoryuken (or get punched in the face by Dan) it kind of makes sense considering the amount of facial deformation required to really give those hits to the face some "Ooomph!"

    Depending on whether you'll be able to see this guy's facial reactions, and how close the camera gets, you may want to keep what you've got.

    I don't suppose you've come across a skinned model in your travels? I'd love to check out their bone count and bone placement specifically in the face. :poly121:

    Ultimately I'd like to cut from default camera angle into a more cinematic close up shot during some of the more powerful slams, since there can be no player input during the animation anyway.
  • DashXero
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    DashXero polycounter lvl 11
    AlexKola wrote: »
    I don't suppose you've come across a skinned model in your travels? I'd love to check out their bone count and bone placement specifically in the face. :poly121:

    Ultimately I'd like to cut from default camera angle into a more cinematic close up shot during some of the more powerful slams, since there can be no player input during the animation anyway.

    It's not that tough to find. Super Street Fighter IV: AE for the PC has had a pretty active modding community (most of what I've seen is reskins). I know that on their community wiki (look for Street Fighter 4 mods (or use This link))They have a certain tool that will allow you to take a look at the models, wireframes and bone placement... Provided you have the SFIV or SSFIV:AE for the PC... To say the least, it was very informative, and I'm hoping to use a few of the tricks I gleaned on some of my own work.

    Hope this helps.

    EDIT: The specific tool that you're looking for (I forgot the name - which is why I was so vague) is the piecemonteeSF4explorer.
  • DWalker
    The arm covering on actual gladiators covered the entire arm, sometimes including the hand, and often included a rather elaborate plate over the shoulder to protect the neck.

    Leg coverings were also minimal, typically leather greaves or wrapped cloth, and were sometimes heavier on one leg (typically the off-hand leg that would be closer to the opponent.) Keep in mind that gladiators weren't marching for miles in these outfits - bare feet on the sand floors gave better traction (and thus better survivability) than a solid leather boot.

    retiarii.jpg
    Retiarius (trident & net) versus murmillo (shield & sword) pictured. Romans had favorite pairings, often featuring an agile opponent versus a heavily armored one. The armor was also almost as decorative as functional, representing enemies defeated by Roman armies.
  • Charlie23
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    Charlie23 polycounter lvl 10
    This character is very well done! Love the style of the anatomy and the extremely well crafted armor/clothing pieces. GOOD STUFFFFF!
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