Hi, I am being forced to upload this for a class!
Anyway, I needed to make a 3rd character for this class and I chose something from my childhood. This character has been with me for years. Almost lost in time, I revived him as a 3D character.

Note, he is missing his right eye on the model right now, and he is missing his mouth currently.

As part of the forced uploading, I was told to ask for critique.


Concept art:




Model Sheet:




3D Model

I finished the coloring and normals today.
I made the orbs have a self-illumination map does anyone know if they can also glow and/or become a light source? I don't know if that could be done with a map or not.

why are his legs like that? will he be doing that pose much when rigged? model in a relax kinda average pose close to where the model will be at when rigged most often

Originally Posted by JoeyB

I finished the coloring and normals today.
I made the orbs have a self-illumination map does anyone know if they can also glow and/or become a light source? I don't know if that could be done with a map or not.

What program are you using? I know two very simple ways in 3ds Max

Oh, I forgot to say I'm using 3ds Max, yes.

Originally Posted by Rhinokey

why are his legs like that? will he be doing that pose much when rigged? model in a relax kinda average pose close to where the model will be at when rigged most often

I was told by a teacher to do that......in a character class too. Huh...
His legs are spread at a 45 degree angle and the feet were relaxed a bit and facing down like I was told. So, I don't know what is wrong with it then.

For modelling humans its generally good to have the arms splayed slightly because its a kind of 'midpoint' between how far the arm would ever rotate and move.

For the legs this is not so necessary as there's not many times when someone's legs will be split more than 45*. For a dog like animal, even less so. modelling with the legs in a more natural (but relaxed) position will help you get the anatomy right. for example I think the front leg is a little high on the body - or at leas the chest sticks very far out underneath.

<edit> maybe I'm coming off too mean

Originally Posted by JoeyB

Oh, I forgot to say I'm using 3ds Max, yes.

Ok here's two ways:

METHOD 1
- Change the renderer to Mental Ray (hit F10 then go down to the very bottom rollout "Assign Renderer" and click the box with 3 dots, then change it from Default Scalene to Mental Ray)
- Create a new material and change the type to Architectural
- pick the color or map you want to use for the glowing parts and then find the spot where it says "Luminance cd/m2"
- Bump that up to a high number (the higher the number, the brighter the object and the more glow)

--> this method only makes t so the object makes a glow on other objects, it won't glow into blank space

METHOD 2
- create your material and one of the material controls is the Object ID. Change it to 1 (could be any number, 1 is just easy)
- Now In the top menu bar, click Rendering>Effects
- In the window that opens, there's a big blank box and next to it a button that says "Add" (click it)
- In the list, select Lens Effects (should be second one down)
- Now you'll see two boxes underneath. One is for the available effects, other is for effects you have added
- select Glow from the left list and click the arrow button pointing to the box on the right to add it to the scene
- Don't worry about the "Lens Effect Globals" rollout. In the next rollout "Glow Element," click the tab marked "Options"
- Under Image Sources, check the box next to Material ID (the number should be 1 like you set it in the material editor)
- You can then go back to the "Parameters" tab and change around the settings there to make the glow look how you want it



Hope this was useful. It's fairly simple, my explanations are just slightly long-winded (to put it lightly)

Assuming this animal is a dog or similar quadruped mammal, the structure of the front shoulders/legs is waaay off (see link below). You might want to rebuild that part. Also, as fearian noted above, there's no reason I can think of to model the legs sticking out like that.

http://walkingollie.files.wordpress....g_skeleton.jpg

--> this method only makes t so the object makes a glow on other objects, it won't glow into blank space

Put a Glare shader into the output slot. This will make any incandescent objects bloom. be carefull ramping the self illumination values up to high they can cause artifacts.

I think your tutor was talking about humans when they said about the 45% angle on the legs. Its good practice to model characters in mid poses so that when the deform the topology doesn't have to be stretched to far from neutral to meet its extremes. Im pretty sure arms are modeled at 45 to make sure the scapulas are in a relaxed position when modeling.

If your tutor has told you to do it this way though it might be a good idea to play along, its easy to get on their bad side telling them they are wrong and 'teh internetz sed so'

Originally Posted by r_fletch_r

--> this method only makes t so the object makes a glow on other objects, it won't glow into blank space

Put a Glare shader into the output slot. This will make any incandescent objects bloom.

Can you explain how to do that for me? I think an explanation would benefit the OP as well, since I believe we're both at the same skill level (do correct me if I'm wrong about that).

Thanks. I'll fix his legs and stuff later. It's already too late for now because I'm done with that class now.

Yeah, I thought the legs being out like that was kind of really weird. I had a model of wolf link from twilight princess and his legs are straight down. I don't have any other references for that so I guess I put them straight down.

Makes sense because quadrupeds have their legs built close to their bodies and can't stretch them out too too far. They are built to run.

It's actually quite astonishing to me that my teacher was wrong. What a kick in the teeth for him. I should tell him about this later.

About the way he's built. I had in my head that he had more of a muscular front end because he isn't all animal, he's a little bit anthro I guess I'd put it. And human males have bigger shoulders than hips so that's what train of thought went through my mind. I'll play with it later when I'm re-doing this one later.

Also, reading all the posts noticed there was an edit by Justin_Meisse. <_< Well, I'm glad I didn't read that today because that would just ruin my good day....