Portfolio character

BrontoThunder · Jul 2011

Current progress:

Hey guys,

I'm working on a character since my portfolio is in need of a big overhaul.

I've been working on this sculpt on and off for the past couple of days and I'm at the point where I'm thinking it's done which I believed was a good time to post it onto Polycount and get told otherwise so please, let me know what you think.

All advice and criticism is welcomed and encouraged

jmt · Jul 2011

Pretty cool. What is it supposed to be, an alien?

The area at the base of the neck where the sternoceidomastoid muscles connect with the collar bone seems kind of strange. I don't think that the gap is supposed to be that big.

I know its supposed to be deformed, but I would make the elbow closer to the middle of his arms and shorten the torso.

Also, his pecs look quite square and have a big shadow at the bottom. I don't think the crease in the middle of his chest would show that much through that shirt.

BrontoThunder · Jul 2011

Thanks, the original concept was this, a quick sketch I did a few months back:

But I've strayed a fair amount from it since I just couldn't get his head working in 3D.

Yeah the neck was really troublesome for me, I'll have another go at it tomorrow after some sleep (in addition to adjusting the elbows). I'm definitely not happy with it.

Here's a render of him all nekkid to get a better idea of his anatomy:

Thanks for your critique!

BenStrasser · Jul 2011

Cool, has that creepy but friendly look to him...

Maybe add a little more definition to the spine? some boney lumps

BrontoThunder · Jul 2011

Just a little update taking jmt's advice into practice.
(Left is new)

@Ben - Thanks, I tried adding a few prominent vertebrae on his neck but it doesn't look right, I think it's mainly due to my lack of reference - I can't seem to find any images of bony necks.

BrontoThunder · Jul 2011

I think I'm going to call the high-poly done, that is unless anyone has some suggestions.

Oiban · Jul 2011

It looks good so far! Maybe the finguers could use some more volume, but it's nothing vrititval. And perhaps something noticeable at the front of the tshirt, like a big fold, put some of the thsirt under the pants. Just to make it more interesting. Anyway, it's looking really good, looking forward for the low and some textures! keep it up!

BrontoThunder · Jul 2011

Thanks Oiban.

I decided to take your advice about the shirt tuck and bring the belt in from the concept, I don't know why I didn't do that earlier.. I think it looks a lot better.

RAWTalent · Jul 2011

I love it so far, but because of the huge head, I think huge goofy feet and hands would be the icing on the cake.

sketch81 · Jul 2011

Looks great, well done.. I really like BenStrasser's idea of adding boney lumps to the spine, maybe you could accentuate it too add a more interesting spine. Thumbs up, I really digg the character!

BrontoThunder · Jul 2011

Bumpy spine!

BrontoThunder · Jul 2011

Low-poly is done! At least for now, I'm going to do a second pass tomorrow and see where I can make things better.

7500 tris as it is.

JGcount · Jul 2011

Looks to me like you could get rid of at least 1/3 of your polycount. Epsecially the lower part of the body has a very high density.

Tadao215 · Jul 2011

Hey, I like what you have so far although I'd have to agree with JGcount. I think the knees could be projected in your normal map rather than modeled out.

BrontoThunder · Jul 2011

Thanks guys, I did add a few more loops than necessary since I plan on submitting this into the Mixamo character contest which has a limit of 12,000 tris and also I want to make sure he deforms well.

However, for the sake of progressing and learning I'm going to go back and see if I can't knock off a couple of thousand tris from this guy. I think my main problem is not knowing when it's worth adding detail for the normal map, is there a rule of thumb to go by or does it change from model to model?

BrontoThunder · Aug 2011

Hello everyone, I moved to a new apartment and I had to wait a couple of weeks while they transferred my internet, I was able to get a bit of work done in the meantime:

I cut 1500 triangles from the count and baked the normals pretty well, there's a little bit of weirdness on the belt back that's about it.

I'm currently texturing, this is where I'm currently at but it's still very early days.

jmt · Aug 2011

Good job reducing the geo.

The costume reminds me of Dave Rapoza's metal monster illustrations:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v403/MrDelicious/Artwork/BobbyApp30.jpg

BrontoThunder · Aug 2011

Here's my current texture progress, I'd say I'm about 90% there, most of that is spec/gloss tweaking.

BrontoThunder · Aug 2011

Bumping this.

David-J · Aug 2011

Looking good. My only suggestion would be to add more detail and make the eyes more interesting. Right now they look solid yellow and that's it. Seems like you could do more with them.

Other than that can't wait to see your progress.

MainManiac · Aug 2011

will having clothes as a separate mesh on a character hurt animation at all? Just curious.

BrontoThunder · Aug 2011

@David-J - Thanks! Yeah the eyes and the boots are the areas that need the most texture work in my opinion. I keep experimenting with different eyes and just come back to these placeholders, I'll definitely keep working on them.

@frell - Honestly I'm not sure, I'm not very experienced with rigging or animation much more than just the fundamentals. I'm sure it will be fine for just posing him but in regards to full-on animation you'd have to ask someone else. I've already learnt a load of stuff that I can't wait to put into practice on my next project - I assume making the body/clothes one mesh will be another one of those things.

MainManiac · Aug 2011

for this retopologizing would have worked very well

Xaltar · Aug 2011

The top of the head on your low poly is looking a lil too low polly, You could probably get away with just dropping the 2 offending points a little to round out the top of the head a little better. If you don't mind a few extra polys I would add some extra loops to the top of the head to make it smoother.

BrontoThunder · Aug 2011

For all intents and purposes I'm done with this, I'm so ready to move onto something new.

Thanks to everyone who gave me advice in this thread, it's very appreciated.

Portfolio character

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