Edit:

My first render:



OP:

I'm working on my own version of Megaman as he would look in a 3D platformer. Images to follow. What I'm currently dealing with, and need advice for, is the UV layout. I'm not sure what I have is the most efficient layout and I'm looking for tips on how to make better use of the UV space. Here's the layout:

Megaman is a pretty symmetrical character, apart from the hand cannon. So as a first step maybe you could cut the symmetrical pieces in half and overlap them (and overlap the already separate symmetrical pieces).

^ that would cut your tex space in half. The small curved bits could just be mapped straight and you can pack those a lot tigher.

I leave all the small bits off to the side, pack the big ones in good and tight (leave some padding for mimaps to look good on low res), then put all the bits and pieces in the left over spaces.

With them in top left I get the impression you started with them, then 'made room' for everything else. Could be wrong though.

Originally Posted by Baddcog

^ that would cut your tex space in half. The small curved bits could just be mapped straight and you can pack those a lot tigher.

I leave all the small bits off to the side, pack the big ones in good and tight (leave some padding for mimaps to look good on low res), then put all the bits and pieces in the left over spaces.

With them in top left I get the impression you started with them, then 'made room' for everything else. Could be wrong though.

That's exactly what I did.

New image in OP.

I'm still interested in some critiques of this character.

It has been a while since your first post and it still doesn't seem you have implemented what these guys were talking about. You were asking about the UVs and I still think you could maximize texture space with what you have.

He is pretty symmetrical so cut everything in half. Straighten out the curved pieces and repack. Notice the negative space. And scale up to have a higher quality texture, or cut the texture size and impress with what low resolution you can texture at.

Yes you might have to retexture some things but he is pretty much just solid colors so I don't feel it would take you much time to redo it...

Aside from your UVs... you could get some reflections on the metal. Define materials a little more. Look at what gloss maps do and how you can use them to make his spandex look like spandex and the metal to look like metal and the skin to look more like skin.

Also study other work... http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/image...11/05/zero.jpg

Break down what makes his successful. Wear and tear on the armor. The believable skin tones... ect...

your head just seems to be a ball with the features painted on it, look into stylised heads and how they still have plane changes and form to the features(the astro boy film comes to mind http://www.blogcdn.com/blog.moviefon...boy-review.jpg)

I've seen many megamen in my times... but this one is by far the most accurate one!

Originally Posted by jeremiah_bigley

Also study other work... http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/image...11/05/zero.jpg

Break down what makes his successful. Wear and tear on the armor. The believable skin tones... ect...

Well, I'm trying to preserve the cartoon feel of the character.

Well, he's off model from that reference too. His head actually looks like its made of several components in that ref (i.e., eye socket, jaw bone, etc. Like it should look). Your head atm is just a sphere with ANIMMAAAAAAYYYYYY eyes textured on it. I would start this again for the most part, consider it a block out, and start with the head the next time.

And your proportions are way off too. They are nice in that ref, but yours are very off atm.

New UV map with mirrored vertices. I grouped the UVs by their base color so as not to make painting tedious or have accidental bleed over.



I also changed the proportions as well:

You've got some stretching at the top of your knee/calf armor. You really need to rework the head - the painted on face is not a good idea, especially since it's sharing a texture with the rest of the body, so animating the face with texture/UV swaps isn't ideal with this layout anyways. It's a bad idea regardless, but you're not even setting it up right.

You really ought to model some eyes and the mouth, but even if you're not going to do that, make his head have the jaw and facial structure the cartoon has.

MegaMan has minimal anatomy, and you seem to be avoiding that still. That's not going to teach you anything.

I think you need to work some subtle color variation into the texture - you might consider placing some lights in the scene, spreading his legs some so he's more "vitruvian man" style and then baking out a lightmap, then using that as a gradated mask to mix some cooler colors and deeper saturation into the shadow areas, and some warmer color and lighter saturation in the hot spots. Keep it subtle - paint color variation, not lighting, but it'll give him more "pop."

The specular hexagons look like shit and look really haphazard. Why are they on all the dark blue? What does that mean the material is? Why are his briefs and his armor the same material?

Also, you should model the seam between the foot and the shin for better animation - that way the shin/calf can be a solid piece, with the foot moving underneath it (also as a solid piece).

Originally Posted by Ghostscape

You've got some stretching at the top of your knee/calf armor. You really need to rework the head - the painted on face is not a good idea, especially since it's sharing a texture with the rest of the body, so animating the face with texture/UV swaps isn't ideal with this layout anyways. It's a bad idea regardless, but you're not even setting it up right.

You really ought to model some eyes and the mouth, but even if you're not going to do that, make his head have the jaw and facial structure the cartoon has.

MegaMan has minimal anatomy, and you seem to be avoiding that still. That's not going to teach you anything.

I think you need to work some subtle color variation into the texture - you might consider placing some lights in the scene, spreading his legs some so he's more "vitruvian man" style and then baking out a lightmap, then using that as a gradated mask to mix some cooler colors and deeper saturation into the shadow areas, and some warmer color and lighter saturation in the hot spots. Keep it subtle - paint color variation, not lighting, but it'll give him more "pop."

The specular hexagons look like shit and look really haphazard. Why are they on all the dark blue? What does that mean the material is? Why are his briefs and his armor the same material?

Also, you should model the seam between the foot and the shin for better animation - that way the shin/calf can be a solid piece, with the foot moving underneath it (also as a solid piece).

What am I getting wrong about the anatomy? What am I avoiding?

Lightmap is AO right?

I don't like the painted face either. I'm struggling with how to model his head and maintain the anime/manga feel.

I'll see what I can do about the legs.

I'm not really feeling the hexgrid stuff in the specular. It doesn't really make any sense and it makes things busy for no reason, so you're losing that classic cartoony feel.

Also, what Ghostscape said, twice.

Originally Posted by greevar

What am I getting wrong about the anatomy? What am I avoiding?

Lightmap is AO right?

I don't like the painted face either. I'm struggling with how to model his head and maintain the anime/manga feel.

I'll see what I can do about the legs.

The face.

Lightmap isn't AO, but rather a baked map of all the light hitting it. So you could place lights rather than just using AO. giving it a few lights above and one in front and back will give you some variation.

As for the anime style, look at other anime 3d games:
Here's Blue Dragon, which is anime as fuck

I'm working on the head first. I could use some advice on the face topology:

I love this blend of 2d and 3d. Flat shading really helps sell it.

That is pretty cool. Thanks for the inspiration PL.

I'm still looking for advice about the head. Is the topology right? I'm looking to keep the entire character at about 3000 triangles.

For facial animation you're going to want more edges around the mouth and more for the eyes.

As far as the facial structure, you're missing the jaw definition - you've still got functionally a sphere, whereas with the cheeks in both anime model examples plus the original drawing for megaman they have something of a inverted mushroom kind of look, with the lower half of the face bulging slightly to define the cheekbones.

Alright, do I need to cut more edge loops, do I need to get some orthographic reference, or both? I'm not sure how to proceed.