Hey guys, this is pretty much my first post on a forum like this ever so...let's get started. I'm in my final year of uni and for one of my modules I have to model a dinosaur, texture, rig it and get it running around in UDK. I finished the sculpt the other night and here it is. Please critique away, I get marked for taking your opinions on board!

I took some liberties with the design and took inspiration from other dinosaurs and animals like crocs. It's meant to be a pachycephalosaurus, or something from that family.

Made the tail longer, think it looks a bit better now.

I think you posted this on Game Artisians as well..

Did you sculpt in the muscles and bone protrusions first? usually thats a good practice to getting anatomy for any creature to look believable.

Showing some of the ribs (shape) along the skin would help understand its bone structure. I also feel like the thigh should be slanted a bit towards the tail to off set the weight of the entire body, kind of like what you did with the arm going towards the head.

I guess the over all impression im getting is that I want to see or feel like theres bone and muscle under those scales.

Just my opinion. Good luck with the sculpt!

Yeah, I've got this same thread on here, CGSociety and GameArtisans. Sorry for the spamming, but this project counts towards my degree and I receive marks for taking on board critique from professional forums such as this, so I needed the thread to have maximum exposure.

Thank you very much for replying to me. I didn't start with bones, I made a base mesh in max using ref images, then I started forming out the muscles. The reference images I've managed to gather aren't a great deal of help and this dino isn't particularly muscular.

I took a look to see what I could do though and tweaked it slightly. I shifted the rear leg back slightly, shaped out a bit of a rib cage and things like you said. I refined some of the creases etc. I think it looks better now. Thanks a lot for your observations

Going to get the thumbs up from my tutor tomorrow and start retopping and texturing this.
Just so you know the sort of images I was working from I've included them too.

This might be a better view of the torso/ribs.

What I mean by angle the leg towards the tail is seen in the picture, you only made the thigh a big wider. Since you cannot really go off of a physical in the flesh dinosaur, you have to find the right balance between eye pleasing imagery and physical properties seen in other animals. There is a bit of a pattern in how animals look and are constructed via bones, muscle and tissue.

I would really sell that muscle mass by giving it more contrast (depth and shape). The ribs dont need to be protruding as though its starving but it would make it look more interesting. The same thing can be done to other bone structures you think are below the skin...such as the spine and knee joints.

I would also recommend curving the tail a bit to make it look less...mechanical and or stiff. Just a little bit would add some life to it.

Of course this is just how I see it, so dont take my suggestions as something you absolutely have to do. At the end of the day its your art piece. =)

Oh I see, thank you for pointing that out. What you said made a lot of sense and I've been told it before but just forgot, thanks for reminding me I spoke to my tutor this morning and he agreed with what you've said. I getting some rib cage form in the torso and bulked up the legs a little. I gave the tail a bit of a curve to make it seem more natural. I just went over some of the muscles and tried to emphasise them a little more. I tilted the front of the body up a little too to balance the model.

I like the improvements I've made because it creates a more interesting model. I like the contrast between the muscular hind legs and the less built up torso and arms. I think this neutral pose looks more natural too, which should make rigging easier.

Thank you very much for taking time to do a paint over and reply to my posts, it's very much appreciated.

I've started painting and I'm fairly happy with what I have so far. Just got a little stuck. I can't see what I can add to it or how to make it more interesting. I should probably get some variation in colours in there and some blends etc. Not 100% satisfied with how it looks so far - I know it can be better! Any suggestions or tips/hints would be massively appreciated. Maybe I've been staring at it too long -_-

Done some more painting, it's coming along I think, nearly there now. Retop and unwrap soon

Cool so far. You mentioned that he will be running around in UDK. One thing to worry about is that your polypaint result 'won't' look the same in UDK unless you have some amazing shader.

I would advise testing a projection and testing in engine before doing anything else.

Although like you said time to start unwrapping would mean you haven't tested a projection. What if it doesn't project?

I try not to be mean honest :P but it's always a great idea to test these things early as possible so that you know your workflow does work.

I'm sure projection will be fine touch wood and look forward to seeing him running around :P

Also, as for the polypaint you could try put some dark spots on him like one of those conceptual images! The red on his face may be a bit too harsh in red! you could probably crank the red down on your layer.

Thanks a lot, you raise really good points darth. I got a bit swept up in painting that I sort of forgot the overall goal. I will retop and unwrap ASAP and get it in engine to see how it looks, then crack on with making the other maps and rigging etc.

I wanted the head to sort of look like a helmet, hence the extreme red round the eyes. I wanted it to look like a visor from head-on as this dino bashes its skull against others. I'll have to test it though, I know UDK tends to prefer desaturated textures. Will keep posting, thanks again

If you enjoy painting in 3D space (like me) I recommend trying 3D coat. You can paint onto your game mesh with full layers and you can export the layers as a PSD which works nice with photoshop.

I like it because it allows you to run DX mode and preview normal and specular maps as you paint.

Also! It has some neat retop tools. I've tried the auto retop tool and it works really well with very little clean up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEnwxnNMPk4

Yeah I've seen 3D coat before, it looks really cool. Gonna have to scrape together some cash before I get hold of it, and it's a little too late in the game to learn a new program to get all my projects done, but definitely something to look at after. Thanks for your input

I finished the retop and did a super quick unwrap in zbrush and then a quick projection in MAX to see how the normals are looking in UDK. Not too bad. Gotta question though, what would be the best way to unwrap the model. And how do I avoid bad seams like the ones shown in the images. Is there a way to boost the strength of the normal map in UDK so it looks a little deeper?

The paint over shows my proposed unwrap, separating the limbs and unwrapping them and the body. Not sure if this is the best way. I included the UV Master unwrap and the normal map I made just to show what I was working with. Cheers.

I would suggest checking out your smoothing groups and if that doesn't resolve the issue look at the afflicted areas and check to see if the vertices are even welded, what I usually do is grab a vertex and then pull it out a bit to see if its connected.
Sometimes double-sided faces are the culprit if all else fails, I tend to get a lot of those if I extrude an edge improperly.

Thanks for your reply I went over the mesh, checked there was no open faces, or floating verts. Made sure it was all smooth group 1, then made sure I had the right map parameter checked in UDK and the seams look like they've been fixed. So, just gonna optimise the unwrap, do the last little bits, then finish off the diffuse, get the spec done and get some rigging on the go. Here's how it's looking in engine now.

please tell me your testing that as a skeletal mesh...

It's just a static mesh. I only wanted to see how the normal map would look in engine. I tried importing it again as a skeletal mesh but it failed. The dino isn't rigged yet.

The images before were just a quick unwrap using UV Master just to get an idea of what things looked like. I've just finished the retop fully, optimised the UVs and I dropped it in engine. Run in to a small problem in that the pivot isn't in the centre of the model. I'm absolutely certain and have done it multiple times to be safe that the pivot is centred to the model in max so I can't work out why it's not in the centre in UDK

I probably wouldn't be too worried if it was in engine just for renders but I've got to rig and animate now and I think this off-centre pivot may become problematic. Hopefully the solution is simple enough, does anyone have any ideas what's wrong please?

Sorted. It was to do with the scene settings in MAX. Just reset all. Job's a goujon.

My point about the stat/skeletal mesh issue was that UDK lights statics and skeletals very differently and you have to set your texture up differently.

To test your dino in engine, stick a single bone in the scene, weight the entire mesh to it, export to fbx, import as skeletal mesh.

Unfinished texture. Single bone weighted to entire model, skeletal mesh in UDK. Diffuse and Normal maps applied. Gonna finish the diffuse, work on the spec and gloss. Then finish the rig I've started and animate...

The unwrap seams you suggest are fine!

I would advise not using the default day time/night time stuff that UDK give you as your stuff will look really washed out. I learnt the hard way.

Also, nice hotkey. "Shift+N to select none" as this dino is bluuue

Unwrap done, just finalising textures. I'll probably use the jungle map for some beauty shots because it seems really fitting. The dino is only selected to show the pivot is off centre, but I sorted that. Still, a useful hotkey nonetheless that I didn't know of - thanks!

Bugger, I didn't notice the pivot point! make sure it's at the bottom centre of your mesh!