"Huantalien" WIP

[ahoward]

Hey guys, I'm having a hard time getting critique on other forums and I've been lurking here for a while now and have decided it is time to start posting =) (I am an Art Institute Senior student)

Here is the stages of my latest character, created for a class assignment. Looking for crits on the sculpt before I finish the sculpt up and move on to transferring maps and texturing.

The piece is based on a concept by Carlos Huante (looove his creatures):
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y235/raznny/BudAlien_Concept01.jpg

First attempt at ZSpheres:
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y235/raznny/01_ZSphereA.jpg


First Pass:
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y235/raznny/04_FirstPassSculpt.jpg

Second Pass:
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y235/raznny/05_SecondPassSculpt.jpg

Third Pass:
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y235/raznny/09_FinalSculptPreview.jpg

Fourth pass and posed for the assignment:
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y235/raznny/-2.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y235/raznny/-3.jpg

ZBrush Retopo:
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y235/raznny/huantalien01_full.jpg

Crits? Do you think I could have worked on secondary forms more before going into surface details?

I'd like to improve the sculpt a little more over the next day or so and then go ahead and work on the textures.

Thanks! I will try to keep some WIP's on this forum.

[dabu]

I would thicken up the area where his legs connect to the torso, feels a little slim in the hips.

Looking forward to seeing more.

Welcome!

[alsoknownasOTiS]

This is looking really cool!

I'd add a lil more meat to the top of his back...the concept seems to show a little more mass back there...

looking forward to seeing the textures

[Rushn]

Really nice Z brushwork. The character looks cool.

Just few thing.

1 The character look like its falling back, If the feet where more under the figure it would look solid.

2 Arm and leg anatomy is described with surface detail, but I dont feel how one muscle form fits or slides into another.
Because in Carlos Huante's illustrations the character's anatomy looks simple, and in the 3D model there are lots of detailed textures that I think are distracting.

[ahoward]

Hey guys, thanks for the feedback - I did make a few updates, massed him out a little more in the legs and finished the tertiary details. I may fatten him up more to do the "Elder" version later.

I then UV'd the thing and transferred the normal map. Here's a quick little preview render, I'd like to figure out how to do a good real time viewport render that simulates a game engine well. I think I found some info on how to do it in 3DSMax but not Maya. Anyway, here's the image, textures coming as I get more time in between classes:

http://gamestepper.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=20075&stc=1&d=1239086865

[WipEout]

You can use xNormal I think, but that's not in Maya's viewport. If you are using an nVidia gfx card, 8500 or better, check out Brice Vandemoortele's cgfx viewport shader (http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=49920)-- it has simple slots for lights, diffuse, normal, spec, bump, emissive, parallax... a whole bunch of different shaders all within one cgfx shader.

[rburke]

yeah the cgfx shader can give good results but nothing like a game engine, even max is sort of poor at this compared to a game engine. You can display normal spec and diffuse in maya viewport though with high quality, granted you have a new enough graphics card. The only issues with that cgfx shader is you need to use all the texture inputs in order to view it, so if you did not make a spec map youd see nothing. But you can also make your own cgfx shaders using "mental mill"; actually a classmate will be giving a demo on that tonight.
And if you had issues displaying the cgfx shader but you are sure you have good enough hardware and have enabled the plug-in, then youd need to input this into you maya.env file

MAYA_ENABLE_HWR_CG_PROGRAMS = 1

Not sure why you have to do this sometimes but it forces maya to detect your graphics card as capable of displaying cg shaders in the viewport.

if your just looking for screen shots then use the unreal 3 engine it would take only a few hours to get comfortable enough to import this model, create the shader and add some lights to view it.

model is looking good though, reminds me of oddworld, Work on the pose a bit more, to make if feel more wieghted, like its leaning on the stick, Also what res is you normal map i think you could have a bit more skin details on some of the regions where the skin is not pulled tight.

[WipEout]

Really? I only have my diffuse plugged into it right now, and I can see my texture just fine. I know there was an issue with driver compatibility-- you might need to roll back your nVidia drivers to 175.80 (or something close to that). Before I did that, I had viewport issues. Afterword, everything is golden!

And as far as viewport vs game engine viewing, if it produces these kinds of results in viewport (http://www.mentalwarp.com/~brice/download/Fzero_PiorAndPeppi.jpg), then I'm happy. Would I base my portfolio pieces off them? Maybe not, but for quick viewing...


Aside from that, I'm digging the character so far. Definitely broaden the hips more, though, as it looks as if his pelvis has collapsed inward. I would just try to pivot that circular thing at the illiac crest area outward at it's bottom to indicate the illiac crest itself.

[ahoward]

I'm currently revisiting this character to prepare for my portfolio/reel class. I am going to model up the props / costume for the character. I've created the staff over the past couple days.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y235/raznny/StaffPreview01.jpg

Deliberating over how I will tackle the costume parts...

[dabu]

lets see it next to the guy for size and style reference

[ahoward]

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y235/raznny/StaffPreview02jpg.jpg

The character model is not the most current version anymore, but he was already posed..

[ahoward]

Here I have blocked out the clothing that the elder character wears. I also bulked him out to go for the look of the older, fatter elder character.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y235/raznny/Huantalien_Clothed01.jpg

I have decided to sculpt up the large fibrous head dress (The back portion), and the larger front "belt buckle" piece.

Everything else in the concept looked like thin woven strands that I could paint onto planes. I might paint height maps for these woven bits and get normals out of that, rather than attempting to sculpt them in ZBrush.

If anyone has differing suggestions for how I should go about doing the costume, I am all ears!!!!

[AdamT]

Those sculptures look awesome keep it up. I am very interested to see how the rest comes together and seeing them together

[Brandon Hillman]

I really like this model and I am interested in seeing how the elder character comes along.

[ahoward]

I started sculpting the head dress but I'm starting to get the feeling that ZBrushing the head dress might not have been the best decision. It's coming out looking kind of rubbery.

I'm thinking that I might be better off just painting up a plane (and maybe using a height map to create some normal detail).

I'd like to hear other people's opinions. Here's a shot of the head dress in ZBrush:

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y235/raznny/huantalien.jpg

Think I should keep at the sculpt, or drop it in favor of an alpha-plane?

[Amad]

With this much sculpting detail, I think it'd be too inconsistent to have an alpha plane in the headdress. I say you sculpt it!