Final Post
So over the course of the
semester I set out to complete two character models which included
low and high poly models, textured and rendered out and put up onto
sketchfab. I did feel like this was a lot to take on but with 12
weeks to work on these projects I thought I would have been able to
complete them in time. Unfortunately I was only able to semi-complete
one model while the other model is still in the building phases. A
lot of what happened had to do with my inability to decide what
textures I wanted for the model and fixing small issues that made the
character feel incomplete. I tried for the last few weeks to try to
fix the issues but I am still working on it and having troubles
getting the tendon like structure that the original idea has. Once I
get what I want from Zbrush with the leg details and probably going
back on the original model and completely change the legs so they are
not so symmetrical and unrealistic.
This has to bring me to
my next model which did not get completed due to my time management
of working on this first model. I really shouldn't have started this
second model until I was completely done with the first character I
was doing. This is a bad habit and no one should do it, it gets you
focused on some other project and then when you come back to work on
it you have completely forgotten what was needed and waste time of
something that if done right could have saved me a lot of time during
the semester.
This is one of the reasons why my other model is so far
behind, but now that I have tried working on this model I am having
trouble with making a head in Maya and will be making a head in
Zbrush and export it out and quad draw over it to get it completed.
I still need to UV the model and then think about texturing and then
rendering out the model into sketchfab. I would like to get this done
before GDC comes so I have more on my portfolio and for 495 for
getting into a team for a 3D modeler.
What I would do for next
time is definitely right down a schedule to work on these projects at
a certain time and give about 2-3 hours per day on this and spread
out the work and not just try to cram it all into one. Also work on
my saving files and try not to save over files that I may have needed
and it is not just for this class I do it for a lot of them and it is
a terrible habit that I have been working on and have been getting
better but to keep doing that so I don't overwrite important files.
Progress Week 13
For this final week I was not able to complete the character but I will be continuing this over summer and trying to rig at least on of them to show off when GDC comes this August. I have been working on trying to get the head and the armor that is around is head made, With that being sad it has been hard for me to get the correct shape that I am looking to make the character fierce face structure. This will definitely be something I bring into Zbrush since this character also has hair under his helmet that comes down to his chest-piece.
I do think that the rest of the body is coming along well. I resized the shoulders and made them smaller because they were just to large for him but were easy to move around. I also fixed some edge loops that were going all over the place with mirroring the object a lot without having some proper geometry that is needed. However, the progress that I have made does how well it helped with the rest of the overall character shape.
When I am done this will be uploaded to my career page I have dedicated to only the best projects that I have done. I have added my first character and when I finish this hopefully soon once I get a head done. But I do think I might try just modeling his head in Zbrush since it is a bit more complicated and quad-draw over it in Maya again. That will probably be my next week project and once i get him modeled, UV'ed and then textured then I will try to rig him but only to crouch and move his arms and his head.
Progress Week 12
I have been working on the legs to finish up the character to what I think my best is without nitpicking it. I tried a bunch of different textures, alphas, and height maps to make the best out of the model I had. I think that this came out pretty well and I made I new model on sketchfab so people may see what the differences are from the last one and the final one.
I continued where I left off with my other character his evolution Diabormon is coming along, I do think I can finish this by the end of the semester but it would look rushed so what I don't finish will be completed over summer and when next semester starts I hope to come back to these models and rig them to move and walk around, so they could be used in games or test games mechanics with a cool model I made.
I think that both of these models would be fun just for enemies fighting against them either as bosses or have them be small heroes you control. I did keep these models lower than 12,000 faces so this could be used in a lot of different platforms and if you had more capacity if could be given more polys and given a higher resolution model.
________________________________________
Progress Week 11
For this week I continued working on my Digimon that I have decided to bring to life and put more realistic materials onto the character. I first had to go back and change to UV for the eyes I have yet to fix them something is covering the layers in Substance Painter but can't quite figure it out. I would like the eyes to be more offset and look outwards instead of facing directly at the camera. I also thought about using some non-linear deformers to give the front of his body and head a pose to slightly make the character look so straight and precise.
I also have been bringing the model into Zbrush and has become a lot easier to add the details that I want to the character like around the neck and legs. I have been trying to keep the poly limit around 10,000 faces but no more than 12,000 is my max I have set. However, when I do bring it into Zbrush I triangulate the model to make the high poly easier to deform properly.
Once I was able to get the high poly how I wanted, still working on fixing the new issue with my model having a material layer that covers the whole model, this is what I thought I wanted. I have been going back and forth trying to make the model more realistic and adding fine detail to where I think it fits best. Though this is not my final update for the character it is almost done and only a few things to change. Reposing the model so that it bends and having the eyes offset and rotated outwards more chameleon style eyes.
________________________________________
Progress Week 10
So for this week I went back and worked on my first model that I started the semester off with since a lot of students felt that it was still missing more to the character. So i went back and fixed the model so that it now transfers to Zbrush so that I may add more small details to the character around his arms and neck. I fit the complete character inside the one UV tile and color ID the model so that when I brought it into Substance Painter it has worked out fine and brings the details from the high poly.
This is kinda of what I want to do with the neck make it more vein life and looks more realistic since his skin is more elastic. I still need to fix the sharp edges around the neck and will probably go back and fix that on the original model. I would like to continue this style down the rest of the legs, add some details and scraps on the horn and spikes located on the characters body. I did think that going back and making this model something special and not so generic is what I want to be able to complete by next week to show everyone.
This is just a quick painter skin that I used with the high poly I tested with to make sure the normal maps matched when baked to the character. I would like to make this character realist or human like to step out of the shadow of the creation of the character and bring it to life with what I think would look good if this would have been created as a real monster. I do still need to find some more materials for the character due with the ones I have do not give enough detail or look I want to achieve.
________________________________________
Progress Week 9
This has been my reference when creating this model and it has been quiet challenging but I did feel like I made good progress this week. I have gotten most of the body complete and just need to finish the head and the shoulders and the spike fingers I would like to go back and rework those. I have had fun thinking of new ways to create this model and I am glad I chose this as my last project to work on.
Over the next week I plan to finish the model in Maya and bring it into Zbrush to add more details and when that is done probably quad draw the model again because some of the geometry is not how I would like it. I have not UV the model due to my decision to quad draw the model after the high poly is done. This is just a rough outline to get into Zbrush for better geometry.
I have started thinking about how I want this character to look and I want it to have humanoid skin with the off green yellow and some blue steel as the armor that protects this character from attacks. Lastly I will be using emmisives where his center core is and maybe even add a watch since he is the virus of time.
________________________________________
Progress Week 8
For this past little while I have been working on fixing some of the suggestions that other students had given me during my last time presenting. I did decide to just let this character stay in the realm of its 2D origins and stick with some of the decisions for the character I made early on. I chose a different type of texture and still left it off white so that it wasn't so bright on the eyes when viewing it.
I have also been working on my next model Diaboromon. This character has been some what difficult to do. I have been stuck trying to do both Zbrush Zspheres and a low poly to find which way was easier to create the outline for the character. But because this character is oddly shaped it has given me more trouble than I thought at first. I do feel good about the arms and hands so far. I still am working on the body and haven't started the head.
For what I want to get done is finishing the body and start the head and begin a high poly model to get the details that I wasn't able to get in my last model.
Progress Week 7
During this time I have been going through my model and adding all small details to his face, eyes and spikes to give them more realistic looks and to incorporate what I think this character would look like if he ever did make it out of the internet. Re arranging and changing uv's did really help making the model come out better and give the textures the needed space to fit properly on the model.
Now that I have this modeled pretty much finished, I can now bring it into marmoset to have it rendered out into some nice shots of the characters body and emmissive colors from his eyes. I do think I might change the color of the armor because it is a bit to white and plain for what I am imagining for the character. So trying to finish his last details has been my focus in finishing up this project so I can start on his next evolution when I return from break.
I do think that the next character will be more zbrush related since he's second form is more human like so being able to capture his legthy arms and legs but keeping his face human like will be a struggle for me. But this will give me more chances to work with characters and finalizing them to be able to be game ready.
________________________________________Progress Week 6
After taking advice from students and my professor I went back and reUV'ed the character to limit how many shells I had in the scene and limit the stretching of the textures. I did delete a few faces around the model and redid some of the arm sockets so they did not have extra edges and not merged vertices. I did also go back and recolor some of the faces to better portray the style of the character.
After uving the character I was able to down size textures maps and have everything fit onto 2 maps. Before I was using 3 but I readjusted the legs and fit them inside the body UV map. I think this will help with how big the model is when it is ready to upload to sketchfab.
I am almost finished with this model, I am not sure if I will be able to rig this character yet since I lack the knowledge how to connect joints and IKhandles to something with this many legs. Hopefully by the end of this semester once I rig a character for my final I should be able to attempt rigging and maybe animating this character to move around and transform.
________________________________________Progress Week 5
For this week I have been working on making my UV's hold the correct textures when I brought it into Substance Painter was having some bad stretching of the legs when adding textures. So it has been a lot of back and forth between Maya and Substance to correct wrong cut UV's and join ones that don't need as much detail. I have been able to get all of my UV's into 3 separate maps to limit the amount of bleeding over from the other textures on the model. One thing that I have been enjoying while I texture this model now is that I can really choose any material and make it my own since the movie kept it flat and basic. This has given me the opportunity to bring out details in the spikes, feet and face of the model.
I have chosen to not go into Zbrush this time around for the character that I am working on since the shape and overall design of the character isn't difficult. I have been able to add the details I want from Substance that has created the depth on the flat surfaces around the character. I would like to add some etches or cracking around some of the armor pieces or feet to show that the character has been around awhile and seen a few fights. I should have this done by the beginning of next week to be able to bring it into Marmoset and render this character out. I do want to also bring it into sketchfab to put along side my other work.
Once I have completed that I will be moving on to my next character which is more humanoid and will being doing more work in Zbrush and might actually start again with Zspheres but I am not sure until I finish the first character.
________________________________________
Progress Week 4
During this week I completed modeling the rest of the body inlcuding the legs and feet of this character. My first attempt at the legs and feet did not come out how I imagines this character to walk and move around. From what I heard from my girlfriend is that he looks more like a noodle monster than the digimon you are trying to recreate. So I really took it to heart and tried to make it similar to the character and restrict the amount of fluid movement in his arms and limit it more to sharp angels.
Looking more and more at the model I was struggling with the overall shape of the character and wanting to make sure that everything lines up or is similar to what was inside the movie. I think rigging this character would be interesting and creative to see just how I could make him move and follow the steps he should take when walking around, which to me reminds me of a spider along a web.
After reworking the legs and feet to better match his appearance and fully combining the legs and feet so when I move them it all follows instead of just the feet or a leg. This will make it easier if I do want to rig this character since I am using correct naming conventions and simplified groups for easy handling. I do just need a bit more before I bring it into Zbrush. I had a few problems already importing it in with holes and gaps were verts where not welded together.
At this moment I am in the process of UVing the model and getting it ready for high poly modeling to add the details to the spikes, face and body armor that this character has. I will hopefully be done with this weekend and can move onto texturing and rendering this character out into Marmoset. I would like hopefully to rig this character at least with moving and nothing more than that I think in my time line since I do want to complete another model within the remaining of the semester.
Progress Week 3
I wanted this week to look at what I had and kind of rethink of my approach on how I wanted to begin this piece. From last week I was working in Zbrush trying to Zsphere out the model to get a high poly ready. I was struggling a bit with how I wanted the shape to come out and to get the arms how I wanted them to move. So I took the advice of the professor and a few students to do my low poly first in Maya just to get the shape and style down for this character. I found this way to be a lot easier in creating the lines and curves of his different body widths. I have been having some troubles when getting the spikes to form how I want them to and still need to add some and rework the back on since it does not have good topology.
I have also started working on the face getting the mouth extended and having the eyes float in the eye sockets. The horn on his head came out well after I cut the geometry out and extruded and moved vertices as I needed to achieve his menacing look. I have not started on the arms though I really only need one arm and the rest can be duplicated and slightly changed to give the desired effect. I also need to work on his feet or the plating that retracts when his legs go inside his armor even though they will not be moving in and out I would like to rig this model or the legs to move more spider like.
During the next week I plan to finish the low poly model, bring it back into Zbrush to add fine details to the armor, head and spikes located on the characters body. Hopefully once I complete the fine details in Zbrush I can bring it into Substance Painter to texture and get him ready for Marmoset ToolBag and see what I can do with lighting and background planes.
________________________________________
Progress Week 2
During this week I have started using Zbrush to begin my high poly rendering and to get all the shapes, objects and misalliance small details before I bring it into Maya for quad drawing which I am hoping to start at the end of this month. I have started using zspheres to create the silhouette s I have a starting position. I did notice myself slightly steering away from the character design so I had to go to the movie and get the best possible angles of the character so when in Zbrush I am not adding unnecessary details or objects that are not a part of this character.
After looking at the preview of the adaptive skin and noticed that the lower the poly the harder the edges of the legs attached to the body and I had to go higher around 300k polys. I have started to shape out the back of the character and working my way forward. I will definitely leave the legs for later I want the overall shape and to make sure that I add more textures to the armor and not leave it so dull. I am not sure if I want to have his gun coming out of the mouth or just leave it closed but that is something I will do if I have time but I want to focus my time with keeping the character shape.
My biggest problem right now that I am facing is the feet since they aren’t toes and more spikes coming out and not even make it just a bit hard for me to get something that I like on him. A lot of the parts of his body are really small and I need to thin out some of the areas since his body is like 2 eggs one big behind a small one with spikes running along the top. His face also will be some trouble though it is not as detailed I still want to make it look scary or menacing at least.
________________________________________
Progress Week 1
For this semester I wanted to work more on my character modeling and go with something I have been watching a lot of Digimon. I wanted to recreate the two evil evolution of Infermon and Diaboromon which came from the original Digimon movie and felt like these two models gave a lot of different styles to work with. One is more flexible and to me reminds me of steel wire cables for the legs. While the other model is more humanoid and I think this will give me a good idea of what I need to focus on during this semester.
I wanted to make sure I got all the different angles to make sure when I do start to model this character out I am not just going off of memory but watching the movie as well to get the feel of this character right. I would like to rig this character if I can at the end of the semester but I want to model it first and worry about that later if I have time for both.
I have started looking at substance share to decided what the best materials will be for these characters since this are not really described or given so I am doing the best of what I think those materials would seem like. I would like to also make sure I get this into marmoset and rendered out to put on my portfolio at the end.
It would also be really cool to just get the sound of the characters into the scope too but that is something that won't be done this time around but I think rigging and sound will be next years project.
This is the second character that is more humanoid but still has longer limbs and flexible but not as before since he evolved. I would like to bring the clock into this character as well since that is what his focus is around. I do think that the eyes will be hard to get right but I like the challenge of bringing something like this to life.
I wanted to make sure I got pictures of the face and top body since it is body and armor and no real gap in between them so I got to make sure when I am modeling to not model stuff that won't be visible to limit the amount of extra work I would have to do.
I haven't decided if I want to just do this character before he starts to devolve again and make him look as menacing as possible to show that's what it was like in the movie trying to stop him and time running out.
This character will not have as many material issues since the skin seems human like just with that yellow green hue going on. I do like the longer limbs and red nails, I do want to keep it fairly close to what was in the movie but I might change a few colors but not likely to stray to far from what I have in mind.
These are just a few different ideas I had for the legs of the first character to try to simulate the wire limbs that he has that give him the extension and flexibility he has in the movie.
I haven't decided fully on which one I want to do but this one seems to be the best option with the most to choose from if the original texture is not good enough or needs to be changed but this will probably be the one I choose since it is so similar in what I am looking for when texturing but that is some time from now.
I want to finish the first character by the end of week 7 or 8 which means fully modeled from high poly to low poly, uv mapping, substance painter and hopefully marmoset to render it out and bring it into sketchfab to add to my models I have been working on. Then I hope to start and finish the second model since it seems easier and more straight forward that the flexible limbs of the first. If I don't finish the second model I would at least like to get the high poly and low poly done and at least some of the texturing but if I finish early that would be nice so that I can go back and fine tune them if need be.
No comments:
Post a Comment