[MistaED]

Hello all! Years ago when I was a little one, I used to visit polycount almost religiously to research and perfect the art of creating models for video games with milkshape3D. I highly enjoyed downloading quake2 and later quake 3 models created by the community and learned a lot of design techniques this way as well as reading up on a lot of tutorials.

I thought what better way to show my appreciation for the joyful memories and knowledge than to fight for polycount in the Dominance War III! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I sadly don't have anything to show quite yet but I plan to finalize on a design very soon! There are so much sketches on my desk of ideas but I haven't been happy yet with any of them quite yet, hehe.

I wish everyone the best of luck, and please come back to my forum post soon for an update. Thanks all!

[MistaED]

Hi All, I've been a bit busy with some sketches, so many to count here which I've trashed [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] anyway, here is the current idea plan I have in mind:


Some sketch work here on paper and then drawn over in the gimp, and:

A bit of shading to get a more 3D view of it.

The artifact is like a black hole/wormhole type thing (fitting in as darkness/void) which this dude man uses for consuming things. Long ago it was fused to his belly to banish anyone who tries to destroy polycount! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] If I have enough time and triangles, I wanted to make a small figure on one of his fingers, holding on for dear life trying to not get sucked up into the darkness/void portal... Also, the head isn't final, I want to make one where his mouth/lips are fused together from millions of years of not needing it to eat, hehe...

I have a question though, should I put the polycount face in the actual portal or just leave it as it is as an engraving into the top armour bit?

Thanks all, everyone else's designs are really looking great! *continues to tweak with the sketch*

[caseyjones]

Welcome to Polycount, you've definitely picked the right team to fight for [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]
You're off to a good start and a few interesting design ideas as well. I like the part that his mouth has fused together from the lack of having to eat, but would he have spoken or something in that time? If you really wanted to push the self sacrifice, maybe sow his mouth together or something?
As for using greentooth in the void hole, that wouldn't be a bad idea. It would all depend on how you incorporated it.
The armour at this stage is really bland, and doesn't give the character any real interest. Sure it is easy to go overboard with detail and then you lose sight of what you're trying to achieve. I think simplicity would work really well for this character, but I still think the armour could be pushed further a little more. He seems like the type that would be wearing leather/hide/scale armour. Anything that could have been derived from a living creature.
Before you commit to this design, try exploring a few different avenues, chances are you may come up with something you like even more. Don't stray too far from your original concept though, because I like where this is heading.
Good luck, mate.

-caseyjones

[MistaED]

Some progress!


Thank you very much for your post caseyjones! I took your advice with the armour, I'm thinking maybe of making turtle-looking shells and using various sized ones to make up the armour pieces. Of course these will be once giant ill-tempered turtle-like creatures which have been gutted and turned into armour plates!

I also went with file-managing claw-legs around the portal for the digestion system, still thinking if I should have those integrated into the body like it is now or have it off another spider-like creature fused in the back of this dude-man... hmmmm also making a knive & fork weapon for both hands except these would be made to look like a trident and some kind of sword to make it not look obvious [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] The head is still on the drawing board!

Name candidates:
HUNGER (short & simple)
DEVOURER (probably overused)
Clusterfuckofideas (inappropriate [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] )
Dude-Man (current unofficial name)
iNeedBetterNamesHere (indeed)

Thanks all

[MistaED]

Hi all, progress update, I'm running a bit slow but I should be kicking into gear now (I want to have the high-res completed by at least 25th).


Went with an entirely different head, somewhat more human-looking one... Also added some turtle-shell shoulder plates with a preliminary normal map test to see if it would look alright on a much lower res mesh...

If anyone is reading, could I have some thoughts about what I could do with the head? I was thinking of adding fingers/hands around the mouth but it kind've looked dodgy.

And for weapons I still need to design some kind of sword and trident, sort of like in a knife and fork configuration, so it fits with the "hunger" name, hehe...

[MistaED]

Hi all, got an update for you!



Pretty much all the zbrush sculpting is done, now I'm just optimizing the level 0 subdiv of everything and cleaning up areas and things to hit the 9000 tri limit. Yes I do know the deadline is in like 2 days, yes I am insane

And I have a small video of the head http://boberfly.com/alex/wp-content/...eos/hunger.mov

TODO:

Texturing: Hope I can wing it, use the cavity map and normal as a base, make the diffuse then tweak it to get emissive & spec, maybe add a heightmap for some small wrinkles etc.
Rigging: Doesn't take too long to make a simple bone rig, just the skinning might take some time
Lighting/Rendering/FinalPose: Not too difficult, just some tweaking
Misc: Clean up the ref/sketch images, make the story for this character

Well then... :S

[MistaED]

Moar progress:



Low-res mesh done it looks, it is fitting under the 9000 tri count yaay I've made some bones too, just need to skin it now. Hmm just realised I had those spikes on his legs hidden, without them hidden the triangle count is roughly 8986 so no problems there...

Texturing hasn't started yet, ohnoes!

[MistaED]

Yep, skinning/rigging is done, and I even got the most likely final pose setup:



Hmm, so has anyone heard of someone who has rendered out the normals+cavity, and then textured a model in like, 20 hours cutting into precious sleep time? :S

I have nfi if I'll finish on time but ohwell!

[MistaED]

Well, unfortunately I won't be handing in anything this year, it has been a grand learning experience for me to get this far. One thing, I need a more powerful computer to handle 2048x2048 textures and ridiculous triangle counts for the normal transfers.



As you can see I have no chance compared to the competition with just a normal mapped figure! I have a basic diffuse and opacity map but my computer can't handle rendering it for some reason :/ Oh well, turning the tables for next year when I get a computer with more ram!

Good luck everyone else, hope polycount wins!