Anime devil girl - Etna

[YerEvilTwin]

the model looks to be on model with the pencil drawing on the far right, but she looks like she's 9 years old. I like the other ones that makes her look like shes 14. when i model hands, i model them as if they where holding a CD or a soft ball, that way you get a more mass for the thumb muscle and the fingers are bent a little. There is too much shoe, make them smaller. looks like the neck needs to be a wee bit longer and a tad bit thinner. Since i like the color picture on the far right i am baseing my opinion off of that. With that said, i think the forearms need to be more proportionate. It looks like the wings need to be above the halter top, not on them. Looks like the base of the pony tails have lost their mass and purkyness. I'd try reworking the bangs a different way. love.

[AndyH]

I was unsure wether to model the SD version or the full scale version. Ill have a mess with the proportions and see which one works best. The SD one is like a cute and cartoony caricature whereas the full body one has more skinny, realistic proportions and, in my opinion loses some of the character and makes her look a bit too young to be wearing stuff like that :argh: Plus, i need more stylised stuff for my portfolio / site - ive got far too many human proportioned characters!
I was gonna relax the hands later - i keep them straight until theyre finished so i can model and view them easier. The hands and the hair are still WIP, so theyll look better soon.
Cheers for the quick reply.

[Monkeybot]

If you're going for the black and white image at the far right, I think the head on your model is too small. That's why it doesn't quite look right. The body looks pretty good!:thumbsup: Personally I like the color image where she's taller and more slender!

[AndyH]

Hm... I can see which way things will flow. Most people will probably prefer the skinny version...
Ill do a test to see if it looks ok, and maybe ill give it a whirl - i really really love the red pic where shes looking evil - i dont think the SD version will have that effect - plus, its kindof awkward posing and animating a character with such a huge head.
If done right, the skinny one could look good. Spike spiegel from Cowboy bebop had a really skinny body and he looked ace in action.

Ill post an update sometime tmora.

[Dieblein]

When I look at the ref I think that her accesoires are more thin and well yours look so large eg. the ring round her hands. She is ought to look cute and perhaps a bit adult and her acc needs to look more grown up.
I also think that your hair looks a bit more like leaves of a palm. Id really model the hair in a flow that there is no cut. Perhaps even model the band in her hairs.

Perhaps the eyes a bit smaller?! Could be but Im not sure.

Keep it up man, We all know how its gonna rule in the end once your @ work :thumbsup:
--

edit: I just recognized the difference of the ref files above. Like someone said before I like the color image (second from right) more.

[AdamAtomic]

damn andy you are a modeling machine! you never stop! my vote is for the skinnier one - she looks like a goth version of AW's Sami, and will look much cooler posed i think.

[AndyH]

A lil update i did THIS MORNING!!! at 7am!!! Before going to work!!! Gah - once i start something i cant leave it alone!

Going for ths skinny look now. Lemme know if you prefer it.

http://www.btinternet.com/~chunglist2/CGTALK/Etna-wip-02.jpg

[LeeSalo]

I think this is super cool dude. I also like the more shapely version beter than the younger looking one. Though I think you could give fuller more curvy hips ( just a little ). I think this model will rock when finished!! Now just work faster and harder, Now Now Now!!! ;)

[dassbaba]

give her more curves and breasts, it would make her look mature depite the sleazy way of doing so

[Psionic Design]

looks very true to the ref...

maybe widen the hips a little and shrink the waist a touch, plus maybe make the legs slightly thinner?? just a few suggestions ;)

[Serul]

Haha cool! I was actually working on a high poly version of Etna some time ago..., never finished it of course :rolleyes: .

The SD one is only used during the battle sequences in the game as far as I know. Personally I like the "real" one more as well, it just has more character in my opinion.

You could give her more curves but not more breast (if you want to stay true to the character design), they actually make fun of her flat chest in the game I believe.

Overall a good start, if you are going to go for the "real" look, then some of the proportions are a little of, her waist is longer and so are her legs and arms (or you could make them thinner). Also notice the spikey hair that it isn't curved, but you probably already knew al this. :)

[the_podman]

Hey, Andy. Sorry, no crit. Looks great. You are very fast. Knockin em out pretty quickly. Would like to check out your wesite. URL?

Thanks,
podman

[AndyH]

Click on my name on the left of the post and go to visit homepage. Its not fully up to date including my silent hill monster cos its still a WIP, but everything else is pretty recent.

Ta.

[Joe Bloggs]

That's looking great, Andy. :thumbsup: I like your anime inspired works.

I vote for the slender version too...

The proportions still need work on your latest WIP, and as YerEvilTwin suggested about the hands, I think it's good to model everything in a slightly relaxed pose... not only the hands, but also the whole posturing of the spine. For example, notice how in the reference her pelvis is thrust out somewhat and the legs are back (especially in the far right one).... this creates a curvature in the pose and makes her look natural in a sort of idle state, otherwise, she will look too stiff and upright. my2cents.

[hanzo]

Andy H slender version would rock,
that't the way she looks in the ref, sweet character too, I love the modeling, and cant wait to see the textures.

your going from progect to project, dude never stop! I can't wait to see you new DR when you decide to make it... hmm and I've noticed the road you seem to be taking I agree you, can never run out of inspiration when you look to the land of the rising sun. ;)

[AndyH]

I can't wait to see you new DR when you decide to make it...
DR? what do you mean?

Yeah - i seem to find getting home from work and sitting in front of the TV a waste of time - id rather do something productive / creative - plus, i see sooo much stuff that inspires me and makes me want to model it. Im already contemplating doing another animated short, but ill wait til my 3ds max knolwedge is a bit better on the animation front.

Joe, i definately agree with the relaxed pose thing - i did it a little bit, but bending it some more would give it a better look. Kinda like Spike Spiegel's standing pose! Im just worried that having the bind pose with the spine deformed might make things a bit wierd when animating / posing.

I spent an hour on it at work y'day in my lunch hour, put it on my pen drive and found out that the file is corrupted! Boo hoo! I lost an hours work - doing tedious things like the hands and fine tuning too!
I can only hope that autoback has saved the day.

[AndyH]

Allo folks.

Finished the geometry - made her a bit skinnier, defined the hands, added the tail and made the hair properly. Gonna start UVing tomorror (sat)
Any ideas on what kind of textures to paint? stylised? realistic? true to the original? cel shaded? I kinda like the celshaded idea cos the details like the straps and buckles are modeled, so they would pick up the outlines pretty well.

Everyone ok with it so far? Im sticking to the reference, so i aint gonna beef her up - i like the lankiness and skinniness of her - its a unusual look for an anime girl.

Anyone have any ideas on how to do the eyes??? I really want to acheive the various looks as seen on the ref pics on the left, but a textured face simply would not make that possible, and adding rotatable poly eyes is impossible on a character where the eyeballs defy anatomy.

By the way - shes not modeled with her arms down - theyre just a morph to see what it looks like in a more relaxed pose.

EDIT::: i forgot to unhide the wings when i made the screecaps! Doh!!

http://www.btinternet.com/~chunglist2/CGTALK/Etna-wip-03.jpg

[CrossFire]

Incredable, thats all I can say about it! :thumbsup:

Andy H, can you give me your email, I would like to talk to you some about something ( wont say here, dont want people to get too excited )

[The-Observer]

Nice concept and nice model, it's good that you stick that close to the concept.
Actually I was wondering if it wasn't asked too much, that you'd maybe make a tutorial or a 'making of' of one of your next models? It would certainly be a good help for beginnen game artists. :)

[CrossFire]

The_Observer (member.php?u=46279), you are truly the observer, that is what I was going to ask him, if you could do a tutorial on maybe how he made this character, or any anime chracter for that matter, and I could ( if he wanted , so he didnt need to use the space ) put it on my site and host it for him.

[The-Observer]

Hehe, CrossFire, as soon as I hit that 'submit reply'-button I was thinking "I bet that was what CrossFire wanted too" .:D
Never knew before that I had psychic abilities. ;)

[AndyH]

Cheers my psychic friends!
I actually cant do a tutorial for this gal cos i modeled her so quickly, i only saved out the renders you see in this thread, so the early stages of the model havent been recorded.
Ill bear it in mind for next time.

So, any ideas on the texture / rendering style? And what about doing poly eyes?

Glad you like it - it was only a quick model for the purposes of me wanting to see it in 3d cos i like the design.

[CrossFire]

lol, great minds think alike as they say.
:deal: The Observer has psychic abilities! :deal: :eek:

Andy H, still, all I can say is wow, awsome work! what happend to the wings?:shrug:
also, what is poly eyes? {sry for meh newbiness, never heard the term}
also, Andy, can/WILL you do a tutorial for us on anime in 3d????:bowdown::bowdown::bowdown:

[The-Observer]

Well for the textures I think the best example would be like Final Fantasy (IX) , but on the other hand, you've already done something in that style, maybe you could do something more cell-shaded now. The choice is up to you. :)
Now for the eyes I also don't really know what would be the best, maybe the poly eyes if you think you can handle it. :/

[Joe Bloggs]

Here is what I would suggest for style to bring this character into the polygon world, specifically for the eyes and facial texturing:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v454/gxbiohazard/gameAnimeEyes.jpg

From the top down you have Kindom Hearts from Square, second row is Xenosaga also from Square, and at the bottom row, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto's (designer for Neon Genesis Evangelion) character designs brought to life for Bandai.

Those are the most prominent anime-style game characters that I have seen. Personally, I like Kingdom Hearts the most.

Hope this gives you some ideas. Keep it up! :scream:

(Edit: I believe the above is all done through textures only, ie. no actual modeling of the eyes. It sounds like you would prefer that anyway, otherwise the eyeballs would be too huge if you modeled them, however, I have scenes anime eyes done that way before (modeled), so it's not outside the realm of possibility to do it that way.)

[Lord Cauthon]

Very nice work Andy H. I really like how she has turned out. For textures, I would say go for cel-shaded. Cant wait to see this finished.

[Joe Bloggs]

Here are some cel-shaded possibilities:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v454/gxbiohazard/gameAnimeEyesCelShade.jpg

Above row is JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and bottom row is Viewtiful Joe.

[AndyH]

Thanks for the ideas Mr. bloggs! I did an anime gal in a shaded style for my first ever game model - it worked ok, but it seemed a little bland.
Here:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=111782&page=2&pp=15&highlight=erica

The skinny and stylised look of Etna will lend itself really well to jet set radio style celshading methinks.

Crossfire - I hidden her wings for modeling purposes - i guess i forgot to unhide them when i did the screencaps :rolleyes:

Im not sure about textured eyes - i may try a combination. Id like to use morphs to create some of the expressions on those ref pics. The mouth is pretty flexible, but the eyes arent. The character eyes in the sonic adventure games were excellent - flexible, anatomically impossible and effective. I think they used a disc shape and moved it across the eye surface.

Ill do some tests tmora and get it UVed.

[Joe Bloggs]

hmmm... i see the shaded style in your previous work and it looks good, but I know what you mean about bland.

I think that the problem is the lighting only, not the shading of the texture itself.

Normal shading could work, but I believe the key to making that look good is boosting the ambient lighting almost to max.



a little o/t......

I really like the trends in cel-shading in games today, but here is my problem with it: anti-aliasing. There is no anti-aliasing in most real-time game engines today for performance reasons, due to the processing of multiple samples, etc..... Take a look at any screenshot in a magazine and invariably you will see alot of aliasing/pixelation. Only recently is AA becoming more mainstream with all the new cards/hardware coming out, so thank god for that.

The reason the lack of AA in games is a problem for cel shaded games is, well, look at this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v454/gxbiohazard/aliasbig.gif compared to this http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v454/gxbiohazard/unaliasbig.gif

...I'm sure you're somewhat aware of this anyway, but I thought I would bring it to light.

This is an even greater problem for cel-shaded games in particular because of the fine lines that create the edges of the characters and objects' outlines, where the impact of aliased pixels is worse. Furthermore, if you have many of these lines close together you get really bad, pixelated moire patterns. This can be seen mostly in celshaded architecture where perspective lines converge, etc.... but the same is true for characters. Just look at JSRF, which you mentioned, it a great idea conceptually (I enjoyed playing it on my xbox anyway), but in a static screenshot it really looks ugly to me. Thankfully, this is only a technology issue which wont be a problem in the future when more people have better vid cards and newer consoles come out.

Cheers,

Mr. Bloggs

[Dieblein]

Glad that you changed the hair.. she turned out to be quite beautiful :) She looks much older now

Game Art Design would lack something without you being here man I can tell ya :thumbsup:

[AndyH]

I did an experiment with poly eyes and they seemed to work pretty well, so i went one step further and made some quick tests to see how the model holds up when morphed. The eyes dont look as good as drawn ones, but theyre a lot more flexible and easier to animate than cycling bitmaps. The mouth seems to work pretty well too.
Ill have to look at the mesh flow on the head cos as you can see, it pinches on certain shapes, like the eyes closed one.
Gonna UV now.
http://www.btinternet.com/~chunglist2/CGTALK/Etna-wip-04.jpg

[Ingurum]

wow very awsome model.

looks very good till now, keep it up

[AndyH]

Did a ROUGH cel shading test. Ive never used it in max before, so i havent messed with any of the advanced options yet. It seems to have a problem with decent anti aliasing from what ive found so far.
http://www.btinternet.com/~chunglist2/CGTALK/Etna-wip-05.jpg

[Miguelito]

Nice! Did u use bones for the face or just morphing??

[AndyH]

just morphs. Theyre only rough shapes - ill do them again for the final model.

[Eclipse3D]

The model so far is AWESOME. I'm notr a big fan of cel-shading tho, jsut a personal taste :). I am really surprised by how well those facial expressions turned out, could you explain your method on creating an anime face so i will deform liek that? or just post a wireframe haha. I am going to start making a good number of anime models and I would LOVE for them to be able to have facial animations like yours :).

[Joe Bloggs]

yep, good job on the facial expressions.

Where are the straps to her top though? I think the whole chest area needs some work... Also, the ear rings are too big compared to the ref.

Using polygons for the eyes worked out well... but this does make the anti-aliasing problem worse though. That's the reason most cel-shaded or anime characters have their eyes painted on in games... because then it is automatically anti-aliased. Again, this is only a problem if the character is to be used as a realtime model in engines/hardware that dont support AA. If you're just doing renders from max then there's no issue.

[AndyH]

Almost done now!
Finished UVing, painted the BASIC textures and rigged her. I need to carefully paint bits of shading / outlines on the map and make it fit in with the celshading look, and then do the morphs. After some poses and renders, ive finished! I could also do with playing with the celshader line detection paramaters - the outlines on the hair are a bit iffy right now. Maybe ill make a spec map too.
If i can be arsed afterwards, i might try and texture her in a more detailed, non celshaded way.

Quick pose to test the rig. Its based on the main ref pic.

http://www.btinternet.com/~chunglist2/CGTALK/Etna-wip-06.jpg

[pearl3d]

nice piece of work :bounce:

[CrossFire]

awsome



*bows to Andy

:bowdown::bowdown::bowdown:

[Joe Bloggs]

She's looking so awesome now. :thumbsup:

I see two shades for every base color. Is it possible to have three?

[ninja noodle]

WOAH!! that's one sweeet looking model!!! i love love love!!! i love her skull earrings! it's sooo cute!!! :thumbsup: you should do a tutorial! i wanna know how you make such great models!!

[AndyH]

Cheers y'all.
Unlike all my other projects which were well planned and documented, this lass was modeled very quickly, with very little WIP images saved. I have a few early saves as i worked through it, but the stages are too different to create a step by step tutorial. Cos i just wanted to see what she looked like in 3d, i intentionally modeled her quickly and didnt expect it to look this decent!
My last major model (the final fantasy style girl) has loads of WIP images and that would probably be more suitable for a tutorial.

BTW - When are you gonna finish your ace lookin robot gal, noodle? and what the heck are you doing up at 6:20am??
As for me.... erm.... it takes a long time for me to wake up for work....

[gustredcloude]

You have done MARVELOUS MY FRIEND! you do one of my favorite characters proud. The only thing I ask is that you finish her off by adding the little face thing on the shoes. If it's not possible then okay, but that's the only thing you seem to be missing. excellent work!

[AndyH]

cheers. I was actually unsure of the face on the boots - it was the only thing about the design i didnt like much. I thought it was kindof a silly thing for a devil girl to wear. I havent finished the maps yet, so ill probably add it later.

[Serul]

Yeah really nice work there, the celshading is nicely done. Personally I'm not a really big fan of celshading for games, but you did a nice job on it.

The only comments I have is that maybe some of the colors of the tail and wings might be a bit off. But like you said the texture was still wip.

And if you can maybe somehow make the tail a bit longer, it looks lik eit could almost be twice as long.

Can't wait for the finished version. :)

[gustredcloude]

Haha. I understand where you are coming from. I will fill you in since you haven't played the game. This game is FAR from serious in tone. It's defintiely not like morgan from darkstalkers or anything where (in theory) you can imagine this person in real life. So the designs range from cool to silly sometimes, only because that's how the pace of the game is. It's got some seriousness, but it's a fun and goofy mood most of the time, which is why they have something like that on her shoes. But hey, you are the mastermind behind this one. Go for what you feel is right. ciao. ^_^

[AndyH]

Being as youve played the game, can you shed some light on a few things?

Is her tail the right length? it seems different lengths on diff pics ive seen.
What is her character like? Evil? happy? sinister? fun-loving? - i wanna get some inspiration for poses.

Cheers - all thats left is morphing and sorting out the shader/ texture. I wanna get the model spot on before i do anything like morph targets.

[gustredcloude]

Let's see....Etna turns out to be more of a complex character as the story goes on....but here is a to the point explanation of her character. She is a sinister witch who is fun loving. She'd shoot someone in the back and then have a sweet smile on while she is doing it and say "wasn't me." So maybe the word would be mischevious. She's got a twisted since of humor, so to speak. I think her tail should be at least the length of the legs, then POSSIBLY a bit extra past that. I just acquired the artbook and her tail seems fairly long (yeah the length does change a lot, but it still seems to be really long). I hope that helps a little. If you need more from me I'll try to elaborate more, and I can even try to get some pictures up that show her tail length. Keep up the good work.

[ninja noodle]

haha! andy it's cos i'm nocturnal!!! i only have access to net time after 10:30pm, so that's the only time i can get to surf! haha! i work better at night too! and m-girl!...... she's getting mapped at the moment.. i'm unwrapping right now...
you up early too!??

[AndyH]

Woo yay! Its my 666th post! :twisted:

Thought id post another pose. The shader and textures are pretty much sorted now. All thats left is to make the facial morphs and render off the final poses!
Im pretty damn pleased with it - what started off as a quick curiosity model turned out to be a nice stylised bona fide piece o' cel shading (if i may say so myself)

Posted the red pic cos i thought it looked priddy cool and non-CG. It would be ace to have an animation in that style.

http://www.btinternet.com/~chunglist2/CGTALK/Etna-wip-07.jpg

http://www.btinternet.com/~chunglist2/CGTALK/Etna-wip-07b.jpg

[the_podman]

Man, Andy. I love everything I see from you and you are getting better and better. Without kissing your ass too much, you are the shiznot!!

Ok, with that out of my system, how are you getting the toon shaders to have such nice thin and elegant outlines? Or is it just post photoshop work.

Thanks,

-pod
NYC

[CrossFire]

once again, awsome Andy!

quick question, what is the poly count? I also would like to know how you did the cell shading?!?!?!!

[AndyH]

Awww.... thanks!

Poly count is 4907 triangles - its a lot more than i planned, but i wanted smooth deformations and a good celshaded look - not blocky and angular like the dogtanian i did for an earlier games comp.
No photoshop work was done on the image whatsoever - this is really surprising because most celshaded images ive done in maya and XSI have to be cleaned up because of dodgy line detection. I just used the standard ink n paint shader that comes with max - its pretty powerful!
I did use photoshop to adjust the levels and colourise the red image though, but i could easily make it render like that straight from max should i need to do an animation.

[M-CLK]

very nice - I especially love the facial expression morphs - spot on :thumbsup:

LB.

[Neil]

I like the final look. The cell shaded look looks nice. Now i notice multiple highlite bands in the hair, were those all real time, or did you paint some shadows into the texture sheet?

Since you have so much free time, why didn't you just enter the game competition? ;) It would have fixed your problem with having too many 'human characters' in your portfolio.

[fuxer]

Andy,awsome work man :)
She looks perfect.

[AndyH]

Cheers folks.
Some of the hair was done using the texture map - it wouldve been very hard to capture the shading style that was on the ref. Ill show the texture as soon as im pleased with the final thing.
Ill leave the comp-entering until next time. The whole 'beasts with armour' theme doesnt really make me wanna go nuts and model something, though there has been some really original and excellent entries.
Gonna try and get the morphs done tonight.

[ArYeS]

oh thats very good, i hope that you may help me

http://freeweb.siol.net/bvuk99/WEC_problem.jpg

i see that on you don't have same problems with ink 'n' paint, so that red squares are my problem, i want to be thare black line too, kow can i fix that?

[AndyH]

A lot of the critical outline points on my model such as the skirt & legging tops, eyes and creases are shaped by geometry, and by making these edges sharp, you can use the smoothing group button in the ink n paint shader (in max) to make them into lines. Failing that, try painting the black line on in the map - in your case that would be the best thing.
As for the hand against the body not giving outlines.... hmm.. It looks like you have outline turned on and overlap turned off. Try turning it on and messing with the overlap bias value. This should enable edge detection within the model.

Toon shading seems simple, but its a fiddly business trying to get it to look really good. You just have to cheat your way around some of the problems.
It took a fair bit of work to get my model to render as good as that with no photoshop retouching required.

[AndyH]

Done the morphs.

Next images will be the final poses!

Heres some of the expressions:

http://www.btinternet.com/~chunglist2/CGTALK/Etna-wip-08.jpg

[danydrunk]

HEy polymonger, with all this cool stuff, do you have a job? how old are you? you are really good.

[Neil]

i like it man!
I like the scowl one. I would just liek to see the mouth a little tighter (IE: smaller) that way it really looks like a scowl.
And with the winking one, I would tilt the lips or make her smirking atleast. For some reason I have the vision of Asuka (EVA) in my head giving a peace sign with the wink ;)

[hanzo]

Andy H, i DON'T KNOW!, dude this might sound kinda funny, but I think I like this one the best for the toon shade, face poses, and well I am just a sucker for "anything anime stuff" like this. but despite how much I think it's perfect I couldn't resist what Neil said, it's a great Idea to add the smirk, and ah could she hit that pose too?...

:twisted::bowdown:

[erilaz]

Hey! Spectacular work there! I love Disgaea (playing it right now!). Now you just need to get those smug looks that she always does.

[frink]

Wooooahhh.....I almost missed this one!
Yet again nice work Andy, I love the morph targets, and although I'm not overwhelmed by the character design you get five stars from me for the fact that the whole thing would fit perfectly in a japanese anime styled game, which is most importantly what you set out to do.

I wish I could find time to do as much of my own work as you do....(I'm still just beginning to texture my zombie:( been crazy busy at work recently.)

Keep it up mate ;)

[wuensch]

woah--- I really love it--
best anime to 3d adaption I have seen so far, game or hi-res--
You really capture the spirit of the design & the face animation morphs---
Olli

[McStyle]

amazing work :thumbsup:
i really like the third expression with her cute little teeth :D

one litte question:
yo may have a tutorial or something like that for morphing?
cause i'm just trying to animate my character and it seems to be really hard to animate the whole face with joints.
i've searched at learning-maya.com but i don't find anything about morphing

[rob-beddall]

hey!!

i just noticed that you are from wolvo. i live about 15 miles away in Stourbridge. never met anyone on here that close before.

cool work. are you at uni or anything? or do you already have a job?

cheers!!

[Oldbean]

Nice, I'm lovin the fangs :twisted:

[AndyH]

McStyle - Morphing is pretty easy and has similar rules for all the major programs - make a copy of your model, deform it, and then store it as a morph.

Rob - Nice to see some miglanz (midlands) folks round this neck o the woods. Im working at The Character Shop in Birmingham at the mo. Dont suppose you work at optical image? its in your town!

Oldbean - glad you like the lil teeth - it adds to it methinks. By the way - thanks for making me laff! That quote on your signature is ACE! Stewie rules! I also agree with the bon jovi bashing.... "Bah! Curse you and your oestrogenical treachery!"

[Oldbean]

Lol, thanks man, great Family Guy moment is when Peter is in a re-hab clinic with Brian (if I remember right) and one of the guards ask what his name is. So he makes something up using what he can see around the room and he sees a Pea a Tear then a Griffin, genius. And the Bon Jovi quote is from Beavis and Butt-Head :scream:

The teeth really do add character though, they're nice and subtle, any bigger and they would have looked a little clichéd IMO.

[scribble]

Ahhhhh! A labour of love. :)

Nice. :D

[AndyH]

Tonights update:
Made some more poses - im trying to get 4 / 5 poses and a beauty render, as well as wireframe pics for my final presentation.

Only posting a small image as its still WIP.
Should have this lil project wrapped up by the weekend - unless i decide to give meself more work and do an animation. I put a motion capture file on the biped and seeing it moving around made me pretty excited about what can be done if i attempt to animate it!

Im having a hard time trying to show a range of emotions while staying true to the characters personality. I need to show her evil / cheeky side more.
Lemme know if you like / dislike the poses.

http://www.btinternet.com/~chunglist2/CGTALK/Etna-wip-09.jpg

[the rookie]

Damn Andy man, that is a really clean toon shading you got on there man...I've seen many attempts but none as clean, I believe it's cleaner than the appleseed stuff I've seen, but this is really clean, it really turn out nice, now if I could just get my head out my ass, and figure out some things then I could get it to work, Bravo Job on this one, huge turn around, I dream of Jeni someday:D

[Lord Cauthon]

I gotta say this came out beautifully Andy H. Love the facial expressions you've given her. The poses are great, especially the second and third one, don't know if they are evil tho', fourth one is kinda evil looking , like she is plotting something. Cant wait for the final presentation.

[AdamAtomic]

i'm not familiar with the character, but pose #3 looks pretty goddamn brill to me mate! killer job!

[wuensch]

-wow-
Very impressed.
Apart from being a superb modeller you also have a nice feeling for style & posing.
This is very true to the original concept in mood.
Applause,

Olli

[Serul]

Sweet! :D

I like the third and fourth pose a lot, but maybe in the fourth pose make her have a little "evil" grin/smile on on her face.

[EVIL]

I seriously dislike the cell shading, It makes you looze so much detail. I would love to see a normal rendered version with a nice skin.

[hanzo]

EVIL stop being so bad!, :D LOL

What is an anime style model without cell shade!? :( well Andy H does a really good job without cell shade, but common this looks so cool this way, ( don't fix what's not busted ) I wouldn't have it anyway else, ( that said... ) I think it's better this way then any other, now that I've seen this character shaded in this manner, I think it would put down the spirit in witch the character was designed. this is just my opinion...

But Andy plz don't change it man, it's perfect this way!

[robinb]

Looking pretty good Andy. I have to say I don't think you've quite captured the facial expressions yet, but it's getting there. I don't think the eyes are quite the right shape yet. Of course it's not as easy to model expressions from a base mesh as it is to draw completely different images, some are quite extreme. I think I'd recommend playing the game to get a better feel of Etna's personality, she's quite a complex character. Turn based fantasy battle games aren't for everyone, but Disgaea is a really good one.

I think you might be able to tweak the cel shading a bit to make it more like the drawings too. The drawings use at least three shades, but it looks like the shader you're using only has two.

But on the whole, it's looking good.

[the_podman]

EVIL stop being so bad!, :D LOL

What is an anime style model without cell shade!? :( well Andy H does a really good job without cell shade, but common this looks so cool this way, ( don't fix what's not busted ) I wouldn't have it anyway else, ( that said... ) I think it's better this way then any other, now that I've seen this character shaded in this manner, I think it would put down the spirit in witch the character was designed. this is just my opinion...

But Andy plz don't change it man, it's perfect this way!
I gotta second that, Andy. Remember how much better Dark Cloud 2 looked than the first one? Something about throwing realistic textures on the more super deformed anime characters that doesn't look right. Also, the cell shading helps avoid that "doll" look when anime goes 3d.

-pod

[EVIL]

EVIL stop being so bad!, :D LOL

What is an anime style model without cell shade!? :( well Andy H does a really good job without cell shade, but common this looks so cool this way, ( don't fix what's not busted ) I wouldn't have it anyway else, ( that said... ) I think it's better this way then any other, now that I've seen this character shaded in this manner, I think it would put down the spirit in witch the character was designed. this is just my opinion...

But Andy plz don't change it man, it's perfect this way!
MWUAHAHAH!!! ;)

Its something about the shading.. I think it would be neat to see a more smooth tranition from one color tone to the other. like its drawing on the concept images you can see in its first post. like its made in painter. The 2 tone levels you now have are hard edged and I think it doesn't look cool on the character, but that is just my oppinion...

Have fun!

[yuki]

Very nice job ! The model is very cute and like to the original.

Me too i m doing a model in cell-shading, your topic help me to test it :).

[AndyH]

Thanks for all the comments so far!
Heres your reward!

As usual with me being a presentation freak, i spent a lot of time on the final images.
Updated my site with em too.

Ortho Wires:
http://www.btinternet.com/~chunglist2/Images/Gallery-Personal/Etna-Wires.jpg

2-tone cel shaded poses:
http://www.btinternet.com/~chunglist2/Images/Gallery-Personal/Etna-Poses-shaded.jpg

Single tone flat shaded poses:
http://www.btinternet.com/~chunglist2/Images/Gallery-Personal/Etna-Poses-flat.jpg

Wireframe solid poses:
http://www.btinternet.com/~chunglist2/Images/Gallery-Personal/Etna-Poses-wire.jpg

BeeeeYOOOty render:
http://www.btinternet.com/~chunglist2/Images/Gallery-Personal/Etna-Beauty-render.jpg

Thanks a lot for all your help and encouragement on this one - i reckon its my best non-realistic character yet.
As for whats next? Im gonna get the final images for my silent hill monster project done and out the way, and then im gonna take a break! Maybe get my other skills up to scratch (environment modeling, animation, lighting etc...) it seems like im only really good at one thing :shrug:
Maybe ill even go back to this or the final fantasy girl i made and have a go at animating them...

Anyways, thanks for the comments and i hope you like the pics!

[obelisk]

Well done Andy. As usual, this is beautifully executed to the last polygon and the final pixel. Can't wait to see what you do with lighting environments.

Keep the inspiration coming.

cheers
-O

[The-Observer]

The results of your work are very nice as usual, I was really speechless when I saw your beauty render.
And it's indeed time for you to do something that you aren't great in, only then we know for sure you aren't that perfect. ;)

Thanks for the wires btw, I'm sure they will be very usefull to study, especially the eyes. :)

[yuki]

http://www.cfsl.net/forum/images/smiles/casse_slip.gif
Thank you for all your steps, it s very interesting. As you said, it could be nice if you could make an environnement for this model.

Congratulations.

[Lord Cauthon]

Freekin' brilliant. All of it. Beauty render is awesome, and I gotta say that I really like the single tone flat shaded render, seems like it is 2D more than the other. Awesome job Andy H :buttrock: !! Very inspiring.

[TallgeeseIIII]

daaaang, that really is inspiring... i feel like making a cel shaded character right now just looking at it, too bad it's late and i have to go to bed, oh well, maybe i'll start it tomorrow.

[Joe Bloggs]

Truly great work. Well done. :thumbsup:


I think a full shaded version (Kingdom Hearts style) would be pretty cool...

[yuki]

Joe, could you say more about this shader ? Have you got exemples ?

[Oldbean]

:applause: :applause: Sweet :applause: :applause:

[Evil Pumpkin]

OMG man! I really love this one!!! She's so kawaiii!!!:P
keep up the good work and post some new renders!! :P

peace

[WhiteBlaizer]

Etna in 3d :D, i'm a fan of disgaea. Very nice work AndyH. It would be nice to see pucelle in 3d now ^^.

cheers!

[Joe Bloggs]

Yuki, you asked for examples ...this is what I meant by shaded:
(this was posted earlier in the thread)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v454/gxbiohazard/gameAnimeEyes.jpg

In particular, I was referring to the top row, Kingdom Hearts. It was just a suggestion... to have an alternate shaded version of Etna to show in his portfolio.

[Dhin]

Andy I bow down to you. This is stunning, like so manythings you've done lately. Keep it up!

[LAn]

Uff, 4:20 AM again and still influenced by alcohol, nevertheless, here my 2 cents:
Though i like the model really much, i don't like several details, especially some skin/cellshading-related stuff.

What's about her wings? Won't you skin them? It looks silly like now "black" wings with one grey triangle. Moreover i don't like her pink cheeks. It's too sharp, too obvious, whereas in the concepts it's much more smoother and subtle.
Also something about her coloration bothers me. In my opinion contrasts are missing, for example in her hair or on her clothes (i like the way the right colored concept is looking). Something like Evil has mentioned before somewhere on page 6.

Anyway, nice work.

[Beastie]

Damn man, thats turned out really beautiful, congrats! ANd for the cel shader complainers, dont listen, looks great and in the style it was intended lol. No really i like both 2d and more 3d appearing techniques (actually not a big cel shade fan) but if cell shading were to be used on anything, i think this is a good example. CHEERS!

[AndyH]

Cheers folks. I understand what the non cel shaders are trying to say - it seems madness to make detailed geometry, lay out the UVs so well, and them put a simple solid colour shader on it, but stylistically, it works wonders.
Celshading is a fickle matter - you either like it or you dont. I dont like celshading when its just slapped on - only when its used really well in its context (viewtiful joe, zone of the enders 2, Jet set radio). Cos etna has such a basic design and no apparrent details that a full on texture would benefit from, i thought that celshading would suit her skinny form.
By the way, my first games model was done in the shaded style, and i thought it was lacking something... Take a look:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=111782&page=2&pp=15&highlight=Erica

Ive posted the images in the finished 3d hosted forum in order to reach more people, and maybe even a slim chance of a front page plug (:D )

By the way, Yuki, what the hell is that animated gif you put on your post that is -from what i can gather- a pair of pants exploding?? Actually.... i dont wanna know... :eek:

Cheers for the comments.

[superlayer]

Amazing..
I commented in the finished 3d section too.
I really like this character design and I love the transition to lowpoly.
Good job.
I am looking for artbook pics.

[Dieblein]

Just wanted to say congratz to the frontpage. Dont get me wrong I just think they could have used another thumpnail but well hehe

She looks so much better with shadows if you ask me.

Simply ignore me youve done excellent work :bounce:

[Kizza]

As I posted elsewhere, I love this model.
However the expressions: there's no angry yellow eyes! haha.

Nice work.

[saguru]

Hi Andy!
Just wanted to show my appreciation!
The two tone cell shaded images look stunning, not at all rendered!
They usually manage to fck it up in anime especially mecha :/
But your work is great!

[saguru]

I wonder if you could keep that style while animated?
Could you make just a few frames of anim? Just to see how the shading would look?

[AndyH]

Thanks for the comments. Ill have a go at animating it, but im outta practice when it comes to animation, so im sticking to modeling for now.

By the way, im thinking of modeling this character next. Shes another one of Harada's creations, but i dont know what her name is - can anyone shed any light on it?? Pleeeeaase?

http://www.btinternet.com/~chunglist2/CGTALK/Harada-01-ref.jpg

[saguru]

Thanks for the comments. Ill have a go at animating it, but im outta practice when it comes to animation, so im sticking to modeling for now.

I wasnt thinking of animating her, just move the camera around her. I'd really like to see how the shader would handle her. She can be static. And just maka short clip, that's all


By the way, im thinking of modeling this character next. Shes another one of Harada's creations, but i dont know what her name is - can anyone shed any light on it?? Pleeeeaase?

Sorry dunno who she is, but DO IT :thumbsup:

[eMPeck]

She's so cute. Do her!

[Monkeybot]

I like how you always pick the cutest little girls! I'm sure she'll come up great just like Etna. I did a search for Takehito Harada and found pictures of her but no name?!?

[Kcingna]

name is plenair

[AndyH]

Ooh - thanks for that! How did you know? Can you read japanese?

Can you give me some more background on the character? Is it from anything? Any history or story behind her?

Id love a Harada artbook or something!

[the_podman]

My girlfriend reads Japanese and we went to Harada's personal homepage and found a picture of her, but there was no name. Only a little bit of writing underneath that translates to "I just drew this" and a link to an animation release called "Tsukiyomi: Moon Phase", however, I dunno if it's related to that or he just wanted to tell everyone it was out. Not a whole lot of info about him or his works on the site(even translated, courtesty of Yuki K).

Perhaps it's in one of his books. Anyhew, that's all I got. Tried my best to help.:shrug:

Kcingna has one post. This one. Kinda funny. :)

-pod

[pomru]

Id love a Harada artbook or something!Disgaea artbook: http://www.nippon-export.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=5154
Phantom Brave artbook: http://www.nippon-export.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=7042

[ush]

Hi,Andy H.
I searched about this a little:)

Her real name is Pleinair and She's from the game "DISGAEA" ,you might know this game:D
I've never played this,so I can't explain her role in the game well,but if you
search web using "Pleinair" and "DISGAEA" as keyword,you'll find some info about this.

She's also the mascot of Harada's website.:)

I hope this helps.

Edit:Here is more info.:)
http://tartarus.rpgclassics.com/~disgaea/dark_ass.shtml

[FreakyDude]

she's cute, she's sexy, she seems a little harder to model then Etna. And seeing as how you finished your last character, you should definitly try modeling her. It would look very good... It's a cool character.

[-KDX-]

maybe this has been covered, and if that's the case plz point me to the page #...but...

how'd u do the eyes? That anime style is kinda hard to achieve in 3D I am finding...cause my facial expressions on paper are so hard for me to translate to 3D... I don't quite have an "anime" style but it's more like a cross between manga and american comics..

btw, love the subject matter and the poses u did for etna were amazing. I am playing Phantom Brave right now and the style is simply amazing.

-KDX-

[danielkenobi]

Great model five stars for me.

[AndyH]

Ush - thanks for the info - i kinda guessed she was in disgaea as i saw a small sprite that looked similar to her in the disgaea artbook.

KDX - the eyes were modeled as seporate objects and moved around using morphs. If you look at the wireframes, you will see that the coloured part of the eye is kinda like a flattened sphere. Its probably not the best and most poly efficient way to do it - if i was any good at scripting, i wouldve made some custom sliders to move a UV projection around the eye area.

I wanna get started on her soon, but ive also got my (ambitious, and currently un-designed) entry to the games comp to start, as well as a mountain of games and dvds to get through before receiving another mountain of games and dvds for christmas :D

[-KDX-]

ok cool I could tell it was separate geometry, just wasn't sure. The effect is nice imho.

I suck at scripting/programming too, so I guess that's what I'll have to do. Unless...lol

I wonder if you can make a set-driven system for shifting the eye texture...that'd be sweet. Combine that with normal facial deformations and u could have some sweet anime eyes I think.

-KDX-

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