Samurai

[tinitus]

really good...keep on working...
try to set a reflection/hdri map for the glossy of the eyes this would improve the feeling of the image a lot!

[nemirc]

how do you keep the upper part of the breast plate from falling?

[Zapan]

Well It's a very good character !!

Here the crits : The eyes are too up in his face and maybe a little too far from each other..but the rest of the haed seems to be very skillfull..The hair need more work to me and also the skin, try to add more details on it...The rest of the body is a little too clean...

But I like it a lot Keep it up !!!

[skipstah70]

Alex ...nice work. You caught the Japaname style in 3d.. Maybe a bit more variation in the spec values would help ad to the image, would give the armour a bit more punch ; )

Skipstah

[BAEKON]

Hey thanx alot for all the reply, i'll get started right away on the mistakes.

Zapan you were telling me that the hair needs more work, can you specify? I want to know whats wrong so i can make it look better. by the way your model is coming out great.

As for the breast plate falling off, it's attached to a rope on the shoulder armor and goes under the arm pits. I know it's a little hard to see, but it's there. it's my fault for rendering it so dark.
well anyways here are some screen captures of my samurai
please keep those comments and critiques coming, i know i'm still far away from being finished.

thank you again-alex

--------------------
i'm so broke someone hire me please!

go down for updates

[BAEKON]

Well here are some updates

remodeled the face, moved the eyes down, shrunk the skull, still haven't retextured the skin yet though. also remodeled the eyes , very happy with the results. i know, i know the lighting isn't good too many of shadows coming everywhere, i wasn't paying attention. oh well next update i will thoughhttp://members.cox.net/alex_seng/samurai_face.jpg

well here is a rendered version of the armor with reflection turned on. it took like 3 1/2 hours to finish rendering. the bottom image was just an experiment just wanted to make the armor rusty and worn. well tell me what you guys think. -thanx

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/samurai_render.jpg

[nemirc]

She looks like a woman! :beer:
Maybe you can make the nose bridge a little bit narrower (between the eyes). Right now it looks too wide.

The way you put the belt on the back looks strange. Don't know if that's the way it should be, but it looks strange.

And how about you show us some detail on the clothing beneath the armor? :D

[slangford]

Very nice!... I agree about the nose thing, just a little wide. but great hair!

[Zapan]

Still great !!
Very good job on the armor but I find it a little too red , maybe you can down the diffuse a little bit (just my sentiment, it's your call)

For the hair , I think you should raise the specular. The haircut is good but maybe you could add some single hair on th front and your maps fall all in the same way maybe you could random them just a little as you made in th back...

But that's very nice , love that oriental look, especially in the 3/4 view eyes ( I still find them too high) are just gorgeous

Godd job on that character and I disagree with you nemirc, it's just an asian style man
Keep it up ,want to see more

[BAEKON]

hey there, thanx for all the replys and responses went to work right away on the changes that were asked to be made. Thanx for the support zapan.

I fixed the nose bridge and reworked the eyebrows a couple of times until i got to where i liked it. the bottom image isn't the one liked however, the one below is the one i stuck with. UV mapped the hands, and that was a pain in the butt, had to get rid of all the seams. The fingernails didn't quite turn out the way i wanted , but i'll probably rework it at a later time.
http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/samurai_face_hand.jpg
Started on the sword went through several concept and modeled alot of them, but this one came out the best in my opinion. very happy with the textures, wanted to go for the buster sword look just like cloud in ff7.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/sword.jpg
Here is an image with the samurai with the reworked face and with the reflection turned on. still haven't given him the individual strands on the front of his hair yet, but i will. Tried animating him during this past week, i got so frustrated witht the anatomy i decided to remodel the clothes and bits and parts of his armor. so i'll post up new images once i finish remodeling it, this is what i get for not using reference. =*(

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/samurai_medshot.jpg

[paul.yan]

Alex-

Awesome stuff!! It's good to see more work from COGSWELL COLLEGE (shameless plug)!! This has come a HECK of a long way from a couple months ago. The renderings look great! I would still revisit the modelling on the hand - the nails still scare me. Have you put this much effort into the ninja and princess also? Because no one's asked yet - let's see some wire renders!

[Mudokon83]

I think the style is there, just need to make that armor more gritty, he's a badass, he's seen some hard stuff, and also , being who he is the Buster Sword from FF7 wouldn't work, has to be a thin long sword, play some samauri games and you'll see.

Other than that, a couple more like this guy and you'll be ready for modeling cutscene characters and selling out to EA.....they take your soul, but damned if they don't pay well.

YAY FOR COGSWELL STUDENTS DOING WELL!

-Colin

[DigitalShadow]

I love it very animesh the texturing is unserpasted can you explain how you textured it what method thank you.

[crabfu]

I'm a sucker for samurai..... this is really great, awesome balance between realistic and stylized.

Only thing that I can recommend is that he could use more of an adam's apple, or maybe you are going for that anime girly men that I never could understand..... anyway, I think he could benefit from a bit more of the masculine touch -he just got enough of the thin jaw line, nose, and eyebrows to make him a bit on the feminine side. I'm not suggesting a big change, just a tad, it's amazing how subtle we read faces, a millimeter changes everything.

Anyway, it looks really great, keep it up!

Yay Jetsons!

I-Wei

[crabfu]

Can't wait to see him in action.... what plans do you have for animation?


Go Jetsons!

I-Wei

[Waugh]

Hey.

Mh.... what can I say... this Samuraï looks great !
Okay, I find his nails are rather strange, in th way that mine aren't at all like that ! ;)
And -if I dare- the plates have a 'nurbsy' look, see what I mean ?
I dunno what render you'll use, but tring to get an enameled (?) look would be great !
And maybe a few dots here and there...
Anyway, nice piece of work !

Waugh

[CSutherland]

Hey Alex, this stuff is looking really great. I like the minor tonal changes on the nuckles of the hand texture especially, maybe add a minor cut or bruise here and there to add a bit of character to that part of him (from fighting so much!). Also, the armor looks really sweet with the added grit feel. I agree with Colin, though, that you could push it a little further even, as far as the texture, but that's a tough one.

The hard work is really showing man, keep it up. I'll be anxious to see your other two characters once you post them up.

-- Chris

[oxyg3n]

This model is looking nice. I like how the brow ridge is looking now. He is looking more like a bada$$ now.

Can we see some wires please??

[RichTheArtist]

This model is looking great. Good work on everything. Its came a long way since I saw you working on it at Cogswell! I'm diggin the style. Keep holdin it down for the Cogswell crew..

--Rich--

[oxyg3n]

Hey Big R, how are you doing??

[RichTheArtist]

Hey Oxyg3n, im doin good, just checkin out alex's awesome model. take it easy dude.

[BAEKON]

Hey thanx for all the replies and comments they are greatly appreciated. I want to make sure i have a nice demo reel. Sorry i haven't reply sooner, i was commished to do a cartoon head and i got sick a couple of days ago.

I didn't texture the color part of the hand. I was teaching a friend to use UV mapping, and I asked him if he wanted to texture the hand. All i did was the spec and the alpha maps for the hands. As for the armor alot of it came from procedurals and multiple image map with alpha channels to create a gritty look. Not a hard process, just applied Dan Alban's technique to my own.

As for animation, I have a treatment, but it's more for a feature length movie, so i'm going to cut it down and rewrite a couple of things and hopefully reduce the animation to 3 min long. The animation will have a fight scene between the samurai and ninja.

Here is a medium (quality) render of the new armor and the new rig. i'm really happy with the new rig, as for the armor i like the breast plate, however i didn't like the parts below it, i'm going to remodel it. I like the new shin guard compared to the old one. The old one (the right) looked like it was just going to fall over. I didn't add new textures as you can tell, i just slapped on the old one on top of it. So i'll refine it more later this week and i'll add more grit to it. I modeled strands of of hair i didn't like the results, it was too thick and not enough ( only rendered 2 piece of hair ). hopefully i'll have new results by the end of this week.
http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/samurai_newarmor.jpg
Here is a render of the girl w.i.p, she has less than 700 polys. i haven't decided on a hair style yet, but i was thinking something long or something like Yuna from ffX.

go down for updates

[oxyg3n]

Hello 3DBae806 (member.php?u=66311)

You are using lw right?? I think I am one of the last lw users at school now:)

To render out your object with quads all you have to do is this:

1. in modeler freeze your subdivision surfaces, making your object/ character all polies again.

2. in layout, goto object properties/edges/render other edges

should look like similiar to this:
http://www.smoothshift.com/images/forums/richard_quad.jpg

That is all there is to it. If you keep your object as subds it will render it as triangles. Hope this helps. Also try freezing it at different sudd levels in modeler to get a wireframe that isnt too dense or hard to read.

[BAEKON]

Hey thanx for the info oxyg3n. i'll be sure to do that later this week.

Well started on a pose, man that was tough, had to move so many bones, haven't animated for awhile. hopefully I'll get use to it quickly. well here is a couple of screen captures of the rig and pose.
http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/rig.jpg
http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/samurai_pose.jpg
Here is the armor with new textures. (didn't render it with the reflection turned on) I don't know if i can get it grittier than this. i got to a point where the armor looked so rusted it look like it was gonna fall off. I still got mixed feelings for it though. I don't know if i like the old one or the new rusty one. Colin this is for you the katana. Still haven't fixed the hair yet though, well tell me what you guys think.
thanx-alex
http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/rusty_armor_katana.jpg

[superlayer]

Great work and yes the eyes should be wider apart. These are asian features.
But He seems to be moving a tad too far to his feminin side. I cannot pinpoint why but it has to do with the area around the mouth and chin. But other than that great work.

[Tremor]

hey man great work...i sent you a private message can you read it?

[BAEKON]

Hey thanx for the complements.

Well it's been awhile since i posted an update. It's been about a week and a half. I've been remodeling the face. I think i probably ended up with a dozen different faces maybe more. I thought i was going to be done by wednesday, but apparently i wasn't satisfied with the results. At one point i modeled him to manly and the hair didn't match the face, so i had to go back and make him more girly. I focused on remodeling the chin, the nose, and eye socket. I'm so mad at myself i shouldn't have wasted more than a week on this guys face.

here are some pictures of some of the faces i remodeled, the first one is like the original except the eyes. I didn't use any of the faces below I used a different one.
http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/3face.jpg

I finally, retextured the face, I was trying to make him look sad and angry. Oh yea, the renders low and are with reflection turned off, i didn't want to wait more than an hour to finish these renders. I hate render test. I also added rust to it, let me know if you guys like it or not, cause i'm still unsure about the new textures on the armor.
thanx-alex
http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/samurai_new.jpg
http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/samurai_front.jpg

[ReBootedOne]

Freakin' awesome. I absolutely love this character, I am also a sucker for samuari ninja type characters.
I can't WAIT to see more of this guy, he's realllly cooool. :)

-The ReBooted One

[Waugh]

Hey.
Nice work on the armor. Still... if you could add some 'dirt' to make the volumes more obvious... and also change the material on the lil' nails on the shoulders, it'd add realism.
Just beeing perfectionist 'bout that, but hey, the whole stuff rocks.
Congrats for the work done so far !

Waugh

[BAEKON]

ReBootedOne thank you for your nice complements, I can't wait until to show you guys more of what i have done and start animating. it's always nice to hear a complement it lets you know that your at least heading into the right direction.

Waugh thank you for your critiques, they're really helping me alot. I'll be sure to fix those changes, i've been researching alot of fingernails, and i finally saw some detailed work that i like. And yes, i agree, more dirt would give it more volume.

please keep those critiques and comments coming, criticism is only going to make this better.

thank you all-alex
------------------
Still jobless, still broke, still hungry........... someone please hire me!

[CSutherland]

Hey Alex,

Just looked at your new renders, and they're looking good. I want to say though that the faces need a little more...exaggerate the emotion more! Get those eyebrows into it along with the brow ridges, and I think that will add a lot of emotion.

Keep up the good work man. It's looking nice!

Chris

[paul.yan]

I feel like his eyes look more detailed, but they show too much white. His eyes look like they are bulging! I think fix the eyes and samurai guy is done, move on - let's see the ninja in the same light

[BAEKON]

Hey all, thanks for the advice and all of your kind words!

Chris, i think your right he needs to be more expressive, but i'll do that when i create morph targets. I'm planning on animating his face also. I've been looking at the facial expression book for research.

Paul, yea, i thought the eyes were a little to bulgy, i think i know what is too, so i'll fix that.Yea, I want to move on too. Right now i'm burned out on the samurai, so i'm gonna fix the eyes and retexture the fingernails at a later time. I need something new to do for awhile, otherwise i'll go crazy. but here is a sneak peak of what i'm doing so far to the ninja. I need to remodel the mask, his shirt and pants. The topology on his pants is so crazy, i just feel I can't animate it unless i fix it. I haven't textured him as of yet, except the eyes, man they look freaky, but that's what i'm going for. I'm aiming for 20,000 polys, but i think i'm gonna hit 17,000. Also, the sword is modeled pretty long in case your wondering why it looks elongated.
http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/ninja_sword.jpg

please sir, please sir, can i have a job?

[BAEKON]

Hello, it's been awhile since i posted something. I've been working on the ninja this week(stayed away from the samurai as much as possible), i think i would have been done earlier if i already had a concept for the ninja. Oh well, been reseaching ninja costumes and basically piled on the ones that i like together.

Redid the rig a couple of times, but still haven't finish the arms yet, i need to redo the weight maps and adjust the bones. Also, haven't finish modeling the lower leg area, it's missing a shoe, and i just dunno what to put behind his calf. if you have any suggestions let me know, cause i would really appreciate it.

Oh yea, i put on the claws on his hands the last minute, i just thought it would be cool, but after thinking about it( i don't know how well the claws would integrate with him holding the sword), i'll probably get rid of them. Also, It looks like i'm gonna hit 13000 polys for this guy, right now he's at a little over 12000.

Hopefully, by saturday i'll have him doing some sort of animation.

Well, let me know what you guys think, all critiques and comments are welcome.
http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/3ninjas.jpg

thanx-alex (can't believe i'm up this late)

[BAEKON]

Hey all, finish some simple animation for the ninja. I need to resize his sword down a little, the sword goes through his body same as the knives on his feet. Well tell me what you think!

oh yea it's only 2.2 Mb, so you don't have to wait long.
-alex

go down for updates

[paul.yan]

Alex, this stuff is looking good! next time you do an animation test, itd be nice to see a ground plane with either a grid or strategically placed objects so its easier to tell the relation of his movement to still objects.

imo, there is still a huge jump in detail from the samurai to the ninja. something feels very pillsbury about the ninja's clothing. where are you taking all this? is this turning into a short? a demo reel?

[BAEKON]

Hey Paul, thanx for the info. I re-rendered the same animation but with a plane now. It's been awhile since i animated something, so let me know if i'm off or not. Can you elaborate when you said his clothes look pillsbury? And, i'll add more detail to the ninja by Tuesday and hopefully have a retextured fingernail for the samurai.

As far as taking this, right now just concentrating on a demo reel, but eventually i want to turn this into a short. I need a job....(*sigh*)

keep those critiques coming, If you see something wrong or don't like let it, me know and i'll be sure to make those changes.
http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/ninja_jump_samp.jpg
thanx-alex

sorry, this one is a little bigger it's 3.9mb.
go down for updates

[oxyg3n]

Hello

I think that it would be easier to study your animation if the camera was not moving. It is a little distracting at the moment.

[oxyg3n]

Hmm,

I think that when he does his backflip he needs to bend forward a little more to build up the momentum to jump that far back and when he lands maybe his knees can bend a little more.

[mikeyb3]

Agreed... The jump needs som eserious recovery. I'd imagine that all of his armor and clothing weighs a good bit. Just like they mentioned. Show some serious anticipation before he flips backward and some serious knee bend. I'm kinda being nit-picky here, but the scene's a little dark, but it might just be my monitor. I think that the piece flows well, and the model is very nice. Keep it up:thumbsup:

[BAEKON]

Hey all, thanks for the comments and critiques, they all been really helpful. Oxyg3n and mickeyb3, thanks for the good eye. Did all the changes that needed to be done. If it still looks akward let me know.

Well, it's been snowing down here( snow is up to my knees), man it's cold, been locked up in the house for 2 days =*(. Been working on a new model. It's coming out alright, but i still need critiques to make this better. I still haven't finish the ears or the eyes yet, hopefully tonight i'll have them done. Didn't texture her as of yet, just slapped on some specularity on her, and lit her up with orange lights.

go down for updates

Finally went back to work on the samurai, retextured the hands, also remodeled the fingernails. Also, reworked the eyes, didn't make them too bulgy (or at least i hope). Still reworking the textures on the armor, i been working with so many other things i haven't touched it yet.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/samurai_hand.jpg

Been working on the ninja, giving him more details and refining the edges. I originally thought i was going to hit 13000, but it turned out to be 17000. Finally gave him a shoe and resized the knifes on his foot. The new animation has him with the new updates, but i forgot to resize his sword, so i'll do that tonight.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/ninja_pose.jpg

The animation is only 3.5mb
http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/ninja_jump2.mov sorry due to very limited webspace, i had to take this out...sorry..

Well i guess those are the changes, all critiques and comments are appreciated!

thanx-alex

[BAEKON]

Hey all, textured the ninja. Researched on how to make metals look like metal (a friend of mine told me the samurai's armor look like wood). Man, there wasn't too many detailed tutorials on this. But, finally saw one that really helped me out. There a couple of things i didn't finish with though, i still need to make wrinkles for his clothes, scarf, texture his sandals and give him some eyebrows. When i was doing this on my laptop, the ninja wasn't dark or anything. But transfering it to the desktop, it looks a pretty dark. Let me know if you guys can see the ninja or not, if not i'll make the changes to the lighting and texture.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/ninja_texture.jpg

Well remodeled the girl's ears and eyes, i'm still not satisfied with her looks though. I want to make her look really attractive, so if you guys have any pointers, i would really appreciate them.

go down for updates

thanx-alex

[paul.yan]

The fabrics on these characters are looking pretty slick! Your UV layout/texture projections must be pretty clean - I don't see distortions of any kind! Some critiques on texturing:


Metals - the fractal bump maps on the headband and shoulder pads make for strange textures and reflections. It gives them a tin foil feel rather than solid sheets of metal. Instead of adding noise to reflections, it might help to simply blur them.

Skin - the speculars/color are too even. It gives the models a feeling like they are all made out of wax/soap. There isn't a sense that blood flows under their skin. Skin generally has a hot side and a cool side - this exists in the way skin reacts to light (which is why painting blush just looks like makeup on a corpse) Check out this tutorial - it's written for maya, but the concepts can be translated over to Lightwave: http://www.androidblues.com/shadetut.html

Eyes - your speculars are unnatural and make it look more plastic than wet. If you look at real eyes, speculars are sharp in key areas (eye cavity, edge of cornea, lower eyelid lip) http://www.photo.net/photo/pcd0865/rachel-eye-2.4.jpg It may be a good idea to create lights exclusive to the eyeballs to acheive this effect. Also, I can't tell if you have or haven't, but it is a good idea to physically model the cornea to protrude from the eye. Eyes aren't perfect spheres and this will help catch nice speculars/reflections.

Overall this is progressing really nicely. I know you are aiming for a final fantasy-esqe look, but don't forget to always reference reality! :)

[BAEKON]

Hey Paul, thanx for the advice. I retextured the Ninja's armor and the eyes. However, I'm still researching and experimenting with the skin, so hopefully i'll have it done by next week or so.

Finally modeled the girl's costume. Worked on it yestaerday and today, spent 8 hours on this thing. I still need to go back and remodel wrinkles at certain parts of her kimono. I want to add some trinkets to her, right now she's about to hit 8000 polys, but i'm sure that's gonna change when i add the hair. Remodel her face, happy overall with the exception of her lips. If you guys got any pictures of beautiful lips i would really appreciate them. oh yea, sorry for the smurfy lighting.


Well retextured the Ninja's armor, thanx to the great advice from Paul. Added wrinkles to the pants (very subtle) and shirt. Also added wrinkles to the scarf, but i'm still iffy about it. Oh well, let me know if this passes for wrinkles or just looks awful. Still haven't put on the eyebrows as of yet, but will add them soon. Let me know if i need to make any more changes to the ninja and i'll be happy to.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/ninja_new.jpg

go down for updates

Right now retexturing the samurai's armor ( this is gonna take awhile ) I'll post him once i'm done. but it's starting to look good though.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated
thanx-alex

[mogla]

3Dbae806,

Real nice, I'm extra interested as I'm in the process of producing a trailer and first 10mins of an hour & a half of 14th century Japanese violence and intreague, so fear not your skills will not go to waste. It's early days yet, still getting script and character profiles tight so hang in there. If you like contact me and I'll send you a couple pages of the script as it is so far, maybe you'll help with the mammoth task ahead regarding cast and environments?

[CSutherland]

Hey Alex,

Man, you've done a lot since I last saw your thread. Looking really good! Your textures are very tight and polished, especially on the ninja's armor and cloth. I liked the idea for your animation with the ninja, too.

As far as the animation, I think overall it just needs some exaggeration--in the initial and final landing, and in anticipation of take-off. Perhaps spread his feet out further to enable more knee-bend. And the first part of the jump in the air appears a little slow compared to the second part of, almost like he's propelled faster before hitting the peak of the leap. Maybe bring his feet back quicker for the landing, and stretch him out before the landing, too. Otherwise it's looking pretty good.

Keep up the hard work, Alex. This is some inspiring stuff.

--Chris

[BAEKON]

Hey all, thanx for the advice and critiques.

Hey mogla, i would be happy to help you out with your project, but right now i'm already flooded with so much work right now. I still got to retexture the samurai, ninja, texture the girl, matte paint a background, and animate this thing. Then after i'm done with all this i promised someone i do a low poly character for a videogame. I got a script for the short animation already, it's pretty lame but it works. But yea, i am intrested in your project just give me some time and i'll work with you.

Hey chris, haven't talked to you for the longest time, it nice to here from you. Yea, i agree with you with the jump and landing needs work. I'll be sure to fix that in the future. When i start animating scenes, I could really use your help critiqing my animation, i know you got a really good eye for animation. thanx bro.

Well here's the update, reworked the girl's face. A good friend of mine told me it looked like an alien's head. So he gave me some pretty good advice. Resized the width of her face, fixed the neck, resized the ears, lips, nose, eyes, and checks. Remodeled the costume gave it more of an elegant look. Modeled wrinkles into her clothes, except her dress. If you guys see any mistakes let me know.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/geisha_costume_pose1.jpg


Here are some pictures of what her hair style is currently looking like. Just drew the splines on there, haven't had the chance to put on some textures as of yet, but i'll proabably take a break from her for a little while, i need to start working on the samurai's armor more.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/geisha_hair_pose.jpg

Well let me know what you guys think! Any advice or comment is greatly appreciated!

thanx-alex

[LordApophis]

I looked over the animation and I have a question for you. Feel free to ignore:

is the ninja taking a slice when he jumps down. If so several principals of kendo and iaido suggest that the way he slices is wrong, plus it doesnt look that great. basically it should be a full extension on the arm on the farthest swipe of the blade. also the blade should strike the opponent parallel to the ground, i.e. a cut from side to side with the blade oriented with the ground.....

I love the ninja though and wonder if you are planning on putting on a more realistic cloth shader because the way it looks like it diffuses light currently looks like a strait up lambert. Maybe make it absorb more light and bump map it a bit.

Keep up the great work.

[paul.yan]

http://www.dentallearningsystem.com/db1/00080/dentallearningsystem.com/_uimages/mandible.skull.diagram.jpg


The girl is starting to look good. One thing that juts out to me is her mandible. If you look at her side view, its almost as if there is a straight line from the tip of her ear to her chin. The mandible needs more angle - that is why the face feels like it's flat, volumeless and the chin is overemphasized and comes across pointy. I can tell you are spending a lot of time on the features, but address the structure first - the features should be the icing on the cake. Her costume is looking really nice, but I'd like to see more renders of her face from every side - front, side, back, 3/4. I have a strong suspicion the front view looks great, but as we turn it we'll be able to address more structural issues.

The ninja is looking great. The materials look really nice - it will be interesting to see how the girl's costume will look since there doesn't present the opportunity to throw in a dirt map. I'm interested to see what's next!

[CSutherland]

:thumbsup: This girl is very attractive, and that's not easy to accomplish, so great job on that crucial aspect! However, her head still feels a bit awkward the way it stems from the neck. It seems like her neck connects on the very backside of her head instead of under the skull. I would suggest perhaps moving her head forward a bit, or just making very small adjustments to the back of the neck, so there is more of an angle to it. Does that make any sense? If not, ignore the comment!!

Otherwise, I really like her look. Very elegant.

[udderkaos]

Man, all i have to say is it looks awesome. I'm pretty stoked to see the product of all your work. Keep it up man, the. And as far as jobs go......
"If you post, they will come" like in waynes world two, for waynestock
peace bro

[BAEKON]

Hey all thanx for the comment and advice, they were really helpful.

LordApophis, thanx for the critique. When the ninja is jumping down he isn't slashing. the ninja has his sword sideways, more of a defending move. I got the idea off from a comic book pose, thought it look intresting, so decided to mimic it. I'll show some more animation once i'm done with the modeling part. Thanx for the good eyes, i didn't realize the diffuse was down, so set them higher.

Paul Yan\Chris hey thanx for the advice on the girl. I fixed her mandible and her neck. Also i got some pictures that you requested Paul, maybe you can tell me if this looks right or not, I reworked her jaw and chin as much as i could.

Udderkaos, do i know you?? perhaps your name is joel? hehehe..whatsup bro? hey thanx for the support man and checking out my stuff. Wayne's World, Wayne's World!

Well here are a couple of shots of the girl's head. squished her checks closer, i thought it was a bit wide. Also reworked parts of her jawline thanx to Paul (go check out his caveman short-shameless plug) hopefully i'll have a her clothes textured by the end of the week.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/geisha_face1.jpg

Reworked the textures on the ninja. Set the diffuse on the clothes higher. Reworked the bumpmap on the scarf and added a bump map to his hood( sorry forgot to render a closeup pic of the bumps on his hood ). Still need to fix the wrinkles on the pants though. I'll show some shots of the back once i finish adding some accessories to it (it looks so plain). Also reduce the reflection on his shoulder armor. Let me know what i can do to improve this more.

go down for updates

Here is what everyone has been waiting for( or at least i think ) the samurai with his new shiny armor. Made the armor more metallic and not woody. Remodeled a couple parts of his armor(reduce polygons for render sake) such as the shoulder and forearm. The render originally took about 30 to 45 without hair, now it takes only 5 min. However still having problems with the hair though, it's taking about 2 hours to render, originally it was at 6 hours, but two hours is still lot for me. Also, I'm thinking about remodeling the thigh armor, for it is a little too hard to animate, it can swing up and down, but not forward or backward easily. well let me know if you guys like it or not.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/samurai_shinyarmor.jpg

Please let me know what i can do to improve this.

thanx-alex

[ChrisBG]

Excellent work! http://cgtalk.com/images/smilies/thumbsup.gif I'm loving that samurai. I'll keep checking this for updates, I'm really keen to see how it all turns out. By the way - if you need an original score for that animation of yours (free of course), send me a PM some time. :)

Keep it up!

-Chris

[paul.yan]

Hey Alex - Awesome progression! Your characters are coming closer and closer together in terms of design and detail. This may be your intention - but I am a little tired of seeing the eurasian look, I kind of want to see more evidence of japanese blood running through these characters! Also, I think it's time to pay attention to the ears. I noticed you are probably using the same base mesh for all three characters, the ears are identical for the girl as is the Samurai. Asides from de-flattening them and giving them more intricate loops, ears do add a level of character also - so I want to see ears specific to the girl, and ears specific to the samurai. Do you have reference models/celebrities for each character?

[Citizen-Insane]

The girl needs some work in the shoulder area. The shoulders don't just drop offas quickly:

http://www.herroyalmajestysrecords.com/onlinestore/img/angela---one-shoulder-tank-.jpg
Just a quick google for a girl (suprisingly hard to find!). See how the shoulders are more boney and come out farther before dropping off.

[BAEKON]

Hey all, thanx for the advice and comments!

ChrisBG, thanx for the offer! I listened to the sample you sent to me and i have to say i'm pretty impressed. also, thanx for checking out my stuff, it really means alot to me.

Paul, here are some pictures of celebrities that i have been referencing, i didn't start referencing them until i was done with the models face (that was a bad idea!) Yea, it was my intention to make them look anime (final fantasy characters), but i promise i'll move away from that on my next project. Thanx for checking out the ears, yea u caught me, i didn't like the original ears on the samurai that i modeled (it wasn't anatomically correct). so i basically copied the girl's mesh that i originally modeled, over to the samurai, i didn't want to remodel the ears on the samurai since it was such a hassell (didn't want to lose time). but i'll tweak the ears some more to make them look different.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/celebs.jpg

Citizen_Insane, yea, i totally agree, i didn't spend as much time on the shoulder like i would have wanted to, but i'll go redo them. actually now that i look at it, i'll probably redo the arms. but yea, you got good eyes.

well, here is what the girl's hair will probably end up looking like. the hair is a low render setting, this took about 3 mins to finish, and i'm guessing it takes about maybe 20 minutes to render at a high setting. Compared to the samurai's 2 hr hair render, this is heaven. however i still need to add a couple of more strands in the front and sides, but overall it should look something like this. Also started texturing the girl's face, i'm pretty happy with the results. oh yea, the modeling on the textured face is a little different from the girl with the hair(redid jaw, lips, and eyes). hopefully i'll have a fully textured face by the end of this week.



http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/geisha_color.jpg

Well here is a medshot of the of the samurai, i think i'm done with it, if you see any mistakes let me know. The ninja is just about completed, i just need to refine ceertain parts in the uv. Also as a side note, i remodeled the eyes, modeled wrinkles on his pants and and modeled wrinkles into his scarf (sorry i'll post more pics of the ninja next time with the changes i've done). well let me know what you guys think.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/samurai_ninja.jpg

hope to here from anyone soon =)
thanx-alex

[udderkaos]

How'd you know it was me? lol, i just thought i'd point out how the samurai looked in the first page as opposed to the latest posting of him, so anybody out there, thats alot of progress in a pretty small amount of time. And to any untrained eye its nearly flawless. Oh, and how do you post pictures on here? i am way to retarded to figure that out, and theres a pic you need to see that might influence your work
Joel

[BAEKON]

Hey joel, thanx for the comment as always, your so kind! as for posting attachments i think u have to post 30 comments, i think it tells you in the FAQ menu.

Well here is a quick update on the girl, redid eyes, forehead, and haven't finish the skin shader yet. But i'm at a lost as of now. I dunno if her hair looks right or not. i been playing around with it, and i dunno if this looks correct or not. Maybe i can get some advice from you guys.

go down for updates

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/geisha_3.jpg

Well here's a closeup shot of the ninja and a long shot of him,well let me know what you guys think.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/ninja_wrinkles.jpg

thank you
-alex

[FlexGiddy]

The girl needs some work in the shoulder area. The shoulders don't just drop offas quickly:

http://www.herroyalmajestysrecords.com/onlinestore/img/angela---one-shoulder-tank-.jpg
Just a quick google for a girl (suprisingly hard to find!). See how the shoulders are more boney and come out farther before dropping off.

she looks like she's pushing her shoulders up ( with her hands on the chair)... so they wouldn't just drop off like you said but I think that if she was just standing they would slope a little more.

Ed

[paul.yan]

Looking good! How are you acheiving hair? Are you painting alpha'd textures on polygons or are you using actual spline-based hair? When is the demo reel going to be done?? :) Pay attention to the nose edge, particularly along its sides, it lacks definition. I want to see subtle definition in the neck, imply the cavity and muscle/tendon. I know these are preliminary textures, but I'm going to go ahead and knock on them anyways ;) The light is too hot on the skin. This is either because there is too much light, or the skin reflects it too much. Notice how the hot spots on her shoulder practically is the same white as her clothes. The skin is coming off splotchy, almost diseased - place more similar color pigmentation so there is varying color in the skin, but it blends more. In the straight ahead pose with the hair, her forehead is receiving and absorbing a ton of light but her hair doesn't interact with it at all. You would expect the hair material to be much more reflective. Her eyeballs are a bit unnaturally white, they don't give off the feeling of milkiness. Ok that's enough abuse for now...

When can we get a turntable animation? Pose it on a nice pedastal display and light it like a McFarlane toy!!

[BAEKON]

Hey Paul and Flex Giddy thanx for the replys.

Flex Giddy, that's what i originally thought, but i went ahead and just rework the whole shoulder area anyways, i made it more bony and i guess it doesn't matter if it drops off or not, since i rigged her now.

Paul, always giving me the best critiques. i actually like the critiques you give me, keep them coming, don't hold nothing back, remember if you can see the mistakes, i'm pretty sure the companies that will be looking at this will see them too. keep the abuse coming, i need them. Hopefully i'll have the demo done by the end of jan. For the hair i 'm using splines to create the hair and i only had one light set to the hair, cause it renders faster. For the last week and a half i didn't rework the textures, i've just thought it was time to rig her first before i move on, but i'll rework the textures this week for sure. I'll post some turntable animation soon, hopefully by the end of this month or so.

Okay, here's what i've done, remodel the nose area, fixed the lighting, and tweaked the neck abit, not much (i'll redo the neck some more this week) But the biggest thing i done is rigged the character. man, she was such a pain in the buttocks. Her breast kept on collpasing and i couldn't raise her arm. But after experimenting i could only get her to raise her arm to 45 degrees, maybe a lil higher than that. However i did find a solution to raise the clavical with the shoulders, but that will be for a latter time. Still haven't fixed the textures as of yet, but will do so this week. I'll give her a new specular map on her body.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/geisha_rig.jpg

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/geisha_wire.jpg

Here is an old set that i design about 8 months ago. I modeled basically everything except the trees and the rock. I'm thinking about using the same layout as this, except that i'll be using a matte paintings for the background, but i still need to build a set though. and i don't think i'll be modeling any leaves for this, the leaves with the transparency takes forever to render.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/shogun1c.jpg

BTW has anyone seen the new final fantasy advent children trailer? They actually have the voices sync with the lips. The mouth animation is really amazing, although i wish they would give us more to show. but i'm still kinda iffy on the eye animation, although they did rig it really nice. Hopefully i'll get up to their level.


thanx-alex

[ace4016]

I dont know why I didnt post in this thread at page 2. Samurai are the greatets and your ninja looks pretty good. Love your textures for both. The geisha looks cute, I can't wait to see her finsih. One critic I have about her is her eyes, the right eye that is looking at the camera looks like the pupil is sunken in.. Thats all I have right now. Keep up the good work.

[Citizen-Insane]

I think her head needs to be taller above the eyes, the eyes should be in the very center of the head. I duno if they are, and I just can't see it because of the angle, but the forehead looks too short to me. Also, some difinition in the neck muscles would be nice. Her neck i too cylindrical right now. It should sweep out in back a little and have the "V" shape in front.

http://jupiter.ucsd.edu/~bookchin/neck.jpeg

[michelanimator]

[QUOTE=3DBae806]

Hi,
You defenitely have some great modeling skills. Can we see more of your models?
Cheers,
M

[korndog]

I'm more of a programmer-type, but I thought I'd post and say I enjoy the visuals you've come up with. I think it would be very interesting to see the characters fighting in the oriental scene you've shown above. Can't wait to see the animation. Good luck and keep it up.

[BAEKON]

Hey all thanx for the replies and comments.

ace4016 thanx for your comments, they are greatly appreciated. i reworked the eyes a little, but haven't finish, them as of yet, i still need to figure out why a shadow keeps on appearing on the left side of her eyes.


Citizen_Insane rework the neck area, this was a pain, because i had to redo the shoulder area ( i completely modeled the neck from sratch ), reattach them to the body, re rig parts of her shoulder, and redo the weight maps. lets just say it was a long weekend.

michel.morel and korndog, thanx for the support! i'm always trying my hardest to get the best results. As for my old models, they are pretty out dated, and don't compare to with what i've been doing with the samurai project. Yea, i def can't wait until i'm done with the girl, after she's done, i'll be working on the set and after that, it'll be animation.

well here is a screen capture of her rig, i put the clothes on, i had a lot of trouble with the clothes. they kept on collapsing on me whenever i moved the arms. i thought weightmaps would do it, but that didn't help, so i added more bones. The toughest part of the clothes was trying to figure out the top part of her shoulders where the clothes rested on, i actually had to put bones so it wouldn't distort (cause weight maps didn't really help as much).

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/geisha_rig1.jpg

experimented with the lighting and i have to say i'm pretty dissappointed with the results. I guess it's partly due to the fact i still haven't reworked her skin textures yet. But this week for sure! Also experimented with the hair with mixed results, i still need to fix the tips of her hair where they meet the shoulder. I've been reworking the eyes with not alot of good results, there is a weird shadow at the left end of her eye, i'm pretty sure that no polygon is going through it, i'll probably just remodel the whole eye. this whole week has been pretty frustrating, hopefully i'll have good results by the end of this week.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/geisha_hair.jpg

thanx hope to hear from anyone soon

-alex

[ace4016]

The eyes look better, so does the neck. You know what I just noticed, your girl looks like a friend of mine. Don't see much to critique on other the the ears, but since they will probably be hidden underneath the hair maybe your just saving it for a later time

[dogbite]

really nice.
its really late now so im just posting so ill subscribe to this thread.
i dont have the stamina to check it out.
but really nice

[BAEKON]

Hello all, I hoped everyone had a good Christmas and New Year. I haven't worked on this project during the holidays, i've just been so busy with my family and friends. Now it's back to work, i've done a little update on the girl.

ace4016, hey thanx for the comments, i really appreciate them. however i still think the girl's eyes were a little weird so i adjusted them, rework the iris and other small bits. BTW do u have a pic of your friend? i would like to see the comparison.

dogbite, thanx for subscribing to my thread, i hope my work doestn't dissappoint.

Well here are the updates, i reworked the eyes, adjusted the girl's facial textures, smooth out areas in the hair ( i still need to add more strands and fix the hairs going through the ears ). The first pictures are low pass renders. The bottom one is a medium render with 2 spots lights on the hair. I still haven't fix the texture for her body yet, but i will this week (i keep on saying that, but something always pops up. so, hopefully). Well let me know what you guys think.

go down for updates

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/geisha_fix.jpg

thanx
-alex

[paul.yan]

for areas that aren't completely covered by hair (like atop her ears) it might be a good idea to paint hair directly onto her head so we don't ever see bare scalp. the speculars on the eyes are still a little too soft, they need to be much harder to make them look wetter. keep up the good work! this thing is slowly meshing together well. any chance we can see a turntable animation? maybe wireframe to shaded to textured transformation? (demo reel style ;))

[ace4016]

Looking good, nice improvements. I agree that the eyes still seem a bit specularly dull. All that hair must be killing viewport fps. I dont have a pciture of my friend, but i can tell you that shes italian and 17 years old.

[dogbite]

could you put up the sas configuration on the girl.
it really bugs me how it looks and id like to help you

[BAEKON]

Hello All, thanx for the replies and comments. I've been pretty slow with the updates, the hair is such a pain. So i went to worley's website and looked for tutorials. and all i have to say is THANK YOU STU AITKEN. I've been tweaking it for the past week and i think i'm to the point of where i'm satisified with it, unless i see a bad rendereing in a certain part of the hair, then i'll probably change it.

Paul thanx for the comments, i already thought about paint the scalp already, as i did with the samurai, i just want to cover parts with the hair, so it would match better. And i don't know how i'm suppose to make it less specularly dull. The setting for the cornea is already set at 500 percent. the glossiness is set at 80 percent. Oh yea, i did what you told me to do earlier, i got a fixed light only on the eyes, i don't know if that helps any or changes.

Ace4016, thanx for your input, the computer doesn't slow down as much as you would think (in fact it doesn't really slow me at all). I rendered the hair in about 6 minutes. i was really suprised, i figured it was going to take alot longer, but thanx to STU ATKIENS it renders alot faster now.

Dogbite, thanx for the advice, i knew the hair was off, it was pretty ugly. well anyways you can go to this website to check out my setting. http://www.worley.com/TutFiles/StuTut/index.htm everything is pretty much the same given that i adjusted a couple of setting higher or lower, just by a ten points.

The only difference is the specularity channel is different.
diffuse=100
specular=27
gloss=65
specular tinting=75
direct lighting=90.5
self shadows=55.5

Well here are the updated pictures, redid facial textures, hair, and rig the eyeballs, hair, and lids. tell me what you guys think. any comments are appreciated.

the first picture I forgot to redo the lighting on the shoulder and was render with a low setting. i'll post more pictures from different angles later, incase you were wondering.
http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/geisha_eyerig.jpg


ANNND twiiinsS
http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/geisha_double.jpg

go down for updates


Thax-alex

[Mordalles]

wow, it looks great. one thing though. is her forehead suppose to be so white. the rest of her face seems a little darker? it looks like a tan line.

[CSutherland]

Hey Alex

This is looking really good, man. These renders are getting close to photo-realistic in quality. Her lips especially look like lips--the tone, right amount of specularity, and a good softness.

One critique I have is a minor one: I think the whites of the eyes are a bit bright and almost flat-looking. Maybe a bit more blood tone, or something around the edges of the whites to give them some more roundness. But man, I'm just trying to find things to pick on. It looks great! Keep it up...and like Paul said earlier, a turnaround would be cool, too!

[dogbite]

i used that tutorial,didnt really help.
it doesnt explain the processes

here is a setting for black hair i used once.
try it.

[JackZhang]

very impressive work by "newbie"! actually, i doubt if i can ever get a job like this done.

2 thumbs up.

[maikeul]

Very impressive piece of work. Very good.
I although noticed something. Take it as a critique or not:
Your ninja looks really great. I am talking here about the black one. I think it should be nice when you do the final rendering that you put some more armour on the black ninja. Also, if you animate it, you can like put the woman in the middle between the fight of the two (a mistress and a lover? fighting for their love?). I think that the black one (the bad guy) who takes his revenge should be more equiped and the red one (the good guy) less.
Another idea: when you do the final render, I think a gray tone filter or sepia could give an "authentic" feeling. Why not a "cartoon filter" under 3ds max where the colours are turned in like cartoon like with black contours?
In all matters, VERY IMPRESSIVE PIECE OF WORK! http://www.cgtalk.com/images/icons/icon13.gif

[BakerCo]

same its very well done and inspiring

[paul.yan]

The hair is looking really nice. I can't imagine the render times on these images - it's impressive you have the patience to tweak at the renders like that! I would yank my own hair out trying to get her's right!

I'm getting antsy waiting for turntable animations. I really really want to see all three of these guys posed on a nice pedastal, like high quality, hand-painted figurines spinning in all its glory. http://cgtalk.com/images/smilies/thumbsup.gif Keep up the good work

[BAEKON]

Wow thanx for all the comments and suggestions! they were all really helpful!

Mordalles thanx for the good eyes, i knew something was funky with the forehead, but i couldn't figure out why. I put up a alpha channel on the specular channel so the forehead wouldn't be so bright.

Hey chris, haven't heard from you for a long time? when are we going to see your project? Hey i really appreciate the complements, it means alot espeically from a friend. I think i'm far off from being photo-realistic, i seen some of these guys here in cgtalk and they are incredible. i just hope i can get to their level.

dogbite i tried your settings. but it wasn't the look i was going for. so i basically put in a shadow shader and i think it looks good. thanx for helping though.

JackZhang, maikeul, LostInFace, thanx for all the complements. I'm really humbled by the kind words, but i don't think my work is good enough to be inspiring. And i'm pretty sure if anyone is determine enough they can do whatever their mind sets them. I have a treatment for the storyline already, it's in the works right now. I have a friend who is writing the script hopefully we'll get this done and it'll be great.

Paul thanx for the comments, man. The hair will always be a pain and will be a pain in the future. I been working so many setting and i think this looks good enough. Yes, i want to do a turntable animation too. but i won't do it until i'm finish with the girl, my main focus will be the girl then the turn table animation, just wait a lil longer.

okay here are some pictures of some of the process of rendering. okay, why did her eyes suddenly turn ice blue? and her dress turn black??? what happen to all the hair in the back??? DOH!! back to the drawing board. i hate rendering hair. Blah, i want to drink your blood

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/doh.jpg

okay, i redid the top part of her kimono, gave it more wrinkles, i'm just happy that her dress doesn't fall apart from the wrinkles. oh..as i side not i redid the top part of the kimono, partly due to the fact that her breast *ahem* were a lil tooo busty.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/geisha_wrinkle.jpg

I'll fix the alpha maps on the specalrity channel, casue her skin is a lil too bright. I had to redo the uv on her body, it was well worth it, everything flows alot smoother now. oh yea, fixed the eyebrows too.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/geisha_front.jpg

thanx for checkin out my stuff, any comments or critiques are greatly appreciated

-alex

[ace4016]

I just now noticed what seemed wierd about her eyes when you showed the ice blue eyes: the brown eyes looks like it's just a color and no special design that makes her unique (retina?). The ice blue looks like it was a desing to it so it looks better (but kind of scary to me). Hope the whole hair thing works out.

[udderkaos]

Man oh man! this looks really awesome. All of it, and I am really liking that girl. When you get finished with her, could ya point her in my direction?

[ChrisBG]

Very nice. I'm loving the improvements, Alex. Sorry for not contacting you sooner with updates on the screenplay, I have been a little busy lately. Anyway I have continued work and will keep you posted. :)

Keep up the great work,

-Chris

[mogla]

I think if you want the eyes on your models to look shiny; you must bear in mind the layer of water thats in them and wells up in the bottom eye lid, it creates a kind of transparent shiny connecting ramp between the eyeball and the lower eye lid, it catches the light when viewed from a particular angle.

[BAEKON]

hey all, sorry for the slow update.

Thanx for the support ace4016, udderkaos, and chris. this hair thing has been driving me crazy.

mogla, i think i know what ur talking about, i wasn't sure at first but i think your right. I guess i was just scared to remodel it, i assumed she looked great and didn't want to touch up her face anymore. But i got over that phase. thanx bro, got some good eyes.

I decided to redo the whole hair. I had a theory of how ur suppose to model hair strands, but i guess the reason why it didn't work with the previous hair was because i rushed it and didn't spread the strands wide enough. I thought the setting for the hair shader were okay (not extraordinary) so i kept it the same. Well here are some pictures of the trial and tribulations of going through the process of hair. I decided to go for shoulder length hair, instead of something long (easier to animate in my opinion).

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/hair_process.jpg

After careful reconsideration (a rendered turned out awful) i decided to remodel the head. when i rendered a med shot of the girl her breast were still big, even though i modeled them really small. then i rendered it without hair and saw that her face was way too small, so i resized and now it looks much better. Also, remodel the eye area, chin, and lips (wanted to make it more femmine). oh yea, remodeled the eyelashes as well (that was a pain). gave her a reflective enviroment map on her cornea.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/geisha_new.jpg

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/geisha_upclose.jpg

well, the hair has been a pain, now i just have to remember my theory of modeling strands and take my time instead of rushing it. well let me know what you guys think, i hope the changes are better. Next update i'll have to remodel the ornaments on her arms, that should be easier than doing hair. any comments are appreciated.

thanx-alex

[Keiyentai]

Simply amazing :thumbsup: awesome work :)

[ace4016]

I like this hair style more then the other. I still think her iris needs a desing rather then just one plain flat color, would add more life into the eyes. Hope more updates come soon, and thanks for the comments in my thread.

[nobrain]

i like ff and using that sword is a kick ass idea. if i had these modelling skills i'd be modeling ifrits and odin's and bahamut and maybe barret, yeah!

[korndog]

That looks pretty good. It will be interesting to see her face make emotional expression when you animate it. I'm willing to be she'll make a killer smile. Also with hair, I dont think I've seen many models with individual hair at varying lengths, it will be interesting to see it flow around.

[stooch]

your modeling is impressive,
keep working on controlling the tightness of your subdivision surfaces, thats the main fault i saw thusfar.

one specific problem is the neck area. It needs to be alot more delicate and defined. Im sure you are still working on it tho. Keep in mind that during bright lighting conditions, there are
rays of light reflected from the ground, which should sharpen the collarbones a little. Adding an extra edge or two might give you that extra bit of crease as well.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/geisha_upclose.jpg

[BAEKON]

Hey all thanx for the comments and critiques!

Keiyentai, nobrain....thanx for the support man, it keeps me encourage that I always want to do better. Thanx Guys!

ace4016, i already ahd a design in the iris....but i guess the reflection blurred it away, so i took the reflection of.

korndog, can't wait to start animating her too.......until then here is a turntable animation.....wow...look at her go round and round......maybe in the future i'll have a walkcycle, until then enjoy.

thanx for the critiques stooch, honestly, i liked her neck the way it was.....i haven't had plans of changing them.....oh well, i went in and added the edge loops like you suggested. i hope this is better. also reworked the collar bone a little.

well here are the updates, i figured out why the eyes didn't look round or looked flat. because i modeled the eyes as ovals, the curves didn't reach the tip of the eyes and made them look flat......oooops....so i changed the eyeballs made them into a sphere. remodeled some parts of the costume,i think it looks better now, just need to texture it. Now i just need to rework the hand textures with a help of a friend.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/geisha_reworked.jpg

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/geisha_turntable.mov
ps. don't know how long i'm gonna open that link....cause i need some webspace....well, enjoy! (sorry link doesn't work now, have to post other things)

oh crap, i just noticed her eyes are glowing white.....oh well, i'll fix that later.....

almost done.....when i finish my demo reel i'll get started on modeling the background. also might be posting other models in this forums for my demo reel so watch for it, cause i need critiques!

well thanx for checking out my stuff, hope to here from anyone soon!

-alex

[stooch]

Nice job, the neck looks more convincing. although it could still use more horizonal definition. lol but im nitpicking. you did a great job :)

[LKC81]

Oh my GOD this is good looking 3D model. Nice job. keep working hard my friend.

[korndog]

Still looks fine, maybe show new screens of samurai and ninja if you've been updating them? And if you've come up with a background yet. Would be nice to have more texture on the clothes to match the detail of the face.

[Faithbleed]

Wow 3DBae806, have you considered applying for a job at SquareEnix? I think you'd fit right in with their style.

Well done, awsome work. vbmenu_register("postmenu_1954176", true);

[BAEKON]

Hey all thanx for the replys and comments!

stooch, thanx for your critiques bro, don't hold anything back, i really like hard critiques, it keeps me motivated, keep them coming! btw way what do u mean horzontally on the neck?? i redid it again but i didn't understand when you said horizontally. (can you specify please?)

Hey LKC81.....lol...thanx for checking out my thread my friend.

korndog, thanx alot for the critiques bro! i did just that, i had to uv map the clothes first b4 putting on the textures, hope you like it. As for the other characters, you'll see them in the next post! with some sort of background hopefully!

a.Default, i would really like to work at square enix, actually i would like to work anywhere! oh, man, so depress now.....I need a job! Well, anyways i'm working on my demo reel right now, so i'll be applying everywhere.

okay, i basically remodeled the whole eyeball, and textured the clothes finally. My friend did the design for me. THANX NOI! hope you guys like it.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/geisha_texture.jpg

Well, I think i'm done with the character part (unless you guys don't like something let me know!!), now it's time to work on my demo reel, and get a job. after that, start on background. Well, let me know what i can do to make this better or if you guys have any critiques let me kno!

thanx-alex

[ace4016]

The eyes are looking pretty good, it's not flat and dull looking anymore. I think the hair looks a bit 2d with the whitish parts on there. Looks great, i think your done modeling. BTW, what postion are you making the demo real for?

[LKC81]

Man, nice model again. it will be better if you can build more texture on the skin, keep working hard my brother

Chris

[paul.yan]

This is beginning to look top notch! Can't wait to see them all together! :bounce:

[BAEKON]

hey guys,

i've been working on the demo reel the past week, i've rendered them out and had to fix a couple of rigs and other details.

ace4016 thanx for your input bro, i think the reason why it looks 2d is becasue i haven't added another shader plugin to the hair, right now it only has 1. but i rendered it out with 2 shader plugin and it takes alot longer to render.

LKC81, hey thanx alot bro, i want to rework the skin textures, to make them more realistic, but i'm trying to go for an anime look. you can check out my demoreel head thread if you want to check out my realistic textures (or trying to be). but maybe in the future i will.

Paul! thanx for the support man, i can't believe this thread hit a 100, thanx to you. and your prize is.......sorry too broke to afford a gift..(LOL, but at the same time depressed)


well here is a shot of what my demoreel will look like, i had to rerig his leg and had to redo the uv on his pants. also redid the rig on his scarf and remodel it too.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/ninja_test3.jpg

here's a small poster of my project. Like the ninja redid the uv and textures on the samurai's pants, also modeled wrinkles into the pants. and rerig his legs and arms. i did in black and white to see if the lights were hitting it where i wanted. oh yea, the render for the samurai takes about 15 min with hair now, before it was 2hours.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/BWSAMUARIPoster.jpg

well can't wait to get this demoreel out of the way and and start back on the samurai short film project.

well thanx for checking out my stuff-alex

someone please hire me!

[ChrisBG]

whY isnt my name on the poster!!!?

Lol, j/k.

Looks great. You've done some incredible work here. :) Sorry for the delay on the screenplay (I'm almost done now). I just got the garritan personal orchestra library, so I was setting it up. (I will be using those samples for the music in the film). Also, my film has been undergoing some exciting new changes, so it's been taking up some time.

I'll email you the update shortly. Keep up the great work!

-Chris

[learner88]

Great characters!!!only one crit.The hands look wrong..could you post a screenshot of them?

[pum]

Very nice work Alex, I like the female character the most( esp the lips.) The hair could use some more texture though. But anyway, great work :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

cheers,
HB

[Kedhrin]

very very nice work, can't wait to see the final production, you aren't a newbie at all :P

[BAEKON]

hey all, it's been awhile since i posted something, i've been busy rendering wireframes of the characters and they were done early this weekm however, i got sick and didn't post anyhting. (it snowed 8 inches here is tejas)

Sup chris, sorry about that, but the poster doesn't mean anything, as long as your name is on the credits.

learner88 there are alot of things wrong with these characters, it just that i want to hurry up with this demo reel so i can get a job. the characters were made to look good from afar, not close up. i'll post up some pictures of the hands later on, i'll def redo them and the faces for animation. i also want to rework the clothes also.

pum, thanx for checkin out my stuff man, yea, i got the lips off from this girl i thought looked pretty cute. i'll try to play wit the hair some more .

Kedhrin, thanx bro, i still feel like i'm a newbie sometimes (go figure). but yea, after getting help with topology, i'm gonna have redo some stuff for animation.

well anyways here is what i've been workin on, i figured after rendering everything out, it was a lil too short, so i figure i might as well just do a scene for the samurai and just put it into the reel. The gaezbo is around almost 28000 (it was all from the tiles on the roof) also, i figured people are wanting to see the topology on these characters so i finally got a plugin to render them out.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/gazebo.jpg

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/wireframe_characters.jpg


any ideas to add to the scene would greatly be appreciated. also if anyone knows a way to model trees quickly, please let me know!

-thanx-alex

[CSutherland]

Hey Alex,

This is looking sweet man. I can't wait to see some animation within the scene! :)

Keep it up dude, you're inspiring with this work. You're doing COGSWELL proud.

Chris

[tamamo]

cool!:cool: This is good scene. I like this stone lantern.

I think that a sky map of the background should arrange a little more.
For instance, Terragen is good tool.:thumbsup:

[Shiver]

pimmmmmmmmp looks like its gonna be a sweet movie

[LKC81]

Good Job Alex, now I want to see some animation.

Chris

[BAEKON]

hey all, wow! thanx for all the replies!

Chris Sutherland\ Chris Lau thanx for the motivation! I can't wait to animate these characters also. I kno everyone getting antsy about me animating them. But i want to finish this scene first b4 i go on to animation. But i promise that animation is creeping up very near! all i need to do is texture the scene.

tamamo, thanx for checking out my stuff! thanx for the suggestion with terragen, i'll look at it this weekend and play around with it. The sky is not set, it's just an idea of what it might look like, but yea, i'll rearrange them to look better.

Shiver, thanx bro, i hope it comes out looking good also. I'm just hoping the project doesn't come out crappy.

Well here is an update, i've been working on adding more elements, so it won't look boring. I've also added some mountains in the background, they are part of the scene right now, but hopefully that will change and they'll be matte painting. I'm figuring the best way to texture this is throught procedurals, so here is an example on the stairs with procedurals. I'm still thinking i'll model 3 trees and the rest should be matte paintings, hopefully. i need to freshen up on my photoshop skills, cause i never done enviroment painting before (if anyone has some technique please let me know!). had to redo the tiles on the roof , it looked more Roman than Japanese. Oh yea, the whole scene comes out to 34000 polys. well, please let me know what i can do to make this better! All critiques are appreciated!

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/temple7.jpg

thanx -alex

[paul.yan]

this is great stuff - keep on truckin' inch by inch! Just out of curiousity - how long are these stills taking to render?

[BAEKON]

Hey all! sorry i've haven't update my thread for awhile, i was experimenting with the textures on the set. i wasn't sure if procedurals could do all the texturing for me, as it turned out, it proved to be too tedious. so i went back with what i know, uv maps. Oh well, i'll try some other time. Also i've been looking up tutorials for matte painting mountains in photoshop, man no luck....the mountains i painted were pretty shotty. so now i'm in stuck with what i should do...either do mountains in 3d, render them out and make them into matte background, or stick with photoshop and keep on trying, or i could use photos......well, i really do want to stick with the photoshop way, if anyone out there has a photoshop tutorial with mountains i would really appreciate it.

hey Paul, thanx for checkin out my stuff man. these renders aren't exactly fast, but they don't take hours a frame either. Out of the characters the samurai takes the longest (also has the most polygons 45k), he's 15 mins to render. The ninja takes 8 mins (25k) and the girl 6 mins (17k). the renders for the set takes about 3 mins without grass, with grass it takes around 30 mins. I wanted to add more variation to the grass, but it takes more time to render.

Well here is what i've completed so far, sorry for the bright light on the stone statue and the double lights, i'll take them away on the next render. Everything here is poly modeled, no nurbs. it was originally around 34000 polys, but it looked really low poly so i now it's 55k.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/temple32.jpg

Well, please let me know if you guys have any suggestions! I could really use some help with the mountains if anyone has any ideas.

thanx-alex

[paul.yan]

Hey Alex,

this is looking sweet! couple of suggestions - i get the feeling this dojo is somewhere way up in the mountains, but I'm seeing grass and trees that look more familiar to sea-level elevations. I really want to see this place sort of carved out of stone. Itd be like those extremely remote places where monks go to study martial arts. I think if you make the place almost entirely granite/marble, the red posts will really come alive. Maybe cap things with snow?

If you're going to stick with the Spring look, I'd definitely suggest taking some time to make the tree branches more natural. Right now, the branches extrude like fern leaves. As for the grass, if you want to lower the render times, try making a few grass cards (painted grass textures with alpha maps) and strategically place them around the place so they can disrupt the surrounding contours.

good luck man - will I see you at SIGGRAPH this year shopping this stuff around?

[BiGMaCHiNe]

this looks phenomonal. fantastic work. and how the %$# did u do the grass? looks amazing.

[ace4016]

The dojo looks good. Sorry I can't help you on the photoshop, I can't paint; mayeb you could head down to the PS section. Um, are the red post suppose to not have wood rings? Still waiting to see this thing done.

[mogla]

I think you're making great progress, my crits are...

1. the steps seem to be carved out of the ground, but I reckon they should be built onto it.
2. the ground looks like the landscape gardeners levelled the ground before laying turf and so gives it an unnaturally flat uniformity.
3. What?.. grass and no leaves? This got me thinking: "Ninja caterpillars, a story of greed and mass destruction".hehe

It might be nice to see a character in the foreground to give us a sense of scale. (...and cos I like your characters).

[udderkaos]

Everything is looking so good! I was looking at the girl, and apparently its been a long time since I looked, because she is looking really good. I'm impressed, keep up the good work.

[BAEKON]

Hello all! Hey thanx for all the suggestions and replies!

Paul, yea the idea was to have the gaezbo at the top of a hill or mountain. I do want to stick with the spring look, thanx for feedback on the trees! I'll redo them as soon as possible (i'm thinking i'll just have 1 tree). Right now i'm experimenting with boulders see if they would match the scene better. Also, great idea with the grass. I put a displacment map and the render time was cut in half by 50 percent. Thanx bro.

ace4016, yea, i didn't want to waste time so i decided just to make it in 3d render them out as matte paintings. i'll figure the photoshop thing later. Right now i'm trying to figure how to composite things together in a editing program. I'm deciding weather to go with aftereffects or premiere. oh well, whatever is user friendly. as for the wood rings, i think you couldn't see them because they were rendered in a low setting and the camera view was far away.

Hey Mogla! thanx for the ideas! I'll rework those steps, if i have time. But i really like the idea with making the ground bumpy, really brilliant idea, i'll start on asap. as for the trees, i was trying to make them without leaves because the render time on leaves are so horrible. So i'm gonna try and redo them as old aged tree. thanx for the compliments about the characters, i want to put them in there, but right now i got to fix everything before i put them in there (cause i hate rendering)

Hey Joel! thanx for checking out my thread bro. always giving me nice compliments, thanx man.

well here it is the wood ring is in there, i've put a boulder to see if the scene match. also rendered some hills for the background took about an hour, thank goodness this is going to be a matte. right now i'm so tired and my brain is tired, i dun't even know if i'm saying things right, it hurts so much to think right now. excuse me for my english. yes please tell me wat u think. I need help with this.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/gaezbo.jpg

please help me, i need as much ideas as possible

thanx- alex


edit- BigMachine, thanx for the compliments! as for grass i did it the same way i did hair, just using a plugin to do it. the only difference between making hair and grass is that for hair i used splines and grass i used a displacement map to place the grass in certain areas and used different settings to randomize (if that's a word) the shape. well hopes that helps you.

[Dervish]

hey there, astonishing work, really nice, for ideas,... how about some more life in there, cloth flags would fit well in the temple( some sort hanging carpets ) wouldnt add to much distraction since theyre heavy and dont move too much in the wind, some water would fit in well too

[BAEKON]

Hey Dervish, thank you for the compliments.

for the suggestions, the carpet idea doesn't sound bad, i'll look for references see if i can't find any. However i don't think i'll have enough time to play around with water.

Well here is a small update. Redid the trees, the hills, added some more lanterns (you can never have enough). hopefully, i'll have mountains on the next update, along with making the ground more bumpy. maybe add a couple of rocks here and there, also, if you guys see anything i could do to make this better or if i could add something , please let me know!


http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/gazebo1.jpg

well thanx for checking it out. Let me know what u guys think!

thanx-alex

[BAEKON]

Hey all! Finally got an update. well here is what i've been workin on.

I've been working with volumetric lighting, it was pretty easy to figure out, changing the density, however, i'm having problems with getting to render the background image as a alpha so i can composite the volumetrics lights into the temple. that way i don't have to wait long hours for this to render (it takes about an hour just for 1 frame with the volumetric lighting on, however if i just have volumetric without the scene, it takes about a min or less). so i've been experimenting trying to figure that out. also worked with particles, making leaves blow, i got it to work, but i dunno if i want to add it on. the animation didn't exactly turn out the way i planned but i guess the biggest thing is that if i do add leaves, is if i'm gonna ad leaves to the rest of the scene, like the trees. i played around putting the samurai in the set, get a feel for what it might look like. I'm really liking what it's coming out to look like, the only thing i dread is the rendering and compositing. as for the carpets, i really couldn't find any, so i just added the rocks, twigs and roots. oh well, i guess this is good enough. Well, if anybody has any ideas for composting let me know, i'm really looking forward to hear any comments and suggestions!

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/samurai_temple.jpg


thanx-alex

[Dervish]

hey there, this is gettin really great, like the added detail, and even in that pic with the char that mid morning mood is pretty nailed.

about the volumetrics, not sure how ya layer it exactly but theres quite some tuts out there on layering, providing the objects still interact properly with the volumetric( trow shadows etc once they move truh it ), ya could also put more geomtry like parts of a tree in its way to give it more dept, or add a projection map that would simulate just that without the actual source visible, both combined would pretty much give the best results, since theres most like some stuff outta the scene that would split it here or there, and having some visible stuff adds even more, characters moving trough it aswell,.... ya get where im going^^ not sure if that layered thing would support such, but theres perhaps faster ways to render em, try uncle google. the projection map adds an effect like in my first finished piece( see sig ) but i kinda overdid it with it, not very realistic but wasnt meant to ^^.

keep up the great stuff :)

[mogla]

Hey, just popped in to notice voluptuos curves adorn your landscape, (i'm getting happy).

Maybe the stone work is just a bit shiny (specular level I think) but I almost feel like I wouldn't mind being there.:thumbsup:

How'd you do the grass? Any clues... (I'm trying to build a 1 mile round earthwork).

[korndog]

purdy

mmm still cant wait to see animation

would like to see more trees behind the house instead of grassy plain

keep going

[Freefall]

That looks very good, nice modeling. Can I ask you how you did the grass? I've been trying to make realistic grass for a pretty long time and yours looks very good... how did you make it?

[BAEKON]

Hey all, it's been awhile since i posted something here. sorry for replying so late, i've been so busy animating, rendering, modeling, experimenting with particles, and compositing.

The demo reel has been taking alot of my time, and i'm going crazy. I hope to finish this off by next week, so i'm hurrying as fast as i can.

well, this is what i've been workin on while i was gone from cgtalk. I've experimented with particle animation trying to get a dust like effect on it. i think it came out alright. Oh yea, THANK YOU Dervish! i was really reserve about shooting a static frame image for animation, but after 3 days of rendering everything intact, the results were most dissappointing. So, i decided your idea was best, i went with the projection map, So thank you!

mogla/freefall, hey guys thanx for checking out my stuff, for the grass i used sasquatch for grass. here is a tutorial that really helped me.

http://www.nullspot.com/html/deform_panel_1.html

korndog, i've already began animation, i've been working on the samurai walk cycle and redoing the ninja jump. the samurai walk is done rendering and it looks great ( i think), the ninja jump is rendering right now as we speak. i'll post a mov file later on so everyone can check them. for now here's a still image from the animation and the temple with the particles added on and volumetric lighting.

http://members.cox.net/alex_seng/sam_temple.jpg

Well, thanx for checking out my project. Hope to hear from you guys soon!

-alex

[Augh]

Jeeze... hehe everything is looking so detailed o_O And the quality is crazy ;) There's a strong feel like a very expensively produced game cutscene sequence to the character and scenery, everything seems really polished :) I'll be really curious to see him walking around with that sorta "I'm an armoured dude or possibly a cowboy" gait people develop in armour. Are you gonna play up the formal/armour thing or try and get just a good natural walk going first? Hehe either way would be something to see.

Time to go read through the whole thing :D

Cheers!

[leekhangwei]

nice job dude...i like the lips of your female model, feel like kissing them lol:love: . I think the enviroment is too dark especially on under the roof area, or are u creating a scene before storm? Your samurai character looks like Onimusha thou..:thumbsup:

[paul.yan]

Is this thing still in production? How's it going man?

[DimaDavid]

i think you should make the samurai smaller in the scene


well done, keep it up

[BAEKON]

Hey Paul long time no see. man, talk about reviving a dead thread, it's been almost a year now. As for me doing the samurai short film, yea i got to put this on hold, i've been busy doing some freelance work. however, with the little time i still have i've been trying to get better. I decided to redo everything. I was going to create a new thread, since i'd figured nobody wants to look at an old thread. but oh well, i'll just post the pictures i got now then i'll start a new thread later. but here's what i've been working on. i've basically remodeled the whole samurai model. i reworked the topology, reworked the anatomy, reworked the textures, and well just about everything. Right now, modeling a base model to get it ready for clothes. also worked on some morph targets, i'm still kinda iffy on certain poses. Well, that's all i got for now, not really a whole lot, but who knows, maybe i'll finish it one day.

dima_boujou, yea....i think i'm gonna rework everything.

http://bae-seng.com/updates/morph.jpg

http://bae-seng.com/updates/smoothshade.jpg

http://bae-seng.com/updates/textures.jpg

So how's everything at Toys Paul? i know your making all that money now. well hope to talk to you again bro.

-alex

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