- My Project Book -

[ts-falcon]

ah that looks pretty good, only crit is his hairline looks a tad too far back. i agree a normal map would look awesome for this guy. the texture space was not used super efficiently the sides of the face could have been mirrored and increased the texture size or add some more differencees to justify using both. the hair could be a little bigger on he texture sheet, and the eye could be even higher res, as that is usually what really helps drive a character. nice texture work on the eye reall looks wet and alive. for the next one definatly try to pack your uvs a bit better, its a good thing to really practice hard at. nice work! :D

[CodeNothing]

Thanks!

hey i read in several places that mirroring UV's is a big no no if you are going to use normals. Is this true? I guess thats the main reason I didnt mirror anything. That and that I always notice imediatly when other people do mirror. I could probably squeeze things together a bit more, but i was thinking i may put the teeth on this map. But i dont even have them modeled yet.

[ts-falcon]

if you are building a high poly for the normal map and using render totexture in max then mirroring or overlapping uvs is bad, is however you are painting it in photoshop it shouldnt cause problems. for the sections with the sides of the head and ears is what i meant for mirroring it , the face should usually be paintied whole but you never really see the sides of the head at the same time....so mirroring is usually un noticable. teeth would be cool! :D

[iLegacy]

Its very nice but in my mind the chin is to wide and to round. For example look at this face:

http://www.new-dream.de/image/wallpaper/musik/50cent/50-cent-09.jpg
I hope we can see more of your work soon :-)


[mod edit]
edited image to link per threadmakers request.
[/mod edit]

[CodeNothing]

I'm playing with the use of bump maps and transparency maps to try and cut down on Polys. I did this rough 512X512 map for this railing. The transparency/specular have the exact same file, and the bump is slightly different. The edges are a little rough, partly because i upsized the photo i used, but i think as a medium to far distance they look prity good. I think if i were to use them in a real game i would want to have a second version that has some polys or at least a 1024 version of the textures to spawn when you get close.

I dont know a whole lot about game engines though, are raytrace shadows possible? or would i use some sort of pre-rendered shadow? The poly count here is 70, including 2 for the floor and 2 for the walls. I'm going to try and put this to the test on some stonework and decorations in an environment, but i think normal maping (which i still have no idea how to do) may be required for some of these nicer ideas i have.

http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/1801/railing2bc.jpg

http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/1926/railingscreen7qr.jpg

[CodeNothing]

did some work on the face texture. Added a bunch of pores and such, his face was way too smooth before. stil a 1024.

http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/336/34newtexture7vv.jpg


http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/4377/34newtexture29aj.jpg

[CodeNothing]

After doing some investigation on normal mapping, (which i know very little of) ive found it would probably make a lot more sense to make normals in photoshop for architectual items, and leave the high poly modeling for characters and vehicles. The bump maps i was using for the rails looked ok at a distance, but it looks realy ugly up close.

Has anyone used the Nvidia plug in for photoshop? have they found it easy to use/reliable?

i figure for the Decorative railing and engraved stone work this would be very easy for me to make in PS rather than learn z-brush.

[ts-falcon]

the pshop plugin works awesome, very handy. just have to paint the depth info in grey scale and convert it to the normal with the plugin, the effects are usually very clean and crisp even at low res. good luck mate.

[requiem2d]

the pshop plugin works awesome, very handy. just have to paint the depth info in grey scale and convert it to the normal with the plugin, the effects are usually very clean and crisp even at low res. good luck mate.

Agreed, works great on low poly & non-organic. Make sure the light source is pointing in the correction direction when applying as plugin (might have to flip, use normal plugin, flip back). Cheers :)

[CodeNothing]

ok, so i downloaded the nvidia plug in, and its awsome, but how to i apply a normal map to a model in Maya! Ive been all over the net looking at dozzens of tutorials and no one ever gives you the step by step on what to do once the map is done. They just say "apply it" to your model. WHERE AND HOW DO I APPLY IT? i tried puting it in the bump map slot, but that obviously didnt work.

Apparently i need some sort of 'shader'. but as i dont know that much about Maya, or shaders, I was hoping someone could tell me what to do once i have a normal map completed. How do i get the thing on my model?

I dont nessisarily need to see the normal applied in the viewport, though if it isnt too much trouble to go through, it would be nice.

thanks in advance!

[CGmonkey]

Connect the normal map to the material by middle-mouse drag the normal map to the shader and press "other".. Then you connect "Out color" with "Normal Camera".. Then you must turn on "High Quality Rendering" under the cameraview menu "Shading".

Hope this helps.

[CodeNothing]

ALMOST! i finaly kind of understand where to go now, and i found the normal map, middle click, select 'other' click on 'out color' but then there is no "NORMAL CAMERA" option! drat....

any ideas?

edit* ok, so i figured out how to get normal camera, but it still didnt work quite right, mabie i'm using the wrong normal camera. Am i suposed to grab the normal camera from the Bump map? or the lambert? probably the lambert as the bump didnt work. But, allas, i must go to work. Ill put my head through another wall when i come home.

[CodeNothing]

well i still dont have this normal map thing down yet, but im geting closer. I downloaded a normal shader and seem to have installed it correctly. When i render it DOES render the normal map correctly, but the model has the normal map colloring on it as well... so im sure its a matter of clicking a few buttons i dont understand and all will be well.

anyway, i did some sketches on the test character body and clothes. This guy should be nice and challenging. I got ref from western movies. I dont expect all characters in the game to be quite this fancy, but he wont look out of place walking down the street.

I rendered the head and sketched the rest in photoshop. just a quick sketch, ill go into more detailed studies later.

http://img76.imageshack.us/img76/4645/finalsketch014sh.jpg

[tofugorilla]

Awesome concepts- Whats you workflow like on them?

I think the face is great, but I noticed a few things:

From the front, the chin just flows right into the jaw. THe jowels and the jaw usually have a little separation from the front.

I think you may have flattened his face a little. Meaning look at the model from the top down and bottom up and see if the cheeks and the forehead/temple area come to a point making the face shape come to a rounded corner. I can't tell from the screenshots tho, I could be wrong.

Skin tone is extremely uniform, might want to add a little more variation.

I'm looking forward to seeign the body.

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