Wip: Female character-

[misterboogie]

Your technique for modeling this character confuses me? Is this a game character or one for cinematic use? Usually when you build a game character You don't really use a smooth modifier. Each edge is placed with great care, ie. form and function.

I reccomend you look at the models being built for the Dominance war for ideas on topology. I also highly reccomend Paul Steeds book, "How to model a game character in 3DSMax".
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/155622088X/ref=sib_dp_pt/103-4454193-7172603#reader-link

My wife learned a ton from that book and I believe it could help you aswell. Paul Steed is a legend and knows his stuff.

[ReflectingAbyss]

Sorry misterboogie, I should've mentioned something about that. When I'm modeling I tend to have smooth proxy on so I can see what the mesh would look like smoothed. I'm not planning on smoothing it, it's just there for a general idea.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll look into both the book and those forums.

[misterboogie]

Lol! No need to apologize man, it's all good here. :)

When modeling a "game" character I wouldn't recommend using the smooth proxy. Your final model isn't going to be smoothed and game topology ususally doesn't smooth well anyway because you're basicly dealing with triangles vs quads. Quads for highres and triangles for low res is basic rule. Use smoothing groups to smooth your model and not poly smooth.

What polycount are you aiming for and for what platform?

[ReflectingAbyss]

Heh, glad to hear it.

In regards to that, would'nt using a normal map allow some sort of result simular to smoothproxy? I've been considering the possibilities of a normal map while modeling this.
I've heard bad things about the smooth option in maya and yeah, i was'nt planning on using that.

Polycountwise- I'm aiming for around 6,000-8,000 tris and this would be used in a half-life 2 mod for the PC. So far (i think) half the model is around 3,500 tris and I believe that'll be easy to reduce when dealing with the robotic parts.

[misterboogie]

Ah, now we're getting somewhere. So this is the highpoly version for the normal map extraction? OK. I Didn't see that anywhere in your post that you planned on doing a normal map extraction from this model so I just assumed this was game res.

Rock on!

[ReflectingAbyss]

:argh: (http://forums.cgsociety.org/misc.php?do=getsmilies&wysiwyg=1&forumid=0#) heh heh, that'd be my mistake. That was my the first time mentioning it.
I'm hoping it's a good idea to try out a normal map.

Thanks for all of your comments by the way :) It's definitly appreciated.

[Anchuvi]

Paul Steeds book is good, if a little dated...I notice you are using Maya, so why not give this book a look....

http://www.amazon.com/Game-Character-Development-Riders-Games/dp/073571438X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-2300513-8448122?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1174578040&sr=8-1


Covers modelling, texturing, rigging, lods and animation...

:)

[Anchuvi]

Sorry, subitted this twice...

:)

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