Character : Face Hugger

[Quokimbo]

I really like the body, my biggest copmlaints are the legs look more like elongated fingers, and the tail needs to be much longer IMHO...looks good though!

[TheNeverman]

yeah, tail should be longer and tapper to a smaller point... looks like a cat tail right now...

[SheriffNotic]

@ Quokimbo - Facehugger legs are elongated fingers ^-^

http://www.NearBeyond.com/hosted/facehuggerref.jpg

The tail definitely needs some work though.

@ TheNeverman - My references didn't have a picture of the full tail so i just did some guess work. Since I've worked on this mostly at work (no internet access there) I've had to work with the references I had but I'll go grab some tonight and make the appropriate fixes.

Updates to come tomorrow.

[myd00m]

you should color in teh veins on urs with very light blue and purples...lol these things crack me up for the wrong reasons when i look at their mouths lmfao

[TheNeverman]

lots of reference pics around the web...
:)

http://www.apocprod.com/Pages/prop_pages/facehugger.htm
http://www.xenomorph.org/images/alientoy/facehugger.jpg

[wezroblett]

I like the way this is coming along... these things used to give me nightmares when i was a kid! I think it would benefit from a more extreme pose, like with the fingers/legs bent more, as though in anticipation of pouncing on a victim. Good stuff tho... looking forward to seeing more.

[Quokimbo]

I had no idea and my apologies :P

[Neil]

there is some texture stretching on the tail.

[SheriffNotic]

@ myd00m - good suggestions on the veins, I'm actually hesitant to start the textures, I've tried a few times and they were all false starts, it seems any texture I make get crushed by the normalmap detail. One way or the other I will get this thing textured as well though. thanks!

@ wezroblett - new poses, although not overly extreme. I'm picking poses that specificly show off the geometry and normalmap still. My final poses might be a little different. I'm contemplating making an egg for it too.

@ Quokimbo - No worries ^-^

@ Neil - This has been completely reunwrapped and the normal map updated. Many of the old texture issues have been addressed.

Updates : Here is the updated, poly-optimized model with the tail fixed, a new unwrap, and normal map updated. Still untextured, let me know what you think.

http://www.NearBeyond.com/hosted/facehuggercrawl.jpg

http://www.NearBeyond.com/hosted/facehuggerleap.jpg

[Dagarik]

Looks great, what res texture/normal map are you using there?

[SheriffNotic]

@ Dagarik - 2048, with that level of detail, I felt anything less wouldn't do it justice. This model is supposed to look good a short distances, not just longshots.

[SheriffNotic]

Updates - Ok, so I've really been pushed to reduce the polys further. One suggestion was to get it down to 1200. Here is where I'm at, it's not 1200 but I honestly don't know where I'm going to find 500 more polys and still have it look like a face hugger -_-^ Suggestions welcome.

http://www.NearBeyond.com/hosted/facehuggerattack.jpg

http://www.NearBeyond.com/hosted/facehuggerchoke.jpg

[Valandar]

Why drop it down so low? At 1200 polys it'd be a good model - for a game six years ago!

[opreska]

^Agreed. I heard the guns in Crysis were over 6,000 polys. 1200 is rather low for a character model, especially with next gen gaming. Why are you pushing to have such a low poly count anyway?

[SheriffNotic]

@ Valandar and opreska - I could have lived with the first optimization (in fact, the LOD progression will be First optimization, then second, then the newest one below) but I was getting good feedback from people encouraging me to really push myself. I shouldn't ever be complacent with my art, so I took it as a challenge. I was surprised to find every time I thought I was done, I was encouraged to push harder and from there I was able to go even further. At the level below, the overall image is beginning to suffer from the low poly reduction so that is probably as far as I will go. I guess the lesson is, just because I can get away with the higher poly version doesn't mean I shouldn't strive to get the best results for the lowest polycount. I plan to use the lessons I've learned here well in DWIII. And as a side note, one person did make an excellent point, aliens tend to use swarm tactics and if there are going to be a bunch of these critters on screen at once, it makes sense to make them as low poly as possible.

Ok so onto the updates!

Updates : This is my last round of Polycutting. I've gotten it down to 1424, which is under my 1500 target and close enough to the 1200 that was suggested for me to be happy. Some details of the silhouette are beginning to suffer, esp in the fingers and a few other places so this is as low as I plan to go. I appreciate everyone's continued support, Now to get this buttoned up so I can hit DWIII hard next Monday! Tomorrow, Textures!!

http://www.NearBeyond.com/hosted/facehuggerstammer.jpg

http://www.NearBeyond.com/hosted/facehuggerhopping.jpg

[urgaffel]

That's an impressive reduction, good job! Looking good too although it's kind of hard to tell what the diffuse texture looks like with the lighting the way it is. I hope you add some blue/purplish veins and stuff to it... :D

[Horror]

I think it still looks great with the lowered detail. These things move very quickly in the movies, so the silhouette wont be a problem - it looks really nice even as a still. Maybe you could add a couple of intersections to the end of the tail though, since facehuggers coil their tails around peoples necks several times.

Was the facehugger's underside officially designed so that it would look suspiciously like a vagina? Or was that an accident? :P

[urgaffel]

It was Geiger who designed the original facehugger and he has a certain, shall we say... "fascination", with genitalia...


(It was probably intended ;) )

[Neil]

btw, you could save polys in the future by welding the underside of the leg/arm bends into 1 (or 2) edge loops, instead of having 3 all the way around each joint.
It will still bend just fine.

[iSOBigD]

Face hugger from Aliens: Colonial Marines (unreleased Aliens game)

http://games.tiscali.cz//images/alienscolonial/bogp.jpg

That should give everyone a pretty good idea of the kind of textures and details it needs and how many polygons they use for them in a real game. (I assume it's AAA)

[Enriq766]

^Agreed. I heard the guns in Crysis were over 6,000 polys.

No wonder I needed 6 cooling fans!

I agree, it seems like there is a common trend for new users to WANT to go as low poly as possible. I know it should be on your mind but in some cases like this, a central character, I think its ok to push the limits. Now if you were making 100 of these guys all in the scene together like on Resistance where the little buggers swarm at you from over a hill then yes, keep them low poly for frame rates sake. Im not saying your new :P but you get my point. I for one would rather push the limits than try to stay at the bottom of the poly count ladder.

I do like the model and texture btw :) keep up the good work!

[SheriffNotic]

@ iSOBigD - Yeah, that's the game Aliens : Colonial Marines that's being developed by Gearbox down in Plano, Texas. That game looks pretty sic, now that would be an awesome project to work on.

@ Enriq766 - Thanks for the feedback. Making it look nice is definitely important, I'm mostly concerned with showing as many applicable skills in my models as I can since everything I make is being put into my demo reel to get a job. Granted it might be a bit low for the current generation, but don't forget there are plenty of people making Wii games on, essentially, last gen hardware. I'm showing a LOD progression for just that reason, I have the 2500 poly model that is pretty much all the detail I originally modeled, and I move down from there. It transitions nicely in unreal, now to figure out why unreal ed keeps crashing... I think it's time to reinstall!

Onto the updates!

Second to last update, I hate being behind on my personal stuff, I've has some other projects I had to work on first. This is getting pretty close though, here are the updates.

http://www.Nearbeyond.com/content/facehugger1.jpg
http://www.Nearbeyond.com/content/facehugger2.jpg
http://www.Nearbeyond.com/content/facehuggertexturesheet.jpg
http://www.Nearbeyond.com/content/facehuggerlods.jpg

Every hand painted attempt at the texture was failing, so I ultimately decided to render out a lightmap from max, use that as a base, then just change the color. This way it looks pretty good without the normal at all, with the normal just adding to it. Seems to work out pretty well. I'm going to do one or two more tweak passes on this from the feedback i get then call this one done so i can move on.

[urgaffel]

My only suggestion is to lower the intensity of the lightmap and add a bit more colour variation. Not much of course since they are mostly skin coloured but just a liiiittle bit :)

[SheriffNotic]

http://www.NearBeyond.com/hosted/facehuggerbeautyshot03.jpg

UPDATES:

@ urgaffel - I've been playing with the maps, almost there I think!

Made some major map adjustments. My spec still isn't quite done, but getting close. Also, no more max screens/renders. Here is the model in Unreal3. The background assets are from the packages that ship with UT3, just showing off the facehugger model.

http://www.NearBeyond.com/hosted/facehuggertexturesheet02.jpg

http://www.NearBeyond.com/hosted/facehuggerbeautyshot01.jpg

http://www.NearBeyond.com/hosted/facehuggerbeautyshot02.jpg

[SheriffNotic]

UPDATES

Ok, so I've decided this will be the last round of updates to this for now. I'll definitely come back and revisit this once I've gotten a few more things finished, I want to make an egg pedestal for it and implement a few more of the suggestions give here and elsewhere. I've been working on this for awhile and I need to move on if I ever want to get that portfolio together so I can get an art job (I can't do QA forever -_-^). So here are the last round of updates for now. I still would love feedback, as I will return to this in awhile. Thanks for everyone's feedback and support up to this point, I really appreciate it and have learned a lot!

http://www.NearBeyond.com/hosted/facehuggerbeautyshot04.jpg

http://www.NearBeyond.com/hosted/facehuggerbeautyshot05.jpg

http://www.NearBeyond.com/hosted/facehuggertexturesheet03.jpg

And for those who might be curious, my next project will be to complete my Dream Painter model's textures. She's almost done too!

[kromano]

It was Geiger who designed the original facehugger and he has a certain, shall we say... "fascination", with genitalia...


(It was probably intended ;) )

That's what I was going to say but you beat me to it.
Aliens are definate swarm attackers, however the face huggers rarely seemed to be seen more than one to three at a time.

Still, your work is impressive at any rate. The texture still feels like it's missing something to me, but I can't put my finger on what it is... I think it's the sort of flat tan you have as the base, maybe some more variations to the base. But it sounds like you're about ready to move on to a new project and I'd be happy at this stage for now.

[NeptuneImaging]

I would trying blending an Ambient Occlusion map into the colour map to give it that dirty rays look, just a nice overlay in photoshop... :)

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.