Dominance War II: Ill_Logic

#41

first of all, coldkodiak & mashru… thank you very much for all the pointers & help! i very much appreciate all of it! seriously. thanks!

im really starting to think it has to be something between the half of the model, maya’s rendering, and/or my video card not being up to snuff. it’s just that i ran into similar problems the last time i attempted normal maps so i kind of made a mental checklist of everything & made sure & double checked that everything was set. like the map was tangent, history/transformations/everything were taken care of, everything merged, smoothed, nothing overlapping. setting up normal map to the normal camera (actually that’s the only way i thought you could do it…? it seems patchy & muddy if you attach it straight through the bump map slot), hell i tried exporting to new files & working in those? same deal. oh well.

anyway, here’s a look of it in the maya viewport:

it’s not great but it’s not as crap as the software. i’ll probably try rebaking the maps, mess with the sampling some (so places like the nose/lips get fixed). also, when i’m up close, it seems a little blotchy. but it works for now. i tried a hardware render in maya but for some reason i couldn’t get that to show the normal maps at all. so I guess it’s either going to be a screenshot of my maya viewport or something with xnormal. i tried its viewer. i think it’d work ok but i’m just not used to it. need to mess with that some.

also if everything still doesn’t work & it comes down to it, the stick i threaten my computer with? would it help if that stick was pointy? :smiley:

seriously though, thanks guys! i appreciate the help! i’ll keep messing with it & keep you all posted!

-J

#42

Ah maya problems. For some reason, software render and mentalray in maya hates normal map and needs to be tweaked toget it working decently. Did you try baking in Zbrush/Mudbox and then try baking in maya as well? I read somewhere in polycount that its best to do the baking in maya/max instead of zbrush/mudbox.

Your viewport render seems to be working fine. Did you set up a light when you render? By default, with no lights on, maya render sometimes blown everything to white, while mentalray makes everything shiny and plasticky.

Sorry can’t help you much regarding normals. My own entry is actually my first actual attempt at full body game modeling. Good luck.

#43

thanks yung,
i tried baking maps in mudbox (worked very well actually), maya (it crashed, thrice), & xnormal which i’ve seen people reccommend over a lot of other things. and i tried default lights & got that view, but only on the side. i tried a GI kind of light rig i had set up (the quickest available light config i could import) & it was entirely white, except for the unmapped parts that were black (like the hair) which were a deep, flat grey. lol like the other guys say above, maya’s rendering doesn’t really like the normal maps, ever, apparently lol

i’m not really upset about the not being able to render thing. i just thought that was what other guys would be doing (or how they were getting some of their work in progress shots) if i can get a decent shot between the maya viewport or xnormal, i’ll be happy with it. i mean a game model’s gotta run in real time anyway, right?

it’s just that normal mapping kind of came on the scene the second i graduated so i’ve been trying to pick it up on my own but it’s all self-taught or bits & pieces here & there so i was unsure if i was doing something wrong or it really is just… yeah…

thanks though! i appreciate the help

-J

#44

xnormal is great :slight_smile: and it even works better when you import a cage form maya!

For rendering, there are some custom shader networks, but maya 8.5 (8?) supports rendering normalmaps with metnal ray!

I rendered these pictures with maya 8.5 :slight_smile:
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=contest&Number=179413&page=0&fpart=4

#45

hey Manuel, does 8.5 show mirrored normals properly? and what custom shaders are you talking about? thanks. btw your entry looks pretty :slight_smile:

#46

katzeimsack - dig your model (her arms are going to be stiff), despite the fact you’re siding with those polycount types… lol i’d also be interested in knowing about the custom shaders, as right now i’m only operating maya 6 at the moment.

again, another weekend where i intended to do nothing but work but got distracted & ended up not doing much of anything. started texturing & fixing up the head. this is just a demo picture i screencapped out of xnormal. should have included a wireframe, but i didn’t think to. it’s got 1844 polys in that shot. please note that the textures are just a work in progress, however i’d appreciate any critiques on them. i got the glow working the way i wanted it too, but it seems to be covering up a lot of the detail on the normal map. hmm.

more soon!

-J

#47

I love the lava in the eye wrinkles!

#48

thanks, jogshy! glad you like the lava cracks. xnormal helped me out with those!! thank you!

EDIT - No real images to show as a lot of the work’s been UV layout & tweaking normal maps. I’m working straight through the weekend though. I’ll start posting images as things progress! more soon! and i look forward to seeing all the bad ass CGS entries! keep up the good work, all!

-J

#49

Just used xNormal today for the first time (for some reaosn or another ZB crappe dout on me at work and I need to find an alternative.) It’s really neat, I’ll have to fiddle with it some more :slight_smile:

I really like the way this looks, man. Can’t wait to see more.

cheers,
Gav

#50

thanks gavin!! i appreciate it!

here are some updates. after tweaking the normals to an ok-ish state i did a little bit more optimizing as i was still running a bit over. so i got it to where i was happy & they came to 6k even.

also, here’s what i was talking about with the claws & blend shapes. pardon the sound effects.

more updates as the weekend progresses!

-J

#51


just a bit of an update. i had some corrupted file issues & had to do some backtracking, which is just great when you’ve got a deadline. this is an older shot i did earlier this morning. i adjusted the stripes to fit better & the uv’s in the claws since. haven’t even gotten a chance to even really touch the armor just yet, which is where i wanted a lot of the kick ass detail… yeah.
everyone else’s entries are really kicking ass these last couple of days! good luck!
seems like submissions are being posted now. we still have all day tomorrow too though, correct? just to double check lol

-J

#52

Looking cool man. Yep, I think up until 11:59 :smiley:

#53

Face is looking great! Nice glow. Was that done with the glow map? Nice touch with the wolverine claws too. Looks like those could slice through anything =)

#54

thanks guys!! hope to work on it through tomorrow.

armor came along pretty ok. still working on that. trying to give it a smooth, shiny, heat-shield-y sort of ceramic finish. it’s ending up a little too pink/red. so i’m going to darken it up/desaturate it some before the final product.

any other suggestions?

-J

#55

ok… here’s a quick question. i’d like to have a clear, high res picture of the character i can use for my beauty render. however maya’s got that weird specularity issue & xnormal only seems to screenshot at about 700 x 500.

any idea how to change that/get a nice big image?

a prompt answer would be greatly appreciated! :smiley:

-J

#56

anyone…? :shrug:

-J

#57

You can’t get a big render? Mine renders fine. Are you using mental ray?

I’ve got a quick question for you =) How do you get the orange to glow on your girl so well?? I"m trying to give my guy a glowing ball and shield but I can’t figure out how??

#58

i’m using maya 6, valri & it’s been giving me problems. i worked despite it but i’m stuck with doing that now. i going to try some custom shaders that might work better for it.

the glow was from Xnormal. the color map is orange/yellow, the spec is yellow & the glow is kind of salmon colored. that’s not showing up in maya for me though, just xnormal. but i can’t get more than a medium sized pic from that. good luck with yours valri!

so i’m trying to rush & make the deadline. it’s not so much about winning now, but just finishing lol good luck to everyone!

-J

#59

Ahh I see. I’m using Maya 8 so it works great with normal maps. If you wanted to send me your scene somehow I coudl render it for you? Hmm dont think that’ll work with only two hours left. If you dont find anything else that works we could always try that. Anyways I’m sure all the files would be way too huge anyway! Dang… well good luck with it.

Never heard of XNormal? The glow does look great though. Hope you get a finished product in time!

#60

thanks for the offer valri, but i’m sure you have your own submission to worry about too. that & with my slow connection, it would of made it that much longer. i ended up just doing it through xnormal & adjusting it a little. it ended up being a little pixelated but the model still looked better than the shot i was getting out of maya.
thank you very much for the offer though!

so i submitted… just in now… just under the wire! whew! i don’t think it’s much of a winner but it feels good to complete it.

:thumbsup: here’s to everyone at cg society for all their help & encouragement! thanks very much to those who stopped by & gave an opinion or some tips/pointers! i really hope there’s a dw3!

-J