Game Art Comp #9: Pig: Spanish Conquistador

#1

Hi there,

This is my first game comp, and I hope it will be a very neat learning experience as well, since I’m practiclly a newbie in 3d and texturing.

My character is based on a Spanish Conquistador from the 16th Century, which invaded most of the Americas and subjugated most of the native population into slavery and christianity. I chose a pig, because of the low level creature it is supposed to represent (i really think they are cool animals). For example in south america, the word “pig” (spanish = “cerdo”) is considered an insult as well as food… and I think that’s the same in most places. This is almost the same conception that a lot of South Americans have of the 16th century invaders (mostly nationalists). Here are the reference images for both:

 Conquistador References:
 
 [img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v197/GriNGoLoCO/conqrefwhole.jpg[/img]
 
 Pig References
 
 [img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v197/GriNGoLoCO/pigref.jpg[/img]

I have some concepts all drawn up, but I need to find myself a scanner to show it to you. Hopefully later tonight I’ll be able to show you my concepts.

EDIT: Concepts posted. I swear they were made before the model. Check it out:

  later,
  GriNGoLoCo
#2

i havent found a scanner yet, so I think the concept will wait a bit. I’ll edit them into my first post when I finnally scan them. Until then, I have started modelling. I think the head is finished right now :slight_smile: Damn it has been hard to do this. And the UV alignment task looks terrible.Please C&C… and advise.

Tomorrow I’ll start working on the body.

later,
GriNGoLoCo

#3

Hi,

First of all… could anyone at least post to tell me it sucks? 100+reads and no replys just hurts :smiley: .

well, i have my pig conquistador very much modelled. check out the picks:

since i have like 1000 polys left i think i’ll invest 200 or less of them in the weapon (which is going to be a long spear like device. or probably a gun. Check out the hands:

The “middle” back finger should go on the other side I think. Or else it will look wierd to grab objects. About my UV unwrapping, the head will have the 512x512 texture and the rest of the body (including the weapon) will be the 1024x1024 sheet. Dont expect much of a texture since I’m not very good at skinning for the moment, I’ll do my best though.

C&C very much welcome.

Later,
GriNGoLoCo

PS: Oh and the concepts SHOULD be up by tonight. EDIT: Concepts uploaded. Check out first post!

#4

Looks like a good start, I would say his torso needs more polies when compared to the rest of the body. I think a good thing is to put some polies from his dress into his torse. I think the face needs a bit of rounding out to make it more pig like. Your sketch (the on the right) seems like a very good reference for it.

Did you triangulate your model? Looks like a awful lot of polies. For me it doesnt look like you have 1000 polies left, more like you need to get rid of around 1000-1500. As I said, triangulate for an accurate count. It will save you some unpleasant surprises later on.

Good luck!

#5

i doubt you’re using normal maps, in which case this seems very high poly.
Try to make the whole character in simple geometry, then go back and add detail until you reach the limit. The head looks really high in density right now.

#6

Hi thanks for replying.

Supervlieg: How do I know its triangulated? In Maya 5 I chose the object (the whole body, head included) and went to the menu Polygons - Triangulate. Triangulate divides the n numbered polys into 3 sides max polys right? If its that then the model is already triangulated. Also, I have had some problems with polygons and vertex’s duplicating and overlapping each other. Nonmanifold geometry is it called? Well, I dont know how but suddenly i had like 3000 faces and 2000 edges. I was like “WTF?!”… and it turned out to be that. That happened to be just right before I modelled the leg area. And the “Cleanup” function in Maya 5’s polygon tools didnt work, it would just select the defective geometry, but it wouldnt delete. I had to delete the stuff manually, selecting each part and deleting.

Neil:

I’m not using normal maps and I dont know what it is for the moment. And yes, the head has nearly half of the polys of the entire model. I should probably distribute the polys in the model better.

Thanks,
GriNGoLoCo

#7

hi everyone… I got the UV’s for the head done already… check them out:

Tomorrow I’ll start (and hopefully end) the UV locations for the rest of the body and the weapon… and on Sunday I’ll start skinning.

Now I have come up with a problem… and dont know how to deal with it, so someone please help. First of all I dont know if it matters at all… I was working on Flat Shade Mode, so I couldnt notice it at first:

Then I turned on the Smooth Shade All mode, and everything went suddenly UGLY! My model is full of blotches, dark and clear ones… check it out:

Can anyone please tell me how to fix this? Please help me cause its getting annoying. Thanks in advance.

Later,
GriNGoLoCo

#8

I assume from the ugly mess you’re using Max.
Delete all the smoothing groups.

#9

Nope, I’m using Maya 5 Unlimited. How do I delete the smoothing groups in Maya?

Later,
GriNGoLoCO

#10

There are not smoothing groups in Maya (such as Max’s ones). You work on edge normal smoothing angle (between 0 (hard) and 180 (soft)). Refer to Edit Polygons > Normal > Soten/harden . First, select you mesh, and made it all soft (180). Next step, select some edge you want to be displayed hard, and give a lower angle (let’s say 35). FOr the workflow, I’d advise to keep the option window open and press Apply.

Hope it helps, Keet it up buddy :thumbsup:

(you shouldn’t have triangluated your mesh. This action comes just before exporting to the game engine if required !)

#11

Was the mesh brought into Maya from elsewhere??
To fix the normal problem go to Edit Polygons>Normals>Set Vertex Normals Option Box, make sure the Unlock Normals is checked then click Apply, hope this helps…

#12

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