More musings with the Dwarf
by AndrewOsborne · 07/13/2009 (9:06 pm) · 9 comments
As a short follow-up to my previous blog I thought I would post some updates of where my Dwarf guy is at - more to push me into finishing it than anything! He has no real purpose at the moment other than fun, but I am hoping to bring him into T3D once he is done to see how he looks in game!
I have tentatively called the Highpoly done.. at this stage I will be adding armors/accessories as seperate meshes, and there are some plans to layer him up with some cool armor/weapons etc once he is finished.
Although it is not for a specific project, looking back I wish I made him a little more modular (perhaps not sculpting the beard into the body). However on inspection if I did wish to go down this path, it would be relatively easy to smooth out the beard, reform his chin etc and place some modular beards etc onto him.. some more food for thought I suppose!
So I have started building the low poly mesh, and have already baked a version of the normalmap for no real reason. I probably should wait until the final low-poly mesh is completed, but I wanted to see how it translated.. so once the mesh is completed I will go back re bake it.
(normal map applied to lowpoly mesh)
I was happy about a change I made to my workflow in that I created a lowpoly base to sculpt from as I normally would, but this time I fully unwrapped it allowing me to easily do things like bake out a test normal map, and also easily use the 3d painting tools available to me.. so I have started playing around with these too - below is a work in progress shot of the material, painting in 3D makes it easier for me to understand the depth of the model, rather than looking at a flat plane, and I really like the instant effect of painting straight onto the model.
Anyways thats all from me, hopefully you get some enjoyment from this and I can get a kick up the b*tt to keep plowing away at it all :)
If anyone has a need to outsource some high-poly work (in fact, any game-art related work) feel free to email me!
Until next time.........!
I have tentatively called the Highpoly done.. at this stage I will be adding armors/accessories as seperate meshes, and there are some plans to layer him up with some cool armor/weapons etc once he is finished.
Although it is not for a specific project, looking back I wish I made him a little more modular (perhaps not sculpting the beard into the body). However on inspection if I did wish to go down this path, it would be relatively easy to smooth out the beard, reform his chin etc and place some modular beards etc onto him.. some more food for thought I suppose!
So I have started building the low poly mesh, and have already baked a version of the normalmap for no real reason. I probably should wait until the final low-poly mesh is completed, but I wanted to see how it translated.. so once the mesh is completed I will go back re bake it.
(normal map applied to lowpoly mesh)
I was happy about a change I made to my workflow in that I created a lowpoly base to sculpt from as I normally would, but this time I fully unwrapped it allowing me to easily do things like bake out a test normal map, and also easily use the 3d painting tools available to me.. so I have started playing around with these too - below is a work in progress shot of the material, painting in 3D makes it easier for me to understand the depth of the model, rather than looking at a flat plane, and I really like the instant effect of painting straight onto the model.
Anyways thats all from me, hopefully you get some enjoyment from this and I can get a kick up the b*tt to keep plowing away at it all :)
If anyone has a need to outsource some high-poly work (in fact, any game-art related work) feel free to email me!
Until next time.........!
About the author
Recent Blogs
• Latest workings• Orc Character pack
• Fantasy Character Pack
• TGEA content pack..
• New website launch!
#2
I am wanting to check out www.3d-coat.com/ as I have heard some good stuff about its 3d painting capabilities, and I have also heard it has excellent re topology tools..
07/13/2009 (10:42 pm)
@Daniel - Currently using the painting tools in Mudbox (although, if I am completely honest they are missing a lot of good features).I am wanting to check out www.3d-coat.com/ as I have heard some good stuff about its 3d painting capabilities, and I have also heard it has excellent re topology tools..
#4
"Currently using the painting tools in Mudbox (although, if I am completely honest they are missing a lot of good features)."
Mudbox is incredible, google images "mudbox", there is some crazy looking models made with the tools set. Here is something I'm working on in Mudbox:
The paint tools are very solid also. Great dwarf BTW keep up the good work.
07/14/2009 (12:51 am)
I stongly disagree with the statement:"Currently using the painting tools in Mudbox (although, if I am completely honest they are missing a lot of good features)."
Mudbox is incredible, google images "mudbox", there is some crazy looking models made with the tools set. Here is something I'm working on in Mudbox:
The paint tools are very solid also. Great dwarf BTW keep up the good work.
#5
Until there is tools like clone stamp, healing brush, smudging, a decent color picker etc I cant call it incredible :) modeling in it is great though.
07/14/2009 (2:58 am)
@Stadi - If you read my sentence properly you will see I was only referring to the paint tools :)Until there is tools like clone stamp, healing brush, smudging, a decent color picker etc I cant call it incredible :) modeling in it is great though.
#6
07/14/2009 (3:58 am)
Zapp-link from zbrush to photoshop is great for painting 3d models ! 
#7
07/14/2009 (5:58 am)
new photoshop cs4 lets you paint 3d models. its pretty cool. 
#8
I'm a 3d Coat user. I've never used Mudbox but I've use ZBrush a fair bit (every day for the 30 day trial...) The voxel sculpting tools in V3 are really fun and I find them less limiting than Zbrush but the Zbrush tools are clearly superior.
The retoplogy tool is really easy to go from high to low poly models - and the quadrangulation tool will do most models automatically for you.
The traditional 3d painting tools are nice to use too. It's worth downloading the demo for sure - especially if you have a CUDA enabled video card. :)
`Patrick
07/14/2009 (6:51 am)
Hey Andrew,I'm a 3d Coat user. I've never used Mudbox but I've use ZBrush a fair bit (every day for the 30 day trial...) The voxel sculpting tools in V3 are really fun and I find them less limiting than Zbrush but the Zbrush tools are clearly superior.
The retoplogy tool is really easy to go from high to low poly models - and the quadrangulation tool will do most models automatically for you.
The traditional 3d painting tools are nice to use too. It's worth downloading the demo for sure - especially if you have a CUDA enabled video card. :)
`Patrick
#9
07/14/2009 (9:18 am)
sorry Andrew, my mistake :) 
Torque 3D Owner Daniel Hopkins
Default Studio Name
You mentioned using a 3D painting tool. Would that be the one in Adobe CS4 Extended or another? I was just wondering as I too find texturing on a flat surface to be rather difficult and was searching around for just such a tool.
Daniel