[Ralex79]

Hey Kineticjee, your work is looking good so far! I'm pretty new to this myself, but one piece of advice that I got from my teachers at school that I think could help you is to focus your details more sharply on specific areas that you want to draw the viewers eye to.

Many of your character sculpts look like you're using an alpha to add detail, but you're using it too consistently across the surface of the character. It becomes noisy and confusing because your eye doesn't know where to "land" first. Your other models (the AK, fountain, and phone booth) don't suffer from this problem at all, probably because your sticking more closely to reference material.

I would suggest maybe trying to do some character sculpts from other people's concepts so that you have, not only solid reference, but boundaries that you have to stay within.

[kineticjee]

Originally Posted by Ralex79

Hey Kineticjee, your work is looking good so far! I'm pretty new to this myself, but one piece of advice that I got from my teachers at school that I think could help you is to focus your details more sharply on specific areas that you want to draw the viewers eye to.

Many of your character sculpts look like you're using an alpha to add detail, but you're using it too consistently across the surface of the character. It becomes noisy and confusing because your eye doesn't know where to "land" first. Your other models (the AK, fountain, and phone booth) don't suffer from this problem at all, probably because your sticking more closely to reference material.

I would suggest maybe trying to do some character sculpts from other people's concepts so that you have, not only solid reference, but boundaries that you have to stay within.

hi folks,

thanks for the advice relax 79. i think i know what you mean, for example with characters would you concentrate more around the face to allow the eye to land first? with props i guess it is more obvious as they are less likely to be placed where they can be veiwed 360degree. however iv not used alphas on the props, so i think its more me getting to grips with that.

so hopefully a final update on the phone booth. still scouting around for some interior textures, since mobile phones i dont see any on the streets. if i do then ill re do the interior.

[Ralex79]

Originally Posted by kineticjee

...i think i know what you mean, for example with characters would you concentrate more around the face to allow the eye to land first? with props i guess it is more obvious as they are less likely to be placed where they can be veiwed 360degree. however iv not used alphas on the props, so i think its more me getting to grips with that.

Exactly. With a 2d image it's important to have a focal point drawing the eye to the part of the picture that's most important, like the face. With 3d models like yours, you can't usually have just one focal point, because the detail of the model needs to have a level of consistency all around. For example, if the face and chest area are far more detailed than the rest of the model, then when it's viewed from behind it would be less appealing to look at. What I think is important, though, is to have areas of interest that are more busy and complex (the face, hands, scales, jetpacks, guns, hair, etc..) and other areas where the eye can "rest" (soft clothing folds, less muscularly-defined body parts, basically smooth, simple surfaces).

Another tricky thing with alphas is that when you use them for really intense skin details, like scales or large cracks or lumps, it can be very tough to achieve an appealing or believable look because in nature these features exist in very complex and logical patterns. For example, a snake's scales are much smaller on its back than they are on its stomach, and the transition between the smaller scales and the larger scales is not really a smooth one. It includes many different patterns and sizes of scales. So if a person uses one or two "scales" alphas across the entire surface of a snake model, even though it may have a ton of detail, it will not look believable.

[kineticjee]

thanks ralex79. that makes sense. iv only been at this for over a year so the entire pipeline is still becoming to me, all the efficiencies etc. thanks for your help though it really helps!
i have only used vertex paint so far on the wrestler character so it would be easy to continue with blends and ps to further develop. it led me on to think of another question.
may i ask and this maybe obvious but i am never really sure as whether scaleing uvs to represent certain areas that are more visible with more uv space. for example if you want more detail on a particular part then favour that more in the uv template? so you would scale it up things like faces and scale down for things like soles of feet save uv space? (generally)

i also have questions on how to get a good normal map in mudbox with like 5 levels of subdivide. the lowere level that i then use always seems to take alot of blurriness and bleeding. i get it more with characters because of the sculpting process and all the details, with props you can limit it somewhat. so the normal for a character has so many levels and to cover and possbily with less geo, (hope this is clear as there lots in there)
iv tried exportiing differnt levels, then overlaying normal maps on top to give greater depth. i v tried re topo the geo totaly but i always loose some of the bulk that is needed. basically i have a budget of 2000/5000 polys from a 500,000 high poly.

anyway thanks for stopping by folks.

[Ralex79]

I'm not familiar with Mudbox outside of the painting part of it. So unfortunately I can't help you there. But as far as scaling your UVs, I'll give you MY best answer. It would probably be good to get others' opinions who have more experience than myself.

My take: You can absolutely scale down textures for things that will be barely visible and for things that have very little detail, because the inconsistent texel density will not be as noticeable. Conversely, you can scale up some textures where you need more detail - this is often done with eyeballs to get better resolution in the pupils, for example.

It's important to be very deliberate in how you do this, though, because except for in these exceptional cases, you want all of your textures to have the same texel density or your texture seams will be much more apparent, and the overall look of the model will be less appealing.

[kineticjee]

Hi
there folks,
and thanks for the advice. i will use with caution, i found the neck and shoulders are vulnerble parts on figures. ill still need to play some more to get to grips.

Here is an update on another project im playing with. learning muscles and drawing some i thought ill try how i do with the geometry. these images are a lowpoly (one without hair) after the 2 others which are higher poly sculpts, but my computer cant go much further than 250k. so i stop and try retopo a low poly and as im using mudobx(i long zbrush sometime) i have to redistribute the geometry and then resculpt. at least is gives a chance at practising the same things till i get right. so i will add some clothes, normal real person clothes, and then maybe try and use as a base mesh for a fantsy character that i design.

anyway enjoy and thanks for dropping by.

[kineticjee]

some quick sculpts and some variations and then some im going to take further.
still trying to push the polycount as i may turn them into charracters.
enjoy folks.

[kineticjee]

wish i could go super high resolution. i had to lower it a bit to get it into the veiwer. still a bit of W.I>p.
http://p3d.in/BNAzb

i may add colour stone materials but already at 3mil polys that im lagging space time distances slowly
enjoy.

[kineticjee]

another


http://p3d.in/Ub5jk