Raven

[Wildsketch]

I know what you mean. I remember when they came out with pelting in 3ds, and I was like, "oh, this will make the hardest part easy." Boy was I wrong. I've spent all day going back and forth exporting objs from ZBrush to Max, spending all day cutting seams, relaxing, cutting them smaller, relaxing, stitching them back together, re-importing to Zbrush just to have my polygons explode. I'm so happy to have UV master.

[Aberrant]

Yeah, lol I know exactly what you mean. I did another pass on the cloak and here is what I came up with. Much better IMO. Thanks for pointing that out, it made me get my ass in gear and go back to it.

[Aberrant]

I am in the process of creating displacement maps for my low rez meshes and bringing it into Maya for rigging / animating / and rendering.

While applying displacement maps to certain objects I noticed some exploding at poles. A good example of what I mean would be on the tip of a knife. The tip appears smashed instead of sharp.

There may be other variations but if you ever have issues with displacement rendering incorrectly in specific spots, do this simple test FIRST before spending hours trying to fix the problem.

In Zbrush, go to the Sub-D level you exported out as your base to Maya or your other app. Hit project higher subdivisions button and see if the problems appear in the same spots. Odds are it will look similar to your render. To fix it, simply find out what Sub-D level you can project the rest of the details without getting errors. Using too low of a sub-D level can affect the displacement map generation.

[Aberrant]

I got everything into Maya with 32 bit displacements. I got renders down to a few min so far. I will optimize later but just wanted to get everything in for rigging.

Here is a test render, a tiny bit of color correction and PS work.

[cherub_rock]

I love it!

[Aberrant]

I finished up the texturing. I also textured the bow, arrow, and feathers but they are not showing. I will post that soon. Here is the character. C&C welcome please.

[Aberrant]

I was listening to some music and I heard a cool lyric/quote. Just felt like posting it even though it has no relevance to this project at all.

"The absence of evidence, is not evidence of absence."

[Aberrant]

I have been rigging up the character layer by layer. I just finished up the facial rig and put this pose together in about 10 sec.

I will show more of the rig and how it works soon. Just an update since its been a while.

[anigroove]

That would be nice!, to see your rigging process!

[Aberrant]

Here is the face rig, and a 2x speed video of the features.

[ior-calin]

very nice,I want to see more about how you did thatgreat stuff

[hosch]

Very interesting thread - I am working on my first complete character so I am glued to threads by people that are willing to share like you have been - thanks much.

[daveripley]

@hosch
i have broadly detailed the process i used when creating my first character for university last year. it may help its at www.daveism.com

hope it helps

[Aberrant]

ior-calin - Thanks for the kind words. If you have any specific questions I would be happy to answer them for you. As for the facial rig itself, all of the techniques used to create it can be found in the Art Of Rigging.

P.S. I am a fan of your works, you have some really nice pieces.


hosch - I do the same thing too. Feel free to ask any questions you may have, I would be happy to help. This forum is an incredible source for learning.

daveripley - www.daveism.com . I am not sure if you meant it as a joke but the link you provided is a single image of what looks to be, covers of childrens books. I was not able to find any info about character creation.

[hosch]

davierpley - the link did not work for me - it redirected to another site with 5 images

Aberrant - well, offering to answer questions for me might be a scary thing, heh - I can ask alot as I can never seem to fill the void in me that needs more and more and more and more knowledge - learning is my favorite hobby - but for starters I would welcome crits on my work as much as possible - I never shy from them and can never seem to get enough and I rarely get one that I don't benefit from - even if I dissagree they let me know how my work is perceived - as you can see on my WIP thread - my work has changed DRAMATICALLY over the life of this little private project - hopefully for the better