Does This Look Strange To You? PLEASE CRIT!

[system]

Here’s my friend that I’ve dressed up as a samurai (thanks for your earlier suggestions on improving his head, midost and Capital_G). The costume is essentially what Tom Cruise wore in The Last Samurai. I’m starting to wonder though: does looking at this turn off game developers? This project has 122 subtools, and quite a few of them are comps of even more subtools, so I’m wondering if this is not a good thing to show a prospective game company, because it betrays an ignorance of the rigging complications involved. Another issue that I’m wondering about is the density of the geometry. Does anything here look like it needs to be retopologized for better efficiency or flow? Or is there another way that this samurai can be improved, as far as modeling is concerned?

As a self-taught newbie trying to break into the game industry as a character modeler, I’m also wondering if this needs to be rendered in Maya before it’ll look acceptable to potential employers, instead of the Zbrush renders seen above. Also, are these five pictures enough, or do I need to cover more angles?

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[Trebor777]

well it’d be nice to have more technical details such as the number of triangles on the low poly version. and number of textures and their sizes.
And the uv textures as well, to see how you unwrapped it. Cause a good unwrap is something people look for usually.

You should do some “real-time” or “hardware” renders to have something close to what it would look like in a game engine in maya or
import your model in an existing engine and do some screenshots like udk for example or sandbox
(cool thing as it would show some knowledge about some middleware, and ability to use engine tools)

Try in the end to not break the low poly version into too many different parts as well.
I think could reduce a lot the polygon amount, as those details would probably be faked by the normal map.

[EricShawn]

That guy is fantastic, wow! Love it. It looks great. Do more like it.

[hosch]

The gear is quite nicely constructed, but the anatomy proportions are a bit off. One example would be the width of the feet in relation to the face - use your own as example if you can not find good reference. A good book example is anything from Bridgman such as his Constructive Anatomy or the Human Machine or even his Life Drawing book. Another thing is put the entire model in a Flat Color and check out the silhoette - if that is not right then keep working on the form at the lower levels (1 - 3 or so) rather than working on the higher levels which will ruin your detail work. Keep up the good work.

[hosch]

I am not, nor have I ever been, in the game industry … but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night … lol.

Seriously, though … I just audited a great class by Brett Briley from id software (Spark! on the forums) on Low Poly modeling for the Game Industry and here is what I would advise you from what I learned from his class.

What I assume you have created is a High Poly model that can be used for casting details onto a Low Poly model. Since you are working toward the game industry with this character you will (hopefully you still have an unposed version of this with full details) use this model for the purpose of getting your character’s Low Poly version and casting the details to that character - the High Poly would mostly be used for that purpose only (with exceptions of course for cinematics, etc.).

Another thing that I would consider great advise from the class would be to not focus on becoming a “character” artist right out of the gate. There are some that do it, but most likely you could move into a “prop” artist first and work with character artists as you gain tenure in the industry.

Hope those little tidbits of info are helpful. Like I said … not from the Game Industry, but there was that Holiday Inn Express last night … :lol:

[Piggy]

hmm how do I put it?

the head needs a lot more works on the anatomy part… I would suggest you to focus on it first before worrying about polycounts or topology…

right now you are at the point where you get most things right on your character’s face, but it’s the subtle things such as the shape of the eyes, the angle of the mouth, the shape of the eyebrow or the flow of the mucsles that makes your model look like amatureish… To put it in a simple way, it’s like how an art student is trying to draw a human face… He has included every major parts you can find on a human face, but they are not meshing together…

o yes, if you are going to present your character to showcase your skill, make sure everything on your character is 100% finish to your standard… The hair on your character is no better than a proxy and it’s strongly dragging down your model’s quality…

on the technical stuff, your model is too heavy to be a gaming model… most parts of your armour’s normal map can and should be baked ( and the face too)

the most important part of a demoreel is to showcase your skills to the recruiter so that they know you can be a useful addition to their company. If your model is good enough, then just one snapshot of your model at one angle is enough to catch the recruiter’s eyes… if your model is not good enough, then it doesn’t matter how many angles you cover in your reel…

anatomy is probably the first thing you should focus on if becoming a character modeler is your goal… Study anatomy hard and look at as many references as you can online (the zbrush gallery is a good source of reference).

you are on a good track tho… keep practicing and you should improve really fast!

[system]

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I’m quite clueless when it comes to doing hair; I have no real idea what is or is not acceptable. Is it the thickness of the hair? I’ve redone the right side of his head with thinner hair, with the old hair left on the left side for comparison. On another note, here’s a torso that I’m still trying to block out. I’m pretty worried about the serratus and the external obliques. Any comments you guys have are welcome!

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[neocount73]

As a fellow semi-self-taught 3d artist, trust me, I feel your pain. The human body is the biggest freakin’ learning curve I’ve ever had to hurdle (mostly there). An additional bit of advice that really helped me improve is to work the entire body, don’t focus on one part for too long (jump from quads muscles to triceps and you’ll realize they’re essentially the same thing HA!) Also I like to sculpt on layers, I make bold, sweeping changes then dial back to reality on the layer opacity.
Also the armor looks awesome, it’s way too complex and high poly for gaming, but the work is not wasted, just use it as a displacement/normal map. (you planned to do that already, didn’t you? I’m onto you!)
hope this helps