Police Body (NEEDS heavy C&C)

[IchI]

Ok, I know this model is no way complete and I am not putting it here to see how good u think it is, well not really anyway. I need some help. Since I am relativly new to player modeling I need to know what u think of it. It needs some very hard flaming for little things like how animation friendly it will be and also polgon distribution. Anything u can think of that I can change to make it work better please tell me. If you can make a small image with changes highlighted so I can get them done.

Ok here it is:

Concept (Right hand Picture):
http://www.corporateanarchy.net/media/conceptart/quakeulf/coppandgunns.jpg

Wire:
http://members.lycos.co.uk/st4tic/police_wire_beta1.jpg
http://members.lycos.co.uk/st4tic/police_wire_beta2.jpg

Shaded (smooth grounps applyed)
http://members.lycos.co.uk/st4tic/police_shaded_beta1.jpg

Triangles count:
http://members.lycos.co.uk/st4tic/police_info_triangles.jpg

So far the working hours have not been that long, u only have to look at it to see that. I just don't want to model anything else like hands neck coller etc... because I want to make sure the body is correct and good. I think I have some of the joints in bad places especially the sholders, then look alright when its shaded but they seem very hard to animate if u are an animator. HELP! basiclly. Please try and explain changes in images, Its easier to understand for me. Ty for all your help etc...

 

[The Dark Elf]

This is just a quick example to start you off. The red lines show the _basic_ placement of each section, obviously you'd want to add more details and such but get the basic shape worked out first, the blue line represents the possible skeleton within it, the green dots show the joints and/or the possible joints depending on how detailed its going to be (for example the spine, either some joints for more realism or less for easier work)

Use that as a very basic template to get started on, then while your modeling the character, ensure your polygons flow along the contours of the object and joints especially. The better they flow the better it will look when animated. Kinda like working against the grain in wood, its easier to work along the grain not against it.

Test now and again how things look when rotated around, keep an eye open for area's where polygons will stretch far too much (armpits, elbows, knee's, the back of the torso and so on), add a few more polygons if you need to. Bare in mind what in the body can and can't stretch or move, and what the character does, if for example he never bends or curves his back at any point, you can probably risk cutting down poly usage on his lower back where the base of the spine is.

Also, and this is pretty important but so many don't know they should do this. When you model it in its default pose. Don't have the limbs etc. straight as a board. Have them slightly bent in the direction they would normally bend in, when things are boned and animated you'll find it gives a much nicer effect. Not to mention if IK is involved in any way its an absolute must otherwise IK doesn't know which way a bone should be bending, even if it has limits it can get stuck. So remember to bend the limbs, fingers, torso, knees whatever just a little in the right direction before it gets its skeleton. Should have very few problems then

Start simple then gradually flesh things out with detail here and there while keeping an eye on polycounts. If you begin by building a basic manaquin of sorts then you can cut, add, move polys as you see fit to eventually build up an accurate representation of the drawing.

Don't forget also.. The concept is of a character that isn't anatomacally correct. So until its textured and seen in its own environment, its going to look a bit weird and out of shape and might just look plain wrong. But when its finished it will look fine



.. Personally though, I'd model it as high poly as you can, then get your normal and mapping info from that, the low poly version is much easier to worry about later when you've a solid high quality template to work from in all dimensions.


Hope some of that is useful


Edit: Notice there's a slight overlap with the polys under the arms and the torso just around the armpit region, thats a useful way of getting the arms to sit in more realistic positions, aswell as helping with the added polys you'll need in that area (because of the range of motion an arm has at that joint, you'll need more polys there, placed correctly to flow with the model/character/joints, you wouldn't actually notice the polygons overlapping normally so its safe to do so, just not too much or it does become obvious to the viewer

 

[IchI]

ok, i moved around some of the polgons on the arms so that they can be animated more easily and also added 1 more ring to the stomach area so that it can animated more easily. Here are the changes

are these good enough?

Also u said i should do high polgon models and get my bump maps from there, Atm I really have no clue how to do very high polgon modelling, I know u use nurms but Its kinda hard to get everythign right and its totally different to low polgon modeling. I am gunna have to look into doing it, but for the moment I dunno. At the end of the day, bump maps arn't everything, they do look good. But ye lol. I need to get my low polgon modeling flow correct first.

 

[The Dark Elf]

Yep thats getting better, being low poly there's only a certain amount of flow possible, but yeah its improving.. On the leg though you might want to fix those polygons (shown in attached pic) their against the grain and could in some situations "pop" which would spoil it. Looking at the concept character the texture is a light shade, so you'd see the popped poly very easily (it wont always happen, but its a b*tch if it does later down the line) its currently a quad, which would triple for the game. That would fix it depending how it got tripled, its best to clean it up just incase

bugger i lost the rest of what I'd wrote, erm.. Ok the shoulders, if you look in a mirror there's a space between the neck and the shoulder joint which for most movements isn't effected. I'd make some changes in that area to allow for the shoulder to move around without folding in on itself around the neck region. Even if the shoulders aren't particularly noticable, a buffer zone will help with general animation in that area and improve its behavior. Also the extra polygons will help if the arms are down at the sides of the torso. One way is to rotate the arms down from the pivot point of where the shoulder joint is going to be and then repair the polygons in that area which stretch too much. Then rotate it back up again, fix them if a problem appears and keep doing that until they behave correctly, always concentrate polys on area's that have a lot of motion in them so there's some way for things to remain relativly undamaged, don't worry about how it looks with the limbs moving ways they wouldn't do unless bones were broken as nobody will see them do that (unless the character has that ability in the game, then repeat the above to fix those movements)

folds of clothing can also help, if you model the extra polys to appear as creased cloth around the pit and groin you can disguise them nicely aswell as giving a useful purpose to them, and when things stretch, in general they behave well enough to look good (since cloth stretches and folds dissapear when stretched, so it works out well)

As for high poly modeling.. It's kinda the same only you don't have to worry about poly counts and you can add allsorts that you'd otherwise be limited to doing, such as modeling a belt and bucklet instead of using a texture, modeling detailed creases into the clothing and so on. From there you usually light it globally to avoid specific light directions that can and will go against the directions of light in the game. Texture it with as high a res images as you want. Then you bake all that information to color, spec, normal, diffuse, luminosity maps and so on. Then those are mapped onto the UV of the low poly model and bobs yer aunties uncle a ready made texture, the method used to create it is possible to use over and over, changing different colors of clothes and so on, or other effects. The global lighting gives it an even color while at the same time acts as an accsesability filter, giving the texture shadowed area's which wouldn't normally catch the light and would look washed out and overbright in a realtime engine. So that also improves the final quality

they also come in handy for promotional material. Why put a pic of a low res game model on a poster or website splash page when you can stick a photorealistic character on and wow the fans. They certainly have their uses above just being used for normal maps, but even then, just as normal map generators their very very useful and can turn a clearly low poly model into something that appears to have more polygons than it really does (great for the many many creases in clothing which you just couldn't model for real with limited polygons and keeping the frame rate up)

 

[spin]

I was going to mention the hip area had some possible deformation and flow problems and show a solution, but Fenric covered that. Then I realized that he covered just about everything, and I would mostly just be repeating what he said. I guess I'll just sit this one out.

 

[IchI]

ye, i covered the flow of the hips and added 2 more rings to them, here are the changes

Any other things I can do for the body, don't forget after the body is finished I am only join to change minor things later on, I am actually wanting to just get it totally finished so then I can work on hands and head. I have been lookign at hl2 models and noticed that they have hardly any polgons in the body at all nearly all of them are in the heads and faces. Am I aloud to show u a wireframe of them? just a picture or is that classed as illegil material? Also whats the polgon limit for bodys, well not limit but average?

 

[The Dark Elf]

No, don't show anything you've found from the stolen files please.

The poly limits, I think those are either mentioned in the interview with Gabe, and/or the FAQ on ValveERC, or its mentioned in the info from Valve only thread.
-

spin: well you could repeat what I said only with correct spelling and grammer and punctuation, thats something I always mess up on and forget

 

[IchI]

got some new screen shots, been working on it most of today tbh. Its looking alright though, I got a new wireframe so u can comment of the new atributes have added. Here they are:

 

[Incitatus]

excellent work on the trousers!

:afro:

 

[EVIL]

looks much better. however his upperbody clothing looks like its stuffed with soks if you know what I mean. it looks really stiff compared to the pants

 

[spin]

I agree, it look a whole lot better. The upper body could use some more tweaking, but the pants are very nicely done. Nice work on the bottom folds, they turned out great. You are certainly on the right track.

 

[RMachucaA]

the shoes are weirdly shaped and have WAY too many polys.
study some human body pictures and follow the contours loosely since he is wearing clothes. legs look good, the rest of the body just plain needs work. keep at it.

 

[IchI]

thats weird because each shoe/boot is only like 50-80 triangles, I think thats quiet good. They are very miss shaped though.

 

[random.hero]

yep, thats very good, seeing its progress from the start to the finish, its come along very nicely. the only thing is the boots, i still dont like them, too...wierd. the way you've modeled the trousers is very good, well done all round

 

[IchI]

ok I got loads of updates, First of all this:

They are the new shoes these are the hands, so far it all ads up to 2500 triangles and I only have the head to model. Here it is. I will upload a sireframe so u can see it later atm I am busy watching southpark and just thought i better do a quick update since I missed doing the shoes one.

HEAVY C&C PLEASE!

 

[random.hero]

yes, it looks nice Ichi, but the only thing is, maybe you would want to think about moving the trousers further down around the ankles, but they're a big improvement on the last boots. the hands are good, maybe a bit fat around the base of the thumb, but good overall. its coming together nicely.

as you said, 'only the head to model', pssshhh as if thats hard

 

[IchI]

ye, i have been looking for some very high res and very acurate image planes but can't find any, I tryed taking 2 of my self (front and side perspective) but they where very inacurate. I need like perfect alignment to do a good job. I was looking for some females ones as well. Gunna need them before I even start the face. Anyway if u could help me I would be very greatful.

 

[Tork]

awesome work Ichi

 

[Anwar]

Looks nice. The pants are going to look very real. Good job.

 

[IchI]

its been a qhile since I have posted any updates and its mainly because I havn't been working on it very much. I have networked loads of PCs in my living room since my parents have gone on holiday and been having total war with shogun. Its so god dam fun with ya m8s and so tactical. Anyway back to the subject. I just finished modelling the head. It has no hair yet. I will add that later. If you havn't noticed I build up my models even though some parts of the models will not be used its always good to have them. Its just how I work Anyway no one really cares what I say so lets just show u the images

Ow and this is the triangle count:

I am most impressed by the polgon count because its so small to say its a player model. All this talk about having 7500 triangles. Tbh I would find it hard finding places to waste them. Ow My model is fully animation optamised as well. I have joints in the right place etc... Well at least I hope I do anyway

 

[Cerberus]

heads

heads always are the hardest. Ichi, I'm having patmos draw you some face references to help you out. I'll let you know when hes drawn them.

 

[IchI]

ye, it looks kinda weird because it has no hair. But I have some renders when its nearly fully complete. unless i have to change it because it looks weird and I havn't noticed. Well anyway here it is:

 

[IchI]

and again, yet another update

Now I am off to bed. This new beta is with the armor on obviasly. But a lot of the armor is out of preportion to the concept and needs doing, but i mainly just wanted to get it on the body. Its 2am I am tired and need sleep. cyas tomorrow lads.

 

[tim8604]

Hey ichi, everything looks good on that model except for its face. The face could be decent, but there is something wrong with it... I can't pick it out. It could just be the whole facial structure possibly. I'd recommend looking at a few more reference pics of a head, and possibly redoing the head entirely. I just wanted to let you know what I thought before you kept adding more detail

 

[Stormy]

top lip looks dodgy

 

[random.hero]

like tim said, if the face was better, it would make the whole model a lot better, but its still good, i couldnt do that kind of stuff . its a shame you have to cover up those lovely modeled trousers with, but thats what the refs are like also, the hair could do with some work, its too 'square'.

ps. i still think the boots are to thin