"And your eyes shine, just like mine.."

Been really really busy, about to move again. Found this lil guy sitting on my desktop and did a quick paint over of my model. Kinda looking Tron influenced, but naw, he just needed more doodads. I suppose it's a current-gen take on Megaman. Must somehow find the time to finish this.

Who's this lil guy?

Started this at work a little bit ago, we'll see how it goes.

Jetpack almost done

This is the Jet-pack and Shoulder-pads to 90% completion. The Jet-pack came out to be 3690 tris, and occupies about 35% of a 1024x1024 normal and AO map. It's considerably higher poly than I intended, but this will be the closest model in the player's vision, something they'll be looking at a lot! So it's gotta look good right? So I took a hit on the boots.

This was the concept I was given for modeling the jetpack. Some adjustments had to be made to fit the shape of the character.

The excess polygons nearing the middle of the model were to avoid smoothing issues with the normal map baking. I should have used smoothing groups to fix this problem, but I'm in the habbit of adding extra geometry at work, because the Unreal Engine prefers extra geometry over smoothing groups any day!

Here's the texture map it sits on. It's shared with the boots, shoulder-pads, and radar upgrades. I left some room for a further upgrade I need to do, if I'm able to get to it. I'd really like to texture the diffuse and dirty it up a little, but time will be tight. I need to move on to a new enemy in the game.

Jetpackin

I think I'm going to start taking random screenshots of my work-in-progress stuff.

This is a sub-D model for Ava's jetpack upgrade. My goal is to get the low poly down to 2800 polys without losing the detail. Let's see how that goes.

Modeling Process

So after several creature models, I think I've finally came up with a sound pipeline for getting them done quickly. I'm posting this here because I think a lot of student character modelers who may (or may not) be reading this, have no idea about the alternatives to polygon modeling, and albeit, I think it's a much quicker one.

(Low Poly with Normal, Diffuse, and Specular)

Here's my process:

1. 3ds Max - Block the model in using simple box extrusions
- It can look like crap here. Just make sure that it's entirely quads
- Note: A better way to do this is using Zbrush's Zspheres. But since I'm working in Mudbox, I believe this to be the best way

2. Mudbox - Import and subdivide the model for high-detail sculpting
- Sculpt to 90% completion
- Avoid texture detailing so you can start working on the lowpoly (for the animator)

*3. Topogun - Create a low poly mesh on top of the high-detail sculpt
- Consider your poly-count
- Use this opportunity to focus on clean edgeloops
- Topogun does all the modeling work for you :) Just focus on the topology
- Before exporting to Max, make sure the silhouette reads

(Above: Creature being retopologized in Topogun)

4. 3ds Max - Unwrap and Rig
- Create a quick simple rig to test your edgeloops
- Hand this file to the rigger or animator

5. 3ds Max - Bake Normals and Ambient Occlusion maps

6. Photoshop - Use maps to aid your texturing
This stage can go sort of two ways. You can either go back to your mudbox file and sculpt

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Pros: Intuitive. Removes the constraint of working within a polycount, and allows the artist to focus on sculpting rather than topology.

Cons: Animator does not have a test rig/model to work with until the Hi-Poly sculpt is 90% complete.


Links to the tools I use:
*Topogun - http://www.topogun.com
Xoliul Viewport Shader - http://www.laurenscorijn.com/viewportshader