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Apr MMC - Character - Dragn
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Apr MMC - Character - Dragn // Work in Progress
Post by Dragneye // May 21, 2008, 10:40am
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Dragneye
Total Posts: 602
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For the record... I tend to add a row of faces at the ends (the red part) because, as one adjusts the verts and faces back n forth, things lose their straight edge. This way, I Boolean Subtract part of the red faces, and KNOW I am straight again. Hope that helps |
Post by frootee // May 21, 2008, 10:43am
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frootee
Total Posts: 2667
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the mesh looks more organized here dragneye; it looks better and actually, appears easier to work with, than what you had originally.
Keep it up!
Froo |
Post by 3dfrog // May 21, 2008, 11:09am
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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looking real nice drgn. Nice and clean. |
Post by Dragneye // May 21, 2008, 11:33am
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Dragneye
Total Posts: 602
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Thanx guys. Like I said, the simpleness is how I start, some of the messiness was intentional. I just hope the info that comes thru this thread can be of help to everyone, just like all the threads of the past have helped me come along. Like was stated, this is a great forum, and Very educational. I just want to give as I got.
Just saw W!ZARDS video. Man, am I pumped up. I just HAVE to figure out the crashing headaches I'm gettin. Can't ever get to my animating this way. |
Post by Jack Edwards // May 21, 2008, 1:05pm
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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You're welcome Dragneye. :)
The new mesh looks much cleaner. |
Post by Délé // May 21, 2008, 1:26pm
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Délé
Total Posts: 1374
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Nice work Dragoneye. I agree with the others, the mesh is looking much cleaner. Keep up the great work. I look forward to seeing more. :) :banana: |
Post by Dragneye // May 22, 2008, 8:38pm
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Dragneye
Total Posts: 602
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An update. The areas on the neck are how he 'exudes' his emotions. They change color and puff up, depending how he feels. It takes a lot out of him to always spit fire, so usually, he just walks away, but everyone knows how he feels by watching the neck pouches.
First pic is what I started with... the second is what I ended up with. More detailing coming. |
Post by Jack Edwards // May 22, 2008, 10:34pm
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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I think the wing should be larger than the body. That will help avoid the chicken look... ;) |
Post by butterpaw // May 23, 2008, 6:41am
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butterpaw
Total Posts: 831
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hmm maybe it's a young dragon? .. or.... just not got to that part yet? |
Post by Ambrose // May 23, 2008, 8:17am
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Ambrose
Total Posts: 261
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Lockness !!!
SeYa/Ambrose... |
Post by Dragneye // May 24, 2008, 11:50am
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Dragneye
Total Posts: 602
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The wings were goin to be non-functional (since I don't 'fly high' any more :-)), but you got me thinkin, so I started a new dragon from the base model I've used all along (the refined version is pic 1 below. The original can be seen in my 1st post). The point ultimately is to create this using the least polys. So I now present to you... Dragn Yungblood. :D |
Post by Dragneye // May 24, 2008, 11:56am
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Dragneye
Total Posts: 602
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I used the same wing from the earlier model. Will be refining as I go along, and see how many edges I can get rid of.
QUE: Which cone tip is better for animating, and goin' easier on the computer? The left or right colored one? (the silver cones will be his talons) |
Post by kena // May 24, 2008, 2:31pm
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kena
Total Posts: 2321
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Looks like a good start to the new dragon. I'm not up on animation, but I would say the less vertices/polygons the less strain. Still... it would depend on how much you will have in the whole scene. |
Post by W!ZARD // May 24, 2008, 7:59pm
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W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
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It's been a long time since I studied dragons at Wizard school but if I remember correctly a dragons with two legs like yours is technically called a 'Wyvern'.
I'm following this thread with great interest as I'm currently creating my own dragon (with 4 legs) and it's much more involved than I thought it would be. I'm experiencing very similar issues to you regarding maintaining good edge flows and so on.
Re the best tip question - I am no expert but I suspect that if you try to get the tip to end as a small quad you will have the greatest flexibility for animating. Hopefully someone who knows for sure will comment on this point as I'm curious about it too.:D |
Post by Dragneye // May 25, 2008, 2:20pm
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Dragneye
Total Posts: 602
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Wyvern? No.. his name is Drew Jr. Where'd you get Wyvern?
:D
Great to hear W!ZARD. Would love to see what you have goin: maybe there's somtin we all can learn. And you sure addin pressure; it hard enough making two legs work right, goin for four huh? BTW - what would yours be called then?
So... I thought I'd try redoing the wing, so detached and started from the beginning, seeing how low poly yet smooth I can make it. Hmm, have a new idea... will now redo that -
Also... RE: cone tips - the best I came up with is the second pic, but it still leads into angle problems since two of the faces will be skewed (red arrow, green line example, third pic). Any input anybody? Am I right that that's why we don't see too many actual 'points' in animations, just very rounded ends? |
Post by W!ZARD // May 26, 2008, 8:26pm
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W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
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Don't quote me on this but I assume the word Wyvern for 2 legged dragons comes from medieval heraldry. Dragons, lions eagles and so on were used to decorate various family Coats of Arms and, as every Coat of Arms design had to be registered, a whole specialised language was used to describe the various aspects or components of the family crest.
Re tips, in the real world you never get a single point - all tips, even on the sharpest needle, are rounded. When simulating the real world in 3d it helps to have 'round' points as they catch the light more realistically. Same rule applies to sharp edges too.
Re my dragon - I've not yet thought of a name for him and yes, animating 4 legs, a head, a tail and two wings is going to force me to learn a lot more about rigging and IK locks and so on. I like to set myself challenges to keep my interest up:D. Right now I'm learning lots about UV editing in workspace which, although time consuming, is turning out to be more fun than I expected.
At this stage I am keen to keep him a bit secret until he appears in my ongoing animation project but there's a sneak WIP image in Kena's Mushroom WIP thread.
Keep up the good work though - you're doing well. |
Post by Dragneye // May 31, 2008, 6:58pm
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Dragneye
Total Posts: 602
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Had a heck of a time trying to work the texture maps but rushing only made me mad, er, crash. Oh well. I'm so dented up from all the crashing, I have to call it a night. This is what I have. Say hello to Tino the dino.
Tried to create and complete the rig so I can pose him for what was goin to be a beauty shot, and creating textures, and creating the background, and post-editing all in a very few hours. Didn't work.
Now... I get your 'point' abt points W!ZARD. :) Will keep it in mind. - As for UV editing, share what insights you come up with as you go along, as I am tackling that also. |
Post by Dragneye // May 31, 2008, 7:01pm
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Dragneye
Total Posts: 602
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lolol...oh yea...the pic :D |
Post by kena // May 31, 2008, 7:49pm
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kena
Total Posts: 2321
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His skin looks a bit papery.
I got a very good dragon skin texture from this site
http://www.filterforge.com/filters/1305.html
and there are other ones I got there as well including a young dragon, and a couple of other ones. |
Post by Dragneye // Jun 1, 2008, 1:07pm
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Dragneye
Total Posts: 602
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Kena, the textures were more placemats (more like doormats :-)), just to get somtin in before the deadline. Any meaningful textures I tried to use would crash me mostly on preview renders, so was tired and got fed up for the night.
Thank you for the textures though, I appreciate it. Will revisit this when work gives me a break.
The goal is to animate this, so kept it quite simple to see if I can get my puter to finish the project; more of a test WIP than a beauty render is my goal here, so I hope there's a bunch more entries for this from the others. Gonna take a look around now for a bit. |
Post by 3dfrog // Jun 1, 2008, 2:05pm
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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Nice looking creature. Are you using png's for the textures that are crashing? I had trouble using png on model side, which is basically 6.6. Maybe convert to tga if that's the case. |
Post by Dragneye // Jun 1, 2008, 2:20pm
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Dragneye
Total Posts: 602
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No, usually use bmp when it's something I 'hand create', to cut down on 'loss'. Never thought abt using anything else, or that it would be an issue. Should I rethink? |
Post by kena // Jun 1, 2008, 2:43pm
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kena
Total Posts: 2321
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Unfortunatly, the size of the picture you use as a texture has a lot to do with memory usage, in my expierence. Somehting with less usage would be better. Try using different graphics programs and save in each format you want to use. Different programs will take the same original and make different sizes of new ones. KB-wise |
Post by Nez // Jun 5, 2008, 2:42am
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Nez
Total Posts: 1102
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See following thread as to whether you want another extension or not:
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showpost.php?p=68609&postcount=44
It's been going a while now and need to let someone else take the helm for a while... |
Post by Dragneye // Jun 5, 2008, 8:26pm
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Dragneye
Total Posts: 602
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For my 2 cents, I think time's up. It's not fair to you Nez to keep riding the helm for this long. I doubted if this was going to finish in time from the beginning, but as there weren't many entries I thought I'd use this as an entry. Other than shooting for the prize money :-), my deeper goal was to entice others to enter this and have a go at it; didn't seem to attract too many takers, but... the thread did go in a very good direction; there's been some good info shared here, and I hope you all, and more, will continue to offer insight. Some questions I've asked I basically knew the answers to, others are truly unknowns. I really want to take any chance I can to help others gettin started with the small, finer details of creating in 3D; stuff that may get passed over or not even mentioned in tutorials. Just like I was gettin stumped when I first touched tS, and tried to create without pencil or brush.
I really hope some of the info here has helped others, like I was helped back when.
This will continue as a WIP. Ya see, I was more trying to hone and prep for a project of mine, so I have started this dragon ohh, 5 times already, using different techniques and shortcuts to find the most efficient and time-saving way to model, thus my doubts abt finishing in time, but it's all good. Haven't even bothered to do a pretty render, (but I posted somtin before the end of the month :-) - Oook, it was a lil after midnight on the last day, but, whatever :D) so the last pic I posted will have to do for the challenge.
btw - the 6th dragon, completely modelled from snout to tail to wingtip, with a similar scheme but different line flows and loops, took me less than 90 minutes.
(lol, ok, enuff readin'. I will continue my ranting in my blog. Carry on) |
Post by Dragneye // Jun 14, 2008, 9:37pm
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Dragneye
Total Posts: 602
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Well... if you all agreed to a new date, who am I to argue. :D I have an idea for the final render, tryin somtin new. Will try to finish it right after my son leaves tomorrow, er, today. |
Post by Jack Edwards // Jun 14, 2008, 10:55pm
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Good luck Dragoneye!
BTW, you should paint a specular map to control the shininess over the dragon. That will help with giving the impression of scaly skin instead of looking sort of like dried up paper as in your previous render.
Also using HDRI would definitely help! :)
I'll be on again tomorrow night. Let me know of you need any help with the materials or lighting. |
Post by Breech Block // Jun 15, 2008, 4:26pm
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Breech Block
Total Posts: 844
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Nice work Dragoneye, its been remarkable to see how your model's lines have started to flow more and more naturally as you have made progress. Can't wait to see a final render. |
Post by Dragneye // Jun 15, 2008, 9:20pm
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Dragneye
Total Posts: 602
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Specular? Heck, I just did my first unwrap ever, and haven't even touched HDRI. I know that's how you guys get those great past renders, but I have spent all my time improving my modeling technique, that rendering hasn't been added to my notes yet :-). Part of what I wanted to attack when I started this. I want to render just like you guys :-)
You're a good man Jack; Thank You. Below is the the actual 'skin' I will be using (so far anyway). My idea was to pose him with a pic of me, but adding that new dimension will definitely put me past the deadline, but the MMC is abt a complete picture, so will see what I can do. I would LOVE help with materials and lighting. I'll try to be on as much as I can later on today (Monday) so ... Thanx agn. |
Post by Jack Edwards // Jun 15, 2008, 9:43pm
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Which render engine do you plan to use? For quick results you can drop your bump map into the specular channel. To do that you need to use one of the "mapped" materials -- for example Mapped Phong, or Mapped Metal.
In general HDRI is a one click solution once you've found values that work for that particular HDR file. I find that the default settings tend to be way off, and with a good HDR the values can be toned down a LOT from the defaults. |
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