Kageko's Zombieproject

[kageko]

Hey everyone, im new to these forums so i figured i might as well make an introduction here, my names chris, im 21 and ive been making models for about 6-7 months now, been into drawing and painting for a few years as well, i also attend a local college and study Graphics for computergamedevelopment, and at the moment im busting my ass trying to make daily improvements.

Anyway, back to the reason i posted this thread ^^, atm im in a class called Animationproject, its purpose is for the students to team up and make a 60+ second gametrailer, of which 60+ seconds have to be ingame-content. Were currently on week 3 of 10, and i figured, since im making this many models, it would be a shame not to get any crits on them, so for the sake of improvements, i really would appreciate all crits and comments =).

Now, i work as a character modeler and texturer in this project, and i put up a deadline of 1 week for each zombie and 2 for the main character, with about 3 weeks towards the end where i can work on improving everything and syncing everything so they look like they actually belong in the same scene.

And now that ive rambled on for so long, i figured i might as well show u what i have so far (btw if someone could tell me why he looks like a freaking raisin once u zoom in close enough id be very grateful as this is NOT in the sculpt, does not show up in the viewport or anything, and if i tone down the value, all the other details disappear too):

[Aftermath]

Welcome to the Forums,

Right now its a bit dark maybe add some lights to the scene so that we can better help you fix the texture up. Also make sure you sketch out you animatic storyboard for your 60 second clip so that you guys dont get feature creep.

The problem with your Raisin look is this. Your not using a lightmap (ambient occlusion map) as your detail base for your diffuse. Normally you want to have the normal map to fake the geometry with the light and the AO map in the diffuse spot to make the details show. Check out Marcus's Tutorial in this same section it will explain the correct process of using the different type of maps.

But thats why your guy looks like a raisin, your trying to get more detail out of the normal map then what it should be used for. Man it is late here i hope this is coming out of my head correctly and its not totally confusing the mess out of you.

[kageko]

ok just tried fixing the value on it, and the problem is when i crank it down, all the big wrinkles disappear almost completely, and when i turn it up the small ones produce the whole raisin-effect, this is all done with a normal lambert and default lighting, heres a screenie of the viewportversion (left) which looks just like i want it to work, and to the right is the rendered f'ed up version. As u can see, in the rendered version the small details are just as big as teh ones in the viewport, while the big wrinkles are practically gone, i have no idea whats causing this, its been popping up on my models lately and tbh i have no idea what im doing wrong, as they look perfectly fine in the viewport, and when rendered, somehow the balance gets fubar. Hope someone can help me with this cuz otherwise im gonna have to do this without normalmaps, and thats really not an option atm

[zeus]

Hi there, welcome to the forums! OK so the normals maps are definitely a problem right now - try setting up a decent lighting solution and then rendering your model. the viewport render looks all right on the head but the jumper is messed up tbh. Hopefully its something to do with your default lighting setting in the viewport so over riding this with your own lights and rendering should give you a more true representation of your model.

I'd also be wary about adding bump detail to everything on your model. It looks as if the jumper has the same type of bump pattern as the skin, which is probably not accurate and can end up making a model look noisy.

I hope your project goes well, i'm sure you'll see a big improvement as the weeks go by. Good luck!

[kageko]

oh yeah, about the shirt, i was desperate searching the web for what couldve caused this, and they looked like they had their normals inverted, but fortunately, maya just tries to read psd files as completely white transparency maps when i use them as colormaps. anyways i tried inverting the normals on it in ps, i had totally forgotten about that =P anyways, i looks good if i apply a colormap, but without it, it looks like this... now the problem is pretty obvious. when i put my light behind the character, the front lights up, and vice versa, its like the normals are reversed, except, when i reverse them in the normalmap it gets weird anyway... im all out of ideas (yet again it seems :P)

[zeus]

right this all seems very confusing to me lol. I've not experienced a problem like this and am not a maya user primarily so take my advice with a pinch of salt...

Ok firstly, it almost appears as though your model still has smoothing groups applied. In most cases its best to apply one smoothing group to the entire model before baking normals. Because you want all information about how lighting is calculated to be taken from the high poly model, by having smoothing groups applied to the low poly ur kinda confusing your app, its trying to make it look like the high poly, but also its trying to maintain your smoothing groups too.

Ok if your normals were inverted on the character then (atleast in max) you'd be able to tell straight away when you render as back face polygons wouldn't show up on default setting renders. Yours do show up, so unless maya is different i would say the problem isnt with your mesh having inside out normals.

what happens if you get a spot light and shine it directly at the front of your model and then render the scene?

[kageko]

alright! im kind of embarrassed but i solved the rendering issue =P it turns out maya software really doesnt like normalmaps and somehow tries to render them as normal bumpmaps, so i tried rendering with mental ray and well, it worked pretty well ^^ still had some inverted normalmaps, for some reason backface culling didnt make them invisible, anyway, as usual when Zbrush screwed up, Xnormal was there to save the day, god i love that app! just did a quick rebake and voila, everything worked! Still have some issues with the hands, (they look a little like raisins upclose) but i think that since we wont be seeing these zombies up close, well not the hands anyway, im calling the normalmaps finished, might tweak the intensity a bit tho, but the results from any distance except close up is pretty decent, so for the sake of saving time, im calling this one a wrap after i make a diffuse texture for the eyes.

Heres a couple of renders, one with glow on, since that was the original concept of our zombies (basically they were supposed to only be dark silhouettes in the distance with slightly glowing eyes)

edit: forgot to mention this, but i still get some weird looking lighting on the bottom of the jeans, dun rly know whats causing them, but it seems to be a pretty unimportant issue right now, i might have another look at it, but thats if i have time over from the other zombies and so on =P

[kageko]

....and heres our main character, im currently working on her face, trying to get her to look less cartoony, i even used a photobase as well as an aobake on her texture, still cant seem to get the toonish look out of her -.- oh btw about the eyelashes, there is an opacitymap there, but these are just screenshots so u cant see what it does =P rly would like some pointers on how to make her look more, well, real...

[movento]

I think the cartoon look is because of the big eyes,i would vertical scale them a bit. She has a quite big chin too.

[kageko]

Alright, 4 crashes and a few hours later, im back, i adjusted the saturation lightness and hue, also painted in a bit of dirt in her face and i think she looks alot better now tbh. Thx for the comment Movento, i fixed the chin, and then maya crashed, taking the eyelashes and all adjustments i made to the chin and eyes as well, and tbh i cant be arsed to redo it atm, might do it tomorrow.

Im calling it quits for tonight with the texture, im def not done with the texture, but for now, ill give it a rest and come back once ive gotten enough crits =)

And now, im gonna start modelling some riotgear for her xD

PS please point out any other anatomical flaws you can spot =) the mouth area being my main concern, just cant get it to look quite right...