Tribal Character Silhouettes - Digital Art Practice Week 17

This week I finalized my design and silhouettes. After making silhouettes with only one color, I moved on to more values in order to experiment with more things. I had a lot of fun making these silhouettes. I decided to bring some of the robotic elements back in order to improve my design a little.

I experimented with developing some of these a little further in the final three quarters view. I dialed down some of the more unreasonable design choices such as giant arms. I also didn't want to remove the negative space between the arm and torso and between the legs.

After developing some more of my designs a little further, I decided to work on my final design.

I combined my previous sketches to create something that I liked. I removed most of the armor since my character was not really a warrior. I added all the previously mentioned design choices such as the sword, the head band and the backpack. I also added some pipes because they look cool.

Tribal Character 2 - Digital Art Practice Week 16

This week I focused on designing my tribal character. I started with silhouettes to get interesting ideas. Not being able to exaggerate proportions really challenged me as I usually work with non human creatures. I had to come up with new ways to create visual interest.

I started with one color only in order not to complicate things. I stuck to the general idea of a larger framed male character when designing the silhouettes. I decided not to rely on weapons or capes and instead to focus on clothing. I went through a couple different ideas at first with cables and robotic components but then realized that those designs didn't make sense for a person living in the middle of a desert. I then decided to intead make my designs reminiscent of something like Rust or early Fallout titles. I then experiment with a more Mad Max type design as well.

Separately from the silhouettes I did some concept sketching in order to get a general idea of what the Ainu were like. This page specifically is important since I came with my final idea of a cook/hunter type of character here. 

For my references I did two boards, one for Ainu and Japanese as well as one for futuristic elements. I decided to keep the main elements and just modified elements whenever it made sense. The biggest example of this is the headgear piece, which is just a band with a symbol of either a bear or some animal. The bear is the main adversary of the Ainu and is a sacred animal to them. In my design, I decided to make the Ainu live in a different environment and the symbol on the headgear piece is now the head of a giant insectoid.

I came with the idea of a portable homemade cooker backpack here, and gathered references in form of field kitchens from around the world. I combined the elements of these to make a my final design. 

Gladiator Pit Stop 3D Game Production Blog Task #3

Gladiator Design Choices

When designing my gladiator, I focused on creating a historically accurate gladiator instead of a fantasy one. I believe that when going for historical subjects like gladiators, historical accuracy should be taken over all other considerations first, and only that it is after the research stage that creative liberties be taken. For my gladiator I decided to go for a career gladiator, rather than a slave forced to fight. This would allow me to equip my gladiator with proper gear, at the very least.

A gladiator usually wasn't armored like a legionnaire and most classes only had a few pieces of protection. Most notably, most gladiator classes had a unique helmet do identify themselves. Armor was usually only on one side of the body for each piece, and there usually was no proper torso protection. Having too much armor wouldn't make for a very exciting fight.

My model has definitely turned out very different from what I originally had in mind. This being my first 3D character ever, I was honestly overwhelmed and decided to make amends to my initial design in order to make my life easier. One of the biggest changes was the removal of the alphas on the edges of the loincloth. I also had to simplify the right arm quite a bit since I didn't plan it out properly. 

I made some other changes that were just stylistic as well. For example, I modelled the sheath , but later realised that gladiators never wore them. I made some different color decisions as well.

I would say my biggest challenge was the unwrapping part, as everything else came relatively straightforward to me, even the skinning and animating. I have since learned a lot regarding unwrapping however, and am confident that in my next project I can do a better job. 

When transitioning from 2D to 3D, I didn't really have any problems as I had made sure beforehand to draw and gather reference of all the elements from different angles, and watched multiple tutorials on the modelling process. Specifically, a video about modelling Total War Rome helmets helped me a lot.

 

Composition - Traditional Art Practice Week 16

 

This week I worked on composition. I first started with creating different compositions and framing or my subject. I experimented with different ways of shading the scene as well.

For my final piece, I did everything the way I usually do it, but I also made some important changes. First of all, I didn't leave lines everywhere and blender most of them in. I also learned from last weeks problematic shading and gave the vase a darker value overall. This immediately improved the way everything looked. I did a similar thing for the box and the leaves which I believe made everything look far better than last week's.

Tribal Character Project Intro- Digital Art Practice Week 15

 This week I got started with my tribal character design. For my tribal character I decided to go for the Japanese Ainu tribe. They are a hunter culture bound to deep traditions. There is also a lot of samurai influence in their equipment such as swords, which I can utilize for my final design. 

I also got back on working on materials this week. I made two materials with a similar theme. I experimented with a different workflow which involved painting color directly. This allowed me to get a much more convincing color scheme and i was especially pleased with these two.

For this tomato I used a painting as reference, with which I ended up making the skin a little too dark. There could also have been subsurface scattering but I couldn't properly implement it due to the workflow that I had utilized.

This is another material that I really enjoyed making. Specifically adding little bits and pieces of roots was really fun to do. I utilized masking to make the grass which allowed me to add some nice gradients to them easily. 

Gladiator UVs and Textures - 3D Game Production Week 19

 

This week I unwrapped my model and got most of the texturing done. After an unsucessful attempt, I unwrapped the upper torso as one UV map. In particular it was difficult to unwrap the belt separately from the skin. I managed to do it and proceeded with the rest of the body.

For the face I unwrapped it with the usual technique, by inserting seams on the back of the head and continuing it to the sides as seen below. This UV  unwrap allowed me to paint everything the way I wanted to do and I made sure to give the face as much geometry as possible.

The lower body and the armor pieces share the second texture map, and I took particular care while optimizing this map as there are multiple objects in one place.

I used the checker pattern in order to scale the individual elements. I wanted to make sure that most of the body is the same texture density so this was the obvious method to check it.

I further unwrapped individual parts of the armor and added them to the UV map.

For my texturing, I started in Blender, as it offers the workflow of both 2D and 3D at the same time. In my painting I followed a very simple method of painting from start to finish. I first drew the main muscle shapes and then did smoothing whereever necessary. I attempted to follow a WoW Classic era of texturing in terms of colors and general ideas, although far less stylized.

In my painting, I focused on changing color hues in the skin instead of having only value doing the work. The top of the head I made more yellow, redder for the cheeks, and a cooler shade on the jaw.

I also used 3D Coat for my texture painting as it has better brushes and makes hand painted texturing more fun. Using multiple softwares at the same time was a good experience as I learned a lot of things about importing and exporting project files.

I painted the other texture map as well. I painted in the main muscle shapes, added some implied lighting and only then further smoothened things out. By using the combination of 2D and 3D at the same time I was able to at the same time paint the shield and the helmet as well as organic forms.

For my shield, I did separate research and combined two different designs from historical Roman shields to create this design. I copied the wing four times over in order to be more efficient and not have to paint the same thing four times over.

Gladiator Modelling - 3D Game Production Week 18

This week I modelled my armor pieces and equipment for my gladiator. I started with further developing the models I had created last week.  

I decided to have only one leg have the armor as it is usually with gladiators. I changed the design a little from what I had in mind at the start, as I wanted to have a more even and flatter surface to paint my texture in. This armor part will be featuring some detailed carvings, as seen in the reference.

One thing that bothered me about the my overall model was that the chest was bare open. Knowing that gladiators didn't exactly wear armor, especially my class, I decided to give him a generic belt-thing. I created the belt separately, and then used the cut tool in order to add geometry to the torso, before welding it all together.

Additionally, I got started on the helmet. I found good reference pictures of the same helmet from different angles, so the model was relatively straightforward to construct. I brought my references in, and arranged them as so. I worked my way from a basic sphere.

I brought in additional angles of the same helmet, and locked my view to these specific angles in order to get the most accurate modelling I could get. I used the transparency mode in order to essentially trace over my reference.

When constructing the helmet, I modelled the additional elements as separate objects and attached them to the main helmet, much like a real helmet would be made. This also allowed me to have topology that I could not achieved if I had modelled from one object only. As seen below, the model does not include holes for the eyes, as from an earlier stage I had already decided they would be simply painted on in order to add to the character ( or detract from it, in other words to make him just some guy and not so special in our eyes.)

I merged the base models together onto the character to get a very crude glimpse into what the character would look like when all was done. I liked what I saw and decided to stick with it. 

Next week I plan on completing my UV unwrap and getting on with my texturing.

 

Gladiator Further Modelling - 3D Game Production Week 17

This week I added anatomical details to my character and fixed the topology problems I had from before. To begin with, I scaled the facial features down a little bit in order to make the head look larger in comparison. I added some extra geometry to the ears, the neck, on the sides of the mouth, as well as creases on the side of the mouth to show age.

I further edited the shapes with the SHIFT tool in order to make them readable from more directions. I made the nose bridge more prominent, the ears a little more outward, and the sides if the head a little larger.

After attaching the head to the torso, I further edited my main body model in order to get more distinct shapes. I gave definition to the deltoids, the ribcage, the lower legs, and  most prominently to the arms. Although one of the arms would be covered by armor, I added the geometry anyways in order to make sure the armor doesn't appear to fit too tight around the character later in the process.

I made sure to make the shapes more readable from every angle yet again. I exagerrated the back muscles and the gluteus muscles a little bit for this purpose, as seen below.

I started working on my unique elements for the gladiator. I used the reference I had gathered before to create the most optimized versions of these objects that I could.

 

Gladiator Modelling - 3D Game Production Week 16

This week I continued with the basic modelling of my gladiator. My goal this week was to finish the main body and to come up a final design idea. 

I made the hands out of some basic shapes, again adding more polygons to the joints and areas that could see deformation if animated. 

I made a basic body following the provided tutorials. At this stage I had not yet gathered much anatomical reference and simply chose to follow the tutorials.

I added anatomy to the back of my character as well. I made sure the main forms are readable from multiple angles and not just one.

Before continuing on modelling my character, I sat and did some more research and created another reference board. I decided to include elements of strongman anatomy in my character, without fully going into it. I gathered references for most muscle groups and forms. I also got references for the face and some Bridgman references for some anatomical parts that I personally struggle with representing.

I made some basic sketches of the kind of character I wanted and the kind of body type I would go for.

Afterwards, I used the reference board I assembled last week in order to paint the details that I would like to include in my character, at least the general ideas and color schemes of them.

Gladiator Project Intro - 3D Game Production Week 15

 

This week I started the gladiator project. I haven't modelled any characters before, though I have experience with drawing anatomy. This project will let me explore a new world of non hard surface modelling and I am looking forward to it.

I started by using the provided high poly sculpted model as a base for retopology. I used the step build function in order to add my own geometry on top. I sculpted the major big forms first before moving to the smaller, more detailed sections. I added extra loops around the mouth for animation purposes.

I decided to keep the eyes as a 2D texture in order to save up on tris. I welded the mouth shut as well for the same purpose. As the screenshot below shows, I followed the principle of eight polygons per loop. Keeping the same amount of polys in a loop allows me to add additional swift loops with ease.

I used the symmetry modifier to weld two sides of the head together. For the back side of the head I used less geometry as there is less detail there in general, and seeing as how I plan to include a helmet this seemed to be the correct course of action.

After finishing the base retopology, I used the SHIFT tool in Max in order to give more masculine features to the head. I made the jaw more prominent, the nose bigger and sharper, as well as small adjustments to the overall geometry to suggest the cheek bones. I also gave more bulk to the neck.

I gathered references for what kind of gladiator I wanted to do. I wanted to go for a historically accurate design over a fantastical one, so I started by reading up on gladiator classes. I also gathered real life references in the form of gladiator reenactments, historical artifacts and historical illustrations.  

I additionally gathered more detailed references for my Secutor class gladiator as seen below, the equipment and clothing, as well as colors.

I made some idea sketches before deciding on a final gladiator class. I decided against making one with armor, as it would not allow me to show my hand painted skin textures.