First Character and Introduction

[Evolution]

Hi all, first up I would like to introduce myself. My name is Daniel and I'm currently a month into a six month game development course for this year. The course is an introduction to game modeling and tools preparing students for more advanced concepts in the second year.

This post is for me to get some broad feedback on the work of my first character, concept wise, he is a miner to go in the environment we finished last week. The poly limit is around 3k not including props and we are not allowed to use normal maps at this point.

So far I have already blown my poly limit and have yet to do the hands, so I will have to pull some details back a tad. I would like to have this modeled and at least started the unwrap before the next class......so three days. Once finished the character will be rigged and used in a simple animation.

I would love feedback on all areas, at this point I am very interested in anything that appears wrong or may give me headaches later on, by all means be brutal! I'm here to improve.

And yea, hoping to become a permanent resident here.

- Daniel

[Evolution]

Small update in an attempt to get some feedback.

The first Prop is a climbing pick/claw that can fold up for storage or to be used as a mace? The small cylinders are only there to define the rotation axis later for each arm. 730 Tris.

The hat....is just a cap. 200 Tris.
At this stage I do not know if I will merge the hat with the head, I like the idea of being able to remove it, but I also don't really want to muck around with the hair....maybe a few pieces showing through the front area.

After some reading yesterday I think I may need to add some more loops around the pelvis area. Worse case scenario I will pull the vest sections back into the body and try to do it with textures instead of geometry.

[CombineMind]

The knee and chest areas look way too dense. Consider breaking his peripherals into separate objects to allow you to adjust their density without adhering to edge flows.

Check the knee and shoe areas also. You're basically modeling for a PS1 game at your geometry limits. Looking at reference of other character models for similar hardware may help you out.

I saw a thread for tomb raider art from either the DS or PSP a while ago, the models were great, you should search CGsociety forums for this thread it'll be really good ref.

You will need more spanning along the pelvis , one more inbetween what you have there will be okay.

At your poly limit you may want to consider scrapping the idea of having a modeled in harness.

-Dan

[Evolution]

Thank you combine, looking at the areas you mentioned I have gone over the mesh and reduced the total count by about a thousand. The majority of the vest areas that did not add anything to the silhouette have been removed and I have tried to remove some unneeded poly's around the face and other areas.
I now sit five hundred poly's over the given target, Failing any more input from other members on this forum I think I will leave the mesh as it stands for the moment and get feedback from my lecturer before I begin mapping (just in case he is dead set on the poly limit. and makes me reduce it more.)

I have added another loop to the pelvis area but it was done after these images were grabbed.

I was not able to find any psp or ds models but i did find a wii thread, was that the one you were thinking about? There was some nice models in there.

I am still after feedback on this model if anyone is interested....

[twiesner]

Your character looks great. The only two places I can think of that you could remove polys is from the pack on his back and the eyeballs if you haven't already done that. You could probably simplify the hands if you needed too by attaching the last three fingers together.

[CombineMind]

The idea to attach the last 3 fingers is a great one I didnt even think of that, though I dont have much low poly game experience.

I was noticing you have him in a straight up T pose too, thats what they taught me in school as well and its really not a great idea at all. I'd suggest turning mirror on your rotate tool and rotating those arms down to a 45 degree angle, otherwise you're going to have trouble after you weight paint and rig.

Good luck UVing, thats always fun, not really.

[Evolution]

Quick update before the storm hits my power.

I stayed with the T-Pose purely because this character will have a broad range of movement and I don't want too much stretching to occur (think rock climber).

I had considered merging some of the fingers, but I was thinking more along the lines of the two middle fingers. It won't save me too many poly's over all and I won't do it unless the teacher asks me to reduce it more. The backpack is part of the prop collection and does not eat into the character poly count.

The UVing is done, I'm kind of retarded in the fact I actually enjoy the unwrap part :S probably because it's the newest thing I have learnt.

Will post tomorrow night after I start the textures, hopefully I can get this piece to a decent standard so I can use it in my portfolio.

[Evolution]

Textures started, very slow going I'm afraid. I started with a notes layer to give me place holders for the detail that i knew was going to go in, a little unsure how to texture a character. I have been working each section one layer at a time, doing the base colour first and than adding a broad darkening layer, the idea being that each new layer adds tighter details, starting with dark parts first and will do light and worn areas after that.

[AGTGreg]

Looks nice so far. I like the body and head textures. I think it would look better if you added some wrinkles to the pants textures and and some detail to the ears textures so that it looks more real.
Also, it may be the camera angle but the hands seem a bit too long.
The rest of the character looks good for 3k poly limit. Nicely done

[Evolution]

Had a lazy day yesterday and did nothing :|

Just started this morning and so far I have done the second pass on the jeans.