Cal, Personal project on Unreal 3 Engine (C.V.C)

[Vincentez]

For which Engine - Unreal Engine 3
Current Polycount - 6 052 Tri
Max Polycount - 17 000 tri
Texture Size - 2048^2 for the head, 512^2 for hands, 2048^2 for the rest of the body
Description of background information on piece - So, I don't suppose anyone remembers the "Cal exoskeleton"-model I made a while back. Anyway, in case someone does, this is the character that was supposed to be "wearing" it. I've thrown away the whole exoskeleton idea and took a new approach to the character. He's going to be just an old, thin, dehydrated-looking scientist. Oh, and yea, he doesn't have eyeballs, thus the closed eyelids.
Where are you looking to receive criticism - I'm just finishing the head model. Well, I have done all the modeling, staying within my polygon budget and tested that it works well with the engine, but I'm now concentrating on the details of just the head-part. I won't be taking off any polygons since it works well in game now and has nice round shapes where I want them. I already know I need to add some more details to the skin texture; small wrinkles, pimples and whatever, but if anyone has any suggestions to this, I'd be glad to hear them
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Insert Render
Not a render, I prefer the in-game view... that's how it's going to be seen later anyway


Insert Wireframe


Insert Texture Sheets
(scaled down to 512^2)
Diffuse


Normal


Specular

[Kinrove]

I think the current polycount is very high for that head, You could get the same result with less polies in my opinion.

I think, you should optimize your mesh, unless there is a real explaination of that polycount

[Vincentez]

The explanation would be that this isn't at least now intended to be a playable mod. More likely just some artistic scenes. Anyway, as I said, it currently has the round shapes where I want them and doesn't slow down the game too much, so I won't be tweaking the polycount at least yet.
What I want advice on is the texture; what to add and where it would look good. U know, those little things that make us look like us.

So, I did some detailing to the textures and this is the outcome so far:


Any suggestions now?

[Sentientv2]

Are the eyebrows made of polys? They look a bit awkward to me. The small details (not sure if that's a normap) that are all over the face are definitely on the artistic side, leaning away from realism. They look sort of like Monet strokes in some respect.

I think maybe the color values you're using in certain areas of the diffuse are a bit harsh. The darkened portions on his cheeks... is that reflecting of bruises or are you trying to denote less light hitting it? It seems a bit off. I think you got the base coloring right and I like the pink shades across the face. It would go well with a very coarse, very short white beard. The pink makes it look like he's been scratching his face a bit too much.

The last thing, and it doesn't bother me all that much, but I know it would drive some of my past instructors nuts, is the ears look a bit too fused to the sides of the head.

I like what you've done overall. I really think that if you were to consider putting this in a portfolio and saying Unreal 3 and listing the poly count you might be hurting yourself though. As it was said before, you can get all of the definition from your high count in a good normal map. Keep up the work and thanks for posting it in the first place.

Any particular things you'd like to learn about Unreal 3? I'm working on putting together a thread where I'll post a tip everyday. Just pm me with your request and I'll look into it for you. Take care.

[Detachable Toe]

I know you don't want to lower the polycount, so I'll leave that be, however with the current polycount I'm sure that more definition and detail could be put into your model.

For instance, the ears of your model have next to no detail, and I would think that the detail could not be solidly done via textures alone. There is also some weirdness going on at the base of his nostrils. It is a good job, but overall I'd say your model appears too rounded and smooth.

Your diffuse texture is a nice start. I feel that perhaps the redness could be toned down a bit and blended nicely into the surrounding areas. Also the darkened areas on his cheeks/jawline/forehead (shadows?) seem a bit random. Perhaps try a baked ambient occlusion/lightmap to get the base of the shadows down pat.

I'm fairly new to specular texturing (and texturing in general I guess), so I won't comment much on your specular, but the spotting on the teeth and gums seems out of place to me.

All in all it's pretty decent start, keep going.

[Vincentez]

Originally Posted by Sentientv2

Are the eyebrows made of polys? They look a bit awkward to me. The small details (not sure if that's a normap) that are all over the face are definitely on the artistic side, leaning away from realism. They look sort of like Monet strokes in some respect.

Yes, the eyebrows are made of polys. There's this funny problem with Unreal Engine 3 that it refused to show any just-a-bit transparent things :S I mean: it would only show the parts that were completely white in the alpha map, everything
else went completely invisible. I don't know if this is a problem with my current, crappy graphics card (x1600 pro) but I can't really find that out until I upgrade it at some point. Anyway, this is what causes the awkwardness in the eyebrows :S I had to make them completely visible, instead of a bit transparent which would've looked good to me.
And about the small details, yes, they're a normal map. I was asking for opinions about what to put in, and since no one said anything, I put together this extremely harsh thing. I'll start working on it a bit more later at some point.

Originally Posted by Sentientv2

I think maybe the color values you're using in certain areas of the diffuse are a bit harsh. The darkened portions on his cheeks... is that reflecting of bruises or are you trying to denote less light hitting it? It seems a bit off. I think you got the base coloring right and I like the pink shades across the face. It would go well with a very coarse, very short white beard. The pink makes it look like he's been scratching his face a bit too much.

The reddish "bruises" on the cheeks are supposed to look like the skin is just very thin there and you can see the small veins under it

Originally Posted by Sentientv2

I like what you've done overall. I really think that if you were to consider putting this in a portfolio and saying Unreal 3 and listing the poly count you might be hurting yourself though. As it was said before, you can get all of the definition from your high count in a good normal map. Keep up the work and thanks for posting it in the first place.

As stated in the topic title, this is a personal project. I'm not planning to put anything but a few screenshots on show somewhere. At least not planning anything yet. If I decide to make it a playable mod or even show details about the model somewhere, I will be re-working the model.

Originally Posted by Sentientv2

Any particular things you'd like to learn about Unreal 3? I'm working on putting together a thread where I'll post a tip everyday. Just pm me with your request and I'll look into it for you. Take care.

The only thing I can think of right now would be rope physics... can they be done?

Originally Posted by Detachable Toe

For instance, the ears of your model have next to no detail, and I would think that the detail could not be solidly done via textures alone. There is also some weirdness going on at the base of his nostrils. It is a good job, but overall I'd say your model appears too rounded and smooth.

I'll check the ears and nostrils today, thank you. The roundness and smoothness is there because I want it to be.

Originally Posted by Detachable Toe

Your diffuse texture is a nice start. I feel that perhaps the redness could be toned down a bit and blended nicely into the surrounding areas. Also the darkened areas on his cheeks/jawline/forehead (shadows?) seem a bit random. Perhaps try a baked ambient occlusion/lightmap to get the base of the shadows down pat.

I'm fairly new to specular texturing (and texturing in general I guess), so I won't comment much on your specular, but the spotting on the teeth and gums seems out of place to me.

I'll tone down the red parts and blend it in a bit, thanks. I'll also check the darkened areas. However, I want to be able to use this well in any kind of lighting, so I don't want to use lightmaps. And you being new to specular mapping, I can tell you so am I. My spec sucks seriously, I'm going to work on it a lot more after getting all the other details out of the way.


Anyway, I'm being slow working on this at the moment because I just got the mail and there was a letter saying I passed the entrance examination to get to study game development. So I have a lot of things to arrange now other than the polycount of the model :P

Ok, so I decided I'll make this a part of my final work in the school when the time comes, so I decided to make the lower poly version. 1624 triangles. Here's a pic:



I basically dropped everything that can believably be done in normal map

[Vincentez]

So, today I got some school-related paperwork done and had a few minutes for the model.
Here's what I've got so far, 6566 tris:


Here's a zbrush-attempt on the head: