hey wasdoin. this'll be my first post here but it seems like a pretty good place to get feed back on work.
so that's basically what i'm doing here now. did this fella yesterday and thismoring, in one very looooong sesion. just loking for feed back.
> done in max
> for a game
> 3999 tris, limit is 4000
> thinking about getting rid of the arrow in his side.
> hoping the planes will look ok with aphed hair
> kinda looks like a bear more than a dog, which is what i was going for. like the wargs from two towers.
>> hey Dean, it's Ben from qantm btw, i finally got around to making an account here. i'd be very interested your comments.
here's hoping this works, geocities dosnt like me...
[img]http://www.geocities.com/backdoglive/profile.txt[/img]
[img]http://www.geocities.com/backdoglive/doglarge.txt[/img]
[img]http://www.geocities.com/backdoglive/dogcloseup.txt[/img]
[img]http://www.geocities.com/backdoglive/dogwireframe.txt[/img]
the profle pic is from a camera, and i think all the rest are from perspective views, i'm pretty sure that's what i rendered out anyway. It is much larger at the front than back - but this was intentional. it's a more screwed up look than realistic, which is the idea.
I know what you mean about the teeth. I found a lot of pis on the net of wolves and dogs, and these teeth don't realy 'match' i had some better ones in there but i needed to cull polys so i went for these ones instead, and less of them. I was doing to put bid spikes in the jaw armour (like big teeth) but i completely forgot about them! so i'm probably going to have to go back and rework it a bit anyway.
I'll try that with the claws. dost it make it look more natural or something? they have a seperate smoothing group on them but you cant realy tell in the pics. I'd like to re-model the nose too, it's abit round for my liking, and the bootom jaw is wrong, but i cant even draw a dog's bottom draw and this is the first time i've tryed to model one so it was kinda a pain.
oh well, back to it.
after a bit of reworking this is how it now stands. i'm calling this finished i think. thak's malus, the claws do look much better as seperate elements as opposed to being wielded. i fixed up the jaw a bit, and added the spikes i wanted. i also manadged to get rid of a lot of polys from the legs and body, and clean up a lot of three sided polys in the process. there as still a few in some areas, but most are in areas where it wont need to deform, and it's pretty clean i feel. i never did manage to get the tail attaching are looking rights, but i figure if it's moving , with alphaed hair about it, and the fact that you will mostly seeing him from the front, this minor defect can be convieniently ignored.[:)]
here's also my final sketch i worked from. as you can see i'm not much a traditional artist.
oh, and these are from the persepctive view for sure this time!
EDIT: bloody hell i didnt realise how big that sketch picture was! sorry 'bout that!
EDIT 2: seems that last pics is a bit of a weird angle. it makes the tail join look worse than it really is.
[IMG]http://www.geocities.com/backdoglive/sketchside.txt[/IMG]
[IMG]http://www.geocities.com/backdoglive/dogwire01.txt[/IMG]
[IMG]http://www.geocities.com/backdoglive/dogwire02.txt[/IMG]
[IMG]http://www.geocities.com/backdoglive/dogwire03.txt[/IMG]
Nothing wrong with having a few tris visible in a quad based mesh, its not like your meshsmoothing it into a high res model.
Its more important to get the geometry right than culling tris just for looks.
You may have some small issues with the legs in animation, where they join the body, think about how it will deform.
Looks good
I'd recommend a bit more study into the leg>torso of canine anatomy - the volume of the torso seems a bit off, as well as something funky happening with its front leg shoulder blades and the connection to the torso.
good job, I'm interested where you take the mane and its blending into the fur
i am a little worried about the legs when i come to animate it, so i'm probably going to have to do a quick test rig first before i texture it.and if someone such as you Malus, think's i'm going to have trouble then i probably am!
as for the proportions. it is supposed to be greatly exadurated, and not realsitic, wich should be obvious, but i understant what you are saying J.I. Even unrealistc proportions usually need to some how make sense. basically i wanted a huge upper body and large front legs. so the biggest problem is probably the sholder blades though, as you pointed out. they don't seem to join in the right place, the front leg itself probably needs to be a little further forward and up. though i like the idea of a large hunch on it's back. and the blades themselves dont look the right shape. it certainly has far too much muscle it its lower front legs too, though i was aware of this from the start, and i rekon it makes him look all the more nasty. if anything the back lower legs probably need to be a bit bigger to match up a bit with his back thighs.
of course the thing i like best about this model is that it looks more like a bear than a dog, I can imagin the hero about to face up to it: "you're telling me that's a DOG????" (he should be about the player's height - including the spikes on his back - or bigger btw.)
i'll have both your comments i mind next time i look at it though for sure, for any minor adjustments. no major changes now though, i got to get this thing done, i've got a lot to do at qantm atm! but this fella's going in my folio for sure.
Thats pretty wicked man, i really like that jaw piece thing, i cant help but look at his size and stature and think " Thats a nasty dog " but at least he wont be able to bite me ;)
The only thing i wud have done diff is given him some decent sized paws, both sets ,.. front and rear seem inadequately sized to cop all that weight.
Overall a wicked model tho man! :)
finally finished! actually i finished the body texture some time ago, and i was waiting to get my graphics tablet before i started on the hair. i dont consider my self a texture artist, but i consider myself good enough to present my work, and i'm pretty happy with this. looks better lit, so i might do some baking. also there are big seams around the legs, which i intend to get rid of soon. which reminds me, Dean, if you see Geordie, ask him to email me about how to do his 'getting rid of seams' mapping trick. i cant quite remember how to do it. anyway here it is:
>4002 tris (i found an uncapped nail head just as i was almost finished unwrapping!)
>1024*1024 texture for the body
>1024*1024 texture for the hair + alpha map (will probably drop it to 512 before i put it in the game (cos it's for a game))
>rigged with biped (i wanted to do a coustom rig but the engine needed biped)
>animating now...
[img]http://www.geocities.com/backdoglive/dogwhair01.txt[/img]
[img]http://www.geocities.com/backdoglive/dogwhair02.txt[/img]
this is just a 10 frame gif of the run cycle, cut down from the full 19 frame version. it looks a bit dodgy but as far as i can see there isnt any way to attch a file to a post fo the gif will have to do.
Very cool Ben!
As for crits well first up don't post User view. [:P] The bottom pic is alot easier to read proportion.
No real major problems that I can see from a glance, some anatomy issues and I'd maybe make actual eyeballs since its quite high poly anyway and just have the claws poking into the mesh not welded on.
Check out some reference of dogs teeth also they are alot different to what you have there.
Pretty sweet model though, go forth and texture!!