Rodney modeled this character from the white ogre in Dragon Nest, so it's already a 3D game character. But he did a high res sculpt of the guy, and I took it to texture.
Here's my texture work: (Although you should look at it on my VIMEO https://vimeo.com/49217722. I'll start uploading my other older videos on there soon too.)
And some stills:
I was almost a week behind in this term when I got back from SIGGRAPH, so it was sort of like a sprint for me to get going on learning about subsurface skin texturing, figuring out how to tackle texturing this guy and his accessories, getting it all rendered out, all in a little over 4 weeks. However, I got plenty of help and tips. Alaina Hower is an excellent texture artist, and her experience with her projects helped me a lot in applying it to this ogre. My teachers and classmates were also super helpful in giving tips, tricks, and feedback.
I drove back with my friend Amber from LA the morning of August 10th, and we dutifully went to class that night. I was super exhausted, so I don't think I was exceptionally productive in lab, but I came up with a game plan to get this stuff presentable by finals. First, work on the body and figure out subsurface and skin texturing, so I can get the body looking ok (he's mostly skin and face). A little after the halfway mark, I can figure out how to get his accessories looking right.
Here's my original plan for the guy plus a blocked shader pass that I did right before I left for SIGGRAPH.
Then it was a process of me trying stuff out quickly and failing a few times before I get something looking ok. I've UVed certain parts of this model multiple times. I also have a bunch of different versions of... well, everything.
First, getting the skin figured out. I hadn't done it before except to play with the dials a bit, and seeing barely anything change for my T&L projects. So, Alaina was super helpful in this along with several of my teachers and lots of online tutorials. It was a lot more work than I anticipated. I felt like I was painting a million maps to layer over each other, and I'm always wondering whether my dials need to be adjusted, or I need to go back to change my map. But, playing around and doing tests helped me figure out what dial does what and what I needed to adjust on my maps. Here are some of my first attempts of the skin. It think it's easy to make it look too waxy when you start out with surface scattering on the skin shader. You just get so excited when you see subsurface working.
Even after I thought, yea. I like that skin... I realized. Oh man, he has a tattoo!!! Then I had to go back and draw that thing on and play around with it on the subdermal and epidermal layer. It's cool! If you only have it on the subdermal layer as completely black, with nothing on the epidermal. It really looks like a faded tattoo. Then it's a matter of getting the edges to be exactly blurry so that it makes sense for the scale of the guy. I started out with the edges very blurred, which made him look like a miniature tiny ogre. So then I went through and sharpened it up, then blurred the edges to look good close up. I'll probably go back and blur the edges some more.
First, getting the skin figured out. I hadn't done it before except to play with the dials a bit, and seeing barely anything change for my T&L projects. So, Alaina was super helpful in this along with several of my teachers and lots of online tutorials. It was a lot more work than I anticipated. I felt like I was painting a million maps to layer over each other, and I'm always wondering whether my dials need to be adjusted, or I need to go back to change my map. But, playing around and doing tests helped me figure out what dial does what and what I needed to adjust on my maps. Here are some of my first attempts of the skin. It think it's easy to make it look too waxy when you start out with surface scattering on the skin shader. You just get so excited when you see subsurface working.
Even after I thought, yea. I like that skin... I realized. Oh man, he has a tattoo!!! Then I had to go back and draw that thing on and play around with it on the subdermal and epidermal layer. It's cool! If you only have it on the subdermal layer as completely black, with nothing on the epidermal. It really looks like a faded tattoo. Then it's a matter of getting the edges to be exactly blurry so that it makes sense for the scale of the guy. I started out with the edges very blurred, which made him look like a miniature tiny ogre. So then I went through and sharpened it up, then blurred the edges to look good close up. I'll probably go back and blur the edges some more.
A big problem I had was figuring out what to do with the eyes and teeth. I tackled the skin thinking that would be the toughest part. That was an INCREDIBLY false assumption. For the eyes, the concept shows them as white gleaming eyes with no pupils. No pupils? How should that end up looking? So I thought of what this ogre might be. I liked the idea of this white ogre being in a cave, where he doesn't need eyesight, so he's basically blind. I looked at a ton of photos of eyes from humans to creatures that are blind or evolved from their lack of need for eyes. Or eyes with cataracts... or maybe eyes of albinos. I also modeled some different eyes with separate geometry for the lens, pupil, and sclera with different sizes and proportions.
Here are some quick tests I did for the eyes after I sculpted some eyelids for the guy. My teacher said I can deviate from the concept and try some things to see what looks best. I thought the black beady eyes could also work, but my favorite was still my first attempt and idea of how to tackle this character's eyes.
My what-if-he's-albino eyes test, where I gave him tiny pupils with red to represent seeing light shine on the red blood vessels of his eye. Looks super silly, but I love this render. He looks so surprised, since I gave him eyes with a tiny lens and pupil.
"*GASP* What's that you say?" Hahahha.
The design of his mouth is also pretty interesting. He has no gums. He has no lips. I wonder how he eats, or if he can even close his mouth. I thought maybe I can make his teeth like horns protruding out of skin, but it didn't look right. It didn't look like a mouth, and it's clearly a mouth with teeth. I decided that he's a mouth-breather (like me sometimes!), who has his mouth open all the time, breathing loudly like a nerd. Probably just continuously drools and makes garbled grunts to communicate. I gave him some glossy looking gums, but he doesn't have lips. It was just gums blending into the skin on his face. So I decided to model some drool for the dude, and I really liked the look of it to help sell the design of the mouth.
Onwards! Towards accessories! At some point I knew my skin and face still needed work, but I was itching to work on the accessories and just getting something on those things. Plus time was winding down, and the body will require extra time for rendering all that subsurface scattering. The problem I usually have is putting too much bump. My brain thinks, I want to show it's THERE! But then realize I have to super tone it down, which probably still needs to be done, even with my final version. It's also a matter of getting the color and spec to look right for the material. Then with a teacher acting as art director, I did a little bit of modeling adjustments that Rodney was super nice to let me do. Gave him some new earrings. I'll have more time next term to figure it out (planning on texturing a hardsurface model). Here are some of my old renders of the accessories. A lot of my metals were looking like stone (which I still think is the case in my final):
I need more practice with getting these surfaces to look right (which I'm determined to practice and figure out next term!).
Afterwards, it was a matter of figuring out my AO pass. I learned I could get my displacement map to pump into my surface shader. Also, made a mud pass to add to the hands and feet to make it look like he uses his hands to dig in the dirt. Then, I just rendered and comped them all together using Nuke.
And here he is!
People think he's gnarly looking, but I think he's pretty adorable! I didn't mind staring at this guy for 4 weeks, and I'm happy to continue working on him.
Thanks again Rodney, for letting me use your model! And the artists behind the White Ogre in Dragon Nest for a cute concept.
Programs used: Maya, Mudbox, Roadkill, Photoshop, Nuke
Onwards! Towards accessories! At some point I knew my skin and face still needed work, but I was itching to work on the accessories and just getting something on those things. Plus time was winding down, and the body will require extra time for rendering all that subsurface scattering. The problem I usually have is putting too much bump. My brain thinks, I want to show it's THERE! But then realize I have to super tone it down, which probably still needs to be done, even with my final version. It's also a matter of getting the color and spec to look right for the material. Then with a teacher acting as art director, I did a little bit of modeling adjustments that Rodney was super nice to let me do. Gave him some new earrings. I'll have more time next term to figure it out (planning on texturing a hardsurface model). Here are some of my old renders of the accessories. A lot of my metals were looking like stone (which I still think is the case in my final):
I need more practice with getting these surfaces to look right (which I'm determined to practice and figure out next term!).
Afterwards, it was a matter of figuring out my AO pass. I learned I could get my displacement map to pump into my surface shader. Also, made a mud pass to add to the hands and feet to make it look like he uses his hands to dig in the dirt. Then, I just rendered and comped them all together using Nuke.
Thanks again Rodney, for letting me use your model! And the artists behind the White Ogre in Dragon Nest for a cute concept.
Programs used: Maya, Mudbox, Roadkill, Photoshop, Nuke
No comments:
Post a Comment