A wip character

[tournamentdan]

Hey all, I have started working on some of my models again. I just retopo the head and created a different normal map. I took some polys out of the top of the head and back. Then added some more detail on the ears and eyes and nose and funny enough, I have more faces now than before.

But I think I have a better normal map now.

Next, I guess start on the low poly hair and normals for clothing. Tell me what you think.

 

http://leadwerks.com/werkspace/gallery/album/570/95-my-first-normal-wip/

 

 

P.S. Poly count so far 5,700. for the whole character. I guess that is not bad since the head for the high poly is a little over 25,500.

[Brent Taylor]

I think you need to lower your poly count by a little over half. You've got a good start, but you're working with waaaay too many poly's. Work on your topology.

 

http://www.blendercookie.com/2009/03/02/bundle-complete-head-modeling-series/ Start here. You don't need to purchase anything. Just grab a couple of reference files off of google (or take a couple pictures of your own head) and follow along. You'll still need to reduce the polycount, but you'll have an idea what the topology needs to look like.

 

In addition, watch this: http://www.blendercookie.com/2010/01/28/topology-overview-the-head/

 

Have fun! Thats a pretty great site to learn from if you're using Blender. You should learn a lot.

[tournamentdan]

I thought 5700 polys was good for a game character. This number is not quads.

 

Edit: I know this low poly head is not modeled the conventional way, but I did it this way since there will be no animation with the low poly. This is my high poly head for cut scenes.

http://leadwerks.com/werkspace/uploads/1285840615/gallery_570_95_165992.png

[Brent Taylor]

5700 poly's for a game character is just fine. However for the amount of detail you actually have on your low poly mesh...you can reduce your poly usage by at least half and get the same results. In addition you don't actually HAVE any detail in the low poly. The nose for example is at best a bit of a bump. For the poly count you have, you could create a very well defined head model.

[Canardia]

5700 for a game character is good for Half-Life 2 class games, but in Crysis in Leadwerks Games you can have easily 15000 polys, and the LODs of course.

 

http://www.rsart.co.uk/2007/08/27/yes-but-how-many-polygons/

[tournamentdan]

5700 for a game character is good for Half-Life 2 class games, but in Crysis in Leadwerks Games you can have easily 15000 polys, and the LODs of course.

 

http://www.rsart.co.uk/2007/08/27/yes-but-how-many-polygons/

 

Thanks for the link. It is nice to compare. I think I am happy with the amount that I have. I guess the character will be around 7000 polys when I get done with the hair.

Which will be the top LOD.

[tournamentdan]

I was able to get a couple hours this week to model and finished up the hair for the top two in game LOD. Which I hope will be good enough for the cinematic model.

I looked all around to find a good example of low poly hair and came across the uncharted2 characters. I think that game has the best hair for all games so far. I was able to find a wire frame of the model on a zbrush forum and was very surprised of the info that the artist shared. The main character in the game(Drake) is at a poly count of 37k through out the whole game. There was no LOD's for drake since it was third person game. I had not realized games have gotten that high yet. For characters at least. Here is a link to that forum.

 

 

 

I still have to finish the feet but I can not decide to either model the toes or leave it up to normal maps for the detail. Feel free to give an opinion on this.

 

 

I also still do not know. I have asked this question before and did not really get an answer. I am used to modeling to make 2d pics so I do not know how the engine

renders the models. My question is about how it renders the polys. I am wonder if I can create a high poly human mesh and then cover it with low poly cloths? Will that cut down on the poly count rendered?

Edit: So far with hair, poly count is at 6,128 and I am more than confident that I will get all the detail I need with the normal maps.

 

 

Here is the base mesh that I will attach all the normal maps for detail.

 

 

And pic of the high poly for cinematics.

[Pixel Perfect]

Looking great Dan. The hair looks very good. Looking forward to seeing the final model complete with its normal map detail. Will you be animating it yourself too?

[tournamentdan]

Looking great Dan. The hair looks very good. Looking forward to seeing the final model complete with its normal map detail. Will you be animating it yourself too?

Hey Pixel, thanks for the kind words. I am going to animate myself but was also thinking about

 

How about my question about rendering polys. Would you know anything about that?

[knocks]

Personally i wouldn’t worry about poly counts until your satisfied with you finished high poly version then create the low poly version.

Here is a great walk through.

[Pixel Perfect]

In terms of the poly count, assuming modern hardware, I'd say aim at the following:

 

Main Characters: 15,000 - 20,000 max

 

Others: 5,000 - 10,000 max

 

Obviously if you can get the poly count lower then all the better. Also, if you are intending using large numbers of NPCs or running on lower hardware specs then these would need to be reduced accordingly. But the engine does handle large poly counts well.

 

Home motion capture is definitely becoming feasible now although how easy it is to get good results in practice I don't know; never having tried it. I'd love to play around with that stuff though, looks great fun

[tournamentdan]

In terms of the poly count, assuming modern hardware, I'd say aim at the following:

 

Main Characters: 15,000 - 20,000 max

 

Others: 5,000 - 10,000 max

 

Obviously if you can get the poly count lower then all the better. Also, if you are intending using large numbers of NPCs or running on lower hardware specs then these would need to be reduced accordingly. But the engine does handle large poly counts well.

 

Home motion capture is definitely becoming feasible now although how easy it is to get good results in practice I don't know; never having tried it. I'd love to play around with that stuff though, looks great fun

 

Thanks for the reply Pixel. I sorry I guess I was not explaining myself to well. What I am wondering is can I create a character say 20,000 polys and then place a 200 poly shirt and pants on it. Would that reduce the amount of polys renered in engine. Or will it render both at 20,200

[Pixel Perfect]

Ah sorry ... I understand now. Do the model's underlying polys get occluded as a result of being hidden by the outer clothing? I'm guessing probably not as to occlude it the whole model's bounding box would need to be occluded by the bounding box of the clothing which is not going to happen as the head would always be visible. I guess it depends on the culling routine and how it's implemented.

 

Not being a modeller myself I'm not entirely sure how add on clothing works though. In an animated model does that not also have to have its vertices attached to the skeleton and weighted like the rest of the model, in which case would it not be seen as part of the same model anyhow. Would the modeller not just remove the underlying (hidden) polys manually in this situation? Excuse my ignorance in this field if I'm missing the obvious.

[tournamentdan]

Ah sorry ... I understand now. Do the model's underlying polys get occluded as a result of being hidden by the outer clothing? I'm guessing probably not as to occlude it the whole model's bounding box would need to be occluded by the bounding box of the clothing which is not going to happen as the head would always be visible. I guess it depends on the culling routine and how it's implemented.

 

Not being a modeller myself I'm not entirely sure how add on clothing works though. In an animated model does that not also have to have its vertices attached to the skeleton and weighted like the rest of the model, in which case would it not be seen as part of the same model anyhow. Would the modeller not just remove the underlying (hidden) polys manually in this situation? Excuse my ignorance in this field if I'm missing the obvious.

 

 

Thanks again Pixel. I have been out of modeling for quite a while so I am relearning and a lot is mostly new . I was thinking of weighing all cloths seperate and seeing if I could parent to the body mesh. Not sure if it can work that way but I was going to give it a try.

[Pixel Perfect]

Well I'm sure you have a lot better idea than me Dan as my modelling skills are pretty much zero Hope it works out as that would indeed be a very flexible technique.