UV Maps

These pictures are of the UV maps I have created for the Anthropod. I have created one for the body, inc. arms and legs and another separate map for the face. I can't remember where but I remember that it is good to have a separate map for your face as this is usually what has the most detail in it.


Body UV



Face UV

Creating the face.

Ok so as I mentioned before.. a character really isn't much without a face. At least not this character. So here is the work up to the created Anthropod Face.



OK so to start off I created a completely seperate model using the create polygon tool on the front plane view. The purpose and idea behind doing this is so I could create the rough outline of the mouth of the face, to see how many polygons it will have and ultimately how to match these up with the main model (merging vertices). The Image above shows what I started of with. I also created a quick cylinder 'tube' and aligned it roughly in place for where the, presumably Anthropod's nostrils, will be. (Weird dripping open tubes under the characters mouth).

The reason for this again, to see how many polygons it has and how it will match up.



In this next image i extruded the edges quickly to give an idea for the thickness and direction the mouth will be going in also. This made it easier to prepare th model for when it will be added to the main model, as it will, of course, need to be going in the same direction as that of the overall head.



This picture is where I have started to bring life to the mouth by bringing more definition and shape to it, and also the nostril.. type.. thing.

With this I literally just moved around all the vertices of the mouth until they were in the right position and the model looked good. With the nostril I extruded several faces and manipulated them outwards for the general shape then extruded them inwards for the hole.

Oh, I also threw in a few teeth too! (Again by extruding, extruding and then extruding)



Here is the mouth on the body!

This took a whiiiiile to get right but in the end I got it in. Because the mouth ended up with over double the amount of polygon edges than the vacant edges on the head it meant I had to break these down with some triangles in between. This ultimately led to a high polygon count. The overall polycount is still quite low for modern computer games characters being well under 2000 polygons.

Oh and obviously as you can see I also created some basic eyes. For these I extruded an bent some faces inwards to create the eye sockets and create a basic sphere for the eye.

And here is the finished thing :)

Quickie

Thought I'd try and paint the model a little. Only using a simple lambert. I did this just too keep my sanity and to get me that little bit closer to the original creature :P I tried to match the colour just as a little simple test to see where my character will be going. And for that little extra bit of motivation.. Because really.. what use is a monster if it had no face :P

hmm, although it might be cool. I may try that in another project, just to see how it works.. Mr NoFace - and the joys of making him talk!

Addingg the feet

Now it is time for the feet! For starters i extruded edges out from the base of the leg and created the rough shape for the toes and bottom of foot.

To speed up modelling time I thought I'd be clever and copy one of the claws from the hands and manipulate it so it roughly fitted into the position of the toe.



I then Merged the vertices from the toe and foot to create a seamless toe and claw.



To speed up modelling again (not that I am lasy, It just made sense to take a shortcut) I mirrored the toe and merged them together so that the end result is the complete foot with claws you see below.



After this it was then a simple job adjusting and tweaking each toe/claw separately to make them different from each other. Because who of us are completely symetrical :P

Some more benchmarks

I found some more benchmarks to work from. This time it's games characters and their level of detail. I'm only using two for this, one is age of empire 3 and the other if UFO afterlight.

This shot is from UFO Afterlight and I am using this as a benchmark for knowing what I would like to do BETTER than. I Do'nt like the level of detial on this character at all. I realise that it is emant ot be colourful and cartoony (which I don't think fits the type of genre at all - but that's a different story) but the quality, in my opinion is just terrible. For a fairly modern game it is like stepping into the past.. which is exactly the OPPOSITE of what I am trying to do. Therefore, this benchmark will come in handy for knowing what to do better than.



This picture is from Age of Empires 3 and I love it! Although it doesn't really seem it, the poly count (I think) is actually pretty low. The thing about it that gives it it's great aesthetics is of course its texturing (something not focused much in UFO Afterlight). Using this as a benchmark for my low poly characters, I think, is perfect and is exactly what I will try to match or possibly do better than. (r at least try :P)

Starting modelling.

I've started modelling. I drew out the front of one of the 'anthropod' (one of the aliens chosen to remake) and have started modelling it. I'm starting on the low res and am only working from quarter of the model at the moment but I have duplicated it to show what the entire thing 'roughly' look like at the moment..

LOW RES

..and this is the model so far



This is what I've been working from. It isn't much but I think it is enough to create a model from. The only problems or fears from modelling this character is that its legs are short and the arms are exceptionally long. Also, shoulders are barely visible. Though this is obviously intentional and is what makes the character look unique, it does make me wonder if it will look odd in Maya. Hopefully this will not be the case.



This is the drawing used as a reference to work from in Maya. I know it isn't perfect but it's good for a start. Ideally a side view would be used but I'm choosing not to use one as there isn't too much to show what the side looks like anyway. So, for now at least, I will be making it from scratch.

Benchmarks!

For this brief I need a set of benchmarks to know how to work and what to aim for. For this I have looked at polycounts, UV texture sizes and the whole game character aesthetics in general.

So far, I found that the high res character model should be a maximum of around 12,000 polygons. For the low res character model it should be around 2000 poly. I based these from the website here . Stating these polycounts..

----
Characters
As we are using attachments we have to split the triangle numbers in the separate parts:
* Heads 3k triangles
* Body 5k triangles
* Attachments 1 k triangles
----

(making a character being around 12,000 poly)

It is a Q&A with a group of people creating a mod for the game Crysis. I wanted to find the polycounts for the characters in crysis as this is a brand new game and has the most modern of graphic quality. I couldn't find it, but I think the polycounts I got from that website are good estimations.

As for texture sizes I used this from the same website..

----
Character head: 512 x 512 to 1024 x 1024; Character body: 1024 x 1024; Attachments: 1024 x 1024.
----

Of course I will probably not be making my model in the same fashion (sepearate head/arms etc) but it's still good to use as a baseline.

This forum post also shows that in the Unreal engine it changes the LOD (level of detail) in the game. For example a character will change texture sizes when the character is far away, compared to when it is up close. This means that it may be a good idea to make a few seperate different textures for the characters.

In other words, i'll have to make texture files for the characters starting from 256x256 resoloution up to the possible maximum of 1024x1024.