Tr_Helmet_FieldTech_2ndPass

I got my first critique from the player studious people yesterday and among them was senior art director Tramell Ray Isaacs. He critiques everyone but it's still pretty cool.

But here is a look at the current Terran Republic Helmet.

PlanetSide 2 Player Studio

SOE is allowing player generated content. Right now I'm heavily focused on their helmet creation.

This is one of my first entries in the early stages still. The forum is usually very active and I just started posting today so I'm looking forward to some good feedback.

This is the Terran Republic faction, field Tech helmet.

Feel free to comment here. However if you'd like to learn more or comment on the player studio forum go here ----> https://forums.station.sony.com/playerstudio/index.php?threads/tt-helmet-field-tech.11500062240/

Thanks all

Ambient Occlusion Renders

Pre textured character in AO. I like the way he turned out. I'm going to say that the face expression is less than desirable but once rigged he should support several expressions and I'll definitely be playing with his face controls.

I'll be rigging this character as well as sending him to the riggers in my school. Together I'm sure we'll come up with some interesting systems to put on this guy. He's UV'd and ready to go.I may shade and light him but I will certainly be doing a turn table.

The beetle is an adapted character that I referenced from http://lysol-jones.deviantart.com/art/JAPANESE-BUG-FIGHTS-Hiro-78073338 This is a deviant art artist named Lysol-Jones. He has an extremely fun art style and I really like a lot of his characters. Go check him out and thanks for viewing my process.

I'm very happy with look of the character and extremely satisfied with his topology. In my character creation class and my production modeling class we learned several things to look for when creating a character for production as far as topology is concerened. 

• Quaded geometry 
• even spacing
• at least three edgeloops in deforming areas 
• no jittering edges/verts 
• proper facial topology e.g eye loops, mouth loop.
• Do NOT model in dynamic poses 
• Use T-pose, A-Pose, or Y-Pose for production models (rigging is made much easier this way)

Recently through this process I also found that squares are great for deforming topology. I've always known that quaded geo was something to always strive for. I also knew that quaded didn't always mean squares. But when Jen told my about facial rigging and explained her history with very clean square geo verses clean quaded geo the difference it made in the rig, I made it a point to ensure all my deforming areas are as squared as possible. 

FULL BODY!!!

So this is the first time the character has been posted fully put together. I really like how he is turning out. I'm in the final polishing stages now. His torso will most likely be going through on more cannon or so but aside from that I'm just going to polish out some pinching in the character and smooth out warps, and I'll be checking that all his topology is as quaded as possible and without non-manifold issues.

I'll be posting his wireframes after the clean up along with an AO pass to show him off. For my first character I'm really happy with how he turned out. I feel I learned a lot in the process and can't wait for him to be rigged and animated.

more to come soon.

Face Retopology

Like I mentioned earlier I'm planing on making this model production ready. For his face to deform properly he'll require specific edge flow. The images in this post show my work flow as I try and reroute his topology.

The top images have the right edge flow to support deformation however I got the result at the cost of losing the design of my original face. In the bottom images I cut the geometry in half and rerouted the one on the right.

The middle image is the rerouted face. I've got a bit of a pinch around the eye loops causing some warping issues. I'll be cleaning that up and polishing the rest of the model as well.

The face

This is the face done with its initial topology.

Torso and outer shell cannons

 Once again these creative decisions come down to a mix of functional design and visual appeal.

In my previous posts I've mentioned I'm working closely with a rigger to get this character production ready. Jen Conley's Rigging page. That is her page and she has been an amazing help with this character from every angle. Several of the design decisions have been a combination of the her ideas and mine.

For the outer shell I decided to to keep it smooth primarily because the type of beetle the character is modeled after has a smoother shell naturally. Also after the character is done and UV'd I can play with bump mapping and see what looks good without gaining geo.

The torso on the bottom left was the one I went with. The panels made for an interesting look with the character in full view (images to come very soon). Without making the character too noisy it looks nice and lends itself well to rigging.

more to come soon

Leg revisions

Fixed the legs up. The images towards the left are what the leg looked like prior.

To the right is a side by side of the old (red) and new(green) leg. The heel area I covered for aesthetic reasons to make his legs feel heavier.

The back of the knee was a deformation issue. The characters leg wasn't bending naturally and the geo kept colliding. The fix works great for the basic rig I put on it. He's definitely coming along.

Working on the legs

For the legs I wanted a solid looking piece that was able to functionally deform. The foot went through a similar and separate process. 

From left to right you will see some of the multiple stages that the leg went through along with the foot. ultimately the foot would have worked in its early stages but the rigger suggested I model the toes to be able to spread. I did that and adjusted the armor plates on top as seen in the last to images of the bottom right. I like her suggestion and feel that it not only with be more functional but it looks a lot better as well.

I'll need to fit the leg and foot together to see how they feel.  

First Critique from the rigging department

Had to change up the elbow area. The character needs to be able to deform without inter penetration.

The Upper half of the Rhino beetle

1st production post of the beetle character I'm putting together. For his creation I started in Zbrush to rough out the core of the character. I really didn't spend too much time in ZBrush. After I got it I went into Maya and resurfaced it and cleaned the mesh. The arm you see on the right was created in Maya. the base of the arm up until the forearm were pretty straight forward. When I got to the larger hand part of the arm I had to do a bit of problem solving. I considered fleshing this piece out in Zbrush as well. However I ultimately used a technique I picked up in CDC (Character Design and Creation). my Instructor Marcus Scarsella uses a cylinder and plays with the input options to accommodate the number of fingers down the line on a human hand. I did something similar and played with it in the Orthographic views till I landed where I wanted. So I was able to get the shape and the topology I wanted in single go.

I'm really enjoying the process for this guy. It is my first character I'm doing without any tutorials and I'm learning a lot.

This is the Bugsy Character Full Sail provides that I mentioned in my previous post. The image has his orthographic, his wire frame and his rig. The character may seem simple but his design was carefully constructed. The character was built to be unisex thus allowing the animator to give Bugsy whatever personality they want. My class was shown some animations of students before us and some of our instructors work with the character and it's crazy how well Bugsy lends itself to multiple personalities and gender roles. The character I'm creating should compliment Bugsy well. Aside from the fact that they're both bugs I think that Bugsy being such a tiny flimsy character and my plans for the beetle to be a relatively larger character, that the pairing of the two could spawn some fun interactions.

Hey Everyone,

I'm new to this blogging thing but I want to jump right into this. My name is Tre Vital, I'm a computer animation student at full sail university. The curriculum here at full sail is extremely diverse so I've touched a lot of programs and concepts. I'm focusing on the modeling and rigging disciplines. I have a strong love for hard surface modeling and characters.

This image is for one of the personal projects I'm going for. The image in the bottom middle with the number 1 is essentially the character I am going for.  I found the image on deviant art from a artist named lysol jones > http://lysol-jones.deviantart.com that is his link to check out his art. I want to really bring this character into my own the surrounding images are reference for some of the details and main body forms I'll be throwing on this guy. I plan on turning him into a more mesomorphic character and I will be giving him different legs for sure. That being said we have a bug character we animate for most of our character animation classes named Bugsy. Its my plan to execute this character so that he is visually appealing and riggable and maybe he can be a character asset that the students who follow me may be able to animate. I'll be posting my WIP images along with the critiques I'll be getting from my animation teacher and my rigging instructor.