As the name suggests.
The bakes (not of the bones) with layers of desert dust built up.
1.
Talked about the dirt stains being darkened looks a little grunge cartoony to be realistic. Although i love the style more than realism to be honest. Dishonored meets Borderlands meets Dark Souls gritty.
2.
Final result is a blend of the 2 that satisfies my inner grit lust. That is quite a sentence to read aloud.
3.
Do other experiments with front ropes again to blend with the more natural pack knots style. (Images above). It fit the theme and concept art more.
Thinking back on what he friend suggested (as it aligns with what I want to do after all), I experiment with making the fibers originally pop out without looking chaotic and unnatural. Second version look like this. "(N)ot counting the fibers themselves that will be in the final render, what about this for haywire strands?"
4.
Think about seeing how far I could push it making it look like there were actual inner ropes within the coils (of course there isn't inner geometry). For some reason I had trouble shifting the outer layer flyaway strands above or below. Although I did manage to feather the opacity of the effects of each folder -w/ 'disabled all but height map' sliders - to give more depth. So without further ado, another experiment in which I fake the center ropes (WIP).
5.
Aside* I finally, am starting to figure out how to use Anchors. And holy shiza; this is indeed possibly a game changer. Except is is just slightly too late and thus, I spent far too long manually texturing the waist and shoulder ropes.
I digress.
Now I do more stuff for an hour.
Eventually decide to post some progress pics on my discord server for some peeps to hopefully tell me what they hate about it, that I then take with a grain of salt.
*Starts looking, rotating shots and lighting within Painter and commenting.* As I've spent 5x more time on transferring the photos and comments into blog post form than I envisioned, I'm going to summarize each photo with a single line instead of a full explanation (is this lazy writing?).
5.
* Starts looking, rotating shots and lighting within Painter and commenting. *
6.
" Not sure why but I wanted to see it in flannel and found a preset for that online. "
7.
" This is the part in which, I decide officially that I'm going to stay up way past my bedtime and start a blog. "
8.
" I get super excited about all the theoretical benefits it could bring and quiet the suspicion that my social life is going to suffer - which I want honestly (or at least think I want to want) - so I can do things like 3D model and practice piano and slackline and watch anime. How else will I improve, after all? Also, not kidding about the bedtime part. My resolve - when it comes to making me feel guilty about my own ridiculous ideals - is remarkably adept."
9.
" Friend comments, "That skin looks great! "
10.
" Since I'm using this as temporary art dump [(again referring to my discord server)] until I set the blog up, "Wow, the specular/roughness of her skin is way off. Only the lips should be that shiny (if at all - as she is parched in the desert after all)."
Also, this particular shot looks frog eyes because of the lens setting on Painter right now. I didn't feel like trying to figure out how to set 'camera perspective' mode off. "
10.5.
" I may have gone overboard with the using the texturingXYZ multi-channel maps and the different pore selections by Algorithmic and Substance (practicing my advertising in case I ever get sponsored by one of them. *Hopes feverishly* "
11.
"I'm not showing any screenshots with hair because [(I'm)] embarrassed, how shitty it still turned out considering I spent almost a month relearning how do hair 3 times in different ways/software packages... for this result.
To fix possibly: separate hair strand maps and dupe layer, offset each one. That would be the most cost effective way I suppose, as I don't want to double the vertices for the hair. Especially since, it is already at 48k: hair alone, everything else is like 28k combined... I think?"
12.
" I over contemplate and try to fix all grammatical errors. "
13.
" Random shot of the final hair-board shot - made using Coiffure and XGen. "
13.5
" Eyebrow in progress a while back. "
14.
" WTF is up with those faint cubbish bumps between the toes?
Is it separate geometry and extruding or actually part of the main mesh? "
14.5
" Could maybe smooth those few vertices without harming my halfway done rig (the 5th attempt), and texture maps. I could also definitely change the normal and ambient occlusion/curvature maps. etc. No need to change the position noise maps (if I understand them correctly)? Wow, my computer is having a rough time. "
15.
" Fuck!; it froze when I tried to save it. Sadness. "
16.
" Also, wow, I need to blend the hand wrinkle layers together more; same with the base color of the fingers.
*Ponders if I may have gone overboard?* "
Exhibit A.
" MISTAKE FOUND "
Exhibit B.
*Rotate the lighting* and *boom!*
19.
" The discoloration and bumps of the skin are too noticeable when the different parts of the skin bumps collide. I also need to blend those folders more. Ah so just like the shoulders on both sides that needed the same earlier. "
20.
" MISTAKE 4 "
21.
" I'm kidding. No, but actually (favorite meme), "No wonder all the rig attempts have made her look hunched over while processing an inverted spine... or random crab shenanigan's as demonstrated above. That back curvature is not in neutral position. "
22.
" Makes sense why only the ZTranpose version looked good. Alas, for the exists too much distortion around the joints of the knees and elbows (only noticeable when converted to geometry outside of ZBrush). "
23.
Also explains why the "the rigger I hired last week, had to deform the meshes in Blender. Granted. when they asked, I thought maybe, "if he does is subtly and it accomplishes the dynamic muscle movements as the pose that the scene would depict... then maybe... " I let him try. Annnnnd, it didn't work out. So, I am once again trying to rig myself (my version pictured)
Recap Todo List (not in any order per se):
1. Finish cuffing marks on ropes where worn down
2. Scratches on wrist from cuffs
3. Dirtied roughed up knees
4. Glowing left side tattoo (BDL siren style) and maybe dug into skin layers
5. More generic scratches and a few scars
6. Texture rest of pieces
7. Blend finger groups on back of wrist together with subtle overlap
8. Blend elbow discoloration and bumps into arm more.
9. Redo that Mixamo pose for a render because why not.
10. Finish rigging
10. Posing of Faery
10. Setup final scene and render
11. Change roughness of her skin to be a higher value except for on her lips (PBR equivalent of a Specular map).
12. Smooth/ blend strange toe geometry.
13. Study Insect Wings more intensely as it has been a few weeks
14. Revamp hair to actually be decent.
Nice To Haves:
A. Ambience particles in final render
B. Hair swaying gentle
C. Faint idle tense animation
D. Playable character in UE4
Thanks guys,
Jeremy -2.17.2021