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Hero Draenei Paladin

Hi all.

I was watching some WoW cutscenes and got inspired to make this model, originally it was just a fanart and was just for show but then i was like "Why dont i make one for the Hive, it'd be really cool". So here i am c:

I tried my best to optimize the mesh esp his armor but still the file size is still quite big (near 500kb) and heavily compressed the textures so the filesize wont be a killer.

I made a set of animations not too many, because 1 animation adds up alot of filesize to the model :c (Still practicing, shout out to Blinkboy for a very helpful animation guide). If you think the model could use some extra more animations feel free to let me know c:

Been forever since i last made a model for War3 so let me know if the model is lacking/missing anything, i had alot of fun making him and turning him into a War3 model was just as fun because Neodex is just so nice. So yeah, i hope you enjoy c:

Updates:
1. Inflated the weapon, Stand - 2 animation added.
2. Further improved the major scratches on the armor, improved the contrast between the bigshapes of the armor to make them stand out more from each other, fixed some skinning issues.
3. Added hair, footprints.
4. Remade the weapon.
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Hero Draenei Paladin (Model)

Reviews
General Frank
A very nice custom model. Works in-game and performs well.
Level 50
Joined
Dec 29, 2014
Messages
1,948
Pretty awesome outcome! I really like animations, though I think it would look better if he uses his hammer with both hands. A two handed attack animations will be much better.

I'd suggest at least one more stand animations. Also the hammer looks a bit thin from the front perspective. You might want to bump it up a bit.
 
Level 20
Joined
Jul 1, 2012
Messages
202
Thanks!

And yeah animated in Max with IK stuff c:
It gave me quite a headache because all the bones that are connected to the Constrained bone or IK-bones would always be messed up, so i had to constrain those children bones -again- onto more helpers to make them work (Like the fingers, luckily i didnt really animate the fingers that much so i could just constrain 9 fingers into 1 helper to animate them in 1 local axis at once, else i'd have to make 9 helpers and that'd be tragic)

I think this is the only model that i actually made everything in Max (I dont know why i never used Neodex fully before, was probably too new and the options/features scared me off. Haha!
 
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Level 20
Joined
Jul 1, 2012
Messages
202
Yeahhhh i somewhat freaked out too at first but then it looked fine in MDLvis so i figured that was Magos was acting up, tested ingame and everything was fine. Wew!

And yeah, i thought about that too but its been so long i havent played War3 so i dont really remember which footprint matches this model, i'll take a look later on!

-

Edit: Updated his textures to refine the major scratches and more contrast between the big shapes to make them stand out from each other. Also fixed some skinnin issues on the legs.
 
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Level 20
Joined
Jul 1, 2012
Messages
202
Added footprints and hair.
The filesize increased by 15kb too though probably because of the keys on the hairbones, hope its still in a usable state. Maybe i'll rework the weapon to make it simpler and uses ingame textures if the filesize is considered too big.

his face feels a little lifeless might need a little more asymmetry, but that is really the only thing i can find where you could improve it.

Thanks! I'll see if i can do anything about that, gave him hair too though, hope that will make it better by abit!
 
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Level 6
Joined
Jan 11, 2008
Messages
176
the hair does improve him! Btw have you tried doing the crystal of the hammer in a more lumiscent way? much like his third eye mini naru type of coloring. Might be nice to have it come back and create an overal unity.
 
Level 20
Joined
Jul 1, 2012
Messages
202
I dont know if making his weapon selfilluminate (unshaded) is a good idea, it sounds cool though but it would look odd ingame as it just wont have any shading on it, haha!

However, i actually remade the crystal on the weapon here:

w5CCNC8.png



It has way lesser polys than the old one and looks cleaner, should reduce the filesize a tad.
Still thinking of a way to make it look better, like cloning it and make the outer one glow and stuff. I'll also probably recolor the crystals on his armor to match the weapon.

Perhaps i could make the outer layer unshaded, maybe i'd look cool, i'll try later when i get home c:
 
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Level 20
Joined
Jul 1, 2012
Messages
202
Thanks! And yeah, it could be because of War3 texture has built-in reflection and highlights too.

Anyways, updated the model with the new weapon. I gave it some smoothing groups so it could have some interestin shading. The crystal is way shinier in the viewer though, maybe because it doesnt support alpha lower than 1 which i have it there.

Not sure what i did, now the Neodex renderer is stuck in my viewport and i cant get rid of it. Lol
 

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