[WIP] - Forest Berserker - Critics and Opinios

[Gjallarhorn]

Hello there!
I've been trying to learn some modelling for the past couple weeks, and I finally came up with this model (which is still a WIP). It's a Forest Berserker model built from scratch using 3D Studio max. I used a drawing I found on DeviantArt as concept. Textures have been done using photoshop, with a mixture of some of the patterns from the drawing and my ideas.

I know some parts still look weird (don't look at his mouth, please! =P). I'll be improving this and also adding animations, portraits, etc.

Hope you guys like it! Any suggestions and critics are welcome



PS: I have one doubt... Do you notice that from the texture to the 3d model, some parts have lost definition? E.g. his robe, which had a quite good definition/details in the texture, but looks blurry on him. Is there a way to improve that?

 

[Taylor Mouse]

For the robe, the texture of it looks good on the image but is like stretched 5 times, so that is why it looks so bad on the model, also, there is a lot of blank spaces on the image, you could set the parts better so that you can enlarge the parts of texture

Model looks good.,

T.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Oh i see... So I should try to stick with the proportions of my model in the texture, and also use the provided space better.
Also, one more thing... If you look at the skull cap and at his head, you can see that the texture is not aligned at both sides. In his left side they are a bit lower then in his right side... But I don't know why this happened, since I used a mapping method that *should* provide a straight side view of the object (I think it was planar)

OH, and thanks for the tips

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Update!
Re-did the texture, making better use of the space. Now the resolution on the model looks much better . Also changed some parts and re-did the head from scratch, both on the 3d model and on the texture... Still looks weird but it's getting better, I think...

Please provide some feedback:

 

[BlinkBoy]

the hair looks way detailed, how many polies of it alone?

 

[Gjallarhorn]

the hair looks way detailed, how many polies of it alone?

It's not quite hair... more like decorations coming out of his skull cap.
Do you mean "faces" by "polies"? In that case, it's 2568 faces =x

 

[BlinkBoy]

Do it this way:

just texture them and add alpha to produce transparency.

2.5k polies on hair is a big waste, more than 200 tris on hair is already a waste.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

just texture them and add alpha to produce transparency.

2.5k polies on hair is a big waste, more than 200 tris on hair is already a waste.

I don't quite understand how alpha channels work yet...
If i get it right, you're suggesting I model the hair in a boxy way, then simulate the curves using alpha channels in the texture? All I know is that alpha channels make all the places in the texture which are inside them invisible.
I've read some tutorials about how to work with alpha channels but i wasn't able to make it work yet =/

 

[BlinkBoy]

look at blizzard models.

they work this way: in the alpha channel, black means invisble, while white means full visibility.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

I'm doing as you say and following the tutorials carefully, but I can't seem to be able to do it
I keep adding the alpha channel to the texture, but nothing changes... Also, after I save it and re-open it, the alpha channel is gone (although I guess that's in fact supposed to happen). I tried adding the alpha channel and erasing the selected area in the actual picture, but that only gave me a white background.
E.g: I've always wanted to give a effect of ripped cloth to the bottom of my model's robe. The image below illustrates this better:

I had an alpha channel with that white area as the selection, colored in black... but as you can see it didn't work o.o.
Same when I tried to add the alpha channels in the hair as you told me to.

 

[BlinkBoy]

are you using .tga images of 32 bits?

 

[Gjallarhorn]

are you using .tga images of 32 bits?

yes i am

 

[BlinkBoy]

weird, which software were you using?

 

[Gjallarhorn]

weird, which software were you using?

photoshop 7

 

[BlinkBoy]

hmm, quite weird. Your alpha channel should save up.

perhaps you should post about alpha channels in texturing forum, it should help you out.

 

[xXm0RpH3usXx]

the side of the torso is stretched, you should define the lower arm better (actually look at human anatomy reference for the whole of the arms or exaggerate the cloth feeling more)

overall the skin is really messy, with lots of color variations, which is quite confusing...

but it looks okay!
sry for being so harsh, just pointing stuff out

 

[Gjallarhorn]

the side of the torso is stretched, you should define the lower arm better (actually look at human anatomy reference for the whole of the arms or exaggerate the cloth feeling more)

overall the skin is really messy, with lots of color variations, which is quite confusing...

but it looks okay!
sry for being so harsh, just pointing stuff out

please do point out =p
As I said I'm a beginner (specially with texturing) so all criticism is useful

EDIT: well for the arms, I tried to do something very simple... Just starting with a cylinder and scaling it's segments down to shape the divisions of all the arm. If you look at blizzard's models, they are even more simple than that. Are you sure such level of detail is needed when it comes to wc3 models? I mean, It won't look *that* much different inside the game, will it?
About my texture stretching... Well what would be the best method for unwrapping it? I tried planar for the robe and cylinder for the arm, but the arm stretched a bit too, even though cylinder was supposed to decrease that a bit.