Doom3world

Well, now I'm working in the ultra high res version in ZBrush, about 886411 poly's. So far I've done some work on the vest area, and now I've moved to her knees and thighs (like that song ).

Still WIP ^_^.


Mostly working on anatomical structure, using female reference photos n' such. Also trying to make cloth look like cloth, I'll get more into cloth detail when I go up to 1 or 2 mill in polycount, because at that count I can use detailing alpha's for mesh modification.

UPDATE: Some more anatomical work, the upper body this time.

Still WIP!

Have you had a look at still from Aliens? Ripleys character looks to have a similar feel that might work out to be useful reference material for you. failing that have a look through outdoor clothing websites/catalogues for reference to woman wearing similar clothing to see how it fits the body.

One of the tips I've come across on various 3D forums is to use z-brush only for organic shapes, everything else can be what they call 'hard modelled', so the shape of the vest would be a hard models and the folds z-brushed, that keeps the shape and general form in place of things like the jacket but allows you to add softer shapes like cloth folds.

wow, that's looking considerably better then the lower poly versions, although they were good

@Kat - I just can't agree with you on that. Besides, I count clothing as "organic" models. Mostly because detailed cloth folds and such can be achieved really easy in ZBrush. And if you don't think ZBrush can do good with cloth from a base mesh then check this out: http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/attachment.php?attachmentid=45149 and the link to that post is here (one of the artists from Rainbow Six Vegas) http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=040154


@ratty redemption - Well for me, I'm usually equally impressed with low polygon models than I am detailed-high polygon models. This is because topology work is one of the most difficult things you have to learn as a 3d artist. And not only as a 3d artist, but as a 2d artist as well. That's generally why, people who have spent all their life sketching out characters on paper, do really well when they move into the 3d field. Because all the principles are the same. The only difference is the tools you use.

EDIT: Now that I look back at it, I should've added on more line on the bottum of the vest area on the High Res model. This would create a harder, more defined edge when I smoothed it. But it's really not all that big of a deal, it's not so much of a difference that I HAVE to modify that and do all my ZBrush work all over again, and it won't matter when I get it normal mapped to the low res character, it's nothing that anyone would notice. Only me... And it bothers me that I made a mistake. =/

I was just pointing out what some rather more experienced z-brushes tend to do, if you read that topic you linked to even he did it to an extent (although he modelled most of the cloth in zB), a few items were externally modelled and then brought into zB for further working up. But you do what you feel is right for you to get the look you're after.

Oh, no I agree with you there. For example, if I was looking to model a gun, I wouldn't go to ZBrush for help. Which by the way, Aurra Sing's gun won't even be going into ZBrush, that is unless I wanted to texture it, which I won't be.

With this character I was actually using it as a bit of an expirement, I never stated that really. I was trying to make the high res form with as few polygons as I could, within Maya that is. Trying to get as much detail as I could with an unusually low polycount for the character.

For example, Aurra Sing with all her little accessories hidden (pockets, guns, gun holsters, little red wrist bands, etc.) and JUST the character the polygon count is 3104.

With all the accessories shown, Aurra Sing is a polycount of 9070. I was also doing my best to model the entire character as one piece, even though of course I didn't need to. And I think I did a really nice job of getting my desired look even though I was limiting myself as much as I could.

But when you look at the jacket from Rainbow Six Vegas, obviously that's just a PIECE of the character, and he probably modeled fairly high polygon within whatever app he used (I think they used 3dsmax). For example, around the shoulder area there, he added so much detail that you're able to see the threads that connect the arm sleeves to the torso part of the jacket, all those individual ruffles were probably created by 3 polygons each. 2 polygons on the outside, then one in the middle going inward, which would create a ruffle effect similar to the one there in the model. Atleast, that's how I would do it. This would result in a LOT of poly's in the base mesh before it goes into ZBrush.

But the kind of detailing I was talking about was using Alpha maps for patterns. As in cloth patterns. In ZBrush you can use Alpha maps (white and black textures) to modify polygons. This is really useful when you're putting details like skin pours on a character, or similar to my situation, putting cloth like thingies onto a surface (real technical I know).

Anyhow, I don't look to be putting in as much detail has he did in his jacket into my character's vest. I might apply something like that when I do some texture modification in Photoshop, then add in the details using hieght maps.

3ds Max 9 has been optimised for this type of workflow (and because XSI does it) where you have your low poly mesh, and on top your high poly mesh split up into "bite sized" chucks. More polys equals smaller chunks. Also, nurms subdivision within Max is a very good way of producing folds in cloth, and muscles. I did this as an art test for a studio using nurms. I haven't heared back, so I guess they didnt like it, but hopefuly it gives some indication of the power of nurms (which you can export to zbrush).

EDIT: Just noticed you are already using Sub Div in Maya? Never got to grips with subdivision surfaces in Maya, but I find Max nurms easy because you can use it on a low poly mesh, and switch it off again from the command panel.

Yeah you can do the exact same thing in Maya. Nurms and Sub-Divisions are pretty much exactly the same. I created some wristbands and a bicep band (or whatever you want to call it), it's basicall just cloth wrapped around a part of her arm, on my character Aurra Sing.

I modeled it in polygons, but when I smooth it with Sub-D's or divide the mesh into a lot more poly's, you got a more cloth-like look. See:

(Polygon):


(Sub-D):


I also have a custom toolbar that I created comprised of the tools that I use most in Maya, along with a few MEL scripts that I use often-like as well.



Two of the buttons on that tool bar is Poly-to-SubD and a SubD-to-Poly button. Sub-Ds and nurms are actually really slow to render though, and to calculate as well, I prefer Polygon modeling over Sub-D any day, I just use Sub-D to see a "preview" of the smoothed model.

understood and good point.

we also have sub-d modeling in blender, although as you say it with your modeling apps, blender does slow down a lot when sub-d is enabled during mesh editing or rendering, but it does look really cool

modern, is that statue model one of yours? and do you have a link to the whole model?

ot* Sub-D for Blender is dependent on your graphics card and avaliable RAM, Ratty, for example I can subdivide to level 6, which is vertices: 6299648 & Faces: 6291456

Not to shabby on my old rigg(1.2Ghz Sempron, 1GB RAM, GeForce 6 6600 256MB).

Although it really is over kill, and most people for editing only need a Sub-D of level 1-2. Rendering is usually level 2.

OnT* Not to bad although I think the legs need some work done to them, they kind of look chubby to me. Especially around the knee joint.

Well I'm glad you say that, because that's exactly the look that I was going for. Mostly because in reality, that's what's there, ESPECIALLY around the knee joint (or kneecap). That is mostly just fat there. The thigh is where the muscle is, and below the knee is muscle. But the knee area itself is mostly fat, bone and cartilage.

And when I said Sub-D's are slow, I meant that the more you modify them, the slower they are to calculate what you to do them. The only time Maya ever slows down, or is taking up a considerable amount of RAM (out of 2 gig) is when I do things like Cloth, Hair and Soft Body simulations. That also eats a lot of CPU, unfortunetly Maya 6.5 isn't designed to take full harness of the power that my Intel Core 2 Duo can produce. Maya 8.5 is said to be able to though but it's not like I'm going to upgrade my version of Maya .

And just as an update, I'm in the middle of UV Mapping the Low Res character. After that, I am going to use the high res character to make a Normal Map (just a test normal map). I've never used Doom 3's RenderBump tool, and I only know what I've read about it from modwiki and some other tutorials. So if anyone has any advice to pass to me, I'd appreciate it.

Well, Doom 3's RenderBump did not work. So Kat suggested I used this program, XNormals. And it worked GREAT, and I created a test normal map for my character, and put it in the material file for Aurra.

But now Aurra looks like crap because for some reason she's got SelfShadows on. Even though I put "noSelfShadow" in the .mtr file. But besides that, I can see that the normal map is on the character properly. Now I've just got to figure out why noSelfShadow isn't working.

How have you got the model ingame, just as a func_static model at the moment? If so that's probably why, noshadow materials seem to behave weirdly on func_statics, for the moment just make sure the no shadows parameter of that is set.

I should've edited my post. I fixed my problem. It turns out D3 was going to my Materials folder instead of the pk4 that I was trying to make for updates.

But now I've got a much larger problem, which doesn't have to do with D3. But I'm not sure if Doom 3 is having the same problem as Maya is having. My UV Map is still WIP, but it is definetly suitable for texturing, that is except for the head uv map because I rushed it so I could try and get a test texture in-game. But for some reason in Maya when I apply the bump map, it's just ALL over the place with all these weird dimples n' stuff. From what I am able to see, it doesn't look like this in Doom 3, so it might just be a Maya problem which is very likely, but it's driving me nutzo. I'm going to try a few things in Maya and D3 to see what the problem is.

I'm having too much trouble with creating a satisfactory normal map. Doom 3's Renderbump just doesn't for me on the many levels that I've tried, and every other way I know to transfer high polygon geometry surface information to seperate low polygon model has either 1) Failed. Or 2) Brought me a normal map, but when applied to the character, it had all kinds of crazy artifacts/weirdness on it.

I'm not going to quit trying to get this model in-game, but it has slowed me down. I mean, it's like I was driving like 60 MPH down the road in my char, and suddenly there was a sign that said "SHOOL ZONE; 25 MPH". I'll be messing with it on and off, but I think I'll be spending more time on creating some 3d characters that I've been wanting to make (not for game engine).

Oh well, /shrug. If you have anything to add please post here, or if you think you could help me then it would please me very much so if you posted here with your advice/questions.

How about you give us more information, post a screenshot of exactly how the normal map isn't appearing right? It's likely just some simple error so should be easy to fix, unless you are doing something totally wrong in regards to the model.

I've used the RenderBump feature before and it worked fine.

Well, right now I'm trying to use xnormal to make my normal maps, and after taking some time out and looking at some things I've discovered cages. I've heard of them before in ZBrush, but I've never had to bother with them. Now this is supposed to make it so that rays have an easier time measuring distance between the high poly and the low poly model. But when I tried to use it with a section of my model (high res and low res), it pretty much only sat there and did nothing (after a few procedures within the software).

It may have something to do with the model, as it's over a mill in poly's. Now I've actually cut my model up into pieces for detailing in ZBrush. Arms cut off, vest cut off, etc. All the limbs n' stuff are individual pieces right now, it's easier to work that way.

As for Doom 3's Renderbump, I've only seen a few tutorials and none of them really helped me, mostly because they completely differed from eachother and they didn't describe it step by step too well, so I kinda got lost. The only tut's n' stuff that I can find that explain well are talking about renderbumpflat (for high polygon walls n' stuff, not characters). I don't know if there's much of a difference, but nothing worked for me. It would be nice if I could find a GOOD tutorial somewhere.

And I would post a screenshot but right now I'm trying a bunch of things with XNormals and doing it the way I am right now, like I said, it's not even generating the normal maps anymore. You'd be helping me out by linking me to some renderbump tutorials though, because I don't know much about it, other than it can transfer geometry information and color from a high poly to a low poly (duh).

EDIT: Oh and the model should be squared away. UV Map is correct and clean, normals are facing out blah blah blah. Everything should work =/.

glad to hear your persevering with this project dinky, despite the technical problems you've run into. anyway good luck and please keep us updated.

Well here it is. I've pretty much tried everything, but it just seems that there's nothing I can do to make it work right. Atleast with the XNormals program.





-Rendered with Maya Software engine.

Among many other problems, it looks like the knees are going IN, instead of out, but I think I may know why this is. I think using XNormals may be one of my problems, I just don't know much about using it. The only normal map creation expierence I have is with ZBrush, and that's for just for the base mesh of a high polygon model, not a high polygon model to a seperate low polygon model, as far as I know you can't do that in ZBrush.

A good D3 Renderbump walkthrough would be a project saver. But right now I'm stumped, there's nothing that I can think of that I haven't tried.