Doom3world

I've been working on this character for a little while, and now I'm almost complete with the high res. When I make my models, I first try and make them as low polygon as possible, then send them into ZBrush for detailing. I have not sent this character to ZBrush yet, but I am pretty much done with it in Maya.

But right now, instead of detailing it in ZBrush just yet, I'm making the low poly model for when I put it into Doom 3.

Here she is in polygon form un-smoothed:

Aurra:


Aurra's gun in holster:


Aurra head:


Aurra Sing is a character from Star Wars, she was in the movie (Episode 1) but only a very brief cameo (it lasted like two seconds). But she does have Comic books and I think she's in some novels.

If you want to know more about Aurra Sing, go here: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Aurra_Sing

There are a few minor accessories I have to make, which is pockets and stuff on her vest. But that's just too simple and it doesn't matter enough to make it real quick then post screens .

Anyway, hope you like!

Proportions are generally good, only crit is that her hands look a tad too small? Could do with being may 10-20% larger?

I'd say you could probably do a lot less polys on that gun. Look forward to seeing this normal mapped.

Thanks for comments and critique!

@Kat - Yeah I kinda agree with you on the hands, I'd been thinking about modifying the hands, along with shaping the arms a little bit more before I do more work to the model. Now I think I will modify the hands since now I know I'm not the only one who thinks that area looks a little off.

@Tron - You're probably right in some places, but to be honest it doesn't really matter since it's not going to be included to the final low poly game model. But you should also note that I added a few lines in-case I were to take it into ZBrush with the rest of the model, I wouldn't want certain parts of the gun to get all smoothed and rounded when I divide the entire mesh. But I may not export it to ZBrush with the character, so I could just be wasting poly's like you said.

Last night I did a little bit of the low res mesh but I was a bit too busy and tired tonight to do anything so I'll just save it for tomorrow ^_^.

dinky, good model so far and cool star wars character you've chosen to work with

I also was thinking her hands looked a little too small, and that a low poly gun could have a lot less polys. other then those I'm wondering if the polys between her crotch and her belt could be smoothed out more, as I think they look too angular at the moment, but maybe its the angle of the screen shot.

last year I started modeling a human male for the first time, and it was a lot harder then I imagined it would to be to get the proportions and edge loops looking right, even with lots of reference images, so I appreciate the work involved involved in modeling a human or non fantasy creature.

@ratty redemption - Yeah, Aurra Sing is one of my favorites . And that's NOT the low poly gun. That gun actually won't be used by the character either, it will just be normal mapped onto a low res version. And the crotch is actually made correctly, because when I divide it into a few million polies in ZBrush (or turn it into Sub-d's) it smooths out properly. If I were to make them straight, then it would just be flat. That area has to look "tucked in", which is what it does right now at the position those edges are.

Anyway, I got a low res completed today, and I put her in-game as a test model. No texture yet but I'll get to that last (after I normal map her). I'll just be texturing the low res, not the high res (though I know Doom 3's Renderbump can transfer textures from high res model to low res).

Here's the screenshot of her in my Doom 3 testing ground map (low res version). It's 2022 triangles, a little high but... Meh.

Your model high-polycount VS low-polycount zones is a bit strange for me.

look:


In RED zones you put some extra polys to make little details that you will only see to a very close distance (distA), but in the YELLOW zone, you optimized your torso so much that you CAN'T come near to distA and still looking as good as red zones.

Here i think you must remove these extra polys in red zone to add these in the yellow one (to keep a good hips curve).
All these "clothes thickness" polys can be normalmapped without any problem.

That's just some ideas on how i would optimize this model, nothing obligatory of course!

Good luck on your model Dinky.


PS: Isn't "Aurra Sing" the girl character that player control in one of the Jedi Knight extansion?

those polys are there probably to mantain good looking deformations at animation time.

dinky, understood and cool

@6th Venom - I appreciate you adding your own comments and critique. But I'm aware of everything you just said. As Rayne said, those polies that I added at the knee/ankle/elbows/wrists/shoulders are for animation, and since the torso won't be as extensively animated as the limbs, and even if it is animated it will be subtle and it won't really matter since it's a rather thick part of the model.

If animation points like the elbows/shoulders/ankles/etc. don't get a few more poly's for animation then it will deform VERY unrealistically. But as for the "Jacket" or the "Vest" she's wearing, I am aware that could have been added through normal mapping, but I was afraid that maybe the character silhouette would look strange in-game. Besides, I've tried to normal map similar models in the same way you're talking about, and I got a ridiculously ugly result (or atleast IMO).

And as for Aurra Sing in the Jedi Knight games, I'm not sure. Do you mean Jedi Academy when you say "extansion [expansion?]"?? If you're saying Jedi Academy then no, because I don't EVER remember Aurra Sing in that game. And as far as I've known she's only been in one game, and that's some old N64 game.

And BTW, ratty redemption I'm lovin' your "ratty d3 hell map" wip! Looks great, keep it up.

I used to think modeling terrain was complicated but compared to character modeling, it's relatively straight forward. I also only experimented a little with animating my human model last year, but soon realized I should of built the model from the beginning with edge loops designed for animating, rather then just an acceptable looking static mesh, and as this would of taken more time and effort to fix I put that model on hold, until I had gained more practice with static meshes in blender.

ot: thanks a lot dinky, it's really encouraging to hear some of you guys are still interested in that project of mine, since I haven't worked on it for 3 months, although that was mainly due to moving home and having to use my girlfriends pc until mine was set up, but I'm pretty much back on track again

edit: dinky, would you mind editing the size of your images on this page, as it's forcing some of us to scroll sideways to read all the text. I'm using 1024 width desktop but used to be on 800 which I imagine would require even more side scrolling.

@Dinky: I think it was the 1st Jedi knight's "expansion" ( ).

And for model itself, i understand that you need extra polies were there are huge deformations, but i'm still sure they are not "optimals", but whatever...

I love the idea to see more women in Doom.

Rezised.

I edited the "Aurra's Head" screenshot, since that was the only one I was having probs with. From now on I'll use ImageShack's thumbnail option. I can't change these to imageshack thumbnails since I don't have their upload page anymore (I should really register there). And I could make thumbnails, but I'm just too lazy. I hope that's good enough for your tiny resolution! I'm always either running 1920x1080, 1280x720 or 1280x1024.

If she was in Jedi Outcast (which is Jedi Knight 2) then I don't remember her, but I was like 12 or something when that game came out (though I did play it a little, I spent much more time on Raven Shield [Rainbow Six]). I'm 17 now (will be 18 later this year) ^_^.

As for my model and the "optimization", if you take a look at the doom guy behind Aurra, he certainly looks a lot higher poly than Aurra, or atleast to me he does. But bah, this model is still around the limit, and compared to the Quake 4 multiplayer Marine, she only has a few more polies than him, and that's probably because she has 5 fingers, not 3 like they do (10 counting the other hand). I HATE the Doom 3 and Quake 4 models, how they don't have individual fingers, it drives me crazy.

EDIT: I just noticed that in the Aurra Sing page at WookiePedia, they mention that she appears in only one game, and that was this game: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Galactic_Battlegrounds, looks like an old RTS.

BTW, here's the link yet again to her WookiePedia in-case you missed it at the top (or just don't want to scroll back up and find it): http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Aurra_Sing

ot: dinky, thanks. this is much easier to read now

imo guys like you and kit89 who is a similar age to you, are very lucky to get into games modding, and or 3d modeling at your age. I've just turned 38 and still have a lot to learn in some of these technical and artistic areas, but when you guys are learning and developing these skills at the rate you are, then by the time your in your mid to late 20's or 30`s you guys should be very skilled and experienced

I now find it difficult to comprehend how limited the computers we had when we were teen agers. one of the first computers I owned, being a 48kb sinclair spectrum, although at the time, home computers with color was ground breaking

Yeah, young ones in the modding community isn't really TOO common, but it is becoming more common I think. The most important thing, in my opinion, to get younger kids into computer is to get them to play games on PCs rather than Consoles! PC Gaming opens up this whole new world for everyone, because there's not just an online gaming presence that's over a decade old, but there's also of course the amazing modding community. Eventually one thing will lead to another and the kid will soon be installing mods in their games instead of just the vanilla game. Then they'll think that's neat and want to do it themselve's.

But the only reason I got into computers and software like this at all is because of my father. When I was very young he got me into computers. And his first computer, I'm pretty sure was this one right here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80. My Father and I are complete opposites though, he's a programmer and I'm an artist. And programming has to be the hardest thing I've ever tried to learn, it was the most difficult thing I had to face during web design was learning Actionscript (Macromedia Flash language). Anything to do with art though and I learn it pretty quick I think.

Oh and the first thing I got into wasn't modding though, it was web design. But I got interested in 3D after that (due to the movies.. I was like 14), THEN I got into modding games. But enough about me, I think PC Gaming is probably one of the best thing any young kid can get into, because it most likely will eventually lead to modding, which will lead to the desire to make mods .

Ok I just realized I sound like Yoda...

ot: understood and agreed, pc gaming is very important if new people are going to get into the modding scene, that is unless consoles catch up with pc's in the editing software etc.

I've also dabbled a little in coding with the d3 engine, but like you I'm more of an artist so didn't find coding to feel a natural process for me. I also think I'm more at home working with 3d then 2d although I've been working with the latter for decades.

Well I sort-of halfway forgot to make her vest accessories. I didn't really forget.. I kinda just... Skipped it for moment.

Anyway, I did all the front pockets n' stuff, now I just have to do the thing that's on her back, which really isn't all that big of a deal, I won't post it like I am posting these.

All the models are in Sub-D's, which is why they look so smooth ^_^:



For references on the vest (and the entire character), I used Aurra Sing's WookiePedia page and her comic books that I bought for even more reference (she doesn't have many live action photos or concepts to go from).

EDIT: I did some minor modifications to the sides of the lower pockets, so please don't make any critique to the sides of those two pockets at the bottum. You still can critique the lower pockets, just not the sides... heheh... I'm a perfectionist...

EDIT 2: I also forgot to mention one thing! The reason why all the accessories are floating away from her vest is because when the high res model is normal mapped onto the low res model, those models will no longer exist, and they will only appear as a normal map ON the character. So it gives the illusion that the accessories and stuff is actually on the vest, when in actuality, on the high res character, it wasn't... It was floating above it. Pretty cool, and gives modelers a lot less work ^_^.

cool and nice collar bone modeling. I found muscle structure and bones visible under the skin to be two of the hardest things to model, I didn't even get as far as you have with this model, but maybe I'll try again one day with blender's new sculpt (z brush inspired) tool.

I actually never used Maya's sculting tool. Good work can be done with it, but only when you have a higher polycount than I do on my high res version of Aurra Sing. Besides, I just prefer ZBrush's sculpting tools, it really feels like you're working with clay in ZBrush, and their tools are just so much better than any other software that I've used for sculpting.

The two software that I know a lot of people say are great for sculpting is ZBrush (the one I use) and MudBox (I've never used MudBox though).

The way I model characters in Maya is I start from a single polygon face, and I extrude edge by edge until I complete my model. So basically, I model my characters polygon by polygon, in my opinion, it's the best way to model a character although it's probably the most time consuming.

Also, getting bone and muscle (anatomical) structure to appear realistic is best achieved when you first start with splitting edges and getting the geometry to flow in the proper direction. For example, if you want to create a thigh muscle, you create rings of split edges around the correct area, then move the poly's around to get the proper look, then once you complete the desired effect you divide the mesh until you get a good polygon count, THEN you sculpt it out to make it more realistic.

Err atleast, that's my procedure. But now that I've completed EVERYTHING that I needed to do with high res Aurra Sing in Maya, my next step is to take her into ZBrush and detail her. After that it's Doom 3 renderbump time ^_^.

understood and if I could afford it, I would probably get zbrush, but us blender users are really pleased a zbrush like sculpt tool is being coded into blender, even if its not as easy to use or powerful as zbrush.

like yourself I sometimes model polygon by polygon, other times I've used box modeling, which as you know is similar in that it involves a lot of extruding.

I've also started with a single face and sub divided it several times, then dragged the verts to form a basic terrain mesh. I don't think I could just use one method, although I know some are faster to work with then others.