[WIP]New head in blender

[Alecu]

And this is how they look in-game:

 

http://i435.photobucket.com/albums/qq72/Alecu100/ear10.jpg

 

Much better than the default ones. And much more realistic. Yes,the textures are totally wrong because I didn't change the textures from the old ears.

 

I the end I didn't use any advanced stuff. Just scale/rotate/simple subdivide/extrude.No high tech and complicated stuff though I really think that these apparent simple things have a lot of things to hide, especially subdivide. And this is what I got.

 

 

Now the moral of all this: Pigs can fly :P!

 

J/k. Now what I have learned from this: if a mesh has a bunch of random faces and vertices and you can't distinguish any patterns and face loops then it's most likely that a lot of vertices are wasted and there are very high chances that another mesh can be made with less vertices that be made that looks similar can be made. And you will never get anything smooth looking without some face loops and edge flow.

 

And there is yet another subtle detail that is overlooked at this stage. I do think that meshes with good edge flow and nice face loops will always result in better uv maps with less stretch. And it much easier to make the cuts with a clean mesh with nice face loops and edge flow. So in the end good textures need to be accompanied by decent meshes that distribute the texture uniformly without bumps and things like that.

 

And lesson number 3. I learn from everything and every time and there is always a better way do to a thing! Especially regarding modeling. Any mesh can be improved and tweaked a lot which was the case with these ears. And they still can be made better xD.

 

Hmm,a tutorial about this might be interesting but no time right now. And no, I won't make a straight tutorial about modeling clothes like the ones I made since people will just learn only those and forget about the most important things about modeling :P.

 

This is how they look in-game with blank textures:

 

http://i435.photobucket.com/albums/qq72/Alecu100/ear11.jpg

 

And I don't think they really need any textures at all! Maybe some minor shadows here and there but other than that,nothing. And those shadows can be painted straight onto the model from blender.

 

This is a comparison in blender:

 

http://i435.photobucket.com/albums/qq72/Alecu100/ear12.png

 

The left one is the improved ear and on the left side you can see the original one. Yes, I started from the model on the right and eventually improved it and ended up with the one on the left. So in the end there are a LOT of ways in which you can improve your mesh and finding and fixing issues in meshes is very common and not something to be afraid of.

 

Recently I've found some nice tutorials about character making in blender: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2ZwBz_w0no&feature=related. This guy literally models a game character from scratch in blender. He won some contests too doing this stuff so the tutorial is very good though it's probably quite advanced.

 

And the download link for the blend file for the new ears:

 

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=36965

 

The option file from the download. It's just the blend file mostly for teaching purposes and things like that.

 

While modeling this ear, I've learned a lot of things.

 

-modeling and texturing involves a lot of science and study, and isn't just pure art, at least for me.

 

-the apparently most simple tools can have the most bizzare and hard to understand effects. Namely all the subdivide methods(simple subdivide,multi subdivide,knife tool, loop tool)

 

-I believe a lot of tools are misused or misunderstood most of the times. I can relate this especially to 3d studio max which has a lot of tools but if was to use 3d studio max I would misuse a lot of tools to cheat my way into making some meshes instead of properly learning the basics. Sure there may be some ways to easily generate some mesh types but it's not always the case and a lot of the times those meshes can be made by modeling from a simple cube with proper understanding of the entire process and some basic techniques.

 

-disorganized vertices may cause higher poly count and vertex count. Simple and clean meshes make better use of vertices at least for me

 

-clean and properly modeled meshes also may produce better uv maps

[LHammonds]

Oh, just great...now I've got to figure out what to do with the 3.2 GB of video tutorials I've been downloading all day. :tongue: Thanks for the tut link.

 

And yes, looking at the before / after shot of the ear, I must say it is a very-nice improvement. :thumbsup:

 

EDIT: I do agree with the below in that the in-game looks unrealistic but only from a color / lighting standpoint. The normals probably need to be updated and ambient occlusion should probably be baked onto the diffuse texture to make it look better overall to remove the "unreal" look. I do agree that a well-modeled asset doesn't need as much love from the texture to make it look good...but they still need to go hand-in-hand so-to-speak.

 

Thanks,

LHammonds

[AllanOcelot]

That first screenshot is so beautifuly hi-res its unrealistic.

I think thats a FANTASTIC improvment over the original content of the game.

Maybe they should offer you a job ;-)

[baduk]

Hi!

 

Ear mesh looks beautiful! I dont see any tris on it at all.

 

I have been learning lots of stuff about mesh topology from reading this thread.

Poles and Loops

 

It has lots of techniques for creating loops in different directions and removing triangles.

 

Thanks for the link on the tutorial. It was especially helpful to see the parts on sculpting.

 

Im glad you finally got around to starting a thread on niftools forum.

Maybe you should put a link on there to this thread or some other thread about facemix so they will know more what you are doing.