SuperVillianNinja

[thefatninja]

I am near completing my first XSI (and Zbrush) project and wanted to get some feedback. I also posted in the Still section because it will have multiple uses ( I am an instructor). I have another shot planned showing the character fighting a super hero (and winning).

Poly count is under 20,000 (body is around 14,000)

[BloomPix]

Really nice. Very Team Fortress style!

[moose o death]

i like it, very stylish, 20,000 tri's may be a touch high though for a game model? targetting a particular engine? or is this just theoretical?

[thefatninja]

Thanks for the comments. The model is not for a particular game - but I did some research on some of the more current games like Mass effect which had 12,000-20,000 on characters.

The idea is really more of personal project inspired by a Chris Hart drawing.

I teach at a college and will be using the model for several different application including games (once Unreal has custom skeletons) and also for Visual Effects.

[moose o death]

i wonder where bioware hid all those triangles.

i'd have to err towards the human were within the 12,000 range and while i do like your model it should fall closer to that due to it's relatively simple silhouette.

will you be including ultimapper in this course, it would be one of the most useful tools for game art xsi includes.

[thefatninja]

I would agree that 12,000 would be better for strictly a game model. If Unreal releases a way to bring it in, I think that would be a good goal for the poly count.

I have had mixed results with ultimapper - but I am very new to the software so I am sure it is my lack of knowledge.

I brought in normal and diffuse maps from Z-Brush plus the high res model. I used polyreduction to bring it down to the 12,000. Currently myself and another instructor are running an advanced character class using Max and Zbrush. I am showing the pipeline using XSI as best I can. Gator has been really impressive for the students. I "retopod" my mesh in Zbrush and transfered all my uv's, materials and weights to the new model.

I used to be a max user for 16 years ( still have to teach some in it) but started using XSI in March and love it, so hopefully that explains my lack of XSI abilities.

[moose o death]

one of my favourite features of ultimapper is the hi res objects can have their own bumpmaps and ultimapper will add those as well into the lo res model. combining two levels of normal details into the final mesh. it's great if your using xsi for texture creation, make a few leaves in high definition, arrange them into a cluster of leaves, ultimap it into the sprite light it in engine and each leaf faces it's own direction.

[thefatninja]

That sounds very cool. If you have time, can you post a before and after scene file with images. I would like to make sure I get the right steps down.

[moose o death]

it wouldn't even really require that, i've worked out ultimapper to the level i've gotten too just be pressing buttons and seeing the result. it's such a simple tool.

at it's most basic create a low res model, for texture creation this is obviously just a simple grid with a texture support and a simple shader.

select that model, press keypad 1, and property, select ultimapper.

press the pick button, press keypad 8, select the model in question from the list.

next option is to specify the folder to store all the maps too, click browse and navigate to something appropriate....i personally use my desktop and a folder called normalmaptool.

select the maps you need to make, normal maps are generally the first option, albedo is the colour/diffuse of the source objects, ambocc should be made whenever you make albedo because merging the two in photoshop improves everything. and depth is the one stop parallax map creation.

set the quality setting, then click calculate, this will adjust the height setting for the renderer to scan your model with.

lastly hit generate back at the top. dependant on model complexity, and detail level desired, walk off for anything between 30 seconds and several hours.

i'd recomend starting out with low detail maps to establish there's no obvious flaws. and switch to very high settings to finalise the model

[moose o death]

if your looking for an engine to use for nex gen models you should get the school to look into leadwerks. the price is much more acceptable than unrealIII. the pipeline to get things into the engine is as simple as anything could be. b3d -> gmf -> load model.

shadowmapping, deffered renderer, screen space ambient occlusion, and sm4.0 cards achieve hundreds of frames a second right up until the poly counts get into the hundereds of thousands.

the school should have access to c++ and basic programmers to make an artist pipeline friendly app to run the assets your students make. and then your not waiting on some massive developer to get around to something while they continue working on other things.

i do not work for this leadwerks group but i do believe this engine will start to really get noticed soon.

check it out at www.leadwerks.com, the video on the frontpage is enough to convince most