Art Forum Update

Not limited to only drawing, show us all your forms of art. From sculpting to photos, GIRAFFES ARE BANNED!
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kaos
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Art Forum Update

Post by kaos » Sat Aug 14, 2010 7:53 pm

Image

worked on this off and on for the past few months.
Some minor things need fixing, but its starting to come together.
This is a color test.
I'll probably end up going with either the Red or Purple.
but it really depends on how the setting looks, and I haven't even started that yet.

4 more characters to go!
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Chewi
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Re: Art Forum Update

Post by Chewi » Sat Aug 14, 2010 9:28 pm

Damn man, you're getting good. But even as you improve, do you find these things take longer than they used to? I guess the improvements in technology have made it take more time rather than less to create these things.
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Re: Art Forum Update

Post by kaos » Sat Aug 14, 2010 10:37 pm

actually I'd say it balances out...

When I got into 3D (for gaming...cuzz its a little different for film.)
all you really had was your 3d model and your Diffuse map.

Now You've got to have the low poly model, the sculpt, the functional model, the diffuse map, the normal map, and the specular map.

Their are a whole shit load more components and requirements than their used to be.
but at the same time theirs a bunch of new tools that make short work of them.

I used to have to do UV unwrapping by hand, which could take an hour or 2 or 3....mostly 3.
But now I can pretty much select the seams and have just about any 3D software automate the process in about 3 minutes. still have to iron out silly mistakes the machine might make, but theirs usually very few.

creating a normal map at one time meant you needed to create 2 separate meshes, and hope for the best.
but now you can just create the low poly model, kick it to a sculpting program, rez it up to a near infinite number of polygons and mold it like clay. you can then shift between the low poly, the high poly and any in between on the fly. After that you can create a very accurate normal map with just a few clicks.

However, you do have to learn and get into the mindset of sculpting, which is nothing at all like traditional polygonal modeling. so while its "easier," you do have to have a whole new skill set for it.

There are some programs that allow you to skip some of the basic steps and get a result pretty quickly, and you're starting to see newer artists who have done it exclusively in this way. Their work comes out decent enough. but I'm finding that artists who have grown with the tech, and are familiar with the traditional way...while they may produce at a slightly slower rate, tend to produce work of a much better quality.

for example...
a bunch of us were creating models with a 30 day line deadline.
the old generation work flow was kinda like this.....

Traditional polygon work > uv unwrap > scuplt > mapping > finish.

while the newer artists were more like...

sculpt > retop > uv unwrap > map > finish.

The older guys never had to retop (re-topologize), because their models had good topology before they got to the sculpting part. they could choose not to retop, but the model would be less functional in the end, and could cause problems ahead. but that was something traditional guys never had to even worry about.

There are even some 3d artist now who don't even know how to model traditionally.
they might never need to.
but I look at like an advantage if you do.
Its like if you put a command prompt in front of some people instead of an OS with a GUI, they dont know what the hell to do. And then theirs people who grew up with command prompts, and its not only not an issue, but they can also do some extra cool shit too.

but anyway... it all balances out.
some parts of development take no time at all now, but theirs a lot more shit to do.
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Re: Art Forum Update

Post by ReDeemer » Sun Aug 15, 2010 12:02 pm

Whoa, killer work so far dude. Is that a specific character of your's by chance? Or just a test model you conjured up? Keep it up!
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kaos
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Re: Art Forum Update

Post by kaos » Sun Aug 15, 2010 9:44 pm

Hmm....

Fan art?

Image
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Re: Art Forum Update

Post by kaos » Mon Aug 16, 2010 4:27 pm

Image Image

here's another...
but this one is still in the early stages.
most the textures are temporary, and some parts dont even have texture yet
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Re: Art Forum Update

Post by Chewi » Mon Aug 16, 2010 4:39 pm

Heh it's a shame FoFiX doesn't have character models yet. They actually say that lack of good modellers is one of the main reasons for that. It would require some coding too though.
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Re: Art Forum Update

Post by kaos » Mon Aug 16, 2010 6:15 pm

is that project still alive?
last news update was December last year.

They need more than just a model or two.
they need to discover a whole pipeline and workflow for developing the models first.
and then how to rig and animate them.
thats a lot of work.

unless they have all of that setup already and i just missed it.
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Re: Art Forum Update

Post by Chewi » Mon Aug 16, 2010 7:54 pm

It's not the most active of projects but it's more active than the project it spawned from, Frets on Fire. I've not actually tried this version, just the original Frets on Fire.

Well I saw a forum thread where they were talking about it and they said they hadn't really bothered because none of them were much good at modelling. I don't think you'd need anything too serious to have some characters dancing around like they do in Guitar Hero. It's not like you actually control them.
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Re: Art Forum Update

Post by kaos » Mon Aug 16, 2010 8:16 pm

thats true...
just play one animation loop for the duration of the song.
but its gotta be one hell of an animation though.
I bet GH and RockBand use mocap exclusivly.

I'll think about it.
creating a cartoon rocker could be really fun.
but if i did any animating it just be a simple 1- 3 second loop.
doing a whole session by hand would be crazy....and probably qualify me for a job at pixar.

I love how the have the guy rocking out on the keyboard.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... re_man.png

I'll think about it.
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Re: Art Forum Update

Post by Chewi » Mon Aug 16, 2010 8:20 pm

No pressure, it was just a thought. Would be cool to see some of your stuff being used.
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kaos
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Re: Art Forum Update

Post by kaos » Tue Aug 17, 2010 4:23 pm

new beard.
textured arms/face
set the goggles down for fun.

I'm trying to take some influence from KH with these characters.

http://www.johnnykaotic.com/animation/seth_v3b.png


hey chewi...
Your images may only be up to 200 pixels high.
Your images may only be up to 400 pixels wide.
since when?
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kaos
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Re: Art Forum Update

Post by kaos » Tue Aug 17, 2010 8:01 pm

This on is just because T-poses are so boring.

Possibly James Le Cuirot's best artistic advice...ever.

Image

http://www.johnnykaotic.com/animation/sethv3b_pose.png
Last edited by kaos on Wed Aug 18, 2010 2:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Art Forum Update

Post by ReDeemer » Wed Aug 18, 2010 3:05 am

kaos wrote:
here's another...
but this one is still in the early stages.
most the textures are temporary, and some parts dont even have texture yet
That's too fucking cool dude. Love this shit.
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Chewi
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Re: Art Forum Update

Post by Chewi » Wed Aug 18, 2010 7:49 am

kaos wrote:This on is just because T-poses are so boring.

Possibly James LeCuirot's best artistic advice...ever.
Haha did I say that? Well I was damn right!

P.S. Always put a space in my last name. I'm not sure where the practise for ditching the space came from (Matt LeBlanc) but it bugs me.
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