Orc Warrior #3 Poly Model

I've been working on the poly mesh for the Orc warrior model. The goal here is to create the orc in a bind pose that will deform well when I apply the skeleton. The other thing to keep in mind is I need to keep the poly count low. If the poly count is too high the model becomes unsuitable for games. The Ninja that I did previously came in at just over 3000 polygons so I will aim for around the same for the orc.

I decided to show more of my work process as I did with the concept for the orc. On the left here you can see how I put together the orcs head. With poly modeling I start with a basic geometric shape, for the head a cylinder with 8 sides. The trick is to do as much as possible with as little as possible.

Its very tempting to get right into the mesh and start modeling wrinkles and eye lids, but for most games it's a waste of time because you don't get close enough to the model to see this level of detail. For the most part you can create the fine details with the texture map and bump map ( you can see good examples of texture and bump maps in my chest mimic model).

When I first started in games we hadn't grasped this and I think most of our character models had around 1000 polygons spent just on the head. The game was a first person shooter (Timesplitters) and you just never got close enough to the characters to see all that carefully sculpted detail. Other characters were too busy running around shooting you in your pretty head.

.......unfortunately for the body I somewhat forgot about showing my process. Those pesky polygons have a habit of taking my focus and making me forget about keeping snap shots. You can still see my working here, as with the head I've used cylinders as the starting point and then pulled the mesh points around.

This is the base mesh for the orc. I've kept this so I can make variants. The leather armour version is going to be the first version.

Above is the orc warrior in leather armour ready for his skeleton and bind. I've given him a basic axe and shield. He currently comes in at 2500 polygons, so less than the Ninja. I have already put the skeleton in and got the mesh deforming. I still need to add the controls and rigg for animation. Once I am happy with the way the character moves and the skin deforms I will start the paint job and get my UV mapping head on. It's a mistake to UV map before you know the model is going to work for animation. This is because a poly mesh will always need tweaks so that it deforms properly with it's skeleton. If you have UV mapped first, tweaks are going to make a pigs ear of it.

In my next post I will show the skeleton and rigg and probably a test orc animation. There might even be a bit of colour if I get on to the textures.
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Orc Warrior #2 Concept Armoured Orc

I've been continuing with my orc character. Still painting with the graphics tablet, I've been thinking more along the lines of heavy plate armour. My thinking at the moment is to have both a leather armour and plate armour version, the leather armour version wont have a helmet, so I have an excuse to model the orcs face.

Orc head in black and white

I didn't keep the WIPs this time, I got three quarters through the painting before it occurred to me. There's some preparatory sketches to show instead, in black and white with the tablet. I did try moving over to pencil and paper as I said I would in my last post but in the end, having got back into the swing with the tablet I decided to stick with it.

 Here is a version of the armoured orc I did before the colour version at the top of the page. It's not that different but you can see how the stance and pose are much better in the final colour version.

 A rough sketch I did where I was thinking about having a larger torso and arms for the orc. I quite like the sketch but I decided against going further and painting armour on it. What ever I'm working on I always have working drawings, even for animations. Mostly in biro on lined paper. The cannon fodder of the artistic project missing in action or round filed.








I also had some ideas for orc helmets which I painted separately, again in black and white. I found it quite fun to paint these up roughly with the tablet, in the past I would have done all this kind of work with a pencil and sketch book. To get this sort of look on paper I would have to use charcoal or ink which is a lot of fuss and mess and if your not that accurate, you can quickly go from smart looking sketch, to smudgy smeary black splodge.

I used a template orc head and painted a few variant helmets over it. When it comes to building it, I will probably have some more ideas. At the moment I'm liking the below version or the one in the colour version at the top of the page.

Probably will be with the polygons in the next post.