Flame Troll #1 Head and body test

Happy new year to my readers. I have been working on this troll model for some time now but I haven't got round to updating the old web log about it. You may have noticed that I added it to my blog as an animated button over in the right margin. Here is a bit about how I built his head and some of the journey of building his body.

I started the troll thinking I would use it as a sprite. It was intended as just a head that floated around biting things. My first step was to build a low poly base mesh that I would use for Z-Brush sculpting and to create morph targets/ blend shapes for a character capable of facial animation.

 

At some point I ended up thinking maybe this would make a cool full character model and built a body for the character. I was planning on a fairly conventional troll other than being a cyclops, big, brutish with a loin cloth or troll pants to keep him from being too scary.

 

  However feature creep started and I began messing about with some heavy duty bracers. Sculpting Armor and metal surfaces is something that I have not managed to get working to my satisfaction with Z-Brush so I started fiddling with it. I built a few bracers and played with sculpting the surfaces in Z-Brush, I got some results that I was pleased with and so........I decided to scrap the whole body and try making an entire suit of armor for the troll. You may remember I had plans for an armored orc a while back, I only built the leather armored version and I always wanted to return to it. Ok I'm getting a little ahead of myself as the first thing I worked up was the head.

 

 I took the head into Z-Brush and sculpted it to a high level of detail. I then exported a lower poly version out to Maya as an obj file Which I used for texturing normal mapping and  for the morph targets/ blend shapes. Above you can see the wire frame and a render from that model with the details exported to a normal map. Below are the different versions of the head which are used to create the different expressions for the model. I sculpted them in Z-Brush which worked pretty well. In the past I would have done them in Maya on the low poly base mesh shown higher up the page.

 

 Below you can see how combinations of these basic blends can be used to put expression onto the character. The left image is the base pose. The open jaw is using a jaw bone and skinning as are the ears. The teeth, tongue and eye are separate models that I actually ended up creating the normals for separately. I've had lots of stuff going on in between working on this model and it seems there have been more than the usual number of hiccups with creating him. There have been multiple interviews and auditions cropping up so I've had to drop work on the troll many times.

 Below is the Z-brush model of the head, you can see the eye and tongue masked out there as well. The red brown colour is the default Z-Brush material. I export the head only from this file for normal map generation using X-normal. If you try to do it all together as one model any intersection with the model will cause an ugly mess. with this model there is intersection with the eye ball and where the gums go into the head. I've put more detail than I usually do into this troll so you can see there is some fine detail on the skin, it is barely noticeable on the Maya version but you can tell if it's turned off. One of those details that is barely noticeable but somehow gives the character a little more life. My plan with this model was to push myself. I always seem to hold back on the polygons and that has happened with this model too. The reason being well.... basically I need a new computer, when I'm animating I like to have a good frame rate so I can see what I'm doing, for a good frame rate I need a relatively low poly model or of course.... a shiny new machine.

And then it all went a little bit armored. This is an early base mesh for a full plate armored suit. I did some skin tests and got the troll walking around, the textures are placeholder tests there was no UV mapping done at this stage, I just wanted to see if I could get him fully articulated without too much fancy rigging fuss and I will tell you more about that in my next post.

 

Orc Warrior #6 animation complete

I've completed the animation set for the Orc Warrior model and he is now available to buy on TurboSquid. The renders are from the product page and there is also a 360 revolve of the Orc model on the TurboSquid product page. I think he looks down right Orcy and fulfills all agenda necessary to be counted a thoroughbred green-skin. He now has a full set of animation brimming with "Orcy know whats" and low brow aplomb.

It's been a fun model to work on. I've learned more about texturing from the Orc and I'm happy with how he turned out. I always prefer to animate characters who have some character and for some reason, I prefer lumbering brutes to more agile, graceful characters. I put a combo attack on The Orc which was fun to do. There's a mildly Street Fighter-esque twist which you might spot, something a bit more Blanka would probably have been more appropriate.

I have to admit I always wanted to build an Orc, I used to draw them in the back of my school exercise books instead of doing any work. I thought working in the games industry it was bound to come up at some point, but in the end I had to take things into my own hands......ho hum mission accomplished, better late than never.

I put together a complete list of the animations shown from the Maya work window, very much a case of what you see is what you get (Maya is the program I built the Orc in). Rendering the animations with proper lighting, motion blur etc will give much better results but I wanted to show that this model will run very well in real time. This is down to the low poly count. There are 47 animations total which makes the Orc Warrior a good solid games character with plenty of scope.

Maybe a project for the future will be Orc versus Ninja with a nice polished render.



 List of animations as shown in the clip:


20-56           Orc Warrior Walk
70-109         Orc Warrior Combat Idle
120-148       Orc Warrior Run
160-190       Orc Warrior Attack 1 Heavy Overhead Strike
200-231       Orc Warrior Attack 2 Heavy Cross Slash
240-266       Orc Warrior Attack 3 Shield Charge
280-313       Orc Warrior Death 1
330-353       Orc Warrior Death 2
360-379       Orc Warrior Strafe Right
400-419       Orc Warrior Strafe Left
430-454       Orc Warrior Jump forwards
480-503       Orc Warrior Dodge Right
520-543       Orc Warrior Dodge Left
560-569       Orc Warrior Fall
600-610       Orc Warrior Land
620-625       Orc Warrior Shield Up
630-635       Orc Warrior Shield Idle
640-645       Orc Warrior Shield Hit Block
650-658       Orc Warrior Shield Down
670-675       Orc Warrior Small Hit Reaction Front
680-685       Orc Warrior Small Hit Reaction Left
690-695       Orc Warrior Small Hit Reaction Right
700-705       Orc Warrior Small Hit Reaction Back
710-715       Orc Warrior Small Hit Reaction Mid
730-740       Orc Warrior Big Hit Reaction Front
750-760       Orc Warrior Big Hit Reaction Left
770-780       Orc Warrior Big Hit Reaction Right
790-800       Orc Warrior Big Hit Reaction Back
810-820       Orc Warrior Big Hit Reaction Mid
830-859       Orc Warrior Combat Walk Forward
920-949       Orc Warrior Combat Walk Back
970-980       Orc Warrior Combat Turn On Spot Left
990-1000     Orc Warrior Combat Turn On Spot Right
1020-1080   Orc Warrior Guard Stance 2
1080-1110    Orc Warrior Guard Stance 2 to Guard Stance 1
1110-1170    Orc Warrior Guard Stance 1
1170-1200    Orc Warrior Guard Stance 1 to Guard Stance 2
1220-1270     Orc Warrior Taunt/Roar
1280-1312     Orc Warrior Attack 4 Upwards Strike
1320-1350     Orc Warrior Attack 5 downwards chop
1370-1410    Orc Warrior  2 hit combo
1430-1485     Orc Warrior  3 hit combo
1500-1530     Orc Warrior Combat Stance To Guard 1
1540-1555     Orc Warrior Guard Turn On Spot Left
1570-1585     Orc Warrior Guard Turn On Spot Right
1590-1597    Orc Warrior Into Combat Stance
1610-1634    Orc Warrior Jump On Spot

For more details and specs for this model please visit the Orc Warrior product page.

So..........what to do next? well I've been thinking it's about time my short film Space Temple went online, so it will shortly be arriving here.

Orc Warrior #5 UV map and textures

I'm Bringing in the new year with bump maps... Is it supposed to be a stranger with a lump of coal? oh well bump maps is what I've got.

On the left is the model with just the colour map, on the right is the bump map and specular (specular is what makes things shiny as opposed to matt). Below you can see some screen grabs from Maya to give an idea of how I did it, right top is the Orc cut into pieces. You don't have to cut the model up but I find it easier rather than dealing with it all in one lump. On the left top is a very early screen grab of the basic colours on the model after I had finished the UV mapping. I spend a while messing around with basic colour schemes in the early stages.

Below that you can see the model textured in Maya with the wire frame showing, and to the right the box with the spider web of flattened geometry is the UV or texture map.

The UV map is always a head ache for me. If you look in the top left corner of the map you can probably make out the Orcs face looking like it's been ironed flat. In the bottom right is his shield. UV mapping shields is much easier than Orc faces, when I'm texture mapping I some times wish everything was flat.

So after chopping my Orc up, mapping him, painting him and bumping him I got the textured Orc you see waving their axes around.

I'm currently working through the animation list, below is the Orc run cycle.



Happy new year to all my readers and thanks for all your visits and comments.

Orc Warrior #4 skinning and rigging

Back with the low poly Orc and I've skinned and rigged the blighter as promised. Below you can see the model in his stand pose, to the right you can see the underlying skeleton. The skeleton is what drives the animation, you assign parts of the poly mesh to the skeleton, so the head joint drives the head.

The next step is to rigg the character, the rigg is a set of controls that drive the skeleton. The controls need to be easy to work with, often one control will drive a set of joints like a leg for example.

After setting up the rigg I did a couple of animations, a walk cycle and an idle. The idle will be for the combat animations, I'm considering having a more relaxed idle that might be used for guard duty maybe with a conversation anim so Orcs can stand around shooting the breeze if wanted. Of course this may all be just idle talk that I wont get round to (crap joke intended). Anyway you can see the anims in the clip below.





I will be posting renders next and UV mapping goodness with bump maps specular and all the usual. I's all underway and will be with you next week, provided nothing else comes up (I was recently kidnapped by gnomes true story!). Below is a sneaky peek of early work in progress.

Grrrrr

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.

Orc Warrior #1 concept

I'm planning to start a new games character model for Turbo Squid and I've decided to go for an Orc this time. I've started by getting my tablet out and getting back into painting. I've used photoshop for this as usual. This time I've kept some records of my work in progress so I can show how I got to the final result above.

This is how I started. Using a fairly large paint brush set to a low opacity I quickly sketched in a rough form.

I then tightened up the Orc, still concentrating on the underlying form, not worrying about armour or clothes. I tend to work in quite heavily and then drop back the opacity, then create a new layer and work in again.

Next I put in the armour and clothes roughly, you can pretty much see the picture coming through at this stage. At this point I also flattened my working layer (not with the background, that causes headaches) and put a heavy blur on the whole thing. This is to stop me getting too tied down to the lines. By blurring the image I'm forced to rework. This stops me fiddling with details before I'm happy with the basics

 

It's then a matter of tightening further until I get something I'm happy with in the above WIP (work in progress)  you can see white cut lines running through the legs. This is where I've used photoshop to grab sections of the painting and move them. I try to keep the painting fairly loose and open to change as I'm working. If you look at the earlier WIPs, you can see the arms and legs went through lots of changes.

It always takes me a while to get used to working with the graphics tablet again, I think what bugs me most is zooming in and out. With a sketchbook this feature is accessed by moving your head nearer and further away from the page, with photoshop you have to press a button. My photoshop has a glitch where it jumps to a zoom of 12 pixels, drives me up the wall. On the flip side, when I'm using pencil and paper I often start thinking ctrl Z but of course there is no undo.

I think I'm going to go back to paper for a bit with the orc. I want to think through the armour a bit more. I'm considering having a version with leather armour, and another with more heavy metal plate armour. I also need to think about weapons.