First proper 3D character

[Anonymous No.585835]

Hey people.
Have been playing around with blender for a good while, but haven't really gotten anything done because I'm lazy. Originally started to make models for games, with hopes of completing one myself. After having jumped between countless ideas and ugly models, I've finally settled down on a project I'm going to finish, no matter how horrible it turns out.

As I've said, I use blender, and for the game engine I use UE4, for the sake of simplicity. Programming is not my thing just yet, have to focus on one thing at a time, and models go first.

This isn't the first character I've made, but the first one I'm actually kinda happy about. It's really simple, but I expect it to turn into something more interesting when I get a texture for it. I draw textures myself by hand.

I've been doing some small adjustments here and there, but for some reason I feel like there is something off with it. And yes, I did choose a gas mask as a way to avoid modeling a face.

Any kind of critique or advice is welcome, but keep in mind that it's supposed to be fast and simple. As long as something doesn't look completely off, it should be fine. The model won't be visible for a huge part of the game anyways. It's mostly for practice purposes.

[Anonymous No.585836]

>>585835
The gas mask is supposed to be some kind of hood, notice the small ridge by the chest. There's no kind of air flow or wind in the game, so I don't worry about swaying.

[Anonymous No.585838]

>>585836
Tried to make the nose as smooth as possible, but found it a bit hard to turn a mouth into a circle. I've used some basic face modeling techniques for the flow of the face.

[Anonymous No.585839]

>>585838
There's a hood too, but it won't be equipped in any way. I think some AO and smoothing will make it look better, struggeling adding more edges without ruining the flow with the rest of the model.

[Anonymous No.585840]

>>585839
Went with some simple mittens, the character will most likely only hold a flashlight, and the environment is kinda chilly, so it makes sense in a way.

[Anonymous No.585841]

>>585840
The mitten is extruded a bit into the arm to make it look like a seperate part, can post a wireframe if anyone is interested.

[Anonymous No.585842]

>>585841
The crotch area looks a bit edgy, but I think some smoothing will fix that. The pockets will be animated to flap around a bit when the character is moving, but there won't be any simulated physics.

[Anonymous No.585843]

>>585842
Just some simple boots, the pants are a bit tucked in. very simple design, would love to hear some advice in making the character a bit more interesting.

[Anonymous No.585844]

>>585843
Some more boots

[Anonymous No.585846]

>>585844
And just a final side view of the head, I guess this is where most people woud look at, so this is the part I want to get right the most.

Again, if there is anything you want to see, or any questions at all, just ask. I'll tryto check in as often as I can.

[Anonymous No.585847]

>>585835
It's shit

[Anonymous No.585848]

>>585847
It's nice getting the kind of feedback I can build on, now I know exactly what the problem is and what I need to fix. Thanks dude!

[Anonymous No.585853]

>>585839
With the hood you could try to arrange the faces to follow the curve of the hood opening, that might fix some of the problems you have. It'll also make it look thicker. It may be too dense for the rest of the mesh though, I'm used to thinking about this in the context of subdiv modelling.

>>585842
I think you should add some thickness to the pockets, just another face along the bottom. You should be able to add it pretty quickly by making a bevel along that bottom edge and it looks like it'll just turn that triangle on the side into a quad so no topology problems.

About the crotch I have a little graphic you'll find useful, next post though.

[Anonymous No.585854]

>>585842
This will fix the crotch.

Also I forgot to mention, I think you should make the pockets thicker because I'm worried it'll end up clipping into itself in animation. Blender is already having issues displaying it which you can see with the faces and edges behind it poking through at the end. Might not be an actual problem though but the few extra vertices probably won't hurt.

>>585853
And here I forgot to mention I just selected some faces where the hood would go, inset faces, moved the new faces out to the distance the good would extent to when laying flat, inset again to form the edge of the hood, and then extruded inward. I also added another edge loop on the face loop formed from the first inset faces function so I could add more of a curve to the bottom.

To be honest this isn't the most impressive model out there, but for what it is with regard to style and function it's fine, apart from the joints which I just noticed are only two edge loops. I've got a graphic for that too.

[Anonymous No.585855]

>>585843
The reason for three edges outside and two edges inside is that the two edges will make a flat face with no sharp points where the surface is compressing, and the three edges outside will make a pointed surface because the middle edge is there to help preserve the volume of the knee or elbow when it bends.

[Anonymous No.585857]

>>585855
Also the right side of that graphic is when it's triangulated. If it forms the new edges for that area in the wrong direction as shown then the smoothed surface lighting will create those ugly dark marks.

[Anonymous No.585907]

>>585848
There is nothing in your model that isn't a problem.

[Anonymous No.585909]

The biggest problem I have with it is that it looks kind of... stiff. By that I mean, even when characters are in the default T-pose you can still get a sense of life and personality from them. This one looks almost corpse-like.

[Anonymous No.585977]

>>585855

Not him but I'm a noob and also have a few questions about simple character modeling. This is my current basemesh.

[Anonymous No.585981]

I haven't added joints because I don't know how complex I should make a low poly model. In fact that's one of my issues. I don't know what to exclude in my topology. Take for example the chest. Left is how it currently is and right is how I'm thinking about making it. Left looks bad, but right will cause issues if I decide to subdivide. Also the shoulder joint looks like it'll deform badly unless I disconnect the arm. So far I've only posed models comprised of primitives.

[Anonymous No.585982]

Another issue similar to the chest is the ass, where simple looks bad and adding polies causes issues with subdivision.
So what do I do? Does this level of low poly only work with disconnected limbs?

[Anonymous No.585988]

>>585982
It'd probably look a lot better with disconnected limbs a la PS1 but you cold also just add some more geometry where it bends.

You need to decide if you're going to subdivide or leave it as is before going further because subdiv has its own rules for geometry.

You might as well just look up a tutorial.

[Anonymous No.585997]

>>585835
Nice model, but try rotating the hands so the thumb points forward. That's how the t-pose should be
Did that myself too at first desu

[Anonymous No.586007]

>>585853
So, I tried to follow your advice here, but it was a bit difficult with a head already attached. I desided to drop the gas mask hanging down over the hoodie, and tucked it in instead. That gave me some more vertices to work on, and made the entire hoodie as a hole into the upper body, if that makes sense. Makes it look a bit more like a hoodie, if that makes sense. It also fixed some bad flow on the shoulders.

[Anonymous No.586008]

>>585853
>>586007
Got another picture of the back

[Anonymous No.586009]

>>585854
>>586008
This is what I did to the crotch. Started off with just moving the bottom vertices down a bit, which made a nice little thigh gap, but when I added a loop cut, It actually made it easier to connect the mask to the hood of the mask with a better flow. Look at the top and bottom of the mask on the old and new pics, and you'll see that it doesn't completely line up a few places.

[Anonymous No.586010]

>>585854
>>586009
Did you think like this?
It's squared off, and doesn't pinch in the end anymore

[Anonymous No.586011]

>>585855
>>586010
Tried my best, but it looks a bit bulky. Will do some small retouches, but don't know why it looks like this.

[Anonymous No.586012]

>>585855
>>586011
These first two are the arms

[Anonymous No.586013]

>>585855
>>586012
Here is the knees

[Anonymous No.586014]

>>585855
>>586013
Back of the knee.
For all I know, I might have done it completely wrong.

[Anonymous No.586015]

>>585855
>>586014
Also, should I try to do the same thing with the foot?

[Anonymous No.586016]

>>585907
Then it would be really nice if you could actually help me develop some skills instead of just jerking your ego.

>>585909
Yeah, did notice something was off, but I kinda hoped it would look better once animated. I have a feeling it has something to do with the back though, like it's a bit too straight.

>>585997
Amateur mistake, will try to remember that from now on. When I think of it, it does make much more sense animation wise. Thanks!

Sorry for the reference mess, don't know why I found it a good idea to reference to both the guy I'm refering too AND my own pictures, but hey.

[Anonymous No.586017]

I don't think I can provide a useful critique, but I just want to ask you this - have you ever tried to follow some long character modeling tutorial all the way to the end? If not, I really think you should do that. Find some good ones on CGPeers and you will learn a ton more than from the feedback you'll get here. Gnomon has some good sculpting tutorials with zbrush, not sure about blender though, but I know there are some artists which specialize in it as well. Also, I'm not sure if this extremely low poly thing is supposed to be the final model or not.

[Anonymous No.586320]

>>586017
Only a few, but I don't usually find what I'm loooking for.

The reason for the low poly is because it's for a game with a pretty large amount assets, and I want it to run as good as possible. Plus, I have very little freetime and want to actually be able to launch the game some day, so it has to be done a bit quick. It's not meant to be perfect, just something as a starter project. I want to make some good models when I get time, but that's not happening now...

[Anonymous No.586324]

>>586320
Mmmmm... It may not be exactly what you want but I have some genuine retro 3D tutorials saved from folks like Paul Steed and a Quake modder's website.

https://mega.nz/#!VpVjgShL!iYF1U-NMGaRxZKDaQx4fXkHjlwkEE0_aWwimGSa98ks

Unfortunately a lot was lost to time but if anyone could find a URL then maybe Archive.org has more.

Paul Steed also has a book on modelling http://36.82.106.167:8484/bahanajar/download/ebooks_komputer/Modeling%20a%20Character%20in%203DS%20Max%20-%20fly.pdf

I'm not sure if it's the version I have since there have been re-releases but it ought to be geared toward lowpoly game assets.

Paul Steed is the 3D artist that worked on Quake, Quake 2, and Quake 3. He's good at what he does.

[Anonymous No.586885]

>>586324
Damn, thanks a bunch!
A bit dated, but there's a bunch of stuff in here that I will put to use.