bullsquid of HalfLife2 mod
 

Hay there...
i have designed this new model.I guess it's name is "bullsquid"(as i am said so).I tried to made it within 3K.But i have succeeded to make it within 2K.I want comments abt this model.

One more imp thing.This is for a mod of HL2.So i wnt to know how it is as for gaming.

I can't avoid triangles while modeling.But i always avoid 5 sides.Wht should i do?In this model u will find a LOT of 3 sides(u may find 5sides also).
But wont the opt MESH > TRIANGULATE/QUADRANGULATE can handle the transformation.So i can less focus on sides than modeling...

(MODEL FILE ATTACHED HAS BEEN UPDATED 3 TIMES.So it is suggested to download again!!)

Well I loaded up the model and don't really know what to suggest short of just going in and manually fixing all the tri's.

There is no AUTOMATIC way to correct this without adding tons of useless geometry into your model.

You could make the mesh active and build a new CLEANER mesh on top of it.

It's best to try to keep the topology clean AS you are building rather then allow so much chaos to build up then try to fix it at the end.

the model looks a lot better than your gun, you're improving and that's really good to see.

yeah, you do have a lot of triangles, and you even have two 6-sided faces at the bottom of its feet.

as it has been mentioned before in a lot of other posts and i can't remember if i told you this before, but for a game model having triangles isn't that bad because the SMD exporter will convert it all into triangles anyway
the only thing is, is that the triangles need to make sense.

i did a few things in a about 4 minutes or so

attached in a screen shot of your model and under a small modification i did to it
the magenta faces point out the 6 sided faces. you should do something about that
the edge flow was altered and marked in red, blue and green colours
see how the red faces kind of flow together? they are like a strip that goes down the model
the blue faces do the same, but i got stuck on the green faces because the vertex in the middle of them looks like it's actually doing something for the model, and you'd need to find your own way to change it so that the blue faces can connect with each other like the red faces do

as ctbram said, keep your mesh clean to start with rather than letting it fall to chaos

hope this helps you ;)


oh and also,
you should avoid verticies that have more than 4 edges going into them. although it's not really important, and you will end up with verts that have 5 edges or 3 edges going into them, it makes for a cleaner mesh if you only have at most 4
there are other reasons why too... but that's related to zbrush if i remember right

But one thing is still not clear to me!
will there be any problem if i use it without any modification?

I don't understand!!...could u plz clarify!

actually wht is a CLEANER MESH?

OK
 

OK....as Chirone said i modified the model.It is almost complete.But when i saw the model(attached pic) then i got really angry to me.Cause i thought that i have learned sth.But this model with only 2.1K wheres mine is 2.66K !!!.

I know that there is the normal and spec map working...but though this looks very impressive.Could any one plz tell me how to do those normal maps!(did he used zbrush?)(do HL2 supports spec map???)

http://www.stefw.com/3d-art/rogue_threat/bullsquid.jpg

I have attached the (almost...the tentacles needs some modification which are negligible with respect to the final one) final model.I dont know how to reduce the polycount frm this current state.Is there anything to do here!!

Frm this modeling i have concluded sth---
No matter how conscious u r some triangles are gonna come out at the end(Except if u r an extremely good modeler)Correct me if i am wrong!
Cause in the attached screen shot there is some triangles at the eye.How come any one can avoid those where those high details are needed??

One more question, when i try to uv map of this model with RoadKill then it says that the model needs cleanup!Does it means the cleanup command under the MESH menu??If it is so then i need some further instruction abt this opt.Cause I don't know how to use it.Whatever i try to do with it the model becomes very distorted!!!

You should try to keep your polygons 4 sided (quads).
Right now, as I see it, your model has a lot of 3 sided polygons (triangles) and even some 6 sided.

You will find that your mesh looks clearer and cleaner if you try to keep all your polygons 4 sided, and try to have 4 edges per vertice (thanks Chirone)
I believe there are tutorials that teach tricks to do this.

It would also reduce your polygon count by quite a bit I imagine.

Can u give me some link???That would have been very helpful!

:)

Here is a cleaned up version of your file.

I just created a nurbs cylinder to make the basic body shape and leg shape.

Then converted to polygons, attached.

Pushed and pulled verts and edges, added an edge or two.

Extruded the mandible things.

It is about 700 faces (1400 tri's).

It took about 20 minutes to generate. This would be a good starting point to add detail.


Things to note:

I modeled this based on your maya file, so no eye geometry and simplified foot geometry.

I changed the geometry to make it symetrical, so it can be split down the xy plane and can be worked on one side.

Here is the maya file....

i was told that sometimes you can't avoid the odd triangle every so often just as you can't avoid a vert that has 5 edges going to it every so often

can't really say much for the roadkill thing

what is the exact message that it gives you?

i've never used the clean up tool so i can't help you there...

you new model looks a lot better than before though ;)

Here it is with an eye....

The maya file

There you go this should be a good starting point for you.

I modeled it as close to your original as possible.

Personally I think you need to work on the feet and legs to more closely match your reference art.

Oh and the tail is too thick relative to the reference as well.

Thank u very much.Those were very helpful.

Could u plz locate some good uv mapping tutorial of Maya...it is good if it is free!!...but without those that r found by searching google with "maya uv mapping" and similar results!..

Im not sure about good, but its free!
http://elephantanimations.110mb.com/uvmapping.html
i made it,ive had some good comments on youtube but TBH its not great