April Challenge-Low Poly Character-Tweetytunes-Ada from Parsite Eve
 

I am going to do the lovly Ada from Parasite Eve 1+2. One of the most underrated games I have ever played - and still the only ever game I have imported because sony thought it was a good Idea not to release this in the UK. Eeeerrrrr. :mad:

http://www.ravage3d.com/images/Game/Ref1.jpg

This really is the only game (apart from FF7) I wish they would remake.

Any way in both games the character was kick ass - but done up too much like a sexy icon (A little bit like what they did to tombraider 2 up words) - so I`m going to bring it back to a much more realistic level. They also did not do good job with her face. She was meant to be part Asian part American but looks like a cheap manga character. Therefor I am going to be using the actress Dichen Lachman as ref as she is part asian and part Australian (close enough i think) and started in the show "Doll house" where she was put into a number of different action scenes that are perfect ref for my character. (I have all eps on Bluray) But plz note this will not be a photo perfect match to Dichen - just more a likeness.

Dichen ref images

Lets see where this takes me .....

Are you sure you are not into little black dresses tweeny...LOL..........dave

HAHAHAHAHAHA - In fact thats the very reason I want to re due her - she a tough NYPD cop not some slut in a dress. Ok the story starts with her at the opera (thats why shes in the dress) but even after that she has a short top on and silly shower scenes. Time for this girl to grow up and get real.

Some clothing ref

http://www.ravage3d.com/images/Game/Ref2.jpg

Made a start on the head tonight but nothing to show off yet. Getting alittle distracted by the fact I can now play this and other ps1 games on my mobile phone - sweeet

Re-playing this game is the best ref ever - so much fun - but I have been doing some work as well.

Got the head blocked out, but I`m thinking if I don`t get the hair right the whole thing is not going to work. Sat down and watched a training video on how to make game character hair and then read a website (link here) and got some good results from that - so going to redo it but this time for this character - hoping to have some progress in a few hours.

My G.F. thinks I should do the black dress outfit as it is how most people know the character and is the start of the game. - so I might try and find time to do that as well as the standard uniform, but def-o a after thought not the main project.

Well I think I`m really happy with me hair - here is a quick test


**** Sorry video freaked out - will reupload it 2mo ******

Temp Image until I sort out video
http://www.ravage3d.com/images/Game/Temp.jpg


(Plz note I know you can see the edge of the plains on the hair but its because I used final gather in the render - just forgot to turn that off - they don`t turn up if I turn that off)

Shape of the head no where near finished (and therefore so is the shape of the hair) but as I said before without being able to get the hair right I did not see much sense in carrying on with this project and was going to try a different character. But I think I`m safe to carry on. Back to work on the face 2mo.

hey tweetytunes,
Long time no see. lol
Good progress thus far.
digging the hair.
What tutorial did u use to learn how to do hair like that?

oh dude, i've never been able to play that game (due to insufficient funds at the time, and now i dont know where it is. although i think they are going to put it on the psn? or maybe thats a different game)

how many polys are you at so far?

also.. IT'S ROCKY MILLS! :D

I used a web page that I posted earlier to get it looking a lot better. (Its in the post before the image).

Parasite eve is up on PSN in japan and USA for sure but still no date for it here in the uk - so would prefer a remake - I never got round to playing number 2 but think that will change if it gets a PSN release.

At the mo Hair and face 3050 Tri`s but will be re-working the face a little today so I think that may go up. But I think thats a good number to start.

Looking good. And thanks for sharing the hair tutorial link.

Very good! :) With this speed you will finish your work to the end of this week :confused:

I am known for my speed - but got alot on this week (interview 2 days time) and this is still a very early stage - the hair was a must to get right so spent most of the time there so far - the face is a little basic in that render but tweaked it now as you can see...

No problem about the hair tut - its a really good tut and needs to be shared.

Think the head almost done - need to get some eyes in there next - but liking what I got so far - here is some wires

http://www.ravage3d.com/images/Game/Ada_1_1.jpg

Oh and from now on will only be counting quads as I hate tri`s with a passion and I only work with quads. I know its a game challenge but I just don`t care. There are many polys I think I could tri up in places (Neck and ear defo) but going to keep mesh clean until I get to the end.

Oh snap! That's looking pretty good! :D

YouTube - Ada upper body test

Just a small update - upper body getting there - hands are a little high poly at mo - chest area will be covered with combat vest.

Nice work Tweeny...........dave

Edit: Tweeny were did you get the hair tutorial would like to have a look dave

Cheers

Both the video (not free - sorry) and website (this is free) links are posted above - read threads not skim thought.

I`ll b nice here they are again

Free hair tut - webpage

LOL what if I say no to quads?

Seriously quads are fine, I hate them too. As I said in the main challenge thread to you, it'll be easier anyway. I believe alot of games meshes start out as quads anyway the get triangulated later on, they did with 'gears of war' in the D'artiste character modeling book anyway!

cheers
Jay

I can`t see how anyone does it any other way - I find tri model messy.

If you said tri`s only I would just convert them at the end - you know me pushing rules to near breaking but never going over the line.

Anyway here some better shots of the work done today.

http://www.ravage3d.com/images/Game/Ada_1_2.jpg

http://www.ravage3d.com/images/Game/Ada_1_3.jpg

http://www.ravage3d.com/images/Game/Ada_1_4.jpg

Can I also say how bloody much Adobe CS5 sucks balls - Photoshop is almost unusable, Premiere no longer takes IFF`s and videos can`t be read by you tube no matter what you set the compression too (even none) and After effects cant render out to avi ???? - Going to see if I can find my CS3 collection as I cant work like this.

Tweeny this is how comany work know they let you test there new software pore to say the least..............dave

no matter how many times i read that, it still doesn't make sense...

They let you the customer do all the work for them, sould be the other way round..............dave

love your progress. really :) You took a Huuuge step to win this contest.
As i noticed you re always accurate.
Try not to subdivide before print screen. If you subdivide, its not 6000poly i think.
I think in this contest the button 3 has nothing to do :( just like the fur on my wolf.. :( :(

The thing is once it goes though Z-Brush it will be that smooth and with so few polys the 3 button does not do a lot at all. And its down to only 4000 polys now I tweaked the arms and hands a little.

Also press 1 or 3 does not change the poly count.

Arrr feet/shoes - I hate them - calling it a night for now - want to get them done but giving me headache.

Daveray why do you have a bronze medal in your sig when you won a Gold

Sorry tweety, I edited your post. The reason is SimplyMaya runs an open policy (always has and always will, forums are about sharing info) so feel free to post external links here, this however only extends to other sites that run the same open policy as we do.

Nice progress on the character so far and good luck on the interview (wear a suit, men look great in suits) :)

Nilla

Yer no problem - Will not happen again - the website was better than the video anyway

well if you push 3 and look at the vertex faces you will see that it does change the poly count. (well, not really, but you would have to smooth it that much to have it look the same.)

even if you go through zbrush, the silhouette will look the same. so i agree with joey, i wouldn't bother with the smooth preview button. It gives a false impression of your topology anyway.

Urm Im sorry but the vertex faces don`t go up - not sure if you changed a setting or something, but mine never have. And as you can see it only smooths out the mess - not a drastic change to the model.

cool, whatever. they change for me at work.

I think the thighs look a little bulkier, but yeah not much difference so why do it?

Okey :) I made a quick review. If you press num 3 you get to lvl 3
I needed to smooth 2 times the cube at the bottom to get the same result.
The render time will go up a lot more for sure with lvl3.

Anyway in Zbrush you can go down one lvl. If you ve 4000 polys, it goes to 16000 if i remember well. You make some nice textures & it ll be perfect

sorry mate thought I was subscribed....but I wasnt....looking good dude....good to see you back in form mate!! little black dresses eh?? you and Jay got something in common or something to share with us...LOL...seriously..good luck mate..nice looking sheila too!!!

cheers bullet

Why smooth? because it looks better no matter by how much (I am talking about using the 3 button), if you were going to do a lot of animation that might be different but may be not...........dave

I think Dom is right when it comes to the whole poly count when using the 3 button thing, if you smooth a cube that only has 6 sides and look at it in Viewport 2.0 you'll see the actual amount of faces displayed, it does sub divide the geo, it's just doesn't display on the normal view.
Either way your model is looking great Tweety, and I'm eagerly awaiting your progress!
Good luck with this months comp.
And more importantly, good luck for tomorrow, hope it goes well for you mate, Ill have my fingers crossed for you (some of the day...lol)!

well then thats pretty silly if you are doing a low poly model.

Maybe lets take the smooth discussion into the main challenge thread so tweety's thread doesn't get hijacked too much. Maybe Jay has some input too on how to approach the smoothing.

Cheers Stwert - Right last bit on the pressing of 3 thing then we are all moving on...

The reason I press 3 is thats the way I work - I like my models looking smooth. But it is also how I was taught to view my models in Maya before Zbrush in a training video (After the early part of this thread will not say which one ) as its a good indentation of what shape it will look like once you add some levels of detail in Zbrush.

Dango77 is right how ever - turning on viewpoint 2.0 )something I have never done until today) does adds the smoothed faces, meaning Honest Dom was correct, but in normal display or high display it does not (on my PC - Anyway). Another benefit of viewpoint 2.0 it now means I can see my hair without rendering it out - Fantastic news - cheers Dango77. I am hoping to get this model in to UDK and do the final renders in there (time allowing of course and why not its free). So pressing 3 will not be an option

Hoping to show some progress tonight (started on the police belt with all the gadgets and stuff) but really tired after today so going to take it easy for a bit.

But no more on the smoothness matter - its over.

Cheers for kind words Bullet and Dango77 and daverave no animation this time round (Well maybe a turntable)

Son of a ***** - Doing some more research - digging around on Google I notice this ad for a new psp game "3rd Birthday" - turns out its Parasite Eva 3 (or spin off with same characters).

They have updated the main character with some stunning shots -

http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/6554/pic1pn.png

http://www.psptogo.com/upload/2010-1...6101456691.jpg

http://images.eurogamer.net/tv/6/8/2...engrab_480.jpg

http://rpad.tv/wp-content/uploads/20...icial-site.png

Love that one - stunning

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_XL7DNILu0P...g/s1600/10.jpg

Really don`t know what to do now

oh yeah, i've been getting emails about that, but haven't been sure of what it's about...

Damn Neil Your moving at an amazing pace its looking very promising

Dame 3rd birthday has done everything I wanted with the character - its hard to improve it now, but still going on with this - at least I was always planning on putting her in a cop outfit not just jeans and t-shirt.

The game is bar far the best psp game I have ever played - and for once the controls are almost spot on (one thing I hate about the psp - hurts my hands).

Did some test in Z-Brush last night on the top and head - T shirt worked out ok but the head had an area with double faces - took it back to maya then brought it back and zbrush flipped out so left it for now - but at least I learnt how to uv in zbrush and man was it fast and easy - every 3d program needs a workflow like that.

Yes zbrush will kick you out if there is some thing wrong, also do the mesh checker in zbrush. You can be modelling along then find out there is some thing wrong with the mesh......dave

Edit:Have you managed to get good normal maps out for the vest?