TOON character

[kazama]

This is a toon GIRL head that i modeled some time ago, I like it so much by the way, and i always think of finishing it. The other day I saw a reference image that PETROL show on the post GAME CHARACTER MODEL that he has, and I also BORROWED the image and start working on a SUIT for my character, the image is just 4 reference, as I go I'm puting some detail on my own. I'm triying something like gears of war, or quake suit, something like that for my GIRL. The suit is not gona be TOON, only the head, and the skin if in some parts is gonna be visible. Coments plis.

raularosemena@hotmail.com

[kazama]

another pic

raularosemena@hotmail.com

[kazama]

the head.

[kazama]

There seems to be a problem with the sub-ds partial crease and full crease working with metal ray render.. The edges dont look right on render. In maya software there is no problem, they render just fine. Someone knows the solution?

[Gamester]

Sweet, love manga, and your toon is fantastic

Look forward to see it finished :beer:

[kazama]

okey here´s some update.

[kazama]

from behind

[kazama]

full

[jsprogg]

Kazama , i'm sorry to say that Mentalray and sub-d are a little touchy.
The docs give a list of restrictions when rendering with mentalray .
I know that your geo needs to be quads and definately no 5 sided.
a smoothed polygon mesh is the way to go if you are planning on using Mentalray a lot.

btw nice model :)

[younglion]

really nice can you post some wires? and also i like the toon but its only evident on the head but the clothes look different.

[arran]

very cool model mate!

my one crit would be that I much prefer the chunky legs in your first post. The new legs just seem a bit too spindly.

Looking forward to seeing some progress. :beer:

[Gamester]

Really good, just try to make the arms size proporsional to the rest of the body, and make the butt a little smaller.....but it's becoming really nice :attn:

[kazama]

Thanks for the comments..
jsprogg: the thing is that I dont have any 5 side polys. All my polys have 4 points, and a couple of 3 points polys in some parts. The problem is when I use the partial crease and full crease.. And I think the solution would be to smooth my objects like U said, but I dont like too much to do that.. But dont seams to be another solution, maybe just use some split edge ring tool and dont use partial crease.. But maybe It would be better to just convert that to polys... mnmnm WHAT TO DO WHAT TO DO!.
By the way I think metal ray is far better that the maya software render.. Am I wrong??
younglion: I will post some wires tomorrow, for u guys to see. The toon that I have I only wanted to be on the head, and the skin that is visible in the legs, all the other stuff is going to be textured in a more realistic way. Im trying a combination of those 2 things. I think is kind of cool. Like appleseed the movie.
arran: Thanks for the comments, the thing about the first legs is that they were to big and for animation It would have been imposible to move the legs. The thing is that parts in the legs have to be parented to the bones, because there are like metals, I dont want those parts to deform as A skin, and for that reason I make those parts diferents..
Gamester: I LIKE BIG BUTTS .. man Im for south american JUJU. But U mean a little smaller in the front view? and the arms u think they are a little short?...
If I make something tonight I will post something tomorrow.
SEE YA..

[jsprogg]

Kazama, partial crease and full crease are not supported by Mental ray.

[Gamester]

Originally posted by kazama
Gamester: I LIKE BIG BUTTS .. man Im for south american JUJU. But U mean a little smaller in the front view? and the arms u think they are a little short?...
If I make something tonight I will post something tomorrow.
SEE YA..

Hehehehhe I see that

Yap, if you see closer from the front your character have a very big butt or a very thin torso, not very realisctic :S

About the arms the situationis, your modeling a female warrior and for a female warrior she seems to go more often to the mall than to the Gym :P.......try to make the arms a little stronger ;)

[j5ive]

Looking very good. How did you do the 'toon' effect, I've looked into this quite a bit but the examples i've followed turn out very poor and washed out.

[wasatch5_sparticus]

Originally posted by arran
very cool model mate!

my one crit would be that I much prefer the chunky legs in your first post. The new legs just seem a bit too spindly.

Looking forward to seeing some progress. :beer:

Originally posted by Gamester
Really good, just try to make the arms size proporsional to the rest of the body, and make the butt a little smaller.....but it's becoming really nice :attn:

I do like the size of the original legs, so maybe try doing one with larger legs (more of a cartoon effect), and one normal like you have. The arms do need to be a tad longer, but I think (don't take me wrong) her butt looks fine. KUTGW!!

Sparticus

[kazama]

Okey here are some corrections I made, thanks for the comments, specially GAMESTER. I made the arms a little more strong and also the butt, or hips.. more small.. I think is looking much better, so thanks for that. So some pics.. some commets?

[kazama]

another

[kazama]

another one from the back.. I also use fg in these renders.

[kazama]

I also make the lower part of the gear in the legs, a little wider, a little bigger.. but maybe Im gonna change something down there.. something is looking kind of odd there.

[kazama]

And some wireframes for younglion.

[kazama]

head

[kazama]

legs

[kazama]

All the objects are sub'ds.. some of the are gonna end up been polys.. for the body I like to work with poligon smooth proxy mode.. for animation and taking out the uvs..

[kazama]

new gear..

[kazama]

from the back

[kazama]

And also the glove. I need some coments on this one, the propotions and that kind of stuff. maybe the fingers are to long?

[kazama]

another one from a distance. what do u guys think? the proportions are good?

[kazama]

front

[kazama]

with some metals in the fingers.. I hope de proportions are right

[Sgart]

She looks nice! But I think the fingers are slightly too long. And the upper hand should be fatter, I think.

[arran]

yeah - it's looking good, but the hand is far too flat. Your hand has an arch with the middle fingers being higher than the outer two. Also, I know others were telling you to make the arms longer, but I have to disagree - the arms are too long- you can definitely see that in the front view.

keep up the good work - I really like this character. :beer:

[wasatch5_sparticus]

Originally posted by Sgart
She looks nice! But I think the fingers are slightly too long. And the upper hand should be fatter, I think.

I agree

Originally posted by arran
the arms are too long- you can definitely see that in the front view.

I disagree. Check yourself out sometime. Look at where your wrists go to. Seriously, it's all proportional.

Great model mate! KUTGW

Sparticus

[arran]

check out your own avatar mate :) I'm sure it's a matter of preference and it may be because the hand is so flat that it's difficult to tell where the wrist ends, but the lower arm still looks longer than the upper arm to me.

The hand should start at the lower red mark.

[Sgart]

I think it would be easier to see how long the arm actually is when the hand is looking natural.

[kazama]

well is been some time but this is the new hand..

[kazama]

also the boots

[kazama]

so all the character is done now. some coments?

[j5ive]

Very Nice model, how did you do the 2D/Toon rendering in her face?

[arran]

nice job on her hand kazama and the new boots look awesome.

well done mate!:beer:

[Perfecto]

Well done!

[gster123]

Looking good man!

[kazama]

thanks for the comments. The toon effect is a NPRS I donwloaded some time ago, but the NPRS was wrong, it was missing something, and with a friend of my we make it work.. then I start working with that and experimented and end up with a better result than the original shader.

[t1ck135]

looking good so far kazama

I've just skimmed through the thread so if other people have said any of these things then ignore me ;)

- The breast armour area looks quite artifical and doesn't flow that well around the breast area. I think playing with the point position and under the cup area might help.
- The thighs are a little chunky for someone of her stature, especially in the manga style.
- The hand looked a bit flat but a bit of tweaking should sort that out

Keep it up :)
Si

[leonlabyk]

Damm this looks good. Love the boots + the gloves and hands look great now.

:bow: :bow: :bow:

[kazama]

just a little update..

[kazama]

Working on her clothes.. trying to make her look more sexy.. :) I also make another armor for the uper part of the legs.. and the knee pads as well.. I think looks better.. and doesnt look to heavy the armor in the legs right know.

[kazama]

some underwear...

[kazama]

underwear (BACK)

[younglion]

been a while since i seen this thread. the model is coming along nicely.

[arran]

yeah - not bad - this is looking very nice. However, one thing that's bugging me - what good is armour if she has so much exposed skin? :confused: not that I'm complaining - i'm sure she has some sort of body shield! :D also - i think you might need to work on how her underwear follows the contour of her hips - at the moment it's looking a little flat.

[kazama]

thanks.. Yeah Im going to work on that underwear ARRAN, and make it follow a little better.. For the thing about the armor and to much skin exposed.. the thing is that i want the character to look more sexy.. The armor is in the same place as before.. I havent change it that much.. The only thing I do was. instead of have a 1peice suit, I make it 2 piece.. But Im thinking of some how to make the side of the body, the side of the stomach a little bit more cover.. maybe connect the stomach armor with the short and the other piece, and connect it in the back as well, and make it 1 peice again, and in the side leave just leave some parts where the skin is visible.. I hope I make my point..

[kazama]

some update on the suit.. what do U guys think? I think is looking better..

[kazama]

from the back

[kazama]

Just starting to work on the shaders and textures..

[MattTheMan]

It looks really nice!

The only thing I can comment on is the armour on the breasts... the hard surface model doesn't seem so hard surfaced. I think you should make some of the plates come together at a harder angle, less smooth.

I hope you get what I mean :D.

[kazama]

Thanks MattTheMan, I'm going to look into that.. For now, Some update on the textures.. I start taking the uvs, and donwloaded a couple of CAMO textures, in various colors and FLAVORS.. jujuju... and use the blue camo to make this little test. I like how it looks in red suit, maybe I'm going to use some red camo texture.. But is good to have it in various colors so I can change it to see how it looks in diferent colors.

[kazama]

And i also.. think maybe the metalic parts, making them not that metalic, maybe some futuristic material.. something maybe a little transparent, like some x-ray shader or something.. here I just aplied a sampler info and a blend color to the transparency, more to be done.. just testing some stuff..

[Rhetoric Camel]

I just went through all of this, dont know how I missed it, it looks great and come along very nicely. I'm liking the newer style with just the sides visible, it was almost TOO sexy for her type of character I think, but now it's looking much better! Keep it up! Are you planning on rigging and animating this character? If so I'm looking forward to it.

[kazama]

Thank you for your commets Rhetoric Camel, It really makes me feel like I'm doing a really good character, and that is what I'm aiming for. And yes I want to animate the character.. And I allready make some bones and IK's.. some set driven keys in the hand, and the fingers.. but not rigg yet. If someone has a good idea of what type of color or texture I can put in her clothes.. feel free to say it..

[xmikx]

its a really good charater, no doubt about it :)

i would stay with the blueish color, looks pretty cool in my opinion.

cheers

[kazama]

some update.. Has a glow effect.. conected with a sampler info also.. trying to make some futuristic material like I said before.. Maybe is going to look better if I mapped de glow atributte with some uv texture.. just in some parts of the armor..

[kazama]

Some work Im doing with the armor.. I change the colors againg.. and some bump..

[plaski]

F-ing sweet! The new armor look doesn't look futuristic, but its totally awesome for a ninja princess theme. Its hard coming up with something new.
why not make the armor toon shaded as well?

[leonlabyk]

This project is really coming along well. Keep up the fantastic work.

Leon

[kazama]

some update on the armor. Im trying to make it look more old.. like a futuristic post apocalypse age.

[kazama]

from the back

[kazama]

I dont want to make the armor toon.. I just want the skin of the character to be toon, and the hair. But the armor realistic, and the enviroments that I plan to do some day realistic as well. I think the combinations is going to look good.

[s2-speedy]

this is lookin great - deffinetly reminds me of appleseed wen i first saw it and the cell shade i fort appleseed. :) i luv that film and the style of it too. i was goin 2 model a character after i saw the film.

well done.

[THX1138]

s2-speedy, love the texture done for the armor. You wouldn't mind showing the texture maps for it would you?

[s2-speedy]

lol try askin kazama - its his model n texture. I would show you if it was mine. :D

[THX1138]

Sorry, my mistake. I put your name in by mistake. Ment to say Kazama.

[kazama]

lol.. Ok I will show the connections when I have sometime to continue with the proyect, Right now really busy doing an animatic in after effects in my work. lol.

[wokendreams]

simply jaw droping. The last few pics just came out of nowhere. You have most definitly inspired me.

[kazama]

Thank u man.. Dont have much time this week to work on some updates.. but when i have something to show, i will show something.

[kazama]

ok.. so heres a pic of my metal shader, with a couple of connections.. so THX1138 can have a look.. lol.

[kazama]

and finally make some cool bump for her clothes(I think so).. so this is what I came with ( A friend of my help me with some photoshop plugins, and some advice over the msn.. lol)

[kazama]

the boots

[Perfecto]

Sweet and sexy!

[kazama]

joints, skining, and weighting, also some sets driven keys for the hands.

[arran]

this is looking very nice! it's good to see her finally out of the t-pose.

well done kazama! :beer:

[kazama]

Well this is the motorcycle for my character, I havent post it but it was finished like for 2 months now, but just havent post it like I say before.
( Cant render the girl and the motorcycle together because maya runs out of memory while rendering so... HELP!! )

[wokendreams]

just do render layers and composite. render her on the bike then the bike using alphas for both and the put them together in photoshop or something like that.

[gubar]

I like it a lot, esp the metal material. From top to bottom in you diagram, what is each component (can see the bump and colour for example... what are the others)?

cheers,

gubar

[leonlabyk]

This is looking great. Be good to see a render of her on the bike so good luck with that and hope it turns out well.

Keep up the great work.

[kazama]

Yes wokendreams im going to try something like that.. like puting on her like a backdrop material all black, and then the bike, but dont know if it would render because I have import for example the bike and then HIDE the girl, and the same, dont render. But I would try that thing like backdrop material to see what happends.

Thanks gubar, but i dont understand well what you are asking me.. lol. Well the metal of the moto has also a ramp with a lot of colors conected with a sampler info, and this ramp is on top of my red color of the bike, but has little opacity, also a image mapped to the reflection, also the reflectivity has a sampler info. Sampler info is used to create that fresnel effect.

leonlabyk, thanks for the help, and the coments, I will try to render this somehow.
Also working on the city, here are some renders, but as you will guess, cant render the bike there or the girl :(

[kazama]

pic 1

[kazama]

Here with the bridge here the bike and the girl are going to be, if maya LET ME render some day of course

[arran]

oh wow! looking very cool - glad to see you are still working on this. :)

[wokendreams]

im not sure why you dont render her with render layers and alphas on, it will simplify your process, rather than hiding her and using differnt backgrounds. i hope im not coming across rude... but alpha chanels and render layers solve your problems as youve put them.

[kazama]

Thanks arran, yes im still in these proyect, working in this evry once in a while.

Well to tell you the truth wokendreams, I have never work with render layers, I downloaded a video de other day about that, so I will give it a try and see what happends.
Other stuff that happends to me, is that if I for example make a object to big, like 20 meters or something, in the perspective view, starts to desapier, like if the far clip was too short, but I increment that in the preferences, and still is like nothing happend. But my camera works fine if I increment the far clip, it renders everything. So what I do is create cameras for the top, the front and the side, and put the angle of view to 1, or increment the focal length way to much, and it works fine as a orthographic view. Also blocked the rotations of those cameras, so works fine.

[wokendreams]

I think the prefrences only chnage the cliping plane for new cameras. What I always do is just change each camera's clip plane in the attribute editor, hope that helps.

[kazama]

Well the renders layers help a bit, and they are awesome. It let me render the character like in a pose, but with no bones or joints, I try it that way and it work, because is less information that way, but with the joints didnt render in the city scene, I even just put the ground of the bridge and the character together in just one layer, but like I say it crashed, so I just duplicated everything from the character and deleted the joints.
for the bike I have to export the bike and the ground, with the lights and open a new scene and render just that, and finally compose everything in after effects.

Need to find a better way to solve this, because working like this is maddnes :)

What do you guys think about the final render?

[arran]

that is looking very cool.

2 things are throwing it off i think - her skin looks too bright to me and i think the image on the whole is too red.

but i like this a lot! :beer:

[mirek03]

hey thats incredible, im loving that scene, incredible

the only crit is the arms look disjointed, like they are bent un-naturally

M:)

[kazama]

Thanks arran.
The thing about the skin is that it is toon shader, dont think that has to look very realistic.. but maybe for the enviroment is looking to bright? I change a bit the color in after effects, because the skin was a little bit more white, and make it a little bit more red like.
And yes I use like a red filter on the whole image, also try like a blue.. but here i post the image without that red filter.. maybe you find this image like a little bit orange, but thats because of a fog like effect that is a little bit orange.

Thanks mirek03.
Maybe i rotate the right arm a little bit to much. I will look into it and try to pose her in diferent way, and on the bike of course.

So here is the render without the red look.

[bigtommyb]

the new render looks much better imo. The whole thing is kool too! nice work!

[kazama]

Thanks man.. also I think the bike is looking a bit to blurry? But I already correct that in after effects.

This is the render with that correction, and with the red filter!! lol

[mirek03]

well mate, you know what they say..,

if one person crits.., ??

two people crit.., maybe

three people crit.., do something

so far its just me :) ?

i got to ask, is that a backplate.., or is that a complete scene you have rendered.

M:)

[kazama]

Well mirek03, im going to pose her other ways thats for sure :)
And it is a complete scene, I can post a wireframe so you can see, but I render in layers because metal ray runs out of memory like I say, and compose everything. Heres the wire.

[mirek03]

breaking my heart mate.., :) excellent.., im a manga lover too (as wel as set lover), so im doubly loving this :)

many thanks for the wire

mental ray ???.., what is the setting.., GI, FG, or whats going on there., i like this render though the shadows seem a bit grey.., or the scene doesnt pop somehow (seems too much grey value all round, like the whites are not at 100 or the blacks not at 0 and so the over all colour range is looking, how can i say this.., not its full potential).., but that may be a stylistic choice on your part.., looks great.

im not trying to be picky with the colour, just curious :)

why is it running out of memory (sorry i should go back over the thread) is it lack of RAM.., or power (processor)

mirek :)

[kazama]

Thank you man. Thanks for the coments

Yes it is metal ray, No GI, just FG with a Dome iluminating and like 1 more light Iluminating sun like.. and I have another light, but just like really soft, like 0.2 intensity. The sun light is like 1.3 in intensity.

Well, the thing for the colors, is that I dont like color to be too saturated, like a red to be too red, and so on.. I think If you bring down saturation a bit, the render is going to look more realistic, at least thats what I think, so I always try to tune up de 3d render colors in a composition program.. also i like to put like a color filter.. to make the image a bit blue, or a bit red, and so on.

Dont know whats happend really, but for so long now im having this issues with the render in maya. In the output window say, metal ray out memory, and it says flushing and stuff like that, and for this proyect it has been a nightmare. My computer at work its fine, it a 2 procesor cpu and 2 GB of ram, maybe is a virus I have that suck up all the memory, or the version of maya im using that has issues with metal ray.. dont know.

But for example one thing that happend to me is that the bike refuses to render in the city scene, even just with the floor, and everything hide, or in other layer, so I export the bike and the floor, and in a new scene, rendered.. also export the light and the camera, of course, well but that render take me like 45 minutes!! but the weird thing is that the bike in his original scene, the time for render it was like 2 minutes, if you go like to page 6 in this post you will see that scene, the bike with some mirror behiend and a floor, so that scene takes like 2 minutes, but why is that just because I exported to other scene and then imported in a new scene, with the same bike and just a floor the time render goes up like that? Its like my maya its having really issues.. Hope I make my self clear.

[mirek03]

did you choose 'referance' before import.., and then grouped it.., freeze the transforms and all that?? if you follow the trail back?? its gotta be something.

my Mac is having problems atm, i prefer that, im using the pC atm. waiting for the tach to come (3 weeks now??)


im having issues here too.., merging verts.., the thing crashes.., great eh.., how annoying is that stuff. i dont seem to have problems on that??

totally understand the workflow you have chosen for your colour.., great work flow and one i might steal :)

maya had a mind of its own.., welcome to the world of maya eh??

same computer at work?? same system.., same version??

i just did some very finicky work on my toon car and then.., crash.., man.., even the file was corrupt.., im doing a scan in a sec.., see if there is something there that shouldnt be.

cheers dude.., great work

[kazama]

No I didnt choose referance, have never use that one.. but I know where it is. lol.
But yes it was group.

Well, it has to be realy dificult to model something if you cant merge verts.. hope you can fix that.

Yes is a good thing to do, to tune up a little the final render.

Yes is the same version and everything.

Well always remember to save various files, not just one, so if one is corrupt you can come back to a older version and not lose everything.

Thanks dude.