Joan of Arc
 

I've been working through the Joan of Arc tutorial for a little while now and have finally plucked up the courage to post a few progress shots.

Still trying to work out whether to do the hair with polys or with real hair, and I'd be really gratefull for any suggestions on the matter.

Though, by the looks of it perhaps I should devote a little more attention to the knees, shoulders, breasts and hands first. I have attached the hands facing palm up, though am a little unsure now if this was the best thing to do. It seems to me that there would be less rotation of the wrist and shoulder if they were the other way up, causing less twisting and stretching.

Any suggestions ladies & gentlemen?
Simon.

hey simon, looks good so far... only thing which worries me which you have already pointed out is that the knees... especially the back of it lol :P also about the buttox, they seem fairly high and end up half way up the back :confused: though your working off a tutorial and they may have said that it was that high etc so no fuss about that ;)

just wondering were you going rig her up abit or just leave her as a model? about attaching the hands palm up seems abit odd and wierd for me since all my models and the rest which i have seen soo far are facing down... but it may work out right anywhom though im abit worried about that lol... it also looks like there is no wrist bone kind of.

also about the head, i personally like real hair... gives it more of that look if you get what i mean :p well thats my suggestion.. im sure whatever you pick will be fine :)

well thats my say in this, keep us updated and posted on your work simon, looking foward to seeing more... Marlon

Thanx Marlon, hadn't even noticed that thing with her buttocks, funny how you can miss the trees for the forest sometimes.

Yah, it is my intention to give her a skeleton and animate her, which is probably gonna bite me on the backside, with all the extra (badly placed) verts around the knees, shoulders and elbows, but we'll see.

I've just been fixing up the knees a bit tonight and trying to make the face look a little less tense and more natural, just been doing the area above the eyes at the moment. I've also picked up a few more pointers from the **TOPOLOGY** thread, and have now got a head that's a little eaier to edit.

Lol, no wrists. Didn't even notice that :lmao: "Nah, there's no trees here, just a forest"... Oh well, guess I'll fix that when I reattach the hands the other way up.

Anyway, here's a quick pic of tonight's progress. + a really lame texture of her ready to go to the beach..

Thats further than I got on that tutorial. Yours looks alot better than mine too! Haha

Thanks I-Iybrid, your Spongebob's looking good too. Much better than anything I started from scratch so far..

Well, have just about finished fooling with the body and needed to work on something fresh to keep me motivated. I've completed the surface of the head, and stuck on the ears the other night(mare). Talk about badly planned topography. I departed from the tute in an a bid to develop my own skills of placement. Shall we just say that there's plenty more improvement to be made.;)

Thought I'd 'ave a go at doing the bust armour since that's reckoned to be one of the trickier parts of the thing. I'm also prepared to admit that it'll cover the breasts, which in the case of this model I'm not particularly happy with.

Still playing with the eyes too, can't decide on a colour yet although I think they're a bit 'out there' in both cases and should probably be a little less intense. Any thoughts??

Anyway, here's where she's up to.

Had a bit of spare time over the weekend, so I've been playing with textures for the sword and Joan's clothing and armour.

Any crits or comments appreciated.

S.

Managed to make a start on the hair, just a quick shot before bed.;)

S.

hey simon,

ahaha sweet bikini on her dude lol ;) also nice work with the armor and the sword... just wondering with the finish result are you going to add some shiney material to the sword and also about the armor to give it more of that realistic feel to it?

about the hair looks like a great start from here, can i have a snapshot but with a closer view, also from the back aswell? thanks simon, keep up the work.

(quote me if im wrong, wasnt joan of arc white? some of your renders where of a darker skin toan. lol :p no offence to anyone btw)

marlon

Marlon, thanx man.

Yeah, gotta play with the whole shininess thing at some stage. Both the armour and the sword are identical materials except for the texture at the moment - just trying to get a feel for the model in colour, you know.

Same with the sword texture, It was done as something of an exercise in learning the ropes of uv mapping. and the considerations worth keeping in mind whilst modelling. Hadn't even occured to me that it would be shinnier than it is, thanx for that.

Well, in case you didn't guess by now, I've just been using default lighting and no/very low edge antialiasing up to this point - basically, just a Preview quality Software Render. I really am a cheap-ass. :D
Hence the lack of shadows, general darkness of the model, and the lack of any control over where the specular highlights fall.

Have added a little more of a natural colour to her skin and dropped the (incomplete) gloves roughly into place.

Anyway, here's those pics you asked for Marlon, bit more work on the hair and a blueish tint to the armour.

Hey man, starting to really come together now.

Looking good so far. Jou planning on rigging then animating? Would be a nice little model to have a practice on.

Cool, thanx Gster123.

Yup, I _think_ so. The more I do, the more I realise how much trauma some people must suffer at the hands of blendshapes and binding.

I've got the black clothing and the vest _really_ close to the body at points. It'sjust starting to dawn on me :eek: how little fun it's going to be to prevent interpenetration errors between the individual pieces of the whole character, once I chuck a rig and some movement in there.

I may have modelled her somewhat differently if I'd had this in mind, but not to worry, guess I gotta start somewhere.

Cheers mate,
Simon.

looking very good mate, been watching the progress. still waiting before i make further comments :)

blendshapes?? is she going to talk?? is 'blendshapes in the tut??

the texture on the face, let me guess 'mental ray??' looks like she's made of gold, I mean literally :) maybe a simpler shader?? even a simple shader and a ramp to bring out the shape of her face?? check it out. try some of the toon shaders maybe, worth a try 'toon does not necessarily mean 'toon' hey are good for shading, cant remember much about them, a had a run of a few weeks on them sometime ago, was great.

you gonna tell me you made that sword?? :)

cheers mate

For Skin Steven Stahlberg has a great tutorial, that goes into the "peach fuzz" effect that helps to eliminate the "golden Idol" look (if you read the tutorial it makes sense, its available on his website.

cool, is it mental ray, what shader is it?? :) so the tut is a PDF ???

I think its for Maya software, but it works with mental ray, its not the SSS mental ray shader.

Heres a link to it, I cant find it on his site, sorry its not the "Golden Idol", its the "Copper Zombie".

Thanx for all the input guys, very muchly appreciated. You can read and do tutes all day long, but you've still only got one perspective on your work unless you get feedback. Nice or otherwise, all extra opinions help.

Uh-huh, blendshapes. I've got the idea of phonemes and doing the breakdown first, but I've never animated anything much more than stickmen on the corners of exercise books in highschool, Lol.
Oh yeah, I don't know if blendshapes are used at all in the tute to be honest, I didn't even bother to look at the stuff on rigging her yet. That's just one thing I'd have zero chance of translating from one to the other at the moment. Rigging, blending, smooth/rigid binding, basically anything to do with movement..

As for the texture on the face, hmm. Guess I'd better hang my head in shame. So far I've used nothing more than very simple shaders. The sword's the only part that actually has a texture. :blush: The skin is only done with a crappy blinn at the moment. I only want something that looks reasonably realistic in colour, and blinn was chosen since it shows up surface irregularities quite well, on account of the specular highlights. Can't be sure which renderer I used for all the pics so far. More than likely just the software one with raytracing turned on just enough to cast nice sharp shadows and a reflection of the sword in her boots.

Yeah, you like the sword? That was actually one of the easier parts for me so far. Nice hard surfaces, exactly defined shapes even if not perfectly scaled. The Joan tute is great if monkey wants to do what monkey sees. The sword's here if you want it.. Just change the reference to the texture file to suit. Something lossless is obviously the preffered format, but when the choice is 13kb jpg VS 475kb psd, the only choice is whether to include a crappy jpeg or to include nothing. It takes all of about 3 minutes to texture it as I've done thanx to the way I did the UVs, so if anyone wants it, it's attached. All modelled in polygons, then converted to subds for the rendering. Perhaps would have better off doing the uv mapping on a subd, wouldn't have had the texture moving around a bit like it did, but hey it's all learning.


Ahhh, I see. Steven Stahlberg is it? Must have a look at that one tonight, thanx gster. I may even have seen that a few months ago and dismissed it as way too far in the future for me. It's amazing how much easier and faster something is when you're really enjoying yourself.

Guess I really should get back to her, too much tv and gaming these last couple nights, man it's hot in Melbourne at the moment. Staying at 25-30 deg C overnight is nothing out of the ordinary at the moment and I don't have air-conditioning.

Oh well, Copper Zombie, here I come...

EDIT: Just found something by Stahlberg on Human Skin Shading. It's here.

Simon.

Just a bit more progress, I've been slack:blush:

Think I'm about finished with modelling her hair and gloves now. I may put in a little more detail and a few more wrinkles around the wrists, I'll see how I go.

Plz excuse the rough hair - UVd in 5 mins, textured in about the same, just want to get a feel for it as I go.

Time for the loin-cloth, skirt, clothing wrinkles and belt. Think I may leave her arms bare, preffer to see at least a little skin..

I'm happy to be here after 4 months of teaching myself.
S.

looks pretty good so far, and i LOVE the hair in the back. you didn't actually model the gloves over top of the hands, did you? (any way we could see a close-up of the hands? from the last pic they look a little flat.)

"Just a bit more progress, I've been slack"

haha dont worry, i have too :p

really love the hair now... its looks much better longer at the bank than the last post you did when she had none :| lol,

also just wondering, i said this along time ago but i think i see it again or is it my eyes lol, looks like there no kind of wrist from here. could you post a pic from a better angle at that simon, thanks man...

cheers

marlon

Cool as, thanks Neo.

Heheh, nah - didn't bother to do the hands as well. I'm a bit stupid at times, but too lazy to have fallen for that..;)

Here you go, Hands and Hair again..

Simon.

EDIT: Thanx Marlon, how's this for a better angle?

cool cool.... thanks

the hand/wrist area looks good from last time when you didnt really have any lol. i really like the hair once again, it looks pretty cool :)

i think i shall go to bed... i got a massive headache and look at the time, 4:34am :|