the new dragon - Page 5 - Simply Maya User Community

# 61 08-09-2003 , 03:53 PM

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Thank you for the compliments guys! The texture is, again, temporary (but you are probably sick and tired of hearing that...)

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# 62 11-09-2003 , 04:57 AM

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so lets see a non tempory texture then!

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# 63 11-09-2003 , 10:20 PM

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I have been spending the past couple of days stitching UVs and I am going nuts! In fact traveler, I think I am going to adopt your little animation: it looks like me, banging my head against the table like that...

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# 64 12-09-2003 , 12:46 AM

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Hey silvia... I'm starting my own dragon now. I also found a tutorial I like; the one that comes with maya! (Not the best, but the best I've found...)

Not much to show yet, he's just a brick so far. Working on the head first. Would you rather I start a separate thread for my wip pics, or can I post them here? It wouldn't exactly be off topic since it is a dragon (although it will be a totally diffrent style) I figure this is your thread, so I thought I'd ask. user added image

I'll at least get him modeled while you're texturing yours. When you're happy with your textures, hopefully I'll be at least done with the modeling part and we'll get these suckers rigged user added image

Just for a little update, one tutorial suggests separating the parts of the wings that should be "soft" (flexible) from the rest, and parent it. Then make it a soft body. That leaves tons of potential problems... as you can imagine. another method described suggests painting it on the wings. I think I'll go for the second...

Me and THIS army!

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# 65 13-09-2003 , 12:10 AM

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I'd love to see the dragon you are doing! Are you going to post it sometimes? Also I will have to try all the soft body thing...

In the meantime, I have been cracking my skull against the texturing part. Here is a first attempt at bump+displacement+color.

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Last edited by silviapalara; 13-09-2003 at 04:34 AM.

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# 66 13-09-2003 , 06:27 AM

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If you are wondering where the nostril went in the last render... you were right!!!! Here is the new and improved texture, with nostrils, discoloration around the mouth, and tweaked bump map.

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# 67 13-09-2003 , 01:24 PM

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Look good cheep it up!

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# 68 13-09-2003 , 05:35 PM

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Silva NICE texture work there =D be careful around the front of the snout though, i see some weird texture deformations going on there =P

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# 69 13-09-2003 , 08:01 PM

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Originally posted by silviapalara
If you are wondering where the nostril went in the last render... you were right!!!! Here is the new and improved texture, with nostrils, discoloration around the mouth, and tweaked bump map.

Originally Posted by

my computer's been broke for a while so i havent been able to see this, but WOW!!!11 That is looking fantastic! great work!!!

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# 70 13-09-2003 , 08:29 PM

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Lovely textures. Perhaps changing the colour of the horn at the end of the snout to a more bone like, perhaps tooth coloured texture? A fleshy scaley horn just doesnt seem right.

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# 71 13-09-2003 , 11:58 PM

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Thank you for the compliments everybody! I am a bit more comfortable with plain painting than 3D modeling, maybe because I have been painting since I can remember while I have been modeling for a few months only.
For the UV distortion, unfortunately I know. That was the reason I was going crazy: I was trying to lay down the UVs of the head all in 1 piece to make the texture painting easier, but at the same time have as little deformation as possible. This was the version with the least deformations I am afraid...
For the horn, very good point, because I have no idea what color to make it. I tried making something more similar to the teeth texture early on, but it was so bright it stood out too much. The current texture is not supposed to be fleshy, just of a darker color that makes the transition between the skin and the bone a bit less dramatic.
Thank you for the comments everybody!

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# 72 15-09-2003 , 04:18 AM

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It looks like if I want to match that on texturing, then I've got my work cut out for me. Texturing takes me a long time user added image

Okay, I have my dragon mostly modeled. There are some very obvious problems with it, though. Feel free to point these problems out, but know that I am aware of them. (the hands, and yes those are hands, need work for example)

This is the general look I wanted. Well, sort of. I wanted him to appear playful. A friend saw this and said it reminded him of "Spyro." Well, I never had Spyro in mind but at least I knew I was on the right track.

The reason for this is because I have an animation in mind that would really only work with a playful dragon anyway. Not too playful, it is supposed to be an adult, but playful nonetheless.

Things I'm thinking about changing:

1. The hind feet need some work. I was never really sure how I wanted the back feet to look, so I just went for the dinosaur feet. (The front feet are supposed to look like hands and will be used as such in the animation)

2. The hands don't quite look proportionally correct. I sort of used my own hands as a reference, but they don't quite look right. Larger perhaps?

3. The hind quarters has had almost no attention. Notice this is a front view, he doesn't look this pretty from the back. Don't expect sexual equipment, though, but it does need to look anatomically correct.

4. This is instanced halves, so that seam won't be there when I merge the two halves together. I have not done this yet, so at least for now the seam will remain. (I was going to do a spine there, but the poly count was getting high... I may still do a spine via bump mapping, but we'll see.)

Okay, I would love to hear some suggestions on the problems I listed above, and if you see one I didn't mention, then please point it out so I can fix it. I want to get any problems worked out before I move on to step 3: texturing. (step 1 was concept, 2 was modeling)

Also, anything I should change? Remember the type of dragon this is supposed to be. Also of note, he will talk. (very little, but he will) but mostly his emotion will be shown through facial expressions. That said, How can I improve this model?

Sorry about the long post. Here is the image:

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Me and THIS army!

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# 73 15-09-2003 , 04:23 AM

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Whoa, just loaded this page on my laptop... apparently my other comp has a much higher resolution than this thing. (the laptop is 1k, and the pic is wider than the screen)

sorry about that, I'll scale down my images in the future...

Me and THIS army!

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