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ADSohr

4 (9.8%)

AirAKose

2 (4.9%)

davdud101

0 (0%)

headwax

3 (7.3%)

Indian8or

11 (26.8%)

Johnar

4 (9.8%)

Josmic8or

3 (7.3%)

Mills

14 (34.1%)

Total Members Voted: 23

Voting closed: February 25, 2010, 12:17:20 am

[Indian8or]

The difference between yours and ours, Indian8or, is that we don't have a suitable render to call "final". Yours may be only the head and wings, but there are elements in the scene that qualify it as a complete entry.

Personally, I was going to toss this render up right before the deadline, but I was doing a lot of other tasks while I was rendering and the whole computer choked. It's basically what I could pose from his left side of the body being rigged As you can see, the legs aren't complete and the wings were done shoddily, so I wasn't complaining.

Not sure why we're causing a great injustice We failed to finish in time and that's it.

No offence buddy.   By the word injustice, I just wanted to say that your entries, at whatever stages they are, would have taken these challenges to a new high as I personally liked them very much.  However, good job everyone.

[rellik420]

mills: did you rig and pose that model? or did u just model it in the pose. if you posed it... how did u get it to wrinkle underneathe on the high hump?

raxx: u gonna finish that or what? even if u dont id still like to see a wire frame. im curious of how you modeled the muscular arms.

good luck to every1 who entered. and congradulations on seeing this through. win or lose you still got something accomplished.

[Raxx]

Whoops, I did say I'd post a wireframe didn't I...yeah I'll be finishing it during my "free" free time.

Detailing makes for a messy mesh, especially when reinforcing edges everywhere Ignore the wings and unfinished areas, those'll be changing...

[rellik420]

man i really have 2 revamp my modeling. i put way 2 many polies in my models 2 get the definitions im looking for. i think i need 2 simplify.

does the mesh really only need to be clean for rigging? like with what your actually going to move? i spend most of my time trying to get quads on everything, but with the looks of that it looks like "whatever works" works.

anyway thanks for the wireframe i think i learn the most by just looking at wireframes. great job

[Raxx]

does the mesh really only need to be clean for rigging?

Yes and no. If you don't intend on animating then whatever works will work. If you intend to animate then the basics of keeping quads and a higher concentration of edge loops around joints is what you have to keep in mind when modeling. If an area of a mesh you'll be animating won't be deforming, then you can cheat against the whole edge loops/quads-only deal and do what you want to make it work. But trying to get quads on everything is the way to go regardless, and making as many of them into useful edge loops as possible.

Now, with current technology it's easier to make a clean mesh with insane detail. Simply model a basic character without a lot of detail but with a good focus on edge loops and clean modeling, then zbrush all the details onto it. Bake the detailed version onto the clean version as a displacement map or normal map, and there you go. But with traditional modeling (what we do in Anim8or) it gets hard to have clean and detailed modeling.

Since originally I was only planning on posing the guy in a final render, I was making whatever works since I could get away with it. Now that I intend on animating it, I'll have to revisit all the areas of the mesh and make sure I've got it clean enough with proper edge loops. Right now my mesh is about 92% quads (though to be fair, a lot of the triangles are on the tips of the claws and horns and such), but most of the edge loops those quads make aren't "useful" edge loops that will aid in animation. For example, because I defined the muscles on the arm, if I select a loop of edges around where the elbow is, it won't go in a closed circle around the arm. Instead it follows up and around the shoulder or elsewhere.

But I intend to slack off a little because I have a high density of polygons on a subdivision mesh and therefore it'll deform the way I want even if it's a little sloppy For game models it's a bit more important to have edge loops and an efficient use of polygons since it'd be a lower density mesh.

[Mills]

That's undeniably fantastic work, Raxx; I look forward to seeing the end result, even more so if it's animated!

rellik420: My model is actually a composite. The head and body are 'built' as they appear (objects). The legs I decided to rig & pose in the scene, as it was the only sure way to get the toes on the ground. So I built one each of a left and right leg (and forgot to re-texture the toenails on the left leg before rendering! Darn local textures) and posed two of each in the scene.

Sorry if this takes up loads of space, but to answer questions, but I made the body in a very short space of time (<30 mins) in the following way:

Model a single Scale by point-editing a primitive cube (3,1,3) - Scale is 'tilted' forwards sufficiently to over/underlap with duplicates


Create a 12-sided n-gon as a guide


Duplicate and position 4 more Scales down one side of the n-gon (no care taken to be exact!) then mirror each in the x-plane


Create another Scale duplicate, then make it long by dragging the side points apart, then cut the elogated faces vertically several times, then apply a 90-deg bend modifier, with the object fitting exactly within the modifier length. Position this into the remaining gap in the Scale 'ring'. The n-gon guide can then be deleted


Group ALL the meshes, including the long (belly) Scale, copy and paste this, rotate 15-deg around the Z-axis to show inbetween the original Scale ring, then reposition along the Z-axis at an arbitrary seperation. Ungroup the new ring and DELETE the extra belly Scale as it was only included to keep the centre of the ring close to the world-centre when rotating the group. Mirror the odd number Scale in the new ring (in red)


Group EVERYTHING together, and copy, paste, paste, paste, paste, paste! until the 'tube' is a suitable length - I also added the back spines at this point, but they do not follow the scale duplication pattern, which helps avoid 'obvious' repeating in the pattern


Ungroup EVERYTHING then join it all together into a single, giant solid. Use a series of taper modifiers to almost close one end of the 'pipe' - I find several modifiers with a factor of 0.3 covering progressively more of the tube produce a much more natural result than one taper at 0.8. I also applied a subtle curvature (~0.1) and a very small twist (10-deg) to the entire body, again to increase subtle variation in the end result (not in picture)


And then it's just bend, bend, bend, bend. Modifiers get tricky as soon as an object starts 'almost' touching itself, but if you start from one end and keep a constant eye on what you're aiming for, it's usually possible.


So, apologies if I've bored everyone off to another website, but I hope that's of interest to some at least! I did consider rigging the whole body, but I'd need at least 100 bones for a decent result, and I just can't face setting the joint limits that many times. So I guess the 'wrinkle' is just an artifact of all the bending. There are a few other oddities on the body caused by the low poly Scales, but I don't think they do too much harm. Contrary to what's been said, I spent all my modelling time on the head, and had it looking exactly how I wanted, so body and feet were both a bit rushed.

[hihosilver]

Great explanation Mills!  Wonderful way of doing it.  Of course, in higher end programs you could simply use arrays for the scales, and use splines to rig the body of the model, but what you've managed in Anim8or is fantastic.  It's always great to hear about methods like this.  Great stuff!

[Raxx]

The winner has been decided! Congratulations to Mills for his first place entry, and Indian8or for taking second! A big congrats to all other finishers as well!

[$imon]

Yes! Congratulations to everyone and in particulary Mills! Awesome work! Can't wait to the next challenge!

[davdud101]

no congrats to me, huh... 0 votes.

[AirAKose]

Congrats everyone! Especially indian8or and mills

[davdud101]

Oh, wow, AirAKose. now I just feel 'great'.

[headwax]

Yes nice work lads! Cheers

[Mills]

Yes, well done everyone! Looking forward to the next one ...

[Indian8or]

Congratulations to Mills for the first place and everyone else for participation and special thanks to everyone for voting.

Next one quickly please.  Can I suggest one?  It is really a different concept.