HD Models

[s13n1]

Hi guys, new member here.

I'm a long time Quake fan, and have come here to see if maybe i could offer some services.

I've recently started making some high poly models to brush up on my skills before i start making models for my full time project, which is a remake of the 1998 game Trespasser.

Dinosaurs are going to require some real top quality work, and i'm aiming for quality as good as the first film, so over the last month and a half i've really buckled down and learned all the basics that ive ignored for many years.

I started modeling back around 97-98 and used a very old version of Lightwave, maybe 5.6, im not sure. I never really did anything other than make low poly models and maybe once in a while created a basic scene and render them. I never learned how to UVunwrap a model properly, so my work was mostly untextured and just for fun.

Long story short, about 2 months ago i started learning 3DS Max by making 3D geometry for some high res textures i was making for Doom64. I was then rendering displacement maps from these for POM or tessellation.









I learned a lot about basic Max modeling from this and moved on to try making a weapon and some other random objects, before making my first organic character in Max, the Pinky demon.







I used the pinky model to learn how to UVunwrap it using a very cool program called Unfold3D. I then imported the mesh into MudBox to try out and after 6 hours of sculpting while learning how to use MudBox, i came up with this:









I was pretty blown away by how easy MudBox was for a complete noob to produce decent results, so after seeing the features in the latest version i bought the 2014 version immediately.

I'm now about 85-90% into my second sculpt attempt, and although this one gave me some real headaches at first, i managed to get the problems sorted and he's looking pretty cool.

This ones the Infantry form Quake 2.


Full size: (2560x1477)
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3742/1...5459d6b8_o.png


Full size: (2560x1477)
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2114/1...0a93e4e7_o.png

Obviously there's a bit of work left to do on the gun, and there is some more details i want to add here and there, but he's nearly finished. He is currently using the UV-less PTEX system and has an equivalent level of detail to a 2048 texture. Once the models finished ill retopologize a lower detail mesh and transfer the paint and sculpt layers over. Hopefully i can get him down to about 5-7500, but for really AAA quality, he may need to be 10-15000 to maintain all the finer details.

For my next model i wanted to make another id software character and i was thinking of a Quake 1 enemy. I was leaning towards the Ogre or Enforcer, but i thought i might pop in here and see if there is a model that has not yet been given the high-poly treatment and i might be able to make it for you?

I have no intention of doing animation at this stage. I will probably learn that a bit later on once i've got this process perfected. I have animated some of my models in the past with pretty good results, but its been a long time and ill have to learn from scratch using Max. Doesn't look too difficult from what i've seen so far though.

Anyway, let me know what you think, could be a good thing for everyone.

Cheers.

[gnounc]

Your work is damn good. I dont have any suggestions for which model to do though.
The shambler is the most in need of a good HDRemake, but I think thats really down to how difficult it is to make a shambler hd.

[gdiddy62]

Wow!

Awesome work! Please continue!!

[talisa]

thats f-ing awesome!

i love doom64, imo its without a doubt the best doom there is <3
textures look superb and the pinkie looks fantastic, looks just like the sprite and how he looks on the old promo-art for doom64


you should totally continue making more doom64 stuffs!

if i recall correctly the maker of the doom64EX engine is implenting ability to use replacement art and models,
you could make them for use with that engine and help give us a HD doom64


.


not really that much of a fan of quake2, but that infantry guy also looks amazing!

im sure SZA would love to get his hands on that model you made, he's been busy for a long time making a more HD quake2

[s13n1]

Your work is damn good. I dont have any suggestions for which model to do though.
The shambler is the most in need of a good HDRemake, but I think thats really down to how difficult it is to make a shambler hd.

Thanks for the kind words everyone.

I dont think it would be very hard to make a shambler, its not an intricate model and has no hard surfaces at all. The sculpt could could easily be done in a day. The only trouble is try to interpret the low res details into something you can make high detail.

Without access to original concepts its difficult to know exactly how he was meant to look, so you have to use the original as a guide and do your best to add your own unique touch to the design.

The best thing to do with low poly or low res textures is to try and mimic the silhouette and nail the body shape. Even though these models can be blocky, there is still a lot of character in them, most of which we have grown to love over the years. This speaks volumes for the original artists to do such a wonderful job with such limitations.

The Infantry model for example was difficult to recapture the head, as the original was quite trapezoidal and sqaure in shape. I had to try and add a bit of that shape to it to recapture the original model. It just didn't look right till i did.

As far as Doom 64 stuff goes, it may be something i return to one day, as im a huge fan, but actually not a huge fan of all the designs. I'd probably mix and match a few.

If you guys can find any real concepts for quake, or really old art that might show what the shambler is meant to really look like, i can give it a go. Otherwise just whatever you'd like to see the shambler look like.

I'd prefer to keep things faithful though, and ive seen some of the fury or hairy examples and im not a big fan. I think i'd be leaning towards a leathery skin, like an old worn pig skin.

Anyway i gotta run, ill pop back later.

[s13n1]

Looking on Google it looks as if there's already a good range of different shambler models. I don't think there's really much need for another model.

I think I'll have a go at either the Enforcer or Ogre.

[Tea Monster]

Very nice work!

[MadGypsy]

Excellent work, S13n1! Remake the Hell Knight.

One question how have you done a perfect T pose?

Where is your skip button? I'm ready to listen to track 2. Hopefully it's titled something like "I dont give a shit about a t-pose anymore" or "I figured it out" or my favorite " I just realized 3 different people already told me how to do this over the last 7 days".

[s13n1]

I'm not sure what you mean by T pose? I just imported the original md2 into max and found a standing frame, mirrored it, and modified the arm for the gun.

I seen in another thread you're sculpting a model that looks like its in a walking frame. You'll have serious issues getting any kind of accuracy. Also, if you've turned off mesh smoothing to keep the models volume while subdividing, you'll run into issues later on while trying to retopologise it. Trust me.

If you want to minimize the smoothing effect, subdivide the model before importing.

[Tea Monster]

Pelt mapping can result in problems when baking normal maps.

You don't need a T pose. Trust me.

[gnounc]

The shambler models that come to mind have all been awful for various reasons. The ogre has already been done spectacularly by teamonster. I dont recall ever seeing a hellknight remake, so that request makes sense. Demon and scrag both benefit enough from texturing that they dont really need remakes. Theres that really good vore model thats been on the recent threads as of late. none of the remaining monsters are really eyesores that I can think of...So I'm interested to see what the concensus is and where this thread goes.

[Seven]

Looking on Google it looks as if there's already a good range of different shambler models. I don't think there's really much need for another model.

I think I'll have a go at either the Enforcer or Ogre.

Hello s13n1,

Seeing that you was using google to see what Quake replacement models exist,
there is a dedicated thread that lists all of them here.

Its 1st post lists almost all existing higher poly replacement monster models for Quake with screenshots.

There is this additional Shalrath monster, that gnounc mentioned. You can find it here.
It aims at the exact detail level, that you want I guess.

Last but not least, not long ago we made a poll / vote about which monster replacement should be made next: here.

That should give you a good overview now, about what we already have (enforcer is one of them) and what is still *missing*.

Happy modeling

[s13n1]

SZA, you should really learn to model in traditional ways before using mudbox, you will make things very hard for yourself. Particularly when dealing with low poly models.

You will quickly discover they have a limitation to how much you can sculpt before they require retopologization or to be edited prior to importing them into mudbox.

Also, if you have not edited that soldier model and his arms are still separate from the body and the little muzzle flash ball still inside the body, you will have more issues.

I rebuilt a lot of the infantry before importing him into mudbox. Joined arms to shoulders, added more detail to legs and armor, removed gun clip and muzzle flash. All these separate pieces are considered "islands" in mudbox, and you won't be able to retopologize your model with them, unless you make the all separate objects loaded individually into mudbox.

The gun barrel on the infantry model has no UV problems, the model has no UVs. It uses the UV-less PTEX system. The end of the barrel simply has some bulges from subdivision smoothing. I should have chamfered the edges rather than subdividing the whole model in max before hand. Lessons learned.

The processes are changing and one day there won't be UV maps. PTEX allows you to focus on sculpting and painting and worrying about UVs later.

Edit:

Here is an example of what i did to the infantry to prepare it for better sculpting in Mudbox:



Subdividing in max beforehand will help keep its shape, reducing the smoothing effect of the subdivision. You cant just turn of smoothing as the model needs it for other actions later on.

I should have chamfered all hard edges first, then subdivided the entire model.

In actual fact, i should have done a 2500-3500 poly rebuild of the entire model before importing into mudbox. It would have saved me a huge amount of time.

[s13n1]

Dude. You don't. I've looked through your thread.

Sculpting a model that's in a walking frame is such a bad move, anything you say from here on won't be taken seriously.

I don't mean to be rude to you, but when someone offers friendly advice, you take it. If you don't agree with it, that's fine, its your right, but don't counter the argument with incorrect information.

If you have any plans to take that model and import it into the game, you will work from a generic pose that's mirrored as much as possible. This allows your sculpting on one side to happen to the other side at the same time, halving your work.

For unique details, you simply disable mirroring and add them later. Much later.

The details you've started adding should be added a lot later in the sculpt. Start big and work your way down to the very fine details. These things take a long time to come together.

Joining the arms to the shoulders is only a bad move for people who don't know how to model or animate. Its not an issue. The original models had separate arms because it generally requires more polys to create joints that bend smoothly, allowing easier animation. Paul Steed made the right choice by separating them, it saved a lot of polys. Also the design of the characters with big vests and cyborg body parts lends well to hiding the lack of real joints. I can guarantee if Paul was alive today, his models wouldn't have separate arms.

How many modern games do you see with separate arms? Exactly.

Moving the arms will not solve the issue i described. Retopologizing is taking a hi poly mesh and lowering the polys to something usable in game. The latest mudbox will do this for you, but it wont perform it on models with separate pieces. This means arms not part of the main body will be considered "islands" and it wont let you retopologize. Been there, done that.

Your only other option is to load them in as separate objects and sculpt and retopologize them all separately. Then you will have multiple models with separate UV's you will need to merge into one later, creating even more work.

I know exactly why your sculpting the way you are. Its so the original model can retain the UV so you can sculpt it in MudBox without having to edit the model or make a new UV yourself. This will not work, because you will reach the point where your sculpt, no matter how good it is, will no longer match the topology of the original mesh and the UVs will be all messed up. Your bake will not align correctly with the original low poly model, ruining all the work you've done.

Trust me. Been there, learned that with the pinky demon. And i made the model and the UV's myself.

There is no cheap and easy way to take an already textured model and make it more detailed with Mudbox. Its not going to happen. At some point your going to need to remake the UV's and make a new low poly mesh to bake the details onto.

The latest version of MudBox provides the best solution for those who cant model in traditional ways, but it still requires a lot of work to get good results and you will need to learn how to UVunwrap at some point.

Sculpt Model > Paint Textures using PTEX > Retopologize new low poly mesh > Create UV > Bake paint layers and Sculpt onto low poly mesh > Done. Animate.

Download a program called Unfold3D. Try and get version 7 of the Demo. This version has a feature called "stamper", which the developers forgot to remove. This effectively bypasses the demo's save limitations. The program is awesome and you will learn to make great UV's is minutes. Dont get a newer version because it wont work, they removed the stamper feature and locked the demo properly.

I'm happy to offer advice and tips from what i've learned so far, if you don't want them, don't reply.

[MadGypsy]

BTW: Good to see you again Barnes

That's what I was thinking too!

Sza, you should humble yourself a bit, bro. This guys work is very good and all you have to do is read his posts to realize he knows what he is talking about.

Pelt mapping can result in problems when baking normal maps.

can you elaborate (for the sake of education)?