Rogue 3D Model, No fancy cryptic title needed.

Who remembers this terribly-formed thing which causes me to physically shudder when I think of it? Or these rushed, malformed efforts at learning basic geometry modelling? I do. They sucked.

But that's fine, because as we all know, creating dreadful things is an unavoidable part of pursuing a new creative skill.

The next step is making nicer things:

(Posted Image)

I've built him especially to rig for animation as well, which is the next thing I'd like to learn inside of Cinema4D. Major thanks to Virus who sat down and made me detailed sketches for the reference proportions, otherwise I'd never have even started this. My work timer says I've spent just over 20 hours on this file, with probably a lot more to come as I prep it for animation. Thanks for the kind words from people I've shown it to during development so far. But not the unkind ones. Feldoon.

Current Polygon Count: 3,964
(This increases to over 154,000 when I smooth it for rendering. For comparison, here's a chart of the TF2 character models' polygons at the highest and lowest Level of Detail, so he's pretty similar to the most detailed Pyro you can have. Pretty good going.)

Bonus gif: Hair physics testing

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I've actually loved seeing you go from model to model, watching you constantly improve. Considering how rarely I post though, this is the first you've heard that from me.

If I may offer some feedback, if this is meant for animation, include some more edge loops around the parts that will bend. The elbows at the moment only have one edge loop, which means it won't bend properly. Same for the legs and fingers too; basically, all joints that will bend.

Your poly count is good, but your higher poly count worries me. Do you not have a smooth option in C4D? In Maya, I just smooth the model visually, which adds no extra polygons, and render using mental ray, which renders the smoothness. I'm sure you could cut down render time massively if you had an option like this.

You have done a really good job with the model though, and I can't wait to see more animation tests from you. Good luck to you. ^^

Thanks, Cal. Nice to know someone's keeping an eye out =D

Aye, that's one of the things I've got noted down: the only thing I really did going into this to preserve it for animation is to built it in that reference pose and to keep the model as clean as possible. I've just reached the turning point now, so next is adding mesh detail at joints, rebuilding that tail to be straight so I can then manipulate it with proper character tools, and rebuilding the eyelids properly once I find a good tutorial to help me with that.

Oh, I always use the phong tag (on any new primitives by default) and keep the model's base geometry as smooth as I can build it, but then before I render I'm stacking everything inside a HyperNURBS which is subdividing the geometry and smoothing all the points as curves. The 150,000 isn't "real" geometry unless I bake the HyperNURBS object, which would be absolute insanity.

Here's a gif of the HyperNURBS turning off and on:
(Posted Image)

Render times for both of these were very comparable, within a few seconds of each other: they do take over 6 minutes for a 1920x1080 frame, though, I'm cranking everything up, using Subsurface Scattering which is making that really nice red shadow come through the texture at the thinner points in the model, I'm using Area shadows, using Softboxes for lighting instead and anti-aliasing the hell out of it, there's some depth of field lens blur on the camera, and some blurriness in the reflections. If I just do base renders it only takes about 3 seconds to spit out a 1920x1080px image.

....*sigh. Eight and a half hours in as a laugh, I built a basic skeleton to bind the mesh to, to see what it was like. Since I knew I wasn't going to continue development of the skeleton until I'd finished building the model, I didn't go through and re-weight all the mesh binds to their joints. I added the default walk CMotion to the mesh, and got this.

(Posted Image)

that chest

That tail.

Congrats, I just burst into laughter, thank you. =P I am an animation student, so I've made my fair share of weird looking animation tests.

You sound like you've got a solid plan, better than what most of the rest of my class start out with... And it's good about the render time. A HyperNURBS seems to be pretty much exactly what I do in that case, it's false geometry, purely visual, except if you bake it. Never bake it. o_o Lesson learnt two years ago on that one, when I broke a uni PC.

As for tutorials, head to Creative Cow, or C4D Cafe. You might find something there; else youtube always has something. What I've done for eyelids in the past is either make it a seperate object entirely, parent them to the head joint, and use blendshapes to move them. Or you can put a rig in the eyelids too, to move them up and down. Or have them as part of the same mesh as the head, and do the same as the above (though that was tricky to rig, I tend to only do that to models for still shots or 3d printing now).

If you do need one more person to give you critique along the way, I'm pretty sure you have me on Steam. Grab me at any time. ^^

Just add some googly eyes right above and and you're all set!

Seriously though, that looks awesome. If I had the tools/talent/time, I'd try my hand at Blasphemy.

Thanks, man. People have been asking if I plan to make the other three guys, answer is no, not right now.

1) I've still got hours and hours of stuff to learn and do to get this one animated, which was my original project goal.
2) Virus and East wear clothes and a big trenchcoat each. That's a whole new avenue of learning Cloth and adding dynamics to characters. If I'm currently worried at the prospect of having to tie Rogue's belt and pendant to that mesh, I don't think I can tackle that just yet.
3) I don't think Lothar would be something animated with the pure Character controls alone. Rogue's nice because all his limbs are natural, and the joints should have some flexibility to morph between poses. Lothar's legs and arm are all mechanical and shouldn't deform in the slightest, so he'd be a mix of Character controls and me keyframing the rotation and position of the metal limbs.
4) Rogue's the one who's more believable in whatever animation you have him doing; I won't feel restricted whether if I want to have him running up vertical trees or just sitting in a chair. What would you animate East and Virus doing, going to the shops to get the paper and a Cornetto?

Bonus images, progression shots:

1 hour
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3 hours
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6 hours
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7 hours
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14 hours
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18 hours
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And head to the first post in the thread for 20 hours. And yes, roughly 2/3 of this project was spent doing the head alone.

I dunno, I suspect you could get away with character controls. I don't often draw it big or detailed enough so you'd notice, but (at least after having them replaced in Taika) he has a sort of flexible rubber covering on the joint. Like on a car gearstick. As long as you weighted the solid limb section to its bone, only allowing the deformation to happen within the ribbed joint, I think it could work.

Not saying "you should totally do Lothar!", but just some info should you feel the urge to do another guy further down the line.

Your Rogue is awesome, yay Rogue.

Cooool. So when's the 3D animated series due?

After the 2D animated series is successful, the 2D animated movie tanks at box office, and the franchise waits twelve years before the licensing is bought by a small production company and it resurfaces as a short series of made-for-TV 3D animated movies.

It does beg the question when I'll be able to do something even with a short narrative, though.

Sorry, all I could think of when looking at that was this stupid video. Complete with music.

After the 2D animated series is successful, the 2D animated movie tanks at box office, and the franchise waits twelve years before the licensing is bought by a small production company and it resurfaces as a short series of made-for-TV 3D animated movies.

It does beg the question when I'll be able to do something even with a short narrative, though.

Sign me up for that. I need employment the same way I'd need smokes if I ever actually smoked. I'm decent when it comes to Storyboards.

But the model? It's insanely well done and has a nice sharp Rendering.

Rigged and weighted the model semi-properly, and played with the CMotion walk cycle stuff for a short while. Will probably need to re-do all of this when I have more knowledge, and I'm unsure why the fingers aren't being controlled properly by the parent hand object, but it's a start.

(Posted Image)

Its been said before, but I can't help but think of, "Going to the store".

Either way, this is all pretty impressive dude. As others have said, seeing the development is pretty rad. I've considered getting into 3D modeling once or twice...

How costly is it, and what would I even need?

To remain legitimate and understand the basics of modelling, I would recommend downloading Google Sketchup and finding a good tutorial site.

Like anything else, you'd also need a willingness to learn (and a goal or reason to), and patience to understand that, like any creative pursuit, you won't be a savant and be churning out stuff to compete with Pixar on your first try. You're also going to need to enjoy it. If you lack any of these you're going to be really into it for a few weeks, and then realise you have better stuff to do.

I model in my spare time because I am paid to use this piece of software on a daily basis, and I want to be as useful as possible to them, and one of the only bad feelings I have remaining at this job is when I'm asked whether something is possible for me to do in C4D, and that conversation ends with "Okay, we'll get a freelancer in".

Down the line, the copy of Cinema 4D I use is £3,360.

To remain legitimate and understand the basics of modelling, I would recommend downloading Google Sketchup and finding a good tutorial site.

Like anything else, you'd also need a willingness to learn (and a goal or reason to), and patience to understand that, like any creative pursuit, you won't be a savant and be churning out stuff to compete with Pixar on your first try. You're also going to need to enjoy it. If you lack any of these you're going to be really into it for a few weeks, and then realise you have better stuff to do.

I model in my spare time because I am paid to use this piece of software on a daily basis, and I want to be as useful as possible to them, and one of the only bad feelings I have remaining at this job is when I'm asked whether something is possible for me to do in C4D, and that conversation ends with "Okay, we'll get a freelancer in".

Down the line, the copy of Cinema 4D I use is £3,360.

Well I've got the reason for sure, and I'm definitely in need of the ability to model stuff on my own, bigtime. Got a lot of stuff I wanna' make, but can't depend on others to do, or even do right, y'know?

As for the freelancer thing, ouch. And regarding the price tag... WOOOOWWWWEEE dang that's high. But worth it I'm sure. I'll check out Sketchup- I had it once but didn't really know what to do- didn't really have the drive then, either.

But, hey- thanks. I'll see what I can't pop out, eh?

Nice! How about models of the other characters, including on of Virus with removable clothing (and, of course, boxers)?

http://z8.invisionfree.com/Exterminatus_No...?showtopic=2162

Just read that. I really shouldn't have to be telling people this. Topic closed.

You know you've been slacking when your thread gets a little bit of necromancy going on.

Anyway, I knew I went into this wanting to get it animated, and I've been doing a bunch of tutorials to prepare for it, but I'd been getting slow with it. So, I asked Virus for:

1) Some animation Rogue has to do
2) A deadline
3) A penalty for if I fail to deliver a proof of concept by the deadline

The result of this was knowing that I need to "Do him creeping cautiously through the fog, like the recent comic. He's looking around, on his guard, ears pricked, hand on his sword. It's straightforward, but something that can be imbued with character and emotion" by February 1st. Thing is, he's such a kind-hearted kind of kind guy who's so kind and wouldn't come up with a penalty, so I had to ask around other more nefarious people, since it was getting closer to the time when I could actually do something for this project rather than sit around up north eating all the food I wouldn't usually eat but my parents had bought so I eat it so they don't end up eating food they shouldn't be eating at their age.

Roadmap:

Sun 6th: All Vertex Pusher Advanced Vol. 3 and Master Level 2 tutorials watched
Sun 13th: Model fully rigged & weighted (determine to what level after watching tutorials, may not include belt/eyes/necklace/physics hair/correctly rigged tail)
Sun 27th: Animated sequence done, rest of time is tweaking & compositing

Penalties for failing are as follows, and yes, I'll be doing all of them if I don't have enough to show by Feb 1st.

====

Lothar: Play through all of (insert FPS game I've forgotten the title of because it was so generic) Turning Point: Fall of Liberty
Feldoon: Read Fifty Shades of Grey on my daily commute to work. Kindle version not allowed. No hiding the cover.
Silv: Leekspin 10 hour loop. No breaks.
Niles: Serious Sam: The First Encounter on Mental difficulty

===

Please feel free to contribute to this list, but I do have the power of veto for anything illegal, financial, too publicly humiliating, or just plain nope (for example, Feldoon, I cannot streak through Hyde Park in nothing but a thong).

Turning Point: Fall of Liberty.

Oh god, that brings back bad memories, and I actually finished it as well.

Alternatively you could play Halo 4 on Legendary on solo with ALL THE SKULLS.

I never played Halo series... but it sounds scary. Even more scary than playing Serious Sam: The First Encounter on Mental difficulty all alone.

Btw, maybe put something from me as well? Hmmm...

Getting all achievements in Super Meat Boy(no achievement hacks)
OR
Vanaduke run in Spiral Knights
OR
Serious Sam: The First Encounter on Mental difficultly(which gonna be avaliable only then you'll finish the game on Serious difficultly, if I remember that right)(should be done without any kind of cheats)

All of them sounds both crazy and funny for me(exept Vanaduke - I'm so SK geek, even done Shadow Lairs...)

Sometimes I love you Fel. Just sometimes.

But really, I can't wait to see what you get Pix. I remember seeing your first forays back in the day so to see how this has continued to advance and develop from you is incredible.

Sometimes I love you Fel. Just sometimes.

Originally my suggested forfeit was to jog through Hyde Park wearing nothing but a thong and nipple tassels. But according to someone that's just "too humiliating". Someone who doesn't understand forfeits.

He should stand in the gallowgate draped in a union jack singing the national anthem.