Happy New Year...

As is tradition for me, I don't rest no matter the day, Christmas, New Years, I keep working. :)

I have nearly finished my Phoenix Wright model, and in about 3 days! I am very impressed at my determination, I had so much fun with modelling it. I will post a process picture in the New Year.

For now, I'm modelling the last part, the ear. I am terrible at modelling this ear...

 Grrr! Ears! Can't draw them, can't model them.

Also before I sign off, on my usual noseying at games industry job positions and requirments, I spotted a software some companies were after called Crazy Bump. I've downloaded the 30 day free trial, and put my rough colour Neku UV.png through it, and I'm doing it mostly by guessing, but oh wow! The results are too cool! But still early days, I need to really understand the texturing first.













Maybe I could use it for my Phoenix Wright models suit? To create fibers? Or pores in the skin, or strands of hair effect? Too exciting...I'm really enjoying 3D. What a contrast from my fear of it, 3 months ago. Haha. :)

Signing off, happy new year to those following my blog and musings. Thank you.

Revisting Neku Model

Hope you all had a great Christmas, and aren't working through it like me. I can never seem to stop and chill.

Neku model update:

- I added a sweat band on his wrist. How on earth did I miss something like that?
- I had fully UV unwrapped him, but something went terribly wrong with the fingers. No matter what, texture didn't affect certain areas. I had to go and clean up normals and weird shapes in the model. The model was better, but still, no luck with fingers. So I abandoned the UV maps/rough textures I had done in the past few weeks, and with the help of HeadusUV software, redid my UV maps (which I can always submit too, as proof that I did do it by hand!)
- Rough textures layed on top. Messing around with it, like do I want it detailed, or any gradient, or thick black lines ontop of it?

So here's a screenshot with the rough textures...I think next I update, it'll be about textures and the final model :)

Also! I got to put it through Mixamo and see it animated. It was amazing to see my model come to life like that!! I can't wait to put the final model through :)

I have also started working on my Phoenix Wright model. I'm loving it, but regretting picking Phoenix, since he HAS a brand new 3D model. I have to make my 3D model suitable for home consoles...hmmm...

Until next time...

Eyes!!

Ah, update sooner than I thought! I went back to redo the eyes. It's been a struggle, but a semi sphere was just not going to look good. I've mentioned him before, but I noticed what Hazard did with his Miku model's eyes:

A flat plane with the image on top. I replicated this in Neku:

After UV and texturing, if it still doesn't look correct, I'll rethink what to do about it. :)

Cleaned and Smoothed

As title suggest, I've gone in and tried to clean up as much as possible. I'm very fond of the "Sculpt Geometry Tool", great for pinching, smoothing/relaxing, etc. Only problem I find with it is I wish it mirrored (and if it does, I didn't know!). Very difficult to get even parts sometimes.

worked further on face, and still not happy with chin area. But unsure what to do at this point.

Parts of the model have been smoothed, other areas I've left with hard edges. Especially hair spikes are hard. The 2D images of Neku feature thick bold black lines, and hopefully having hard edges in the right area and the textures will reflect a better 3D from 2D image of Neku. The black bold lines were excluded from Neku's Kingdom Hearts model (to fit the Kingdom Hearts style.)

The model has now been separated into pieces too, such as skin, face (so I can focus on that area separately), hair, eyes, belt, mp3, shoes, shirt, and trousers. Debating if I should have a separate one for the mouth bag inside, though I doubt I will have to.

From here on, I'm going to fix up the eyes (so they fit better) and then begin to UV and apply placeholder textures, until I like the look and begin to paint them.

Modelling + Hair

Neku model is now down, and now needs to be cleaned up of unnecessary shapes/edges, UVing, put some place-holder textures on, smoothed out, and a general all over cleaning up :) Not in that order though :)

While I'm very happy with how the hair turned out in the end (after redoing, the first attempt was too flat and incorrected. Started relooking at concept (2D) pictures of Neku, as well as how the Square Enix team tackled his hair in the Kingdom Hearts 3D game. Video reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zTW5v_SCHI

I am worried at how many edges/tris there are in the hair. It's somewhat messy, and I'm scared to go into it. I may ask Ken for advice here....

Model currently:

Until next time!