Hero, a work in progress

We have a small (and by small i mean HUGE!!!) problim.

Hero looks terrible with eyebrows!!!

This makes my eyes sting.
I really dont know what to do about it. Both these models are roughly the same stage and the only noteable difference is the eyebrows but the one on the left looks way better (even though its a work in progress and still needs tonnes done to it) I dont think remodeling the brows will make any difference either, the only solution in can think of at the moment is too have brows kinda like girl gnome and then emphasize the expression by using the lip of the cowl, but i dunno, we really need to sit down and have a brainstorm session.

Things that still need work on Hero-
His face is too flat and has got rippling happening on it that need sorting.
Beard needs finishing (is it working?)
Belt needs attaching - its modeled and i've made it a bit different from Machos by fleshing out the buckle.
Belt hoops need adjusting and attaching.
Need to sort his belly out (you can really see it here but hes somehow aquired a beer gut?!?)
Need to do new set of teeth cuz Macho's are too chunky.
Probably something else but i cant think of it right now...possiby make his hat taller...

In other news, adding more texture to Macho should be easy enough we just need to put another bump map on him which was only cracks+chips in his surface.

Today was probably the last day im gonna spend on Gnomes, tis gonna be dissertation from here on in.

Quick Texture Test

Got bored of writing dissertation and started looking at blogs and saw what Lewis and Tom were doing on the skinning of their characters so i thought i would see if we could devlop that a bit and apply it to our Gnomes.

Its only a pretty quick test to see if it was a process we could use and i'm quite pleased with the way its come out.
Right i think this is looking surprisingly good considering its the texture Sarah gave me colourized red and then a greyscale pic of some concrete applied as a bump and an occlusion. The sub surface scattering really adds alot more to the texture. With the proper textures and a bump map that ive actually spent some time on, shadows etc I think we could get this looking really good.

Heros still in the works - having a little trouble adding subdivs to his body without getting major pinching in his hat.

Edit: Uploading this JPEG onto the internet has lost a noticeable amount of quality.

Kid Killer McGee!

Cuz i forgot my memory stick today i couldnt get on with modelling the snail, however this allowed me to finish my rigging tests and im now relativly confident that all areas should work, the arm joint leaving the mesh works on Machos arms, Machos brow is gonna have 6(ish) seperate sections that will move independantly of each other and i found a youtube tut on creating a stretch IK(dave then came in and spoke about he created one for polished off and what he was descibing seemed to match the vid) and i managed to get some other modeling done, so quite a good day today.

Last coupla days ive got Macho UV'd, i need to go back over and make some changes but for all intents and purposes he's done and ready for rigging, and i'm nearly done modeling the snail who has been named Kid Killer McGee


He's still a work in progress, need to sort out the shell in a couple of places and pull it back under the shell-lip ive given him and bring the start of it down a bit so that the shell looks more connected to his body instead of just set ontop of it....reading back over it that last sentance doenst make alot sense but i cant think of another way to word it...i know what i mean.

2 comps in as many weeks

Right basically my laptop has caught alzheimers and corrupted, i havnt lost anything on the project because ive got all my gnomes work backed up in about 3 places but i still lost loads of my personal stuff and its hindered me quite badly this weekend. So im not best pleased atm. Ive still got my PC (which is what i work on at home anyway) but it means that i can't work on maya in the animation room cuz for some reason maya doesnt work on my uni profile in the animation room (sounds weird but trust me it doesnt).

EDIT: Have JUST got maya working on my dads laptop which is exactly the same as my old one so i'll be using that for the time being in uni.

Spent the last couple of days UV mapping - something which up until now i have been able to avoid to the best of my ability. Im not gonna lie its been pretty tuff going, and a number of times i've had to get up and walk away from it out of frustration, but we're making progress.

Ive still got loads to do on it and its full of errors but we're getting somewhere even if it is at a snails pace.

Noticed a couple of horrible glaring errors with the textures me and Sarah created from scratch involving the canvas underlay - it makes the texture look like a patchwork quilt.

Sarahs texture:

Matts Texture- He looks knitted.
This is something that is going to need adressing but im probably gonna leave all further texture tests till after ive completly got him UV'd - i just want to get it done and out the way.

Also did some really quick rock texture tests (think 30 mins) but am horrified with the results because they're terrible.

SHIELD YOUR EYES!!!

Yeh so gonna get on with the UV mapping and get it out of the way.

Reminds me of My childhood.

A wee bit off topic but something i'd like to show, One of the pieces nominated for an animated short Oscar.

Lets hear a shout out for excentric grannies everywhere.


Lovin the hair on both characters, and the way that the evil witch flies with the walking frame.

Looksie

The turntable of Macho, gives a much better view of what the nose looks like.


And the texture without the tea stain layer applied.

More Nose

We'll get there.


Righty this is how the nose is on the model sheets, and im not sure whether the mesh will support the nose going any thinner, i'll render out a quick turntable of the face tommorow morning so you can see it more dimensionally then get on with the blendshape tests.

Back to the texures.

Righty, playing with textures. We're now reaching a stage where we can begin to start thinking about texturing bits and pieces and theres an issue that i've been putting off for a little while now, we've been using one master texture for everything we've done thus far, and i do mean everything. All of my tests have been done with this texture all, the colour scriptings been done with this one texture, all the character colour tests have been done with this one texture.

The problm lies in that its only a small texture (800x800 - the grass tests i did were about the limit it can be used for) and we cant apply it to everything cuz it'd look ridiculously reptitive.

I've done quite a bit of searching and i can find another texture thats going to be able to match this one...and so ffar i got nothing, so methinks we're gonna have to make our own.
This is the texture i used for the watering can. 2 layers - base texture and brush overlay

Spent about an hour or so this afternoon just playing with making something on par with how the master texture looks. The main layer of the texture is some coffee stains on paper then ive layered it with photoshop brushes, canvas texture and underlay colour.
Whatcha think, i quite like it but its too busy.

Its a huge texture (look at this texture at its full scale, this is a quarter of it) so we can adapt it easily enough.

Lemme know ure thoughts - back to Macho.

Who knows? Sarah nose.