Is this complicated armor doable for us ?
RorrKonn
Posts: 509
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?174659-Andrzej-Marszalek-Art-Dump
Could we make Armor as complicated as Firebats armor for M5.
With meshes over top of meshes and chains and all.
or would it be to complicated to make or use where it would not be feasible to make for M5 ?
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Pretty sweet modeling there. the problems i see with those kinds of outfits for this community would one be poly count. i like and use high poly meshes, but many can't deal with them on their machines. Also with the layered parts, without the advanced collision systems on high end apps, this would be a fitting and movement nightmare for most users here and developers also. You could go the game design route and rely heavily on normal mapping and displacement for the detail. I'd love to see some of that for genesis, but I can totally see some of the issues it might bring
Xurge3D would be someone i would like to see try to tackle this.
That is the crux for users that visit both communities, you have the basics of CGI and modeling here and the over the top, high end there and many times the two just aren't compatible with each other.
It seems to me that the average DS user is still debating whether or not they want to bother downloading the 64 bit version, because their machine isn't capable of running it...(yeah, it's an exaggeration...I think). The current version of DS is right on the edge of NOT being able to run (effectively) on 32 bit. When it finally crosses that edge and 64 bit becomes the 'standard' version, then maybe things like that armor will be 'doable'. It's going to take a lot of RAM to handle the poly count...
The other hold back, like FSMC mentioned, is lack of more than just rudimentary collisions, so things like the chains would need to be done as groups, instead of individual links or such.
Just looking at some of that stuff...there could be more pose controls in a single suit of it than in many entire 'average' scenes.
Those are gorgeous. At this point, though, they'd have to be done by using a lower-poly version and the Zbrush sculpt as displacement and a basis for the diffuse textures. And that's just the outfits themselves. The characters would be harder yet because of how much surface detail they have (again, gorgeous, it's really splendid concept work).
I doubt seriously whether there's going to be a "generation" of DS that can handle a billion polygons in a scene any time soon, and that's what you would have with actual meshes at this detail level if you had more than one at a time. I use the 64 bit version (most PAs do, I'm fairly sure) and there's absolutely no way on my own 6-core Intel machine.
Actually, I think that I'd be in a better position to run them than most users...mainly because I don't have Windows getting in the way. I've had a 100 million poly+ (untextured) mesh in DS, (32 bit with 4 GB system RAM/2 GB swap). If I had more RAM, I bet I could have loaded it's textures, as most of them were simple color maps...now actually rendering it would have been a chore. But the thing is, the limits aren't really DS itself...OS/system are more of the limiting factors.
Doable...I think so.
Practical...not any time soon (even a DAZ soon).
The best approach would be like SickleYield mentioned - a medium polygon version with the basic shape, and then displacement maps for the shaping details and bump maps for the high-frequency details (things like the relatively rough surface of wrought iron, etc, basically details that wouldn't change the silhouette any). Also, meshes over top of meshes is best done as basically faking it - the majority of the innermost layers would be only partially there. Having said that, I do break those 'rules' myself in some creations, but a full on product also has to take into account that people might use only part of the whole - only the boots, for example, or only the breastplate, or even only the under-tunic or hauberk.
Thanks for the info.
I'm making some ruff test meshes to see how how far we can go.
How about we model the originally mesh in C4D.
Depending on the mesh ,The polycount 20,000 to 100,000.
No higher then 100,000.
But I'll try to keep the polycount as low as I can.
Could we have two version ?
One with out displacement maps.
One with displacement maps.
You can see the wire frame.
That Polycount would be good for Poser ,Studio ,Yes ?
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?174659-Andrzej-Marszalek-Art-Dump/page2
The other thing you have to take into consideration when modelling for this community is cross-compatibility ... as in other Genesis shapes. If it's made for just M5 alone, you limit your market severely. Something this complicated and 'hard' modelled would need a bazillion morphs to make it work with other figures.
Those images with the wire frame... It is what I consider low poly. By the looks of the mesh, it uses Displacement maps and Opacity textures. It's pretty reasonable. It looks very complex in NON-Wireframe, but the mesh is quite doable, and Daz should be able to handle that mesh. Render times will be pushed though due to the detail and use of displacements, bumps and Opacity.
Making the FBM's for the many shapes will be a fair job to do, but if it was in parts, things begin to simplify. Though, all will need rigging and weight maps, which will certainly slow the process, but once it's done correctly all will be good.
I assume it's using sub division? If so, in Daz you are limited to 2 iterations, just keep that in mind. In my projects I generally stick to 1 iteration.
Normal maps are more likely than Displacement maps I'd think. You get a full set of XYZ coordinates with normal maps instead of just an up/down/strength layer as you get with Displacement/Bump.
I think the rendertime will be decent for one thing, there's no hair to push the rt through the roof. DS will easily manage 100k's of polygons.
problem with DS is that it doesn't preview anything in the viewport so you have to do a million spot renders. Granted the reason DS runs as well as it does is because it doesn't try to display the bells and whistles in the viewport, but there is a point where it's actually counter productive.
Daz would need a better viewport rendering option. One that doesn't kill the cpu/gpu (too much) but also does a better job showing what the content will look like rendered.
Some more cool stuff from BoBo_the_seal
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?170535-The-Character-Art-of-Darksiders-II-(new-images-pg-5-6-7)
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=103863
For those of us who hang out at Polycount (an invaluable resource but NSFW), Bobo is very well known. What he normally does is create a SUPER high polygon model, into the 10's of millions of polys, then uses that to bake ambient occlusion, cavity, and Normal maps, among others, by projecting them onto a low poly model (probably around 15,000 triangles / 7500 quads nowadays ). I use a similar technique, especially with the more detailed textures, but he takes it to a WHOLE other level.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE the angel of death. WOW.... the details are wonderful. Wings eerie and love the layer skirts. I think that would be doable in DS totally. It's about the poly count. Do low polys, make it Triax and let DS sub divide it up. One of the cool things about this is the cloth movement. Those kind of details are things that get sales from me. Cath is very good at achieving very realistic cloth folds in her works. Her current Santa thread in the Commercial forum is a good example.
You know, I've been investigating all the rigging options, and so far as I can tell, while it would be exceptionally difficult to rig any of those outfits, it's quite possible, especially with the rigidity options. I've been playing with rigging for the past three days, trying to get in touch with all the nuances of it. DS has a LOT of options for rigging that I've never seen before in anything but high end software.
Cripes! Why can't you get stuff like this at DAZ, even if it is scaled down in detail.
I would buy the lot.
It makes such a change from all the skankwear that comes out.
Cause no one is making it.
I do believe it can be done. It does not look complicated. Val already pointed out the basics and it should not be difficult for a skilled modeler to make the outfit.
Yes and no, or rather, it depends on your definition of "skilled." That's a Valendar/Luthbel level of modeling/sculpting there. If I could produce this kind of outfits I'd probably never do anything else - words can't express how much I love tattered gothy armor. :-D
SY, frankly I think you're underestimating your own talent.
Aw, thanks. I'm still saving toward Zbrush. Some day I will make some kind of armor that is nice, anyway. ;)
I think you could probably do that in Hex with a little perseverance. It's just a matter of a little planning and understanding the edge loop. Once you have that down, it should be a simple thing to put those components together... Rigging, however... uhgh... I'm trying to learn so I can put together a particularly complicated rig for something special... and Rigging in DS... well, I'm finding it difficult to get aquainted with... mostly because I can't find any real documentation on what the basic steps are for weight mapping... but that's my problem...
OH... one thing, DS and Hex treat subdivisiond differently... so be careful on that. I just found that out, and it was something of an eye opener. Do a single polygon strip... say, one polygon by five polygons. Subdivide it to two in Hex, then export it at base resolution to DS and subdivide the base mesh there... you'll see what I mean.
Well, that part at least I can help with. Drop me a PM.
Just wanted to illustrate this.
The one with a black background is the mesh in DS. The other two are in Hex. Same mesh with level 2 subdivision in each program, and at base res in Hex
Ah, so it's rounding the corners... not good. Love to know SY's secret to put away for modeling stuff.
Wancow: What high end app's do you have ?
What high end app's rigs are you comparing to Studio ?
After you master Studio's rigs.
A tutorial ,book anything would be appreciated.
Wish Poser ,Studio had Transpose.
That would solve all my problems.
SickleYield: about zBrush.
For zBrush brushes it's best to use a wacom tablet.
Intuos5 touch Medium is recommended a lot.
http://www.wacom.com/en/products/pen-tablets/intuos
All High end app's have different kinds of subdividing there call different things.
one just divides the mesh ,looks like what your doing in hex.
one divides and smooths the mesh ,what Studio does.
ATM, none. I've worked with Maya, XSI, Cinema4D and Zbrush. I've modelled and done animation in each. I've also modelled in Rhino, but when I had it, there was no option for Animation natively or by plug in... I understand that's changed.
Sorry, Adam... no go...
But in truth, this doesn't matter. Modelling is all about knowing what to expect. It's not an issue save to know that Hex and DS do this a little differently, and planning for it. This is not a complaint.