pgson

Thanks, ajz3d

Since this sculpt started heavily in 3D-Coat, I thought I should post where I am at on it. Human Kain's progress: Just the blocking on most of the pieces before I retopologize it all and refine it. And here's his detailed sculpt with where I am on the diffuse texture: Hair is Fibermesh right now. I'm trying to block out some stubble for him, too. It's a work in progress and feels too much right now. The head and body with the arms separate. Most of the arms are never seen, but I want a cohesive form to work from. His body is only going to be used when he's turned into a vampire. Detailed hands: Without the paint and hair: What I am hoping works, as I've seen online is hopefully possible, is to take the Fibermesh and export it as Maya curves, then convert the curves in Maya to polygon strips/cards for the various hair sections, so I can render his hair in something like Cryengine. I wonder if anyone has attempted this, or can think of a better way? Anyway, his skin is mostly done. I need to further add moles, splotches, scars, and tweak it out. I'm shelving him for a bit right now, though, because I'm doing a Lieutenant Raziel sculpt for the 15th anniversary of Soul Reaver 1 that's coming up in a couple of weeks. At least I hope to have the preliminary sculpted features done by then.

No to both. Haven't had any issues with retopology prior to this. Thanks for the suggestion, though. Thanks. I've sent you a pm with an obj of one of the tries at this. I've gone ahead, though, and taken the retopoed mesh into 3Ds Max to uv it. No issues there. In 3D-Coat, I was able to select the faces with no problems. I am thinking it might be due to the vertices being so close together, even if they aren't directly overlapping, as this is a tiny mesh with a very tiny edge to those nails, since they are fingernails, and it's that edge that's been the issue in adding seams. I know 3D-Coat (at least it used to) had issues with making really thin meshes. Maybe it's just having a hard time with that edge. Edit: I should add, the mesh I sent doesn't have polygons for under the nail like my other tries did, which would be why I would need to add a seam to separate that portion. However, if you add a a seam anyway along the edge, the crash should eventually happen, and unwrapping the mesh, with or without seams, should still show the utter mess it becomes.

Same result. For a moment there, it seemed like it might be working better; 3D-Coat didn't crash, but the uvs were still screwed up. A second attempt at opening it and unwrapping caused it to immediately crash. I was thinking maybe the reference mesh was the problem. But, it happens when I bring in just the retopoed mesh by itself.

I'm having a major problem with the retopo room in 4.1.09c. I'm only doing some tiny nails for a character's hand. A few polygons each. It not only won't break into uv islands right, it crashes 3D-Coat when trying to add seams/unwrap every time. I've tried this three different times, in three different, simpler ways. Same problem: Uvs attempted to be applied: Only one pair of them looks remotely right. The checkerboard island breakdown on the model shows the others are all screwed: Even floating the mouse around in the menu causes crashes: Adding seams eventually crashes fully it: Pretty crazy. I've retopoed similar tiny/thin pieces before without any issue on previous versions, like multiple buttons and rivets. I just tested again adding seams to another mesh and unwrapping and it worked fine. Windows 8.1 AMD 6300 processor ram 12 gb Radeon 7700

Thank you very much Heh, ah so more fun to look forward to, eh?

Yes, that is coming next. I need to rig him and put the sword in his hand, once I'm done the sword. Yeah, I am taking away from it all that I jumped into the pool head-first, basically. I never modeled before, and this was a completely new world I stepped into and there was a lot to learn. I didn't pick an easy starter project, either. I probably am still doing some things the hard/wrong way, but hopefully I'll avoid the huge pitfalls I stepped into with this going forward. There was one moment I did almost quit this. When I finished the sculpt and the polypaint on the head and body, then found out that Zbrush didn't like me going into HD Geometry so late, and so it crashed every time I attempted to get any map other than the diffuse out of it. I searched and searched for how to solve this. Anyway, after all of the other problems, this was about the last straw. If I couldn't get the model out of Zbrush, it was worthless to me. I figured someone was trying to tell me to forget it. But, anyway, it worked. I never, ever, ever expected it to take anywhere near this long, though. Thanks, man.

After feedback from fellow fans, many final adjustments made. Shrunk the neck, his crown pieces, worked on his face. Worked on lessening his skintone saturation, worked on hue. Altered proportions on his guantlets, his pants, elongated his legs so he's a full 7 heads tall, modeled an entirely new cape to be more folded over up top, wider at the bottom, fixed his earring's shape and color. Final renders: Final comparison shots to the original games' model: And with that, this model if finally DONE. I can finally add him to the finished work gallery and move on. I'll finish his Soul Reaver sword and pose him with it. Thanks for the help along the way, and sorry again for so many large pics. Here's to greener pastures from here on out

Thanks a lot One final bit of tweaking left to go, hopefully.

Thanks

Updating this. I wound up having a major hard time trying to get this all working. Chopping the model up in Zbrush, I went about trying to get it pieced back together again. Had a crach course in Zbrush's issues, used Zremesher and 3D-Coat to retpo it, then back to Zbrush to reproject the details. The highest I could go in subdivisions still wasn't enough to reach the detail level I had in 3D-Coat. I discovered the projection brush in HD geo mode could do it, though a painstaking process. It would not come back to haunt me until much later that I followed the description in their online Doc, rather than the video. In the Doc, it basically tells you to go into HD Geometry divisions if you can't go any higher on normal, but it doesn't specify to go into this earlier in your divisions, like the 1-5 million point, as the video tutorial says. So, memory issues, crashes, and inability to get normal and displacement maps is what I wound up with far later after painting and uving the model. It then took me quite a time to figure out how to get the maps, which program and methos was best to get the maps, and all of that. It's been an experience... I'm about done. I thought I was, or fooled myself to thinking I was. However, the proportions on his face aren't quite right, and the skin is a little too saturated golden. So, this is almost done... Just thought I'd update since it's been dormant forever. Finished the model in Zbrush, retopoed and uved in 3D-Coat, some with Zremesher, smoothed normals in Maya, polypainted, then Photoshop for tweaks and other maps, metalness (or specular, depending on the item), gloss, etc. Rendered in Marmoset Toolbag 2: Final Sculpt in Zbrush: Little barrage covering months of banging my head against walls :p I need to fix the face, then maybe this can finally be finished...

I've had that issue on the previous versions, but found it was that I has the layers off when trying to move the Islands. I don't know if that's your issue, but if the layers are on and it's still happening, then it sure sounds like a bug. Edit: Sorry, I didn't see digman answer already.

:thumbs up: I'm downloading it now. Thanks.

I haven't downloaded the latest, but I don't think this was covered as an issue. With 16A, I brought some meshes over for UVing. When trying to just create a new UV set other than default and name it, 3D-Coat crashes every time.

That's a really, really nice piece, that cockade. By the way, ajz3D, your guy has reminded me from the start of the actor, Rod Taylor (The Time Machine (1960), for reference), which is a good thing Especially if you put him in a military uniform: Hm, his images might help for additional references. Great stuff, everyone.

I'm honestly sorry this happens to other users, but in a way I'm also glad that I'm not the only one. So I know I'm not crazy. After the problem with the first mesh and having to redo it, I followed those supposed ways to make sure the mesh is prepared right when going into surface mode. I still got holes. Nothing over 1 million polygons in volxels, or if so, I decimate after first running clean surface, smooth all when bringing into surface mode, etc. My main mesh, head and body, only had two holes after a lot of detailing, but even two after building up so much can be a dead stop. Zbrush runs its close holes features in a couple of seconds. 3D-Coat analyzes how many holes there are first, which takes on high poly models anywhere from 30 seconds to a couple of minutes. Then, once it knows how many there are, it takes the program another round of analyzing, or running zig-zag marches between vertices (no idea what is taking so long, really; I mean it knows where they are already, doesn't it?) up to sometimes 5-15 minutes, or more, to finally close the holes. That's if it doesn't crash, or lock up entirely. You get to the point whee you want to sure up the topology to add micro details, too, and then the hole-fest can occur. The skin preset on the build brush seems to do a great job without depth to just even out and increase the surface topology ... until you analyze the mesh again and holes have magically occurred. Even if the holes aren't occurring, or not that much, the other issue is the explosion of the polygon count for me. A head of 1-3 million becomes 7, 10, finally 11 million, just to add in manually some surface noise, creases and cracks. A base mesh from 130,000 worked on to the point of adding in details at something like 5 million, wound up for me 33 million polygons, and with all accessories fully detailed, I'm looking at a model that's over 100 million. Something's wrong there, and you can't decimate and retain the crispness. Even trying at just 20% decimation is a noticeable difference, so forget 75-80% that it says it can do... Anyway, I do hope it gets resolved.