CG R66-Y Scene - finished 3d art

[Straafe]

Dont worry about the eyes/texture. Nothing has been textured they are red purely to differentiate. At that point I was still working on the shape of the mode lalone.

The truth is im 90% self taught in 3d/CG

I'm currently enrolled in a 4 yr college (undergrad) in a major that uses 3ds max as a training tool. However, the instruction is fairly poor and I end up teaching myself most things anyway.

so formal training in CG: id say very little

anyway, update:
Began working on the face textures (not eyes yet, they are just placeholders basically)
He seems to have some darkness under the eyes in the square-released pics so im goin with some of that.
Just a quick lighting solution to see how the texture reacts to light.
Tried to keep a pale skin tone as that seems to be trademark magus as well.

[Azure]

Have you tried sending your work into square or other companies?  I mean, it really wouldn't hurt.

I'll agree with Faust on his remark along the lines of if this were rumoured as a release for PS3, I would have believed it.

I am speechless aside from those comments...  I think you will go far with this.

[satchel_dawg]

that is seriously the most detailed 3d chrono models i've ever seen.

you should seriously consider making like short movies with it, and as i understand the law you could clearly get a way with it as long as you don't try to recreated CT.

it's really nice though!

[Glennleo]

Excellent, excellent work.

Your work never ceases to amaze me. To have talent like that, is truly a blessing I wish I was bestowed.

Did I mention it was excellent?

[Straafe]

hey thanks guys, i should have an update on magus here soon

[Straafe]

Quick update with newlighting and eye texture, gonna start to work out some hair next:

[Glennleo]

So that's what a bald Magus would look like lol.

Nice work my friend!
Where do you find the time to do this stuff?

Must be during the times that I play video games, watch anime, or surf the net.
Must be nice being productive lol.

[me4all4]

Straafe, you have no idea how badly I wish I had your CGI technological knowledge and finesse to create such incredible things...   My friend Mike is really good at CAAD (some type of class at school with 3D modeling & a 3D printer), and I want to learn how to make things on that, but if I were just able to get my friend Mike to make Robo, I would upload the pics and file up here for everyone.  This is incredible!

[Straafe]

hey give it a shot as a hobby if you like. Im mostly self taught, you dont necessarily need any training to create these things in 3d.

I can tell you exactly how i started,

I was just like you looking at all these dazzling images (around 5 years ago) and i just went to google in my frustration and attempted to find some free program that would allow me to learn how to create such things. I had no idea what to search for and had never heard of things like maya, XSI, 3ds max, ect. Randomly, on like the 5th page of one of my fruitless google searches i ran into a program called anim8or. This I think I can say was my first step in the direction that has led me to where I am.

http://anim8or.com/

This guy has created a free 3d modeling and animation program. The sites homepage has remained unchanged for all these years, although many updates have been released. There is a forum, gallery, tutorials, ect.

If you want to start a hobby, go DL anim8or and do the eggplant tutorial at the tuorial section of the site, thats exactly what i did.

after getting pretty good with animator i switched over to 3ds max, which is more professional and what i still am most proficient with - also what all thee images were made with.


Anyway sorry about the novel. Im working on his hair, but the built in hair in 3ds max is giving me some issues with my renderer. Ill post an update when I feel i have something that is good enough.

[FaustWolf]

Hmm, I'll have to take a look at Anima8or. Perhaps it's a viable alternative to Blender as far as free programs go.

Straafe, your modeling continues to amaze. How exactly do you create your textures? Do you create a separate 2D image and essentially paste it over the model, or can you draw stuff right over the mesh?

[Straafe]

right after i started with anim8or i tried blender and liked anim8or better. however, i didnt really give blender a chance.

as far as texturing, there are some prgrams that let you directly paint onto models, but the best way is to use the otehr method you mentioned.

its all about UWV mapping. Basically, you take your model, break it into pieces (like the arms, hands, legs, torso, and head) and then take all the polygons which make up those pieces and "unwrap them" so they are 2d.

FOR EXAMPLE: here is an image i found on google of someone's 3d head they have unwrapped:
http://jeffrey89.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/jeffreys-uvhead.jpg
The green areas represent the seams created in the unwrapping process

after you unwrap your model, you can take the image like the one above into photoshop or whatever and paint a texture over it, then place that texture on the original model. Your model will remember the UVW coordinates you gave it and the texture will wrap over it perfectly (assuming you did it correctly).

Here is one of my initial maps for magus to add color to the lips, eyes, and crevaces of his body:


The head and chest are upside down but thats just because of the way I unwrapped it. i also unwrapped it so the arms would be larger than the legs so, if i wanted, i could paint more detail on the arms (because they legs will have pants over them anyway).

[FaustWolf]

Fascinating. Thanks to the experienced hackers who've taken me under their wing for Chrono Cross model exploration, I've become somewhat acquainted with the concepts you've outlined here. It's really an amazing process; I'll definitely give Anima8or a whirl since I've had a devil of a time with Blender, and maybe someday I'll be able to put models together as opposed to just taking them apart  . Thanks for the insights Straafe!

[Straafe]

alright.... been workin on the hair although i have begun to run into a lot of problems with it.

i finally got a result i can call decent, so here it is. if you see something you would change, let me know.

So far im not sure if i want more hairs with smaller diameters, or larger, but less, hairs (like in the squaresoft pics of magus). Also i think i like the texture on it but crits would be helpful. what do you think?

also note that these are draft renders and are of low quality (hence the grainyness)

[FaustWolf]

The only thing I could recommend is to smooth out the widow's peak a bit by placing more hair further down on his forehead.

[Straafe]

consider it done