I spent pretty much all of Tuesday finalizing his sculpt in ZBrush - err, about 8 hours anyway. (a couple hours in between working on my Antonia character). Still not 100% happy with his sculpt, but it will work for now. Some areas just bug me, but I figure they can be corrected later once his initial topology is worked out. The last 3 or 4 hours spent in topogun laying out edgeflow, still a long way to go with it but it's coming along. Should be done by Friday (hopefully) and ready for initial basic rigging this weekend.  I'm sure the topology will have to be revisited a time or two during the rigging phase but I'm trying to get it as accurate as possible the first go-round cause its most definitely my least favorite part of this job. 

So, I figured I'd see if anyone is interested in following his development. Kind of anxious to see what the response will be, but a bit hesitant at the same time. 

There won't be many images posted of him until I start building his rig in Poser. Screen caps are from within Topogun. Sorry for the watermarks, but they are necessary at this early stage. 

Comments and crits are greatly appreciated. If you see something that looks weird, let me know, just be nice about it. lol. Thanks for looking. 

Looks very cool.

Vary nice! Looks straight out of an anatomy book - in a good way :-)

I'm really, really liking the look of these shapes. The collar bone in the front view slightly disturbs me, and I'm not sure about the size of the head. I assume you're working closely to references for both proportions and shapes.

Looks very promising though. Muscular definition looks fantastic.

The real test for some aspects of shape, as I'm discovering lately with improvements to Poser lighting and materials, are high quality renders in extreme light/shadow lighting conditions (like a single spot cast from various directions, glancing across the body).

Would be curious to see some renders under these conditions. Reveals a host of issues.

Well, he's definitely the best looking male I've seen develop in many a day ;). I'd like to watch his development as well :).

Laurie

You may want to take another look at the trapezius as well as its height. It looks like there's a dent that shouldn't be there in that first pic (could be the lighting). It also seems to ride higher than it should in that first pic, making no clear transition from trapezius to neck. Also watch the obliques, that should be a smooth transition toward the back and it looks like a small dent made its way in there.

FYI - if you leave him at the 45 pose, he's not going to work easily with Walk Designer. That's the primary reason we have everything in a T pose. You can model him initially in the 45 - I find I like doing that - but if you plan on folks using him with walk designer and want to save some anger, you'll want to reposition his arms before you start the rig.

Yeah T pose is definitely the best way to go with clothing developement in mind as well. Doing shoes for the original Girl figure was a pain in the rump!

This figure is dynamite! When you come to beta test, put me down. I'll be delighted to work with him!

Actually, I LIKE the collarbone in the front view. I think the issue with it would be that in a morph with more body fat, the morph would need to soften it. He looks like he was less than 8% bodyfat in this state, and for that, I think you've got the bones "showing" dead on.

I really like the artistic modeling.
But
It might be wise to "look" at a male human.
None looks like this.
Sorry.

And yes I see this going zillion Poly's. ouch,  again.

Excellent - good stuff right there ExistentialDisorder. Muscle definition generally looks great. I particularly like the arms.

Another exciting project going on... thanks very much for sharing your work :-)

I can offer two constructive points that leapt out to me, in case they're of any help to you at this early stage:

First one is to echo Teyon's point about the trapezius and neck... that stood out to me as not quite right.

He has the appearance to me that he's craning his neck and tensing up his trapezius... which, assuming that's a more neutral, zero-type pose he's meant to be in at this point, I guess wouldn't be desirable.

I think it might be the length of the neck as much as the trapezius muscles that seems a bit out to me here...

...all this may be accentuated by the viewing angle... seeing him straight on might help?

Second is that the hands look a tiny bit large relative to the head to me.

I'm pretty sure either the head looks a bit too small or the hands a bit big... or both could be out by an even smaller amount each way... we're probably talking fairly small amounts proportionally.

It's entirely possible that you are working to a real life reference model who has these exact proportions though!?

My judgements will be founded on my personal, "built-in" conception of average norms and certainly aren't scientific...

Were these two of the areas you mentioned being bugged by still?

Are you aiming to create a Mr Average character that can be morphed in any and all directions or are you going for a particular look out of the box in terms of physique?

Anyway... looking forward to seeing Lucas develop - many thanks ;-)

Yes, the hands are a bit large. That you might want to think about.

The neck is long, but it is a very idealized look, and I really like it. I would not shorten the neck. This is part of what makes this figure different from all the other dumpy males out there.

As to the poly count... who cares? We are 'way past the 2 Gig limit of 32 bit Operating Systems, and I'm still waiting for my Poser Pro 2012 to bog down due to high poly models. I've rendered scenes with 12 M4/V4's plus a full modeled environment, and there was never a hickup. I think it's time we stopped worrying about how things are going to work in Poser 4 and moved on to what we have to work with these days.

Go for it!

What will be your distribution Model?
Freebie with hope for party vendor support?

Freebie with Combo of your content and third parties?

Paid base mesh with some combination of the above?

At any rate if this figure is not backwards compatible and depends on people owning PP2012/P9  it will get very little support or interest in the near future as it seems apparent( to me) & from recent threads that the vast number of P8/PP2010  holdouts are one of the reason that Antonia WM has not Exactly "caught fire".

Cheers

I think there's more than one reason why AntoniaWM hasn't exactly "caught on" ;).

Laurie

very nice... i would request however that you dont lock in specific detail to muscularity leave room for changes , keep edgeflow fluid in the topology , a few extra loops are a better solution than outlining details , i agree with Wiz that we are past the polly count crunch, this is IMHO mostly a game/other platform compatability issue does not apply to poser.. rigging in poser is much more flexable than other programs such as max or maya where poly count can lead to major headaches, if you are wanting a cross platform figure ignore this request... if however, you are reaching for the optimum Poser figure leave room for future developement with a higher density mesh with extra  loops in key areas, so as much or as little detail as desired can be added,or easily subtracted, there are plenty of us out here who appreciate the human form in its natural state who are looking for common everyday features, instead of another over developed idealised depiction of "perfection",... change ability is the key...

beautiful sculpt

:O)

Looks very good, but agree with Teyon's comments about the trapezius, and the head may be just a little bit small.

I would also like to expand a bit on Teyon's point about modelling in one pose, but morphing to another (T) pose for the final mesh. I think this idea is also important from the standpoint of UV mapping. But first let me come clean, I have never modeled anything more complicated than a sphere myself. So what follows is just off the top of the head stuff from someone who does not really understand the modelling process.

I remember when the Antonia figure was being developed, it ran into an issue where the texture on the eyelids stretched a lot when the eyes were closed. As eyes-closed and eyes-open are almost at the two ends of the possible range it would seem sensible to me, to model and UV map the figure with the eyes half closed, as this requires less stretching of the mesh and UVs to reach the extreme end of the range.

On the same logic, perhaps the figure should be modeled with the mouth partially opened, the thighs slightly spread, and bent forwards, say 30º, the knees bent back 30º, the upper arms bent forwards slightly, the forearms bent inwards, and the fingers slightly curled in.

The topology and UV mapping would be finalized in this "median pose". The mesh would then be straightened to a T pose with the mouth shut and the eyes open to a normal degree.

Of course this is all very easy for me to write, but may be fiendishly difficult to do in practice. Which is probably why it is not done as a matter of course.

**"**I think there's more than one reason why AntoniaWM hasn't exactly "caught on" ;).

Laurie"

**
**

**
**Very True that is why I said "one of the reasons"

Cheers

Quote - Looks very good, but agree with Teyon's comments about the trapezius, and the head may be just a little bit small.

I would also like to expand a bit on Teyon's point about modelling in one pose, but morphing to another (T) pose for the final mesh. I think this idea is also important from the standpoint of UV mapping. But first let me come clean, I have never modeled anything more complicated than a sphere myself. So what follows is just off the top of the head stuff from someone who does not really understand the modelling process.

I remember when the Antonia figure was being developed, it ran into an issue where the texture on the eyelids stretched a lot when the eyes were closed. As eyes-closed and eyes-open are almost at the two ends of the possible range it would seem sensible to me, to model and UV map the figure with the eyes half closed, as this requires less stretching of the mesh and UVs to reach the extreme end of the range.

On the same logic, perhaps the figure should be modeled with the mouth partially opened, the thighs slightly spread, and bent forwards, say 30º, the knees bent back 30º, the upper arms bent forwards slightly, the forearms bent inwards, and the fingers slightly curled in.

The topology and UV mapping would be finalized in this "median pose". The mesh would then be straightened to a T pose with the mouth shut and the eyes open to a normal degree.

Of course this is all very easy for me to write, but may be fiendishly difficult to do in practice. Which is probably why it is not done as a matter of course.

That's actually something I proposed when I got taken on at SM. I missed the Poser 8 window for my suggestions (and thus, the P9 one too since we reused the characters) but it's something we are doing going forward. So not a bad idea at all and one that makes total sense in my book.

Thanks for all the great feedback everyone. Very greatly appreciated. 

I should have mentioned this in my innitial post but forgot to.  I blame it on lack of sleep. 

His musculature is more pronounced at this point than it will be when he's finished. It is mostly for the purpose of laying out the topology, to get the edgeflow accurate. He will have less definition in his base figure than what is displayed here, and the morphs will range from emaciated to incredible hulk. For modeling purposes I was aiming for somewhere around the middle point of both extremes in a way that would still allow me to work out accurate geometry.

Thanks for pointing out the issue with the traps. Looking at it from here they are a bit high. I will adjust them. His shoulder is not that pointy either, when rotating him. Some of these issues I'm seeing in this screen shot, now that I'm taking a closer look, I think are related to the way TGs lighting and camera pivots work. But I will definitely double check all these areas.  

I do have nearly 2 gigs of human anatomy photo references on my pc, many of which I refer to constantly. Most are photos of actual humans. It can be tricky translating muscle in motion to a digital still posed figure that is a-symetrical, no matter how many photo references you have. I also use Scott Spencer's Digital Sculpting Human Anatomy, however he sculpts from a very super hero form, so it can be tricky translating it to a more average looking figure.  

In terms of proportions, especially between his hands and head - He is exactly 8 heads tall, from soles of his feet to the top of his head. I've been extremely careful to keep these proportions in check through the sculpting process. Originally I wanted to make him 7-1/2 heads tall, as that is real human scale, at least for 95%+ of the human population. But when sizing up the other poser figures, most of them are 8 heads, plus or minus a wee bit. Traditionally, 8 heads is the "idealized" scale that is used, especially for heroic type characters. It's also easier to model from an even numbered scale. 

the hands are one of the areas that still bug me. I intentionally made them a bit larger than need be, for one because I like large hands, and also, it just kind of happens as I'm sculpting. I actually adjusted the scale of his hands 3 different times while he was being sculpted. At this point they are much easier to work with for edgeflow. The can be scaled down a bit later on.

For that matter, it is my intention to make every part of him scaleable, so that a 7.5-head "average" figure can be achieved.  

The T-pose is an interesting bit of info. I had not thought about it in regards to walk designer so thank you for making that point. Instead, I modeled him based on how I was trained to model figures intended to be rigged for animation. In school we model at 45 degrees because it allows for more natural muscle flow and is easier on the rigging side of things when weight mapping comes into play. 

I definitely don't want him to be "broken" in walk designer or any other aspect, so I will figure out a way to correct that. 

Poly count will not be unreasonable. I'm aiming for around 80 to 100K, which should be well within ease of use for anyone running on P9/PP2012. (right now he is nearly 3 million polys, but I'm sure that won't work for most of us - lol)

I have been playing with the idea of making a lower res version of him for those who have not yet upgraded, but I don't know at this point how feasible that is. It is something I am keeping in mind during the process though because I know many are still running a few versions behind and I want to make him as versatile as possible for all users. 

Looks good enough to me but I'm hardly picky. LOL.

There is absolutely NO reason to stick to the old Poser "T-pose"... and in fact, every reason NOT to.

Given Poser's joint setup limitations-- even with weight-mapping-- it makes sense to model figures with the joints bent about halfway-- i.e., arms slightly lowered rather than straight-out, elbows slightly bent, fingers slightly bent, etc., etc.

I have to say the anatomic detail in this is lovely ...but.

I think the level of detail you have in this base mesh is actually a bit too much.  It may cause significant issues in creating any kind of morphs for this figure as well as modeling clothing.  Its one thing for a direct sculptor like ZB, but remember ... the other vendors you hope will make additions for this may have nothing more complex than wings3d, hex and poser.

You might want to keep this as a 'standard' or 'muscular' morph and make a smoother mesh as the base - one that is easier to morph and to work over.  The easier a figure is to make addons for, the more used it will probably be.

As far as rigging goes - if you intend to use classic poser rigging, then you will find smoother is much less hellish.  The one you have now will need oodles of JCM's and mcm's to avoid ugly distortions.  If you don't mind the stupid programming thats one thing, but it gives me hives :P  There is a very good reason that v4 and now genesis are very smooth... its to make aftermarket additions easier, and to make changing the figure into other looks much easier. 

As for questions about walk designer and JCM's etc ... look for Nerd3d and ask him questions.  He should be able to give you an idea of what to look for and avoid when modeling as far as compatability goes.

and Hiya Gareeee!

Lyrra

Quote - I think there's more than one reason why AntoniaWM hasn't exactly "caught on" ;).

Laurie

Haw... I could give you several reasons.

I like this very much. The general shape looks good and the muscular definition is wonderful.

Blondie: Thanks for that bit of info. 

So, question then... Does or does not, the T-pose cause walk designer to work or not work? 

Lyrra - Thanks for your feedback, I will keep your suggestions in mind. However, Lucas will be weight mapped. My intention is to have zero use for JCMs, though I may need to use them in some areas, depending on how things go. If I make him backwards compatible, then of course, the JCMs and a smoother mesh will be necessary. But to be honest, I'm really 50-50 on making him backwards compatible at this point, as my intention is not to add yet another model to the dust pile. Lucas is being designed specifically to take advantage of the features of Poser 9 and up. 

Toastie - thank you :)

And for anyone who may be wondering, or will be in the future, Lucas does have a female counterpart, she's just not as far along as he is. I've been sculpting them both relatively alongside one another, its just that Lucas wound up getting more attention, as male anatomy is a good bit more difficult than female. 

following with interest ++++++

I would want to muscle him up if there were morphs for this, into a superhero type, so I would want his wrists and ankles to thicken as well (a morph would do)

Love esther

gosh there are some talented people in the poser community.  When daz stopped supporting poser with it's vicki 5 etc I was very sad.  But now I see a bright light at the end of my poser tunnel.

Love esther

Quote - > Quote - I think there's more than one reason why AntoniaWM hasn't exactly "caught on" ;).

Laurie

Haw... I could give you several reasons.

So speaks the DAZ brokered vendor......

Well, before you go stirring shit ssgbryan, we are both Daz vendors. However, I'm a Poser person and anything I find off-putting about Antonia is my opinion only. It has zilch to do with whether or not I have anything at Daz. Besides, I'm not alone and those who feel as I do don't all broker for Daz. blondie's opinion is blondies opinion. I just realized it was stupid of me to reply to what wolf359 said about Antonia. There are so many sensitive people in the community anymore that you can't even say you like a figure or not without someone jumping down your damn throat. Didn't have anything to do with the thread anyway. Now...

Existential Disorder - I think you are doing a fine job. I hope you stick with it :).

Laurie

Awe, that's very cool of you to say Esther. I appreciate the compliments. 

And thank you Laurie for the encouragement.

Trust me, I am putting everything I've got into this project. It's not going away unless something happens to me or my tools. It's been a goal for quite a while to tackle something of this scope. I just want to do it right. 

I am however starting to wonder if I should focus more on the female, at least to get her to the stage that Lucas is at right now. My goal is to have a "matching pair" of models, because it bugs me when there is one but not the other - models from the same artist just seem to work better together than mix-matched pairs I think. But that's just my opinion. They will both be done eventually, regardless. 

Oh no don't do the female first. I really like the look of that male.  I vote for you to make him first please please please.  I'll buy your female too eventually, I promise.

Love esther

There's been a prominent issue with all male figures after M2 that's been pretty much ignored. If you raise any Unimesh figure's arms straight up (perpendicular to the floor) as would a football ref confirming a goal, the figure's lats, shoulders and chest become a taffy-like mess. Not even DAZ has been able or willing to correct this problem. M2 however, has shoulder, chest and lat morph-fixes that adjust those issues well. If you could address that problem, it would be a milestone;)

weightmapping is the way to go for improving a figure's poseability.

Love esther

Weightmapping will greatly improve that, but it has a lot to do with the edgeflow of the geometry as well (and the limitations of poser's rigging have to be taken into account as well). Topology is key to any believable posing and animation, and without trying to start crap over this or that or anything, I'll just say, that I have never seen a human Poser figure that didn't have absolutely atrocious topology.

It is understandable, to an extent, that Poser topology is done differently than most normal models, due to all the morphing, etc., but too much of it is just sloppy work, regardless of what company it comes from, they're all guilty of it. Properly laid out topology can still be morphed and shaped well, so that's not an excuse.

I've never worked in a full production studio, (there are none where I live or I would be pounding on their doors) and I know that studios take shortcuts too, however while I was in school, had I ever attempted to submit something that even remotely resembled the craptastic geometry that most Poser figures use, I would have been thrown out of school. We had a very strict Quads Only rule that would get you failed pretty much instantly if it wasn't adhered to, regardless of how attractive the model was. There are very good reasons for that, everything from rigging and animation to rendering is affected by it. Never anything more than 5 points on a star, and NEVER any stars on the center line, were other points we had to follow. Optimization.

It is definitely not easy to model organics in all quads, especially when you can't use stars, but a lot of the time it is necessary. Poser is much more lenient, but there's still no excuse for sloppy edgeflow. 

You sound like (and from your previews) look like you know what you are doing. I'm getting really excited now.  Can't wait until the figure is out.

Will you make one set of casual clothes for him too when he's released?

Love esther

I plan on him having several options on release. I have 3 very different design concepts for add-ons that I've been working out. He's not going to be just another naked guy waiting for someone to pay him attention, as we've all seen how that goes, especially for the male figures. And if all goes well I'll have other content artists on board for his release, who will come up with their own ideas for him. But it will be a while before I can actually start any of that, I have to get him functioning first. I love your enthusiasm. :)

I very much like the look of this fellow. He may not be exactly and completely perfect yet, but even in the early stages, he looks much, much better than any others I've seen. I actually really like his facial features too, which is quite refreshing to see.

About the only good thing I can say about current available male figures is that some of the textures for them (primarily M4) are really very good.  If it were possible to create a version that could accept these textures, in the way that DPHoadly has created a remapped version of Antonia to work with V3 textures, that would be awesome.  A thought for much further in the future, I realize. But I thought I'd chime in.

now I am even more enthusiastic.  can't wait.

Keep us posted on your progress or rather Lucas1 progress.

don't forget a teen morph.

Love esther

im very impressed with your work ,  and even more impressed with your willingness to listen to others opinions....  :O)

I really like this figure, very interested to see where you go with him. Great work and keep it up.

Quote - I very much like the look of this fellow. He may not be exactly and completely perfect yet, but even in the early stages, he looks much, much better than any others I've seen. I actually really like his facial features too, which is quite refreshing to see.

Thanks Moriador - the idea that you like his face from that angle and distance, without color or texture yet, is definitely a plus. I think he looks even better up close.

I used reference from two modern actors, both in their early to mid 30s, to build up his facial features. I won't say who though. It will be more interesting to see if anyone can figure it out once he's textured and shaded. That will tell me how good a job I've done. I will say, one of them is not American born. 

I'm taking the same approach with the female. She is based on two actresses who I find very attractive, and I think most of the world agrees.

I think base models should be attractive and useable out of the box, instead of having to spend 3 hours dialing morphs just to get something that doesn't startle you at render. 

 As for the UV map issue, I'm not sure how to do that. He'll be mapped in UV Master, which is pretty spot-on accurate most of the time and is very quick. As for matching them with M4 maps, I'll have to find how that works. Could be very useful. 

JAFO & Nanette - Thanks very much. Its my goal to make models people actually want to use and enjoy using, so listening to input and suggestions really helps with that. I won't be able to incorporate everything, but I'll do my best to work with the most popular suggestions.  

Definitely going to keep an eye on this one.

Not desperately interested in the female as Poser is full of females, but I can see a sort of matching pair of figures would be a plus in a lot of ways.

Good to know you're planning other stuff to go with the eventual release. Nothing worse that a great new figure with zero to little other support. Not so bad for me as I mostly make dynamic stuff for my characters now, but it's always fun to pick up extras for a new figure straight away. Gives me more incentive to want to use them.

Very nice work, best wishes with your figure development.  I don't mind if the base figure is a bit muscular or a bit toned.  Apollo was criticized for being a "dough boy" in his default form.

Very very excited! He looks wonderful! I know you're not there yet, but I'd love to be able to beta test him when he's ready. Keep up the great work!

Impressive.

I applaud your effort to work to the highest standard poser can manage!  I for one will be happy to try to build content for this or any other 'advanced' figure.  I'm currently 'cutting my teeth' modelling wise, building for antoniaWM and starting to make enough progress that I think I will be able to release some works soon.

My one suggestion is to do everything you can to make your figure easy on content creators.  I strongly suggest making a few outfits of various styles and testing how well they rig through the set-up room.  I'v found modelling the shape of the clothes really easy so far, but in a few cases I have gotten hung up at setup room time, so if you yourself are able to be a resource for the potential vendors you will stand a better chance of getting the content support that is critical for figure success.  It also would not be a bad thought to consider the conversion pipeline... by that I mean, how easy will it be to convert clothes from other well supported figures to your own. 

Content is king in poser so it would do well to be thinking about it from the ground up.

Quote - Blondie: Thanks for that bit of info. 

So, question then... Does or does not, the T-pose cause walk designer to work or not work? 

Lyrra - Thanks for your feedback, I will keep your suggestions in mind. However, Lucas will be weight mapped. My intention is to have zero use for JCMs, though I may need to use them in some areas, depending on how things go. If I make him backwards compatible, then of course, the JCMs and a smoother mesh will be necessary. But to be honest, I'm really 50-50 on making him backwards compatible at this point, as my intention is not to add yet another model to the dust pile. Lucas is being designed specifically to take advantage of the features of Poser 9 and up. 

Toastie - thank you :)

And for anyone who may be wondering, or will be in the future, Lucas does have a female counterpart, she's just not as far along as he is. I've been sculpting them both relatively alongside one another, its just that Lucas wound up getting more attention, as male anatomy is a good bit more difficult than female. 

I think it's great when a figure creator makes content for the figure right out of the box, Apollo was done like that and I think it helped him gain a fairly large following in a short amont of time.  It's good to have a few basic outfits to start off with.  The creator of Rikishi did this too.  I'm not a great Wardrobe Wizard guy myself and like not to have to adapt a wardrobe from other figures.  I bought Vincent Parker, for instance, but almost never use him--he's got practically nothing to wear.