AmbientShade opened this issue on Mar 14, 2012 · 453 posts
AmbientShade posted Wed, 14 March 2012 at 1:06 PM
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.