This is a coat I'm working on for Mike. It's a while from done yet; I'm planning to make an add-on belt for it and do some textures, and it needs some more morphs to make up for what the joints just can't do, and some tweaking with JPS I think. I modeled with with the legs not sharing vertices hoping I could get it to pose more like pants on the bottom, but it's just not working like I wanted it to. I guess it was worth a shot.

Anyway, I'm sick of working on it tonight, so I thought I'd post it and try to milk some encouragement. I haven't done much modeling before, and although I started with Thip's Mike jacket base obj (thanks, Thip!) I've done a lot of work on it and had a lot of opportunities to screw up, so I think it's pretty good.

When it's done, I plan to put the whole package in freestuff for anyone who wants it.

A shot in the default position. Darnnit, I thought I'd fixed all those reversed normals. Bracka-frazzin' stupid...

At least, I think so. It requires a bit of flipping to get everything, but I laid it out so you can put a big design on the back and then smaller ones on the front flaps. The two flaps can have different patterns. Collars and cuffs are separated so more elaborate trims can be done.

It's kinda got that Royloo simple yet universal touch I like. I never do high-kicking kung-fu anyway.:) Emily

This is gonna be beautiful! I remember Jackie Chan wearing a long garment at the beginning of that awesome steel factory fight (can't recall the name of the movie tho??---it was pure white in the midst of all the black soot and red hot banks of coals. And Jet Li wore one a bunch of times in that historical series he made...what is wrong with my brain today?! Wong Fei Hung? Anyway, I'll look forward to DLing this one day--Roy Loo's neat stuff started me collecting Chinese clothing. And I'll bet I'm not the only one..... {(pauses for breath)} if this is enough encouragement, I'll stop blathering now..... ;)

Jackie Chan had that gorgeous blue silk one in "Shanghai Noon", too! :) My main suggestion would be to get rid of the pectorals. Just because Mike-out-of-the-box looks like he has breasts, it doesn't mean that all his clothing needs to cling quite that tightly. These garments were often stiffened and padded and quilted, so muscular definition simply wouldn't show through anyway. Looking good... I like the nice clean map, too. Carolly

nice mapping :) Planning on any closure detailing, like frogs or toggle buttons? And don't these things often have trim running aorund the edges (neck, front, hem)? I seem to recall Jackie's robe in 'Shanghai Noon' was shorter and slit up the sides. Great work! can't wait to play with this one. hmmm. Would you like a nice hi-res photoshop dragon to texture with? I made it for my 'Yakuza' Mike texture. I also have .ai of it, so I can resize it tiny for a brocade pattern. Hmmm. Maybe I should go make some oriental fabrics textures.

Ooh, that'd be great, Lyrra. : ) If I can figure out exactly where the overlap line is (time to pop open painter, I guess ^_~), I was going to try to put frogs on one of the textures, but now that you mention it, it might be fun to make some smart props for a 3D look. (Probably ludicrously hi-poly for a detail like that, but fun to make.) I also wanted to put a braid trim around the edges on a texture. Carolly, you're right. I knew something wasn't right, but it's amazing what obvious things you can miss after staring at something long enough. It's a little late in the modelling stage to change that, but I'll see what I can do with magnets to smooth it out a little.

Lyrra, Right, it was shorter, but still significantly longer than most masculine apparel... remember the indian name for him?!? FyreSpiryt, Anything to make it a bit more like a woven coat and less like a knit shirt will help. Frogs or toggles of any kind would be neat... especially if they are different from any other clothing item available. Carolly

Patricia, that Great Series is "Once Upon a Time in China..." We have every DVD by Jet Li! Also, Tony Leung(Secret Agent) in "Tokyo Raiders" uses one very efficiently in his fight scenes... If you really want to make the bottom parts "poseable", you should try "BodyHandles". Anton has a mini Tut somewhere in a tread here... Very nice Coat Fyre! Anik

Fyre! This looks fantastic!!

Patricia: the Jackie Chan movie with the long white coat is (I believe) Legend of the Drunken Master. Great movie - I don't often pay high ticket prices to see dubbed films :)

I like it a lot. I really like chinese martial arts and I work with that type of images. Good work!

I wasn't able to get the pecs out at this stage (something to remember on my next project), but the bodyhandles was a great suggestion! I used ghost body parts to conform to the legs and made the coat thighs and shins separate. When conformed it's sort of so-so, but just posed it moves nice! Playing with textures at the moment. Hee hee!

Beautiful work, FyreSpyryt. It's so great to see people make good use of the base jacket. It's obvious you have all the modeling skills to have done your own base jacket, but that's precisely why the basejacket is offered - the basic fitting drudgery is the same for everyone, so why not leave it to uncreative techs like yours truly ;o) You might want to consider using cylindrical mapping, though - that way you can put more patterns on the coat (on the back or anywhere else) without too much distortion. Just a thought. Hope to see more of your stuff in the future - if this is your first effort, you're gonna be real good, I think!

Cylindrical mapping always seems to do odd stuff for me; I haven't played with it enough to get good results. I should bite the bullet and get UVMapper Pro. I'm working on a base for the Mil Baby (well, base bits. I'm just going to do the parts I need and add in future projects) so I can make a christening gown for it. Wow, that's a lot of slow, tedious work. I'm grateful to have someone else do it for me. ^_~ The tutorial string you did in the Amapi forum a while back was great, Thip.