Hello all-

Okay, I really want to practice character modelling, and i am going to start making outlandish-type characters. At first while I'm in the practicing stage theyll be free - onceI feel they're good enough to sell... We'll let's see when I get there...

Anyway - are there generally file-size limits, poly-count limits, etc.?

Have you come across models that are just unworkable, and why?

Of models you currently have that generally you like, but there's things that could have made it better, and what are those things?

Is there a specific list of characters, desire to see more of (and no, I'm not planning ANY dragons unless it's something spectacular - I think it's reached beyond saturation point for those), haven't seen s good version of...?

Here's the plan (to give you an idea of the workflow) - I'm going to be building base meshes in XSI and Cinema 4D, and refining the crap out of them in Mudbox, then texturing them through BodyPaint and rigging in Poser6 until I buy 7.

Thanks in advance for any and all input-
-Lew ;-)

50-60k polygons is typical for DAZ character models, and they are that high for a specific purpose, to accommodate the huge varliety of morphs they offer.  I'm sure you can model an interesting, unique, versatile critter character with far fewer polys.  I am quite sure that as long as your critter is different from the mundane stuff that's out there (dozens of variations of human figures, but e.g. I can't recall seeing a good realistic octopus) you will get a lot of interest.

myself I like high detail, what have you made so far??

two requests, thun:
1.  koi (carp) with poseable gill covers, mouth, eyes and fins.

1. small poseable gliding dinosaur with feathers on arms and legs, such that it can
   fold up its arms and the feathers cover the arm, as in a bird's folded wing.

@David.J.Harmon - check out the attached image - I'm pretty sure this is in the 250k poly range.

@Miss Nancy - Koi - interesting! Would this include some general "fish" as well - hadn't though of fish! Small gliding Dinos - I'll start gathering reference materials - thanks!

-Lew ;-)

3/20/08

Miss Nancy:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Archaeopteryx

Archaeopteryx?

LMK

For super-specialty stuff I think you will find someone with interest regardless of poly count, but you may want to keep in mind a realistic, mid range target - typical Poser user might put 2-3 60k poly figures in a scene and try to get Poser to render that, and as you can see from frequent topics in this forum, that can be difficult on some hardware/software combos.  Myself I've gotten maybe 12 instances of V4 in a Poser 7 scene to render (about 600k polys) and probably could have gotten it to do more, so 200k would be fine for me if I were interested in such (I'm not particularly, but this may be useful info for you just the same).

I like it, when is it going to be ready

@lkendall - thanks for the link!

@pjz99 - Aaaahhhh! So I guess that would be the trick for me, huh? When I get the base mesh into Mudbox, it might be around 1,000 polys - subdividing it a few times so I can sculpt with finesse, and it easily hits 200k! In no time flat I could hit 600k! I'll try to keep them from 100k-200k I suppose. These would be specialty things - intricate aliens, bizarre sci-fi and fantasy-type creatures (and I'm not ruling out more mechanical things) you would see in the likes of Unreal Tournament and Gears of War.

@Miss Nancy - at this point I'm not necessarily thinking of real-world creatures (there's no "right or wrong" with stuff I make up), but as I get better I DO plan on doing real-world based organic modeling, and fish sounds like a great place to start!

@David.J.Harmon - it's as you see it - the head is separate (as well as the horns) which made it a bugger to bone in C4D. This alone (rigging) is something I need to get good at - or hire someone to do it for profit sharing. It's currently untextured. I figured I'd do it all over again, but with the head as part of the mesh, that way you don't have "seams" to deal with.
-Lew ;-)

so you need a rigger right now, let me know if you need help with it.

(Note this is a wip.. and doesn't have some of his textures, or proper displacement settings.. and this is an untouched poser 7 render.

Also, buy the book from amazon, "secrets to figure creation" by BL render.. it's invaluable.

Holy cow Gareee, that is strangely brilliant!! :scared:

thundering1 - The head is very impressive. Does it have moveable parts?

Thanks.. he's based off an original charater I cartoon drew over 15 years ago, crossed with a Nali War Cow from a game from 5 years ago, and a dragon.

I've been working to up my skill levels, and improve, as always.

it's my first zbrush texture work, and first zbrush displacement work.

Attached Link: http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Microraptor

Listen to Gareee :) He knows what he's talking about.

I've seen several nice character die a slow death cause the polygon count was to high. No one will want them if they are to wieldy to use.

Thanks! ;)

And poly count is a killer as well as using a lot of high res maps like you would in higher applications.

And if yer just starting out, anticipate 4-6 months before you can get a good working rigged figure out, assuming you work at it every waking hour.. LOL!

3/20/08

Miss Nancy:

When I went looking for Archaeopteryx, I came across the notion of small, almost completely feathered dinosaurs with a second set of "wings" consisting of feathered back legs. Fascinating. Thanks for the links and a fresh look at a (very) old subject. I hope some one can model that critter.

LMK

How high is too much poly count? now what do you think about animation high or low poly count?

Doesn't matter if it's for animation or still renders.. you keep your polycounts and textures as low as possible.

Otherwise you start adding everything you've loaded into your scene, and you'll find out you've used up all your resources.

Personally, I can't think of anything in poser that needs to be over 100,000 polys, and many things that are over 40,000 didn't really need to be.

I'd think 60,000 max for figure, less for a figure with fewer required morphs, or fewer body parts n such.

The Millenium Dragon is probably the most resource intensive figure I'd consider well made.

how much do you think V4 has? I do use the materal to make the mods do what I want.

V4 uses 68,500 polys or so. And that's about as high as I really think anything needs that will support a lot of morphs. Obviously, if you add more limbs, wings, built in hair or the like, then you need to allocate more polys.

There's a fine art between just modelling, and modelling efficiently.

I was kicking myself for using so many polys in my new little dragon guy.. 24,000.... I had subdivided the original mesh at a higher divisor then I really wanted... but in retrospect, that was dead on pretty much what I really needed.

I come from the old skool modelling guys... when a 10,000 poly model was considered HUGE.

One of our old expressions..."it's not how many polys you have but what you do with them..."

Sometimes you need more polys, but in most cases, you don't. Small details are better left to bump and displacement maps. Poly flow and allowcation are the most important when you are designing a mesh... especially for poser.. it needs some things, and doesn;t need others, depending on what you are doing.
 

yes I agree with that

Yes, this is one of the big problems I'm trying to figure out (poly count) because I don't want anyone to see any "angles" on anything I make. Seeing the sharp angles on what should be a smooth curve immediately takes the viewer out of the image with the realization that its fake.

Here's what's going on way in the background with WHY I'm doing this - I do FX for low-budget movies, and I make shorts whenever I can 9trying to make the jump into low-budget feature filmmaking), and things need to look REAL, and what that translates to for film and video is a high poly count as well as large textures. I want to get more into character creation and animation - doing monsters for movies, basically.

Keeping in mind I'm using C4D and XSI - and the guys I work with use Max and Maya - poly count isn't much of an issue for us until it gets REALLY high - into the 400k and above range per character, and we still have 200k or above scenery they're running around in if it's not in footage.

But in practicing, I figure I can make my stuff for sale if I think it's good enough (and right now my goat-head guy is NOT good enough - that's gonna be a freebie) - but the trick in making them for sale is the majority of buyers will be using Poser, so it needs to be managable for THEM (by hitting "Page Down" in Mudbox it un-subdivides the mesh). I can export the surface details as a Normal Map, make the mesh lower poly, and hopefully you won't see the difference.

Okay, take a looksie at the attachment to see what I'm getting at. The one on the left, while nice, is not realistic. For that you need better defined creases, wrinkles, muscle development, etc. (as well as a better texture and lighting, but I'm not gonna get into that - this is about polys and sculpting). The one on the RIGHT is what I'm aiming for - and this is gonna take a higher poly count I think.

Thoughts?
-Lew ;-)

BTW - neither of the above were created by ME - they can be found today by wandering through CGTalk.com's 3D gallery.

Poser usues a render smoothing option to smooth out angular edges on a mesh, so meshes don't have to be high poly to look good.

Also bear in mind poser users won't be loading JUST that one character.. they might load 4 or 5, and background and plant organics... they are loading an entire scene, NOT just 1 figure.

Take your 400 k poly figure, duplicate him 5 or 6 times, and then play around with that scene in  c4d or xsi...that's what you would be looking at in poser with a 200 k figure.

Smartest thing to do, is look at the poly sizes of the default content that comes with poser, or freebies made for it as well.

I know whenever anyone has created content with polycounts in the 100k+ range, customers have complained like crazy.

(Something else to consider, 25% or so of poser users are using it on a computer 3 years old or more... they aren;t using state of the art hardware, and heavy system resources will be unusable for them.)

*Also bear in mind poser users won't be loading JUST that one character.. they might load 4 or 5, and background and plant organics... they are loading an entire scene, NOT just 1 figure.

Good point - I make a big bad nasty critter and someone tries to make it look like it's fighting against an army - or terrorizing a full shopping mall - they'd be screwed!

Lemme see what I can do with a limit of 60k polys... (for starters - then keep it to a 1024x1024 texture file - with bump and normal as well - I'm guessing)

Thanks!
-Lew ;-)

And get that book on figure creation from amazon I mentioned.. if you do things like dragon wings, or bat wings, they have to me modeled a certain way in order to be able to rig properly in poser.

And make full sized texture maps.. I use 4096x4096 when it's needed.. end users can always down scale them if need be.

Poser doesn't use normal maps either.. you need bump maps or displacement maps.

As I said, there's a LOT to learn in poser content creation.

As I said, there's a LOT to learn in poser content creation.

You're very right! 4096sq image maps for Poser surprised me! I figured you'd have trouble with something that size - I remember seeing something from one of th evendors - Chachi(?) - where he was making image maps for another fantasy location he was gonna sell, and couldn't decide if it should be 1024 or 2046 maps - didn't even wanna go into making 4096 because they would be difficult to use.

Just an FYI: we've made two feathered dinosaurs for anyone that is interested...

http://www.contentparadise.com/us/user/caudipteryx_product_25802

http://www.contentparadise.com/us/user/microraptor_gui_product_25803

--Rebekah--

o.k., thx fr the info, six.  those two dinosaurs are fabulous IMVHO!
thun, skip the microraptor and just do a koi or something easy for yer freebie.
maybe some creature like a lizard-man or a dinosaur-android, unless somebody already did those.
do what the others said, and use displacement for non-overlapping scale, wrinkle and ridge fx.

thundering1, there's also a new book by David D'Champ that goes over how to rig characters and set up joint parameters in Poser.  It will also point you towards some Poser-specific utilities that can help you.  It's geared towards beginners, but you'll also find a bunch of information that may shave a few weeks off the 4-6 month timeline that Garee mentioned. 

It's being offered as a download from the author's web site (www.dad-tv.com) at half price right now.

Thanks ezuk - I'll get that one too! "For beginners" is just right, I think, as I've NEVER made characters for Poser ;-)

Just gonna jump in here and say that I like to keep Poser models 70,000 and under. I usually don't go over 50,000 to be honest but there's been one model where I did. Anyway, the point is, most of the extra detail can and should be handled with texture maps (displacement, diffuse, normal, whatever).  If you have Mudbox and/or ZBrush then you're ahead of the game and can generate those fairly easy. You'll also want to take your mapping/modeling approach on a case by case basis when dealing with unique critters.

Before you get hot and heavy in the character creation realm though, I'd suggest running through some general anatomy books and check to see that your edge flow roughly flows with the muscles you're trying to convey. It will help in adding to the believability of the model. I noticed your minotaur's abdomen to crotch area was a bit short and lacked detail, while the chest was overly pronounced. Step back and think about the character you're making as you're working, think about how it would need to move and in what ways it may live.  If you hit a nice poly count, while keeping the model in the realm of believable fantasy, you'll have an easier sell of it I think, as the model would fit in more scenes.

Good example of form follows function (which is really what I was hinting at): I once was asked my opinion of a deer-like demon creature. It had these really long tusks jutting from its cheek area going past the snout. Problem with that, as cool as it looked, the animal could never exist. It'd die of starvation because its tusks got in the way of eating. So in that case, the form hindered the function.  Just one more thing to think about as you model.

I really hope you get the opportunity to explore the world of model making. It's a blast and very addictive. Feel free to jump in the 3D Modeling forum (shameless plug) if you have questions/need help.

-Teyon.

I have to agree on the poly count being somwhere around 70k. Poser does not handle high numbers of poly's very well. ! had a figure at around 230k once in poser and just moving the body parts to pose it was slow. Granted I do not have a high end computer, but I do have an average computer and average is what most users will have.

*"...I'd suggest running through some general anatomy books and check to see that your edge flow roughly flows with the muscles you're trying to convey."

Thanks for the suggestions Teyon - yeah, I love it when you see characters created that would have no chance of actual functionality - like the tusks through the cheeks! Fantasy characters have to look like they're able to exist in the real world.

There are MANY problems with my Ammon character (my character above in the thread - it was an Egyptian God with the head of a Ram) - it was done for the last C4D contest, and was done pretty quick (I was only working on it a couple nights a week). His legs aren't correctly proportioned, he also isn't anatomically correct, doesn't have ears, no teeth, the muscles on his legs aren't formed right for that type of leg structure, etc. I basically ran out of time for the contest (1 month for character and scene) and haven't touched it again - I don't like it, won't use, etc. As I stated above, if I were to revisit him I'd start all over again.

The stuff I'm thinking of doing, I'll spend a good month or 2 on the basic mesh to get THAT right - then put it through Mudbox where I'll spend a lot of time.

I've taken drawing courses since I was 9 (technically younger - my grandma was a professional illustrator and her visits turned into art classes), but having done photography for the last 12 years has made my drawing (and anatomy) rusty - which is what I ALSO want to get good at again. Hadn't thought about the 3D Modeling Forum - I'll definitely go there with WIPs - thanks for that suggestion as well!

From Phantom3D - "I had a figure at around 230k once in poser and just moving the body parts to pose it was slow."

That's the overall information I'm getting - PLUS the notion that they'll be loading SEVERAL Poser characters in the scene (hadn't thought about that one) - so yeah, it's looking like I definitely need to keep it between 50-70k. I start thinking about 100k and need to pull back because it'll just be a resource hog for most people.

Thanks again and keep them coming! Anything that hasn't been mentioned yet, I should keep in mind, am glossing over, etc. - throw 'wm at me!
-Lew ;-)

It's also not loading JUST several figures into a scene.. it's loading the figures, any conforming props, hair, clothing, boots, weapons, shoes, hats ground, plants buildings, birds, you name it!

And a LOT of those things can be pretty high poly as well.
 
A fully clothing figure have had easily twice the resources used, because of all the texture maps and meshes loaded.

Oh I get that - the resources add up in no time fast! From poly-counts to textures to lighting.