Hey everybody!

Is anyone working on Nick Chopper or Chopfyt right now modeling-wise? How would I find that out? I mean for Svn conflicts

I'm starting with Nick and here's what I've got so far:

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This is a temporary job that I've done simply to figure out the basics of what he should look like. Personally I like the way this turned out looking and I'll probably go with it, unless I get some feedback otherwise (which I would love to get).

Lee

Well this is only a little work on this so far, but I wanted a break. So even if no one reads this, it'll be good for me

I got the face unwrapped and textured

Here it is: Nick Chopper: Ruggedly Handsome


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I'm not sure about the beard. I mean it would look good, but it looks like it's drawn on. I don't know how it should be done though. Maybe with particles. That's some poll you have there.

I think the "beard" looks fine - one day's growth. The lips look good too. (I assume you haven't done anything around the eyes yet.) A skin Bump map will add a lot, especially wrinkles on the forehead

Funny poll

I think he looks fine. I like the unshaven look. Adds character.

Good work.

I know what you mean, the brushwork was pretty loose. I think you may like it better with the bump map



You are so right



Thanks Dhar!

Here's a small update (I like to update a lot, it's a habit).

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It was looking good to the point where I thought the face could be done, but uh-oh! I don't remember his hair being that dark! The beard might need a little less brown in it.



Thanks I like it too! But it's not looking to good for Nick...

Lee

UPDATE!

Started work on the jacket, and I've got some big spaces that I'm not sure what to do with yet. I want him to have a fuzzy collar but I'm not sure whether to do this with hair or with decals.

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See how there is distortion in the hat in this picture, does this mean that I should change the hat texture, or lower the bump percentage?

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Here is how the face turned out with hair color:

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POLL RESULTS:

100% of the votes indicate that the A:M community wishes Nick to look like a woman. HOWEVER, I'm going to make a creative decision against that.

Don't send me hate mail!

C&C are W&W (welcome and wanted)

Lee

Eyebrows and eyelashes?

Furry collar using Hair would be great (if it renders fast enough).

I didn't even notice the hat texture stretching... But someone else might?

First youse wanna give him some sorta girly operation & now youse wanna make him all fuzzy-wuzzy? I guess youse got a reservation in the witness protection plan all lined up?

Fuzzy-wuzzy sounds good. lambs wool?, beaver?, ??

The hat fabric distortion wouldn't be noticed IMO, unless the pattern is done by a material (rather than a decal) - it might produce a moire pattern when he moves.

I like what you've done so far. Aside from eyebrows & lashes (keep em short, cause long or even medium lashes tend to make guys girly looking) - perhaps he could get some ruddy cheek, forehead, chin coloring on top of his basic coloring that you have now? (since he's the outdoor type).

Love the beard shadow - very rugged

I love the jacket work so far. Great work.

Oh crap! I forgot--there was something about him that seemed a little too...Lex Luthor



If I give him a furry collar does that mean that I'll be trying on a cement overcoat? Oh and that better be the last time I hear the words "fuzzy" and "wuzzy" used in the same sentance in this thread!

Thanks Nancy (about the other stuff, I mean). I did give him a little more red in his cheeks and forehead (as much as I dare). In your opinion, do the colors (hat, hair and coat) go together so far? I'd like to get your thoughts. I think the green is a little much.



Thanks Jeff!

Finished Jacket Body:

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The comments were great...any others? (I feel so greedy)

Nice work! Is there a missing textured patch on his right shoulder? I don't know....would the jacket benefit from some thread bumps....like the other clothes?

You're asking me about too much ??? You're kidding, right ?

There's a really really good reason why you're texturing Nick & clones & why I'm not texturing this guy.

The green looks good to me.

Every color goes with brown. Brown is what ya get when ya mush complementary pigments together.

You've chosen an unsaturated palette, & believable woodsman colors (straight from LL Bean catalog circa 1760) - which is why the green looks fine.

Not sure you're intending to leave the white collar/tee shirt so white - could perhaps go more toward the cream side (not such a pure white).

Aye, he's very manly looking.

Thanks Ken! That isn't a patch I missed, it's his undershirt coming through (uh-oh!). I think I will be adding some thread bumps (small ones) pretty soon. Nancy suggested some embroidery and so did my grandm...I mean my insanely attractive girlfriend thought so too... so I might try something along those lines.



Thanks Nancy, I actually did some time (No, not "hard" time) on the LL Bean site getting ideas. I agree about the shirt too.

Thanks for all your suggestions!

Here's a small update, I tried a test with painted on eyebrows. It was quick but gave me a good idea of how it might look. I don't know how I feel about it, but I think I know whether or not Nick likes them...

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What do you think?

bushy, unruly eyebrows look good -

maybe less white teeth as well?

Ok, maybe save the yellow teeth (with bits of spinach) for Chopfyt. He's the one who should probably be the personal hygiene challenged slob.

Nick's a charmer, he is.

Thanks Nancy, I needed to feel good about the eyebrows

Here's some embroidery and stitching that I've added. I think it adds a lot

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Wow, nice!. How do you know where to put all the stitching?

Yes! Very nice.

Now it really does look like a wooley sheepskin collar would fit, given the way you've done the stitching

Thanks Jeff! I have a fitted Leather jacket (nowhere near this cool) and I used the seams as reference points and then put stitches around those areas.

Thanks Nancy, always nice to have your support!

I was really into a groove today and so I started on the fur collar. But I would enjoy some pointers (really, I would enjoy it)

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Alright, I made the hair pretty clunky (or thick, in layman) so it's not too big of a render hit. Also I'm using Muhair shader (not specular, though)

Does it look good? How could it look better? Does the fur look go with Nick's Jacket?

And yes, I know that there are so normals that need flipping

Thanks a bunch everyone, I'm having a great time!

Lee

The stitching looks good, but you might want to lose the NC. The fur collar looks ok, you may want to try adding an image of fleece to the hair material.

NC= Nick Chopper. I think it's a nice touch.

Yeah - I like the NC too - very fun nice touch.

I like the collar too - could add an abstract decal of variegated color: light mottled tones of browns, yellows, with maybe infrequent splotches of blue, purple to drive the diffuse hair color on the collar - would add some more interest. Playing with an abstract image emitter, as Mark suggested, might also add interest & fuzzy-wuzzi ...ummm... more soft wool furriness.

Not sure you have to use Muhair shader - because sheeps wool doesn't really have a specular look - don't know if it makes any difference in render speed.

I'll hunt up some mottled images - if you'd like - but really any ol' abstract image - with the right tones (right meaning it looks good to you) could work.

I also just noticed that his eyebrows probably could extend further toward the center - more in line with an almost uni-brow look, but not quite. I can't tell if you've posed him with FACE for the brows - but if that's the resting pose - the barber might have gone overboard in his last brow waxing.

He's so cute...um...I mean in a neanderthal manly way.

My curiosity was peaked wrt mimicing sheeps wool - so I hope I'm not stepping on toes by posting these images - I found out that using the emitters which have transparency and alpha masks greatly increases render times. They all use the same decal to drive the color - but the emitter changes. These were just final rendered from the modeling window - no lights, shadows

Wow. I like the first one best. But what's the black spot?

the black spots are cow licks ...er...sheep licks....that arise because of quick & dirty combing in a swirl pattern - it produces a whorl - which wouldn't be as obvious on the collar if it was combed properly.

The first emitter might be too stylized when you get up close. This was just to give Lee some examples to consider. He's welcome to refine them further to his liking. (Lee, let me know if you'd like them to play with, if you haven't already found something you like better).

Thanks Mark! What is it that you don't like about the NC?

Thanks for your comments too Ken!



Wow! Great Nancy! I was away from my computer all yesterday (the withdrawls were killer) and just found all this! Yes, I would love to play with these. When you say 1:39, you do mean one minute, right? I was scared there for a minute... Yeah, let me at 'em and thanks again!

Lee

Yes, it was 1 minute 39 secs, versus 14 secs

Here's a zip file containing the simple hairy models, the hair materials, as well as the images used for the emitters, and the decal image that drives the emitter coloring.

Hope this helps some.

Alright Nancinator (you don't mind if i call you that, right?)

So, I flipped all my normals and tried using your materials, but I'm pretty sure that I'm missing something:

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Same size, same maps, settings and materials--yuck!

If anyone can tell me what I'm doing wrong here, I would greatly appreciate it!

Thanks,

Lee

Oooooo, Nancinator? I like...I like...has a sorta mean maniacal sound...very fitting.

As for not looking the same - my guess is there are a couple of things going on -

1) it doesn't look like the hair color is being driven by an image - so you have to first decal the patches with the image you want to influence the coloring of the hair (I used the image whiterib.tga - in the zip file), then change the type to "other" from "color", than right click on the properties of the image - and select "add property" - then select diffuse color (I'll go get a screen shot shortly if that doesn't make sense). Then you can play with other images to see which you might like better - lots o' fun.

2) the other thing that you will have to play with for your hair collar will be the thickness, length, density properties for the hair material that would be appropriate for Nick model - The settings I chose fit for the scale of the test patches - they are probably not the right scale for the collar. I find I usually have to make the changes in the hair material itself, as the instance of the hair material at the group level doesn't always seem to reflect the change in property.

3) eventually when you get the right scaling - then a trip to the beauty parlor is in order for a combout (no blowdry)

Okay,

#1 was already done, but the group had a surface color assigned to it, and that was making it look white is wireframe

#2 I fell like a dork for not just trying this on my own. Thanks for holding my hand through that one

#3 Coming soon

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This is a great effect Nancy! Now the Muhair shader on the hair doesn't look like it's working. Oye!

Still to come: Eyebrow fix, eyelashes, hands, pants

Lee

Looks good.

I have found that I also have problems with Muhair shader consistently rendering.

Sometimes I have found that I need to do a screen render first (ie using the render lock button) in order to get it to kick in, and then when it shows up on screen, then it will render to file. Weird.

I do not know what version you're using - nor have I reported this, nor do I know if anyone else has experienced this. This is one of those intermittent things that I just don't know how to report as it usually means saying "not always reproducible".

That's looking pretty good, Lee. Maybe add some kinkiness to it.

Maybe someone from Avalanche would be willing to share the hair shader they used on the sheeps from Tak. They looked outstanding, a great combination of realistic and stylish.

Nick's Done!



Thanks Mark! I did add some kinkiness because of your comment, and I think it turned out really well!



While I agree that would be outstanding, I think you may like what ended up happening:

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Thanks again Nancy, this fur looks fan-freakin'-tastic!

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A detail of the lower parts

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and a little picture for fun.


I think that finishes it up! Whoops! Except for the eyelashes, does anyone have a good solution for those? I've tried a few things but haven't found the right method yet.

Thanks for looking!

Lee-land

Yes he does look good, standing there like a cute dumb valley of the damned robot in the sunlight.

I like what the kink did to the fur. Makes me think it would also look good on the tops of his boot cuffs and maybe for a fur type russian hat - but that's another day, another movie

eyelashes: you can use hair (no emitter necessary) - see Woot's eyelash material on the svn as an example material to start with - but you'll probably want to make them a dark brown, and keep them short - you'll have to isolate of course the outer part of the upper lid (and maybe some of lower lid) to assign the material to. Comb them to the side and slightly up. No mascara, or eyelash curler required.

Nice job. Nice lighting.

Ummmm ....ummmm... hold the phone. I just noticed:

How come he doesn't have hair on his head anymore ? - tho I do think the short cropped (maybe shaved, bald?) look is good too.

Was that an Ooops? or on purpose?

Quick! Hang up!



You know, you people just don't understand real art! All men in GOOD art are bald! I'm fed up! Show 'em how it's done Edvard!

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However, if you MUST have your precious hair back, it's just the skull cap that's hidden. You have your answer, now go! Leave me to my artistic misery

The Modeler Formerly Known as Lee

Yep.

Looks like them aliens is up to no good again.