First model worth showing. Maybe.

[Nemo]

Righto, trying to make some rifle infantry for a planned WWI Rome:TW mod. Oh, and I'll be using it in Spring too.

Currently untextured, I'm yet to learn how to fight my way through "UV mapping hell" as some modelers have called it.

I'm aware that he's quite blocky, I'm going to keep working on it, but (in RTW, at least) there may be up to 10,000 of these on a field at once, so round things (read: faces) are at a premium.


Edit: made the faces all in the same direction, front and profile shots.



113 faces as .obj.
242 triangles as a .3ds.

Any ideas on how to improve it would be much appreciated, I'm brand new to this stuff.

If it sucks, I'm glad to hear it, but at least say specifically what sucks about it, so I can make it better.

Also, any techniques for making round-looking things (legs, heads, arms..everything >_<) without using many faces would be very welcome.

Modeling in SketchUp.

[Das Bruce]

Legs seem too long. Also spring needs seperate parts for animations.

[SwiftSpear]

Legs seem too long. Also spring needs seperate parts for animations.

Nah, he'll just drift around.

[Lord JoNil]

I think they look really nice, but the legs are just a little bit to long.

// Lord.JoNil

[AF]

Arms are too short, torso is far too short, legs are slightly too long, it's all a matter of proportion.

Look at your self in a mirror froma distance, and put your thumb to your head. Then measure off ony our thumb how tall your head is, then count down how many heads long are the arms and the torso and work in that measurement. That way you get the body proportions perfect. It's also useful for drawing too.

[SwiftSpear]

From what I can tell it looks like you have serveral unessicary faces. Build the model slightly more continuous and you can delete tonnes of inner seem faces and underside faces.

[smoth]

if faces "are a premium" remove the bevel and face subdivides from the chest. Specifically the subdivides in the armpit region.

Remember that the chest has a ribcage. your current torso has no chest... bring it out some.

Also the feet look really akward turned at the angle they are facing.

For the neck, I recomend a cylinder of 3 sides... think an extruded triangle... hey, if every poly counts..

Also if you are using bones to animate you will need to make 2 more subdivides in the legs and arms for the knees and elbows to not deform horribly.

if you remove the subdivides that are on the sides of the chest, change the neck to an extruded traingle and remove that bevel you will be looking at a much lower poly count. No point on using polies where they are not necessary.

UVmapping is easy. you just have to understand it, there is no hell involved. ANIMATION is hell.

Another trick to ge more rounded shapes out of a quad is to turn it 45 degreees. that will make it look rounder.

-Smoth

[aGorm]

First off, looks much better than any of my atempts at men!!

So tahts good!

Smoths right aboutt he chest though, it should stick out more.

The guy clearly has Manga legs though...

Odd though this may sound, I'm pretty sure most people make people models as half a man and tehn mirror it, I assume tahst ment to be an eayer way. But Im no expert so listen to the others here more than me...

aGorm

[Nemo]

Thanks all for the tips.

Looking at it now, his legs do seem a bit absurdly long. I fixed it shortly after the first post (as well as removing the left leg and mirroring the right leg over, still need to remove the subdivides in the chest/armpit ect.)

aGorm: yes, I figured out how much simpler that approach would be after my first few attempts at modeling a person, so much of my work has been removing old mistakes and mirroring over.

Its all a learning process, I won't make that kind of mistake again.


Could someone elaborate on Spring needing seperate pieces for animations?

The lower leg is a seperate piece from the upper leg, which is a seperate piece from the torso..ect. Will that work, or do I need to change something to make his knees/arms flexible? In any case, this is still in SketchUp, I have to convert it to .3ds to make it a Spring model, which changes things a bit.

I'll put the updated blockman in the first post later tonight for further suggestions/help.

[smoth]

The models at least the 3do models are constructed in 3do builder peice by peice. What that means is that you need to export all of your peices and then import them into 3do builder. You name each peice and setup up hierarchy.. ie "right_leg" and right_leg was imported as an attachment to the cod part..... As far as the spring s3o format I am not sure. sorry.

[aGorm]

if u use upspring its the same, just you can UV map if you wish...

aGorm