Evaluation

Everyone has their own way of modelling. There is no definitive guide on how to model, however there are guidelines which should be followed when finding your own style. Through this report I have shown several examples of good and bad modelling practice, ways in which to successfully concept and create character ideas and ways of mapping and texturing. These are intended to highlight what pitfalls should be avoided. By following the guidelines, you should be able to follow some good working practice. I personally believe that the success of a character is the concepting and design period. Without a strong model sheet and guide, it can become very difficult to create a strong mesh. However, following good modelling practice is also very important for creating a memorable and likeable character for a game.

Creating this report has helped me grasp a much stronger idea of what kind of practice I should be following when modelling not only my character, but all models. I will take some of the points 

highlighted in this report with me into my 3^rd and final year so hopefully I can develop and hone my skills. I only wish that I had read and researched a report like this before creating my Character for GDM. To summarise, by reading into this referral, I have actually found the flaws in my model and found ways to improve the next character which I create. I will be using these guidelines to create a brand new character for my portfolio which will hopefully show strong concepting and professional modelling practice.

Texturing

Texturing is in my opinion, one of the most difficult aspects of character modelling. It is Very clear however by developing the texture on the model, what looks natural and what doesn’t. Here I will show some examples of good texturing and some bad ones so you know what to avoid when texturing your character.

Here is a professional website taken from a Maya online forum. As you can see, this model is fantastically textured. The detail is amazing at how much care has been placed into this model. The character looks very realistic and the texture is fitted perfectly over the model with no evident gaps. The models maps work to great effect. The normal’s give the model a better depth to the character, and the specularity map has marked organic material (ie. Skin) over the dull coloured clothing and high specular belt buckle. By narrowing the white levels of an occlusion map, the modeller can create a highlight map to give the diffuse a bit of a push and really exaggerate the skin, which he has done here.

 

Here is a bad example of texturing. The model lacks any mapping and as a result, looks very flat and dull. There is no material added to the texture, just pure colour which again gives a flat appearance. In certain parts of the texture, colour has “spilt” onto different sections. If you look on the chest area, there are gaps of un-textured faces and on the models right hand, the red from the top has spilt onto the black glove. In general this is just a badly textured model. There is very little form on the skin, and as a result the face has no character whatsoever. There is no depth and resembles texturing from the very early stages of 3.D such as the N64’s gaming era. This model would never be able to be used in a final game. This is what we want to avoid in character creation.

Cartoon characters allow for some more freedom when texturing as the model does not have to look as realistic as possible as most next gen models have. Although they don’t require high definition texturing, there are still right and wrong ways of texturing them. 

Here is a bad example of cartoon texturing. This much like the previous model is dull and flat. No specular map has been added, the reflectivity of the surface is from the blinn material found in Maya. There is very little detail, although this can be overlooked for cartoons; however this model has literally no definition within the texture at all. It is very amateur and created with very little reference or thought.

Here is a much better example. Although made in a cartoon style, they have used a reference of armour to create a semi-realistic suit of armour. The block colour on his helmet has a normal map on it making it much more realistic. There has been a lot more care taken with this model and although the detail is minimal, it is still up to professional standard. This is what to aim for when texturing a more cartoon styled character.

U.V’s 

Creating U.Vs is like modelling in general. There are so many different ways to do it, it’s what the modeller is most comfortable with. Below are a few examples of how a good and bad texture map should look. Considering there are other ways to texture outside of Maya, like using polypaint techniques or photograph stretched faces in Z-Brush. Usually for these techniques the U.V’S need to be as similar to the model topology as you can get them, so they all line up perfectly.

Here is an example of an average texture map for a character face. The bottom U.Vs should have been sewn to the bottom of the face so that the skin could be cloned better and so the U.Vs were neater and flow more easily. There also a random patch of skin not attached to any part of the main face U.V. It is unclear by the map, what this part of the texture it is which is not very good.

 

This facial U.V and Texture is much better, it looks perfectly laid out so that the texture flows across the U.V and you can identify where about’s each part of the texture will lie on the model. The skin and hair are blended perfectly. Even the neck and Adams apple have clear definition, compared to the previous example.

 

In relation to the mesh’s body, try to stitch the U.Vs together like the face. It is good to avoid having random faces in different locations. We need to make sure that the U.V mesh is as simple as possible so that we can identify which parts are what on the texture.

Here is an example of the kind of U.V map that you should try to avoid. Although you can gather the body shape, the rest of the U.V’s thought are random and lack any form etc. There are several faces left alone in the top right of the map which have no place on the map. The body parts should be organised into clear sections. Usually, good practice is to map the characters head and face first and then map the other sections neatly together as the facial and head region requires sections for ears, neck, hair etc. and the torso can be combined into one U.V map.

Here is an example of a very good U.V map. All the pieces are sewn together and scaled properly. All sections are clearly marked and laid in separate sections, ready to be textured straight away. There are no loose U.V’s. The face is perfectly mapped and the entire map is well created! This is very good U.Ving practice.