$12256 / $11500
Announcing the Liberated Pixel Cup... now in 3D!
Okay, don't get too excited. I'm a Blender noob, so I thought I'd get some practice by trying to reproduce the LPC female base in 3D.
I'd like some advice on what I can do to improve the model, improve the unwrapping, and/or prepare it for rigging. Please be critical; I'm trying to improve my skills. Before submitting it to OGA, I intend on rigging and animating it as well as including one full set of clothing.
The blend and related files can be downloaded here.
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Anime style pixel art usually doesn't translate well into 3D, and you need to keep in mind that the LPC sprites are drawn from a slight top angle.
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I like it, but the UVs definitely need work. You're wasting almost half the texture, so you should probably break it into more sections. I'd suggest a seam all the way round the waist. Since it's a flat texture, it won't be noticeable, and presumably most variants of the model are going to involve clothes, so a seam between trousers and shirt is to be expected.
The other thing would be to watch the boundaries of the UV islands - you have them right up against the edge of the texture. It's likely that the top and bottom of the texture will spill into each other. You're not seeing it at the moment, because it's all flesh coloured, but it could be a problem later.
For both these problems, you might want to try it out with a UV test texture. Imágenes de uv test texture
Thanks for the feedback!
Julius, yes, I completely ignored the top angle. I wasn't sure how to handle it. What would you recommend? Should I just make her a bit taller and move the eyes/ears up a bit? Would you have any suggestions about how I can better translate a pixel character to 3D? Like I said, I'm fairly new at Blender (and I'm not really even an artist - I'm a programmer).
DivFord, yeah, the UVs were one of those things I wasn't sure about, mostly because the majority of the model just doesn't need them. (Or does it? I am planning on modeling the clothing as a separate mesh.) Would it be better for me to UV unwrap just the eyes and leave the rest as a solid color? Also good call on the touching islands. As far as the quality of the unwrapping, I think I did okay; there's only minor stretching, mostly around the breast area. I previously used the UV test texture and I thought it all looked fine, but I'm not really trained to know what's good or bad. Please correct me if I make any false assumptions!
I suppose it depends what's going to happen to the model. My assumption, since this is based of the LPC, was that the model will serve as a base for various other characters. If it's ever going to be made into something with scales, or fur, or tattoos, it will need more than just solid colour. If not, I think you could do what you said and just unwrap the eyes.
How will you be going the clothing? I find if you just build a separate mesh and stick it on top, you often run into clipping problems when animating. You might want to consider something like this: http://wiki.polycount.com/SkankerzeroModularCharacterSystem?highlight=%2...
DivFord, a system like that is exactly what I actually want to do; thanks a million for that link! And you're absolutely right about the fact that just because *this* base is a solid color doesn't mean there *won't* be a need for it later.