How's this for my models?

[Roxas358]

These are real good.

[Shadowth117]

Those are pretty cool dude. The book could be a little nicer though I think.



Now obviously that's a very weathered book, but its good for what I'm pointing out. See how the edges are nearly as smooth on yours? That's probably the most obvious thing here for me. Though the lack of a sort of weathered look to the pages and the lack of differentiation in the big clump of pages in the middle stick out to me. Adding another few single pages that stick out to make animating look nicer would be cool too. Maybe mess around with bump mapping too, but I'm just throwing ideas out there.

[E-Man]

Well, I'm not that fond of making Cheato look older than he should be because I was going for how he looked in Banjo-Kazooie, which also explain the page clumps.


Anyway, if you want me to add more pages, that's fine, but before I do that, do you want the page clumps still in there? Also, I can even even smooth out the cover edges if that's what you want.

As for applying a bump map, since I'm not too good with textures yet, I'm not very sure how I can do that effectively. I heard that there's this program called Bodypaint 3D. Is that good for doing advanced textures and does it work for Maya and Mac?

[Shadowth117]

Well, I'm not that fond of making Cheato look older than he should be because I was going for how he looked in Banjo-Kazooie, which also explain the page clumps.


Anyway, if you want me to add more pages, that's fine, but before I do that, do you want the page clumps still in there? Also, I can even even smooth out the cover edges if that's what you want.

As for applying a bump map, since I'm not too good with textures yet, I'm not very sure how I can do that effectively. I heard that there's this program called Bodypaint 3D. Is that good for doing advanced textures and does it work for Maya and Mac?

Well the thing is, I'd rather you not go for *exactly* how he looked in that game. I'm not telling you that trying to learn to make art look a certain is a bad thing in anyway.But in this case it seemed like you were doing sort of a remake and was under the impression that you wanted it to have a more advanced level of detail. Things like sharp edges and plain textures sort of detract from that.

As for something like the page clumps, its fine to have those, but they should be more detailed like there ARE more pages. Solid colors make that area look weird. The lack of pages in the center of the spine looks odd too. If its not animated too much you could just combine those two sections of pages carefully and be good, but if it is animated it may be to clumpy.

[E-Man]

Well, I will admit that I did stray a bit from what Cheato actually looks like in some areas (i.e. eyes) before you even told me I shouldn't actually do that, Shadow; however, since you insisted that I add more pages and smooth out some edges, I decided to do that just for you!



I realize that you might be seeing some "solid" colors here, but if you look closely, you will see some detail on the colors. If you would like, I can send you a ZIP, so you can have a closer look.

Anyway, although I won't add bump maps because I don't have an effective way of doing it, can ask you if using a program, such as Bodypaint 3D or Z Brush, would help me texture objects better?

[Shadowth117]

I honestly can't tell you much about those programs because I haven't actually used them. I've heard good things about them, but you'd have to try them yourself to know if they'd work for you.

About what I meant for the center pages though:



See how in the center all the page ends come together at the spine and spread outward from there? In yours it just seems like there are a bunch missing because they sort of branch out from the sides a little unnaturally. There's also little differentiation between the pages in the two separate page stacks besides at the bottom. Maybe separate it up a bit or something or if they're like that already than use multiple lights to show that? Now that I look at them again, the pages are completely flat unlike Cheato's and have depth like a box when they really shouldn't.

The details shouldn't have to be so inconspicuous that you can't seem them normally at this range either. Its certainly hard to make them look natural and not stand out ridiculously.

Sorry if it feels like I'm asking for a lot, but I just want your work to look its best. Especially so if you want it on the site at some point.

[E-Man]

Well, to be honest, the only advice I can take from you at this point is making the clumps a little different (as in splitting them at the ends). I can't take the advice of making the pages thinner because that's as thin as I can make when I tried to make them plane thin, the textures just got messed up, which means that the only way to achieve the thinness you desire is to make it a single sided plane.

As for the part about the pages sticking out of the sides, if you actually look at the model in your CGI program, then you'll see that it does stick out of the spine, but it has to pass through the sides in order to get there. When Cheato's animated, then it will no longer be like that.

I'm trying very hard to make it so that this model will be ready for the site, but since that I'm the only Maya user on this site, it's almost impossible for me to prepare the model in accordance to your tastes.