So it turns out that I was wrong about Mudbox! It’s really cool! It has a ‘stencil’ system that should allow me to get the look I want and without changing the process too much. I can even use a lot of the concept artwork with this method to get specific lines and textures.
You can use ANY image as a stencil and just paint it over the model once you have it lined up where you want it. This is great for transferring pencil drawings straight into 3d, any already line can be ‘projected’ onto any part of the model and scaled to the size you want it. It removes so much hassle and work with unwrapping, I still need to do it though, just don’t need to make it ‘draw-able’ on.
Being able to create ‘Normal’ maps is interesting too, I’ve never done anything like this but i’d like to know how to. A normal map is some weird way of making a low poly model look like it has much more detail. I’m still not quite sure how to utilize it in 3ds Max yet, it goes in the bump channel right?
I tried a fancier one with a bit of sculpting involved and the same scanned piece of knitting as the old Alvy before I realised I could just project the drawing onto it. I don’t like how I couldn’t match up the two textures, instead it just looks like a lumpy 3d model painted with flat knitting. I’m sure there is some way to make it look real, but i’ve only had the software for the weekend.
Here is a pretty awful render of it so far. The eyes and lip textures only temporary (because it looked so dumb without them) until I make stencils for the skin. I need to fix smoothing groups as his feet look a little weird… and put his teeth in! they are made, just need to be aligned up to the lips in each of the morph targets – yay.
At the moment it looks eerily too similar to the one from last year, but it won’t do when it’s finished!
As per tradition here is the imgur folder of stuff for this project: http://imgur.com/a/HjdpQ#0
