I tried to give him a more convincing appearance of struggling. I rotated him and changed the pose a bit, which was difficult because I had manually added a lot of boards of wood over the mesh to cover up intersecting wood pieces, and I had to parent them all to the correct bones first. Another feature through which his struggle is read is, of course, the face; I made him look more strained than indecisive now. In addition, I added some bent nails, per request.
In other news, I just found a great use for UV mapping. The original purpose of the method is to map a three-dimensional object to a plane on which an image is stored. It can also be used to map out a two-dimensional shape which can be folded back into a 3D object using paper. Here's a chair I planned out and constructed using this process.
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| I started with the rather simple 3D model of a chair. No, it didn't have this texture at the time, but it looks cool that way. |
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| When I LSCM-unwrapped the mesh, I used the "conformal" option and turned off "fill holes" to get a perfectly precise map. I tried to keep it all one piece, including the concave hole, without overlaps. Then I did a normal bake to get easily distinguishable faces (exporting a UV layout would export the useless UV's as well as the actual corners and seams). |
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| Here's the revision in Photoshop, adding tabs and designating folds and cuts. |
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| Finally, the product, after cutting out and gluing the tabs. |
Dude. That woodman looks very awesome. I thought he was straining to pull himself from the bridge, as if he is a guardian made from the wood of the bridge itself, and I think I like that assumption.
ReplyDeleteYou've blended the lighting scheme into the photo image very well and the shadowing on the bridge is just right, that must have taken ages to get that nice.
Did you use the wood from the picture to texture the dude? It looks like it, and I think that helps make it look more appropriate. I think that the understorey of the bridge is a little off though, looks like a portal into hell, which I can totally understand might be what you were aiming for, but I think it would be cooler to just see the crossbeams and supports of the bridge and then the creek or banks below. You could probably use another picture under there to make it fit in, but it might be a bit sketchy to make it really fit like the rest of the picture.
I also love the red glow coming from his chest, like he is a bridge golem or something. This image really tells a story, which is a great acheivement.
Well done on this piece man, it's a good start to a portfolio.