These are incredible. but it looks like the interpolation on the walk cycle doesn't loop. that's a problem I often have. I apologize if the pauses in walking are intentional.
Oh yeah it's a bit embarassing. Actually small discrepancies like that are easily fixable by checking "Loop time" + "loop pose" in the animation settings.
According to the wiki it seems their design changed throughout the DnD editions: forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Ankheg I was mostly basing this on 4e/3e, but added the green color as a homage to BG1-2.
Right now my go to method for retopo for rigs is splitting each important piece up (seperating hands/legs/torso/head) then using the remesh modifier on each piece at different subdivision levels depending on their complexity/deformation requirements, then recombining the meshes into one and UV unwrapping from there. Its slower and a bit more manual than this but gives very consistent results that don't cause problems down the line and can be rigged/textured while still being mostly automatic (takes about 20-30 minutes at most). This method you are showing is good for static meshes but I highly recommend against doing this with rigs. 1. Its gonna be extremely hard to properly pack UV islands with this and maintain texture scale consistently, which is why remeshing that gives you quads of even size you can scale and orientate along an axis is better. 2. For deformation, since you cant orientate the flow of the topology this will make the textures/geo deform in ways you cant control in key areas (limbs mainly) while animating and will lead to artifacts. The one appealing thing is that the decimate modifier tremendously reduces vertex count extremely quickly, but for a high quality character like this you don't want to lose detail while animating in any way, 12k is not enough for a rig like this you will lose detail and see artifacts on animations 100%. It saves you time now, but it will cause tons of problems in the future that could take longer than just doing the retopology manually. Im saying all this from experience because I used to do the exact same thing and decimate my meshes for rigs, these were the problems I ran into and the method I mentioned at the beginning of the paragraph is how I fixed it.
Hi, thanks for commenting. Yeah this method is definitely not for cases where quality is priority, it's more of a quick and lazy hack that works just well enough. I wanna ask about your method of splitting up a mesh into parts and remeshing them individually - the polycount must vary strongly at the seams, so you must spend quite a bit of time welding them all back together?
@@BuzzKirill3D For my method I just use looptools flatten + bridge at the seams, it takes a few seconds when you get the hang of it. Remeshing gives consistent quad spacing/scale, so textures will look nice and it will deform properly when animated.
With baked normals, you can decimate even lower and it will still look really good. If you have static meshes, you can add a second planar decimate of 5/10/or 15 deg, add a triangulate modifier, apply modifiers, and then in edit mode, select Face > Tris to Quads. Rounded bevels, curves and other silhouettes will remain high poly, but any flat areas will be extremely low poly. Then add the baked normals, and you have a very high poly look with almost no triangles at all.
Great dialog, great acting, terrible set. It would have been better as a play, where I could imagine whatever I wanted instead of some fleabag hotel. The reason Welles doesn't want to sit is that he noticed bedbugs.
I'm pretty sure this would be considered heresy/taboo in most circles, but it does appear to work way better than one would expect in this case. Esp interesting that you can bake the normals with this just like an actual retopo, and the result looks kinda decent with that simple rig. You should consider going bigger and perhaps making a brief animation or mini game in Unity or Unreal with decimated characters to show what this technique can do when the developer actually commits to it
I have a simple rule of when to do proper retopo vs. decimate. If it's a static object that doesn't need to deform (such as a piece of furniture), it's decimate. If it's something that would need to be deformable (either at runtime in the game, by bones, or shapekeys), it's proper retopo.
Yes, that's pretty much the consensus in the 3D world... however I've been -lazy- time-efficient in the past and just decimated anyway even when stuff is supposed to deform.
I use this a lot, but normally in zbrush decimate. then you can use tris to quads in blender. Obviously it works better for really low poly output, its seems to do a great job of adding geo in just the right place :)
Man, I have been decimating so many things that I shouldn't hahaha, I knew I wasn't alone on that. depending on the use sometimes I do topology just for the face. but I have to say, the more cartoon the model is, the more I feel like topology actually makes it look better and I solve some problems that would be harder with sculpt alone, for more detailed models, I have the opposite feeling, its like it looses a little bit of life, almost like when inking a pencil sketch
Yeah, I feel you, for sure Decimate is addictive to use. The turning point for me was when I had to retopo a complicated insect mesh, and I struggled to maintain its character/silhouette while also keeping the polycount low. Then it hit me, I could just use Decimate because it's very good at preserving as much of the character as possible.
Also, once you learn how to retopo, it becomes quite relaxing, and if you get a good workflow nailed down you can do it fairly quickly. Plus, sculpting still teaches you art fundamentals, form, anatomy, all that jazz, which helps massively even if you move to a more poly by poly modelling style!! You've got this man, have fun with it, sculpt some cool stuff, and dont be too hard on yourself, it will be so worth it
I simped for this man so much, not only because of his looks, but because of his charisma, his voice and it was his interpretation of a sick, vile, serial killer.
To the late, great David Warner. A truly lovely man, who played his parts as vilains so well. But was a truly humourous and lovely guy deep down. As a child, I met him once for his autograph. He signed it, and gave me a big hug (frowned on today 'coz of idiots like Jim Saville etc). RIP David Hatersley Warner) 🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ May You Forever Find Piece In The Arms Of God. God Bless
Wow! What a great story! Wish I could have met the man! I once met the late Sir John Hurt (Warner's lifelong friend and classmate at RADA in the early '60's) at a film festival and he was really nice. He shook my hand and everything and asked me if I was staying to watch his new movie and hoped I would enjoy it.
If you think about it - it's pretty mind-bending to consider that Jack the Ripper is chastising Alex the Droog about his pacifist idealism vs the violent future
I just watched Hornblower Mutiny where David Warner acted as Captain James Sawyer which led me to this page. What a great actor. He causes one to absolutely immerse themselves in the story as he brings the screen to life. He will be immensely missed.
