This project is from 2-3 years ago, according to the last time I had touched the .Max files. Time flies honestly.
Creating a Protoss character was probably my first major character project. Unfortunately I do not remember exactly how long it took me from start to end as I had worked on it on and off for quite some time.
Opened 3D Studio Max, my favorite 3d application. I like it more than Maya, which I am sure to some is blasphemy...
SO. My main method here was box modeling. Its my favorite method of character creation.
Its also the only method I really know...
But nevermind that! I started out with a simple box with a single goal in mind: To build a Protoss head.
Again, unfortunately I should show some pictures of said work in progress but...I seem to have lost most of the original files somewhere on my back-up hard drive.
The head went well. Sometime after that I decided to expand on the head and build a body. And thus it became true.
One thing I am really hating myself for right now is my total lack of organization. In the process of writing this, I am also searching for anything that has to do with the Protoss. I am finding this crap all over the place and best part about it is that I overwrite the files WIP.png a bajillion times so I really don't early pictures.
First came the body. Nothing special, except it was quite...naked without any armor. Base mesh was complete, melted my brain over dealing with UVs (I hate UVs, most artists do I bet, yet I was such a noob at the time of my Protoss that it took me ungodly amounts of time to fully unwrap it; now I am finding out new quick things), and put the model into Zbrush.
Whenever I create a model, I love the time when I can use Zbrush. It is very fun for me, being able to flesh out my model in such major detail that it just is damn beautiful to do.
Oh look what I dug up! Amazingly I had found this in my back-up drive in the old "desktop" folder. Unfortunately I was such a noob that I had not used Photoshop to do any actual texturing, choosing instead to "polypaint" it straight in Zbrush. Again I was not very smart so the coloring job looks ugly as sin. I also did not know how to work the "movie" function in zbrush at the time either...hence the quick turntable with only a few frames. Impatient? Hell if I know.
I tried exporting a bump map of the high resolution details to the low poly model in 3ds max but the Zmapper seemed to spit out some horrendous maps. That and it did not help that when I did put the texture on the low poly model I did not have the bump map picture be added as a normal map in the bump map channel of the material. I had added it as a bitmap...a regular picture so the bump map picture was interpreted as full of SUCK.
By the way, see how it was posed? I don't remember posing it in 3DS Max. I posed it in Zbrush. Which...Is probably MUCH more stupid than you might think. In 3DS Max I had the luxury of a quick bone system to pose with. NOPE! I chose the hard way of masking out certain parts of the body and rotating them in Zbrush.I remember how fun that was... -_-
After that I think I took a small break, then decided to throw on some armor. So back in 3D Studio Max I go. Once again working off the base mesh of the naked Protoss, I grabbed some Protoss fan-art and official artwork from Blizzard and set to work.
There is the base model straight from 3ds max. Ambient Occlusion rendering.
Next I threw it back in Zbrush. UVs I probably dgaf'd, cause I hated them.
Front!
Back!
You might be wondering if I colored it...Based on previous results...NO. Oh well! My adventure with the Protoss is over.
I remember having so much PAIN doing some of the work. But eventually it was finished.
-Insert expletive here- as I remember how PAINFUL it was to do the UVs...
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