Sky Queen hat/hair WIP

[Richard LeMoon]

Basic test textures on 'hat' (all non-hair bits). Muse hair textures used for the hair.

(image is link to turnaround video)

[Queso]

Oooooh, can't wait to see the final textures.

[Richard LeMoon]

I decided to go a different direction with the frill design and texture. I only exported the frill itself this time since it is the only part I made the rough texture for, so the jewels, clasp, and headband are missing. There is also no high-poly normal map made yet, just the decor objects baked over the top.

It does not show up well in the picture yet, but the decorations are supposed to be bullet casings with gems jammed in. I have to work out the details on the gems a bit more to make them shine like the purple ones in the last image. These are all mapped on a flat plane instead of actual geometry, so it may not turn out the same.

I have not decided what parts will be given the dye aspect. The brass will stay. I was thinking about making the black leather dyeable, but I may give the black leather a more brown leather texture and dye the gems.


Image is link to video turnaround)

[DJ Logicalia]

Aww, this is starting to look really cool.

Good work!

[ShadedExalt]

Imagine the fashion people screaming

THE HEIGHT OF YESHAN FASHION!

But great job.  If it gets published, I'll be sure to make myself the prettiest Princess Raider in the sky!

[Richard LeMoon]

Let's have some color. Also, normalmapped bullets just weren't cutting it. I added some minor actual geometry and rounded it off with textures. I returned to the bright purple gems in the bullet sockets. I did not adjust the specular channel for the new geometry, so the bullets and gems are bright and sparkly as hell.

These are all just test textures as I set the model up and learn what looks good. I have not even started on the higher poly sculpt and fine details. Suggestions are welcome. I'll toss some textures on the tiara and add the rest of the jewels tomorrow.

[KitKatKitty]

I'm loving where this is going!

[Richard LeMoon]

Everything put back together just to see how it looks. Started work on the high poly and baked it to the normalmap. Likely went too high with the specular.

(image is link to turnaround)

[Richard LeMoon]

Just for the sillies, one of the more odd dyes.

[KitKatKitty]

When will you be posting this in the workshop? It looks great!

[Richard LeMoon]

My PC choked on the hi-poly dynamic painting (used to paint dripping oils stains) in Blender, so I put it on pause for a bit. Since I can't do it that way, I will have to manually add the desired effect.

[Maestro Eraclea]

I would like to give some really personal feedback on this (it's just me, don't take this as ultimate truth)

• I think the "crown" should behave like a crown, so I don't like the "extension" that goes behind the ear, you can just have it hang on the hair like some chignon decoration would.
• For more or less the same reason above the front part feels odd (still can't really say exactly why). I like the headgear more without the front part.
• The "woody" thing below gems on the back part of the crown make them look like matches (and I think this was not your original plan, if it was gj).
• Most geometry looks too crude, try to smoothen surfaces/edges and add some geometry detail on straight edges.
• Queens don't use ponytails, historically you have more or less decorated chignons, bottom-long unconstrained hair or braid decorations.

Now, for something technical, as developers suggested, try to avoid hard edges on the low-poly model, use normals to define them, in the game engine you will get your hard edges automatically anti-aliased like that (otherwise most things will look like a bunch of pixels when far away or on low-res).

Again, these are just my personal impressions, you should mostly follow your own tastes.

Finally, would you help me getting that same gold material effect you managed to obtain? That is really realistic and I couldn't get mine like that.

PS: You can use the little square below the dye map to test dyes, no need to re-paint your color texture.

[Richard LeMoon]

It is actually inspired by an Egyptian headdress more than the typical crown, so I would like to stay try to the original form.

The 'woody' things are supposed to be bullet casings with gems jammed in them. The casings are still a WIP, as I am not satisfied with the shape and texture yet. I need to find the perfect combination of color/normal/secular to give them the sheen and tarnish of a used casing.

The high poly normalmap has not been made yet, so most of the geomerty is just using smoothing. The hard-looking edges actually do come from the normal map. Also, it is meant to look like it has been made out of scrap metal, and somewhat follows the style of bits of the ships. I am hoping to get the final texture to reflect this more.

As to the ponytail, I like ponytails, and feel they have better utility on a ship rather than lounging in a throne. So, more of a personal preference thing.

For the gold texture... hmm.. I will have to look at my working image file and get back to you. Thanks for the hint on the dyes. I never noticed that button before.

[Richard LeMoon]

I looked at my file, and these are the texture images as they stand (converted from tga to png for upload). The 'darker' areas in the normal image are actually mostly transparent, so you are seeing forum colors through it. They are actually the bright areas in the specular (alpha) channel.

I made the metal color texture by starting with an orange-yellow, and overlaying a burlwood pattern for shading and color.

To get the nomalmap as it is now, I applied the color texture to the higher poly model and assigned it as a bump map as well as color. This carried it over to the baked normalmap on the lower res mesh as extra geometry. It is a low-cost trick for getting extra detail that matches the colors perfectly. I then used the color texture in combination with the RBG channels in the normalmap to replace the alpha channel in GIMP (using the decomposing tool found in Color/components).

I think the trick might be to use a darker color than you think you need, with a very high specular, with any scratches or finishes in the normal. Perhaps that is why my bullet casings are turning out poorly. I'll have to try making them darker.

[Maestro Eraclea]

It is actually inspired by an Egyptian headdress more than the typical crown, so I would like to stay try to the original form.

If it's inspired by something, I totally understand your choice to try to stay as close as possible to the original idea, I actually support those kind of things.

The high poly normalmap has not been made yet, so most of the geomerty is just using smoothing. The hard-looking edges actually do come from the normal map.

I don't get it, baking the high-poly normal map onto the low-poly model takes just one click (at least in blender), I think you should test your models with proper normals set up. I'm telling you this because I had to re-model a few parts of my first work after I've seen how proper normals behave.

To get the nomalmap as it is now, I applied the color texture to the higher poly model and assigned it as a bump map as well as color. This carried it over to the baked normalmap on the lower res mesh as extra geometry. It is a low-cost trick for getting extra detail that matches the colors perfectly. I then used the color texture in combination with the RBG channels in the normalmap to replace the alpha channel in GIMP (using the decomposing tool found in Color/components).

I think I can help you a lot on this one with 3 huge hints.

• Go downloading this GIMP plugin http://code.google.com/p/gimp-normalmap/
  it's an accurate texture > normal map creator with 3d preview and a lot of different options
• There are a lot of websites with free shared high-definition seamless material textures, this includes color, normal, specular. This is an example: http://texturise.blogspot.it/ but again there are a lot of them
• If you're not able to find a proper mapped seamless texture for the material you want to get, you can create your own normal and specular material maps from simple pictures of the material directly with GIMP (with really good results):
  
  • If the texture is not seamless go Filter > Map > Make Seamless
  • If you need it to be of a different color from the original image, go Colors > Desaturate... and pick Lightness, then apply as overlay over your color (you may need to tune the color value up/down to match the plain one)
  • From the desaturated texture map go Filter > Map > Normalmap... (the plugin I wrote about earlier) play a bith with the settings and generate your normal map
  • From the desaturated texture map go Colors > Levels... and move both indicators toward the center (no need to touch the balance though) until you get most of the light points almost white and the darker points almost black

You then just need to add normal and specular maps to your model's materials (you can further tune them inside blender too) and it will be exported while baking the normal map (not the specular though, and I don't know why, probably I'm missing something, I had to manually export specular maps).
I have to say the result is quite impressive, take a look at these (from my workshop item, if image links don't work just search for "Guild's Maestro"):

• back_view.jpg (grainy black plastic on the frame, loosely threaded fabric on the "panel" and really bad thing that's supposed to be gold  )
• side_view.jpg (black, aged leather on the headband, colored brushed metal on the back and really bad thing that's supposed to be gold  )

This way, after you've set up all the materials in blender (if you're using blender ofc) you can create your high-poly normal & alpha channeled specular map onto the low-poly UV with normals, specular color, specular intensity and textures (without color, and with specular maps applied as color) map baking.

Btw, I'm taking seriously that "guide" thing, there's a lot of stuff that's definitely not that intuitive on the exporting process...