WIP: Aphrael Lo-Res Model 5

Greetings and salutations! The main part of the lo-res mesh for Aphrael is complete. Secondary meshes like the teeth, hair, and accessories I will focus on after I UV map the main mesh. However, before I start UV mapping, I wanted to do a little review and show how the mesh looks. First is the whole body:

Front view.

Side view.

Back view.

As you can see, the ruffles are done. I decided to make the ruffles a floating mesh instead of simply extruding out from an edge loop. The reason for this is because it will make it easier to paint skin weights for and I don't want any t-manifold errors. What I mean by this is having a plane of faces extruded out from a single edge loop that lies along a surface, kind of like a t-shape. That would be just bad geometry.

Speaking of geometry, let's look at it in more detail.

Head geometry.

Again, I am quite happy with the results here for the head. The edge loops are clearly defined and quite clean. Placing a facial rig should not be a problem here.

The hand and sleeve ruffles.

Would you believe that the hand and ruffles are actually floating and not physically connected to the main mesh? Again, I did this to keep rigging simplified and to prevent T-manifold errors. The hand itself did not take long to do and I am happy with the results. The ruffles though took forever but that's probably because I built the geometry and shaped each vertex by hand to ensure I got it to look the way I wanted it to look.

Skirt geometry.

The same deal with the skirt. It is an actual floating geometry and not physically connected to the main body. The skirt went by a little faster because I now knew the edge flow I needed to create the ruffles and all I had to do was create one set and duplicate the others. I then fine tuned their shape around Aphrael's hips. I had to pay close attention to this because of how big her buttocks are. I didn't want any geometry intersecting except at right below the belt so it would give the illusion that it is part of the mesh.

Legs geometry.

My personal favorite, I am quite pleased with how beautiful Aphrael's legs came out. This is exactly what I was looking for. They will look even better once I bake the tangent space onto her legs from the high-res model. The shoes were probably the one area that was giving me the most problems. I ended up with a single triangle on each shoe. However, since the mesh will be triangulated anyway, it will not prove to be too much of a problem in the near future.

Next is UV mapping. UV mapping doesn't usually take me that long; however, this is probably the most complex mesh I have had to map yet so we will see what happens. UV mapping really is an art unto itself and you have to practice, practice, practice to finally get comfortable with it. I'll get more into that next time I post about Aphrael so stay tuned!

WIP: Aphrael Lo-Res Model 4

Greetings and salutations! Today I wanted to show off my progress on Aphrael. Since I've had time this week to work on her, I have made some significant progress on her. Take a look below:

Front View.

Side View.

Back View.

I believe I am at or around 5,700 polygons at this point before triangulation. Many of the remaining amount of polygons will be used for the next steps which is the ruffles for her skirt and sleeves, her hair, and Aphrael's accessories like her sword and pistol.

This is going to sound weird but one of the most difficult areas that I always have doing is a woman's crotch. The shape and how the legs connect to the pelvis along with the shape of the buttocks always throw me into a loop. I didn't have as much issues here because I have been practicing. How have I been practicing? By modeling panties! I said I was going to sound weird. I'm not a pervert however. I actually studied how panties were made along with the various types and patterns that are used. I then attempted to model them in Maya. After a few attempts, I now understand the edge flow needed to create the correct shape for the crotch and how to connect the legs and buttocks to that shape. I believe I have finally succeeded here even though the buttocks are kind of high density. That's okay though because it will make it easier to get the correct shape of Aphrael bending her legs easier when I start rigging.

Overall, I am happy with how Aphrael is coming along. I am particularly pleased with how her legs came out. It was tough getting the shape of her two jackets correct but they are there now and I am happy. I hope to finally do the ruffles and her hair next before I start UV mapping. Accessories I will do later because those will need high-poly versions as well. I will most likely use subdivision modeling for the accessories.

Next time I post, I will talk about my progress with Unreal Engine 4 and how I am using it for Prism so stay tuned!