Dichotomy Project Post-Mortem

Final outcome

It's finally over and we may rest easy once again, for a few weeks anyway. It's no secret this project has been a persistent monkey on my back and I've been really unsure through this whole process but I did like what I finally ended up with.

Stonewall and Gambit

Overall they still have things I'm not completely happy with, mostly with my textures and mostly with Stonewall the white Bishop. The tone of the yellow on his body washes out into the white far too much and it makes the details harder to see. Gambit despite being textured in the same pattern feels like his colours are broken up more successfully and they sit together a lot better and clearer. It was also pointed out at the final presentation that the opposite tones on the shoes draw the eyes down towards them as the pure colours seem to demand attention.

In response to is I did a quick paint over of the render using shades of grey so that they colours weren't quite as strong. I to me looks like I'd have to spend some more time to get the shades correct but the alteration does seem to help balance the colour more and helps separate them from the board they're standing on.

The project over all

Regardless of the finished piece I don't think I handled this project as well as I should have done. I spent too long working with the concepts and even longed doubting any of the work I produced which greatly slowed everything down. 

As for the transition from 2D to 3D my models were quite close to identical to my plans and orthographic images so was happy with this aspect of my work and I wasn't required to alter my tri count for the models to get my desired results. I had wanted to get a bit more depth into the diffuse texture and get the glow maps working for the eyes but I was required to prioritise other things.  

Even with all that once the dust settled from concepting nightmares and deadline changes I laid out a work plan for the time frame I had left and was able to stick with it more often than not, apart from a few hurdles at the end which affected the quality of the model rigging. 

For the next project my main goal will be to not trip myself up with concepting for disproportional amounts of time once again and to have a bit more confident to avoid hesitating the point of being static. 

Bishop Modelling Continued

It's been a long project but the end is finally in sight. This is just an update to add onto the last post to cover the second character. Both characters are modeled and textured and all that is left is to use the extra time to rig the characters and produce quick props and a base to use in my renders. Overall I do like the designs but I think the black bishop works better of the two, his silhouette seems stronger and his colours work better together. I look forward to getting them side by side in a scene and wrapping this project up.
  

Bishop Modeling

Modelling for the rest of the week and the weekend went with no problems. Having modeled the white bishop I could carry the model over and swap out the head pieces then use the various tools to make the other changes to produce the second character. 

I set a budget of under 3000 tris for each model. The white bishop finished at just over 2500 and the black bishop was under 2700. I cut the count down as much as I could to the point where anymore changes would change the shape of the model, though I did upset the topology on the head and feet in an attempt to lower the count..  

I used the symmetry modifier to cut down of modelling time and the time spent working on the unwrap but got to the texturing stage and realised my texture design was asymmetrical so couldn't overlay the UVs and had to go back and repack them a few times. 

I initially created a PBR map for the white bishop but the result wasn't the cartoon like feel I was aiming for so I returned to diffuse and specular maps. 

Uvs, Diffuse and Specular map

I also intended to use a glow map to try and get a slight glow on the eyes so they didn't look so flat and painted on but I couldn't manage to get the map working in 3Ds Max so I abandoned the idea. I had planned to just finish off the texture for the second character in the next though days but the project was given a extension so I should have time to rig the models and create props to use in the renders. There's still work to do but it's nearly at an end and I really look forward to a break for Christmas.