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Comparing the old to new

Started by laughing paradox, July 02, 2008, 01:54:36 AM

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UnkoMan

Bevel and emboss? No, no, my friend. I do seams 100% natural, using the line tool. This way you have exact control of the seam, and you will never accidentally get a dark seam where a light one should be, and visa versa.

I had a tutorial about it once, but that is lost to time, I think. Wait, maybe it's on the wiki... Ah.
http://frworld.wikispaces.com/Simple+Seams
It's basically what I still do, although I've gotten better at it. The technique is the same though. Good luck!

laughing paradox

Quote from: UnkoMan on July 13, 2008, 08:53:38 AM
Bevel and emboss? No, no, my friend. I do seams 100% natural, using the line tool. This way you have exact control of the seam, and you will never accidentally get a dark seam where a light one should be, and visa versa.

I had a tutorial about it once, but that is lost to time, I think. Wait, maybe it's on the wiki... Ah.
http://frworld.wikispaces.com/Simple+Seams
It's basically what I still do, although I've gotten better at it. The technique is the same though. Good luck!

Thanks! I'm going to try that tutorial for the seams. I'm starting to notice on some characters how bevel and emboss isn't consistent with the whole costume, but great for certain parts, so I'll try your way. Hopefully I'll get it right. :)

Here's an updated Darkstar. I'll release it for now but I'm going to try the seams on this skin and see where it takes me.



By the way, does anyone know where I can find base skins for male_basic and female_basic of African American descent? Also, I have yet to find a female_basic bald base skin..does any exist?

justintyme2174

Gryphon has African American base skins on his site and a bald female as well.

http://www.chynaman.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/FF/Bases.html

laughing paradox

Quote from: justintyme2174 on July 13, 2008, 11:14:56 AM
Gryphon has African American base skins on his site and a bald female as well.

http://www.chynaman.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/FF/Bases.html

Fantastic! Thank you so much. 

laughing paradox

Here's some more stuff...

[spoiler]

Sungirl from the Titans East. I'm not entirely sold on how she came out, but I'm itching to do some other skins so I'll release it as is. It's on a custom vx mesh.



Bushmaster from the Serpent Society. I was having issues with the tail and making it cohesive with the torso, but I think I got it as close as I'm going to be able to do it at my current skill level. Special thanks to tommyboy for helping me out!



New hex..or is it skope?...for Fer-De-Lance. (Big thanks, Johnny Patches!) I still need to find a female_basic base skin with two sides of a bald head, to add cohesion for color, so I can't release this one yet. Either I find that base skin or it'll be released when I finally have enough skills to make my own..which will be a looong time. ;)[/spoiler]

laughing paradox

Some Alpha Flight love.



Purple Girl.

I want to find a good mesh for Laura Dean and Gobyln.

Jakew


billdamn22

Great improvement and some great skins to match. IMHO I would maybe turn down the highlights a little, but thats just me. I like how you stick to characters that haven't been skinned so often.

UnkoMan

I like this latest one. That top edge is really nice. The one on the leg needs some shadow under it, though. Also, for your shadows on the purple skin, try using a darker purple instead of a straight up black. Gives it a better tone. Some people go the painterly way and use the opposite colour. I tend to use a slightly tinted version. You'll figure it out.

laughing paradox

Thanks, folks!

Thanks to Daglob's cool Spectral skins, I wanted to add to the Strangers, a great superhero team from the 90's that was released under the Ultraverse imprint.

ElectroCute
[spoiler]

I think my strong point to skinning so far, not to sound like a pretentious mofo, is coloring. I like the way this skin came out, especially the lightning look on the legs.[/spoiler]

sweeten2213

Did you, by chance, release your judomaster and diamondback skins?

If so, I would love to know how to get them.

laughing paradox

I actually did release those two skins already. I should have announced that in the Releases forum, huh? Heh.

You can find them here: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/laughingparadox/

I need to add some more files to that Yahoo group. I've been sitting on this version of Aurora for a little while, but I need to finish it up. I'm just so lazy and for some reason, this design has been giving me a lot of trouble. (I finally got someone's hair right, though!!)  :lol:



sweeten2213

Thanks for reply.

I DL'ed both of those and darkstar.  Not bad at all - you're doing well.

One thing though - you don't have the hexed character.nif with judomaster - just the skin for vxfemale2.  Looks real good, but she has the hair instead of it being hexed off.

laughing paradox

I'll add the hex in a few. I should have realized. D'oh!

daglob

Quote from: laughing paradox on July 24, 2008, 02:04:11 PM
Thanks, folks!

Thanks to Daglob's cool Spectral skins, I wanted to add to the Strangers, a great superhero team from the 90's that was released under the Ultraverse imprint.

ElectroCute
[spoiler]

I think my strong point to skinning so far, not to sound like a pretentious mofo, is coloring. I like the way this skin came out, especially the lightning look on the legs.[/spoiler]

Hey, great; another one I can take off my list.

electro

I love your Serpent Society skins :blink:

laughing paradox

Thanks, Electro. Every time I see your avatar, I think it's my post..hehe. I have to eventually complete the rest of the Serpent Society, and I will. I finished some that I haven't previewed, but I just need to zip them up and write the read me files and so on. I really want to do Anaconda soon, especially with FFX 3.3 out and having her with a grappling move.

Anyway, here's my newest skin: Gemini from the Zodiac. I wanted to do a simple design to really test out things I've learned so far involving seams and specific shading techniques.



I do need help with the belt, though. I could always just hex a belt onto the mesh, but I really want to learn how to make the belt look good just through the skin. Any advice on that, or on skinning extras in general, would be great.

I also wanted to show my first skin again, to compare the first to the latest, and the improvement I've reached so far. I'm only doing this to hopefully inspire someone to try skinning: if I can do it, anyone can!  :)


UnkoMan

Vast improvement. Your colours look a lot nicer now. This may be personal style, but I might make my white highlights lighter and my black shadows darker. I always end up upping the contrast on things after I've done them, though.

As to belts, I say download ones you've seen and liked elsewhere for reference. Critically look at them, and figure out where people put shadows and highlights. Really, that's all making anything is, a series of shadows and highlights. For something like a flat belt, this is quite easy. You'll get the hang of it in no time.

Oh! Another thing, that I forget most of the time too! That base you're using has no crotch. Put one in there, it looks much better.

laughing paradox

Quote from: UnkoMan on August 09, 2008, 10:09:29 AM
Vast improvement. Your colours look a lot nicer now. This may be personal style, but I might make my white highlights lighter and my black shadows darker. I always end up upping the contrast on things after I've done them, though.

As to belts, I say download ones you've seen and liked elsewhere for reference. Critically look at them, and figure out where people put shadows and highlights. Really, that's all making anything is, a series of shadows and highlights. For something like a flat belt, this is quite easy. You'll get the hang of it in no time.

Oh! Another thing, that I forget most of the time too! That base you're using has no crotch. Put one in there, it looks much better.

Yeah, I tried contrasting the white sections of the skin and I understand what you mean, it does look better. I'm not completely sold on the blue shading on white, though. I tried it here and I don't know. Yeah, I'm just going to have to check other skins out and analyze them.

I'm tempted to be incredibly immature and make a joke about making a crotch look better, but I know what you mean. I'll see what I can do about that also. Thanks for the input, as usual, Unko. You've really helped me out, sensei.

Podmark

Gemini looks nice. For the belt I would just skope a belt on. I'm big proponent to using actual objects instead of skinning wherever possible, it's a 3D environment afterall.

However, if you do want to skin the belt Unko's advice is good. Essentially you'll want to darken the areas on each side, possibly brighten the front and back and then darken the bottom edge and brighten the top edge all around.

laughing paradox

Thanks, Podmark. Yeah. I'm definitely taking the time to check out different skins to get a better understanding about shading. I appreciate the input.

So, if Gemini wasn't evidence enough, I've decide to tackle the classic Zodiac. Here goes two more of their members.

[spoiler]

First up is Libra, for the vxLibra mesh. I've learned the importance of anti-alias in this skin and how it makes a skin go from poo to pow. I love the seams on this skin and it took me so long to finish. I think that extra work payed off, though. This is the first skin where I really began to experiment with the reflection part and I think it really came off well with the chest logo.



Cancer is a fantastic skope created by Johnny Patches. I love this skin. Again, a lot more time went into this than my other skins. I'm toying with the shading for extras..and while not perfect, it's gotten better.
[/spoiler]

tommyboy

Looking good there. I like Cancer, and Libra. Cancer's seams and edges seem a bit crisper than Libras. But Libra's Logo seems to work better.
But both look good, as did your Gemini.
Must.... resist urge... to ..waste time... in rumble room.... pitting Avengers ...against Zodiac.....in 'watch' mode....


billdamn22

The great thing about your skinning is seeing how much you improve each and every one that you complete. Keep at it!! :)
BTW.....where did the claws for Cancer come from? I ask because I need claws similar to those for one of my originals, but the only ones that I knew of were by Fusion......and those meshes are on the no no list for skoping.

UnkoMan

Alright. You've started skinning your extras. Good begining. For the blindfold, I can see what you're doing but the colour you are using for the shading just isn't working for me. Too grey, and not dark enough. You need a lot more contrast to really push those folds. They seem like a decent attempt though. It took me forever to get the hang of fabric (and I'm honestly still not that great). A little tweaking, though, and this will be pretty good.

As to the black spots... I tend to only leave large black portions if there is a specific style. Examples, I did one skin with a totally matte black costume, similar to Havok or something, but with actually skinned black boots, gloves, and undies. My Corpse skin, the belt is entirely black, because of the entirely white refl. This way the custom lightmap I did does all the definition, giving it a more cartoonish appearance.

For something like this, though, I would probably highlight it with grey. Granted, this is sometimes difficult. You have to be quite smooth. I can point out examples of my own skins where it just didn't work at all. Have you've ever seen my Soviet Skins? Those boots just don't work at all. The belts are meerly okay, but nothing great. Unko Man's black works much better, I think. Specifically, look at the chest symbol. That's what I tend to do with every chest symbol, regardless of colour. Just adds a bit of depth. You don't have to put the highlight in the middle, of course. Do it where you think it feels right.

Also, I like that you are doing seam work, but you are forgetting something crucial. You can't just make pure light lines around everything. For example, the bottom of Cancer's sleaves and pants should be the darkest colour, not the lightest. Around his logo, it should alternate, depending on where light falls. As to logos, depending on how you want them set you make not need seams on the costume part. That is to say, usually I do logos as slightly raised elements. This means that the seams go around the logo, but the costume itself has only shading on it. If I do embedded, then I put seams on both. Once or twice I've done sunken, where I made it appear as those a part was cut out of the main costume, with something underneith.

Just first think about how the light would fall on something, and take it from there.

Okay, hope this was helpful. Keep skinning these sweet characters. They may not be as popular, but I'm sure plenty of people are looking for them!

laughing paradox

I get what you mean about the details of the seams and I realize that's going to take more practice. This is my problem regarding the seams. I'll be as specific as possible to hopefully garner an appropriate response.

I'll have the edge of a shirt, where the selection tool (and fill bucket) was under anti-alias (to give it that smooth look.) I then add another layer to start adding the seams, which is a 1-pixel wide pencil tool, along the edge of the shirt. Now...the pencil does not have an anti-alias section, so it comes off coarse. How do I then blend the coarse 'seam' on the anti-alias shirt edge? I've been trying different things but I'm not coming up with much. Also, I realize that my coloring schematics for the seams are a bit off...I think I go too far dark, or light, at times. That's a personal preference, though..I'll eventually get that as well.

Your shading is exquisite, particularly on the UnkoMan skin, and I just have to learn how to do that with more practice. I've read (your?) tutorial on shading on FRwiki and I'm going to study it more like it's going to be on the final. ;)

Here are some skins that have been done...before reading all this great advice!...but yeah. And awaaay we go..

[spoiler]

Zodiac (so far). Rollcall: (clockwise from the top left) Cancer, Gemini, Libra, Capricorn, Pisces, Virgo, Aquarius

********PISCES is NOT my skin. It's the standard for vxPisces and there is nothing I could possibly do to improve it. I just wanted to add him to the mix. Virgo is not complete, but I just wanted to add some estrogen in the picture. I fixed up Gemini's belt a bit using the reflect layer on it. I like the way it came out.



Riddler for detourne_me's fantastic Riddler skope. I'm aware someone else may be making a Riddler mesh, but this Riddler skope is just so cool. :) [/spoiler]

sweeten2213

Your working is really looking good.  I'm by no means an expert, but I can also see the rapid improvement.

Great Job  :thumbup:

Jakew

Cancer looks great  :thumbup:

UnkoMan

Riddler looks cooooool.

You're using the pencil tool? Do you know of the line tool? It draws straight, anti-aliased lines. That's all it does. At different widths. That's what I always use on seams. Pencil tool is useless for skins, if you ask me. I don't think you are going too far dark or light, though. I usually use the absolute lightest or darkest version of the colour or just above or below that a touch. But that's just me. I think your choice was fine, just that you had it all light when you needed to alternate between light and dark.

That belt on Gemini came off nicely.  I really like it. Kudos. The other folk are shaping up, too.

PS: I don't know if I've ever done a shading tutorial. I don't think it'd be on the wiki though. I mean, it's possible, I just don't recall it.

bat1987

Gotta love that Riddler. Good job!

laughing paradox

Thanks, everyone! The Zodiac skins/skopes will be ready for release pretty soon. The Riddler is already in my Yahoo group.

Quote from: UnkoMan on August 12, 2008, 10:12:23 PMPS: I don't know if I've ever done a shading tutorial. I don't think it'd be on the wiki though. I mean, it's possible, I just don't recall it.

You totally should make one. It would help a lot of newbies out (including me!). I mostly meant your tutorial about the logo, because you have a blurb about shading.

So I'm going to use the line tool..and I'm figuring that since not everything is a straight line, you use it mostly by moving the line tool one pixel at a time? But it shouldn't be TOO bad since you can just cut just duplicate the layer to match the other side. Ok..I'm going to use this technique with my next skin.


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