Design Art: Dragoon

It's to involved to explain, but for my 3D Imaging class, I had to create some concept art related to our final project. In this case, the concept art had to detail the color scheme, subject, lighting, etc...well, for my project I'm modeling a Dragoon Armor I designed in Maya 4. So, what you see here was the easy part...I'm still trying to get a grasp on Maya! (doesn't seem *too* hard, though...'course, I am in a class for it, not just learning it by myself).

http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~dminer...ia/dragoon.jpg

Anyways, let me know what you think!

The design of the armor is cool!!
(This coming from a guy who can't draw GOOD armor.)

nice concept :)
will this be simply a modeling project or will he be textured, rigged and animated as well? i have been trained in 3D in Maya and XSI and it's been quite tough finding a job right now :o

there is a lot of good details in the armor, but if you get to texture him, you will find you can add quite a lot more details that would just be tiresome to draw! bumpmaps and texture maps can add a lot to a model.

if he will be animated, that cape might propose a *bit* of a problem. it is possible, but a bit difficult. good luck on your project!

if you want to take a look at some very talented 3d work from around the world, go check out:

www.cgchannel.com
www.cgtalk.com (forums)

you can get a lot of inspiration from them i think!
3d is fun! i have to work on a new demo reel now hehe

Well, it only has to be modeled this term. Next term we work on animation...but yeah, unless we have some sort of plug-in for calculating the physics of cloth (unlikely) keyframing the cape's animation would be a nuisance. Chances are, he'd lose the cape, gain a sword, and be animated thusly. But thanks for the feedback, and those sites look like a great resource!

heh, Maya has a cloth plugin (maya unlimited)
but it is pretty difficult to learn, especially texturing the cloth.
are you considering polygons or nurbs?
personally i hate nurbs.. they are slow and inefficient i find.. much easier to grasp polygon characteristics

Well, the school doesn't have Maya Unlimited...just 4, I think. From what I've learned so far, I'll probably go polygons mostly, but there are a few pieces that seem better suited to NURBs (like, some extusions along a curve and such). Generally, though, the boolean operations alone make using polygons much better suited to what I need.

Incredible design. Too much for me to try and make in 3D. I like polys a lot better myself too, but that design looks seriously nurby. I'd use metaballs for the staff though.

Looks good.

Nurbs are good for some things, but for characters polygons seem to be what I prefer.

All right...don't know if anyone's interested but here's what the final piece looks like, more or less. Obviously, I had to make some concessions to the design, but, that was expected.

http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~dminer...ow%20close.jpg

Here's one example. I have a quick-to-load page with a bunch of others.

Final Armor Renders

Looks ok, though squished a bit... perhaps that's just inherent in the type of armor you're going for. Some critiques I have on it:

• The specular level is too high, looks very mop-n-glo in some areas.
• The joint pieces, especially the knees are too clearly duped - some of the best renderings like this have some off-set to the symetry to look more realistic. Nothing is that perfect. Sometimes it looks like half armor next to a mirror.
• Which is why it looks so wide and thus - squished.

I could not do better, I just did textures for a friend who did the 3D business - but he talked alot.

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