a little tribute to War Witch...
By
Archimedes,
Posted on: 2005-05-24 01:57 in Multi-Media Fan Creations
I think you did a really nice job, IMHO.
Rook
Thank you 
The hardest part was the hair... had to make that from scratch...
Built the legging, gauntlets, belt, painted hte costume over an existing texture (Ethereal, if anyone's interested), and applied a fire shader to a sword I happened to make a while ago...
The fire shader doesn't work that well, the displacement of the geometries makes it look horrible from different angles... have to work on something different to make it work better...
Well I'm impressed. I can't draw my way out of a paper bag
Nicely done!
WW
"The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not a bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly."
(Jim Rohn)
I'll always remember War Witch as being all powerful.
War Witch? Yeah. I did her.
Tropic
For some reason, those pictures make WarWitch look kinda like Hexadecimal from Reboot (I think it is the teeth).
I miss reboot. Although IIRC, they got rid of hexidecimal at the end too.
Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
www.repeat-offenders.net
Negaduck: I see you found the crumb. I knew you'd never notice the huge flag.
http://www.rbcorner.com/characters/hexadecimal.html
you mean this?
Had to google it... never heard of it before.
I love any defender that picks up provoke
Those are good... really good. I've done a couple on my sketchbook, but alas I have not a scanner or i would post them here.
uh guys. That's not original art. He said he had to do the hair from scratch; that's a clue. It's an image from 3d package that includes a canned human model that you can play around with sliders and so forth to give it clothes and hair styles of your choice. It's not original.
I mean, if it is, correct me. But it sure doesn't look like it.
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It's an image from 3d package that includes a canned human model
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Uh... no. The model was not "included" in Poser.
This kind of attitude is not a little insulting. I don't creat 3D figures from scratch not because they're difficult to model, I'm a pretty decent modeller, but mainly because of UV and Textures. I suck at texturing. It's that simple. If I wanted to use some of the texutres that are out there, I'd have to match UV to those of existing models and that takes more time than I'm willing to put in.
If you want to know exactly what I did, and how I did it, ask, don't come off with crappy comments about "canned" models and such. I used Victoria for the face and Aiko for the body, if you must know. The skin textures were created by Mahna and Tiffani for their Ethereal character. The rest is mine.
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That's not original art.
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Save it. It's not an original character of mine, granted. I didn't create War Witch.
I ran into this kind of crap a lot over at CGTalk, but thankfully the artists that actually have talent don't have this kind of backward thinking going on, at least most of them do not.
Now, if you want to show me up and create a custom 3D Figure of some COH character (in MAYA, or 3dsmacks or Softimage) one that is of the ones we know (from the comics) and show it to us in all it's splendor, fine... show us what you can do before you start calling other people's stuff "Canned"... especially when I don't see anyone calling the videos we've all seen from CoH fans "Canned"... (like the one from Mr. Abyss, complete with "canned" animation, figures, sets and music...)
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you can play around with sliders and so forth to give it clothes and hair styles of your choice.
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Again... stupid comment that is a total lie. There's no slider for hair and clothing on any model I'm aware of.
I started in Poser With the Victoria Model
The first thing I did was use the comic as a ref to try and get her face shape as close as I could.
I moved the head morphs to the Aiko Model which has a better base body shape for comic characters, imho.
I applied some skin texture maps I had on hand. Then used Xara to draw on the costume and Paint Shop Pro to colour it.
I exported the body to an OBJ file and build the Hair, leggings, belt and arm bands in Rhino, then doing the hair transparency maps and textures in PSP (which are fairly simple since Rhino assigns UV on nurbs patches automatically).
Then it was a matter of setting the poses, and fine tuning the materials before rendering.
What I didn't have to do by doing it this way: Custom Modelling and Rigging a figure, assinging a UV, and painting skin textures. Those steps would have involved a tremendous amount of work that people pay thousands of dollars for. As I said, I'm not willing to put that kind of work into fan art. It's a lot more involved than simply drawing it.
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uh guys. That's not original art. He said he had to do the hair from scratch; that's a clue. It's an image from 3d package that includes a canned human model that you can play around with sliders and so forth to give it clothes and hair styles of your choice. It's not original.
I mean, if it is, correct me. But it sure doesn't look like it.
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Seriously man, back off. This guy did a great job on these pix and I think they look really good. He should be proud of his work, not have to defend it from forum trolls like yourself.
Maybe a private tell to kboc would have been more appropriate instead of public ridicule of his work.
I don't know that I'd call it great
But thank you.
If you truly want examples of GREATNESS...
http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/...nt/entries.php
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uh guys. That's not original art. He said he had to do the hair from scratch; that's a clue. It's an image from 3d package that includes a canned human model that you can play around with sliders and so forth to give it clothes and hair styles of your choice. It's not original.
I mean, if it is, correct me. But it sure doesn't look like it.
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pfft you get 1 star for being a complete ********, have a nice day. if you an do better, prove it, if not shut your pie hole.
Like Kboc, I've recieved a lot of criticism for my use of Poser. Something everyone needs to understand is that Poser is a means to an end, nothing more.
To create a good image, you have to have technical ability to manipulate textures, lights, and figures. You have to have artistic ability to create dynamic poses, interesting angles, and strong lighting. You have to have patience and perserverance to get through the MANY quirks of any 3D package. You have to have story-telling ability to convey emotion, evoke feeling, and communicate a message.
Kbocs pieces do just that; each one is a 'story' of it's own. He did well, and deserves support.
To be close-minded enough to say they're not art just because he didn't make the base model is like telling a painter his art is invalid because he didn't make his own brushes. Poser is a TOOL used to reach the end-result of a FLAT, 2D IMAGE... just like a pencil is to an illustrator... a TOOL.
If Kboc was claiming authorship of the model, I'd see your point. But he isn't. He's only claiming he made the image... which is unique. It is HIS image. And which is art. And which is cool because it adds to the whole tapestry that is City Of Heroes.
As a 3D professional myself, I have to say that my oppinion on the matter falls somewhere in between.
In a way, using Poser is sort've a cheap shortcut. Even if the entire model isn't canned, using Poser implies using canned geometry, albeit very often modified by the artist. Poser models, IMO, almost always look like Poser models, and I only ever use Poser when a project calls for background characters that don't need a high level of detail, or when a deadline (and pay rate) simply don't allow for custom-built geometry and textures. Personally, I don't like Poser (I use Lightwave).
While I've seen far better 3D than the images here, I've also seen much worse, and I'd prove that I could do a better job, except for the fact that (and this is where I get to the other side of the issue that defends the OP), DOING HIGH QUALITY, FULL CHARACTERS IN 3D FROM SCRATCH TAKES FOR[BLEEP]ING EVER!
The OP probably didn't want to spend between a week and a month modeling fan-art of War Witch from scratch, as well as doing all the textures and rigging, so I think we should cut him some slack.
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To be close-minded enough to say they're not art just because he didn't make the base model is like telling a painter his art is invalid because he didn't make his own brushes. Poser is a TOOL used to reach the end-result of a FLAT, 2D IMAGE... just like a pencil is to an illustrator... a TOOL.
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To an extent, I agree with this, but I think a better analogy would be "telling an artist that his collage isn't art because he used pre-made imagery to construct the overall piece". My oppinion is that a collage can certainly be considered art, but can also fall in a hazy area in-between art and hackery. My oppinion on the use of Poser is the same.
Much like creating a collage, using Poser is more of a compositional task than a purely creative one, and it requires both less time and less technical aptitude to create art with it, with the downside being that, as with collage, you're limmited to working with the materials provided (or gathered).
The idea of a painter creating one's own brush (which some do, when they require a result unattainable by commercial tools) is a bit of a stretch, and would be more analogous to a 3D artist programming his own software (which, again, some do, though most lack the technical abilities).
Augur - lvl 50 Illusion/storm controller
Arctalus - lvl 50 Ice/Energy blaster
Crey Avenger - lvl 48 Fire/Rad controller
Augur Prime - lvl 41 Peacebringer
Spiky Whatsit - lvl 39 claws/regen scrapper
While I see your point Augur, as you said, nowadays, it's an impracticality to build everything from scratch. Middleware (physics, graphic cards, software, engines, etc) is a rapidly growing part of the game (and digital) industry precisely because it can take many more man hours and money to make something from scratch. Doom 3 is the best example off the top of my head; the developers (id) made it to be a tech demo, essentially. They didn't need it to sell; they just needed to sell what it can do because they'll make far more money off licensing it than they will off the game itself (not to mention, mods which wilil sell the base game; Counter Strike and Desert Combat in point for those). I honestly wouldn't expect most people to be building stuff from scratch for most things unless it's some unique or very complex project. But as you and Darkjedi said, it is a tool. It and of itself, it doesn't make something complete. The thing with Poser is that it's very easy to fall onto it as a easy crutch; on the other hand, as DarkJedi's stuff, among others, shows, it can also be a very simple base by which very non-Poser looking pieces can be done.
There's crap that comes out of every userbase for every platform.
I know my piece isn't High Art... it's just a figure I played with and rendered, I liked it so I posted it...
What I'd like to know from Arguer is this: if I use an original figure that I created in Poser... like say:
This One...
Would it make a difference since I'm still using Poser?
Here's the thing, Arguer. Nobody is a jack of all trades in Proffessional Level 3D. You will almost never find a modeller who is also working as an animator. You'll almost never find a texture artist doing rigging.
It's why, outside of Poser, there are so very few people doing graphic-novel type work for fun. They're too busy spending hundreds of hours setting up their model. Even 3D God Stephen Stalberg doesn't have the prolific portfolios Chris Derochie has... Derochie doesn't have to bother building figures, he's a classically trained ex-Disney Animator.
He's got credentials that people in the film industry take very seriously and he'll be regognized long before anyone who has only animated in 3D (which is most of us).
But, in the 3D community, he'll be looked down on because his preferred platform is Poser.
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For some reason, those pictures make WarWitch look kinda like Hexadecimal from Reboot (I think it is the teeth).
I miss reboot. Although IIRC, they got rid of hexidecimal at the end too.
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Have you ever thought (As I have) that The Matrix is a bit inspired by Reboot? (I miss that show *sniff* We never did find out what happened at the end)
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There's crap that comes out of every userbase for every platform.
I know my piece isn't High Art... it's just a figure I played with and rendered, I liked it so I posted it...
What I'd like to know from Arguer is this: if I use an original figure that I created in Poser... like say:
This One...
Would it make a difference since I'm still using Poser?
Here's the thing, Arguer. Nobody is a jack of all trades in Proffessional Level 3D. You will almost never find a modeller who is also working as an animator. You'll almost never find a texture artist doing rigging.
It's why, outside of Poser, there are so very few people doing graphic-novel type work for fun. They're too busy spending hundreds of hours setting up their model. Even 3D God Stephen Stalberg doesn't have the prolific portfolios Chris Derochie has... Derochie doesn't have to bother building figures, he's a classically trained ex-Disney Animator.
He's got credentials that people in the film industry take very seriously and he'll be regognized long before anyone who has only animated in 3D (which is most of us).
But, in the 3D community, he'll be looked down on because his preferred platform is Poser.
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Am I the "arguer" you keep referring to, and if so, are you just calling me names, or misreading my name?
Anyway, I agree with your assessment that no one is a jack of all trades (well, most people aren't, anyway) in high end 3D, which is why I defended your use of Poser for the purposes of fan-art. However, I also felt it prudent and accurate to look at the other side of the argument, which is that, for the sake of high end 3D, Poser is generally looked down upon. Since, however, your fan-art was hardly meant to be a high-budget, multi-person production, your use of Poser is certainly defendable.
Also, my particular personal dislike of Poser comes from the fact that I'm pretty much a jack of all trades EXCEPT for character animation. I do modeling, both mechanical and organic, texturing (mostly specialize in procedural), technical direction, lighting, rendering, and compositing, as well as procedural and physics animation, but I HATE doing character animation (and so almost always pass that part of a project off to someone who specializes in that). Poser is primarily a character animation tool, and is one that doesn't work particularly smoothly with other programs that are much better for modeling, lighting, and rendering, and so it has little place in the higher end (I don't work in feature films, so I'm not even talking THAT high end) productions, and is why it's looked down on. Not because it's bad for what it does, but because most 3D apps don't play very well with each other, and any high-end productions need to use apps that can do EVERYTHING well (the exception usually being modeling, since models can often be easily transfered from one application to another).
As for my oppinion on the mech model: I think it looks pretty good. If you modeled it from scratch, then good job. I don't know much about modeling in Poser, so I don't know exactly what went into it, but unlike the figures, it doesn't LOOK like a modified poser model, and, even with no previous knowledge about it, I would assume it was modeled from scratch. If you want a critique, I would say that the texturing doesn't look very realistic and could use some work, but as you say, texturing isn't your area of interest.
Anyway, if you're interested, here's some of the stuff I've done:
http://photobucket.com/albums/y5/iteration2/
None of it's directly CoH related, though the steam computer (which I was comissioned to do for a small job) was inspired, in part, by a combination of Freakshow, Nemesis, and Clockwork.
Augur - lvl 50 Illusion/storm controller
Arctalus - lvl 50 Ice/Energy blaster
Crey Avenger - lvl 48 Fire/Rad controller
Augur Prime - lvl 41 Peacebringer
Spiky Whatsit - lvl 39 claws/regen scrapper
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Doom 3 is the best example off the top of my head; the developers (id) made it to be a tech demo, essentially. They didn't need it to sell; they just needed to sell what it can do because they'll make far more money off licensing it than they will off the game itself (not to mention, mods which wilil sell the base game; Counter Strike and Desert Combat in point for those). I honestly wouldn't expect most people to be building stuff from scratch for most things unless it's some unique or very complex project. But as you and Darkjedi said, it is a tool. It and of itself, it doesn't make something complete. The thing with Poser is that it's very easy to fall onto it as a easy crutch; on the other hand, as DarkJedi's stuff, among others, shows, it can also be a very simple base by which very non-Poser looking pieces can be done.
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Id is, indeed, a very good example. IMO, Id makes crappy games (I'll admit, though, that I never even tried Doom3 after my utter disappointment with Quake 2 and 3, as well as Return to Castle Wolfenstein), but really top notch game engines. As much as I preferred both the look and the game-play of Unreal Tournament to Quake 3, the Quake 3 engine was much more streamlined, and was capable of some really amazing stuff. That said, though, I think they might be losing their lead in game engines as well. I don't know much about the Doom3 engine, but I thought Half Life 2's Source Engine looked better (though, once again, that might just be Valve making much better use of their engine than Id of theirs), and the demo videos I've seen of the new Unreal Engine blow both Id and Valve away (of course, the new unreal engine isn't released yet, and Valve's Source engine is being updated to use HDRI, which will be stunning, so who can really tell who's ahead).
Augur - lvl 50 Illusion/storm controller
Arctalus - lvl 50 Ice/Energy blaster
Crey Avenger - lvl 48 Fire/Rad controller
Augur Prime - lvl 41 Peacebringer
Spiky Whatsit - lvl 39 claws/regen scrapper
I'm sorry Auger I did misread your name...
The figure I'm using was modelled in Lightwave, btw. (the War Witch Figure) by the guys at DAZ3D.
The Mech Model was made in Rhino (my favorite modeller).
Here's the thing Auger: there's no such thing as a Poser model. The figures that originally came with Poser 3 and Poser 4 were created in Alias Power Animator by Zygote Media Group. Maybe that's what you're talking about.
I don't doubt your abilities as a modeller, never did. Right off the bat I could tell you knew what you were talking about regarding 3D. I've worked in the 3D Industry as well. I was the author of the tutorial section of the Poser 4 Manual back in 1999.
I happen to love character animation. I'm not a half bad modeller, but I'd much rather take an existing mesh and make it what I need it to be.
Poser is what it is. To say that all poser figures look alike is naive at best, as there are now 30 or so popular human female figures for Poser, and I have no clue how many non female figures... I haven't bothered to count them.
From DAZ alone: Aiko, Victoria, Stephanie, The Girl, Laura. Then there's the Default Poser female... Dina V, Natalia, EJ, Jesse, Judy... shall I go on?
Back before 1999, it was okay to say all poser renders look alike. They did. It was always the same figure. Now it's not. Plus, now you have sub-surface light scattering in Poser 6... and you're probably going to be hard pressed to identify a Poser render.
That said: when I can afford Messiah: I'll buy it. For now, Poser's the only reliable character animation software in my price range. And the figures don't cost obscene amounts of money to get either.
BTW: I SUCK at texturing... I resorted to procedurals entirely on the Mech...
not perfect, I know, but it's the best I could do...