Ajunta Pall WIP

[VarsityPuppet 1,085]

I've been working on a SWTOR/Comics inspired Ajunta Pall character model.

 

Here it is so far, still going. Texturing is hard, still working on it

 

 

 

 

 

[Sith Holocron 2,478]

Will you be making a hologram version as well?

[VarsityPuppet 1,085]

If by hologram you mean some sort of ghostly version, like SilverEdge’s mod, then yes. However, I’m struggling with an effect that looks convincing and doesn’t have odd rendering issues.

[newbiemodder 37]

The body, mainly the torso and arms. Did u play with the geometry of the with assassin to get the wider sleeves or is that an existing body?

 

Looks good,VP!

[VarsityPuppet 1,085]

The body, mainly the torso and arms. Did u play with the geometry of the with assassin to get the wider sleeves or is that an existing body?

 

Looks good,VP!

 

I modeled it from scratch using SWTOR grabs like this one: 

 

 

And using the PMBAM base model as a reference. Lots of extruding edges. There are some areas where I'm not really satisfied with the geometry, but instead of constantly going back and fixing, I am just going to commit to releasing it, otherwise I will just be wasting a ton of time.

 

I also learned a lot about UVW mapping, skin weights and even painting in 3DS max, and am hoping to make a tutorial of some sort to pass on some of that knowledge.

[RustyPirate 1]

Looks great. I hope it gets a better texture with no red.

[VarsityPuppet 1,085]

Looks great. I hope it gets a better texture with no red.

 

The red will be staying, although it will probably change so it's not as colorful. Perhaps more of a brown? When I'm further along, I'll play with different color variants even, we'll see how it goes

[Malkior 476]

Wow. I legitimately thought you took footage from Swtor and overlayed it onto an Anchorhead backdrop. If I may say that model looks impeccable.

[Todd Hellid 16]

Looks awesome!

[Basil Bonehead 99]

have any idea on what the stats will be for these beautiful robes?

[Guest]

have any idea on what the stats will be for these beautiful robes?

 

I don't think these will be for the PC. 

[VarsityPuppet 1,085]

UPDATE:

 

Nearly done. I'm quite satisfied with the shading and the cloth folds. It's maybe a bit saturated in sunlight, but in the tomb it looks better.

 

The few things I will probably clean up - a little bit of tweaking on the cloth textures. A little too dark on the hood, and the lower half of the tunic is not sized correctly.

 

Regarding colors though, I want to stay with red + brown + tan color scheme, as it is canon according to the source picture I found , but I'm open to making a few different options.

 

 

Made that face mask and a slightly modified Male Head 2 (PMHC02)

 

Full body

 

I threw in some bump maps to bring the shoulder pads to life as well

 

These are all 4096x4096 by the way... might offer a few downscaled options

[ebmar 893]

Impressive! the last screenshot just got me off my chair

[N-DReW25 1,336]

Those are looking a lot better! I like it!

 

These are all 4096x4096 by the way... might offer a few downscaled options

Probably for the best, you may want to consider converting the tga files to dds files (I believe they are called dds files)

[Guest Sam Fisher]

This is only slightly annoying because we have another very good Ajunta Pall modification. 

Otherwise spectacular work, I wonder how you'll make the rather bright cartoonish appearance work with his undead nature and personality as we encounter him. 

[Basil Bonehead 99]

This is only slightly annoying because we have another very good Ajunta Pall modification. 

Otherwise spectacular work, I wonder how you'll make the rather bright cartoonish appearance work with his undead nature and personality as we encounter him. 

like add a greyish tint to the robes or something? make it look like it has a few spots of dirt and maybe blood or something to indicate those robes have seen better days?

[VarsityPuppet 1,085]

I toned down the colors a bit - much more muted. The reds have turned to brown now, and the colors in general have been more muted.

As far as ghost form, Silveredge's Unique Ajunta Pall is a really great mod, there's no doubt about that. It will be a big challenge to surpass its level of quality.
 
Here's a variant - he's in the tomb so it's under the right lighting. There are a few problems I face when dealing with ghostly forms:
 
1) Doors and smoke will render on top of the character if I use blending additive
2) If I use a normal texture with alpha, it will render through the door and the smoke
 
So I'm left with either the shield effect or I could just get rid of it. It wouldn't be terribly out of place after all, since that's how characters appear as visions in the TSL Korriban tomb.
 
But I still want to make him look ghostly, so I tried... uh white glowy eyes? Idk, what do you guys think?
 
 

 

I can decrease the shiny metal no problem, I'm trying to figure out what looks good in terms of ghostliness

[jc2 581]

I like the ghost eyes!

[VarsityPuppet 1,085]

Did a quick voice test too. Tell me what you think

 

[ebmar 893]

Did a quick voice test too. Tell me what you think

 

 

Holy sheet, the modified one send a shiver down my spine (favor this one rather than the original).

 

And if delivered with the right background ambient (music, SFX); Idk man, I could just wonder..

[Haveayap 127]

That looks nice vp.

[ndix UR 218]

 

Here's a variant - he's in the tomb so it's under the right lighting. There are a few problems I face when dealing with ghostly forms:

 

1) Doors and smoke will render on top of the character if I use blending additive

2) If I use a normal texture with alpha, it will render through the door and the smoke

 

 

Why not set the alpha on the meshes and make the ghost version a unique model? You have to have the nodes in the right order for it to look right, but ... then it looks right. DP is the expert on the node ordering rules, I always forget the details on that. Using the mesh alpha instead of trying to do texture tricks lets you keep the shiny texture-alpha based settings also... Might be interesting to see what that looked like combined with the shield effect also...

[Guest Sam Fisher]

I do think the Ghost version should be a unique model as Nidix UR suggested, slightly see-through sort of thing. 

Can't say I'm a fan of the shield effect, I do like what you've done with the eyes and the voice. Although the voice is so far away from KOTOR's original soundscape I'm torn. 

[VarsityPuppet 1,085]

Why not set the alpha on the meshes and make the ghost version a unique model? You have to have the nodes in the right order for it to look right, but ... then it looks right. DP is the expert on the node ordering rules, I always forget the details on that. Using the mesh alpha instead of trying to do texture tricks lets you keep the shiny texture-alpha based settings also... Might be interesting to see what that looked like combined with the shield effect also...

I'm not familiar with that process of setting alpha on the meshes. Perhaps I will look around (otherwise I welcome any pointers )

 

EDIT: Figured it out

 

 

Second Edit:

 

Well, it seems that setting the mesh alpha has somewhat unpredictable results. In this case, mainly it will crash if I load up Ajunta Pall. Not sure what the deal is. I mean Ajunta Pall has quite a few polys, so that could certainly be part of the issue. (5,000-ish)

 

At any rate, I made a few more adjustments to make him more scary. Oh and he's all one body model now

 

[DarthParametric 3,782]

DP is the expert on the node ordering rules, I always forget the details on that.

There's nothing particularly difficult about it, beyond working out which bits you want to obscure which other bits. In this case, the hood would need to be at the top of the hierarchy, then the mask, then the head I would suggest.

 

Well, it seems that setting the mesh alpha has somewhat unpredictable results. In this case, mainly it will crash if I load up Ajunta Pall. Not sure what the deal is. I mean Ajunta Pall has quite a few polys, so that could certainly be part of the issue. (5,000-ish)

Odd, I wouldn't think simply changing the mesh alpha would cause a crash. 5K polys is not particularly outrageous. My protocol droids are pushing 20K, so I doubt that is your problem. You mention you are using a single body model. What are the mesh splits like? What about shadow casters? I have had many crash issues with custom meshes caused by shadows. Are you casting shadows from the mesh, dummy shadow caster meshes, or the skeleton?