Frost Warden armor (Work in progress)

I am at the stage now with frost wardens armor set that i felt comfortable putting it into sketchfab. Its in a state now where the texturing and everything else is actually finished, though at this stage the issue that i am having is that im trying to make the sash around his waste appeared torn and ragged at the bottom, as im sure you can see my failed attempt at a clear texture.

Im still trying to get to the bottom of why im unable to achieve  the clear textures at the bottom of the sash, where the fabric has been torn. I have added an alpha channel over the top of the texture as well, but I believe that it may be one of the other maps that is messing up the transparency on the sash.
https://skfb.ly/WMYA - Sketchfab link

Also, just as a sort of disclaimer, I am completely aware that the texture on the character base mesh is a bit strange. Its because I have yet to unwrap the uvs in the character model, so I haven't given it a skin texture yet, this is the next step in my work flow. 

Albedo

Specular 

AO

Gloss

Normal

Alpha map

Testing out using hair plains on beast model

As I stated in a previous post, myself and my group leader where in discussion on how the best way to show the beast models fur would be. 

Though we are currently settled with the approach shown before hand, using normal maps to give the effect of thick hair on top of the model, I am also in the process of testing out the use of plains, and applying hair textures to them with transparent backgrounds.

This is a quite a common approach when creating hair for a game character for instance as it give the model a more distinct silhouette and allows for a more detailed head of hair. However, I found that when it came to creating fur for my model, I ran into difficulty getting the desired effect without increasing the overall poly count vastly, as show in my first couple of screen shots at the top.

So I attempted to try making the planes bigger, and to spread them out more, also customizing the textures individually so that they wouldn't look too samey.
I think the problem lies though with the base texture that I am using on the model. If I want my model to use hair plains, i'm going to have too approach my work flow completely differently. Instead of backing a high poly mesh to create normal and ao maps like I have done originally i would instead have to create hand painted textures, so that the hair would flow seamlessly into the hair texture on the plains.

http://www.wowhead.com/npc=108538/highlands-runehorn#modelviewer:10+0 -
Above is a link of a what I believe to be a good example of this method of using hand painted textures. On the model in this link, you can see how the flow of the fur meets up perfectly with the tufts of hair that are created by the hair plains that are present at the belly of the model. 

This maybe a work flow I return too if our group can decide on which style fits best in our game.

Character Base Mesh changes - Frost Warden class

 When creating the male base mesh, I wanted to ensure that it was as generic as possible, having no defining features so that it could be used perhaps as an NPC model later on in production.

More importantly though, is that the other main reason I did this was so that I could take the generic base mesh into zbrush and give it some more defining features in our earlier stages of development, in order to create meshes for our playable character.




To the right is the altered base mesh that i created from the generic base mesh. Taking it into Zbrush I was able to sculpt it more in the style of the characters face that I am currently working on in this concept, being the frost warden.
The frost warden ( Concept shown above ) has a far more gaunt elvish looking face to him, compared to that of the original mesh that i created.

His chin and nose are a lot more pointy and his cheek bones a little higher. I can now work on this mesh again, by creating a high poly version of it that included more detail in the face and also elsewhere on the body like the arms, mainly anything that will show under that isnt covered by armor.

Changes to beast model.

Original textured model of Capra Babrus shown above - https://skfb.ly/VR78 (Sketchfab Link) 

New and current textured model, with re meshed face. - https://skfb.ly/WxHG (Sketchfab Link)

As you can see in the above screen shots, and more so in detail if you take a look at the links i provided to the models in sketchfab, some slight changes have been made to the beasts model.
From the beginning of creating this model, myself and my groups leader couldn't decide how we wanted to go about showing how shaggy the fur is on this beast. As we couldn't decide, I created the first rendition of the model that is shown at the top of this post. 

We discussed that the colouring was almost perfect, as we intended to go for a more realistic appearance with the beast rather than the more outlandish initial idea that our concept artists Yaz had with her original concept of it. (Shown to the right) 

The problem we agreed on, with the original model was that the fur didn't appear realistic enough, and you can see this mainly on the torso of the beast, where what I intended to be clumps of hair all look too much like spikes rather than shaggy fur. To combat this, we agreed that I should rework the highpoly mesh so that the fur was finer looking and stood out a bit more, and to not focus so much on creating big spikes to make look like tufts of fur, and i would say im pretty happy with the final outcome.
Besides this a change was also made to the front of the beasts head in order to appear more realistic, as the eyes where originally to much on the side of the head more fish like, than what we intended with the concept, where they should of been more able to face forward like that of a cow or yak.

Current third year project - Clothing for playable character(unfinished)

(Concept above is what I was given by my group leader John who created the concept himself)

I was introduced to a piece of software called Marvelous Designer by my tutor Euan, he recommended i used it for creating the clothes for the characters that i would be creating so i thought i would give it a go as it was offering a 30 day free trial.

As I'm new to the software, i realize that I may likely be able to achieve much higher quality meshes but i was pretty happy with the outcomes of my workings that i've shown bellow. My next stage now is to take the meshes of the clothes into zbrush to add some details that i wasn't able to achieve in either Maya or Marvelous Designer.

Current third year project - Character base mesh

I was given the task of creating a base mesh to be used for many different male characters within out game project. So I tried my best to ensure that the model didn't have any glaring features as the face would be changed later on for each different character that would be added to the game, though the body would likely stay a very similar shape.