Knight Lord Development

ɉ◎ℕ

I think we keep the amulet on the very first picture, just my opinion though

James Davis

@Jon

Leaving it up to majority vote lol, very much value everyones' opinion. I'm very torn between no amulet or small amulet (pic 1 and 2) so leaving decision all up to you guys

Thanks again to Assigir for the lion pattern and the paint over, Colonel and Nive for their suggestions I implemented since the last update

Nive

No big amulet, I'm pretty sure everyone can agree on that.
I personally actually like the small amulet. It breaks up his coif rather nicely.
The new tunic is looking mighty slick, cheers to Assigir for all the ideas.
Wrinkle boots are best boots.
This man is looking proper lordly, if you ask me. Can't wait to bash some face in style.

Assigir The Nord

The small amulet looks good but so does it without it.
Maybe reserve the amulet as an in-game option, reward for some achievement or for the team/beta testers?
The model looks pretty much ready for the next stage overall in my opinion

James Davis

Why I joined the community, everyone is positive, helpful, and very eager to contribute. Also being pushed helps me finish models .

So, as it stands, I believe majority vote is for the small amulet. I'll leave this an open topic till tonight.

Thank you all for the help and feedback. If there any other suggestions let me know, tonight I'll be moving onto the next steps unless there are changes that need to be made.

Pache94

Both the small amulet and none look great to me


Not sure if the Lord crown color is final, but I think making it gold would make it pop out more from his chain mail and adding some sapphires would look good too



I really like how the lord is coming out and can't wait to see what else you do with him
keep up the great work!

James Davis

@Pache

Thanks for the kind words and the advice.

Though I agree that the decor on the crown would make it pop, it makes him look too regal/flamboyant for someone in battle especially since he isn't a king and just a lord. I like the thought behind the idea, but don't feel it goes too well with the battle hardened knight captain appeal I'm going for. The trim of the headpiece is brass/gold'ish in color, and would like to keep most the gold color as trim if possible.

Thank you very much for the ideas, could use it on a future character. Maybe if pvk were to do royalty later . Kings for the Knights, Commodore for Pirates, Warmaster for Barbarians

Going to get some sleep, will be back later.

Links121995

Small amulet. It breaks up the chain mail, leaves the lion's head visible, and its horizontal nature compliments the belt.

The underarm-based extension of the tunic beyond the brown lines that I assume are seams looks really, really strange.

James Davis

@Links

Thanks for the heads up, I'll check later

James Davis

@Disturving

Thanks for the opinions and part of me agrees. Though based on realism, it is also a game based on fantasy as seen in a lot of the content in the game. Why didn't Aragorn, Boramir, or Legolas ever wear a helmet in Lord of the Rings? Artistic license for showing their faces. This character is supposed to be determined and battle hardened and though I could show it in the gear as I did showcase it with the shield, I wanted to show it in his face as well.

Alot of the realism went out the window when the pirate captain in the game threw out his first parrot to fight, or a death match arena based inside of a monster's stomach. Partly, I am trying to stick to the concept as much as possible, adding my little flairs and community suggestions along the way, and part of it is just tapping into the character and making him look interesting, and having fun with it.

Lighter armor because he is a Lord and if he needs to make a hasty retreat he can, but armored enough where he can be in the thick of a battle. Not so keen for the amulet, first thought of it as jewelry a warrior wouldn't normally take into battle; but now I think of it more along the lines of medals or rank insignia a General would take into battle. His light armor would give relevance to him having a heavier shield I think, he uses it as his primary defense and anytime he needs to retreat, he can drop it and flee fairly quickly. Eitherway, I ultimately stand behind the design. Does it stand some changes and touch ups? Definitely. But I will keep the intention of the concept prominent in my interpretation of it

Colonel

We'll have the necklace be a future unlock. He looks just as good without so we'll save a few polys for now.

James Davis

Sounds good, several people thought that was a good idea too and it does look like an accessory piece. I'll keep it off the main model. Thanks Colonel

Sphynx

I finally came to the conclusion that some of the points I made in another post are not the only reason that led to my impression of the Lord's face. After all, it's probably not necessarily the detail that has been lost in the process, but rather the fact that it changed the very way that his face looks. It made the whole face look wider and the texture look 'stretched'.

Nive

His face isn't stretched, Sphynx, the FoV is different between his textureless renderings and the most recently ones. The first renderings were completely head-on with no distortion of any kind, soles planted flat. The most recent ones, there's some bowing visible. The front of his feet and head are visibly angled from their backs.

AGSMA

The amulet kind of bothers me a bit. it's cool having some extra decoration, but it doesn't look very medieval-ish. I think it would look better if it was more like something forged with a metal like copper and having hollow parts, and the amulet itself was something more traditional, like stranded with a thick cord, like this picture below.

James Davis

@Nive & Sphynx

Nive is right, I am using a different program for texturing and the camera is set to perspective, not completely straight on which causes some distortion. But I feel it makes him look more human and less Frankenstein like his straight on shots from zbrush did

Ukyo Kuonji

The armor looks like it's painted on, rather than actually being another model.

MrMoho

He looks really great so far! Can't wait to play with him. I do have an odd issue, though.

That cut in his tabard. Not that the cut itself botheres me, far from it, I love it. It's just a little to high up. That piece of cloth that between that cut and his shoulder that still keeps it together realisticly would simply rip. I know the game is far from realism, why, we have human eating parrots and unpowdered shooting pistols, and that his tabard didn't rip yet can be explained by saying its made out of the hair of a firebreathing unicorn, and the cut occured during a fatal accident while taking a sip out of the Holy Grail.

Still, it's weirdly bothering to me.

Nive

That cut could've happened recently. There's got to be a point where the rip hasn't gone all the way to the edge of the tunic, yeah?
And plus, the fancy seam would probably prevent it from ripping all the way anyway.

MrMoho

Looking at the cut again, I heavily miscalculated its position (there's still obviously some tabard beneath that chainguard, silly me!). Just ignore my complaint, I heavily failed with my previous comment. Still, in my headcanon the tabard is made out of the hair of a firebreathing Unicorn and the cut happened during a fatal accident while taking a sip out of the Holy Grail.

Trar

His face, boots and chainmail look a little low-poly to me, but those are small complaints - and this is a WIP after all. I have no opinion on the necklace so long as it's vaguely realistic. Those are my only complaints; keep up the good work!

James Davis

@Ukyo

Alot of it is painted on, model is 9700 polys, 5000 polys the body alone, majority even is just an optical illusion. You would laugh at what the basic model looks like without textures or normal maps on it haha

James Davis

@MrMoho

You're probably right. Main thing going through my mind at the time is variation in the pattern, battle damage, and grunge. Physics were worked in there as well, it's all under interpretation on the how and why he has a particular feature, but I'm known to take a liberty or two for the sake of art . Also my current skill level is still progressing, next model will be better. Plan on reworking assassin a bit, learned alot since those days

James Davis

@Trar

Poly restraints and texture restraints go hand in hand with quality sometimes but so does skill level. I am personally still getting used to melding my knowledge of all these programs together seamlessly. Though I'm making progress, I'm still no expert at it. Those two reasons aside, thank you for your critique, unfortunates of having an entire body exposed and in the opponent's face is having to allow all the uvs their own modest amount of space which reduces the quality all around. I cut corners on what needed to be textured and what didn't need to be (hidden) as well as what would need more quality opposed to other parts, but unfortunately very few opportunities for minimizing or hiding on this model.

James Davis

End of the month I only get a couple days for myself before starting a whole new month of classes, sorry I have been gone, needed a breather from all my projects for a day or two and be human for a little bit and watched some films lol. Will hit this hard starting tomorrow to take it to finish and export it all out so you all can eventually test drive it in game.

Ukyo Kuonji

James Davis wrote:

End of the month I only get a couple days for myself before starting a whole new month of classes, sorry I have been gone, needed a breather from all my projects for a day or two and be human for a little bit and watched some films lol. Will hit this hard starting tomorrow to take it to finish and export it all out so you all can eventually test drive it in game.

Can't wait to smack some dinahs as a pimpin' Lord

Bingo Bango

I think we're all agreed that we couldn't be happier to have James on the team. Astounding work and fantastic community engagement throughout this whole process.

Now that we're in the final stages of wrapping up the visuals of this class, can I ask you guys for an opinion on how you think he should sound? I'm toying with casting someone who could give more of a 'northern lord' accent. (Not Ned Stark, but a bit more grizzled - like Gregor Forrester, if any of you have played the Telltale Game of Thrones series - warning of first scene spoilers here if you haven't: )

Alternatively, he could be a booming, regal southerner, like King Arthur in Monty Python & the Holy Grail - or we could look into getting Lord Jaldaboath himself (Knight Announcer) back to do a voice set.

Thoughts?

Nive

I'm unfamiliar with anything Game of Thrones, but I think the voice from Gregor in the video is a good start. Maybe something a little deeper or louder, but I like the idea.

Bingo Bango

Nive wrote:

the voice from Gregor in the video is a good start. Maybe something a little deeper or louder, but I like the idea.

My thoughts exactly - thanks again, Nive.

ɉ◎ℕ

I think it would be cool if we had a Lord voice, who was actually quite serious, from the look of the model he looks like he has been through many wars, and has therefore earned the title of being a Lord. Unfortunately for him, the Kingdom that he took over, just so happened to contain the silliest group of Knights ever complete with trouser- less farting Frenchman, which he certainly does not approve of. So that's one idea. (Although may be a bit too similar to the Gestir's personality.)
But i'm all for going for a character like King Arthur from Monty Python too, I just thought it would be funny to have a Knight that is serious in comparison to his teammates.