The man with the Machine gun
 

hardcore fans know exactly who this title's about.

Not "such" a Final fantasy 8 Fan, but the reason is not cuz I didn't like it, but because I disliked the fact that you don't get to play with Laguna/Kyros/Ward at the End of the game, I mean, COME ON, Square had the perfect excuse, Time Colapses (or however you call it), and Laguna could become yong again and enter your team (I was 70% sure this was going to happen first time I played, before the end of the game), but NOooooo... let's just leave the best FF character out of it cuz he's way too cool.

reference image:
http://www.ffcompendium.com/art/8-laguna-c.jpg
Yet, I think there's some considerable diference betwen facial details of the in-game Laguna and the CG images (and no I'm not not talking about poly count), just find the in-game Laguna more friendly, I'll try to follow the in-game one from now one.

Current Progress:
http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/8565/lagunawp9.jpg

obs.: keep in mind that some portion of the hair will of course be skinned on the head (like at the forehead's cornes and around the ears)


Still finishing a previows project, namek race (I'm either gonna pause it or give it away (just not turning out what I expect, half comments I get are people requesting sayans, you just dont know how efficiently you can harm a modeler's feelings ;P ). (It's really only missing icons & colors icons, I'm the one who doesn't feel like bothering with it anymore...)

EDIT.: sorry for the thumb, by the time I finished writing this post, imageshack's managment page went back to work (wich wasn't when I started)

ps.: somebody remind Inyri she's supposed to continue her the Galbadian Solder xD

Looks great >.> Cant wait to see it finished. Im skinning a Rinoa (or i should be >.> im like lazy and ant worked on it in a few days lol) Seems like a good number of FF8 mods popping left and right lately.

I know you said your going more for in-game Laguna.... but that one looks like the FMV one.... its a great start though, the hair is near perfect!

BTW, I've seen your Namek race elsewhere, it looks nice actually.

doesn't look Asian enough...

It's a good start. Keep working on it. :)

Is this the season for Final Fantasy VIII? Has the craziness that was 7 left us? Probably not, but I hope this gets done. And Inyri, continue the Galbadian Soldier.

That sounded sort of demand like..... let me try again.....

[ass-kiss]Inyri, would you be so nice as to continue your soldier if you see a need to? We would all love to attain it and slice up people knowing that the excellence that is the model has spewed only from your imagination and cunning....[/ass kiss]

Seriously, we would like it if you did, but the choice is yours....

I'll finish it eventually. I'm just very busy this summer so things come along slowly.

Progress:
http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/4091/lagunaij6.jpg

very small stuff done to the head's polies this far, nearly nothing, but spent afternoon on head's texture. (maybe should make eyebrows larger) (ears are uvmaped, just not textured yet). enough for today =.= ...Zzz...

Looks nice, would be great had you done the ear.... but get your rest... You did good. My little brother thinks the nose is a tad too big. I think the eyebrows look good though.

i dunno why but the nose just looks really wrong... if you're going for an anime style face, it should be much slimmer/pointier. if you're not, then you should look into modeling it and the eyes differently.

it's like you've mixed two different visual styles and gone wrong somewhere. don't get me wrong it looks fantastic compared with much of the other crap around here. but there's just something off about it.

oh and he looks really fucking young haha. try giving him a liiiitle bit more of a frown, make him look a little more serious, that should help a great deal. and move the eyes closer together.

Laguna is smiling on his reference.... I think the way he shows his age is more in his eyes.

You know, I was thinking the same thing there... But I thought that the general shape of the face was off as well... Might be an issue with this game, though. I dunno, I haven't done player models before, just crappy weapons and skinning.

Anyway, it looks good though. Looking at it, I can tell you are going for a Laguna look. Keep working on it, you'll get it. :p

It's really just too hard to find the correct spots for each vertice for way too many reasons, realistic anatomy just would make it not look like Laguna (nor any FF character) and no FF uses real anatomy, you know that people, even if I could match exactly the correct vertices that of Laguna's face in Final Fantasy, that would look awful once you'd place him among other models (I personally find it disturbing to have 2 human models with total diferent anatomy side by side, specialy when one of them is mine... ).
So, from my point of view, I "can't" pick a style (as for real anatomy or manga/anime) and have to try to go with a in-betwen (in other so that it looks like Laguna and doesn't make the diferent gaming realities in your brain "clash" when it goes in-game).

Well, this whole paragraph was just tryng to justify myself, doesn't mean I won't take critics, as the sucky modeler artist that I am, I know for a fact that I can't match anatomies after a certain point/amount of time staring the same drawing/model (cuz it looks perfect for my fooled brain) and I have to rely on other's critics to keep going in the correct direction, (I'll even make his nose look like an arrow if everybody agrees).

made very light changes to both head polies and textures, hope it looks better. Mostly: nose (overall vertice displacement), neck (was totally off), chin, back or hair, forehead (pulled down, among otehr things), eyes (closer to midle and sharpened), very small changes.
http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/5518/laguna2fm5.jpg

Maybe make the hair not so that it looks so pixelated. And the end of the hair is just a straight line. Try and make it wavy and such. Hard to explain.

considering :)
Originaly to prevent the "straight pararel bad-looking line effect" I wanted the corners of the back of the hair to have alpha but on Jedi Academy that means no volumetric shadows... wich shouldn't be a big deal 2~3 years ago, I did notice more in-game screenshots of models with shadows recently... so all-in-all I'll consider the options of how to avoid the bad looks of a bunch of vertical pararel lines... ;)
(also when I finish the body, it'll help me decide how to cut the hair (wich's pretty the reason why it's so long (so that I can have options on how to cut it when the body is done))

If its going to be the head of a skin/model it aint that important to have it great as youre not going so close that you see the models eyebrows and such.

meanwhile...
front view, left view xD (just doing some drama (even cuz if I dont post step-by-step my works, the drama will be set on me ;P ))

http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/3237/bahamutex6.jpg

;3 falling in love with splines <3
(had a left view jpeg for reference, I beleave it's the icon used in the game, will show later)

bahamut?

i don't like the shapes you've got so far, but good luck modeling from the splines, i always had a really hard time =/

The lips look sorta funny to me on the Laguna.

For the team skins instead of the normal red and blue you should do him in his 3 outfits from the game >.> One being him in the blue with the jacket (with a alt with thew jacket off like on the squall model that Gir did). Anther with him in his Galbadian armor/gear. And the last maybe some formal clothing of some sort... Just a suggestion tho.

Heh, I like the idea of that... One outfit his normal clothes, one his Galbadian uniform, and perhaps the other the outfit he wore when Squall met him face to face?

Ya thats the one im talking about.. It was like formal looking.. Esthar presidential style (or w/e it was) >.> (also with a jacket off ver)

Looking good

smart dud's ;)
Been thinking of default model as been Laguna's casual outfit (blue jacket, black pants, and team variants as the Galbadian suit, and since Galbadian army has a red variant (tho it's actually a higher class, as discused in Inyri's Galbadian soldier thread) a "Biggs" looking version, with Laguna's head. I'm still considering what to with variants, the casual, Galbadian & President/old Laguna are a must, tho I wanted a Stormtrooper Laguna xD but I'm afraid I'll be getting myself in a lot like I did with the previows project. I'll just start with the casual, and move to President, if still on the mood, Galbadian, if still on it, Stormtrooper (it'd be cool ;D )

anyways, I hope the face looks closer to the real thing, Ihave the habit of modeling a naked body before doing the whole clotess, well, I hope it helps...
http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/9080/lagunahu0.jpg

and below, a bit of Mighty B.
ps.: I promise NOTHING ;P I'm aware of the dificulties, would require his own animations, and the whole adding tags, it's own bones, more tags, label animations, 99.999 dmg animations. But still, it's possible, been done with vehicles before, there's the howler npc, wich doesn't eat or snatch it's prays, and even has a cool sound attack (very short ranged tho...) , so eh, I hope something... anything... can come out of it.

http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/6820/bahamutxce4.jpg

looks great keep it up

Wow, that does look really good.:nodding: Keep up the good work.

Exellent good job ^^

on the Bahamut model:
http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/5210/bahamutce1.jpg

I'll keep these updates more significant from now on, really only gonna post when there's a lot more finished, just wanted to show the actual building of the model (tho wings & those feet will be a pain since I wanna get as close as possible to the real thing and there's actually very little reference with a good level of details from both Bahamut and Laguna). (yep, hands arent attached and there no oposite thingers yet (wonder if the hands should be larger... claws are also wrong...))

Looks nice, but to help which form of Buhamut are you doing? From which game too, though I assume FF8. I could look for references.

lol, does it look that bad? xD
supposed to be Final Fantasy X (or 10)

I couldn't tell you if it looked bad, I never played Final Fantasy X or X-2. All the ones after IX besides XI don't draw me in.

I can look for some shots, but I can't say its bad, I just didn't recognize it, and thought I could help you since I like Buhamut.

(edit)
OMFG! I am not sure how accurate your going to be able to make him in this game.... hehe.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...es/bahamut.jpg
It might be a toy, but either way its gonna be off, its unavoidable though, so don't worry. Just do your best. But I know those wings are gonna kick your ass.....

i could tell it was 10 just by looking at the splines, people here just havnt played X and just assumed it was FF8s bahamut, i think it looks awesome and pretty accurate.

All of them look the same in the face. =p

Thanks a bunch ;3 much apreciated that =D

Thanks for the support, I actually mean reference straight from the game, like screenshots from close scenes, there are minimal diferences betwen the two, minimal but considerable if you watch closely, like the way the torso is attached to the leg, and how the horns are bent backwards.

Sin has a nose... really big old nose, like those people that stoped growing, but their noses didn't. Think of B.Sin as a... big beefed gray Alien Queen...

i'm gonna remodel FFVIII bahamut :D

let teh competition beginnnn!!!

lol he looks like this b*tch?
http://www.seekyledraw.com/archives/...nart-thumb.jpg

lol, bahamut sin = power rangers villain.

Looking good so far Manganiac. I tip my hat to your efforts. What's the polyflow looking like (a la wireframe)? Just looking to learn a bit, as it looks pretty smooth so far.

& second most uncool Mega-Flare ever...
despite of liking the looks of X's Bahamut a lot, his M.F. would have to be te top uncool...

on a late note: you do realize that we just can't drop this, I mean, it'd be way too cool, and it'd have to be a total of 4 Bahamuts?
cuz these are the only ones that have "Evil twins"? (FF8's Tiamat & FFX's Dark Bahamut).

for anyone who doesn't get it: FF8 has a retextured Bahamut, called Tiamat , and FF10's international release has retextured Aeons as stronger bosses (like a series of Weapons) among other adds... sure Square ruined the whole point of having to carefully build your character's status & Battlesystem (wich's what makes Final Fantasies)... but whatever, it has a Dark Bahamut ;P
check youtube, there're videos of the Dark Aeons.

dood keep it up ur doing really good (i can tell xD)

thanks ;3
eh, on to it: don't think the polyflow makes much sense, since it's the result of using splines instead of starting from primitives. but still:


while the poly looks messy, I guess the splines look understandable, so I kept this:
(first two shots are no longer from the current version of the file as I still have to turn the whole thing to polies to attach all the pieces together), imo splines are a wonderful way to start the shapes, but soon or latter it'll all have to be turned into polies ;P (plus unavoidable modifiers like ffd & bend don't work properly with splines).

I've seen that pic (other than minilogoguy's avy) but I haven't played X.... so I can't really get shoots unless I look abit harder. That I shall!

i'll be starting mine tomorrow (about to go to work).

also, Bahamut = God of good dragons, Tiamat = Queen of evil dragons (according to D&D). they are rivals on every platform really...


ps. i think you might be using splines the same way i used to... they are great for getting your shape and everything, but you've got NO control over your mesh right now...

Yey for amateur 5 seconds torso animation test ;P (more like 3~4 seconds, 1sec of... nothingness)
eh, well, there's a lot of clipping, bad stretching, etc...

YouTube - another silly test

poly is nearly done... missing tail I guess... then will move on to textures, but weekend's ended T_T

(just realized.... game obviously uses less frames for each motions... one more bothering to consider >.< )

actually, jka was very very inefficient with its animation frames, some of them have like 100, when they only needed 30.

you can have as many frames as you like in an animation anyway =]

That animation looks very nice - just like the one in FFX.

Very nice! You gotta show me how you do that one of these days ;)

I was about to mention that the animation did look nice. I was expecting him to just twist his torso or something. It looks nice, and I'm glad the mouth is actually moving. So your giving this guy 100% custom animations?