Here's the model of Gul'dan I made for Heroes of the Storm April Fools on reddit. Shoulders, skulls, back spikes, beard and chains. are taken from Azmodan's Guldan skin. The staff is partially paint-over, I didn't have time to make a proper model for it.
New update! Just realized it's been a year since I last touched the troll model, but I decided to give him a facelift and bring him up to something more fitting to Heroes of the Storm quality.
So for the past week, I redid the sculpts for the head, did a proper sculpt of the body (it was a modified Grunt body before) and tripled the polycount. He's sitting at 6500 polies right now, with 1024x textures. I've also split up the textures for the hair and the axes to be separate so I have room to make different hairstyles or weapons in the future.
I'm considering using WoW animations, since the War3 ones are really janky. Still considering my options right now.
I started using Zbrush for high res modelling. I use Maya for modelling/texturing, Max for rigging and exporting, and Photoshop for all my 2D needs. I bake my normal, lighting and occlusion maps straight out of Maya using Turtle. I need to try out 3Dcoat and ddo for textures, but I mostly use traditional photoshop painting methods. I'll occasionally dabble in Blender too, since Println's m3 exporter has a lot more features than the max one.
The techniques I use are similar to the DOTA2 texturing and character art guides, which you can find on Valve's steam workshop.
The methods involve creating a high resolution mesh, which you can make in Zbrush/Sculptris/Mudbox, then baking out multiple maps as overlays, and then finish up with a bit of handpainted love. I also use a lot of reference to hit a certain look, usually stuff from WoW or now Heroes of the Storm since I finally got the client.
References are key to good art IMO. It's always easier to create something when you know the end result you're aiming for, not just relying on imagination and trial-and-error. Before I start a model, I usually sketch out a quick concept and block out rough shapes of what I want to make. Sometimes I collage it from multiple reference pictures, just to get an idea of what I need to make. The stronger the concept you have, the better your end result will be. Removing the guess work makes modelling (and texturing) a hundred times easier.
As for updates, I've been working on a couple things ever so slowly, and I have a backlog of stuff I haven't put up here. I've mostly been trying to break down Heroes of the Storm models, and I'm contemplating updating some older models to fit the style better.
I've been taking a bit of a break, waiting for the Warcraft 3 Orc hero models to arrive. I did some touch ups on a couple units
For the Gnoll, I cleaned up some of the textures and lines, and added a bit more shading to pop out his features. He still needs a weapon and armor options down the line.
I redid the hair for the Troll. I was never happy with the original mohawk, this one is a lot closer to what I originally had in mind. Also fixed a bit of his animations, mainly the hand issue for his attack. I want to revisit the bracers and axes some time.
The casters are pretty much complete. The main things holding them back are their minions, the Water Elemental and Skeletons, which I don't have proper death animations for yet. Still taking a bit of RnD to get the particles working right.
On the other hand, I've gotten around to getting animations made for the siege weapons. These two are the first units I've made 100% custom animations for! The catapult also has flaming rocks, and both siege weapon deaths are based on the siege tank, so expect to see a nice big explosion.
As an added bonus, here's a WIP sneak peek at my latest model.
No Naval units. It's too tricky to get naval units to work in SC2 without a lot of workarounds.
Workers are possible, but not on the plate. I'm focusing on units you would see in a MOBA or RPG.
Demo Squad and Sappers have been in consideration. Had ideas to swap in Mortar Team model as the demo squad stand in. Not started by any means
Ogres are already in Blizzard Allstars. Will wait and see if Blizzard provides classic Warcraft versions, if not I'd probably modify them to be.
Knights, I'm purposely avoiding. Mounted units have scale issues, and the War3 knight has a huge head, would be weird in SC2.
Units in production/available
Ballista and Catapult models have been created. They require texture polish and new animations.
Archer needs to be resized for re-release. Currently it's 10X bigger than other units apparantly.
Mage and Death Knight almost completed. Death Knight is larger than most units, 'Hero' scaled. They're hero units, glowing weps etc.
Water Elemental based on the WoW model, still needs a death animation
Skeleton, Skeleton Warrior, Skeleton Archer are all semi-completed. Working on physics-based death anims for some fun explodey deaths.
Skeletal Grunt made. Might not be available with the other skeletons above.
Rifleman currently available. I made this model to give Dwarves more representation, and to fill in the current void of the Knight.
Gnoll model has been created, requires texture polish and a weapon. Thought I'd add a creep to go alongside forest trolls and ogres for possible RPGs.
Orc Warlock model made, based on Warcraft 3's Warlock/Gul'dan model. Might revisit it and revamp it.
Bunch of other boss models that I haven't touched on, keeping those for myself for future potential use.
Planned for the future
Possibly Zeppelins and Gyrocopters.
Possibly some random NPC units, like fire elementals, slimes, etc.
Gryphons and Dragons a distant maybe. Could be more work than worth, will see how things go
Variations of Heroes from Warcraft 1/2/3. Planning to base a lot of ideas on Blizzard Allstars models. Lothar conversion of Arthas; Doomhammer conversion of Thrall, Troll Shadowhunter conversion of D3 Witchdoctor, etc.
Overall, my plan has been to make units that honor the look of classic Warcraft and still fit in a Starcraft 2 environment. I want these units to fit in seamlessly with the other Warcraft units that Blizzard Allstars provides. Stitches the Abomination alongside an army of skeletons; Uther leading a force of footmen etc. I refrain from focusing on Warcraft 3 because it would involve way too many units to work on.
I probably won't unfortunately. As much as I love Druids (my main in WoW), as soon as I start making one I'll be going down a slippery slope trying to make them all. For now, I'm sticking to Warcraft 2 era of models, so anything that fits within that time space is what I will be focused on. Sorceress, Priests and Shamans would definitely be wishlist material, after everything else is said and done.
No time frame. It's something I've been working off and on for a long time now. I have a lot of nostalgia for Warcraft 2, and I'm reimagining those units in Starcraft 2. I'm partially inspired by Blizzard Allstars bringing back Warcraft 3 heroes. I would do Warcraft 3, but the amount of units in that would be way too much to recreate, and Warcraft 2 hasn't seen a proper 3D remake so that's basically why I'm doing this. I wouldn't be remaking buildings at all either, so don't expect a full-blown Total Conversion. Think of this as potential for Warcraft styled custom maps.
The mage has a proper normal map, with most of the parts generated from a high res model. I mainly use Sculptrix to quickly create High Res models for normal mapping. Overall though, the 3D information from the normal maps don't show up very strongly in the SC2 engine. It mostly affects how spec works; I would say 70-80% of a unit's textures still comes from the Diffuse map, and the spec and normal maps work together to give a model that high-res look. It doesn't push it as far as say DOTA2 does though.
I would love to do a tutorial for modelling and texturing, however I primarily use Maya, and a lot of the techniques I use don't translate properly into Max.
I took a major break from 3D stuff, making use of the summer while it's still here. Just came back from vacation, so I'm slowly getting back into SC2 stuff.
I've been workin on revamping some of my character textures. Here's a progress shot on the Mage so far.
Just a heads up, I've updated all the recently released units. Hopefully many of the issues have been resolved.
If there are any animations that are wonky, please don't hesitate letting me know, and I will do my best to address it. Since these units are using rigs from Warcraft 3, some of them will have wonky animations. It's something we'll have to bear for now.
Ah, right, I may have skipped over those steps for these new ones. I had them converted over to Startools format months ago and hadn't picked em back up till now. I'll add in proper attachments and hit tests to them while I get to the fixes. I'll keep updates on this thread when I release the newer versions
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
For Lordaeron!
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Here's the model of Gul'dan I made for Heroes of the Storm April Fools on reddit. Shoulders, skulls, back spikes, beard and chains. are taken from Azmodan's Guldan skin. The staff is partially paint-over, I didn't have time to make a proper model for it.
New update! Just realized it's been a year since I last touched the troll model, but I decided to give him a facelift and bring him up to something more fitting to Heroes of the Storm quality.
So for the past week, I redid the sculpts for the head, did a proper sculpt of the body (it was a modified Grunt body before) and tripled the polycount. He's sitting at 6500 polies right now, with 1024x textures. I've also split up the textures for the hair and the axes to be separate so I have room to make different hairstyles or weapons in the future.
I'm considering using WoW animations, since the War3 ones are really janky. Still considering my options right now.
@ahtiandr: Go
I started using Zbrush for high res modelling. I use Maya for modelling/texturing, Max for rigging and exporting, and Photoshop for all my 2D needs. I bake my normal, lighting and occlusion maps straight out of Maya using Turtle. I need to try out 3Dcoat and ddo for textures, but I mostly use traditional photoshop painting methods. I'll occasionally dabble in Blender too, since Println's m3 exporter has a lot more features than the max one.
Guess I'll tease with a WIP shot. No animations yet, still working on the textures and shading.
The techniques I use are similar to the DOTA2 texturing and character art guides, which you can find on Valve's steam workshop.
The methods involve creating a high resolution mesh, which you can make in Zbrush/Sculptris/Mudbox, then baking out multiple maps as overlays, and then finish up with a bit of handpainted love. I also use a lot of reference to hit a certain look, usually stuff from WoW or now Heroes of the Storm since I finally got the client.
References are key to good art IMO. It's always easier to create something when you know the end result you're aiming for, not just relying on imagination and trial-and-error. Before I start a model, I usually sketch out a quick concept and block out rough shapes of what I want to make. Sometimes I collage it from multiple reference pictures, just to get an idea of what I need to make. The stronger the concept you have, the better your end result will be. Removing the guess work makes modelling (and texturing) a hundred times easier.
As for updates, I've been working on a couple things ever so slowly, and I have a backlog of stuff I haven't put up here. I've mostly been trying to break down Heroes of the Storm models, and I'm contemplating updating some older models to fit the style better.
I've been taking a bit of a break, waiting for the Warcraft 3 Orc hero models to arrive. I did some touch ups on a couple units
For the Gnoll, I cleaned up some of the textures and lines, and added a bit more shading to pop out his features. He still needs a weapon and armor options down the line.
I redid the hair for the Troll. I was never happy with the original mohawk, this one is a lot closer to what I originally had in mind. Also fixed a bit of his animations, mainly the hand issue for his attack. I want to revisit the bracers and axes some time.
Felt like making something new this week, so took some time to crunch out new models.
And a WiP on a new slime model. Thanks to Zolden for help with the shader!
Another update!
The casters are pretty much complete. The main things holding them back are their minions, the Water Elemental and Skeletons, which I don't have proper death animations for yet. Still taking a bit of RnD to get the particles working right.
On the other hand, I've gotten around to getting animations made for the siege weapons. These two are the first units I've made 100% custom animations for! The catapult also has flaming rocks, and both siege weapon deaths are based on the siege tank, so expect to see a nice big explosion.
As an added bonus, here's a WIP sneak peek at my latest model.
Units not worked on
Units in production/available
Planned for the future
Overall, my plan has been to make units that honor the look of classic Warcraft and still fit in a Starcraft 2 environment. I want these units to fit in seamlessly with the other Warcraft units that Blizzard Allstars provides. Stitches the Abomination alongside an army of skeletons; Uther leading a force of footmen etc. I refrain from focusing on Warcraft 3 because it would involve way too many units to work on.
@Velkydia: Go
I probably won't unfortunately. As much as I love Druids (my main in WoW), as soon as I start making one I'll be going down a slippery slope trying to make them all. For now, I'm sticking to Warcraft 2 era of models, so anything that fits within that time space is what I will be focused on. Sorceress, Priests and Shamans would definitely be wishlist material, after everything else is said and done.
@XibadivS: Go
No time frame. It's something I've been working off and on for a long time now. I have a lot of nostalgia for Warcraft 2, and I'm reimagining those units in Starcraft 2. I'm partially inspired by Blizzard Allstars bringing back Warcraft 3 heroes. I would do Warcraft 3, but the amount of units in that would be way too much to recreate, and Warcraft 2 hasn't seen a proper 3D remake so that's basically why I'm doing this. I wouldn't be remaking buildings at all either, so don't expect a full-blown Total Conversion. Think of this as potential for Warcraft styled custom maps.
The Mage model is finally completed! One step closer to the next release.
Now for some RnD on some fun, explodey death anims.
The mage has a proper normal map, with most of the parts generated from a high res model. I mainly use Sculptrix to quickly create High Res models for normal mapping. Overall though, the 3D information from the normal maps don't show up very strongly in the SC2 engine. It mostly affects how spec works; I would say 70-80% of a unit's textures still comes from the Diffuse map, and the spec and normal maps work together to give a model that high-res look. It doesn't push it as far as say DOTA2 does though.
I would love to do a tutorial for modelling and texturing, however I primarily use Maya, and a lot of the techniques I use don't translate properly into Max.
Hey all
I took a major break from 3D stuff, making use of the summer while it's still here. Just came back from vacation, so I'm slowly getting back into SC2 stuff.
I've been workin on revamping some of my character textures. Here's a progress shot on the Mage so far.
Just a heads up, I've updated all the recently released units. Hopefully many of the issues have been resolved.
If there are any animations that are wonky, please don't hesitate letting me know, and I will do my best to address it. Since these units are using rigs from Warcraft 3, some of them will have wonky animations. It's something we'll have to bear for now.
Ah, right, I may have skipped over those steps for these new ones. I had them converted over to Startools format months ago and hadn't picked em back up till now. I'll add in proper attachments and hit tests to them while I get to the fixes. I'll keep updates on this thread when I release the newer versions