TheParryGod
patreon
Spikewall Phase II
🕑 Added 2023-07-31 03:41:40 +0000 UTCDecided to recreate spikewall from scratch since there were elements I wanted to add/do differently but lacked the skill at the time to make them happen. Plus the original mesh had quite horrible topology. I'm going into quite ludicrous amount of detail but it's gonna be a beauty once I'm done. Also had a revelation that fish head just works wonders on a bulky body, nestled into this neck armor; so I'm pulling a George Lucas on that one. I'm honestly very pissed at myself that I didn't try this combo before hitting final render on Patient Zero.
The body as you can see is mostly done at this point. Some stitching missing and I wanna recreate the fish helmet as well as the arm armors. Beside that I want to make this into something you could play around with a bit. So stuff like making the helmet in layers down to the bare head.
And I'm aslo upgrading the HLA units to a "passable for a closeup" level. Will be benefitial for the future and when I'll get to redoing the transition soldier since that's due for a remaking as well.
All of these I plan on releasing along with other goodies that I've been sitting on for far too long. First they'll be available here for a yet undetermined amount of time before going public.
ALSO
I've created a new tier that's replacing 'Tier I' in name (Patreon won't let me change the amount on an existing one) It costs $1 as opposed to the previous $2 and I'd urge everyone to take this option until the situation here changes. Again, I apologize for the weeks of silence followed by not a whole lot, but this is as much I can muster without driving myself crazy.
Thank you and cheers!
Comments
TheParryGod
It wasn't as bad as it could be but I still stand by "quite horrible" haha. What I did back then is I subdivided the base valve meshes but while they were triangulated. Now with a bit more experience I made sure everything was turned to quads before I ran any subdivision modifiers. And yeah, the arm weight painting actually turned out quite nice, but it was sometimes very painful working with it. Especially around the shoulders and the cod armor. The backstory with this unit is simply a transition between Wallhammer and HL2 shotgunner. Nothing really beyond that. And I'm probably overthinking the whole thing. Especially considering this is my made up lore, but Valve I'd say set up a really nice progression in how the units look in HLA vs HL2 and I wanna keep my fan models consistent with that.
Wenorter
"original mesh had quite horrible topology" I actually messed around with him in Blender couple of months ago in attempts to study a little bit of everything myself. I don't think that geometry was that catastrophically bad, he also has pretty good rig and weight painting distribution that is easy to work with in the scene. But what you are doing above will definitely save a lot of frames and nerves for future projects. (I hope we will see them eventually, I know how "office slavery" could be terrible :') ) Anyways Parry, did your man Spikewall have a backstory at all? Or he was just a more buffed version of shotgunner that was created for reasons unknown?
TheParryGod
I'm a bit unsure on the arm pads currently. The more I look at the model without them the more I tend to like it. If that's the route I'm gonna take I'll probably make this its own thing as opposed ot a Spikewal retcon. But otherwise I'm aiming for mostly the same thing. Bit closer to what we have on the concept art, Bit of asymmetry and just modeled better to give that thick kevlary-rubbery feel. I really enjoy that the shape tapers down to stick legs :d It looks weird to have a buff guy with such thin legs, but to me it's a good kinda weird that really fits the Combine. A human silhuette that's just a bit off. Maybe there's some terrible body horror going on at the shins to augment carry capacity and it's just hidden by human clothing. Who knows.
Horizons
Few things 1. Will the arm pads resemble what we currently have or will they be something completely different? 2. This was mentioned a bit in 314 but what if you swap the boots to have them be a little more bulky at the top instead of being super thin
