[PolarBear53]

Well, I kind of know how to model a little in each way, and I really don't know where to start. He has a lot of smooth parts, then there are others parts that have high detail. I thought about box modelling, but the I looked at some of the rounded holes in his hands. I just really can't decide what technique to use and where to start, but i think i might be able to do it and i want to do it. This will be my first big/nice thing, everything else is little and simple.


So here he is.....




High res: Here

Here is a high res of an artist picture of him: Here

Right now I am thinking box model and use boolean to get some of the details in there.

How would you go about doing this?


*Edit* LoL and if you can't tell, I am a huge halo fan!

*Even more edit*
In the game they get the detail by using bump-maps, but I am going for highest quality and poly count doesn't really matter too much, so If geometry would be best I would like to use it, maybe ill use a normal map after making a really nice one to use in animations.

[kumar]

Well,,, this is what i would do if i was to model something like that. Try to get a basic shape going, like the whole body.... No details, just the smooth shape. Then model the armour and stuff and then add it to the body in different layers,,,, You can also use parts of the body to get the armour stuff going. I usually use the box modelling thing on bodies,,, for the head i prefer the detail out method,,, but thats just me... But boolean,,,, Oh no no... i dont want a dirty mesh.... i'd rather rework the area than boolean. I only boolean,,, if its really safe and i need it. You can actually have some parts of your mesh smooth and others planar. Good Luck, i will keep an eye on this and see what others have to say.
Kumar

[PolarBear53]

Yes, I was playing around with it and boolean does cause a dirty mesh. Never thought about dressing him, ill have to think about it . Although it seems like some extra work to build the body because it's under all the armor but maybe ill need to for it to be better.

[kumar]

Well guess you can work without a body under the armour. Just make sure the proportions are ok.

[PolarBear53]

I was able to extract the halo pc model of him so I have him in lightwave, but he doesn't have any detail on him and of course is low poly. But i think I will make a body unless anyone has anything better.

[philip]

I'm not sure I would model the actual body...
but I would advise you to draw at least a side view and a front view to use as backdrops. A nice sideeffect of drawing these is that you will familiarize with the shapes and volumes.

Then I would start building him bit by bit with mostly SubDs, adding detail only once everything is roughed in and you triple-checked the proportions.

For modeling I rarely use boxmodeling or poly-by-poly modeling alone, rather a sort of hybrid method.

[PolarBear53]

Sounds good, Thankx