DKC Atlas Forum

[Cyclone]

What looks off with the fur? is it the colour, the combing?

As for the images I prefer the "Kremling Krew." one. If it was bigger I could use it on my model. Thanks.

[CatLoverMolly]

I feel like it needs more contrast, maybe? I'm not sure how to describe it.
Right now it's all kinda blended together [which is good in moderation] but that's also the problem. It needs a bit more contrast. However that may just be the lighting.

[Qyzbud]

I agree with Molly on the fur shading/blending issue; I think it's due to the lighting — specifically a lack of definition regarding highlights and shadows — which make the fur take on a mostly single-colour appearance.

fur-shading-issue.png (51.35 KiB) Viewed 92701 times

The result is kind of like a photo being overexposed, in that detail is lost.

Is that kind of what you were thinking, CatLoverMolly?


As for the scale of DK in the minecart; the change you made was a subtle one, but it does look significantly closer to the "correct" scale, in my opinion.

Once you adjust his grip on the cart — with just the fingers themselves on the outside, and the palms more on the inside of the cart — his pose will look better again.

[Cyclone]

OK. I played around with the fur material. Takes 20min per render to see the result... so I decided to do make adjustments in photoshop as well.
Is it better? I agree about where the fur meets the hand looks off. For the final scene/animation I will try to brush the fur more realistically if I have the patience waiting for all the test renders...

As for the hands gripping the cart I will attempt that after I work on Diddy some more.

[Qyzbud]

The individual hairs do look a bit more defined in your latest render, but the overall look seems a bit harsh... perhaps the saturation and contrast (of the fur, specifically) are both a little too high, now? That said, I think the current lighting is actually a bit closer to how Rare lit the original scene, so keep that in mind before deciding whether to change things back.

Just a thought; is there any way you can introduce a slightly darker colour to be used for "every second hair", or something like that? Darkening half of the hairs might have a positive effect on both definition and realism — a sort of "natural variation", if that makes sense?

What you have here does look good, just a little intense; hopefully there's a more subtle (and less lighting-dependant) way to add detail to the fur.

[Cyclone]

Just a thought; is there any way you can introduce a slightly darker colour to be used for "every second hair", or something like that? Darkening half of the hairs might have a positive effect on both definition and realism — a sort of "natural variation", if that makes sense?

In this latest render I added darker "mutant" hairs at a value of 30% and combed somed parts of the shoulder better. I rendered it all in 3dsmax(did not use ps in this one). Is it too much of a departure from the previous render? I think the lighting matches the scene setup better and the fur is softer looking?

Diddy revision to come in a few minutes...

Please keep in mind that the fur isn't final(around his eyes) and theres a bad spot on his shirt.

[Qyzbud]

Oh wow... that looks so good.

A little Dimoxinil (or even a comb-over) to cover those bald spots on his head will go a long way, but otherwise the fur and lighting are looking stunning.

I'm so glad my suggestion was helpful.

[Cyclone]

posted new Diddy renders in previous post.

Qyzbud thanks. Do you really think it's that much better. I'm thinking it could be a little dark. DK needs to stand out from the mine cart to draw viewers attention.

I am currently rendering a new version with brighter fur.

[Qyzbud]

Well, I love it the way it is, but you might be right about it being better if DK stands out a bit more.

Looking forward to the next render...


Edit: Diddy's looking good, but will look better with his fur updated to this new style... plus the stars on his shirt could use a little repositioning.

[Cyclone]

Hmm do you guys think diddy could use more work? aside from the fur?

[Qyzbud]

Those latest highlights on DK look good — a subtle change, and perhaps an improvement.

I'll give some Diddy feedback soon.

[sonosublime]

Diddy is looking absolutely brilliant. Without seeing a turntable, I can't find any faults. Kudos!

And the latest model of DK in the mine-cart looks great, especially the fur and lighting effects. Well done!

[Qyzbud]

I've taken another look at Diddy's side profile, and I think you could improve the eye, ear and hat shape a little; this render makes a good reference:



The eye might be fine once you style/trim his fur a little, so perhaps work on the fur first.

His ear would look better with updated scene lighting (more like Rare's, as you achieved in the minecart scene), but a little resculpting might also help.

As for the hat, it's the top-back part that needs attention (smoothing); should be a relatively simple tweak, I hope.

Keep up the excellent work!

[Cyclone]

As always thanks for the suggestions, although I went ahead and started the face morphs. I made his snout a bit longer and the ridge a bit smoother.

Here is the first pass at the different expressions. What do you guys think?

[sonosublime]

Good to see you back, Cyclone.

I think I liked Diddy better the way you had him before:



In particular:
1. His snout looks a little too long now.
2. His hat is a little too shallow now.

As for his facial expressions, they're mostly looking pretty good. The only one which looks kind of weird is the middle angry one. I reckon this would make a good angry reference for both DK and Diddy:

[Qyzbud]

I agree with Sono; I'm not too keen on the "angry" expression — eyes split down the middle — but the other two are looking okay.

That 'Returns reference shot looks good to me — see if you can replicate it!

[CatLoverMolly]

As long as y'get the stars aligned and the fur to have DK's fur effect, I should think that we're good. Other mminor nitpicks include the angry face, and maybe his arms? They're a bit too thick and they look like sleeves.
For the flag, how's this? http://images.wikia.com/donkey-kong/pt/ ... g_Krew.png

[Mattrizzle]

It could just be that I'm not used to seeing Diddy in a T-pose, but his arms look like they are too thick to me.

[Cyclone]

As long as y'get the stars aligned and the fur to have DK's fur effect, I should think that we're good. Other mminor nitpicks include the angry face, and maybe his arms? They're a bit too thick and they look like sleeves.
For the flag, how's this? http://images.wikia.com/donkey-kong/pt/ ... g_Krew.png

The resolution of that image is good. but the shape outline isn't smooth enough to hold up to high res renders. Other then that I could use it. Thanks.

I gave him some brows which will be used only for the mad expression. I also thinned his arms slightly.

Diddy39(Mad)A.png (621.78 KiB) Viewed 92447 times

Diddy39(Mad)B.png (625.24 KiB) Viewed 92447 times

[Qyzbud]

I do agree about the stars/fur/arms... but the arms have certainly improved since the early stages.

This latest render looks like a further improvement, but I must say that like Mattrizzle, I'm having a hard time being certain of dimensions and proportions due to the T-pose, as it's so unusual to see Diddy like that; perhaps you could give him a more natural pose (arms at sides, perhaps) for the next render you share?

The image Molly posted looks to be a reasonable trace, and could work for the flag/sail insignia... at least until we find/make a more detailed/neatly outlined version (if deemed necessary/desirable). That said, with some clever blending/texturing/bump mapping work, it could well be the perfect starting point as is.

EDIT: Cyclone, the eyelids are almost there, but I'm not sure he looks angry enough! Perhaps it's just the happy/neutral mouth, but making the inner part of each eyelid go straight from edge to edge (rather than curving inward) might give him a more convincing scowl? Just a thought.

Sorry if that was hard to make sense of — I'll post a sketch if you'd like.

[Phyreburnz]

This probably isn't going to be very helpful, but something seems off about his legs... I can't quite put my finger on it, though... maybe his feet need to be a smidge larger?

[sonosublime]

I can't see anything wrong with Diddy's legs myself

I like those latest renders, Cyclone. With some slight changes to his 'brows' (ie. having them go straight instead of curved), you could have Diddy looking angrier.

[Cyclone]

It may be a day or two before I post an update. The hair takes 5-10min a render. and theres a lot of test renders I have to to...

[Cyclone]

Well here is an update. I made his eyebrows less curvy to try to make him look more angry. Threw 2 bones on each arm. I very quick rig. Most of the time was spent on the fur. It needs to be more consistent. I'm aiming for a bit of shaggy look as seen on Diddy's tail.

Even though the pose has flaws I think the pose makes Diddy more like Diddy from the official DKC2 renders.

Any thoughts or comments. Are the hands to big? How would you like the fur to look?

[Qyzbud]

Looks like he's doing the robot!

In fact, I think I've seen a monkey in that pose before...

Spoiler!

^ Impressive use of an unexpected visual reference.


Anyhow, his expression is more convincing in this latest render, and the fur is starting to look pretty good; should look excellent with a bit more brushing.

I don't particularly think the hands are too big, but I think his pupils might be... I'll have another look with fresh eyes in the morning.

Keep up the good work!

[Cyclone]

Does the pose really make him look strange? I thought it at least looked better then the T-Pose. It was very quick rig.
His pupils didn't change from the last render. If they look big is because they were vertically scaled to make him look more mad as seen in the DKCR reference above.

[Qyzbud]

It is slightly better than the T for gauging how he will look, but it's still a rather unnatural pose. The oddly angled arm(s), flat hands, etc., plus of course the eyelids/brows and enlarged pupils all depart from Diddy's natural look — not to say they aren't appropriate/well done — just that it's hard to give proper critique when those things distract from the overall appearance. If you know what I mean...

I realise that the pupils have been constant for the past few renders, but this is the first time I've really noticed it. I guess the eyebrows distracted me until now.

[sonosublime]

Diddy doin' the robot. Awwwww yeah.

The fur looks great, his expression looks great, the hands are a good size, everything looks great (aside from the left collar of his shirt, where it looks there is some fur poking through).

I don't think the pupils are too big. The size roughly matches that of the DKCR reference.

Here is the (hopefully final) revision of the script. Nothing much to see, I simply changed the colour of the 'Ambush Captain' to green, in accordance to previous posts. I also PDF'd it.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/p3z3h ... 5B6%5D.pdf

[Cyclone]

Here is an updated version of Diddy. Did a more detailed rig(still rough) to allow for a better pose and made his eyes slightly smaller. I looked at some reference and his eyes were actually smaller. I did have the fur decent but I had to rotate his left arm for the pose and you can see where I didn't comb it as nicely. *** the fur. Its a pain.

[Qyzbud]

Oh yes, that's sooooo much better! MrsQyzbud will love it.

Some thoughts:

• His right hand (pointer finger) looks like it's fading away... like someone went back in time and stopped his parents from meeting.
• I recommend getting the stars on his shirt aligned/sized correctly — that will help the overall look.

The fur looks quite good, but I can see what you mean. Fur must be a real pain to work with, but it looks amazing when you finally get it right.

[sonosublime]

Cool Diddy pose. Looks like something right out of the DKC2 manual.

[Cyclone]

Some thoughts:

• His right hand (pointer finger) looks like it's fading away... like someone went back in time and stopped his parents from meeting.
• I recommend getting the stars on his shirt aligned/sized correctly — that will help the overall look.

This will probably be the last render of Diddy for a while. I'm going to go ahead and start the banana hoard sequence.
Changes made. Skin tone,the pointer hand,small fixes in the fur and adjusted the stars on his shirt. Are those accurate to your vision of Diddy?

[Qyzbud]

Good stuff, Cyclone — all changes look like improvements to me.

To be honest, though, Diddy's pointing finger still looks a bit odd to me; I think it's perhaps too skinny/small compared with the rest of his hand.

Here's the DKC2 render for reference:

Spoiler!

Looking at that render, there actually seems to be a few fundamental differences in his posture and proportions — his legs and torso, especially. I know you're drawing a fair bit of inspiration from Retro's design, so that's probably why it looks so different. He does look good the way you've done him, but I think I would personally aim to match Rare's early design(s) as closely as possible (including the hand/foot digit-counts), and only draw on "modern" inspiration when you think an upgrade is necessary (for fur, etc.).

I probably sound like a broken record — "Stick to the SNES designs! Back in my day, characters had character!", etc, etc... — but I just see a lot of promise in this project, and I think a strong likeness to the authenticity of Rare's old models would be a big plus for a tribute like this.

[Cyclone]

It's been a year working on this project!


Thanks for the comments Qyzbud. I'm at loss to know what to do. It would be a lot of work to redo the hands and feet. I would have to redo the fur as well.

Here is Diddy in the mine cart. His arms don't reach to cover DK's eyes.

And a render for sonosublime showing one of his scene of the script. Diddy will be standing in the lower right of the image.

Hoard.png (1.25 MiB) Viewed 92175 times

[Cyclone]

Thanks for the comments Qyzbud. I'm at loss to know what to do. It would be a lot of work to redo the hands and feet. I would have to redo the fur as well.

Who else thinks I should make the hands and feet more like the old Rare renders instead of the retro designs?

[Phyreburnz]

Well, I'm only speaking for myself, here, but I don't mind the extra digit from Retro's design. I just think a bit more delicate shaping of his fingers would help, maybe. His thumb looks like it should be shaped a bit more, specifically.

[Cyclone]

hmm still undecided. I think I found away of redoing the hands/feet without redoing all the work on the fur. So it's not as big a deal anymore to change them. I like having the all 5 digits on his hands and feet but what if I just make his hands more like the reference but include the extra digit? As of right now the hands and feet are just duplicates of DK's hands and feet and I always felt they need to be different then DK's.

What do you think of doing it like that Qyzbud? Also is having the torso area not as accurate to the reference a big thing for you? I would like to have diddy looking right to as many DK fans as I can and also like him in my one eyes.

[Qyzbud]

Fixing the torso could be a big step towards making your Diddy really look right; I definitely think it's worth trying to get his proportions and posture accurate to the DKC/2 era models, as he's sure to look more authentic... but I'm not sure how difficult/time-consuming it'll be for you — hopefully not too much.

As for the hands/feet, although both the general form and the number of digits feel somewhat important to me, I would be fine with a compromise like you've suggested; if you can make Diddy's hands and feet look as close as possible to Rare's version, the extra fingers and toes might be less of an issue to us die-hard old school Diddy fans. Maybe.

Awesome to see both of our hairy heroes in the minecart, by the way!

[Phyreburnz]

I don't like the compromise idea... having five fingers and three toes seems... weird... I think picking one or the other would be much better.

[Qyzbud]

I agree that having significantly more fingers than toes would be a little odd, but I don't think a digital disparity was ever on the cards as part of the compromise... it was a matter of having the complete set of digits — five fingers per hand, five toes per foot — but to aim for the overall shape/appearance of the hands and feet to more closely resemble the design Rare concocted. That's my understanding, anyway.

[Cyclone]

Yea Qyzbud is correct. That was my intention. Users on the DK vine keep saying that DK/Diddy's faces don't look quite right. Not smooth enough to lumpy... I would try to fix that if I had the patience but I spent enough time on Diddy so far...

[Cyclone]

Well here is Diddy with updated hands - Better and good now? They will of course look wider/fatter due to the extra finger.
Next are the feet...

[Qyzbud]

The pointing hand looks much better!

And yes, I'd say the hands are "good" now... but I will inspect more closely when I get to my computer; my phone's screen is good, but it doesn't quite do your renders justice.

[Phyreburnz]

Can you show this from another angle? It looks like the fingers *may* be a little short, but it's difficult to tell from this perspective, since the fingers are foreshortened.

[Cyclone]

The pointing hand looks much better!

And yes, I'd say the hands are "good" now... but I will inspect more closely when I get to my computer; my phone's screen is good, but it doesn't quite do your renders justice.

How on earth can you properly see the image on such a small screen?

Small update on the hands. I smoothed out the geometry a little so it's not so lumpy looking. And the hair may make his arm shaped weird in areas on his left arm. Will need a recomb later.
Let me know what you think.

Phyreburnz here is a render with his fingers stretched out. Not a great image but I didn't feel like changing the lighting.

Spoiler!

Diddy54(hand).png (189.61 KiB) Viewed 92018 times

[Phyreburnz]

Thanks for the other angle. His fingers look like a pretty good length. His pinky should just be a little bit shorter, I think, and that's it for the length. The pinky fingertip should start around the first knuckle on either the ring or forefinger.

[Qyzbud]

The geometry smoothing is an improvement.

My phone's screen is relatively small (compared to a monitor), but is very clear and vivid. The reason I wasn't sure about the finger length is that I had to zoom in to look at Diddy's hand, and in doing so, I lost the ability to gauge the length of his finger in relation to the render as a whole. Now that I've done so, I agree with Phyre's first comment — his pointer finger looks a bit short — but seemingly only in the main render; in the top-down shot it looks about right...

Hmm... maybe it's just a trick of perspective?

If you do lengthen his finger(s), only a very small change is required, in my opinion.

[Cyclone]

Thanks for the comments. I think its perspective making the fingers look different depending on the view.

Here are revised Diddy feet. If you think they are good means I can work on Diddy's face more. then all that's left is rigging the tail and the legs/feet. The feet I think need another quick pass. The viewing angle is a bit different so it doesn't look quite as close to the original. And I'm not sure about the left foot.

Diddy55(feet)b.png (306.94 KiB) Viewed 91989 times

[Qyzbud]

Looking good, but the instep of the left foot (Diddy's right) needs to be revised; the bulbous protrusion between the big front toe and the "opposable toe" (foot thumb) should be a lot more subtle.

[Cyclone]

Here is an update.
Changes Made:

Smoothed out the geometry of the face
Adjusted the feet
Added a pink Tungue
changed the lighting a little

In particular what do you think of the face now?

After

Before