Custom Avatar for Sale

[ArchLimit]

Hi everyone. A few of you might be aware of the fact that I've been working on Maya this summer as part of my advancement towards my major in 3D animation. This site has provided some awesome ideas for me to practice on.

So at any rate, I took the time to make an animated avatar featuring the Dark Templar. It's actually the same model used for my signature. I'm pretty happy with my Kerrigan one so the DT one is just sort of sitting around so I think I'm just going to sell it for some minerals. I have no idea how to price it so ummm... I guess 1,000 minerals might be my ballpark purely due to time spent on it.

Here's the link to a couple stills of it for those who are interested. Again, the real avatar itself is animated. Thanks!

http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/6374/dtsb2.jpg

*EDIT*

Okay, so since I'm sticking with my Hydra one, Kerrigan will be up for sale as well. Here is the preview link to her avatar, which is animated as well.

http://tinyurl.com/yv3dk2

Okay that's it, thanks!

[DontHate]

dude, SWEET! but damn i just spent my money for this immortal :(

how do i sell my immortal? i really want that avatar.

or i can give u my immortal i guess, if u want it :D

[Nikzad]

I can't see it right now because of my internet filter at work but I bet it's awesome. Your hydralisk one is really cool too, but if you don't mind, I'd like to offer one small point of criticism.

I don't know if this is because of the limitations of the software you are using (if there are any), or if it would be too time-consuming, or if you just didn't realize it, but I think the mandibles of the hydralisk, the jaws of it that open side to side, are a little too far apart. I think that it would look more true to a hydralisk if the side-to-side opening jaw was a little lower, and not as wide apart.

A few weeks ago I checked out your profile and you've got some ill stuff in your link, I liked the color-specific cartoon characters you drew.

You peeps should check his work out, it's not only reserved to SC inspired stuff

[ArchLimit]

Hey thanks for the feedback, Nikzad. I think you're right about the mandibles thing for the Hydra. I did what I could based off a few jpegs found on Google and I did feel like something was slightly off after the render. And, sadly, like most cases, it's always noticed AFTER the render. So I think for now it's not too glaring enough for me to go back and re-render. But I do really appreciate your feedback for it as well as my site. Thanks a lot :)

[Nikzad]

wait...so once you render, you can't go back and edit? I don't even know what it really means or what it entails when you "render" but I have a general sense that it means you recreate in 3-d what you designed

you see it a lot on fpsbanana.com when they have renders of re-skins and re-models of guns

could you explain a little about what you do when you create something like that? like entering in a jillion coordinates for vertices of lines or something or what?

[ArchLimit]

Well, in any animation, even one such as an avatar, the basic steps are just modeling, texturing, and then animation. As far as dragging a gazillion vertices go... that's really only for larger scaled models and more detailed scenes. I actually made the Hydra fairly quickly. Most of the detail you see on him is not geometry but an applied texture. After that's done, you sort of just hook up the main pieces together, like mandible to head, mouth to head, and if need be, eyeballs to head, so that each can move on their own but if you move the head, it would move all of them. Kind of like the nature of a crane.

Actually, no I can definitely go back and edit. Rendering isn't actually all that labor intensive, it's just time intensive more than anything else. So what "rendering" actually is is simply taking raw animated models and objects and turning them into full fledged images that include all the appropriate detail + lighting effects. In the "raw" scene that you're working with, it would be impossible to calculate all that lighting/texture/shadows with any real precision at all. Otherwise it would kill your harddrive. So if I'm doing an animation, say, frame 1 through 400 at 30 fps, what rendering does is that it calculates and processes each individual frame and how it would look when the proper shadows/textures and what not have been applied.

So what I would have to do with this Hydra to fix his mandible a lil bit would be to go back and reposition the angles and "keyframe" them, which is to set a position in space given that certain moment in time, and then have the computer recalculate those same images about 400 times. The whole process to fix him might take around 2 hours, I'm guessing.

Oh, and btw, I actually love questions. It serves as sort of my review/pop quiz for Maya knowledge, lol. It helps for me to contextualize everything I'm doing and what I've learned so don't hesitate to ask. I'd welcome all your questions.

[DontHate]

wow, that's a lot of work, but hey, the finished product is amazing!
I might want to try sometime, it looks cool... is there a free version of maya or any other program that does this?

[Lt.Flob]

wow

how long did it took you to do that??

[ArchLimit]

A few hours, Flob. Welcome to the forum, btw :)

[ArchLimit]

Yes, there is Red Dragoon. It's under my first post, but you might have missed it cuz it's an edit.

[PancakeChef]

That is a very nicely done Kerrigan from what the screenshots show Archlimit, very impressive.

How many minerals do these custom avatars cost?

[ArchLimit]

Hey thanks, PancakeChef. I set 'em at around 1000 minerals purely based on the time spent on making them such. I hope that sounds fair.

[ArchLimit]

I guess at this point if ppl really like them enough I might start taking some requests. Although I would have to admit that I'd have to charge considerably more for those. See, the three I have so far were just ones that I made for practice on modeling/texturing 'n what not. And my intention was just to make one for myself 'n be happy with it and somehow get rid of the other two. But if it's a requested piece, I might bump it to 2000-3000 depending on complexity. The way I figure it is based on the 170,000 minerals for 50 bucks at the shop, 3000 minerals is like... less than one dollar, lol. So I think that's probably fair enough considering it takes at least a few hours to make one. Lemme know if you agree, cuz I don't really know how to price my stuff and so far this has been a very friendly community and I don't want to make everyone feel jipped or nuffin, heh.

[Alukard]

do you do requests?

[Fenix]

Seriously dude, you rule....I don't have any requests....I might later lol.....You're just awesome.

[burkid]

your DT avatar is pretty sweet. you should send your sig into blizzard and ask them to make the dts look like that. lol.

i might have a request later, im tired and not thinking straight right now.

[ArchLimit]

Haha, thanks ppl. I think at this point I might take some requests, but please refer to an earlier post of mine on page 1 regarding pricing and reasons why. I'm pricing it around 3000 minerals per request based on figures of 170,000 minerals for 50 bucks. So 3000 minerals is less than a buck and I'd be spending at least a few hours per request. I hope y'all think that's pretty fair.

[[LightMare]]

dude, you rule! although i'm more into sigs than avatars, your work is just astounding!!!!!!!!!!!!211!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!!!21!!!! !@!!!!2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ArchLimit]

Wow... heh, thanks LightMare, that's nice of ya :)

[burkid]

i like what you did with the kerri avatar!

[ArchLimit]

It's cuz I'm secretly in love with Kerrigan. It's silly but she more "attractive" to me than like, Lara Croft and most other game babes out there. Isn't that weird? Especially when all you ever really saw of her in SC1 was a 5 second animation portrait and a pixel-mess of a ghost. Yep, that did it for me, lol.

[DarkTemplol]

(Sorry for bump, this was supposed to be a PM, but Arch's PM box is full. :P)
Hey ArchLimit.

I just wanted to say I really like your artwork, and ask something. It's really amazing the way you can bring things to life. I was just gonna ask, I read a thread where you were offering to make custom avatars. Could I request one? I would pay up front for it, just name a price. This thread was a while ago though, so I don't know if the offer is still standing.

Either way, I really enjoy your work, and I would love to see more of it. :D

Thanks,
Matt

(The thread I was refering to is this one, by the way :P)

[Fenix]

Same here....I'm a gonna make a request of a High Templar....Name your price (Assuming you ever come back)

[ssjfox]

what be you talking about fenix hes never been away, just check hes profile he was active today >.>

[Fenix]

Last Post: November 30, 2007, 06:40:18 PM

[ssjfox]

But hes active he obviously just doesn't care enough to post >.> I'm sure he'll respond to you.... eventually.... if he ever sees this... I guess

[Fenix]

Oh, and the full inbox thing :-X

[ssjfox]

Alot of people seem to have a full inbox on our site >.>

[darkone]

yeah his inbox has been full since my clan even started

[Fenix]

Maybe he can't figure out how to empty it?

[ssjfox]

Thats pretty sad than >.>

[darkone]

yeah ok, I doubt that

[Fenix]

Thats pretty sad than >.>


Indeed. I shall write a requiem for it.

[karlo]

archlimit,how about making a custom frame?

[Fenix]

....He's gone too.

[Fo®Saken]

Just contact him by e-mail or by visiting his site. If you include in the subject in your mail that you have a request for him he will probably respond quicker then by just spamming on these forums... :good:

[Fenix]

^^
You raise a very valid point.