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Mar
01
New Duke & Cycloid HRP Models
Tea Monster writes:
Today sees the issue of two new next-gen Duke Models for the HRP: a new Duke Nukem player model and a new model of the Cycloid Emperor.
The Cycloid started off in October of 2010, when our forum member Deeper Thought asked me to help out with a project that he and Davox were working on at the time. I jumped at the chance as I had been telling people for some time that with our new Polymer renderer, we should be able to pull off a tasty monster model or two. I had been thinking of a few ways I would have done this, so work started pretty much immediately.
I had a basic human model that I took into ZBrush and started sculpting the form of the body. Meanwhile, I was working on designing the mechanical parts that would make up the boots and arms. I did not want to make a slavish recreation of the original model. What I was aiming for was a recreation of the Cycloid, as if a 3D Realms had been given the concept drawings of the time, but had ZBrush, and modern equipment to play with to realize them. As such, I went for a lot more mechanical look for the Cycloid. What I was aiming for was to suggest that with the Cycloid's size, that his mechanical parts would be constructed in the same manner as heavy earth-moving machinery.
My son Steven came up with a slightly more streamlined concept for the head of the Cycloid, which we both felt looked more menacing the original one I had come up with. Sculpting the body proceeded and the basic shape came together fairly quickly. This was the first time I had done a major, next-gen character project, and I was learning baking, sculpting and other disciplines as well as working full time and all the usual stuff.
As time went on, real life came along, there were changes of career, things happened and time marched on. All of us wound up getting side-tracked by events. As the months unrolled, the Cycloid gathered dust on my hard drive.
Sometime after this, Green approached me and let me know that Mark Skelton had let him have a high poly sculpt of “Da Man Himself.” At first I didn't think we could do anything with it, but after some thought, I realized that we could make our own low poly model from his high poly one. Our new Duke was born! I made a completely new low poly, Spiker did the skins and off we went. OK, it wasn't quite that simple, but after all the hair-loss multiple trial and error between Blender and Z-Brush on the gestation of the Cycloid, it went a LOT smoother. Spiker contributed a shotgun and I did the jetpack.
Fast forward and I realized that I had a few projects that I needed to start on if I was going to get anywhere with them in my life. I decided to step away from Duke Nukem modeling entirely. To be fair, I hadn't had the time to do anything really for many months.
I looked at my hard drive and saw the Cycloid. I emailed DT and asked him what he wanted done with him. As he commissioned him originally, I gave him first pop at the model. His answer was that he should be released to the community. I thought that was a pretty good idea, so I set down to tidy him up for release.
I had started 4 other Duke baddies, but they were all at a pretty early stage of construction. Duke though, was nearly complete. He just need animations. So I decided they would make a pretty pair, and I spent the last month polishing and fixing and animating.
I'm hoping you all like the results.
Keep on Duking!
Tea Monster
