I did a quick test rig for the boots to test them (and prance a bit) in world. The clearance is a bit too tight in the back of the leg  and the outer front, so I need to fix that.

I’m pretty confident about the textures so I started the final bake. I ‘should be done at some point during the night.

It’s still missing that ankle strap tho. But this is essentially at “final” resolution.

Not sure how to call this any other way.

Anyway it looks excruciatingly boring, but the idea is that I’m using multiple textures for the different areas that allow customization (base, sole, heel, side panels, strap, strap trim, metals), and each area has its own texture map optimized to reduce waste on power of two maps:

• 1024×512 for the base and half of the metal.
• 1024*256 for the side panels.
• 1024*128 for the straps.
• 1024*128 for the other half of the metal.
• 256*128 for the heel.
• 128*64 for the sole.

It’s all on the same map (yet constrained to power of 2 sections) because it’s just easier for me to do my unwrapping that way.

The only reason the metal is separated into two maps is because I had a bunch of free space on the base map, yet not enough of it to fit all the metal parts at a decent resolution (Also because half way through I realized that I forgot to account for the KDC logo and zipper pull & tab :P).

I started those on Sunday, didn’t work on them Monday and only started late today. The metal parts of the spur seem a little too high poly to my liking, but that’s rounded pieces really, you can’t get around a minimum amount of polygons.

It’s 3 am, I’m going to bed.

Quick post before nap >_<

I need to work a lot faster than this.

The first picture was when I completed the LPM, eventually I got rid of the back thigh panel because it won’t amount to anything once the normal map is in and it gave me an easier time building the knee-joint (I realized that I was expecting it lower than it actually is).

I figured I would also do a quick bending test. It appears to work just fine.

I’ve said it before, and I know that I am repeating myself on this point:

Remeshing is essential when you work with subdivision modifiers.

If you think that remeshing/retopologising is beneath you or that , then maybe you should do the world a favor and stop making SecondLife content.

Or content for any realtime application in fact.

This is the result of Monday/Tuesday: I am far from happy with it, I can see many potentially weak areas and it looks a bit too dense in places where it shouldn’t be. Other than that, reasonable progress I suppose.

I’ve put the finishing touches on the spurcuff straps: metal grommets, stitching and rivets. The contrast edge is a little runny but it’s only there for the preview, the edge of the low polygon model will be a separate face anyway. So the next step is to make the SL version … quickly if that is possible 🙂

I got those stitches fixed and corrected the grain scale… pretty much everywhere it had to be adjusted. Trying to think of a suitable way to “finish” this ankle strap, I was initially going to stitch it up but I’m not sure anymore, maybe a few simple round grommets to mark the holes for the locking post will do instead?

Quite a few things I haven’t posted about:

• Tested knocking down front and back to break the seam: Didn’t look that great.
• I built a set of spur/cuff combos, initially horizontal, then with a sharp angle, they give me a good chaining/locking point that make sense… I think.
• I tried to close the spur with a standard strap & buckle: Too big and impractical.
• Modified the spurs to close with a friction-type buckle embedded on the spur/cuff: less bulk, good.
• Slimmed down the boot top edge.

All in all I need to fix up the stitching on the heel and toes of the boot, finish up the strap, make a locking post and I should be good to move on to the low-poly model.