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December Challenge - Journey's (Watery) End
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December Challenge - Journey's (Watery) End // Monthly Modeling Contest
Post by Nez // Jan 22, 2008, 7:40am
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Nez
Total Posts: 1102
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Well, I've not had nearly as much time to spend on this as I'd hoped back before Christmas, with all the festive relative-visiting etc keeping me off the computer altogether. Have finally managed to squeeze a few hours in over the last few days but whether I'll get close to finishing is another question...
Had a number of ideas I thought would be fun for this challenge - very nearly tried a sheet-covered corpse on a gurney, toe and toe tag sticking out the end, blood on the floor, abandoned operating theatre, but thought that a bit macabre, so decided to go down this route instead. Gives me the chance to try out some things I've never tried before.
Here's a couple of shots that show the first few stages of the scene, effectively working towards a background to composite into the final scene - being underwater, I wanted the equivalent of fog effects, volumetric effects and caustic effects from the water all in one scene - which isn't possible in TS5. So I did a background with a water plane above including fog and rendered out.
This became the background for a basic volumetrics shot which was rendered again to form a background for the more developed scene. This has further fog to help the blending in, plus the 'caustic' projector light above, with a gently undulating sea-bed. Then it's a case of adding a bit of 'scenery' - the wreck and some rocks....
More to come... |
Post by Nez // Jan 22, 2008, 7:47am
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Nez
Total Posts: 1102
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And a few more 'teasers' to keep you going til I can post some more...
some simple fish to add a bit of colour/content - blue one is using standard fish image supplied with TS on a plane with mask, others use modified version of the same image manipulated inpaintshop pro...
and a hint of the intended composition - looking through a diver's mask.
Obviously, these are all still missing the 'main content' - but you can probably guess what that's supposed to be.... |
Post by rjeff // Jan 22, 2008, 11:22am
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rjeff
Total Posts: 1260
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this looks nice nez..can't wait to see it all. |
Post by Nez // Jan 23, 2008, 7:34am
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Nez
Total Posts: 1102
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Thanks!
Just about done, well as much as I'm gonna be...
Here's a few WIP shots of the main 'character' - didn't turn out quite as well as I'd hoped (mostly cos I'm rubbish at SDS and have never tried an animal of any sort before) - mostoly ok but the mouth really isn't what I was after... |
Post by Nez // Jan 23, 2008, 7:37am
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Nez
Total Posts: 1102
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And this is pretty much the final result; might try a few more last-minute tweaks if I can find the time but this is just about as far as I'm going to be able to take it. The mouth looks to much like he's smiling and for some reason it seems very light down his throat which I can't get to go away (tried negative lights but they made a real mess!)
Quite pleased overall as this is new ground for me and most of the shark came out acceptably even though my SDS is so rubbish...
Just need to try to sort a few last bits tonight... |
Post by rjeff // Jan 23, 2008, 7:41am
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rjeff
Total Posts: 1260
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well sure he is smiling..he is gettting a free meal! |
Post by Nez // Jan 24, 2008, 3:45am
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Nez
Total Posts: 1102
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yes, h does look rather smiley doesn't he, wasn't quite the intent as it makes it more cartoony than I planned, but too time consuming to adjust now sadly.
Have managed a few other tweaks that I'd planned - a few more fish (pictures on planes, albeit I created the pictures/masks from scratch), minor lighting tweak and added my own scared reflection into the inside of the mask...
It's been quite fun, given that I tried to do this in a bit of a rush; have learned a few things a long the way e.g.
-I couldn't find out how to 'remove' sds from a model having applied it - although you can revert to the control cage, you cannot obviously remove it as such, preventing you from carrying out certain operations like Simply Symmetry, which is as close to Mirror Modeeling as is available in TS5; found out rather too late thatthere is a button for removing the control cage from the sds object, which would have done the job...
-trying to use volumetrics and fog is a pain... - and the volumetrics ended up just about invisible anyway...
-I suck at SDS...
-using a strong projector light for the caustic water effect caused some problems with balancing the rest of the lighting setup
But I'm quite pleased with how several things worked out - I like my seabed texture (a plain sand colour with bump plus a layered marble texture with alpha map) and my rock outcrops - sliced up bits of terrain exported from Terragen - and the fog effect worked quite well to deal with the double-horizon effect and murkiness of the water. Occurred to me too late that if I'd slightly angled my water plane and seabed 'plane' together I would have eliminated the double horizon thing you get with two finite planes....
So I'm gonna call it a day; if you have any questions about anything in the scene, feel free to ask... |
Post by Steinie // Jan 24, 2008, 5:02am
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Steinie
Total Posts: 3667
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What cracked me up wasn't the smiling shark (although it is the friendliest shark I've ever seen) but the eyes staring back in the mask! Nice going with your exploratory work I really like the lighting and texturing. Not too keen on the shark eyes placement and the thickness of his fin tips.
Keep trying new things, makes creating in 3D even more fun and rewarding. |
Post by TomG // Jan 24, 2008, 6:30am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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The eye placement may be what gives the smiling effect, as they are very high on the shark to my mind. Moving those may be fairly easy in modeling terms, and may give a reduction in just how friendly the shark looks.
The reflection of the eyes starting back is quite brilliant. Great touch.
It may be possible with a twist / taper tool, or with the deformation tools, to just turn down the back of the mouth of the shark a little, to again reduce the smiling effect, with minimal modeling effort.
Just in case you do fancy making him look less cheerful :)
HTH!
Tom |
Post by butterpaw // Jan 24, 2008, 1:52pm
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butterpaw
Total Posts: 831
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hahah! I also love the faint reflection of shocked eyes!! nicely done! and the shark looks like he's thinking .. oh look, there's lunch! :D
I'm sorry you didn't want to make it funny.. I really prefer it this way.. but then, I'm a wimp ^_^ |
Post by Steinie // Jan 24, 2008, 1:57pm
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Steinie
Total Posts: 3667
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If it makes you feel any better I started to look for shark pictures head on and guess what? The shark ALWAYS looks like it is smiling while it eats you...:D
It's just no one is left around to describe the "look" |
Post by Nez // Jan 28, 2008, 3:51am
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Nez
Total Posts: 1102
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Steine, Tom, Butterpaw - thanks for your comments and suggestions.
I guess in hindsight the eyes look a little off - they say hindsight is always 20/20 after all... he did end up looking a bit like a plastic toy or something, but seeing as that's what I had onmy desk maybe that's not surprising - next time must get more photo references to take home....
Tom - I don't think I have all the taper tool or some of the others you mention in TS5? Given the timescale (and my having had enough!) I decided not to modify any further for the entry although I guess I may revisit someday. Mainly the mouth shape probelm boils down to my inexperience with SDS - was supposed to come out more O-shaped from the front...
Glad you liked the smiley look Butterpaw... if I was snorkelling I'm not quite sure how I'd react if I saw a smiling shark approaching I have to admit! Maybe I should try something intentionally cartoony next time I model - maybe it will come out realistic instead! |
Post by TomG // Jan 28, 2008, 7:35am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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You won't have taper and twist tools in tS5, thats true. You will have the object deformation tools though, and you can use Deform Object Using Mesh, and then simply make the deformation mesh dense enough that you have control points around the back of the mouth which will let you drag the back of the mouth down, or back, or forward, or outward, and so on.
While no good for CAD accuracy, and not really recommended for large changes, the deform by mesh is good for moving whole areas of the model around at once where it is too complex to move it one vertex at a time, and where selecting vertex groups would be tricky, and where the desired result is more of a refinement or small adjustment.
HTH!
Tom |
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