ALIENWARE Challenge Entry: Stacey Moss

[Drakaran]

Well, here are my concepts. Rather extremely vague and probably not really helpful for someone that is trying to replicate this. Basically, they are only visual notes on placement in the final scene and basic topographical info (since I used to do cartography it’s more useful for me to think of landscape that way then in sketches), so I thought I’d type up some notes about the process. I don’t usually spend a lot of time on sketches to try to make them perfect drawings, for me sketches have always been visual notes about the final piece: like for a figure, I would sketch in skeletal and muscle refs to refer back to from the painting or whatever media the piece was in.

I got this idea about a crystal landscape, and thought, what if the surface of a planet had the right conditions for mineral formations to grow (enough heat and pressure, etc). The “rivers” would be an almost gaseous form of lava where toxic vapors would rise and “nourish” the growth of mineral formations. So, the river of lava I have flows into a sea of molten material.

I also thought, well if the crystal formations are the flora, then maybe some kind of metal creature could be a type of “herbivore” eating the crystals, and some super-heated creature would prey on these feeders. The “herbivore” and “predator” concepts haven’t gelled yet, and I’m not certain I’ll have time for em, or since, they aren’t supposed to be the center of attention, if the amount of added polys and time would be worth it. So first I’m going to set up the landscape polys.

Landscape: the first thing for me, working on the piece is to think about the parameters of the assignment/commission and see what floats up out of my imagination. After that, I consider the limitations of the media I’m working in (in this case, the limitations of ram and processing power of my machine). I figure all of the foreground will be in med polys where the facets are shaped. That means more time for the hand tweaking, but I should be able to control the poly count a little better. For the hills in the background, I’ll go with a low-rez subpatch mesh to keep smoothness and since almost no detail will show and only do the front side of the topography.

Formations: next I’ll do separate layers for each type of formation. I figure on doing 4 to 6 variations of each of the formations I sketched in their own layers to keep things simple, hand placing em in the foreground.

Fauna: I’d really like to put the crystal eaters and 4a hunter in the pic too.

Rendering: I’m mainly gonna stick with creating procedurals wherever I can, saving UV texturing only for the foreground objects.

Edit: submitting actual pics as per rules

[Drakaran]

http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1068814492_medium.jpg (http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1068814492_large.jpg)

elevation sketch done with photoshop

[Drakaran]

http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1068814646_medium.jpg (http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1068814646_large.jpg)

3 prototype formations. kinda looking for a cactus look.

[Drakaran]

http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1068815005_medium.jpg (http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1068815005_large.jpg)

simple sketch with some visual notes.

[Drakaran]

http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1068815395_medium.jpg (http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1068815395_large.jpg)

PoV wireframe. doesn't show the finished wire of topography. I'll try to get that up with wires of the formations.

[Drakaran]

http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1068815534_medium.jpg (http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1068815534_large.jpg)

simple render to "flesh out" my ideas about the environment for this piece and to test render times.

[Drakaran]

http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1069036438_medium.jpg (http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1069036438_large.jpg)

final version of topo wire only. I'm still working on the formations

[Drakaran]

http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1069036569_medium.jpg (http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1069036569_large.jpg)

wire is pretty dense near camera

[Drakaran]

http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1069036743_medium.jpg (http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1069036743_large.jpg)

test render of topo with added 3rd sun and flare. no texture yet.

[Drakaran]

http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1069142899_medium.jpg (http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1069142899_large.jpg)

wireframe of type 1 formation. I'm thinking about also adding a vine-type crystal formation and will be doing sketches of it in a few days.

[Drakaran]

http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1069143254_medium.jpg (http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1069143254_large.jpg)

trial render of crystal "cactus"

[Drakaran]

http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1069143363_medium.jpg (http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1069143363_large.jpg)

test render

[Drakaran]

http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1069143435_medium.jpg (http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1069143435_large.jpg)

test render

[Drakaran]

http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1069143512_medium.jpg (http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1069143512_large.jpg)

test render

[Michal Surdel]

Coool ! want more...

[Drakaran]

http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1071903790_medium.jpg (http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1071903790_large.jpg)

finally found a way to make the backdrop for the scene. the clouds were REALLY slow with volumetrics on. I constrained the output to only render the portion the clouds would be seen and have an alpha for it to compost the background "mist" coming off the molten sea.

I'll render the "mist" on it's own pass to show vapors coming off the sea dn the river, then move on to add the stuff in the forground.

[Drakaran]

Forgot to add some stuff...

Final output is 4800X6600 so that the rez printed should be 600dpi. the pic shown is 1/10 scale. Final file size is 90+megs. I think the final image I'll have to send on a zip (and put a reduced version on the web) or something as uploading that beast would take days on my dialup. *LAUGH*

Render time for the backdrop clouds was 38 hours.

[TheFirstAngel]

maybe you use just a map for the clouds ( red/pink smoke as diffuse , make a copy of it turn the pink into black and red to white use this as bump and oppacity map them on a large z-axis squashed hemisphere, ) and so save resouces...
Goodluck and be inspired!

[Drakaran]

yep, that's what I'm doing, compositing. I have a 32 bit (includes alpha chan) and a 96 bit version of the background. I'm just glad I finally found a way to finally render the background, I was at the opint of deciding I'd have to withdraw from the contest cause my machine is so poky (only 2gig processor).

[Ian Jones]

"96 bit version of the background" :rolleyes:

[Drakaran]

Radiance is a 96 bit graphics file or .hdr (high dynamic range). stores more than just visional info, like: luminance, saturation, etc.

[tr1cky]

Looks very interesting. I like a red-hued scene personally, not many people are doing that. Are you going to add more to it?

[Drakaran]

this is only the background for the top 1/3 of the final pic. I need to layer in the mist layer coming off that molten sea in the background and add in all the crystal formations. got some of the cactus type formations done, both high and low rez versions, but not all of em. there is the back hill that I will have to pop with the crystals then add the mist for the river and then sandwich in the foreground formations and decide what I need for filler. I need to finish up the texture for the ground first. you won't notice the poly shapes in the final version of the ground.

Thanks for taking a look in here *smile*

[Drakaran]

http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1073535026_medium.jpg (http://www.cgnetworks.com/challenge/entries/3/1164/1164_1073535026_large.jpg)

well, one pass of the mist took over 24 hours and I need 9 passes. guess I'm out of the game. here is the background and ground passes comped. would look better with the mist and stuff, but oh well.

[BClaw]

I like where your image is going! :applause: Those caltrop-plant thingeys are way cool! :bounce: At least if you don't step on one! :p (j/k) Good luck! :thumbsup:

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