Trend Whore Tutorials for Maya?

[boomji]

hey dude,
if you want to make stuff like the horus(kick,kick,kick azz stuff dude)then i strongly suggest geting the book "new masters of photoshop"...publishers "friends of ed"
the book even has the psd's apart from the author wan jensen explaining how he goes about his business.apart from him there are other dudes contributing in that book as well.
have you checked out wan jensons site... desktop imperium...drool these designers kick serious buttt !!!
bye
b

[The Neoracle]

I do have that book. I know the Photoshop side to it. That's not the hard part. I would like to make the 3D type stuff. The Abstract 3d. That's what I'm looking for.

[boomji]

hey dude,
lucky bas*&^% that book costs a friggin arm and a leg over here.
ok heres what i'd do...post an image on the maya forums(if that's where youre going to be working in).and ask how people would go about doing it. also post it in the post(afx/combustion) forums.i believe it's more post work than 3d.my favourite is the one with the bluish squiggly/spacy thing woohoo!!!.
any way i'm sure the dudes here would be very constructive in helping you out...but post a pic...that'll goad em ;)
b

[The Neoracle]

Word. thanks.

[The Neoracle]

Here's what i"m talking about:

http://www.blazing-media.com/cgtalkex1.jpg
http://www.blazing-media.com/cgtalkex2.jpg

[sigma]

Now i understand what you mean. Your topic for a thread is confusing 'Trend Whore Tutorials' wtf is that lol.

As far as abstract 3D goes Ive never seen any tutorials that deal with this form of design. I always thought people just started with a poly cube and extrude. Check http://www.deviantart.com/help/ they should have some tutorials.

[The Neoracle]

Most people refer to people that use this style as "Trend Whores" and this style has kinda taken that name, trend whore. It's the most trendy style right now.

[fango]

i might be wrong, but i don t think those trend whore images are 3d, more likely done in vector based progs.

[The Neoracle]

Oh no, I am very profecient at Adobe Illustrator, I'd have no idea how to start on stuff like that. Here are some more:

http://www.blazing-media.com/cgtalkex3.jpg
http://www.blazing-media.com/cgtalkex4.jpg

[mushroomgod]

looking at the images id say that only simple things like lines and shapes are done in illustrator, theres far to much information in the rest of it to be done with illustrator.

[show]

im quite sure that the mostly commonly used method for these kind of images is to add a noise modifier to a highpoly torus primative in 3dsmax , they then just mess around with raytrace mats until they get a result they want :)

No idea how this would be done in maya as ive only been using it 2 days now.

[dannyngan]

A good book to look at is "Photoshop and 3D: Geometery and Chaos" by the Friends of Ed. Not much on the tutorial end of things, but it does give some insight on how those images above were created. And yes, there is 3d involved initially, then severe alterations and touchups in Photoshop.

[The Neoracle]

So what would be a good way of doing this in Maya? Just find some models and add noise?

[MadS]

I love this kind of art too. I can tell you that the last image you posted has a flame fractal in the background. Really cool stuff. I was playing with flame fractals a while back. KPT5 has a sweet flame fractal plugin, if tht kinda thing interests you.

[ndat]

have you tried fractial geometry with organic modeling with some xray textures and trick lighting?

[boomji]

dudes!!!
cubadust absafu*&%#@!) lutely rocks.
man i'm inspired all over again.this was a good refreshing thread,gets those juices flowing...naaaaaa not those you pervs...ahhahahaha
later
b

[The Neoracle]

Originally posted by ndat
have you tried fractial geometry with organic modeling with some xray textures and trick lighting?


ZOOOOOOOM!!!!

What you just said went over my head. I have no idea how to do this stuff, that's why I'm asking for tutorials. So no, I have not tried what you just said. How would one go about doing that?

[splash|proof]

It seems like everybody is doing it, but nobody knows how!

I've looked at the book from F0E, 3D and chaos, but it didn't look that impressive, so I wouldn't go there, but that's just me.

The 3d shape can be anything really, it doesn't matter that much. Just get a few shapes and deform them, so it looks nice.

You will need a nice material though, otherwise it will still look like crap. And play with a lot of ligths, intensity and dropoff and stuff like that untill it look OK.

The main part is really done in Photoshop. Just start by duplicating the main layer and go on endlessly adding and changing stuff until you like what you see.
Add some useless text and some 45degree lines, and now it's complete!

It takes time to make, so go out and just try!

[The Neoracle]

Any tips as to easy ways to majorly deform models?

Also, good materials, any tips as to creating some nice metal/crystal type materials?

[mushroomgod]

there are a few plugs/scripts on highend that create randomly generated geometry..

check there, im sure you can find somthing usefull :)

[plug3]

It's mostly a 2d process of layering/filtering some 3d renders and tons of other 2d materials.
Try rendering different views of some basic model at extreme angles, different camera clipping also experiment with bend, bulge, twist, distort. Then mix those renders with some other images.
It's like painting with layers instead of colors.

[The Neoracle]

I found a tutorial on how to do some stuff like this. It's a great starting off point.

http://www.nulldesign.de/null.php?skin=high&go=tuto_max1

It's only for 3DS though.

[boomji]

nice find dude,
now i'm curious...u said you had the new masters of photoshop book,and when i first saw the horous i had written to karl jensen...he said there werent any tutorials on the net but he's given an indepth in the book with the psd itself.
i'm confused!!! does the book have the psd, and is it really that good ???
b

[The Neoracle]

Well, yeah, the PSD is on the CD, but it doesn't help you because he rendered everything. Looking at the finished product doesn't let you in on his techniques. The tutorial is ok, but it says things like: "I rendered this piece in Cinema 4D" etc.

I'm like, GEE THANKS!!!! :rolleyes:


The book is very good though. Lots of cool techniques are discribed and lots of cool people talk about inspiration and their lives. I throughly enjoyed it. Definately worth $55.

[moin]

I know what you try to create. i do that too! (chekcout my website for that). What you can do is:

Take a very simple object and dupicate it a lot. then make the lens-length smaller, that's for the 'strange' look.

If you keep making those things for a long time, you'll get the hang of it. After that you can use some more 'modelled' objects to make it look cleaner.

oh yeah, all lights can be done in photoshop.

[splash|proof]

What technique do you use for making those light effects?

[Jhonus]

Stop looking for tutorials and start trying it. :D

Example Tutorial:

Step 179.
Create new layer, change to multiply, decrease mid level to -26. Decrease layer opacity to 30% and delete right hand corner of alpha channel, then blur. Delete layer because it didn't look that good.

[chanseimage]

I've always wonder how they did that!!!

After reading this thread I thought I'd try it.

this is what I got:

http://www.pine101.com/temp/comp.jpg

Maya and photoshop was used in this and it took me 15mins.

It's not finished yet, putting more stuff in it. Crits please!!

[The Neoracle]

Rockin man! Add more trendy stuff! ;)


What technique did you use to model the spiral thing?

[Houkah]

couldn't u just get a sphere or any poly object and extrude all the faces at once? Then deselect some of em randomly and extrude again, etc, etc, till u get some random form.

[minus]

If you were in LightWave all this stuff would be super easy and you would quickly learn why it's called trendwhore too as there is not really any challenge to it. -- You can stamp this out litterly in seconds...

Here is your swirlies... (http://www.niklasindustries.com/tutorials/tut_swirlies.htm)

Here are your crystals (http://www.niklasindustries.com/tutorials/tut_crystals.htm)

Random Crystals (http://www.niklasindustries.com/tutorials/tut_cubes.htm)

Here's your tentacles (http://www.niklasindustries.com/tutorials/tut_tentacles.htm)

Just get a better 3D package and this stuff is cake! :p

[Jhonus]

Originally posted by minus
and you would quickly learn why it's called trendwhore too as there is not really any challenge to it. -- You can stamp this out litterly in seconds...

Its not called trend whore because there is no challenge. Its called trend whore because everyone wants to "do it".

I think there is always a challenge in making something look appealing.... and to be honest the dude who did those tutorials hasn't nailed it.

If you were in LightWave all this stuff would be super easy

You shouldn't say stupid things like that in a Maya forum ;)

[chanseimage]

It's not that hard, What I did was I find my old models that have mechanical or organic looking elements and zoomed very close into it, add some nice shaders and it's done.

Also you can always use the plugins and mel script to make it easier and quicker. For example I use the spiral.mel, here's a very cool plug-in by Adam Martinez called AM LSystem NT v2.0 Link (http://www.highend3d.com/maya/plugins/?group=mayaplugins&section=modeling) that i've used also. There's a Metaballs Plugin above it, Super Ellipse Below, Tree Plugin at the Bottom. All of these are useful if you don't have the time to model those weird shapes. Once you zoom closely into them you can barely tell what they are.

MAke sure you render your elements separately with Alpha Channels. Once in Photoshop, remove the background color by using your channels.

Some Photoshop Tricks:
1. Duplicate the same object, change one of the layers colors, brightness & contrast...whatever you wish...but make it different fromt the original. Play with the Layer FX mode (multiply, screen, overlay, etc.)

2. Duplicate the same object, adjust the brightness and contrast to give my whites to the layer. Add gausian blurr, make sure the blurred layer is above the orignal. Play with the Layer Mode to get effects you want. Optional: add a white or colored solid on top of the blurr layer and play with the layer modes again.

3. For background I use alot of gradients make about 3-4 empty layers. Use the marquee (retangle tool) to select an area of the workspace. Pick the gradient tool and color. Apply the gradient to preferred likeness.

4. Use Illustrator or you can use the pen tool in Ps to create a path for the panels and weird geometry shape. Play with the colors and Layer modes.....


Take advantage of the layers, adjustments, and filters. Also don't forget about you channels they can be a big help in making textures and patterns.

Here's the finish (Again), Trying to create another one. Have FUN!!!!

http://www.pine101.com/temp/comp.jpg

[splash|proof]

well, you can say what you want, but it seems a lot easier to make those cool random shapes in lightwave. Those swirlies look great!

Aren't there functions inside maya that can do those mayor transformations? I do most deforming by hand now, but it's quite timeconsuming.

anybody?

[-wT-]

I'm not an MEL expert (But learning quickly while developing my first modeling related script), but I'd say doing all those deformations like in Lightwave would be relatively easy (Ok, maybe somewhat time consuming, maybe) and definietely possible, ofcourse some general understandment of programing and maths is needed, but I'm 99% sure all those can be scripted :)

[splash|proof]

yeah, I'm sure it can be done with some clever scripting, but plugins sound a lot more efficient to me now. I just mastered actionscripting and really don't feel like learning one more scripting language.

And still, if you want to program these things, you'll have to dig into you math knowledge. It's not as easy as it seems I think.

There have to be a couple of plugins that can take care of those transformations? The lightwave samples all make use of plugins too.

[Joojaa]

Come oon... this is trivial. Most of the stuff in lightwave can be done in maya, and you dont need plugs for any of theese effects.

Also you should know that in maya you rarely need plugs for this kind of stuff sinc e you can do it infitely easier in MEL and its not that slow either!

[AB09]

Most of the time spent on 3d abstract type images is done in Photoshop. To be honest if your looking for the perfect begining to end maya tutorial, you're not going to find it. A lot of the creators of these images are pretty secretive about there techniques, so there aren't many polished tutorials.

I'm actually a vfx/compositing studen't so my modeling skills are pretty basic at this point, but the great thing is you don't have to be an excellent modeler for abstract stuff. :)

First off, really check out those nice tutorials in Minus' post, it doesn't matter that its Lightwave, same priniples apply to all apps. Take a sphere and start dragging points. :D those will be your base images. When you render make sure it has an alpha channel as mentioned by someone earlier, and definetly experiment with multi-pass rendering.

Bring your renders into Photoshop and have a lot of patience. The images made by Cubadust etc. can take 8 hours and longer. Make good use of blurring and smudge tools, gradiants, lens flares, difference clouds, and the lighting effects tool.

Make duplicate layers of your original render and adjust the blending modes for each layer. These are a few tutorials to help you with lighting techniques and other little things.

http://www.voidix.com/wavy.html
http://www.spoono.com/tutorials/3dstudiomax/material/
http://www.voidix.com/crazy.php
http://www.voidix.com/cystal.html
http://www.voidix.com/starlight.html
http://www.metaeffect.com/main.m4?go=tutorials&view=6

Finally here are a few sites where you can download the PSD files with layers intact so you can disect what's been done. There are also a few breif tutorials.

http://www.wallsite.com/splashchallenge/issue3/tutorial

http://www.onyro.com/ also has a couple of PSDs available for download. scroll down the news column to find the dl links.

Hope this helps a little. In my opinion the term 3d abstract art is a little misleading since so much post work is done.

[dotblend]

you can even do this stuff in blender.....
(or any aplication)
that has a funcion like "random subdivide"

i'll post one here... i'm rendering it now at 8000*6000
(i like to render big!)

[dotblend]

http://www.dotblend.com/temp/modernartmini.jpg
(blender) hires version here (http://www.dotblend.com/temp/modernart.jpg)(256 kb)

I will post a maya render too

[boomji]

hey dude,
thanx a ton...those links are cool eye openers.
as far as technique is concerned i couldn't ask for more.
but from what i have seen at cubadust and threeoh those guys are professional designers first.it's their deign sense which sets them apart from the other whores(trend) ;)
just playing around with filters/blurs and shapes will do squat!!!.behind all that kaos and organised noise is solid design theory.
again thanx for those links theyre as close as one can get to doing this stuff
b

[Jhonus]

Originally posted by boomji
those guys are professional designers first.it's their deign sense which sets them apart from the other whores(trend) ;)
b
I must say that has never been more apparent than whilst looking at this thread. :D

behind all that kaos and organised noise is solid design theory.
Amen.

[surfito]

its all about photoshop, the work is done there.

[minus]

I just wanted to add that the tone of my original post was meant as a troll.. :) --- Was in some sort of wierd mood from all the Siggraph excitement. --- Mostly just kidding on that get a better 3D package statement. ;)

[surfito]

http://www.surfito.com/PSD/ heres a psd for one of those graphics so you can see how theyre done.

[dotblend]

cant download it... (extension is not allowd)

could you try to zip or stuffit?

[surfito]

http://www.surfito.com/PSD/

ok, i ziped the file, now it works

[moin]

WOW, nice image you got there :buttrock: you got some more work that I can see from you?

[alexx]

made that one for my background this morning:

http://bigott.gmxhome.de/pics/freak1280_2.JPG

[The Neoracle]

Originally posted by alexx
made that one for my background this morning:

http://bigott.gmxhome.de/pics/freak1280_2.JPG


That's super sweet. What techniques did you use?

[alexx]

the background is some animated snapshot spheres, the midground is the foreground some rotated and scaled and the thingy in front basically is a heavyly distorted sphere (took the middle rows of CVs and randomized them using the normal direction - textured with sampler info connected to ramps driving color and transparency.
and then about a ton of shake on all that :)

thanx you like it :)

cheers

alexx

[The Neoracle]

Originally posted by alexx
the background is some animated snapshot spheres, the midground is the foreground some rotated and scaled and the thingy in front basically is a heavyly distorted sphere (took the middle rows of CVs and randomized them using the normal direction - textured with sampler info connected to ramps driving color and transparency.
and then about a ton of shake on all that :)

thanx you like it :)

cheers

alexx

The first really really useful post of the thread. Thankie, I duplicated your image very quickly. :D

[alexx]

you are welcome..maybe i post a tut tomorrow if someone else seems interested and i find the time :beer:

[megaflaizer]

nobody wants to share this one...

now i will blow it wide open.

u want a glwo effect on your pics?? i use this on portraits all the time to get that playboy mag soft hilites...

PSD

- get an image [layer 1]
- copy to a new layer [layer 2]
- use levels to make it more contrasty with hilites and shadows [layer 2]
- turn layer 2 to screen mode
- apply gaussian blur to layer 2

voila...

depending on the resolution of ur image u have to set the piixels in gaussian blur diferently

[dmcgrath]

to: The Neoracle

Im sorry but I didnt have the patience to go through the entire thread and see if it has been posted already.
But there is a Flash extending 3D program called Swift 3D out there, for cheap. It will make alot of the stuff you are talking about, and you can animate as well.



for Swift 3D at erain.com (http://www.erain.com)
As well as HERE! at swift3d.com
(http://www.swift3d.com)
And some tutorials@ Ultrashock.com (http://www.ultrashock.com)
This guy is sweet as well @Phong.com (http://www.phong.com/)

[alexx]

since it was lost in the server crash here again:

the quick and dirty tutorial for my kinda trend whore pic or whatever to call it :scream:

http://home.arcor.de/alexander.bigott/trendWhoreTut.htm

cheers

alexx

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