OberonX
05-08-2006, 01:57 AM
In an idle moment, I started playing around again with Cinema 4D's Hair module, to see whether I could create a realistic-looking object (other than hair, of course). After some experimentation with the Hair shaders, I managed to put together a pleasant-looking flower. The petals and sepals are one Hair object on the head of the stalk, while the stamens are another positioned on a small polygon selection. The larger leaves are modified cylinders.
http://www.imaginerie.com/c4d/Images/StaflowerA.jpg
That looked a bit plain, so I created a number of instances of the flower, and grouped them around. I made a number of minor modifications in position, scale and rotation to differentiate them, along with some minor tweaks of each flower's Hair parameters. I then added a light dome and a spot light, plus some depth-of-field to get that "close in" look. Since Hair is a post-effect that doesn't deal well with DoF (basically, the hair strands don't exist as far as C4D's DoF is concerned), I added some invisible discs on top of the "in focus" flowers to keep them sharp. It's not perfect (some parts of the flowers behind are also in focus), but it was sufficient for my purposes:
http://www.imaginerie.com/c4d/Images/StaflowerB.jpg
At this point, I decided to put together a complete nature scene, a la National Geographic. However, since this flower (now dubbed the variegated starflower) doesn't actually exist, I'm moving things onto another planet. Call it "Interstellar Geographic" ;-) Ordinarily, I'd put in a hummingbird or a bee of some description feeding on the nectar and pollinating the flowers, but since it's beyond my current skills to create either of those convincingly, I've created an Arcturian hummingbat to do the job instead:
http://www.imaginerie.com/c4d/Images/StaflowerC.jpg
The hummingbat's textures are just temporary; I'll be adding fur to him as the next step (also making use of the Hair module). Since this is just a still shot, I haven't boned him, although I've added Bend deformers to give some small range of movement to his head and tail. I may need to animate his wings, so that I can get some motion blur; I'll play with that a bit later.
I'm not sure if I'll keep the black background or put in some other vegetation. I like the clean look (kind of like a nighttime flash photo), but it may end up being a bit empty.
Stay tuned... :D
http://www.imaginerie.com/c4d/Images/StaflowerA.jpg
That looked a bit plain, so I created a number of instances of the flower, and grouped them around. I made a number of minor modifications in position, scale and rotation to differentiate them, along with some minor tweaks of each flower's Hair parameters. I then added a light dome and a spot light, plus some depth-of-field to get that "close in" look. Since Hair is a post-effect that doesn't deal well with DoF (basically, the hair strands don't exist as far as C4D's DoF is concerned), I added some invisible discs on top of the "in focus" flowers to keep them sharp. It's not perfect (some parts of the flowers behind are also in focus), but it was sufficient for my purposes:
http://www.imaginerie.com/c4d/Images/StaflowerB.jpg
At this point, I decided to put together a complete nature scene, a la National Geographic. However, since this flower (now dubbed the variegated starflower) doesn't actually exist, I'm moving things onto another planet. Call it "Interstellar Geographic" ;-) Ordinarily, I'd put in a hummingbird or a bee of some description feeding on the nectar and pollinating the flowers, but since it's beyond my current skills to create either of those convincingly, I've created an Arcturian hummingbat to do the job instead:
http://www.imaginerie.com/c4d/Images/StaflowerC.jpg
The hummingbat's textures are just temporary; I'll be adding fur to him as the next step (also making use of the Hair module). Since this is just a still shot, I haven't boned him, although I've added Bend deformers to give some small range of movement to his head and tail. I may need to animate his wings, so that I can get some motion blur; I'll play with that a bit later.
I'm not sure if I'll keep the black background or put in some other vegetation. I like the clean look (kind of like a nighttime flash photo), but it may end up being a bit empty.
Stay tuned... :D