HARDCORE MODELING!: Stan Winston Tribute: Pumpkinhead

[DDS]

Good luck, I'll be looking forward to this. Not many chances for it to not be awesome.

[Deepam]

This Pumpkinhead character is really popular, no doubt about that, I just stoped counting the entries for it. :rolleyes:

If I say too much kind words for you, don't mind :) , coz I get crazy to see such great artist like you. I have seen your artworks already and you are in top 3 of my inspirational people list.

[Antropus]

Thanks guys.

So, I started it 2 nights ago.

Breakdown:
* First night was all about finding references and grabbing some screenshots from the movie. Total hours: 2.5 - 3 hours.

* Second night I modeled a quick and dirty base mesh in about half hour and moved to modeling in Zbrush, spending about 3 hours on it. Total: 3.5 hours.

* Tonight (Third night) I kept building some more details, changing proportions and wrapping up the base mesh for retopology. I then added some temp nails, eyes and teeth and started the retopology. Total hours: 3.5 - 4 hours.

So, here is my progress so far, after three nights of fun after work:

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinheadwip04.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinheadwip05.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinheadwip01.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinheadwip02.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinheadwip03.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinheadwip06.jpg

There's a lot to be fixed but I'll not bother with the current model since it will be all retopo in Maya anyways and then brought back to Zbrush where I can reproject the details on the new mesh. More to come when I get the free time.

Cheers,
-Kris

[mesklil77]

wooow... i love it :drool:

[kumarC]

Awesome......totally awesome.

[WyattHarris]

So do you retopo that #8 mesh in Maya or something else? And then you use a detailed ZBrush tool to ZProject onto the retopologized Maya model? Does that sound right, I may have to try something like that in the future, sounds like you get great control over the final mesh.

[Antropus]

Thanks guys.

WyattHarris, yeah, that's about right. I could retopo in Zbrush but I never liked the whole joint concept. It's way faster for me to retopo in Maya and then bring the model to ZBrush where I can just reproject the details into the new topology. There's a wiki about this here: http://www.pixologic.com/docs/index.php/Importing_Topology

-Kris

[bowly]

Looks fantastic!

[SantoAnderson]

I've never watched Pumpkinhead. It's before my time, and I figured "the" pumpkinhead was just a dude running around with a pumpkin on his head, and am I surprised! :surprised:
This is a really fast, cool rendering. I applaud you sir.

The only potential fixes I can see are probably already in your head:
Some parts look a little too Zbrush-ey and pinched. But that could be relevant to the character for all I know. The feet look a little pudgy and flat on top. Other than that. :bowdown:

[Antropus]

SantoAnderson,
you're right about your comments but as I said, this is just a rough model that is about to be retopo in Maya. Just after the whole retopo is done, then I'll do my best to match all the references. The important aspect of a good topology, apart of the deformations/edge flow, is the amount of details you can get when you subdivide the mesh. As you can see, my lowpoly model is really lowpoly. For this model, I'll need a bigger concentration of polygons on the head, chest, hands, tail and feet. The rest of the body will not need a lot of detail. So, making those regions more dense in terms of poly count, I guarantee a bigger amount of details on it once the mesh is subdivided. So, again, I'll not bother changing this rough model right now. I'll have to finish the retopo for just then start the fun part. This model is subdividing until a 5 million polys limit right now. If I subdivide once more, then I'll get over 20 million polys and my machine will become unstable and slow. So, I'll plan my low cage in a way that once it's subdivided, I can reach a magic number between 10 and 12 million polys, that should be enough for a fairly detailed model.

-Kris

[Locusta]

Man, that Pumpkinhead looks already so awsome. Like it alot. And a great fleshy looking zbrush mat you got here. Nice! Bring it on, I look foreward for this one. Thumbs up!

[ChewyPixels]

Super work, Kris! The likeness of the face is brilliant!

One question. What technique/tool set do you use to retopo the mesh in Maya? I myself like to use Nex as that's the only way I know how other than the lame "Make Live" technique.

I'll be keeping an eye on this.

[oliveira]

Kris ,

amazing ,great sculpt! perfect likeness of the character

Alex Oliver

[Antropus]

Thank you guys!

Jedi-Juice,
I am an old man with old ways so I still use the "lame make live" thingy :)
It takes some time but it's not too bad. I'll use the topology that I already have on the legs, arms and tail. I just need to rebuild the head, chest and back now.

My plan is to get my base mesh around 10.5k to 11k faces. This way I'll be able to work on a 11 million polys final model, subD level 5, which is still workable in Zbrush (one single mesh/sub-tool) and more than enough for the final details:
11k x 4 = 44k x 4 = 176k x 4 = 704k x 4 = 2.816 million x 4 = 11.264 million polys at level 5

For the super fine details, the best method is still the good and old bump map. Forget about HD ;)

-Kris

[Deepam]

I have a question here -

If we have two base meshes, first is very low poly with basic structure and defenition done, second one is also same but one more level included with some more details added, those are not required for a base mesh as you are going to export it to zbrush.

So, are they both behave same at the highest level of subdivision ? :curious: coz as I know, zbrush allows some specific subdivision limit(if you don't increase polycount in settings), it doesn't matter that you use a low poly or little high poly as a base mesh.

I hope you understand what I am trying to say. :shrug:

[Intervain]

Hey Cris - great to see ya here! Will be following the thread for sure :)

[ChewyPixels]

Jedi-Juice,
I am an old man with old ways so I still use the "lame make live" thingy :)
It takes some time but it's not too bad. I'll use the topology that I already have on the legs, arms and tail. I just need to rebuild the head, chest and back now.


LOL! I did not mean any offense by my comment. I'm an "old man" myself, so I can definitely appreciate the "old skool" ways. :D Besides, how can I question the techniques of a master? :bowdown: The final result is all that matters anyway.

[pavlov]

Good choice for sculpting :) Waiting for updates :drool:

[Antropus]

Deepam,
I'm afraid I don't understand your question. Could you reformulate it? What's your specific question?

Intervain,
nice to see you here Mag! A shame I could not make to Sig this year. I saw a bunch of pics including some with yourself. Seems like you were having fun :)

Jedi-Juice,
Hah, no problem man. It's all good sport in here :)

pavlov,
thanks man. Great stuff on your portfolio btw.

Hey guys, I'm sorry I didn't post any more progress. I'm moving to my new home and spent the whole weekend packing, moving, unpacking, assembling. I'm doing this by myself now because I'm afraid the movers will break my stuff. So, all electronics, my arcade machine, desks etc were moved by me. Just yesterday night I got my computer desk so I hope I'll finally have my computer running tonight so I can go back to work. Next weekend I'll complete the move, with some people to help me with the super heavy stuff. After that I should be back to normal speed :)
More progress asap.

-Kris

[Antropus]

Ok, I got my computer hooked and finished the new topology. Still some flaws, like the dense amount of polys on the top of his head but overall it's good for some deformation tests (facial expressions and maybe some animation test at the end, if I have the time). Tomorrow I'll start sculpting the details and doing some polypaint all together to get a better feel of the character.

Just for information purposes, here are the old vs. new topology comparison:
http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/oldnewtopo2.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/oldnewtopo1.jpg

I got the final basemesh around 11.6k polys, giving me a very descent and even mesh to work on, with a total of 11.9 million polys at subD level 6. That will avoid any slowdown due to the annoying disk memory swap (I wish ZBrush could use all my 8GB of RAM instead of only 4GB, but well)

-Kris

[ChewyPixels]

The new base mesh should be a dream to work on! Keep going, Kris! :wip:

[majid-smiley]

wow...great start...you made the basemesh !...waiting for your next...

[Laa-Yosh]

I could retopo in Zbrush but I never liked the whole joint concept. It's way faster for me to retopo in Maya and then bring the model to ZBrush where I can just reproject the details into the new topology.

You really should give Topogun a try.

[Antropus]

Thank you guys.

Laa-Yosh,
yeah man, I heard pretty good things about it. I'm looking for a good solution for the job. Is the beta fully functional? What about the price of the final version? I hope it's not too expensive so I'll be able to add it to my toolset.

-Kris

[Antropus]

Today I spent another 3 hours on the model, including model progress and quick and dirt polypaint texture. I just started to block the secondary forms and head tweaking to improve the likeness but it's a long way to go. The cool details on his head and rest of the body will come last.

http://www.antropus.com/temp/pump01.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/pump02.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/pump03.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/pump04.jpg

More to come.
-Kris

[Trenox]

Looks awesome. Very inspiring to see to progress and I'm quite intrigued about projecting the highdetail back on the new topology. I'll have to test that at some point.

For some reason I'm a bit freaked out that it doesn't have nostrils =)

[forcystus]

Is looking amazing Antropus, i liked the first texture you made for him!

Waiting to see the final version!

[majid-smiley]

wow ! you`re really fast !

[mesklil77]

amazing work ...

[StevenEgan]

I can't wait to see the final. Really amazing stuff!

[hakanpersson]

Uhu.. pretty flawless dude. Wasnt really aware of pumpkin head, but the few images I found seem to match pretty well:D

My only critic is the feets so far, missing the solid heel seen in this image http://www.mwctoys.com/images/review_pumpkinhead_7.jpg
Im not sure that image is true to the original though, but it gives alot more weight and power to him that way.

Looking forward to your progress.

[Antropus]

Thanks guys!

My only critic is the feets so far, missing the solid heel seen in this image http://www.mwctoys.com/images/review_pumpkinhead_7.jpg
Im not sure that image is true to the original though, but it gives alot more weight and power to him that way.

Looking forward to your progress.
Don't worry, I didn't touch his feet or back and everything else was just started. I'll get there soon. Thanks man! :)

About the toy, there's one toy that is actually a good reference. It's the one at Sideshow Collectibles. Looks like Stan Winston himself approved it. Even so, I'm trying to avoid any references from toy pictures, for a simple reason: those are versions done by other artists. It's their own interpretation of the monster. For example, McFarlane's version is a great sculpt, with nice style an all but it's not completely based on the original monster (his chin looks much more like the Alien design). The artist used a lot of freedom on it.

So, for my version, instead of using toys and sculpts from other artists as reference, I got the movie and saved a ton of stills from it. There's no better reference (well, maybe if I had the actual suit pictures with good resolution, that would be VERY helpful ;) ). This way, I'm trying to be fair to the original design, that is, ultimately, a man in a suit. My intention is to build just this: a man in a suit. So, the head has more volume to accommodate the actor head, the wrists are bulkier (after all, there are human fists inside of the suit), same with the ankles and so on. He is not as skinny as it seems, even if the guy inside of the suit is skinny, it's a human, so, human proportions are there, only accentuated by the prosthetics. That's the approach I'm going for.

-Kris

[oliveira]

great work! Your looks so perfect that i intend use some images from your to do my sculpt as reference .Looks a perfect likeness of the Stan 's sculpt.
The Side Show toy is really one of the best,the model ,to say the truth was sculpted for the Stan team to Side Show.

[Antropus]

Thanks Alex! You're right about that toy. It's really the best sculpted toy and a very good reference. Looking at the movie stills, I ended by seeing things a little differently though. So, I'll use the movie as my sole reference right now but I will probably use the toy as reference for his back and texturing.
About my model, thanks man but it's not very good right now to be used as reference! I'm still working on it to fix a bunch of things :)

Thanks again.
Cheers,
-Kris

[Laa-Yosh]

Laa-Yosh,
yeah man, I heard pretty good things about it. I'm looking for a good solution for the job. Is the beta fully functional? What about the price of the final version? I hope it's not too expensive so I'll be able to add it to my toolset.

There's still no price set as far as I know. However the app is fully functional, and even has texture baking in the latest (final) beta. But for retopo it's fully complete and very easy to learn and use.

[Antropus]

Oh! Cool man. I'll surely give it a try then. I'm already thinking about starting more models for this challenge :)

[Antropus]

So, I was here thinking about doing just the Pumpkinhead guy for this challenge but seeing Alex's several models, I got pumped to create at least another two. I thought about the T-Rex and the predator. The T-Rex as a full character, no texture, just as an actual sculpture. For the Predator, on the other hand, just like for Pumpkinhead, the intention is to go all the way to textures/shaders/final render. The Predator will be my bust entry, no body.
So, to try to catch up a little, I started sketching a Predator tonight. I started from the new pumpkinhead topology, deleted the body and my intention was to spend no more than 2 hours on a sketch, just to feel the character and also to calculate the amount of work. At the end, I spent around 4 hours on him and added way too much unnecessary details, using the pumpkinghead base mesh and adding some temp necklace and "dreadlocks".

So, don't worry about this model just yet. As I said, it's a 4 hours sketch that will be improved slowly, once I get a new basemesh built for him and get the details transferred over.

Here's what I got so far:
http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/predsketch1.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/predsketch2.jpg

About 1 million polys. Everything apart of the dreadlocks and necklace are part of the same mesh, since it's a study.

Here's my reference :p
http://www.razzetti.com/content/photos/dreadlock_baba.jpg

-Kris

[southparx]

wow awesome predator, Mr Antropus... your 4 hours is like me submitting final piece in 1 month time with my lousy skill...

great! cant wait to see both piece finished :drool:

[gio]

WOW!! Kris, thats a gorgeous sculpt of a classic monster/alien. you're a modeling madman! mad i tell ya!! mad!


can't wait to see this one progress along with your awesome looking pumpkinhead.

-Gio

[Antropus]

Thanks southparx!

Gio! Long time don't talk to you man! Like, 12 hours or something :p
Thanks dude, you're one of my inspirations, you know that. You're the mad one... MAD.

Coffee later?
-Kris

[ChewyPixels]

OMG! That Predator is looking fantastic, Kris! I want to do one myself someday. Keep going you crazy modeling man!

[Antropus]

Thank you man! I'll block a T-Rex tonight and then will concentrate on those 3 for the whole challenge. Too much work already, because I want to texture, light and render two of them, all of that in about a month :argh:

-Kris

[majid-smiley]

amazing ! im waiting for your renders...

[nmcelmury]

This is some great looking stuff, that predator model is looking great already and keep up the spectacular work on that pumpkinhead. I'm looking forward to seeing these finished up! Great job :cool:

[Locusta]

That Predator looks sooo killer!! Great work and your fastness makes me bow down. Can´t wait to see him rendered. Thumbs up!!

[Antropus]

Thanks for your kind words guys and keep up!

As promised, here's my first T-rex sketch. 4.5 hours so far for the whole thing and yes, a lot left to fix proportion wise (I know, my pumpkinhead thread got a little off rail but well... it's Stan Winston's stuff! :) ):

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trex2.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trex3.jpg

More to come tomorrow night, after I finally finish my move the the new place. Dang, still a lot of boxes around and I just want to model stuff and have fun with this challenge :)

-Kris

[gio]

hooo-dang!! not to get all fanboy-ish on ya man, but this thing is looking sweet. will you be posing this critter in a dynamic pose?

amazing thread man. really shows how quality doesnt necessarily have to suffer with speed :)

[Antropus]

Gio, dude, big honor to know you're enjoying them. You're in the top of the food chain when it comes to creature modeling. You should enter this challenge to kick our asses :beer:

[Intervain]

awesome :) having fun I see! :D Yeah I wish I could have met ya at Sig :( Maybe next time :thumbsup:

[Antropus]

Mag! Where's your entry? You should join us here and show some of your awesome modeling skills.

Cheers,
-Kris

[CHERNABOG]

Hey Kris ! Monstruos entry you have here ! :D it's inspiring to see your wip :), keep rocking man :wip: I love that T-Rex, I almost can see him gulp down the goat ... :drool:

-Gerardo

[Intervain]

thanks Kris - well I really wanted to join this challenge BAD but I'm moving to a new city in a few days - so no way will I be able to update the thread regularly:( the timing sucks :cry::cry:

I'll just enjoy you guys!

[farazmobin]

oh man..the trex is looking amazing,all the sculpts look great.

[majid-smiley]

wow man ! i really like to do another ! great TRex !

[Antropus]

Thanks a lot guys. I finished moving to my new place and I'm almost done putting things in place. I'll start a model for fun tonight and will try to get more progress on the T-Rex.
I'll post whatever I have done before I go to sleep.

Cheers,
-Kris

[Antropus]

Ok, here's what I started today. It's a 3D interpretation of the amazing caricature of Stan Winston done by Sebastian Krüeger (I modified it to get rid of the monster side): http://sebastian-kruger-news.blogspot.com/2008/06/thank-you-for-all-stan.html
6 hours work with a quick polypaint included, starting from Pumpkinhead's head and teeth. The other parts were built in Maya.

I didn't have a lot of free time to work on the TRex but I managed to fix some proportions and do a dirty polypaint on him.

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stan1.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stan2.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stan3.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trexpaint1.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trexpaint2.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trexpaint3.jpg

I still need to retopo the Trex, the Predator bust and the Stan bust. Long way to go.

Need to sleep now.
-Kris

[WyattHarris]

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stan1.jpg


Lol, that's great. All of that from the punkinhead eh. You're really getting some mileage out of that guy.

[Antropus]

...You're really getting some mileage out of that guy.
Yeah man, hahaha. Did you ever heard the expression "milking the pumpkin"? Me neither! :p
I was a little concerned about the fact I'm using basically the same base mesh to model other characters but I read a post by Roberto that said it was ok, as far as the mesh was produced during the challenge. So, more power to the pumpkin!!

I'll change the bottom lip a little and work the likeness a little more and also go back to pumpkinhead tonight.

-Kris

[Deepam]

That caricature is looking really cool !

good to see T-rex from you as well . . I hope you will finish it completely.

[Antropus]

Thanks man. Me too. I really want to finish all of them. Well, at least one I HAVE to finish :)

Back to Pumpkinhead. Here's the update of the night. About 3.5 hours on general stuff, details, proportions etc. The legs and his back are almost untouched yet and the model is completely symmetrical right now. Don't worry, I'll get there. I'll probably continue on him or maybe go back to Predator tomorrow. I'll see.

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpcolor1.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpcolor2.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpcolor3.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpcolor4.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpcolor6.jpg

-Kris

[oliveira]

man! it really looks AMAZING!! really perfect to me,great

Alex Oliver

[ChewyPixels]

Looking sweet! The Stan caricature cracks me up! Pumpkinhead is coming along nice...now let's see some more Predator! :D

[headfirst]

What else can i say, Awesome work. Details and textures are looking spot on. I cant really crit anything. looking forward to your other models as well.

-Ray

[Antropus]

Thank you so much guys. Yeah, I'll most likely work on the Predator bust tonight but I'm excited about working on the pumpkin dude a little more. Also, the caricature and the T-Rex are tempting man. Heck, those characters are all too much fun.

-Kris

[Locusta]

Perfect!! You are the polypaint King! ;)

Honestly, the texture looks stunning. The sculpt, as already mentioned anyway.

Keep going. When the Predator texture looks only half of the Pumpkin quality, I drop from my chair. Thumbs up!

Markus

[StevenEgan]

Wow! I love the Stan caricature, and the T-Rex is coming along nicely, But the pumpkin head is on another level :drool:

[WyattHarris]

How many polys is the pumkinhead model at that point? And is the first picture just a material and the second is the poly paint or is the first picture also polypainted? Don't mind me, I'm just learning from you. :D

Looking fantastic Kris.

[Antropus]

Locusta and StevenEgan, thanks a lot guys!

WyattHarris, no problem man :)
The first one is just the skin material with some yellowish color selected to give it that feel. The model has 2.9 million polys at this point. I still can subdivide it once to get my 11mil polys but I'll leave it for the very last because 2.9 mill is a breeze to work on.

Cheers,
-Kris

[TimCallaway]

Really great progress =]

[Antropus]

Thanks Tim :)

Here are some first render tests. The model is in no way finished. This is just to help to set the mood for the final scene.

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinrender1.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinrender2.jpg

Cheers,
-Kris

[GhostmanZombie]

Amazing!!
This Pumpkinhead is like a real thing!!

[Itsgallus]

Hello Kris,

Great Render-wip, can't wait to see the Real Deal.....

//Cheers....

[Antropus]

Thanks!

Man, I showed it to a friend of mine and he asked me what pumpkinhead was doing underwater :p
Quite funny. I started imagining this guy surrounded by tropical fish, with some bubbles coming from underneath :D

-Kris

[StevenEgan]

Brilliant Renders! I really like them!

I have a question, though you don't have to answer.. I was wondering what sort of time frame would you usually have to model/Rig a character like this, in a production setting?

Great work! I hope you have enough time to get the other character looking just as good :wip:

[Locusta]

You don´t sleep, do You? STUNNING!!! I love that blue mood. Very sinister feeling. And the depth of field makes him even more creepy.

Can´t say any more than: I´m impressed!

[Antropus]

Thanks Steven and Locusta.

Steven, it's kinda hard to say. It all depends of the production. If it's a show with a ton of characters, where only a few will be the main ones, then those guys will receive much more attention, naturally. So, the model can be done fast in some ways but the amount of time spent on blend shapes, for example, can consume several days, working back and forth with animators and riggers. For a challenge like this one, we are modeling for stills. In a production environment, the job don't stop there, because there's a whole lot of work left to make this character look good when in movement.
We have to adapt to our deadline. For example, I modeled, textured, animated and did the lighting for one shot on Pan's Labyrinth (baby in the womb), all in about 3 weeks. Of course it doesn't look great, because of the amount of work done in that short amount of time, but it shows that things can be done. On the other hand, the quality will have no room to grow, because of the tight deadline.

About the rigging part, depends as well. It's not linear. I can be working on a model, give the temporary mesh to the rigger who will start the rigging part straight away and I'll keep working on the model meanwhile.

Everything I just said is based on previous work experiences. I could not say how's my routine at my current job because of obvious reasons :)

-Kris

[DDS]

hey man good job. I'm looking forward to your final pumpkin/predator renders. What I admire most from you, is how you are able to make your renders up to par with your own models. I think everyone screws the model presentation up, except for you. Cheers for that man!

Some good tips on shading and lighting for characters would be nice btw ;)

[oliveira]

''Man, I showed it to a friend of mine and he asked me what pumpkinhead was doing underwater :p
Quite funny. I started imagining this guy surrounded by tropical fish, with some bubbles coming from underneath :D

-Kris''

ahahhahahhahah, man ,it looks great to me anyway! really amazing render

Alex

[Antropus]

DDS,
Thanks for your kind words. Sure. As soon as I start doing some final renders I can post information about my setup.

Thanks Alex!

Ok, don't look at the cheap details or the beginning of the color study. What really matters is that I finished the new topology (wooohooo!), that will give me a 7+ million polys for this model, excluding hair, eyes, teeth and other accessories. That should be more than enough for what I want to add in terms of sculpting details and painting. The next update will be focused on the modeling part now that I have a nice basemesh to detail the heck out of it :)

Preview of the new mesh and some basic color just for fun:
http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/predcolor1.jpg

-Kris

[ChewyPixels]

Woah, nice update!! I can't wait to see the Pred finished!

You know...even though Pumpkinhead might look like he's underwater to some, he still looks super creepy! :eek:

[WyattHarris]

Aw man, now I've got to step it up. I can't let your second model look better than my first. :D Looking good Kris!

[StevenEgan]

Phenomenal! 5* :arteest:

This looks simply amazing... great work!

...And thanks for the Answer.. I really appreciate it :thumbsup: You worked on Pans labyrinth! :eek: I love Guillermo Del Toro's work!

Thanks again, and keep it up!

[Umoc]

Whoa! I'm completely blown away. Those models are awsome and you're cranking them out in no time. :eek: I swear, it's like you have clones that take shifts. Lol. Good stuff. Really inspiring and nice to see your workflow. Can't wait to see the final stuff. :applause:

[Sirhcnait]

amazing stuff. always loved your work. I learned to sculpt my first head from your ZBrush Picasso tutorial! Now, to see the work updated in real time is amazing to track and got me to enter the contest (even this far into it)

Cheers

PS the Predator base mesh is sick.

[sapienz]

i really like the stan winston caricature.
you + oliveira are really bringing the standards up for this hcm.
I just browsed thru your site and i must say its pretty informative...
Great stuff !

[DogBreath]

Hi Kris, love the Pumkinhead, I too thought he was a guy with a pumkin on his head (will rent vid asap) and I will be following the TRex progress enjoying watching your work. Would you mind posting a few pics of the early stages of the TRex, eg ZSphere, and lowpoly, I'm doing my first ZSphere model of a imaginary dino and would like to see the head/jaw/neck layout you used.

[Antropus]

Thank you so much for your words! It's a great incentive to keep me going.

DogBreath,
at this point, my dino has absolutely no topology. It will be done down the road but anyways, I'm posting my beeeeeaaaaaautiful base mesh for you to check it out :D

So, I fell asleep watching TV yesterday and could not get much done. So, I woke up at 6am and did 2 hours work on the predator guy. BUT, to look like I did waaaaay more, I'm posting him in 3 flavors!

Grape predator:
http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/gumcolor1.jpg

Broccoli Predator:
http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/gumcolor2.jpg

And the delicious "baby poop" predator... hmmmm... yummy:
http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/gumcolor3.jpg

And here my amazing super duper base mesh for the dino:
http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/dinowire.jpg

Cheers,
-Kris

[Sirhcnait]

Permission to take a day off or two granted. LOL!

[StevenEgan]

Hmmm, that 'baby poop' predator looks suspiciously like snot flavored predator to me... Not trying to pull one over on us are ya??? :rolleyes:

I can't wait to see you finished models.

[bowly]

think this is my favourite so far :)

[nielot]

Hi
Caricature of Stan Winston is great :)

love your works

[DogBreath]

mmmmm beautiful, thanks. Yeah I like the Stan Winston one as well that captures his enthusiasm well, lots of energy.

[Antropus]

:)

Some of you guys were talking about the Stan caricature (based on Krueger's work) so I decided to retopologize that mesh and work on it a little more. I also did a tiny bit of work on the predator so I'm posting the progress as well. All textures are polypaint painted by hand and still very wip. The beard, as you can see, is in progress. I'm painting all the stubble right now.

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stan02.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stan03.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stan04.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pred1.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pred2.jpg

Cheers,
-Kris

[bowly]

That is simply amazing!

[gio]

Kris: regarding the Stan bust--thats it right there man! i look at it and it captures the man quite nicely. you have plans to render him out with some fancy skin shader?


i love how you've blocked all the important forms of the predator without going to super detail wrinkle mode. your methodical approach to modeling is a great example of the 'right' way to do it dude. now detail that sucka to hell and render it! in my opinioin, thats the most accurate cg version i've seen of this creature, and its not even done yet :)

have a happy long weekend of z-brush!

[majid-smiley]

wow ! wow ! you are amazing man ! if you could record a DVD ( your workflow ) for gnomon it must be the must popular dvd...
great works !

[CHERNABOG]

The Stan bust is looking great.. I agree with gio about the predator, that's the most accurate cg version of that puppy, I wish to see the final results on this guys, with that combo of details, lighting, shaders, and all that jazz ♫ :cool:

:beer:

-Gerardo

[ilusiondigital]

Very interesting thread, Kris.

Subscribing.

All the best


Victor

[DogBreath]

I like the new Stan, but I think you lost some form in the lips at the sides of the top teeth and bottom teeth and the cheeks don't have the same volume from front, which has changed the expression. I prefer the skin shader on the first one.

[StevenEgan]

That Stan caricature is amazing. :thumbsup: And as said, that predator is THE best CG predator I've seen. I can't wait to see how all these characters look when your finished!

[southparx]

wow ! wow ! you are amazing man ! if you could record a DVD ( your workflow ) for gnomon it must be the must popular dvd...
great works !

oooh this is great idea, i will definitely buy the DVD..

it'll be a multi part dvd consisting of your workflow starting from the very base mesh (no-topo) to sculpting, topologizing, polypainting, then perhaps showing how you approach composition of your image (i notice you have a composition armature study back in your CG challenge - i am very interested with it but can't find much practical information about it), your render layers...

i hope it's not wishful thinking :drool:

cheers,
andrew

[Antropus]

gio, skull-monster, CHERNABOG, ilusiondigital, DogBreath, StevenEgan, southparx,

thank you so much for your kind words guys. You made my long weekend happier :)
I agree that the Stan caricature lost a little of his original expression. It's still wip so I hope I can recover it in future updates.
About the DVD thingy and workflow, I would love to create something in the future and in fact I got some offers about that, but unfortunately I have no plans right now. I'm more concentrated about learning new things, doing my own projects and exploring more with modeling. But I'm glad to know that I have some potential future clients in here :D

I took the day off yesterday to rest and assemble a bunch of bookshelves but I'm back to work today. I spent most of the day retopologizing the T-Rex. Now the beast is ready to go! He was the last of the 4 models to get completely retopologized. Now it's all fun and no more pain from now on. I'll post some progress in the middle of the night or tomorrow.

Cheers and thanks again for the nice words and for stopping by.
You guys have a great rest of long weekend ;)
-Kris

[farazmobin]

Stan caricature is awesome....but im still looking forward towards the Pumpkinhead.was a pleasure watching the work process

[Antropus]

Thanks man. I'll go back to him soon :)

I spent 2 days of my long weekend working on the T-Rex model, that was lacking behind the others. I rebuilt the whole topology and tweaked all his proportions in one day and today I dedicated to add some details to the sucka. I sculpted some scales patterns using some planes, captured them as separate alphas and used them to add the details. All the scales in his face were placed by hand, one by one, using the DragRect (call me crazy, but this is the only way to have absolute control of the details).
I'm posting a loooong list of images, showing the details in Zbrush, some first render tests to get the feel and a collection of all the wireframes I built for this challenge. Without a good topology, I could not go that far in details and since the focus of this challenge is to produce models in record time that in theory could be used in production, I'm trying to produce 4 models with reasonable topology, all fully textured and that can be animated. It's a lot of work and I'm not sure I'll be able to finish all of them, but I'll try.

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trex01.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trex02.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trex03.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trex04.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trex05.jpg

[Antropus]

Render tests and wireframe collection so far:

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trex06.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trex07.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trex08.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trex09.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trex10.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/wires01.jpg

The T-rex was rendered using a 180k mesh, with a 6k normal map applied on it. No displacement maps were hurt in the process...

Cheers,
-Kris

[Sirhcnait]

Great update. Its so incredible how good your work is for each individual stage of the CG process (sculpting, likeness, topology, detailing, rendering, presentation, etc) The fact that you can do them all to such a high level of quality is just amazing.

[hakanpersson]

Amazing realism on that t-rex face. Wonder if theres gonna be a tribute challange when I have come over and killed your ass!:twisted:

Its a winner allready, but I still hope you get time to finish the other models aswell!

[Locusta]

Amazing!!! Simply amazing!! I love that Rex. Wow! 6k Normal map. Jeess..how long did one render took?

Thumbs up man. I´m deeply impressed!

[oliveira]

Kris ,really love the trex!!! amazing renders too! love the render number one! looks really a maquette from Stan studio

Alex Oliver

[StevenEgan]

Nice renders! T-rex is incredible. I hope you are able to get the rest of his body looking as good as his head :thumbsup:

I'm glad to hear you did not harm any Displacement maps rendering these, but 6K Maps :eek: This leads me to wonder how many computers you killed rendering these...

[Antropus]

Hey, thanks a lot for the comments guys!

About the 6K normal map, well, it's not like a displacement. Normal maps render VERY fast, just as regular bump maps or faster (at least on those models). I wish ZBrush could export a 8k map though. I mean, you have a limit of 8000 pixels but looks like my graphics card supports only exact multiples of 1024k (2048, 3072, 4096, 5120, 6144). So, I generated a 6144 pixels map and seems like it got most of the details. I'll use other maps to help on the color details.
Yes, the plan is to finish ALL of them. I'll try to stick with it, but I'll make the Pumpkinhead and the Stan Caricature the top priorities.

-Kris

[DogBreath]

Inspirational stuff, long weekends are great for getting a good flow going, our next one is Oct, looking foward to it. I had a go at a Dino using ZSperes and can see why you start with a basic mesh, when you retopologise do you use ZBrush's retopologise. I think I may have to jump in and have a go at a Spino after seeing your amazing work and work rate.

[Deepam]

This is all looking nice smooth and clean progress so far :wip:

I like your blocking specially, that anatomical structure is well balanced after lots of subdivision.

But in my case, I am facing problem maintaining that structure till the end. Its just get lost between subd level 3 to 5 and after last subd, its look like a smooth soft toy, missing those bones and muscles definition. Either they get disappear or they just displace. I don't have problem with skin detailing or you can say secondary details, but unable to maintain that initial body structure after more n more subd.

Any suggestion how can I improve that part ?


PS: I don't have any traditional sculpting experience :sad: !

[cbostjan]

hey kris, your stuff is AWESOME!! love all of it. Cant wait to see more. You have inspired me to go home crank out some stuff.

--C

[Antropus]

DogBreath,
I never use ZBrush for the retopology process. I use Maya but I'll try other alternatives, like Silo or Topogun, as someone mentioned.

Deepam,
man, I'm soooo glad you mentioned that. I mean, a LOT of people concentrate way too much on the fine details and forget about a good structure. The kids go "WOW! freaking awesome details man!!!" and forget about the primary forms, responsible for making the characters believable. I personally prefer a model with 3k polys, with a beautiful structure and no details than a model with a trillion polys, a gazzilion wrinkles and no structure at all. There's nothing worst than a lumpy model covered with tons of details.
A great example of primary and secondary forms, beautifully done can be found on Gio's thread:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=43&t=394755&highlight=gio
http://forums.cgsociety.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=100693
http://forums.cgsociety.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=105356
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=4470236&postcount=111
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=4622922&postcount=132

It's pure anatomy knowledge and great sense of weight and gesture. Observation is the key. If you nail it first, then you will have to be careful for the tertiary forms to don't overcome the secondary and primary. You have to keep them subtle enough so they don't break the silhouette already established on the primary stage. It's a matter of building layers of forms, just like you start a model from a cube and go all the way to the finer forms, the same principle of bigger to smaller, rough to refined applies here. If you can keep modeling the other stages respecting the hierarchy of the forms on the previous ones, your model will stand out and will retain all the information you've put on the primary and secondary forms.

I hope it helps and thanks again for asking. Not much people are concerned about those things :)

cbostjan,
Chris! Dude, when are you going to fix your messenger thingy? I can read your messages but I'm blocked.
I'm glad you like it so far man. It's a loooot of work, but it's a lot of fun. I can't wait to see your new stuff. So, go back to work! :)

-Kris

[Jay-Mo]

Jumping between your and oliveira's thread is making me mental. Your work is amazing. Those T-rex renders are just awesome!

[ChewyPixels]

Inspirational work, Kris! I just love watching the progress here and on Alex's thread as well! Very cool stuff! Keep going man!

[Deepam]

Thanks Kris for those valuable guidelines :) this is really helpful !

Just saw Gio's thread and his website too, love those forms studies, his traditional sculpting is also amazing :eek: . After watching those stuff, I am planning for some digital sculpting of human anatomy starting from a low poly cube for an arm study.

What I realize now is - give more time to get that first anatomical structure until it looks 100% accurate, then just freeze that form with no major deformation. Apply those secondary details without affecting the basic form.

Your thread is also good to study character development. That first Pumpkinhead creation was very interesting, like those steps.

All the best for the challenge and have a happy characters stuff ! :thumbsup:

[bradjames]

Kris I just want to say I'm a big fan of your work and just love the trex. I want to say I agree with you big time on the fact that laying out the basic form is so import in your models and so many people are so quick to get to those little details to try and make a great model. very well said.
I was wondering about your trex render..is it done in Maya? and is it a fancy light setup?

Keep on rocking

[Antropus]

Jay-Mo, Jedi-Juice,
thanks guys!

Deepam,
you're very welcome my friend. Thanks again for asking and happy sculpting!

bradjames,
thanks a lot for your kind words. Great stuff on your portfolio.
About the render, yeah, it's Maya MR with Final Gather. It's not fancy at all. It's pretty much a sphere for a little global light, 3 white planes for bottom, top, left fill lights and one single area back light for the strong specular effect. I'll post the settings down the road. It's a matter of setting the intensity of those white planes to get a studio kinda light. At the end, some PS work.

I did a little bit more work on Stan likeness and started messing with the render. Just now, with a real render I can see what's wrong with the model. I have a lot of little tweaks that I want to add in order to improve the overall likeness. The hard part is that I'm trying to sculpt him based on a caricature that is overly distorted already. It's like I'm trying to mimic a semi fish eye lens on a regular sculpture. What I noticed now, after the image rendered, is that I need to pretty much deform the eyes, cheeks, ears and nose, using the bridge of the nose as pivot point, almost like smearing everything outwards and down. I'll do some tweaking once I get back from work tonight. Here it's the very first preliminary render test, just to get the feel:

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stan01.jpg

Texture, light and model are still very wip. More to come.

-Kris

[oliveira]

ahahahhaha ,amazing Kris !! it looks so real!! great!

Alex Oliver

[bradjames]

Kris thanks for replying so fast and for the info. I look forward to seeing the images to go along with what you explained. Stan is looking amazing and very real like alex said. Boy I should have jumped in this contest. Keep it up

[Spin99]

Wow it's amazing how the pros can make these challenges so much better..
Love to join sometime. I don't know if there's enough hours in a day for me to work on improving my skills enough to start feeling good about stuff I try do lol

Antropus I don't know what's better, if it's your modeling or you texturing hehe
I do notice the combination is just incredible though.
Muito legal :thumbsup:

[StevenEgan]

Great Render Kris! I can't wait for the final!

[collings]

wow don't know how i missed your thread ^^ I just checked all the pages and directly saved all the pics in my ref folder héhé :) . that caricture of Stan looks spot on and i don't even dare to talk about the other models , they look terrific:applause: . Looking forward to see them completed. I am now subscribed to the thread and will follow for sure the next progress !

By the way, how things are going on at ILM ? can you tell which project you're working on ...

[TimCallaway]

you know what, this is my first challenge I've ever competed in and it's a pleasure to go against some one with this much talent in his blood. Outstanding work man. Can't wait for your final renders =]

[CHERNABOG]

:applause::applause::applause: Hahahaha, This is turning out in a class of how to do things right, and stop being a WIP Thread :applause::applause::applause: Keep Rocking Kris !!! inspiring stuff !!!

:beer:

-Gerardo

[vshen]

I really like the progress on you Stan... I'm sure it will look eve more amazing when it is done. Also a fan on your Pumpkinhead.

[Antropus]

oliveira,
thanks man!

bradjames,
you should! It's a lot of fun.

Spin99,
thanks! You should try next time man. I mean, I work full time and still have some energy left to work on it at home. It's just for a month and then you are free again :)

StevenEgan,
same here! I can't wait to finish all of them.

collings,
hey! Thanks for stopping by. You know, I dreamed of working at ILM since I watched T-2. That movie was shocking! It's hard to believe I'm here now. I mean, so much talent around. It's really inspiring to come to work and I'm still like a kid at the Disneyland.
About the project, I cannot say just right now but soon, hopefully. I'm pretty sure most people here will watch it next year and will have a blast just like I am, building them ;)

TimCallaway,
thanks man! But no no no. Those challenges are more like an opportunity to spend your time producing stuff for yourself and learning with the process. Not much of a competition in a sense. Unlike those CG Challenges, with prizes involved and all, where "the fight is fierce", here it's all good fun. I really don't mind if my work is not the favorite at the end. It's just the whole process and the chance to have some stuff in different styles in my portfolio that attracts me. So, enjoy the challenge, participate next time and more than everything, keep it fun! :)

CHERNABOG,
thanks Gerardo! Nah, there's no right way to do it. There are a bunch of ways to do it ;)
This is just the way it works for me but maybe doesn't work for someone else :)
Thanks for stopping by my friend.

vshen,
thanks! Yeah, those ones you like are the top priority for the challenge. Even though, I'll try to finish all of them, if I can keep my energy high enough after a whole day of work...

Yesterday I went back to Predator. I realized I didn't have much references for him. Most of the references that I had are from that Sideshow sculpture that, again, just like with Pumpkinhead, are amazing sculpts BUT they are also some artist's interpretation, that can be slightly different from the real thing. I picked up the DVD and capture a lot of snapshots, to know exactly what is going on. The sideshow is helping a lot too but I'll try to follow the movie reference, together with the pictures from the actual suit at Stan's studio. I also finished adding the spikes and did some more paint work but it's not quite ready to show. I'll work more on it tonight.

Cheers,
-Kris

[Sirhcnait]

I was wondering:

When you retopologize in Maya, do you alter the Green/Xray default "make live" display to make it easier to view. Its difficult to follow the mesh with the default. What do you do? (The only thing I've thought of is to make a duplicate and put it as a reference layer, but then you have two high poly objects for the computer to deal with.)

Also, any advice for getting likeness? (I know, broad question but bear with me :D) I've read your posts in WyattHarris' thread saying you "have to eyeball some stuff" in addition to following ref and about reimporting the mesh into Maya for a proper persepective camera view vs ZB. Do you view the ref separately or use imageplanes? do you bounce back and forth between Maya and ZB to check? I know its subjective and personal, just wondering what you do and what you recommend.

[fx81]

very inspiring work! congratulation on the ILM job.

[DogBreath]

I don't know if you have this image, hope it helps.


http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/9559/stanwinstongallery04ss7.jpg

[3mm]

its amazing,very inspiring ,waiting for more updates;)

it's nice if we see some more screen shot about shading ,rendering of stan winston Caricature when finished the piece......:rolleyes:

[Antropus]

Sirhcnait,
yep, back and forth Zbrush and Maya. About eyeballing stuff, it's that old thing that most people do: use a blue print for the front and side views. Normally the picture is not prepared for this. So, you have some perspective going on the picture but when you try to match it in orthographic mode, at the end, your mesh will be all distorted because you're trying to follow the reference blindly. So, at the end, if you really want to work the likeness, you have to use some artistic skill and forget a little about matching the pictures by moving points, which is purely technical and anyone can do. Practice your observation by doing a lot of "copies". You will become good if you dedicate your time to it, just like almost everything in life :)

fx81,
thanks a lot man.

DogBreath,
dude! That's a sweet reference right there! Thanks for that. More references are never enough :)

3mm,
sure, I can post that once I finish that one.

Here's some progress on the Predator. The skin sculpt detail is very rough right now and will get some more passes to add more variation. Also, the symmetry will come at the end. The spikes don't match the holes and the "hair" is coming next. I'm planning to model the hard surface stuff over the weekend. No Zbrush for this, just regular hard surface poly modeling.
The whole texture progress was hand painted using polypaint in Zbrush. I'm using just the default alphas for now but I'm about to design some custom ones to get more variation on the patterns. Here are also some preliminary renders. I just imported a midres mesh, no normal maps, no displacement. That's why you can see some faceted areas.

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/predwip01.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/predwip02.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/predwip03.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/predwip04.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/predwip05.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/predwip06.jpg

Cheers,
-Kris

[Umoc]

My goodness, it never ceases to amaze me when I see work that is already a point where anyone would call it finished except for the artist who created it. :applause: Good stuff, and you say there's still more to do.:D Very motivating. The renders of the Predator are looking very realistic. Are you using a 4k map for that and about how many poly's is the Predator bust at right now in the ZB pic? Also are you using ZB exclusively for your texturing or do you bounce back into ps or anything else as well? I haven't messed with polypaint, but it seems like it's working out great for the texture process. Keep it coming :bounce:

[Locusta]

....I just fell from my chair....MAN!!! Stunning and awsome! Cheeees.....you got the polypaint to perfection. Love that Predator!

Respect and thumbs up!

Markus

[headfirst]

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

great work. great great work.

[StevenEgan]

WOW! This is amazing Kris!

I have a folder on my computer called 'Great Art' I save all the images of great art that give me inspiration... 75% of that folder is full with your art... Thank you.

All you need to do now is make a DVD on poly painting :bowdown:

Great work!

[TimCallaway]

I'm speechless. :bowdown:

[cbostjan]

dude, love the Predator! looking great!

[Antropus]

Thank you so much guys!

10 days left and here's my to-do list:

Stan Caricature Bust:
- model the hair (sculpture like, stylized)
- tweak the model to improve the likeness a little more
- model the clothing
- finish the whole texturing part
- improve the eyes shader
- make everything asymmetrical
- final render

Pumpkinhead:
- tweak the body for better proportions
- tweak the face to improve likeness
- add a ton of details on everything
- finish up the texturing
- pose the character
- model a motorcycle chain and a little base where he will be standing
- final render

T-Rex:
- reduce the feet to improve the sense of scale
- add a ton of details all over
- finish up the texturing
- pose it
- final render

Predator:
- details all over
- improve the likeness a little more
- position the spikes
- model the dreads
- finish up the textures
- model the hard surface parts, including gun, back and shoulder pieces
- model the accessories (necklace, net, dread pieces)
- pose it
- final render

Roughly I'll need to meet 3 objectives a day if I want to finish those... jeez
At least we have 2 weekends ahead...

-Kris

[oliveira]

Kris ,

amazing!! love all!! perfect

Alex Oliver

[majid-smiley]

stunning works...you ! are ! really good...

[hakanpersson]

10 days left and here's my to-do list:



Focus and remember the whole new page of art work in your portfolio!

Btw, the upper lip of your predator.. ref: http://www.agdesktop.com/wallpapers%5Ccinema%5Calien_vs_predator%5Calien_vs_predator-0007.jpg
It looks slightly more organic in this pic, and the border between gum and upper lip is more pinched. Nothing particular, but its the only thing that disturbs me;)

Workin on a predator too, thats why I had to critize something:p Zspheres works perfect for the rasta btw, the only point im ahead of you!

[CHERNABOG]

Kris my friend, I don't know what to say man, I don't want to sound fannish or something but in a conscious or unconscious way you drive people (at least me) to keep working and pushing forward to achieve better results and enjoying what we do for a living, your story about how you get to the place where you are now, and all the things that you have been through, it's inspiring and encouraging, Stan must be proud of seen such great artists and such a great response in this challenge, and seeing your reproductions makes me feel as the first time I saw Stan works in the theaters, keep walking man, you deserve all the good things that you have now, I know your wife must be really proud of you. :) enough said I want to see that little crispy thingies shinning in that final renders, best of luck in this two final weeks :beer:.

-Gerardo

[gio]

this thread has been something i've incorporated in my daily morning rituals. wake up, brush my teeth, do some push-ups, dress for work, check kris' thread before i go. the amount of work displayed in this thread in such a short amount of time is quite staggering. i hope it is not too bold of me to say that in my opinion, you deserve to win this contest, hands-down. all the qualities of what makes a good model good are in here (with rendering and texturing thrown in for good measure), so it is an amazing example for students and professionals to follow and learn from. anyway, i am not just saying this to blow smoke up your arse man. looking at the work, there is no question that you deserve to win it.

if there are any criticisms i could say, it would be that i feel the lighting on the predator is a bit too 'hot'. it would be nice to have more of a diffused feel to the environment so that the highlights are not as blown out. a much more diffused light to see the color variations along with a nice side light to pop the forms, i think, would be a good way to present that sucka :)

[Antropus]

oliveira,
thanks Alex! Only 8 days left man. Run! :)

skulll-monster,
back to you man!

hakanpersson,
I agree. The thing is, I'm using the actual movie for some stuff and a miniature sculpture done by Steve Wang, the same artist who sculpted the original Predator, as an alternative. In the small sculpture, the upper lip looks almost paper thin. I'm trying to adapt and combine both references. I changed that region a tiny bit now but still need some work.

Gerardo and Gio,
you guys made my day. Thank you SO MUCH for your nice words guys. It really means a lot to me and made me inspired just by reading it.
As for the result, as I said before, it doesn't really matter and I mean it. What matters is the experience, the opportunity to model classic monsters that inspired me when I was younger, dreaming of being a makeup artist one day. It didn't work out exactly as planned but even digitally, here I am making stuff for movies now and having the chance to pay homage to one of the masters, Stan, in this friendly challenge. And of course, the fact that I'll have some brand new stuff in my portfolio soon :)
Gio, about the light over exposure on the previous renders, I fixed it and you can check it on the following renders. I turned off one setting on the SSS shader by mistake. Should be good now.
Thanks again guys!

Here's an update. The thing is, Predator turned out to be the most complicated one, because of the number of pieces and accessories. So, I decided to get more stuff out of the way before I can go back to the other models. One night, 5 hours sleep and a WHOLE Saturday of work, got me the net, the gun, the dreads and some pieces of the armour modeled and textured. The mechanical parts were all hard surface modeled, to avoid heavy meshes when rendered in Maya. 100% of the textures were painted in Zbrush, using polypaint, default alphas and brushes and then baked to textures. Not only the textures but also the details, the dreads and the spikes are still wip and not positioned correctly yet. It's good for now but not for the final image.

Here some progress shots.

Bust test renders:
http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/predwip2.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/predwip3.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/predwip4.jpg

Clay render:
http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/predwip1.jpg

Cage mesh so far:
http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/predwire1.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/predwire2.jpg

I'll put Predator on hold again and I'll try to wrap up the Stan Caricature today and then go back to Pumpkinhead for a general makeup, details, proportions and pose tomorrow.

Cheers,
-Kris

[DogBreath]

Wickedly cool stuff dude.

[southparx]

it's truly a blessing to see a master in his process..

keep us updated

~cheers,
andrew

[StevenEgan]

This is great!

I love the texturing, and the fish net clothing.

This is a really nice piece. What are you using to render?

Nice :thumbsup:

[jesuisankit]

Predator looks awesome.. its hard for me to imagine one can work for such long hours (mainly that too poly modeling :P he he..) and get so much work done.. Your awesome man. The texture looks really cool.. sculpt is top notch.. very clean wire and a great render. Thanks for sharing so much info, it gonna help a lot.

[alancamara]

My god, I missed your thread!

Great to see you making those stuffs man, I really I like it.
Aff.., I don't have any comment to add to the works so far, it's great as usual.

Keep going!

[AndHolzmeister]

Breaking everything as usual! Jesus christ i missed this one, Kris, i really want to cut off your hands man! LoL;)

I don´t know which one is my favorite, but the predator is kicking ass

[Antropus]

Hey guys, thank you so much for your kind words. You make me wanna do more and more stuff :)
A shame the deadline is getting near.

Alan and Andre,
fala rapaziada! Very cool to see some Brazilian pals stopping by! Keep one eye on this thread because it will get daily updates till the end of the challenge :)
Valeu!

As I mentioned yesterday, I took the day today to finish Stan caricature. Improved likeness, textures, shaders and render. I wish I had more time to work on it but because of the deadline, I'll have to call this one finished. This model is probably the simplest of the whole bunch but he is my personal favorite so far, because of the personality of Stan, well captured by the amazing Sebastian Krüeger. This is just my attempt to recreate his work in 3D. In a sense, this is a double tribute: to Stan and to Krüeger.

Rest in peace Stan:
http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stanrender1.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stanrender2.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stanrender3.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stanshade1.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stanshade2.jpg

All textures poly painted in Zbrush. No pictures used (just for reference).
Tomorrow I'm back to Pumpkinhead.

Cheers,
-Kris

edit: ooops, I forgot to answer to StevenEgan. Maya (Mental Ray+Final Gather) for rendering. Once I finish all the models, I'll post details about my render settings, including some screen shots. Stay tuned.

[vshen]

You have definitely captured his likeness and really payed excellent tribute to both artist. Excellent and inspiring work as awlays.

[Antropus]

Thanks man!

Here's my updated to-do list:

Stan Caricature Bust:
DONE!

Predator:
- position the spikes and dreads
- finish model details and textures
- model the rest of the hard surface parts. Gun, right shoulder piece and front piece done. Big left shoulder piece and gun support still needed. The back piece will not be modeled.
- pose it
- final render

Pumpkinhead:
- tweak the body for better proportions
- tweak the face to improve likeness
- add a ton of details on everything
- finish up the texturing
- pose the character
- model a motorcycle chain and a little base where he will be standing
- final render

T-Rex:
- reduce the feet to improve the sense of scale
- add a ton of details all over
- finish up the texturing
- pose it
- final render

3 models to go, 2 days left per character. Dunno if I'll be able to finish all of them. I'll finish at least 2-3 of them, for sure :wip:

-Kris

[ChewyPixels]

The Stan caricature came out superb! Congrats for getting him finished! I hope we get to see the others complete. Go, go, go, Kris!! :bounce:

[cbostjan]

stan is looking wonderful dog!

[headfirst]

The stan model is spectacular. I love it.

The one thing i can see to crit, is the shirt collar, right where it meets the neck. It feels like his nice beautifully textured neck hits a black untextured patch. To me it makes it feel like his head is cut and separate from the chest area.

great work!

-Ray

[Spin99]

Stan looks nice Predator just plain amazing.
Your texturing I'm not going to comment on.
Colours and renders are plain awesomeness.

Tudo muito legal.

[oliveira]

Man ,the Stan looks amazing too!!

Alex Oliver

[TimCallaway]

Great job =]

[StevenEgan]

Inspiring! This a great tribute to Stan and Krüeger.

I'm looking forward to the other entries, I know they will be just as great, if not better!

I know you can do it in time...

I'm rooting for you :wip: :bounce:

[Antropus]

Jedi-Juice,
I go! I go! :p

cbostjan, thank YO Chris!

headfirst,
I agree with that and not only that, I add another 3 crits to myself :)
1) fix the right crossed eye (kinda funny but maybe too visible...), 2) desaturate the skin tone and make it less orange, 3) model some hair to cover the connection between the hair and the frame of the glasses near his ear. I'll do those fixes when I render the final piece on Sunday. Thanks!

Spin99,
Obrigado! :)

Thanks Alex, TimCallaway and StevenEgan!
You rock and roll.

So, today I thought I was going to do a lot but I couldn't. First, I was feeling a little tired after hitting traffic for 3 hours in order to pickup my very first pinball machine ever! YAY! It's a Williams' Monster Bash, made in 1998. So, the baby is waiting for me inside my car. I'll get some help tomorrow to bring it into my apartment so I can turn the neighbors lives into a living hell :) But for now it will remain turned off, till I finish the challenge...

I did some work on Pumpkinhead but nothing very special. I'm posing it and tweaking proportions a little more, before I get to the details. I did model the motorcycle chain to put in his hand but guess what? Maya crashed! Maya crashing? Yep, as always. I freaking hate it sometimes. So, tomorrow I'll remodel it and will keep working on the other stuff. Lots left to fix but I need to show some progress:

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkin1.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkin2.jpg

Cheers,
-Kris

[JasonA]

Hi Antropus,

Your work on this challenge is nothing short of absolutely superb! Truly inspirational modeling man, im floored. Truly awesome stuff, I cant wait to see more of your work in the future
Cheers,

[RGhencev]

Hey Antropus,
Great work, everything is amazing..

The shape of the Stan winston caricature is very natural, i love it.
The shaders and render is great to.. I can't wait to see this finished..

Take care.

[Intervain]

:applause::arteest:the caricature's fantastic!

[aesis412]

Awesome characters man and WIP thread love the step by step stuff you showed, the Stan Winston is my favorite.

[cocopalm]

Your Sulpting Talent is Awesome I have already seen a lot of stuffs made by you specially the PlumberMan and the article which was published in CREATIVE MAGZINE too..
Well your Work inspired me a lot to work in detail and with patience..
Well I am also in this challenge for the first time and i have entered in this challenge very late on 28/8/08 so i have done a very less work so kindly post your remarks on my work... and changes ..here is my link http://forums.cgsociety.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=132676
of my base mesh from maya
I am from Hyderabad, INDIA... and I have only a couple of months of experience in this 3d World.... Thanks

[TimCallaway]

If you don't mind me asking; what are you using to render? xsi and mentalray?

[grassetti]

thats awesome man!! i spent a few days without seeing this thread and i missed a LOT of stuff!

great work man! really awesome and inspiring stuff as always!!

Keep it up!

[alancamara]

Hey kris, It's awesome dude.

You could make a small tutorial about the render setup of Stan's caricature later...:p.
Dude, it's impressive, can't wait to see this stuffs it finished. keep going

[Antropus]

JasonA, thanks a lot!

RGhencev, hey man! Thanks for stopping by. You're kicking ass!

Intervain... :love:

aesis412,
mine too! Thanks :p

cocopalm,
Nice model and nice topology. Keep going on that and thanks!

TimCallaway,
Maya+MentalRay (FastSSS + Final Gather)

grassetti and alancamara,
thanks a lot guys. You both are doing great work. Really good to see so many Brazilians kicking ass :)
Keep up the great work and thanks for stopping by :)

Alan, sure thing man! Even though I think you're doing some great renders, will be my pleasure to show my setup. It's actually really simple. The fastSSS shader, for instance, has only the color map plugged on it. I have to do like this if I want a reasonable result in short amount of time.

I'll try to update some stuff tonight. I have a lot of work at the studio and I'm getting home really tired this week. Yesterday I tried to work more on the challenge and just could not stay awake so I passed out on my chair. Today I HAVE to produce something.

-Kris

[Antropus]

Major update on Pumpkinhead. Still some stuff needed but getting pretty close to what I expected in such short amount of time. I'll try to fix the most problems that I can until the deadline but I'm pretty sure any of the models will not be totally finished at the end, but finished enough, hopefully.

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinh1.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinh2.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinh3.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinh4.jpg

Tomorrow I'm back to the T-Rex.

Cheers,
-Kris

[GhostmanZombie]

They are very wonderful.
I respect your talent.

[bradjames]

hot damn this is amazing. The renders just blow me away big time. Love the feel of the skin. I find the chain to clean but maybe thats the look you wanted. keep up the hard work.

[ChewyPixels]

Pumpkinhead looks fantastic! What you have here is already very good. I'd say call him finished for now (you can always go back to him after the challenge) and get to the others.

The only thing that I would change...and really it's not very important to this challenge as it's all about the modeling...is the material settings for the bike chain. I would turn down the reflection a bit as it's giving a bit too hot of a reflection. Of course, a greasy one would be better but for this challenge there's not enough time for that. :)

Good luck with the rest of the models! I'm loving this! This challenge is going to be a difficult one to judge for sure! :eek:

[StevenEgan]

Fantastic work Kris!

As said. Call this one done, and get the rest of the models up to this level of completion.
There's not much time left :wip:

Great work as usual!

[Pedz]

Hey Kris been following your thread and it's just so amazing. Not just your work, but hearing what you have to say, you seem like such a down to earth guy.

Pedram

[WyattHarris]

Can't say I know what the chain is about but I haven't seen the movie. So other than that, fantastic job on him. He really came out great.

[majid-smiley]

amazing updates man ! 5 star...

[Spin99]

Love the skin detailing the dessicated bits the veins and the improved anatomy.
Also is the bike chain from the movie or something?
Seems to suit him. I got to get this DVD sometime :)

[Antropus]

Thanks a lot for the comments guys! I agree 100% about the chain. It's not textured yet. Nor his eyes, teeth or nails (which are out of place btw). I'll fix them for the final image. Yeah, it's in the movie. If I remember, the guy is trying to escape on his motorcycle but then he sees Pumpkinhead standing there, holding the chain of his bike like he was about to say "looking for something, pal?". Funny stuff. I like the sadism of those villains in horror movies :)

Here's the first pass of T-Rex pose. Still a lot of tweaks needed. Also, a little bit more texture and started detailing the hands. All rendered in Zbrush just for now.

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trexwip1.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trexwip2.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trexwip4.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trexwip5.jpg

I'll spend one and a half day more on the T-Rex to try to get him done by Saturday in the afternoon. Then I'll go back to Predator and will work on him from Saturday till afternoon of Sunday and save the night for the tweaks and renders on all models.

-Kris

[WyattHarris]

Man that looks good good good. Can't wait to see the finished textures.

[StevenEgan]

Very impressive, as usual Kris!

I'm loving the details, and the texturing is off to a nice start. I really can't wait to see what all your creations look like in the final entry.

Brilliant work!

[rhocando]

I've just begun trying my hand at 3d modeling and currently using a 30 day lightwave9 trial.

Your work is simply amazing Kris! What an inspiration you are!

How many hours do you think you've invested to get where you are today?

How many hours per day should one work at creating something?

Do you think it's feasible to self-teach yourself or do you recommend schooling?

Thank you so much for posting your progress models. They are wonderful.

[cocopalm]

Great Krish Master Piece of work Keep on doing....

Krish Plz can u Help me as I am a fresher I am Getting a lot of problems : My Software is MAYA 7 and Zbrush 3.1 and I am working on Predator Model..

Rendertype Mental ray of MAYA 7:-- Approximation Editor
My displacement settings:-
I am Using Mental rays Approximation Editor as Parametric (value = 4.8 in U divisions) type to subdivide the model during render time and my displacement maps are 32 bit .map file formats having resolution 4096 Pix..

My problems are :--

1) I am unable to get Displacement in Occlusion Pass..
2) And when I am unable to render the Whole model at a time like the Tentacles(Hair) the Face and the Armors etc in mental ray.
It shows a error - Memory out.
I have 4MB cache memory NVIDIA Quadro FX 1500 Graphic Card and 2GB of RAM with Xeon processor IBM machine.

Plz help me I really need your help to show my output and plz... Dear can you able to give me your personal Mobile or landline Number and Email ID so that I can Call you here from India, Hyderabad.

Can you tell me what type of system you r using and tell me the cache memory and your system confuguration...
I am facing a lot of technical problems if you will help me, I will be Very Kind to you...... Plz Help me After all you r Genious..... Great Artist... Bye Thank you have a nice time

my email ID : cocopalm64@yahoo.com (http://forums.cgsociety.org/cocopalm64@yahoo.com) you can send your information through my ID and I swear (Promise) it will be secret plz help an artist... by an artist..

[Intervain]

goddamn Chris!:bowdown: :bowdown::bowdown: Every time I feel lazy it's enough to look at your work and I get a kick up my behind!:buttrock: Thanks for the inspiration:thumbsup:

[xLonewolfx]

Major update on Pumpkinhead. Still some stuff needed but getting pretty close to what I expected in such short amount of time. I'll try to fix the most problems that I can until the deadline but I'm pretty sure any of the models will not be totally finished at the end, but finished enough, hopefully.

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinh1.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinh2.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinh3.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinh4.jpg

Tomorrow I'm back to the T-Rex.

Cheers,
-Kris

wow

what did u use for rendering? :O

[3mm]

perfect updates man,waiting for more and a complete coverage:)

[Antropus]

WyattHarris and StevenEgan,
thanks a lot guys. I think you will enjoy the final renders of the T-Rex then. A LOT of details and some cool renders will be posted till tomorrow. Stay tuned!

rhocando,
thank you so much for your kind words. Yes, I believe it's very possible for you to teach yourself. That's what I've being doing for the past years. It's a non-stop process but if you love to learn and produce art, then the process will be rewarded at some point.
It's hard to say about hours invested. It's not linear. We are humans and some days you just cannot find energy anywhere. So, in this case you can just rest or you can insist and produce work anyway. That's more or less what I do. Doesn't matter if I'm tired I try to produce, during those times when I feel inspired. But of course, sometimes I just stop producing for a month, maybe two, so I can look around and find more inspiration that drives me to go back to my work. When someone ask how long this or that work took me to finish, I can say the same someone once said "took me a few hours... and many, many years".
Good luck with your new journey.

cocopalm,
WOW! Man, there are a couple of wrong things there.
I will not answer specifically but I'll tell you that Maya 7 running on only 2GB of RAM is not the best way to get ANYTHING done. Displacement settings and how-to can be found at ZBrushCentral and here at CGTalk, in many many threads. Just research and I'm sure you will find information about that.

Also, Maya's manual/help explains everything in detail. In your place, having the machine/software config you have, I'll rather render everything in Zbrush. Go to ZbrushCentral and download some cool free shaders and lighting setups. Find a cool one that shows all the details of your model and render it. ZBrush will show more details than any other way if you use a good shader. Even HDRI reflections can be rendered in Zbrush. That's probably your best bet man.
I hope it helps. Good luck!

Intervain,
Mag, always a pleasure reading your posts. Thanks a lot! I'm glad you like it so far. A lot more to come on the next hours.

xLonewolfx,
thanks! Maya 2008 + MentalRay (4 area lights) 8GB RAM

3mm,
sure! I'll be posting more details after I finish all those renders I am cooking right now :surprised

Cya,
-Kris

[cocopalm]

Wow Krish you r great and thnks for replying to me Well first of all Your submissions r really a great piece of master work ... Keep on doing..you r great..
Well next thing can you tell me
1) How you r getting such a finer detail and
2) Which type of shader you r using in Zbrush to get such a nice natural output specially finer details and lastly
3) If you will export it to maya then how to get the same amount of detail there
B,coz I have a plan to Coplete the character and want to rig it ....

One more thing how to post such a big images in the theread itself like you r posting I want to post few more colored but my thread is full so I am unable to post other images plz help me...

Thanks Krish Hope you will reply me soon Bye take care...

[AET23]

Amazing work dude. i have your pumkinhead as my background and if you ever make some 3d prints of him ill definitely buy one.

1 question. i know you've said you have 8 gigs of ram but what are the rest of your pc specs.

[cocopalm]

My Next Submissions plz give remarks on it----
ZBrush Mesh
From Top :- http://forums.cgsociety.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=132837
Front Close :- http://forums.cgsociety.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=132838
Profile :- http://forums.cgsociety.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=132840
Front :- http://forums.cgsociety.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=132841
BackView :- http://img181.imageshack.us/my.php?image=backviewpredatorcocotv9.jpg

Few Retouched Images in Photoshop
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Links Front Color - http://img253.imageshack.us/my.php?image=frontpredatorbc4.jpg
Links Profile Color- http://img253.imageshack.us/my.php?image=profilepredatorla1.jpg

In case of color images I did some color corrections in Photoshop but I am not happy with Displacement Maps Generated in MAYA 7 as I have already told ... I am unable to get finner details in Maya as compared to Zbrush, In case of MAYA its blurring out..-- Can you help me to solve this problem I am sticking to Maya for displacement B,coz I have a plan to do the complete Model and Rig it for animation Purpose and for that I think Zbrush is not the solution and for that I have to Export the displacement Maps from Zbrush and Assemble it into Maya Shaders.....So I think now You can understand my Problem why I am using MAYA plz Try to give any solution..... for the problems I am Facing

Thank you, and Keep your spirits High you r really a great Artist a lot of good things will come out from you in the form of your art You r One of my Mentor which gives me power to work and some day I will achive my Goal .... Thanks again have a nice time bye....

[AET23]

wrong thread cocopalm

[sanketpro3d]

Awesome work as always sir. really inspiring. i m also doing pumpkin head. cudnt reach your quality of course plus i havent learnt rendering in zbrush much but still tried my best and got to learn a lot from your pumpkinhead. i used it as my refrence :).. and the t-rex is really blowing. its gr8 to have artsits like you in the challange which really helps a lot in learning. i guess its clear now who is going to win the challenge .... all the best !!:beer:

[Antropus]

Thanks a lot guys!

Here's a loooong list of images I posted just now. They are my final submissions. Unfortunately, Predator could not make the list. I'll finish him later. I'm just so glad I was able to complete 3 models, with lighting and textures. It was hard work but it was fun.
Congrats everybody who finished their works. You guys rock!

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trex/trexrender1.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trex/trexrender2.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trex/trexrender3.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trex/trexortho1.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trex/trexortho2.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trex/trexwire.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trex/trexdetail.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/trex/trexshade.jpg

This is the first of 3 models I finished for this challenge. It's the Tyrannosaurus from Jurassic Park, a great display of amazing animatronics and VFX done by Winston and ILM. One of my main inspirations to start studying CG.

Details:
100% poly painted in Zbrush. Base mesh modeled in Maya, imported in Zbrush for rapid prototyping, retopologized in Maya, back to ZBrush for detail reprojection and further fine detailing and posing using Transpose Master. No images were used for texturing, only regular alphas. The final mesh has about 12 million polys but it was rendered with one subD level less, at 3 million polys, imported directly to Maya. No displacements nor normal maps/bump used. Everything is pure geometry. Rendered in Mental Ray with 3 area lights. FastskinSSS shader used. Only color map and cavity map used (cavity plugged into the ambient slot). Render time: about 25 minutes each, on a Dual Quadcore + 8GB RAM, running Maya 2008 and Zbrush 3.1

Cheers,
-Kris

[Antropus]

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stan/stanrender1.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stan/stanrender2.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stan/stanrender3.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stan/stanortho1.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stan/stanortho2.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stan/stanwire.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stan/standetail.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stan/stanshade.jpg

This is the second of 3 models I finished for this challenge. It's a caricature of Stan Winston, originally painted on canvas by the master Sebastian Krüeger. In a sense, this is a double tribute: to the Master Winston and to Krüeger.

Details:
100% poly painted in Zbrush. Base mesh modeled in Maya, imported in Zbrush for rapid prototyping, retopologized in Maya, back to ZBrush for detail reprojection and further fine detailing. No images were used for texturing, only regular alphas. The final mesh has about 7 million polys but it was rendered with one subD level less in Maya. No displacements nor normal maps/bump used. Everything is pure geometry. Rendered in Mental Ray with 2 area lights and some white planes. Final Gather activated. FastskinSSS shader used. Only color map and cavity map used (cavity plugged into the ambient slot). Render time: about 1 hour, 5 minutes each (800x1000), on a Dual Quadcore + 8GB RAM, running Maya 2008 and Zbrush 3.1

[Antropus]

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinhead/pumpkinheadrender1.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinhead/pumpkinheadrender2.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinhead/pumpkinheadrender3.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinhead/pumpkinheadrender4.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinhead/pumpkinheadortho1.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinhead/pumpkinheadortho2.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinhead/pumpkinheadortho3.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinhead/pumpkinheadwires.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinhead/pumpkinheaddetail1.jpg

http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinhead/pumpkinheaddetail2.jpg

This is the third of 3 models I finished for this challenge. It's Pumpkinhead, created for the movie with the same name, directed by Stan. In his hand, a motorcycle chain. Watch the movie to know more about it.

Details:
100% poly painted in Zbrush. Base mesh modeled in Maya, imported in Zbrush for rapid prototyping, retopologized in Maya, back to ZBrush for detail reprojection and further fine detailing and posing using Transpose Master. No images were used for texturing, only regular alphas. The final mesh has about 12 million polys but it was rendered with one subD level less, at 3 million polys, imported directly to Maya. No displacements nor normal maps/bump used. Everything is pure geometry. Rendered in Mental Ray with 4 area lights. FastskinSSS shader used. Only color map and cavity map used (cavity plugged into the ambient slot). Render time: about 25 minutes each, on a Dual Quadcore + 8GB RAM, running Maya 2008 and Zbrush 3.1

I had a blast. Congrats to everybody who managed to finish and thank you all who stopped by my thread to say hello.

Cheers,
-Kris

[StevenEgan]

WOW! Amazing finals Kris. I've been waiting for this all month :thumbsup:

I'm sorry that Predator could not make the lineup. He was on of my favs.
But all the characters you made for this comp are outstanding.

T-Rex: Well the T-Rex is simply amazing. The details are great, and the trextuting works very well. My favorite part of this piece is the modeling. You crammed so much details in their, yet did not loose the character along the way. Nice.

Stan caricature: This is a brilliant tribute to the master, and to master Krüeger as well.
My favorite aspect of this piece is the modeling. You were able to capture Stan superbly.
The texturing is great also.

Pumpkinhead: This is probably my favorite of your final pieces. The modeling is gret! And nailed Stans design brilliantly. The texturing is nice, and the piece convays allot of attitude. Which is something I think the Master himself wanted to portray with this character. Again my Favorite aspect of this chracter is the modeling. Very well done.

Predator: I miss you!!! :cry:

Overall...... AMAZING ENTRY!!!

Good luck!

[DDS]

best-thread-evar :arteest:

[Spin99]

Ok
Best Model Pumpkinhead - Antropus
Best Diorama Stan Winston ICONS - Oliveira

Huh wait has the voting started yet?

[Sirhcnait]

Just great work. :thumbsup:

This thread is the real prize of this HMC (a learning tool in and of itself IMHO) It was great seeing your daily posts and your observing process as a whole (you are a machine!)

Thanks for sharing it all.

[mrBananas]

Amazing models,Kris! Always a pleasure to see your works :)

[KaDDD]

congrats Kris for all this excellent works
copain :D

kad

[CHERNABOG]

Oh man !!! I'm gonna miss this thread !!! :thumbsup: :love:Great work Kris!, congratulations on finish this models, It have been great to watch the process :D best of lucks on work !

[TimCallaway]

Best of luck to you, it was a pleasure seeing your wip =]

[AndroidMonkey4001]

Oh wow, it's all so good. Too bad you couldn't find the time to finish the predator. Your work is already over the top, but that predator would've put this thread over the top of the top, if that's even possible. Great tribute! :applause:

[BrettSinclair]

Aww man! I missed the entire thing! Amazing thread! Think I'll quit my job and become a plumber or something. Maybe open a bakery. haha.

You keep inspiring us. Keep going man.


Edit:

P.s..I just realised I can't bake either!! hahaha.

[Antropus]

Well, just bumping my own thread to say THANK YOU so very much for stopping by and for your constant support along this challenge. It was a fun ride and I enjoyed sharing and learning from all the participants. As I said before, those mini-challenges are great. No prizes involved mean less pressure and competition. It's just a fun way to add more images to your portfolio and to get to know people's workflows. I deeply enjoyed the several hours I've put on this challenge and the reason why I joined was Stan and his amazing legacy. T2 and Jurassic Park were the reasons why an ex-banker like me started dreaming about working for the movie industry. Stupid me :)
There's nothing else to say other than thank you Stan and thanks to the AMAZING team of artists that always surrounded him.
A leader is nothing without a great army and Stan was a great leader with an outstanding army of artists always on his side :bowdown:

God bless you all.

-Kris

[xLonewolfx]

f*cking amazing!

:bowdown:

[alancamara]

Well, I've more stuffs from you for my references' folder. :drool:

Congratulations kris, nothing more to say!

Alan

[ChewyPixels]

Astounding work, Kris! :applause: I don't know which one is my favorite...I'm torn between the Stan bust and Pumpkinhead.

It's a shame you didn't get to finish the Predator in time, but at least it's almost there. I would have definitely chosen that one as my fav but then again I'm biased towards that cool Stan creation! :p

I look forward to seeing more great works from you and good luck with the judging! :)

[RGhencev]

congrats Kris, your work is amazing.

Like always is a great class for me..
Thanks for share this. :thumbsup:

And later we would like to see this predator finished to. heheh :)

Abraçao ..

[TimCallaway]

It's been fun watching your work develop, all the best!

[farazmobin]

super stuff kris..really inspirational stuff. Stan looks so real.your a great allrounder:beer:

-wish you still post a finish ver of predator on your website

[WyattHarris]

Really enjoyed watching your methods this month. I picked up plenty of good techniques from watching you and I really benefited from your critiques.

All the best, good luck!

[Deepam]

Hey Kris !!

Great to see your finished artworks :applause:

It was very much inspirational watching this thread. Thanks to you for participating in this challenge.

Just love the T-Rex more, your texturing and lighting is also perfect. It will be a dream to see this T-Rex walking in a park. ;)

Best Wishes!!

[sanketpro3d]

Yo yO Kris .. it was really great experience to watch your thread.. its was like regular lessons .. your work is really inspirational.. i got to learn a lot from your artwork.. it was gr8 to have u in thiis competition . .. keep us inspiring .. gud luck ! :beer:

[D-E-A-N]

great work Kris!

[MayaDamien]

Kris you are mindblowing! Your stuff has always been such a great inspiration to me ;)

[Antropus]

Thank you so much guys. It means a lot to me. I got a little busy with other stuff but I didn't forget about the lighting/shader setup I promised. I'll be posting it till Friday hopefully, not more than Saturday.

Thanks again, congrats and good luck everybody :wavey:

Best,
-Kris

[bradjames]

this turned out just amazing. I'm in New Zealand but just had to check out the final results you did and man I'm happy I did. You have major talent thats for sure. I look forward to seeing the lighting setup you use in Maya. Thanks for sharing you work.

[ale3dfx]

Hello Antropus congratulations for the beautiful works are an incentive to continue growing very successful in his career.

Until more Alessandro.

[Monray]

Kris...mmmm...Amazing!!! Very good job, congrats :)..!!
serious fantastic to be able to see some tutorial showing the render process, shaders and illumination. Serious of great help for all.
I hope to be able to continue seeing a lot of your works..

[Antropus]

Thank you so much guys.
As promised, here are my render settings. As I said, there's NOTHING special, since I had so little time to put 4 complete models, posed, textured and rendered in a little bit more than a month. So, no fancy shaders or light but I'm posting here anyways because I'm sure someone can get little insights by looking at the used values. I hope it helps someone and don't forget: a good post in photoshop adds the final touch, always!

Pumpkinhead and T-rex light+shader settings

Key light (area):
http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinkeylight.jpg

Fill light (area):
http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinfilllight.jpg

Back light (area):
http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinbacklight.jpg

Shader and render settings:
http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/pumpkinrendersettings.jpg

[Antropus]

Stan Bust

Key light:
http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stankeylight.jpg

Back light:
http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stanbacklight.jpg

Ground:
http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stanobject1.jpg

Environment:
http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stanobject2.jpg

White planes 1 and 2 (for light emission + reflections):
http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stanwhiteplanes12.jpg

White plane 3 (for light emission + reflections):
http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stanwhiteplane3.jpg

Render settings:
http://www.antropus.com/temp/Cgtalk/stanrendersettings.jpg

Cheers,
-Kris

[DogBreath]

Thanks Kris, the Pumpkinhead is great, really like what you did with the Trex, the detail is amazing, and the shiny skin post was very nice and extra helpful to see the details. I used the low poly of that, as inspiration and a guide for my first attempt and it was very helpful, thanks again.

Good luck in the vote.

[JSlotosch]

I´m wordless, such great sculpts and so wonderfull renders, you definitely did it. :)

And, I wanna thank you so much for your insight of your setups.
I just started with Maya, doing the last time nothing else then reading the documents of it. But man, this will push me up, Thank´s alot! :)

Regards
-Josef

[TimCallaway]

Hey Kris, thanks for the settings of your work. I have one question though, on the Stan bust renders in the hypershade, I c an see your color mapped into the overall, your cavity mapped into the diffuse, but I see a 2DBump node connected to the SSS shader with no file attached to it. Is this just a extra node you didn't clear? Or is there a different use of that node? =]

[Antropus]

Hey Kris, thanks for the settings of your work. I have one question though, on the Stan bust renders in the hypershade, I c an see your color mapped into the overall, your cavity mapped into the diffuse, but I see a 2DBump node connected to the SSS shader with no file attached to it. Is this just a extra node you didn't clear? Or is there a different use of that node? =]
Yep. I had a bump node connected there before, when I was rendering a mid res mesh, but for the final piece, since I was using the highres mesh, I just deleted the map but not the bump node (if you try, it will break your shader and you will have to fix it. So I kept it).

-Kris

[iatriki]

great stuff in here! thanks for sharing your workflow! Did you do the retopo with maya's default tools, or did you use some help from NEX or another plugin? Maya's default tools don't seem too efficient for this kind of thing...it's a bit time consuming.

EDIT: Oh..silly me...I saw that you answered this before..and you use the make live thingie. :)

[WyattHarris]

Yep, you said simple and so it was. I'm curious how Maya handled all those polys on Pumpkinhead. I don't believe I've tried anything that dense before outside of ZBrush. :D

[Jinian]

Hi Kris, amazing works as always. There is no doubt you won't win this contest. I've been following your thread for quite a while now, and your skin wrinkle detail and conceptualized patterns never cease to impress me. Do you have any advice on sculpting wrinkles, any specified brush settings or whatnot?

Thanks for posting your methods, your works do not only serve to inspire but to educate as well.

[RobertoOrtiz]

Ok Ill post the results tonight.
-R

[JSlotosch]

Kris, I have a little question, you work with realworld scale, am I right?
So the head is about 25 cm, more or less, high?

Regards,
-Josef

[Antropus]

iatriki,
ha! No worries. I'm still working with tools from the Ice Age (the actual Ice Age, not the movie) :)

WyattHarris,
if you have 4GB+ (8GB+ is ideal) and Maya 2008, give it a try! Import a 3 million polys model and try to render it. Works great :)

Jinian,
thanks a lot! About the wrinkles, I work on the bigger volumes first. I define the bigger folds using the standard brush + Lazymouse + Alpha #49. This alpha works great since it carves the surface deep in the very middle and gradually presses the surface around. I keep working with this settings in all large to medium wrinkles. After, to detail the very fine skin details, I turn off the lazymouse, turn on the spray mode and switch to some of the alphas at the very last line. There's one that has those irregular vertical lines. It works great with the spray, producing very cool skin patterns. At the very end, I switch to the inflate brush, set the size of the brush to the maximum size ZBrush can handle and intensity set to 2. Then I brush all the areas that I want more organic, like the areas around of the eyes and mouth etc. You will notice a very subtle change but very effective to add more realism and organic feel to the wrinkles.
I hope this helps.

RobertoOrtiz,
thanks Roberto.

Flying-Hawk,
well, at work I HAVE to pay attention to this detail otherwise the others down the pipeline will kill me :)
But at home and working for this challenge almost like for a speed modeling session, I didn't care much about the scale and that's wrong, since the fastSSS settings are directly affected by the scale of the object in the scene. I should pay more attention to that but at that point I just wanted to finish my models :)

Cheers,
-Kris

ps.: here's a little tip if you're trying to import a multi-million (not more than 3.5 to 4 million) poly model in Maya and it's crashing. Instead of using the regular "import", open windows explorer in another window and drag and drop the file into Maya's viewport. It should work.

[JSlotosch]

Hehe, Kirs, okay thank´s for your answer! :)

Regards,
-Josef

[RobertoOrtiz]

Congrats!

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b216/robertoortiz1/cgtalk/17.gif
Well done!

-R

[TimCallaway]

Congratz!! Great job, good fun =]

[Antropus]

Thanks! :beer:

It was great great fun. Some long hours after work but it's all good if the theme is movie monsters and a tribute to one of the last big guys in this field. Stan Winston is a great influence and will surely be remembered for years and years to come. Him and his amazing talented team of artists left a huge inspiring legacy. He will surely be missed. R.I.P.

Thanks again to all of you for your support and for your votes (I sound like a politician...). A very special thanks to the my fellow Brazilians: muito obrigado a todos!!!
Also, congrats to Alex who put a great amount of quality work into this challenge and inspired me to produce more than one model. It was hard to keep up with him. The guy is a machine!

-Kris

[DDS]

Congrats for the win man! you totally dominated :bowdown:

[alancamara]

Without any doubts Kris, you again!:bowdown:well deserved!

Congratulations!

[Monray]

Amazing, congrats Kris...

[RTjunior]

Congrats man! Very nice work! :thumbsup:

[vfx]

This seems to be one of the most interesting threads as of recent, and I've only just jumped in!! Oh well, I have to say Kris, you certainly have pools of talent, and have given new life to many a character I grew up watchin on screen.. the pace at which you work is great! Love to see you put together a commercial free video tutorial for us mere mortals. :P

P.S. I never got to grips with ZBrush, and really look forward to being able to have a similar pipeline to yourself when the new Mudbox arrives. Its fustrating trying to complete a rendered model when the package isn't quite there yet... none the less, with Maya you can get some of the way there, and your tips are more than welcome support in this regard.

Do you ever use photographic textures?
How long have you been doing 3D?
Have you ever started a model, thought it looked crap and threw it away before anyone caught a glimse?
Do you have a family? Nothing personal intended... Just curious to see if this is something you have to balance given the time spent working on your models.

Look forward to more in the future!
Rock on.

[Antropus]

Thanks guys and sorry for the late reply. Quite busy :)

DDS,
you're too kind. Thanks my friend!

alancamara,
Thank you so much! you're kicking ass man.

Monray and RTjunior,
thanks guys!

vfx,
thanks for the compliments :)
Do you ever use photographic textures?
Professionally it's quite possible, but it's really rare for me to use anything other than hand painted textures on my personal work. It ends by suffering a bit with the realism part but it gains in style in my opinion, which I prefer. Besides, I got a little sick of seeing so many 3d.sk textures applied to bad models that look great when rendered then you ask for a non textured version and the model looks sooooooo bad :) People don't even bother to clean the specular from the picture, which makes the final look very deceiving.
If the point of doing my personal work is to improve my skills, I just prefer to do it old school way.

How long have you been doing 3D?
3D in general, I guess since 1994 or something like this. But I'm talking about flying logos and poor hard surface stuff :)
I got into the character/organic modeling in 2001-2002 and I'm still learning since then and will probably never stop for a simple reason: I'll never be satisfied with anything I do. I just finish something (like the models for this challenge) and the next day I think they look bad and want to fix everything :)
Probably this is the reason I don't finish much of my personal work. They are always working in progress, even when I call then finished.

Have you ever started a model, thought it looked crap and threw it away before anyone caught a glimpse?
Not that I remember. I normally start something and show it. Then a few days after I feel that it look like crap and remove from my blog. But people always get a glimpse of my crap anyways ;)
On the other hand, I have some models that are actually looking kinda cool but I feel it's not time to show them yet because they are still rough, not bad, just rough.

Do you have a family? Nothing personal intended... Just curious to see if this is something you have to balance given the time spent working on your models.
That's the thing, I have no family living close to me at this point. That's why I have so much free time in my hands :)
It sucks, it's lonely (friends do not replace family...) but I find a lot of comfort producing my stuff. Some musicians produce great work when they are depressed. I don't feel depressed and I don't think I produce great work but the fact I'm alone makes me wanna transform the situation into something positive. So, I sit my butt and produce work. Even when I don't produce anything but I spend hours looking at some references that I'm researching, I feel that this research was incorporated already and will surely be used later. It was not a waste of time anyways :)

That's pretty much it.

-Kris

[JSlotosch]

It´s nice to hear so personal words from you, make you alote more human. ;)

G.b.u,
Josef

[3mm]

great piece of works,very inspiring,i specially like your way to presenting your models,thanks for Tuts:)