Steampunk Myths and Legends Entry: Sean Young

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I'm currently trying to decide between two ideas, either a mechanised Ancient Greek civilisation, using Aeolipile's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile), or a fusion of Moby Dick and the Kraken legend, with a Steampunk Ahab hunting a white Kraken.

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Sorry for the lack of updates, had a few computer issues, but everything seems set now.

I'll upload some basic sketches for the orginal ideas shortly.

I've decided on a different myth altogether, a version of the Maori myth detailing how a Polynesian navigator named Kupe discovered New Zealand.

A "steampunk'd" version:
Long ago in far away Hawaiki a Mōhio Korohū (Steam Master) named Muturangi sat brooding, thinking of his revenge upon the villagers who had banished him to the far and lonely side of the island.

Muturangi was no Fisherman and soon began to starve. Using his skills he constructed a great Octopus to fish for him and named it Te Wheke o Muturangi (The Octopus of Muturangi) and became it's master. One day, before sending Te Wheke out to catch fish, Muturangi had an idea to get revenge on the Villagers. He told the Octopus to go to where the Villagers set their fishing nets, and to take the fish from them.

That day when the Fishermen pulled in their nets, they found them empty and torn. They returned to the Village empty handed, to be greeted with scorn from the Villagers who accused them of disrespecting Tangaroa, the god of Fish, and thus causing the tribes ill fortune.

The Fishermen went to Kupe, a great Warrior who called a hui. The whole island gathered around the evening fire to discuss the fate of their village. Kupe firstly spoke of his respect for the sea, of Tangaroa and Hinemoana, and how they had sustained their village since time began. Kupe also spoke of the fishermen who had generously fed and looked after their tribe since he was a young man, and how respected they were within the whanau. He committed himself to finding out exactly what had happened.

Kupe left early the following morning, lowering his nets he recited a karakia that would draw the fish to his net and waited. Kupe became aware of a presence in the water, and drew in his nets. They were empty and wrecked, just as before, and then he caught sight of the culprit, as the Steam Octopus Te Wheke o Muturangi made off with it's stolen catch.

Kupe returned to shore, and that evening sought out Muturangi on the other side of the island. Kupe told Muturangi what had happened, and asked him to stop his pet from stealing the tribe's fish.

Muturangi looked at Kupe and laughed, "I don't tell my pet when to eat or what to eat." He lied, "If it chooses to eat your fish, then that's what it does. Te Wheke is a creature of the sea and has a ravenous hunger to keep his furnace hot, they are his fish, it is you who is stealing from him!" Then Muturangi told Kupe to leave.

Kupe incensed replied as he was leaving "Then I will slay your pet, Te Wheke o Muturangi, and it will never trouble my people again!"

"Not unless it kills you first" Muturangi laughed after him.

When Kupe returned he told the people to prepare his Canoe for sea. So the canoe Matahorua was carefully prepared-the washboards at the bow were lashed on; two endpieces were put in place, one at the stern, one at the bow; and two stone anchors were brought from his grandfather, Ue-tupuke, who had charge of them. The boiler was primed and the furnace stoked. Extra fuel and supplies were brought aboard for a long journey.

Matahorua was launched and made for the fishing grounds. Kupe dropped their nets, in order to entice Te Wheke from hiding. The Octopus soon appeared and began probing for fish in the nets. Kupe attacked it with his spear, making Te Wheke recoil. He ordered the pursuit, and Matahorua was taken out to sea in pursuit of the fleeing Te Wheke.

Kupe pursued Te Wheke for many days and nights, until his provisions began to run short, but each time they began to draw on Te Wheke the Octopus would give a burst of speed to pull away again.

Eventually Te Wheke led them to a narrow channel between the islands of a new and undiscovered land, and it was here that Kupe corned Te Wheke o Muturangi, and they finally fought.

Te Wheke lashed out with its huge tentacles at Kupe's canoe, while Kupe and his warriors maneuvered their canoe to avoid being overturned. Te Wheke Seized the Canoe with his tentacles but Kupe lashed out at them with his Taiaha, severing some of the steel cables that controlled their movement. Still Te Wheke did not let go, and the Canoe was in danger of being crushed under Te Wheke's awesome strength. Kupe ordered the fresh water barrels to be cast at the monster. With Te Wheke's poor eye sight, the creature mistook the barrels for men hurled from the Canoe, and released it's grip to attack them instead. Kupe took his chance and leapt upon the head of the monster. Using his Taiaha he tore into Te Wheke's metal hide, exposing it's delicate inner workings. Kupe tore open the bladders of Hydrostatic æther that allowed Te Wheke to stay afloat, and the monster began to sink. Sea water rushed in through it's gaping wounds, extinguishing it's vital furnace, and Te Wheke-a-Muturangi sank to the depths dead, never to threaten the tribe again.

Low on fuel and supplies Kupe couldn't hope to return to Hawaiki, so ordered the Canoe to make land fall on the new land, which he named Aotearoa, the Land of the long white cloud (New Zealand). Kupe and his warriors explored the land before returning to Hawaiki to bring more settlers, and this is how the Maori discovered Aotearoa.

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Quick concept for the front section of a Greek Steam Train.

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Concept for a Kraken hunting Airship

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Steam Outrigger for the Kraken hunter Airship

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Kraken Concept.

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Concept for a Steam powered Harpoon Launcher

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Concept for Ahab.

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Some of the images researched when Designing the Te Wheke Steam Octopus.

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The Te Wheke Steam Octopus final design

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Quick 3D tests of the tentacle segment design.

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http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/22/16483/16483_1230300266_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/22/16483/16483_1230300266_large.jpg)

Work in progress. Tentacle has a basic test rig applied using Bones following a SplineIK. Cables are Splines with splineIK and helper objects FK'd to the tentacle bones. Basic materialing, all procedural.

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Blocking out the rest of the body.

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Testing the neck rig and segment shape.

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http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/22/16483/16483_1230304539_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/22/16483/16483_1230304539_large.jpg)

Testing some ideas for the materialing. Brass or copper. Coppers darker slightly more red/orange hue fits the Pacific Giant Octopus better I think.


More updates to come shortly.

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Better material. Just need to balance the colours to be more Copper like.

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First attempt at the Octopus head

[ra-gevz]

wow! :) can't wait to see that octo taking more steampunking!

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Thanks :). I had planned on adding smoke stacks, piping and steam valves, belching smoke and steam, but time is drawing short so those will be an "if I have time addition".

New update in next post.

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http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/22/16483/16483_1230580884_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/22/16483/16483_1230580884_large.jpg)

Some tweaking to the material, remodelled the eyes and started adding panelling and rivets to the body and head.

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Added some eyes to the sockets.

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Testing the scale between the octopus and a Kupe sized biped.

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A selection of some images used for formulating a Steampunk version of Maori dress and tattoos

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About 3hrs of work on the body and limbs of Kupe. Going for a lean athletic/Muscular physique.

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http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/22/16483/16483_1231016653_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/22/16483/16483_1231016653_large.jpg)

Added some definition and a basic skin material. I'll be adding the Head, hands and feet next.

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Kupe head modelling. Still needs some tweaking here and there.

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Added the head, hands and feet, plus some further tweaking.

Maori Warriors seem to wear a sort of grass skirt with stiff strands. I'll probably go with an articulated set of metal plates, like those on some types of medieval armour.

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Added a basic stand in for the Maori Skirt. I doubt this will be the final version though. I think I'm going to go with a metal one.

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Testing the UVs with a basic colour map and the exported wireframe.

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Working on the Maori Steampunk style tattoos.

Maori tattoos have meaning, I've tried to mirror that here. The filled in lines are representative of smoke, life I guess. Outlined lines are Steam, meaning strength perhaps. There's also more traditional Maori imagery, like a stylised fish hook. I've thrown in Steam Whistles, Cogs and stylised fire as well. I've not thought too deeply about it, but tried to put together tattoos that represent the characters past and personality, as traditional Maori ta moko do, but with more steam and mechanical related symbolism, rather than the Maori focus on nature.

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http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/22/16483/16483_1231603818_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/22/16483/16483_1231603818_large.jpg)

Testing out the look of the final pose. I've been trying to upload this for a few days, but have been caught out by the server troubles. I've got most of the pose done with the final characters, I'll upload the WIP soon.

The image in the background is Tory Channel in New Zealand, and is the basic setting I'm going for. In the distance you can see New Zealand North Island. My original idea was to frame the two characters between the channel cliffs similar to how it's shown here. Looks like I won't have time to add the cliffs to the final image though, unfortunately.

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http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/22/16483/16483_1231654361_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/22/16483/16483_1231654361_large.jpg)

Te Wheke and Kupe battle on the Sea. This is the final pose more or less, still a lot of work to do before it's finished though. I need to sculpt the water and add spray to show the surface of the sea reacting to the characters. It could also do with some foam and perhaps choppier waves to make it look less like a swimming pool. I also need to add Smoke and Steam effects, to the Octopus, and a proper lighting rig. The sky is currently a placeholder which I'll be replacing soon with a purpose made texture.

I'm worried that having Kupe in the centre of the image draws the eye to him and keeps it there. Maybe if I shifted the focus to right a bit, so the closest tentacle is in the middle?

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Still weirdness on the server time stamp?

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With the deadline extension (thank you) I've decided to spend some time on the scene effects I thought I wouldn't have time for. I've played with the lighting a bit, and think this is better than the previous rig. I've also adjusted the poses slightly, as the emphasis of the image was slightly too much toward Kupe as he was framed by Te Wheke's tentacles, and dead centre of the image. I've adjusted the octopus pose so that the central focus of the Octopus (the eyes) and Kupe are both around the same distance from the centre point, and I've tried to frame those, so that focus is split between the two and not drawn and held to Kupe. I've also rotated both slightly, so it appears that the Octopus is floating on the surface, rather than just sitting on it.

I've added a splash to the forward tentacle, to give the illusion that it's just flicked out of the water to crush Kupe. I'll likely try to add motion blur to the tentacle and the splash to further enhance the effect.

Te Wheke's smoke is a simple particle system. I'll be adding something similar for steam at a few places on the Octopus body.

I'll be adding some more particle systems and material effects to add a slickness to the Octopus body, to make it appear wet, like it has just broken the surface.

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I've adjusted the pose a bit more, and sculpted the water plane to appear to be reacting to the movement of the tentacles better.

I've also added some particle systems to produce the water effects of the tentacles flicking out of the water, and a better lighting rig. It's still a bit dark, so I might have to work on that. Also the tentacle behind Kupe is at an odd position, and needs to be re-posed.

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I'm now working on the final version at the final resolution of 3510x2106 pixels. This conforms too the largest image that can fit on an A4 page at 300 DPI with a widescreen aspect.

I've added some more lights as the characters were too dark, including a bounce light underneath with a projector map to give it a fake caustics look.

There's still a fair bit of post processing to do, using purely 3D certain effects like foam on the sea were unsatisfactory. I could have painted them in as a texture, but it's easier to just do it in post.

[Korendo]

I have 3D envy! Well done.

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Made some adjustments to the image flow. The smoke interfered with the lines of the image, and Kupe's face looked wrong.

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I have 3D envy! Well done.
Thank you, and good luck with your own work!

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http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/22/16483/16483_1232317423_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/22/16483/16483_1232317423_medium.jpg)

Adjusted the smoke positioning yet again, and adjusted the particles system and material, as it was still detracting from the rest of the image.

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Flat Shade View of the final Scene. My next upload should be my final image submission, after some post processing.

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Te Wheke Clay Render

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Close up clay render of Te Wheke's head.

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Final Clay Render, Kupe.

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Fixed some areas. Trying to decide to upload the image with or without motion blue as the final.

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Same image as before, without motion blur.

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Software: 3ds max

Long ago in far away Hawaiki a M?hio Koroh? (Steam Master) named Muturangi sat brooding, thinking of his revenge upon the villagers who had banished him to the far and lonely side of the island.

Muturangi was no Fisherman and soon began to starve. Using his skills he constructed a great Octopus to fish for him and named it Te Wheke o Muturangi (The Octopus of Muturangi) and became it's master. One day, before sending Te Wheke out to catch fish, Muturangi had an idea to get revenge on the Villagers. He told the Octopus to go to where the Villagers set their fishing nets, and to take the fish from them.

That day when the Fishermen pulled in their nets, they found them empty and torn. They returned to the Village empty handed, to be greeted with scorn from the Villagers who accused them of disrespecting Tangaroa, the god of Fish, and thus causing the tribes ill fortune.

The Fishermen went to Kupe, a great Warrior who called a hui. The whole island gathered around the evening fire to discuss the fate of their village. Kupe firstly spoke of his respect for the sea, of Tangaroa and Hinemoana, and how they had sustained their village since time began. Kupe also spoke of the fishermen who had generously fed and looked after their tribe since he was a young man, and how respected they were within the whanau. He committed himself to finding out exactly what had happened.

Kupe left early the following morning, lowering his nets he recited a karakia that would draw the fish to his net and waited. Kupe became aware of a presence in the water, and drew in his nets. They were empty and wrecked, just as before, and then he caught sight of the culprit, as the Steam Octopus Te Wheke o Muturangi made off with it's stolen catch.

Kupe returned to shore, and that evening sought out Muturangi on the other side of the island. Kupe told Muturangi what had happened, and asked him to stop his pet from stealing the tribe's fish.

Muturangi looked at Kupe and laughed, "I don't tell my pet when to eat or what to eat." He lied, "If it chooses to eat your fish, then that's what it does. Te Wheke is a creature of the sea and has a ravenous hunger to keep his furnace hot, they are his fish, it is you who is stealing from him!" Then Muturangi told Kupe to leave.

Kupe incensed replied as he was leaving "Then I will slay your pet, Te Wheke o Muturangi, and it will never trouble my people again!"

"Not unless it kills you first" Muturangi laughed after him.

When Kupe returned he told the people to prepare his Canoe for sea. So the canoe Matahorua was carefully prepared-the washboards at the bow were lashed on; two endpieces were put in place, one at the stern, one at the bow; and two stone anchors were brought from his grandfather, Ue-tupuke, who had charge of them. The boiler was primed and the furnace stoked. Extra fuel and supplies were brought aboard for a long journey.

Matahorua was launched and made for the fishing grounds. Kupe dropped their nets, in order to entice Te Wheke from hiding. The Octopus soon appeared and began probing for fish in the nets. Kupe attacked it with his spear, making Te Wheke recoil. He ordered the pursuit, and Matahorua was taken out to sea in pursuit of the fleeing Te Wheke.

Kupe pursued Te Wheke for many days and nights, until his provisions began to run short, but each time they began to draw on Te Wheke the Octopus would give a burst of speed to pull away again.

Eventually Te Wheke led them to a narrow channel between the islands of a new and undiscovered land, and it was here that Kupe corned Te Wheke o Muturangi, and they finally fought.

Te Wheke lashed out with its huge tentacles at Kupe's canoe, while Kupe and his warriors maneuvered their canoe to avoid being overturned. Te Wheke Seized the Canoe with his tentacles but Kupe lashed out at them with his Taiaha, severing some of the steel cables that controlled their movement. Still Te Wheke did not let go, and the Canoe was in danger of being crushed under Te Wheke's awesome strength. Kupe ordered the fresh water barrels to be cast at the monster. With Te Wheke's poor eye sight, the creature mistook the barrels for men hurled from the Canoe, and released it's grip to attack them instead. Kupe took his chance and leapt upon the head of the monster. Using his Taiaha he tore into Te Wheke's metal hide, exposing it's delicate inner workings. Kupe tore open the bladders of Hydrostatic æther that allowed Te Wheke to stay afloat, and the monster began to sink. Sea water rushed in through it's gaping wounds, extinguishing it's vital furnace, and Te Wheke-a-Muturangi sank to the depths dead, never to threaten the tribe again.

Low on fuel and supplies Kupe couldn't hope to return to Hawaiki, so ordered the Canoe to make land fall on the new land, which he named Aotearoa, the Land of the long white cloud (New Zealand). Kupe and his warriors explored the land before returning to Hawaiki to bring more settlers, and this is how the Maori discovered Aotearoa.

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