Competition #16 - TwiiK

[barrab]

It looks very nice! Good luck!

[-DT-]

was that otopos climbing over the earth? :lol:

[TwiiK]

I don't know. :p

Looking at it now I can't believe I drew that, in a bad way. It's something I shouldn't be proud of even if it was drawn 15 years ago. :)

Ohh well, it's out there.

[TwiiK]

This isn't looking all that awesome, but I've decided to finish it and see what I end up with. :)

http://www.twiik.net/files/images/wire_01.thumbnail.jpg (http://www.twiik.net/files/images/wire_01.jpg)

The biggest problem is getting a render out of the viewport I guess. I won't even be able to have stars or anything in there unless there's some tricks I don't know about.

[TwiiK]

The only reason I entered was to try out some texturing so I'm not going to bother spending time on the modelling.

Modelling, lighting etc. is done now:
http://www.twiik.net/files/images/texturingleft.thumbnail.jpg (http://www.twiik.net/files/images/texturingleft.jpg)

Just have to unwrap and texture it.

If I get a good idea (unlike this one :p) I may create a second entry and submit that one instead.

[TwiiK]

The unwrap is done.

I've actually learned a ton from this seeing as I've never unwrapped anything before, and never used pelt mapping before.

There's stretching and seams everywhere, but I don't care. :D
http://www.twiik.net/files/images/unwrapdone.thumbnail.jpg (http://www.twiik.net/files/images/unwrapdone.jpg)

Here's the uv's:
http://www.twiik.net/files/images/finaluvs.thumbnail.gif (http://www.twiik.net/files/images/finaluvs.gif)

The planet and the moon just has a default spherical uv map. It looks horrible, but I didn't bother with it.

The stars are just planes facing the camera. They all share the square in the middle of the uv map. The other squares are the satellites.

I still don't know how to remove a pelt mapping seam so if I made a wrong seam I deleted the modifier and created a new one. :p

Time to add some color.

[-DT-]

ermm... isnt it the entry are suppose to be tripoly?


btw... may i ask what is "pelt mapping seam" means??
"pelt mapping"??
whats that? @.@

sorry, still learning here :p

and how do u get the screen shot for ur image where it is in form of black and white boxes? and what that does??

[TwiiK]

Not sure what you mean by tripoly.

Pelt mapping is a new unwrapping method introduced in 3ds max a few years ago. It's great for unwrapping organic objects. Look it up on google and in the 3ds max help.

And the seams is where you split up the the pelt map so it can be stretched out into something you can paint your textures on.

You get the black & white boxes by applying a checker map to the diffuse slot of your material. It's useful for detecting stretching and seams in the unwrap.

[TwiiK]

Well, this was a letdown.

I sat down to start on the texture and initially just overlaid some different textures on the different parts, but it all looks so blurry in max no matter what I do so I'm giving up.
http://www.twiik.net/files/images/final_0.thumbnail.jpg (http://www.twiik.net/files/images/final_0.jpg)

Here's the texture sheet:
http://www.twiik.net/files/images/finaltexture.thumbnail.jpg (http://www.twiik.net/files/images/finaltexture.jpg)

Even at 300% magnification in photoshop it looks nowhere near as blurry and horrible as in 3ds max. Viewport or render doesn't matter. It's just as blurry or worse if I try to render it.

So as of now this is my final image. :)

[malibubob]

Well, this was a letdown.

I sat down to start on the texture and initially just overlaid some different textures on the different parts, but it all looks so blurry in max no matter what I do so I'm giving up.
http://www.twiik.net/files/images/final_0.thumbnail.jpg (http://www.twiik.net/files/images/final_0.jpg)

Here's the texture sheet:
http://www.twiik.net/files/images/finaltexture.thumbnail.jpg (http://www.twiik.net/files/images/finaltexture.jpg)

Even at 300% magnification in photoshop it looks nowhere near as blurry and horrible as in 3ds max. Viewport or render doesn't matter. It's just as blurry or worse if I try to render it.

So as of now this is my final image. :)

dont know about max but maya blurs the file textures when u bring it in and also adds a filter at render time that blurs it even more.

dont know where that would be, the file node possibly.

[LaughingBun]

your wasting soo much texture space if your gonna texture the alien like that why not just use a seamless texture. Change your render filter from AREA to catmull rom for the blurry texture.

[TwiiK]

I tried for a couple of hours to make it one seamless texture, but at first it didn't work at all because the pelt mapping would just pull it all into one heap. After a while I managed it, but trying to fit a 5 legged octopus inside a square texture area was something I had trouble doing so I separated the legs from the main body.

Also, looking at my uv map I don't quite see how I can "waste soo much space" seeing as there's not really that much space left.

If you could explain what you mean then I would love to hear it because, as I said, this is my first unwrap.

As for the blurryness it's identical in the viewport and renderer. I tried almost every filter and the sharpest was the mitchell filter for mental ray, but the textures still were just as blurry as in the viewport. This is something I will have to read up on and do some tests on I guess.

[LaughingBun]

your wasting space because your object doesnt need to be pelt mapped if your gonna texture it like that. use a uvw map with a box, or circular unwrap then jack up the amount of tiles you have. You dont need to unwrap everything if your just going to overlay a generic pattern. you can overlap uvs. you really have to for something like this. Like all the teeth, just place them on top of each other...

also another reason for the poly count is the texture density to model density is all messed up. Something with that many polygons needs more texture space in order to work right. The old games didnt have lighting engines the way you are rendering it now. They would be rendered globally and the lighting would be faked by painting it. So your kind of in between you have realistic lighting but not enough texture to support it.

try setting the texture self illumination up a little bit, might help make it look a little better.

[gsokol]

Cool Concept!

I agree with the above posters. Your UV layout is hurting you. All the tentacle's can be overlapped on each other, as well as the teeth. Also, the size of the moon texture compared to the size of the earth texture is not really consistent. The moon texture can be very, very small since it is barely seen, which would free up more space for the rest of your objects. Remember, the more space an object's uv coordinates take up on your texture sheet, the more detailed the texture will be in that spot.

As for the stretching textures, here is a suggestion. With the tentacles all bent and stuff, trying to unwrap would be hard. However, if you took an unbent version of the tentacle, unwrapped it, collapsed the stack, then bent it, the texture would stretch in a more believable way (i.e skin stretching when you bend your knee).

[TwiiK]

Thanks for the tips, guys. I deliberately made each tooth and tentacle unique because I want the textures to be unique. But the teeth are probably so small you can't tell anyway. As for the pattern that is there right now that was just to test, I was going to texture it properly in the end.

But as for overlaying the tentacles and the teeth wouldn't that cause a lot of stretching? Every tooth and tentacle is different. How would I proceed in overlaying them?

The reason the moon, the satellite (the bunch of squares) and the stars (lol, the stars are tiny planes and they have the same UV space as one tooth :p) have so much uv space was that I laid out the monster and the earth first, then I just fit the rest in where there was space left. I agree I could have fitted the main parts better, but I didn't so the moon got quite a bit of uv space.

Bending the tentacles after having unwrapped them makes sense, but my main problem now is how blurry my textures look in 3ds max. I will figure that part out before I continue. :)

[mcclane]

yo

i really like the idea, and its looking good considering the amount of polys you have to work with.

regarding the blurry textures, when you select your bitmaps in the material editor. then in coordinates roll out you have a blur slider, make sure this is set to 0.01. that should get rid of the blur in the render.

also read up about direct x shaders and hlsl shaders, max has these built in and they give you high quality in the viewport.

hope this helps, you might allready know all this, if you do then ignore me.

good luck

[heavyness]

like the concept. and while this could be a boss for a space shooter or shmup (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoot_%27em_up), i keep seeing it as boss fight from Mario Galaxy.

i say, lose the moon, concentrate on the actual boss. plus, i don't think you will need the stars. start thinking on how you would defeat this guy.. where is his weak spot?

and yes, you shouldn't have to plet map that. you could use 1/4 of your texture space for his skin texture and it would look good. i'll see if i can post a example.