HMC #25 - The Oceans - Squid vs. Whale

[RageOfAges]

Hey Tim, great to see you aboard.

If you're thinking attacking squid, I'd like to direct you to the wiki entry for the Humboldt Squid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_Squid)

I watched a show on these guys. I wish I could remember what it was called. They are incredibly aggressive as the wiki entry points out. I didn't read the whole entry, but here's a few things I remember from the documentary:

1)They have an incredibly sophisticated communications system, which is based on chameleon displays (in the same way octopi camouflage themselves in reefs). These displays, researchers believe, not only convey messages, but also serve to mark individuals. Researchers also believe that this form of communication may even be more sophistacted than human language.

2)While they can be extremely aggressive, other circumstances have shown them to be quite docile. It is quite possible that their aggression is born of self defense. They were fished quite heavily in the past, and may have "learned" that humans are an enemy. They tend to be much more docile around humans in a)smaller numbers and b)smaller, less threatening ships or boats.

Anyway, I know you already had your idea, but I thought I'd bring these guys to your attention. If you're thinking KILLER SQUID, no species comes closer.

-rage

[MightyReg]

Sperm Whale and Giant Squid battle is a classic! It could be a really intense and dynamic scene, looking forward to it.

[TiMrozek]

Rage: Thanks for the info. That is a serious damned squid. While it's aggression might make it a more accurate choice as a predator, I think I'm gonna stick with my current idea. Mostly because these Humbolt's only grow to about 7 feet while the Colossal Squid can grow past 46 feet. I guess the Humbolt's do hunt in packs but sounds like they don't really go after whales. That communication stuff,via skin color is pretty interesting though. Hope I'll catch that show sometime, probably on Discovery or something.

[TiMrozek]

Forgot to post reference the other night so here is what I've got.

http://i698.photobucket.com/albums/vv346/TiMrozek/Squid_Whale_Ref1.jpg?t=1271883810

I plan to start modeling this evening. Who knows, might even get all ambitious and sketch out a concept too.

[TiMrozek]

Alright, got a little bit of a start tonight on the whale. Roughed in a base mesh. Pretty close to ready for zbrush but not quite yet. These things have the weirdest mouths. I never noticed before but they are insanely thin for how big the whale is. My favorite is that they actually have these weird holes in the top of their mouth for their teeth. The ocean sure has some crazy stuff.

http://i698.photobucket.com/albums/vv346/TiMrozek/WhaleWIP02.jpg?t=1271902133

[RageOfAges]

Damn, fast start Tim. Really good likeness, too. I find you don't really hear much about sperm whales. They don't seem to be covered very often in documentaries. Perhaps it is because they are so illusive, like the Blue whale. It is really amazing that two of the largest animals to have ever lived on this earth are so difficult to find.

-rage

[Intervain]

that's quite ambitious there Ti :) those squid give me the creeps with their beaks and spikes... :eek:

[RageOfAges]

This post was in error. (replied to wrong thread)

-rage

[paulcapon]

Yeah, excellent start Tim. Can't wait to see more of this.

-Paul

[TiMrozek]

Rage: yeah, but there is a decent amount of photo reference. The squid is the tough one, there is literally no video of it in it's habitat, and only one living specimen ever captured, so it's lots of pictures of it all bunched up or cut up.

Intervain: Lets hope the ambition pays off ;) . Both are pretty fun to work with, I just hope I can make it look as epic as it looks in my mind.

Paul: Thanks, more comin soon.

So both models' base meshes are pretty close to finished. I'll probably do a bit more tweaking before going to zbrush but I'm pretty close. Here's the squid's base. Pretty simple right now.

http://i698.photobucket.com/albums/vv346/TiMrozek/SquidWIP01.jpg

[TiMrozek]

Not a lot done today but got both bases into zbrush and just started to work with size and finetuning the general shape of the main base.

http://i698.photobucket.com/albums/vv346/TiMrozek/SquidWhaleWIP01.jpg?t=1272336309

[Luke046]

Good stuff, looking forward to see this epic fight!

[aovesen]

It looks great. I hope I can create a squid that comes close to looking as great as your current model does. Looking forward to your Zbrush progress and also how your scene setup is going to be.

[JasonTonks]

Yeah, I must agree, can't wait to see the end result for that Squid Tim, it's coming along great.

- it smells like the sea billy!

[Jussslic]

Those two base meshes look great, I can't get over how thin the sperm whale's mouth is...crazy. Looking forward seeing the detailing you do, and especially how you plan to pose the models.

[TiMrozek]

Luke: Pressure is on, working on making it epic ;).

aovesen: Glad you like it so far, I have a long way to go. The base you have in your concept looks pretty darned good, as do your current models. I look forward to seeing how ours compare. As I'm sure you've noticed, there aren't really a lot of very good reference images of the colossal squid.

Jason: Thanks, I have to ashamedly admit that I don't know what your comment is a reference too. It sounds familiar but I can't quite place it.

Jussslic: I really appreciate it. The base's are simple but I guess that's the point. I always sort of argue with myself over when I should bring the base into zbrush and just go for it. As for the mouth, yeah, it's really weird, it's such an iconic whale but I feel like the Moby Dick standard has a more rounded centered blowhole and a more substantial mouth. It was a total surprise to me when I saw how incredibly thin and long the mouths were.

Well, no sculpting done in this update, but I decided I wanted to start playing with poses for a little change of pace. The pose is identical in these but I decided to try a few camera options. Please feel free to send opinions on pose, camera, or anything else.

http://i698.photobucket.com/albums/vv346/TiMrozek/PoseRound01.jpg

[MightyReg]

The posing of the characters seems good for me. For the camera angle however, I think I would go with a camera more below them with an up angle, to emphasize the colossal battle between these two ocean forces. Right now camera 1 seems to have the better composition, so you could go from that.
It may also be a just a minor detail, but I think it would be more natural if the squid was more at the botom of your final frame and the whale above, to show that the squid is a creature that comes from the depths of the ocean and that the sperm dive from above to capture it.

[TiMrozek]

MightyReg: Thanks for the input. I agree about keeping the camera low. I'm also thinking about whether I want to put something else in the image to give a better sense of scale. I think my squid is slightly too big in that pose too.

Anyway, I've decided to spend some time on the models now that I have an idea of where I want to go for pose so I wanted to post the update on the squid. I'm working a little slower than I'd like.Had some crashing issues and installed a new drive with win7 64bit so I could use a bit more ram in zbrush, so that took me out of it a little.

Anyway, here is the newest version of the squid. Hope you enjoy

http://i698.photobucket.com/albums/vv346/TiMrozek/SquidWIP04.png?t=1272830390

[chichiri]

Nice work, that's an epic scene, good luck.

[DavidMansaray]

damn this is good work. keep it up! i would want a more up close shot as well. get he viewer right in the scene with the action

[TiMrozek]

chichiri: Thanks, epic is the endgoal after all
davidmansaray: Hey, welcome to the thread. Thanks man, yeah, I intend to really detail these guys so I can get the camera pretty close

Slow going as I'm pretty busy with a next week deadline on another project. Anyway, I've started to sculpt the whale. Hope you enjoy:

http://i698.photobucket.com/albums/vv346/TiMrozek/WhaleWIP04.jpg?t=1273190908

[TiMrozek]

Been spending a bit of time on the Whale and I'm pretty happy with where I've gotten it. All the basic detail is set in place so now it's just the fine detail left to do. Seems like that final 20% of a model always takes me about 80% of the time. Anyway, hope you enjoy.

Also, trying to host with deviantart cause it host's the original size. I've noticed that flickr and photobucket seem to resize now. I don't remember that being any issue before. Anyway, I think cgtalk found a way to resize, so right click>open image in new tab, to see full size I guess.

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/130/a/c/Sperm_Whale_WIP_by_tmrozek1.jpg

[Raman]

Very nice!

I am very impressed. The only two things I can maybe point out are the corner of the mouth and the lower part of the nose. The nose of the sperm whale is shaped like the keel of a boat: It is very thin near the bottom, where the mouth is, and broadest on top. When viewed from the front it should look like a teardrop falling upwards. This is because the sperm oil inside the nose is lighter than water, so that when the whale is swimming at the surface, the nose floats upwards and the thin portion down near the mouth acts like a streamlined tip, thus reducing drag.

Keep up the good work!

[RageOfAges]

I really like the sperm whale tim. It has a ton of life. Anxious to see more updates on this.

-rage

[TiMrozek]

Raman: Thanks for the tips. I really do want to get these models looking right, I intend to exaggerate both just a bit but I definitely want the core base to be pretty accurate.

Rage: Glad to hear you think so. It's fun trying to put a character behind animals like these. Hoping I can really come through when I get to the final pose.

So, time for a bit of an update I suppose. I foolishly bought God of War III recently and therefore got distracted for a bit, I decided I need to get back to work. Also, I've been doing lots of small tweaks, especially to the sperm whale, to try to get accuracy. I was lucky enough to be contacted by a Sperm Whale anatomical expert artist who has spent significantly more time than I have looking at these things. Please check out his work if you get the chance. Rick Pearson: http://www.flickr.com/photos/21181985@N02/

So, anyway, here's where I've gotten both models. I still have plenty left to do of course but hope you enjoy.

http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/139/5/7/Squid_and_Whale_WIP_by_tmrozek1.jpg

[Luke046]

wow, looking really great Tim. Both of them! What shader do you use?

[TiMrozek]

Thanks Luke, the matcap on the most recent post is fg_grey_metal and can be found on the pixologic site.

[Luke046]

Thanks, I found that one. The model looks way better with a nice material applied to it.

[chichiri]

The both models are cool, well done.

[angel]

Your models look good Tim but to be honest with you none of your compositions strike me. They do not feel epic, perhaps because you are trying to get them both completely in-frame. I think that you can come up with a better composition but if I had to choose from the 3 you posted I'd probably pick 3 cause it is the most dynamic of the 3.

[TiMrozek]

Thanks Angel. I agree with you, I have basically gotten rid of those poses and started from scratch recently. I am hoping to post some updates on new composition possibilities soon. I have been having some issues cleanly importing and posing both characters (subtools and all) in zbrush so it's been kinda slow going. Thanks for the idea about breaking the frame. I think I have been kind of thinking along the lines of framing everything but I guess the ortho shots can show the full models.

[TiMrozek]

As promised, updated pose with a bit more sculpting done as well. I think it's starting to come together. I had a hell of a time working out the best way to do this with 2 separate files with multiple subtools using transpose master, but I figured it out and now have a system for pretty quick easy reposing of the hi-res meshes.

Anyway, please feel free to critique away or offer up any ideas. I'm still trying to decide if I want to include a set for this scene. If I go with reality there probably would be next to nothing , or nothing, at all around because the whales dive extremely deep to get at these squid. Still, perhaps a quick shipwreck is in order. We'll see. For now, hope you enjoy (and be sure to right click/open in new window to see the full res version):

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/146/3/8/Squid_and_Whale_WIP_02_by_tmrozek1.jpg

[TiMrozek]

Alright, looks like it's about time to finish this thing. I'm just wrapping up my models. Of course I want to keep going but it's about time to just let go and be happy with where I am. So here is a test set up of just the Squid model. Figured I'd just throw up a preview and see if anyone has any feedback. Otherwise, guess I'll post again when I post my submission. Good luck everyone, there have been some really great work in progress threads and I certainly hope everyone gets to finish.

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2010/153/2/d/Colossal_Squid_WIP_by_tmrozek1.jpg

[dude5487]

Im late to this...looks great though! Would like to see it taken further with a background later down the line :).

[TimForbes]

yeah I think that is looking really good. Like the pose and like the material.

[TiMrozek]

dude: Thanks. Yeah, I have every intention to make this a finished piece after the challenge is over (texturing, making an environment, serious lighting, etc.) I guess when I finish and post it I'll just post a link to this thread so everyone who has subscribed to the thread can see the final piece without having to look for it.

I decided against it for the challenge this time, I've textured in past challenges but usually felt rushed, not to mention every challenge is usually followed with a debate over whether we should texture or not, so for this one I just decided not to.

TimForbes: Much appreciated :beer:

[angel]

I like the latest material you came up with, I cant wait to see this lit and textured after the challenge, it'll be a nice piece!

[TiMrozek]

It's been a fun challenge everyone. Congrats to those who finished. Figured I would post my final to this thread too, to wrap up the thread. Thanks those who commented and helped me with suggestions, hope you like the final. I plan on texturing this and making a more finished lit/textured version soon so I'll post a link to that from this thread whenever I get that posted.


Beauty:

http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/157/8/5/Squid_Vs_Whale_HMC_Final_by_tmrozek1.jpg

hi res link (http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/157/8/5/Squid_Vs_Whale_HMC_Final_by_tmrozek1.jpg)

Orthos:

http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2010/157/4/9/Squid_Vs_Whale_HMC_Orthos_by_tmrozek1.jpg

hi res link (http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2010/157/4/9/Squid_Vs_Whale_HMC_Orthos_by_tmrozek1.jpg)

Wireframe:

http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/157/5/5/Squid_Vs_Whale_HMC_Wireframe_by_tmrozek1.jpg

hi res link (http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/157/5/5/Squid_Vs_Whale_HMC_Wireframe_by_tmrozek1.jpg)

Turntables (links):

Turntable (shaded) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FylMeUMahRo)

Turntable (wireframe) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lARNYwnwGCg)

[Luke046]

It turned out really nice Tim! The pose is great as well. Yeah, texturing would be great! Looking forward to see that. Good luck!

[kbetter]

Great work Tim! You've really come far with Zbrush, I've enjoyed going through your old threads to see the progress :)

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