WIP - sea creature

[JIII]

damn dude now that is one sweet looking peice of 3D.


I love it but you might also want to know that it is spelled Sea creature, not See creature. Unless it iis See because it can,see with its 4 eyes.


anyway thats nice I love those gills I tried them myself once and man My gills sucked great job.

[nataz]

you're right it's sea not see :blush: ..mistyping (if that's proper english )

btw : thanx for the crit... and what is gills ?

[JIII]

what a fish uses to breathe.

the things on the side of your creatures head.


those are gills.


you sneaky mod you.

[ThirdEye]

I read "sea" ;)

[Leonardo Vega]

Really nice flow of polygons. Very well done for animation (if needed). I would go ahead and add any details that you feel you can not get with using textures. Textures are more for adding small bumps and fine details. And since this is obviously not going to be a low-poly character, you don't have to worry about adding to much polygon detail. So my advice to you is to model all the details you can and use textures for the final "touch up".

For example in your drawing there seems to be a crease or a small hole for his nostril (nose), so I would definitely model that detail.

Looking at it again, I would recommend a few things:

1 - Add some more detail to the eyelids, maybe some imperfections or just a few creases.

2 - Push the forehead back a little to match the drawing. Right now his head is too blockish, needs more of a slope on the forehead.

3 - Add detail to the eyebrows. In your drawing, they have a mad look, they are very pronounced and stand out. Right now your monster seems to have a surprised look on his face. He's a monster, so you have the freedom to exagerate his expressions and add detail to it. Think tough and mean!

That's about it for now. Looking good and very close to your referrence drawing. Again, excellent poly-flow in your model. :applause:

-Leo

p.s. "Gills" are the flaps or creases you put on the sides of his head and you see them on the many fishees that roam our seven seas.

[nataz]

@thirdEye - thanx for the title... you've sea'n' it...

@vegabros - nice comments thx; i'll follow them... check it out soon.

PS: and thx to all for my english :beer:

[Leonardo Vega]

No problem :)

I want to be able to make models that flow that well. Your low-poly wire looks so clean. I guess I haven't found my modeling technique just yet. Can you share some pointers with us? Like how do you begin and what you use commonly to add details (like making the eyes and the mouth)?

I have a hard time making my poly-models flow because of C4D's annoying "auto-edges" after I use the knife tool.

Thanks! :D
Leo

[nataz]

Ok; here's my last changes; i've not done much to the mouth but i spent i lot of time on the eyebrows as suggested... thank you it was worth it. Though it's not perfect it's clearly more in the spirit of what i had in mind.

here it is
http://www.clarac.net/nataz/fshmn2.jpg

I have a hard time making my poly-models flow because of C4D's annoying "auto-edges" after I use the knife tool.


i would say NEVER use that dam' knife tool:thumbsdow (wait a little for mdme_sadie new plugin pack it's gonna save our lives).
I use the knife only to cut through meshes where i definitely know that i won't get any tri's; otherwise it's worthless; i'd rather use edgecut and really plan my mesh by sketch to know how completely avoid tri's (in this sea crature there's 1 tri inside the hole he's got in his head...but i'm gonna find the way to clean it though i should have planned better that part).

If you start modeling with let's say 2-3 tri's for each 10 quads you have it's gonna be a mess after 2 hours in order to clean. There's a lot of tut's regarding how to model without tri's. Try this one it's one of the best i know

http://www2.ocn.ne.jp/~mimura/tutorials/index_e.html

since i model i started like this tut say; with a cube. I take my sketches and i simplify them in cubes in order to know how to start. Then i use a lot of 'extrudes' (eyebrows) and 'inner extrudes' (eyes/mouth).

I hope i've been helpfull, tell me what you think about the new shot. :beer:

[Leonardo Vega]

Great improvements! Now that's a monster. I really can't make any more suggestions at this point, since you only worked on the eyebrows and they look great. And you did it very quickly!

I can't tell from your reference drawing, since it's a profile view, but maybe you can think about adding a crease or some kind of seperation between the left and right eyebrows.

Take a look at the pic I attached. The red shows what I mean.

But again, if this wasn't part of your design, then ignore it.

Thanks for your pointers and tips! I really appreciate it! :D

Can't wait to see the next update!

- Leo

p.s. I have my eyes on MeshSurgery too... :drool:

[nataz]

I have to work on some scripting today so no update until tonight...maybe.
But tomorrow i'll continue that fella'.

Thanx for your advices

[nataz]

ok, here i got some sketches regarding its body : tails, hand and body => this is not completely defined yet.
http://www.clarac.net/nataz/body.jpg

He's gonna have GILLS (got to use my new english vocabulary :D ) on the sides and I may add some stuff while modeling... i thought about making his spinal cord longer, to the end of his tail...

This can give an idea of what i'm after.

What do you think guys?

[nataz]

update ::

http://www.clarac.net/nataz/fshm2409.jpg

c&c...?

[mimo8]

the green insert looks great

[nataz]

well, thank you Mimo8.
But the colors are not the right ones; it is just to demonstrate which part will use different textures.

[JIII]

is it just me or is the jaw less prominant in your model than in those refrence pics?

Oh BTW thats a great looking thing you have got going there.


Anyhow I just think that the head is not quite as imposing in the 3D version as opposed to the 2D refrence.

P.S great gills;)

[nataz]

You're right JIII, but on the 2D reference that guy is open his mouth like if he was screaming... so i thought i'd model it a bit less open in order to be able to animate it afterwards.
But there's still a lot of work around the mouth, i'm not really happy with it.

I'm glad you noticed his gills, because gills are important, you know, there's nothing like gills, especially in a sea creature with big gills.

(oh god i love that word now i know it ;) )

[nataz]

last update for tonight:
Colors are not the right ones; just to see clearly each part.
I've worked on the mouth (outside and inside); as mentioned JIII i will definitely need some changes there... anyone's got an idea ?

http://www.clarac.net/nataz/fchmnface.jpg

[JIII]

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=61114&highlight=fish


well anyway this is a kinda fishy thingy I did a while back reminds me alot of mine specially the top little hole thing. Anyway

Its got a few little texturing things in it you might want to check out specially the scales and all I dunno if you would use them but.... I kinda like umm speically since I can claim to have made them w00t.

Anyway thats just a slightly similar thing I made a while back that was never finished but you might wanna take a peek at those textures.

Anyhow good luck.

[JIII]

er yea I pay yet another visit to your thread lol.

Anyway I was searching for differences and i notice that underneath the gills on your creature there is not nearly the amount or wrinkles that appear in the pic. because i am a bored as heck dude.

I just happened to do a little composite for you.


http://www.metafex.net/~j3/fishy%20composite.jpg


This illustrates the differences pretty effectively.

[nataz]

Originally posted by JIII

I just happened to do a little composite for you.
http://www.metafex.net/~j3/fishy%20composite.jpg
This illustrates the differences pretty effectively.

I think there's an error in your pic (at least that's what the server says....)

And i know i mad 3 gills and there has to be 4 in my sketch; arg! i'm caught!

While modelling i thought that was enough for his morphology; but now i have made the upper part of the torso i think it lacks; i'll made the 4th one as soon as i get my hands on it.

What about the lower jaw? do you this it is "square" enough ? i can't make my mind...

[nataz]

oh! and thanx for the texture (though i'm far from texturing yet).

well i'm interested, can you put it online for download ?

[nataz]

update : 4th gill added

http://www.clarac.net/nataz/4thgill.jpg

[nataz]

update :

it is still a little boxy and i don't know if i'll keep the arm this way or make it a little shorter... lots of questions as usual...

http://www.clarac.net/nataz/fshmnarm.jpg

[JIII]

hmm I thought it was somewhere in that thread i will try and find it and upload it later on today.

[Garma]

Originally posted by nataz
But the colors are not the right ones; it is just to demonstrate which part will use different textures.

I should keep that contrast high, looks very cool

good model overall

[nataz]

thank you Garma.

@JIII : what ybout that image link ?

[JIII]

well your image looks great and as far as I can tell my image should be working but I don't really think you need to work on it that much.

Anyway i was gonna load that texture up but......

well lets just say a certain someone discovered that he is stuffit illiterate.

anyway looks nice, that is a good point to keep the contrast up high.

[nataz]

i made his hand; i'm so slooooooow ...
actually i messed up a lot with its body, then erased all waht i did, then made the hand to relax :D

http://www.clarac.net/nataz/fshmnhand.jpg

[nataz]

new update (after all this time :blush: ...)

The textures are messed up; i have to re-do them from the start, but anyway.

http://www.clarac.net/nataz/fshmnx.jpg

some wire :

http://www.clarac.net/nataz/fshmanWire.jpg

thanx for your comments

[xeno]

I like it, its very cute!

[squidinc]

cool :) I'm watching this one, sort of reminds me of those naga things in warcraft: Frozen throne :thumbsup:

[nataz]

thanx Xeno & Squidinc,

btw, squidinc, what would be your advice for the texture ? Do you have a tutorial around that would more or less describe the technique you use ?

PS: congratulation for the biomechanical contest :thumbsup:

[xeno]

I think everyone wants to know that...sigh...if i could just take a straw and suck out every bit of texturing knowledge from ur head squidinc...

[nataz]

mmmmh... weird cocktail :beer:

[xeno]

Haha for sure...but what a wonderful hangover one would get after it..:beer:

[flingster]

hey nataz thats coming along nicely...like the way its developed into that last image...very cool...good work bud..:thumbsup:

i actually like the texture colouring...gives it that marine feel.

(only comment would be think the two sets of eyes are a little to uniform...unfortunately i'm not sure you can do anything about that now..needs breaking up a little...whether its size of placement can't put my finger on it..would only change the top set if you mess with it...but its up to you really..as always imho)

[nataz]

Originally posted by flingster
(only comment would be think the two sets of eyes are a little to uniform...unfortunately i'm not sure you can do anything about that now..needs breaking up a little...whether its size of placement can't put my finger on it..

You're right for the eyes and as well for the "i wouldn't do that now" because i don't know what my rigging would do if i break up geometry now. But i think it will change when the right texture will be on the skin; we won't notice it that much. I'm rendering it right now with a new set of more appropriate textures.

Stay tuned


Thanx for the crit

[flingster]

yeah its a tricky one really...good one textures, and maybe other detailing could help break it up...a few tiny spines or scales etc.
BUT don't mess with it if its gonna mess up your progress bud
:beer:

[nataz]

here it is :

http://www.clarac.net/nataz/fishmanx2.jpg

[nataz]

update (tweaking the texture...) :

i think it's close to what i had in mind (kind of stone fish skin)

http://www.clarac.net/nataz/fishmanx3.jpg

[modestmouse]

Thats really awesome!!!! I like the texture and the green blobs seem right, now lets see it in a underwater scene!

[nataz]

Thanx Modestmouse,

i'm playing around right now with lights for an underwater ambiance, but it isn't that easy...
Anyone got a trick for this ?

[JIII]

this is a good one create a plane with an 2d noise in the alpha channel, then take a volumetric with no noice spot and aim it at your creature it works like a charm.

[flingster]

nataz...the seam where the green spine meets the stone skin is to thin at that point try thinkening it up a bit...as a test.
other than that texturing is coming along by the looks of it.

:thumbsup:

[nataz]

Thanx JIII, i'll try that tomorrow.

@Flingster : can you bee more specific (sorry for my english... the "seam"?). There's 8 places where the spine is getting under the skin... are they all too thin or just one of them?

thank you

[flingster]

hope this helps...

[nataz]

Thanx fr your comment Flingster.
Actually the spine is going outside the skin and then inside and then... so on. But i think we may not see it clearly on this image. And the spine's texture is dark on the outside so we may see it as skin but it isn't.

i'm rendering something right now and i'm gonna post it soon, i hope we'll see better this point. And i'll post à wire that will better show the geometry of this part as well.

Stay tuned

[flingster]

ok now i see what you mean...what about some displacement so the skin deforms/stretches slightly outward on contact with the spine...very subtle of course...:shrug:

[nataz]

good idea Flingster, i'll check the displacement of my texture with a proximal maybe. Do you know if we can set the proximal deformation from a zone selection instead of an object?

Secondly, here's my last image of this baby :

http://www.clarac.net/nataz/fishmanx4.jpg

The lights are not water-like enough yet but i think it is a good start. Thanx JIII for the tip :thumbsup: . I've changed some stuff and added a light for each object in the scene (volumetric for the scene, normal for the body and normal with alpha for the ground).

C&C welcome

[flingster]

thats look very nice now...not sure about the proximal to selection thing...but if you have different materials for each selection that would get you around it anyway i would imagine...i guess its dependant on how you models internals are as you could start getting deformations all over the place and could be more trouble that its worth.

in that pic if you keep camera angle...would like to see head more turned towards viewer...also texture on shoulder looks stretched a little..but not sure how really (i guess its procedural)...or what you do about it.
lookin nice though..
:thumbsup:

forgot...maybe a little texture variance on those purple plantlife things..

[nataz]

Haha! Flingster, you got the EYE ! :thumbsup:

Right for the soulder's texture (a little streched... i didn't noticed; i'll move it a little) and yes it's procedural.

Right for the head, it is not completely turned toward camera on purpose as this guy is supposed to be moving. I'm rendering right now a new version with some smoke/dirt getting out of the floor... i hope we'll see it better.

Right for the "plantlife thing"; just a first shot, i have to tweak their texture a little more.

But i'm more or less happy so far with it, when i'll be done with the points above i think i'll consider it as done. Otherwise i'm gonna spend my whole life on it... :wip: :wip: :wip:

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