Enchanted Forest - environment - Scott Harris

[Scott Harris]

:cool:

[Scott Harris]

ok I modled that this mourning and then got some textures in mind...I mixed these up to make something i liked.

(i figure your supposed to go step by step to show progress)

[Scott Harris]

ok...

[Scott Harris]

one more image for tonight. tell me what you think so far please.

[leigh]

Hey, Scott, that looks pretty cool so far :thumbsup: I'm presuming it is some kind of little fruit, or a flower? The texturing looks really nice so far too. My only comments would really be that the wood texture you've used on the bottom looks just a little too much like a photograph that has been planar mapped on the Y axis, and where the green part goes that grey colour at the top (those streaky bits) - errr your bump and specular maps should show some kind of difference there too...:hmm:
Umm... the best way to start off your challenge entry would be to tell us your whole concept, or post a sketch or something. That way, we can have a better understanding of where this little object fits in...
But if your entire scene looks something like this, then I'm looking forward to seeing it! :)

[Scott Harris]

good point about putting a sketch...i really am not finalizing anything because i intent to just have fun with it but it might have a composition and look similar to this...

[Scott Harris]

damn...this is a very very very rough draft by request...it will be more enchanted somehow...i'm going to drink some beer and then stair at it upside down to figure out how.

[leigh]

:) Aaaaah that's better...
Ok I see where you are headed now :bounce:
So it's a giant tree, and these green things are the fruit on the tree (or the fruit/flowers of a vine which grows on the tree), and there is a little tree house. Great! Cool concept :thumbsup:

What are those things coming out of the roof of the treehouse??

[Sangotten]

That looks great!
If the rest of your work is gonna be as detailed as that one, then is got to be great... ehhhh yes.

Anyway keep up the good work!:thumbsup:

[hypercube]

That's a really cool, uh, flower pod thingy :D Nailed the plant feel wonderfully..I like the translucent feel of the dark green bits (seen plants like that from rainforests, but no idea what equates to what in plant anatomy..heh).

Good question though, is it a giant tree, or a tiny house? Right now the pods look fairly 'real size' i.e small.

Anyway, fabulous start, look forward to more..

[jeroentje]

Ehhh... no offence me but, ehhh...
Do you realize that your flower looks a lot like a papaver-bulb? That's what heroin is made out of... difference is that those don't grow on trees but in fields.

jeroentje

[rolhionjs]

wow ! that's so real looking !! :thumbsup:

can't wait to see the final concept :)

[Scott Harris]

yeah leigh , hypercube, I want it to look like the tree is huge and the house is very small...with alot of moss and other forest like things growing all over to help out my simple modles.

jeroentje, I actaly used refrence from a bulb-like plant that grows in my back yard...but i never herd of a papaver-bulb...and of course no offence taken I know what you mean.

folks this little thingy is part of the background, one thing that will make it more interesting is that I was thinking of displaying the growth process by placing them in diffrent stages of development through out the scene. I will post the concept for that later today. I have many things to try...I'm just trying to decide the feel and composition i want right now. all feed-back is being taken into consiteration my friends. :deal: thanx

[Scott Harris]

hey guys this is taking a while...after i get threw with modeling i should be doing alright.

this is a snap shot of my basic composition...there will be more going on in there i just have to get myself moving
I know i need a lot of feed back, i need some good advice.

[Carlocki]

everything great

i would like to know the tools used torealized the last sketch

[Manny]

cool:)

[pearson]

I love those little pods! Your sketches are very nice too.

[Scott Harris]

hey guys i'm trying to get my butt moving...there should be more updates quickly from now on, i hope.
I've been busy doing free lance for Nickelodeon...pretty cool stuff.

Carl, I've just been throwing my snapshots and sketckes into photoshop and overlaying them with grunge maps.

[ZrO-1]

Did you mask out your 3D stuff when you were editing in PS or is that an outline shader? I am seeing this black outline around all of the 3D pieces.

[Carlocki]

Scot i like ur compositing very much

[Batmanuel]

Scott, this looks great! I definately like the compostion of the piece, along with the first vegetation renderings. Nice texture work also. Not much to critique at this point, keep up the good work:buttrock:

Batmanuel

[OZ]

awesome renders and great design! Hey! hurry up with update!!!i can wait to see more!:thumbsup:

[Dark_Des]

hey scott, your textures are really kickin' ass, what appz did you use to render this?

Keep us updated.

[Scott Harris]

heh heh this is my little caracter...i modled him in about ten minutes.

[Scott Harris]

i spent a little more time on texturing it. This is what growes inside thise little pods.

DarK_des-- Unfortunatly, I'm rendering in maya. But I am using the G.I.joe plug in...wich is helping me along...

I was going for a cute character but i was using those bright colors to denote that it looks...is...posionus. But in comparison to the feel of the scene as a whole...i think i'm going to change the colors. Tell me what you think. :cool:

[Adam Klein]

mouth watering textures:drool:

no critique yet, only goodness

:beer:

[Scott Harris]

thanx man, I'm just playing around with the colors...i dont know how much i like this...im going to put it in the scene, more updates soon.

[hypercube]

Cool little, um..guy? slug? thing :) I kinda like the brighter scheme better, or maybe it's just the blue and green combo that's not popping. Skin maybe seems a little obviously a leaf vein pattern, but that looks cool, and he grows in a pod, so why not? Only thing I'd say pattern wise is it seems a little too obvious with the stripe overlapping the arm(?), if it broke up some or flowed around it that'd help I think. Some of that translucent/fleshy feel you got in the pod leaves might be cool on it too.

Anyway, neat stuff, curious to see him in the scene..

P.S. Nice retasking of maps..does the carpet match the drapes? :D

[Adam Klein]

I really like the new surface, but... I love the old one, maybe use both in there as if those creatures can have different color patterns, just like cats. just something about those vivid colors man, tasty! nice render too, is that hdri?

this make me want to texture badly!

[OZ]

Fantastic way of texturing!I never seen before!One of the most original works ever!Brilliant.:applause:

[ZrO-1]

@ Scot Harris: I'm having trouble getting my shadows to bake in GI_Joe. I'm using Maya 4. Since you seem to be a master with this plug-in would you be so kind as to give me some pointers. (I tried reading the guide over @ pixho's site but I don't get what's up with the IPR to bake the shadows bit. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

As far as your latest pics. I really like the green/blue combination more than the orange/yellow. And that was clever as hell using the carpet for the color. LOL

[Scott Harris]

Zr0, sure thing, I'd be glad to...I'm at work right now finishing up some stuff...there is not much i can do until I get out of here. I will send you some mail later today. or you can be more in depth---> WeCanBeArtists@AOL.com

thanks for the feed back...from everyone. You gotta love cgtalk...

[dmcgrath]

Scott,
This is very good work so far. You are making the simplest characters look very detailed and rich. Hats off to you bro.
The idea of the carpet is nice but there is too little bump on the bottom of your character. It looks to me like sculpted corkboard or something similar. I don't know if this is your intention. Is he kind of like a slug that will leave a slime trail or something?

[Scott Harris]

i"m going to post up another view of that carpet thing...your right it needs to look more slimy...i want you to know its wet like a slug just by looking. you know? yeah a slime trail...but you know i have to change it up a little...more like soap suds :cool:

i have more vegitation for the scene. i will have a textured render by the end of the night for you guys so tell me what you think.

[ZrO-1]

I'm sure you already know this, but one really good way to make something look wet and slimey is to bring the specularity all the way up and the eccentricity way down as well as cutting the diffuse down a bit. Nothing original, but it gets the job done quite nicely.

As far as your piece so far it's looking really incredable. I love the perspective of looking up and along the length of the branch. I couldn't tell that before. But it looks sweet now.

[Scott Harris]

here you go guys...i'm tired

[Scott Harris]

damn...too tired.
there will be more in the background i just put that sky over there to test it out...see what direction to take it in...

[Sangotten]

WOW!!!

That's looking great!!!
I really like the airy and light feeling of it.
It reminds me of one the worlds of MYST 3, the world with the large tree....
Anyway, keep em coming!!!:thumbsup:

[OZ]

YEAH!!!!! FANTASTIC! still amazed by ur unique style!:buttrock: WRAKKABUM!

[leigh]

Wow that is REALLY cool!! :applause: :applause:
It reminds me of the movie "James And The Giant Peach" - it has that same feel to it :)
great work!

[ZrO-1]

That looks really really awesome. My only crit would be the rope ladder going up to the house. If I hadn't seen it in an earlier version, I wouldn't be able to tell what it was in that last render. I think that's the only bit that could use some tweaking. I love the colors you used in the sky BG. :beer: :applause:

[Scott Harris]

hey guys i add my entry to the compilation page quite a while ago... How long does it take untill it actually shows up on there?

Zr0, yeah i know...i was just tired and a little lazy :cool: i'll fix it today after I get out of work and then go to work...work work work...:shrug:

[Scott Harris]

hey guys i'm still working on it...look for an update with textures real soon...later today

any ideas?

[levin]

AMAZING. your last post is just brilliant!

make it a restaurant. complete with seats outside just like the ones in paris

as for your thumb, i think you have to wait until Tito updates it.

[Scott Harris]

ha ha a bug restaraunt? now that you think of it...
heh nah i have some ideas... i just hope i can finished, I'm going to be jam packed with projects next week :surprised

leafPad_clr ---> hdri? nope but i wish i had that :scream:
do you use it?

[Scott Harris]

more to come very soon

[ZrO-1]

Scott that is look fantastic man! Those textures are amazing. Only question I have is did you composite the pods into the image in post? Because I'm seeing what looks to be the edge of the tree trunk coming through the pods. :surprised

I hope my work comes out half as good as yours it turning out.

[Scott Harris]

this is it for tonight...

yeah man im just compositing some things for now...all those rough edges will be gone in the final...probley sooner

hey alot man :thumbsup:

[Joebount]

"Sound of jaw falling on the floor"

Really nice texturing skills !

[Scott Harris]

hey every one...I'm sorry to say this but I thought it might happen...even though there are many things I would like to add to my thread, These will be my final images for this challenge. I'm glad I got this far and did not have to drop out compleatly...
I had alot of fun with it (although not very much time to elaberate)... I hope to have more time in the next :hmm:

enjoy,

[Scott Harris]

:D

[Scott Harris]

:scream:

[hypercube]

Damn, that's a shame. I know how you feel.. :hmm:

Still, what you did up til now is really freakin awesome. Those flower petals are genius. Really like the design and feel of everything.

Good luck and look forward to seeing what you do next time :)

[AJ]

Is there any chance you could just give me all your models/files/renders so I can whore them off as my own?

:D ;) :p

Don't you dare not finish this when you have some time - I'll hunt you down like a dog, it's all splendid.

:D

[ZrO-1]

Man I'm sorry to hear you have to go. I hope you won't be a total stranger. And I'd recomend you keep this piece on a back burner somewhere. Even if you can't finish it now, it's too good to scrap alltogether.

[Scott Harris]

hey I'll definatly be in the next one (as long as its not totaly about modeling...) I just have alot of work ahead of me at the moment. I have many projects that need my attention with Nickelodeon, and Finale studios...I'm booked :shrug:

ha ha AJ...you crack me up...I would love to work on it still when i get some time...(you know that whole take a break from cg by doing more cg type of thing....arg

good luck everyone, and tell me what you think :thumbsup:

[pearson]

Really like these last renders! Especially the subtle colors on the flower.

I know it's dumb, but for some reason I feel that laying an image on top of a render is "cheating". I can't really explain why, though, and it doesn't make much sense to me. The only arguments against it that I can come up with are "Then you can't move the camera", which doesn't matter since this is a still image...Dunno.

Anybody else have thoughts on this?

[ZrO-1]

hehehe the only reason I don't stick 2D stuff into my 3D stuff is because I'm not good enough to hide the fact that I did it. :p

[drewzer]

this is truly some really good work, you NEED to finish it

[Scott Harris]

pearson: well in my opinion no artistic expression is really cheating...unless your a copy machine...heh heh

nah but really its just a style i've been looking into...but thats also why I posted the clean image. I really like using overlays and messing up the image some times. I was using it in this case just for a dirty picture/ camera effect...just trying to try new things and for fun really.
...i've been doing alot of compositing lately...

[bike]

I love it, and the textures are sweeet.

i was quite suprised you rendered it in gi joe too.. heh!

nice colours.

:buttrock:

[pearson]

@Scott Harris - I didn't mean to sound like I was accusing you of cheating, I was just wondering out loud why I feel it is cheating. I mean, in traditional media you really can use a copy machine, or cut pictures out of the newspaper and it's perfectly OK. But if you do the same thing in 3D it's looked down on. :shrug: I just don't know how I got this idea ingrained in me, and I was hoping other people would pipe in with their opinions.

I think that it worked really well when you only applied it to the branches. When you put it over the whole image it was pretty distracting, IMHO.

Anyhow, sorry to see you had to pull out of the challenge. Hopefully next one...

[Slot]

In my opnion, there is no cheating on this thread.

All cg artists that do more than modelling have to use render on passes, and post production some day.

I just see a very clever guy that just re-rende some elements of his compositions, and put all together in Photoshop to see how it will be on the end. There is nothing that create a cheating- sense for me on this.

We just have to learn with Scott here, since almost all guys on the challenge re-render complete scenes and loose great time on it using gi ,dof, and so on.

Well, that is my opnion.

Great work Scott.
It would be great to be it finished.

[Bezerker75]

I would have to agree with Slot on this one...I have worked for 2 different studios in the past 6 years now and we constantly composite and it is heavily encouraged...ILM ,Dreamworks and all the major studios use compositing almost religiously...the goal is to make the image as good as it can be...and if you can achieve that better by compositing then why not....I am not saying go out and take a picture and slap a 3d model on it an call it a day...I am saying experimentation is what makes the medium of art fun...anyway...that's my 2 cents for what it's worth!! (probably only about 2 cents..lol) :insane:
:)

[pearson]

LOL! Ok, I want to get over this phobia of compositing. And I think the only way to do that is do some compositing. As has been said, experiment with it, learn from it.

So, any suggestions on what to try? I mean, what is compositing usually used for? The only things I can think of are combining multi-pass renders, and dropping an image in the background...not very imaginative.:shame: I'll try overlaying textures, ala Scott in this thread...Any suggestions welcome!

[Scott Harris]

heh you guys are cool :thumbsup:

Looks like a good conversation got sparked. Pearson I am looking forward to seeing you experiments with compositing...I understood what you were trying to say.
I take a good amount of texture resources with my digital camera, I try and take it everyware...scanning stuff all the time too.

[Scott Harris]

hey the deadline got changed to the 30th !?!
awesome...I'm back in! look for updates on the 24th

[sssssss2ooooooo]

hey its getting competative around here :thumbsup:

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