I guess a lot of us 3ders suck at painting, so don’t worry. I guess we all get the idea thanks to the blocked out 3d version.
I like the idea of seperating fore- and background, doing somethin quite “normal” and human in the front and letting the space opera happen in the background. Is the child human?
“is the child human?”
This is a rather difficult question to answer having asked myself that exact same thing continuously. I think that he probably will be, or very close to it in any case. In trying to make some sort of connection with the viewer it may be better to keep him human, even though his surrounds are totally alien.
The other major point of contention (with myself [?]) is the city. I’m not sure whether to keep it semi-rural or go for a more developed area. Choosing one or the other changes the ramifications of the ships presence completely. If it is as underdeveloped city the ship might be a completely alien idea to them, they are completely unprepared for anything that could happen, good or bad. If it is more developed then chances are the appearance of the ship is not unexpected meaning that there is either a great battle or some monumental diplomatic event about to take place.
Ideas on this would be hugely appreciated.
Dave.
These are two of the basic models in the foreground of my scene. The Pupae casing will be in the hand of the boy, it was created through lofting with 3 different shapes with a few different scales and such. The material will be a light brown and have the light passing through the thinner walls of the side and the a thicker, rougher material for the “lips”.
The plant leaves were spline modelled with edit patch on top, the appendages are lofted splines. The material is a procedural translucent shader, the brown stem created with a gradient ramp mixing the brown with the colour of the leaves.
Because i’m doing this at work at the moment i’m trying to get many of these smaller models done before I start on the big stuff next week. (Hooray! time off.)
Dave.
Originally I was planning to do the clouds as a 2d matte painting but then I decided to try to do the whole thing in 3d land, so the next problem was how to do it without plugins? I’m not a big fan of the volume fog method to get this sort of fluffy cloud type, the render times are to big and you don’t really get a good visual representation until you render anyway so a lot of tweaking is required. So what next?
The idea for this came from Pete Drapers absolutely fantastic book “Deconstructing the elements with max 6” (if you’re a maxer you must have a look at this, some really cool stuff in it), where he uses a similar technique to create the clouds of smoke spewing from a volcano.
So here’s how it’s done…
Start with a geosphere (size dependant on your scene) and then create another smaller one somewhere in your scene. Number of segments depends entirely on what your computer can handle, but a mid range should be fine for a far away shot. Next create a scatter with this smaller sphere, using the larger as the distribution object. Again, the number of copies is dependant on your scene and computer but try to almost cover the larger sphere. Next set the vertex chaos to about 30 and your pretty much done, just create a few copies of the scatter object, rotate and scale them and there we go.
As for the materials, it a simple white material with a radial gradient in the opacity slot and set to face map. The lighting is set up so that there is one omni with shadows (if you can handle, use area shadows) and a couple of others with highlights.
Hope this has helped in some way, it is only really useful for these types of fluffy clouds but you can get pretty good results in not to long a time.
Dave.
Hi dayvbrown
intersting thread, nice ideas … I agree with you about modeling the clouds in 3D … I’ve spent lot of time tring to find a good solution with particles effects (ok, maybe I am not so good with that and maybe the software I’m using is not flexible enough) … but in the end I find that is much easier (and faster) to model a rough shape in 3D and than use a good texture for true displacement and alpha shading to obtain a quite good cloud result … looking forward to see more images from you
Bye, Riccardo 
Not an easy task, but fascinating! Trying to depict the whole future of the boy in a single image… I’m really curious to see how this will progress and I’ll stick around.
You have a great story on your hands.
Stefano
Here is the basic model for the insect in the boys hand. I will be adding hairs to its back and the ‘tongue’ will be out and curled from it’s mouth. Characters certainly aren’t my strong point so any suggestions and tips would be greatly appreciated.
Dave.
Hello all, just a quick one to show you a bit more of where i’m heading with this, the ship in the background is a very early model based on a design i’m just not too sure about. I want it to be blocky and ugly, but i think this is maybe a little too much.
I’ll post up some modeling shots of the mountains and the falls in the bcakground soon as well. (when they are finals). The city as you see it is still very much a stand in, the actual shape of the city fits in more with the contours of the mountains and is split in half by a river, on one side is smaller buildings and on the other a magnificent palace, think rennaissance.
Dave.
Just wanting to say a big thanks to everyone for their comments, it really is motivating getting all this feedback.
Working on the tree model at the moment, (it sits in the left of frame in the foreground) it only really involves the base and one main root but i’m trying to put in some more detail than usual to get that knotted and knarled look, post up the model soon, maybe not today but see what i can do…
Well, interesting theme.
maybe the child should hold some robotic animal or bug
(just an idea).
See this:
Very interesting concept Dave. The amount of back story thought you have put into your scene is great. Can’t wait to see more.
Here is the base model for the tree which sits in left of frame. The thing is it is right up in front of the camera so detail is paramount, not sure there is quite enough yet, added some geometry displacement which coupled with the smoothing adds some nice smaller wrinkles, still not sure if it will be enough but i’m working on the texture at the moment and early tests are promising that a large amount of the detail can be done in-texture.
Anyhoo, will keep the updates coming, probably texturing this tree will be next.
Dave
This is the textured version of the tree. (obviously) The texture is made up of 6 different bark photos and 2 mossy photos. It is a 5000 * 5000 texture which is making the ol’ puter chug a bit but i think it makes up enough detail in the full size render. Had some troubles with mapping it but it is mostly hidden behind the folds of the geometry so not too big a problem.
Tell me what you think,
Dave.
Well, interesting theme.
maybe the child should hold some robotic animal or bug
(just an idea).
Thanks for your comment, my original thought was that he would actually be playing with some sort of robotic toy up on this hill and that was what was holding his attention, but as the themes behind the image grew a bit more in my mind i realised that it had to be some form of life that was captivating him to contrast the events that are about to happen in the background. Thinking more about this; the idea of a creature newly emerged from one of it’s larval stages seemed to fit best with the concepts of change and upheaval.
Thanks again,
Dave.
Nice progress so far. I know that your scene is still very much a WIP but you should definetly change the color of the forground earth. Green with mountains and stuff doesnt mix well. It just gives a whole sense of unprofesionalism to it (ok who am I to talk about profesionall work ). I think you should change the mountains to a sort of grey-white color and the foreground to a rocky dusty earth with a FEW bits of grass spurting in between the cracks. I hope you see the vision as clearly as I see it in my head. Great idea you got here.
Keep up the good work.
Good point. Probably should try and get some more reference i guess… But i really do like the idea of a more lush environment for the boy to be in. sigh
With the colour of the mountains i’m thinking there is still a lot of texturing work to be done on them to get them right, but do you mean that the browner parts should be more of a grey colour or the snowy parts? I’m also going to change the composition of the image a bit, moving the mountains “up” so that you catch more of the base rather the entire peak (except maybe the one farthest away), which should also help a lot with the perspective i think.
Thanks for your critiques, these are what help me (and my image) get better!
Dave.
O.K, so here is the tree incorporated into the image as it stands now. I’ve knocked out most of the clouds in the background and replaced them with a photo i took of some very cool clouds from our balcony this morning. The ship is still pretty much a stand in, can’t decide on which way to take it really. As for the city part, kindly ignore the entire left half (the populated bit) but feel free to cast a sort of vaguely interested eye over the rest (ie. that one building), testing out the idea at the moment as that is probably what I’ll start on next.
Dave.
sweet man… nice concepts and modelign u got there… i like that tree… keep it up
some suggestions: try experimenting with the camera angles or FOV, currently ur scene is looking kinda flat…
best of luck bro 
Yes, agreed. At the moment you really don’t get that sense of scale which is something that has been bothering me since the beginning, i’m thinking that if I pull the camera down a bit and point it up slightly that might help, but also with the moving of the mountains and the incorporation of some grass lands between the city and them it might help flesh it out a bit.
Thanks for your comment man,
Dave.