HARDCORE MODELING!: Stan Winston Tribute: Pumpkinhead

#101

That Stan caricature is amazing. :thumbsup: And as said, that predator is THE best CG predator Iā€™ve seen. I canā€™t wait to see how all these characters look when your finished!

#102

oooh this is great idea, i will definitely buy the DVDā€¦

itā€™ll be a multi part dvd consisting of your workflow starting from the very base mesh (no-topo) to sculpting, topologizing, polypainting, then perhaps showing how you approach composition of your image (i notice you have a composition armature study back in your CG challenge - i am very interested with it but canā€™t find much practical information about it), your render layersā€¦

i hope itā€™s not wishful thinking :drool:

cheers,
andrew

#103

gio, skull-monster, CHERNABOG, ilusiondigital, DogBreath, StevenEgan, southparx,

thank you so much for your kind words guys. You made my long weekend happier :slight_smile:
I agree that the Stan caricature lost a little of his original expression. Itā€™s still wip so I hope I can recover it in future updates.
About the DVD thingy and workflow, I would love to create something in the future and in fact I got some offers about that, but unfortunately I have no plans right now. Iā€™m more concentrated about learning new things, doing my own projects and exploring more with modeling. But Iā€™m glad to know that I have some potential future clients in here :smiley:

I took the day off yesterday to rest and assemble a bunch of bookshelves but Iā€™m back to work today. I spent most of the day retopologizing the T-Rex. Now the beast is ready to go! He was the last of the 4 models to get completely retopologized. Now itā€™s all fun and no more pain from now on. Iā€™ll post some progress in the middle of the night or tomorrow.

Cheers and thanks again for the nice words and for stopping by.
You guys have a great rest of long weekend :wink:
-Kris

#104

Stan caricature is awesomeā€¦but im still looking forward towards the Pumpkinhead.was a pleasure watching the work process

#105

Thanks man. Iā€™ll go back to him soon :slight_smile:

I spent 2 days of my long weekend working on the T-Rex model, that was lacking behind the others. I rebuilt the whole topology and tweaked all his proportions in one day and today I dedicated to add some details to the sucka. I sculpted some scales patterns using some planes, captured them as separate alphas and used them to add the details. All the scales in his face were placed by hand, one by one, using the DragRect (call me crazy, but this is the only way to have absolute control of the details).
Iā€™m posting a loooong list of images, showing the details in Zbrush, some first render tests to get the feel and a collection of all the wireframes I built for this challenge. Without a good topology, I could not go that far in details and since the focus of this challenge is to produce models in record time that in theory could be used in production, Iā€™m trying to produce 4 models with reasonable topology, all fully textured and that can be animated. Itā€™s a lot of work and Iā€™m not sure Iā€™ll be able to finish all of them, but Iā€™ll try.

#106

Render tests and wireframe collection so far:

The T-rex was rendered using a 180k mesh, with a 6k normal map applied on it. No displacement maps were hurt in the processā€¦

Cheers,
-Kris

#107

Great update. Its so incredible how good your work is for each individual stage of the CG process (sculpting, likeness, topology, detailing, rendering, presentation, etc) The fact that you can do them all to such a high level of quality is just amazing.

#108

Amazing realism on that t-rex face. Wonder if theres gonna be a tribute challange when I have come over and killed your ass!:twisted:

Its a winner allready, but I still hope you get time to finish the other models aswell!

#109

Amazing!!! Simply amazing!! I love that Rex. Wow! 6k Normal map. Jeessā€¦how long did one render took?

Thumbs up man. IĀ“m deeply impressed!

#110

Kris ,really love the trex!!! amazing renders too! love the render number one! looks really a maquette from Stan studio

Alex Oliver

#111

Nice renders! T-rex is incredible. I hope you are able to get the rest of his body looking as good as his head :thumbsup:

Iā€™m glad to hear you did not harm any Displacement maps rendering these, but 6K Maps :eek: This leads me to wonder how many computers you killed rendering theseā€¦

#112

Hey, thanks a lot for the comments guys!

About the 6K normal map, well, itā€™s not like a displacement. Normal maps render VERY fast, just as regular bump maps or faster (at least on those models). I wish ZBrush could export a 8k map though. I mean, you have a limit of 8000 pixels but looks like my graphics card supports only exact multiples of 1024k (2048, 3072, 4096, 5120, 6144). So, I generated a 6144 pixels map and seems like it got most of the details. Iā€™ll use other maps to help on the color details.
Yes, the plan is to finish ALL of them. Iā€™ll try to stick with it, but Iā€™ll make the Pumpkinhead and the Stan Caricature the top priorities.

-Kris

#113

Inspirational stuff, long weekends are great for getting a good flow going, our next one is Oct, looking foward to it. I had a go at a Dino using ZSperes and can see why you start with a basic mesh, when you retopologise do you use ZBrushā€™s retopologise. I think I may have to jump in and have a go at a Spino after seeing your amazing work and work rate.

#114

This is all looking nice smooth and clean progress so far :wip:

I like your blocking specially, that anatomical structure is well balanced after lots of subdivision.

But in my case, I am facing problem maintaining that structure till the end. Its just get lost between subd level 3 to 5 and after last subd, its look like a smooth soft toy, missing those bones and muscles definition. Either they get disappear or they just displace. I donā€™t have problem with skin detailing or you can say secondary details, but unable to maintain that initial body structure after more n more subd.

Any suggestion how can I improve that part ?

PS: I donā€™t have any traditional sculpting experience :sad: !

#115

hey kris, your stuff is AWESOME!! love all of it. Cant wait to see more. You have inspired me to go home crank out some stuff.

ā€“C

#116

DogBreath,
I never use ZBrush for the retopology process. I use Maya but Iā€™ll try other alternatives, like Silo or Topogun, as someone mentioned.

Deepam,
man, Iā€™m soooo glad you mentioned that. I mean, a LOT of people concentrate way too much on the fine details and forget about a good structure. The kids go ā€œWOW! freaking awesome details man!!!ā€ and forget about the primary forms, responsible for making the characters believable. I personally prefer a model with 3k polys, with a beautiful structure and no details than a model with a trillion polys, a gazzilion wrinkles and no structure at all. Thereā€™s nothing worst than a lumpy model covered with tons of details.
A great example of primary and secondary forms, beautifully done can be found on Gioā€™s thread:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=43&t=394755&highlight=gio
http://forums.cgsociety.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=100693
http://forums.cgsociety.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=105356
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=4470236&postcount=111
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=4622922&postcount=132

Itā€™s pure anatomy knowledge and great sense of weight and gesture. Observation is the key. If you nail it first, then you will have to be careful for the tertiary forms to donā€™t overcome the secondary and primary. You have to keep them subtle enough so they donā€™t break the silhouette already established on the primary stage. Itā€™s a matter of building layers of forms, just like you start a model from a cube and go all the way to the finer forms, the same principle of bigger to smaller, rough to refined applies here. If you can keep modeling the other stages respecting the hierarchy of the forms on the previous ones, your model will stand out and will retain all the information youā€™ve put on the primary and secondary forms.

I hope it helps and thanks again for asking. Not much people are concerned about those things :slight_smile:

cbostjan,
Chris! Dude, when are you going to fix your messenger thingy? I can read your messages but Iā€™m blocked.
Iā€™m glad you like it so far man. Itā€™s a loooot of work, but itā€™s a lot of fun. I canā€™t wait to see your new stuff. So, go back to work! :slight_smile:

-Kris

#117

Jumping between your and oliveiraā€™s thread is making me mental. Your work is amazing. Those T-rex renders are just awesome!

#118

Inspirational work, Kris! I just love watching the progress here and on Alexā€™s thread as well! Very cool stuff! Keep going man!

#119

Thanks Kris for those valuable guidelines :slight_smile: this is really helpful !

Just saw Gioā€™s thread and his website too, love those forms studies, his traditional sculpting is also amazing :eek: . After watching those stuff, I am planning for some digital sculpting of human anatomy starting from a low poly cube for an arm study.

What I realize now is - give more time to get that first anatomical structure until it looks 100% accurate, then just freeze that form with no major deformation. Apply those secondary details without affecting the basic form.

Your thread is also good to study character development. That first Pumpkinhead creation was very interesting, like those steps.

All the best for the challenge and have a happy characters stuff ! :thumbsup:

#120

Kris I just want to say Iā€™m a big fan of your work and just love the trex. I want to say I agree with you big time on the fact that laying out the basic form is so import in your models and so many people are so quick to get to those little details to try and make a great model. very well said.
I was wondering about your trex renderā€¦is it done in Maya? and is it a fancy light setup?

Keep on rocking