I’m glad this finally got frontpage recognition… All the hard work ya put into this thing, (plus that insane render time), absolutely wowed me when I first saw this…
A:M is sometimes dismissed as ‘lo-tech’ and so I love it when someone absolutely pulls an amazin’ image outta it.
Congrats on the front-pagage. 
-the rebooted one
Very cool. It just goes to show that it’s not the tool but the talent that counts. 
That’s real “Look at me CG”. Deserved front page work. 
I hate to be harsh and maybe I’m completely out of sync with what’s cool or deserving of high praise, but in my opinion, this isn’t really front page stuff. Not trying to be harsh or anything, but I don’t really see how this stands out from some of the other stuff going around the crit forums. I have read the Popbot stuff, Automatik Kafka and have the Uno Fanta Series. Wood’s stuff is much more darker, and dirtier. this render is clean and neat. there is some wear in the scene, but its really minimal. Also there are lots hard edges. Most of the stuff I see around me rarely has a perfect 90 degree edge. So sorry if I am being to hard or not echoing the praise, its just one mans comments.
I have to agree, the render does show case some nice light…but IMO, being some one who reads popbot I dont get this image really convaying the mood and feel of the books.
but on the tec side of things I think you could have done much much more with some detailed color, spec and bump maps. most of the surfaces end up a but flat in color detail and your relying to much on the lighting effects.
So in the end a huge render time like that for a single frame is niether productive or needed.
now the model is nice so props there, but the composition is also a bit lacking
I’m not sure if this will be helpful or not but here are some points for tweeks
1 - paint up some detailed maps color, spec, bump
2 - Try a differnet set or bring up the texture levels on the walls and stairs
3 - light as you would a set Key, fill, rim and if you are going to use FG or other light effects use them sparingly as a fill not as the main source.
well keep on posting your ideas ar good and the modeling is there for sure.
Not liking the set at all. The robot is kinda cool. The render time was rediculous for a scene like this tho. And the lighting, well… nice radiosity render. I would have been really impressed if you did it yourself tho. Still a pretty good little render tho.
Wow cool work! I looked at your webpage as well and wondered if you were going to be at Comic-Con this year.
remcv8
it kinda reminds me of SCUD, that zany akimbo gunman robot.
although this one is fatter.
Congrats! Could you post some wires? Is the model rigged or modeled for the pose? I am not familiar with this comic books but the image has a nice mood. There are some artefacts from the rendering but I am sure you can improve that if you want. The ideea is what matters and I am sure that you have the skills !
Tschus
gagiu
Wow! I go away for a while and…wow!! I apologize for not getting on here sooner, I kinda forgot I posted this image on this board :rolleyes:
I will go through the posts tomorrow and try to answer some questions and post some wires, etc.
I’ll be back in the morning (California time, that is)
:applause:
Very nice! I like the hint of an emergency exit sign. Great overall composition as well. I also really like the detail in the dirt around the joints and eye sockets.
Here’s a close-up of the cat. I was going to use hair for the cat, and had the hair system in place and it was looking good outside the Radiosity scene. Until I hit render for a test. I think it’d still be rendering today! Hair and Radiosity at this size (2K x 3K) wasn’t getting me where I wanted to be. Kind of hipocritical, but that was a short-cut I did allow myself to take.
So I created more of a velvety shader, and applied a photoshop “hair” texture. After the render, I DID take it into Photoshop and “fuzz” out the edges of the cat to create fur.
My intention was to keep the cat small in the image, but draw your eye to it. Especially since I was wanting this image to be poster size. I wanted all this largeness around the cat. Kitty is the “star” of the Popbot comic, and I’ve always loved that he is this tiny thing.
to Ephesus: The tip of my cat’s tail is actually grey. Maybe that’s the “shadow” that you see? I struggled with that area of the scene…the grey of the tail kept on blending into the door at the end of the hall. But at full rez, I think it pulls through.
REFLECTIONS of KITTY ON THE FLOOR:
The floor only has Blended Relfections at 5%. Not really enough to tame the cat down, but the bright reflection on the floor doesn’t bother me too much, but yeah, it’s definately bright. It might be one of the things I would change if I had to do it again, but I kinda like the attention it brings to the cat.
More answers and pictures (wires) soon!
I wish I could take credit for the guts, but that’s all Ash Wood and his great book, Pop-bot, from IDW. I think you guys are dead on about what they signify, and I love them in the scene. It adds a nice organic free-flow to the scene and adds to the ‘story’ as well.
Here’s a close-up of the guts. I’m very happy with the metal texture on his guts.
Wires and some more answers soon!
Wires
Here are some wires of the final scene. [i]17,700 patches in the final scene[/i] Yves Poissant (an excellent programmer for Hash, who works on Radiosity) wrote a great tutorial on Radiosity and Cornell boxes, and this image owes a lot to his great explanation of how Animation:Master deals with Photons and Radiosity.
Rigging
All the models are fully rigged for animation (one of A:M’s biggest strengths is how easy it is to rig models) and set up for Full IK/FK animation. The Gun is a separate model that is constrained to the hand in the scene.
Here’s a link to a real early unfinished test walk cycle:
Walk Cycle TEST
Lighting
Lighting is basically an array of Klieg (spotlights) with a spread of 180 degrees. Lights cast 1 shadow a piece, and the piece was rendered with A:M’s Multi-pass rendering set at 9 passes. Each pass at 2200 X 3000 pixels was 18 hours.
Painterly look
The reason it has that “painterly” look is because I didn’t use jittering in final gathering on the render. It creates a paint daub look.
Here’s a close-up of the gun. It is based on a free .44 magnum model from the Hash site, and mixes photo textures with a metal shader:
More about why the Cornell Box is there and my style VS Ashley’s style tomorrow
yeah, I don’t know if I missed out when this was on the front page, (maybe no-one cares anymore) but I figure I need to answer some of the questions:
MY STYLE vs ASH’S STYLE
First, let me say I love Ash’s stlye. I am a big bill sienkiewicz fan, and Ash’s is a great extension of that style.
I really didn’t want to mimic Ash’s style, plain and simple. I don’t want to do “photo-real” 3D either. I like more of a painterly 3D style, and since it’s Pop-bot, I wanted to go to more of a pop art style. Flat color, not tons of texture, but let the light shine through. Mondrian squares of color, etc. My take on Pop3D art.
I know some of you wanted more detail, more textures, but I like that the focus is the robot and the cat, then the room around them. The robot is a great example of this tension. He’s mechanical with a slight nod towards organic (his guts) The room is simple in color and texture, but the lighting shows what I feel is subtle complexity. The “jittering” of the lights adds “noise” to some, but to me it adds the kind of detail I want.
Here are some studies (not really “art”) that reflect my a part of my progress toward this style…3D figures with flat colored environments. You may notice these have inking on top of them and aren’t radiosity rendered. These were just early studies of my traditional techniques mixed with a flat color background before I decided to mix the Radiosity and Cornell box idea.
I don’t want to sound “artsy” and I don’t mean to sound elitist in any way, but I’d thought I’d share my reasons for making an image look the way [i]I[/i] wanted it to look.
Enjoy, and I have a list of questions I will go through and answer later tonight.
Patrick - So are these latest renders you posted touched up much after render out of a:m? Would you care to share your toon render settings? I love the look of the ‘standard’ toon render setting which sort of gives you the best of both worlds - you get the toon lines, but still get texture and lighting. Your work shows the kind of look I’ve been trying to achieve with my own project. Thanks for posting, love it.
Doug