Digital Works

[Anttaru]

Hello everyone, i have told some of you about my works, and today i decided i will create a tarutaru from the ground up and share the progress of that with all of you.

I don't want it to look exactly like SquareEnix's design, yet i want it done in a way people will reconize it as a Tarutaru at first glance. Because of the amount of time i put into this upcoming project, i won't garuntee it will be any better than what SquareEnix's "team" of digital artist has released.

Because i'm going to expose the progress from time to time, i wouldn't want anyone to exspect to see anything new daily. (I have things to do, and at the same time FFXI is my crystal meth).

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Slightly off topic, i always wanted to show off my Gundam model. Every now and then i find myself in a LS discussion about Moble Suit Gundam. So here it is.

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Here is a close up of the head, I got bad reviews from the CG community for the reflections lol, funny enough i knew i should not have made it so, but i wanted the whole "Gundanium metal" thing to show face, but it's not popular enough to pass the trained texture artists radar for wrongness. ><

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Ok back to the original project.

First i started off with a Polygon planar and broke it down to a single 4 sided face, then extruded the edges until i formed the shape of the eye, i then extruded the surrounding edges until it fit around those curves i drew there.

The prospective camera angle shot, reveals the center curve i put there so i can get a ruff idea as to how i'm gonna pop this flat peice into shape. I'd also like to add, for now none if it is accurate, I just want to create a base, so i can start molding. This is gonna get better, then it's gonna get really ugly, then better again, then damn ugly, and better then horrid, then better, But in the end i won't stop until i get the peoples upmost approaval. ('-')d[/img]

 

[Kirayamato]

nice

 

[Aristarc]

Looks good so far, ill be here every step of the way; i like to see work in progress....do to the fact that i myself start a new project, then stop and start a new, then sto...u get the point.


enyways GL

 

[oraga]

What program do you use? I've been useing 3ds max so far havnt gotten into modeling yet...its not easy so good luck.

most current (not to hijack or anything) picture like i said im not a modeler type person i do lots of scenes though .

 

[Anttaru]

Looks good so far, ill be here every step of the way; i like to see work in progress....do to the fact that i myself start a new project, then stop and start a new, then sto...u get the point.


enyways GL

I once heard from another digital animator, how the one thing that amazes him the most about artists that created highend CG visuals, is the fact they complete the project. I so agree, i have so many unfinished personal projects, that i cannot even call them projects anymore. I went as far as painstakingly model a Porsche GT Carrera and turned it into the Transformer Jazz. I was anticipating turning it into an FX demo and sending it in to Dreamworks to see if i have a shot in getting a job in the making of the live action Transformer G1 movie. But bigger ideas crossed my mind and ended up ditching it for something else. Something i will probably regret is when i see the motion picture in it's glory, i just never tried hard enough, the feild is so small ><

What program do you use? I've been useing 3ds max so far havnt gotten into modeling yet...its not easy so good luck.

most current (not to hijack or anything) picture like i said im not a modeler type person i do lots of scenes though .

I use Maya. I also have a tinsey tiny wee bit of exsperience with Houdini. Reason for that is because Houdini isn't even close to student friendly, my entire class rejected it, there for we all leaned towards Maya.

Maya is a widely used 3D software, it's used for Movie effects and for making video games. Lord of the Rings, Spiderman, perfect Storm, Final Fantasy Spirits Within, and a list of other commeercial CG visuals were powered by Maya. None of the movies were rendered with Maya stock render engine tho.
To my knowlege FF VII - X2 was made with Maya, hardware and FMV's, FFXI was probably made with it aswell.

3D Studio Max and Maya can roughly do the same thing, the only thing that seperates them, Max by far has a better stock render engine, where as Maya excells in tools that rip workflow in half making it the prouduction king. Last i looked Max was released with a workers interface simular to Maya's. Been 2 years since i last checked out Max, but since then Maya has started to find cleaver ways to emulate the things normal artists do not do, (Hair/Fur, Fire, Water, other) and it also comes with the the "Mental Ray" Render Engine if you perferr to render with caustics and photons. For this project i'll be using Mental Ray, and Maya's new Hair Engine. So when it comes time to do hair, i'll have to hit the books again. All and all Max and Maya are virtually limitless, and work with Polygons Nurbs and Sub Divisions. Alot of Max users i have met fell inlove with Maya and now use it, but those Lightwave artists lol They love their Lightwave so much they just can't let it go no matter what. Personally i'd go with Max over it, but each to their own ^^.

Geezz i said alot. But i have to give you some insight on your Rendered inviroment shot still.

Single most important thing when rendering is the lighting, It's not because it enables us to to see to begin with, it's the fact the computer does not truly understand how to simulate light.
In real life say you were indoors, and you had a red cloth, You put you hand close to that cloth and you see the colour red refracting off the cloth onto your hand. It's because of the light bouncing off the red cloth, the colour will actually bleed through the light. Computers do not understand this, so you have to make it happen yourself.
This is one factor i used when lighting that hanger scene. I'll make it say it as simple as i can cause i don't want to write a tortorial now ^^

- Set your main light ( say it was a spotlight at the top of the room adjusted cone angle and all)

- Set another Spotlight "BEHIND" each of the walls, and assign that light not to see the wall it's behind (In Maya the feature to do this can be found in the realationship editor, I don't know what Max calls it, but i know they can do it too.

- Set the hidden lights brightness, and set it to decay ( Make all lights decay and level them until they all look right.

- Every light should have a shadow. ( Even if it's too faint to see it's a good practice) Raytracing is good for (reflections never too much a worry) and shadows, but i do recommend using "Depth map shadows". I don't know what Max calls it, if it's the same name "Depth Map Shadows" but if not, then simply resort to making Shadows the Manual way. Reason why you don't want Raytaced shadows is because they don't really have a soft edge. Do it manually and you can make it as soft as you want, the true artist way.

- Colour the shadows... Believe it, And although we can make shadows any colour we want stick to the dark shades we are use to seeing ^^.

For an outdoor scene the lighting techniques differ, use directional lights, or you can read up on 3 point lighting. but i personally recommend assigning lights beneath the ground surface still.

As for you're water, Water is very hard to do, i myself fear doing it, and if i guess correctly, you used a flat planar and assigned that shader to it with reflections turned up and a little bit of transparency. I think you should spread out the bump mapping out a little and see if you can tweak the directions of the bump map itself. I only mean to be constructive when i say the surface appears to be vibrating.


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[Elemmire]

that looks like brice or whatever it is called... I loved playing with that program T.T

 

[Anttaru]

Enduring hours of bending this polygonal mesh into shape, and moving and rebuilding curves i have come up with this.

Still needs alot of work, here is what it looks like with surfaces enabled.

Maybe next screen shot will look horrid, as i have a tendancy to exsperiment and at times a screw up. I actually refrained from showing one of the images i took cause it just looked hopeless, but that is never a reason to scrap the project just yet.

 

[Aristarc]

so far so good^^

 

[oraga]

Yeah my scene is still in progress and havnt added lighting affects and crap yet.

Yeah Maya is good program but i guess the renderer isnt as good as 3ds max.

Ive used the mental ray render for caustics (sp?) and things like that. Games made in 3ds max i think are... Halo 2, Prince of Persia, and a few others that i cant seem to remember. but yeah its very hard to complete a project T.T

 

[uchuucacahuate]

This is why I like paper and pencil. I can pull-out a sketch in like under 5 minutes =D. But still, I gotta give you props for putting in the time and energy

 

[oraga]

This is why I like paper and pencil. I can pull-out a sketch in like under 5 minutes =D. But still, I gotta give you props for putting in the time and energy

I cant draw :shock:

 

[Drewtaru]

i rarely glance the fanworks part of the site.... when i do what do i see???
my own bro posting his progress without even telling me..... well so far this is my first time seeing it all

 

[Anttaru]

I've been meaning to tell you about it Drew, but since it wasn't going anywhere i guess i was taking my time to show it to you.

 

[Anttaru]

You see, Computers don't understand arcs and curves, only lines. If you see what appears to be a curve, it's really made up of lines.

Modeling with Polygons means you have to work on a low polygon count structure and constantly smoothen it, and unsmoothen it.

Smoothening it means to up the tesselation of lines, the computer can do this and roughly keep the shape of the model. But the trick is to make it smoothen the way you want it. As you can see this makes the polygonal mesh more dense, and that makes for a smoother surface. Also take note that the sections of polygons are in quads (4 sided faces), and they remain that way after the tesselation has been increased. This process is not really good for models made with tri's (Triangular faces). Trying to smoothen a a model made with tri's will get badly deformed.

Take a look at what it looks like every now and then, and undo the smoothening process. never save your work while it's smoothened, because although we can hit the undo button, we cannot reverse the smoothening process, and you don't want to work on a dense mesh. You'd be better off cleaning it, or starting over.

 

[Aristarc]

Nice, its looking real nice man; keep it up, im gonna hold accoutable for it so u'd better finish it. if not u will suffer the claws of my ninja mythra.
:twisted:

 

[Anttaru]

Here you go Aristarc, i temporarily applyed a metalic blinn shader so you can see what needs to be ironed out.

Don't worry about that annoying seam running down the face that's caused by mirroring the geometry and not attaching the edges together, then smoothening it, when i'm done with the head i'll patching it up.

One thing that always came accross as a challenge was modeling ears. This time i had no trouble with this one, then again, a human ear is more detailed than a Tarutaru ear. I think.

I'll be leaving the ears alone probably till after i apply the hair. I do plan on making them better, less cartoony and more elaborate, maybe make them thinner, and make them luminate when a light source is projecting from behind them. I never did anything like that before, i think it has to do with Mel Scripting, one of my weaker points in 3D. But i want it. Maybe i should soon pay some colleagues a visite soon ^^

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Eventually i found myself seeking refrence as to how can i make the eyes happen.
I mean, if you look at the way a Tarutarus eyes are designed, the cornia and pupil are more of a sharp Ovill shape. Ignorning this fact can really distort the model. After stairing at a Tarutarus eyes for so long, i started admire how even in 3D they got this shape to work.

So the plan is to use Spheres, any other roundish shape will make for surfaces crossing over one another. I refuse to settle for relying on textures for the actual cornia and pupil itself even though they have a strange shape. I want the pupil to be able to diolate behind it's reflective cover.

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To be honest i never thought of using eyelids. In game they are not really appearant on a Tarutaru, so after scrounging around for more refreance i came across a poster of those Black mages in the FFXI opening movie and observed their eyes the best i can, sure enough they had eyelids happening.

Now ofcoarse Tarutaru's have eye lids i just wanted to see if i had to make them fold inwards or something, sure enough having them appearant is ok, and i'm glad about that other words the shape ofthe eyes would be too bug'd out.

At this point i really screwed up the face, i didin't like the mouth so i took it out, and the area surrounding the eyes got ravaged while i was putting the spheres in place. Plus an organic feel is present. Maybe if i show the entire face in this state, some of you will barf. So here's a peice.

From here i'll turn to using the "Sculpt polygon tool", time and time again this tool has saved my ass hours or lining up verticies (the crossing points on each edge/line). I truly believe a professional modeler will get slapped if he does not know how to use this tool.

I did model the eye balls and got them to work, but it needs to be done better, i don't even want to exspose it in it's current state.

 

[Anttaru]

Excuse my bad typing mistakes, and horribly mispelled words, I don't know what's wrong with me today ; ;

 

[uchuucacahuate]

Are you just gonna do a naked bust, or will you eventually add equipment?

 

[Anttaru]

I want it to have equipment, so i'll be using cloth metals and leathers. I'll also be ultering it and giving it a slightly different facial appearance, with a seperate set of skin texture and another set of hair.

Edit: I will be modeling it naked

 

[Falsey]

Wow that looks awsome. What is your total work time on it so far?