Jake: Material Creation Workflow

I won't say it was easy,
neither I would say its tough

As I wrote the previous blog entry about integrating Mari and Vray in my workflow, I asked myself, why I didn't uploaded my progress!? I completely rant about UVlayout and Vray being so cozy but I forgot to add pics related to that subject.

So here are some.

What I'm trying is realism. Ofcourse practically he's impossible to exist but I really love giving my dude a tint of realism, atleast I try and work upon reaching that extent :) That's my passion which won't let me give up.

In accordance with the style of steampunk, there are two- four basic metal material I found in my research: brass, copper, iron, steel (probably) and there derivative like wrought iron, stainless steel, painted metals and the list goes on.

First of all breakdown your materials! That's one important thing I learnt while I was working on Slave project, but I was not successful as I'm currently on this project. You need to find references, go out and click pictures of the objects you find interesting, research on internet. See how the material reacts to light, what is its color, what are the specific details like corrosion, brushed texture, etc.

What you're seeing are the
basic materials I created

In my research, Metals can be brushed, polished, distressed or corroded, but not completely chrome in the act of reflective. If you just keep it completely reflective, you loose realism. You really need to bump up your reflections to destroy those good looking reflections on the object. If you won't succeed in finding the right texture for the bumps, the material won't succeed to support the diffuse texture.

What I did, first created the base metals, brass, copper, silver, I didn't really went for gold, brushed steel, scratched dark looking iron. I added respective bump, texture and spec maps to the material group. Gave them specific texture like corrosion, wrought painted texture, specific bump details, and some extra features.

Next time I would talk more about my rendering and lightening workflow. I've started working on the environment and hoping to complete in next two days.

Jake himself

I love the way those exhausts are coming out

WIP II

Here's are some raw renders I got out from Maya. Used MentalRay. I would still say I got a lot of things in my mind and won't stop yet. 

Tweaked a lot for getting the catch light.

I really wanted something different with the metal material.
Not the usual specular highlights or chrome material.
I used mia material on every asset.

My intentions were to get photo realistic effect.

getting the right material for the cloth was real choas.
Using PUV tiles is a choas!

Next stop: rigging.

WIP

I've been very busy with this dude. He's gonna be part of a video and a painting like godPreacher did in Invasion of Xen. Topology brush saved a lot of time in creation of the complex hard surface meshes.

I've been busy with this dude.

Surprisingly, I got back on Z after two months, and it just took me 4 hours to complete the base silhouette.

and next three days to reach this stage. For now, I'm working on material creation process for the hard pieces.

Done with sculpting

Tah Dah!

Update Upon A.N.N.A.

Well, just thought of updating with my progress on him. Have added torso armor, hand armor and a thigh plates. I hope getting the topologized parts back in dynamesh would help [ you dunno what i'm talking bout right :D go read Paul's new book!].

Had a terrible night working on the legs [two days back]. I was just not able to get the right edge flow to get the parts out. Made like 3-4 concepts whole day.

Below you'll find some render I made in ZBrush. Thought of playing with lightCap before going to bed.

Got the muscles in places, used the rake and clay tubes brushes to just get a muscle look.

the eye? FYI, it's still a WIP!

ears? or pads?

teeth?

front, eyeless

Rear, just love the angle

Bottom low cam, his armor

If I check on my current status over project, I'm left with hard surface detailing, inserting accessories, a tail and umm...oh yes! lots of render time!

Seeya' roun ;-D

Component: True Friend

Let me start out by presenting the sculpt I made in sculptris:

Front Left

I made this back when I was introduced myself to sculptris. It is the component of the portrait I was supposed to [got lazy] create, with the sculpt society.

This and the sculpt society represents the way I express and understand.

It took just 2hrs for me to sculpt what I had in mind. but I didn't thought of posting it as I didn't fully completed it. All remains is the semi-organic and semi-synthetic look, which is concluded by texturing and poly-painting in ZBrush.

Rear Right

This sculpt supposedly dual faced. One which is before you and the one behind you. The sculpt represents my characteristics and additionally my imaginary content of a person, who is honest, bluntly truthful, and knows how to understand and use wisdom.

Top

The head is like an ashtray, and that's the vagina inside it. That's the most important quality. Well not having a vagina, but the sensitivity towards understanding. The ashtray symbolizes the readiness of the person to openness.

I hope to keep this blog updated.

I Guess I Made Him Lil' Young

I'll start by showing off the sculpt first.:

Finally!

You know what I'm a useless creature. I elongate the production time. This sculpt should have completed in one week, and I took more like a month! Well, I have been learning new feature and some old techniques for sculpting, so shut your mouth and gulp it as an excuse from my side.

If you look at the sculpt, you would find some reasonable defects in the model. Like the chin. It's weird. Everybody told me it's... awful. But I like it, the way it is, even if it's not right. I didn't tried to keep the norms while making it. My main concern was detailing, and keeping it realistic.

I was supposed to sculpt an old person, and I hope 'it' is looking like an old man to you all. You can assume the fact that the person tries to keep his personality younger :P

For now the problem, the feats that lack to make it realistic, [technically speaking] the MatCap, the texture of hair [although I'm pretty impressed by facial hairs, which includes the eyebrow], facial structure, the realism of eyes.

Used it as my facebook profile pic :P

I have not researched upon making MatCaps [here's the link :D], and was hard for me to set the right skin color. Even the material used for the hair is the same as for the skin :( All I had was the gorilla MatCap I used in innOnster which was not good for hair).

Another thing I would like to mention and talk about the Renderer(s) in ZBrush. ZBrush 4R2 additionally has one new renderer by the name of BPR [Best Preview Renderer]

Personally, I felt Best Preview [Render-> Best] better than BPR. Probably I must be doing something wrong, but my personal experience implied me to this conclusion.
Here are some comparisons:

BPR vs. Best Preveiw (with WaxPreview ON)

BPR vs. Best Preview (with WaxPreview OFF)

I used layers too, and Layers are way different than I expected them to be. You can animate the transition. Actually they are called 3D Layers in ZBrush.

Check this out:

'3D' Layer Transitions

3D Layer did "way to easy way" to animate, and let's you save details separately and are editable. You can edit the intensity of the details you made through them. Just check out the link for thorough details.

A Little Update Upon the Old Man

Got the problem solved, but with little loss. But I took care of it. I had to delete the higher sub division level and  then remodel the details.
Working hours are really small these days, like 2-3 hours. Trying to keep myself in a normal "daytime alive" bio-cycle. Most of the time I'm watching videos about occupy movement or reading about it. Also I came across a movie based upon the best fictional novel of all time: Atlas Shrugged, Part I.

Oh! Lastly, here's what I did in last two hours, completed the ear.:

InnOnster!

Remember Bane!?

Figuratively, I created a monster. He's innocent and made into monster, not by choice.
My innOnster :P is not as strong as bane but goes around. I made it in one sitting, in two hours, that too when I got frustrated by complexities I was facing in the old man tutorial.

Check this out:

Front

Back

Rear-Front-Rear

It's Jelly-Khan

Damn No comments! Fuck!! Too much solitude! Ok Moving On...

The idea didn't started from jelly fish, but it got involved as I worked.I showed the screenshot in the previous post to my mom, and she described the sculpt as crab :P ,and those tentacles under the main body resembles the tentacles of a crab.

The tentacles on the head denotes more like horns on a bull, implying it as a head, i.e. king.
The face is not much detailed. I require to provide more detail over the eyes, below it and mustache region.

Well the pink structure looks more like a carpet [too thick!], rather than jelly. I wanted to merge an animal body with jellyfish. From inside, the surface I was meant to animal skin, and as you move to the ends, it should be jelly.
FYI, it's a cape!

The rear ends of the creature are broken bones. Over the broken bones, I have given a algae look and spot for making it more deep sea friendly. I consider it more like a dead part of the creature.
[It must be funny to admit that the dead part is a very colorful and lively]

The skin like tentacles under the main body, are supposed to be the tentacles of a jelly wish through which they move. Although I have made them small, they are strong.

What I don't like about the creature than it's round. From the sides, I gotta move in the vertices to just narrow down the shape.