Jake: Hi-Res Renders

Before I go any further with my new workflow, I would first post the final textures version of Jake. They have been with me since three weeks!

These all are without the physical camera settings. 

Surely I was working on the environment production, but I'll keep the details with me.
Put it this way: I have to break more polygons to get more details :D

Proxies are good when you have a scene size of 400MB, which reduced to 9MB!

I love those legs!

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

Jake, WIP I

For the sake of challenge, I glided to work on a genre. Somehow my usual theme is Cyberpunk or bio-mechanical.

So time for something new! Steampunk!

Searched for references for four days, never really felt content with it, if i speak personally. Started creating low poly assets in Maya cause I knew it will get complex and expensive in the end, which actually took a week in total.

Rear view, this is the mechanism inside the head.

Artistically, sure I can go beyond and get the job done in a week more, but I guess I'm looking for something more. The hardest part is the defining and applying the mechanism (to some extend if you lack vision). To support my research, check this video:

Yeah I wish I found this video early before in production, found it two days ago!
Anyway, I'll update more about my assets and research in next update, Jake is surely going to take a while :)

P.S. I made some illustrations out of these WIPs. Check them out: Jake on dArt
I put all three illustrations in a deviant art package.

Rear.

Ah! Floating gears! So surreal!

That the Jake's left eye in front.

You're so nerd!

Concepted armor over the mech.

Three box view of the face.

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.