Biomechanoid

[clarky003]

Im immediately inspired fenric, , 38 minutes work on the basic body and head mesh , I may possibly go into detailing soon, but id rather have the arms and legs done first,.

 

[The Dark Elf]

Impressive for 38 minutes work, but I'm going to reserve judgement until its completed. Being biomechanical there's certain things. Skin must have the impression of being translucent, and most what you see should be geometry not textures. Just the coloring is really the texture, the rest is arrived at by lighting and geometry

the skull is also transparent with a skull underneath it, similar to the alien skull only closer to the canopy on this one. The upper legs also have the ribbing underneath a thin transparent skin.

But impressive so far, also impressed your trying it, most refuse and give up. But don't let that give you a big head over it. I'll be very critical over how it looks at the end

and there's now also the added issue of highly suspect textures on your gunship

but anyway, carry on

 

[clarky003]

hmm, challenging indeed,, ill continue tomorrow.

thats all the are, highly suspect.. cummon Fenric, quit bein so serious all tha time . ~pats fenric on the back~. atleast maybe in respectability terms,I can prove im not a faker .

Im a fun lovin modelling guy,, lol. that sounds a bit camp but,, meh

 

[The Dark Elf]

however.. you don't have to rig it for animation, that would be too cruel, and would mean remodeling the face. So don't worry about having to animate it. Those "stumpy wings" actually fold out too with rather nasty teeth on the insides. Generally not a very nice creature

No you don't have to model the stumps open or anything either, again, wouldn't be fair cause I haven't given any hints to that.

Maybe its a game character, maybe it isn't

 

[clarky003]

true, id need more material to work off if I was gonna attempt to rig it for animation and get the movement right. although im learning facial animation at the moment ,. maybe in the future sometime , nice creature Fenric though, awsome stuff, gonna enjoy modelling the rest of him,

 

[wbcheater]

you mean your not going to finish it? id like to see the rest...

 

[clarky003]

lol, no, I was talking about facial animation.. .. ill be doin more of this 2 morrow..

 

[Loshadka]

Not that I can do something similar(infact, I can't do almost anything), but it looks like a mutated spermotoziod.

 

[crabcakes66]

That is one ugly sperm.....

 

[Rupertvdb]

That is one ugly sperm.....

Why would you say that? ;(

 

[ankalar]

It looks pretty good so far.

Why would you say that? ;(

He was trying to make a joke.

PS: He failed.

 

[st0lve]

Looks like a ghost kinda thingy

But I like it

 

[The Dark Elf]

Since people don't seem to realise, and Clarky hasn't exactly made it clear

He's modeling this http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=20372&page=2 to prove he can, after admitting he's been a bit of a naughty boy recently with regards certain model files

 

[Sprafa]

Since people don't seem to realise, and Clarky hasn't exactly made it clear

He's modeling this http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=20372&page=2 to prove he can, after admitting he's been a bit of a naughty boy recently with regards certain model files

I've followed the other thread.

All he did thou was using the pics (I dunno if he actually used the model itself) original model as reference to make a copy and practise his skills.
Not much to condemn there.

 

[The Dark Elf]

we don't know if he used the models themselves in some way, thats the purpose of this exercise.

 

[clarky003]

via my word I can say I didnt use the model itself as a direct reference , just outlined pictures that I edited myself.

update on the mesh

Im about ready to make an under layer with a skull and bones . ribs etc. after the wing bits ,Fenric you want.. the surface as a sticky looking glossy translucent layer with the mapping applied to that.. right ?... displacement map...?

 

[clarky003]

ill post this aswell fenric just to let you get a feel for it

 

[Varsity]

Nice curves. That's going to look great with the details layered on.

 

[torso boy]

whats this for? are you going to try to put this into a game?

very nice looking though!

 

[Brazooka]

It reminds me of that Scream mask. But it's a good job. Want to see the rest of it!

 

[clarky003]

Fenrics your man if you want info on it,

 

[GOoch]

looks good so far m8 keep it up

 

[The Dark Elf]

looking good indeed. Though the rings on its neck are wrong. And its still very smooth.

 

[clarky003]

how should the rings be,, ..? the smoothness will be disrupted by a map i was hoping, a displacement bump map

very nearly finished with the mesh, I think,, but this is where the input helps,, anything need to be tweaked?

 

[Sprafa]

that looks like something out of DOOM 3.

Shapping up pretty good, keep up the good work clarky003

 

[Lil' Timmy]

having absolutely no modeling experience/knowledge whatsoever, i can definitively say that clarky003 has passed fenrics test. QED, quid pro quo, ad hominem and whatnot.

 

[The Dark Elf]

how should the rings be,, ..? the smoothness will be disrupted by a map i was hoping, a displacement bump map

very nearly finished with the mesh, I think,, but this is where the input helps,, anything need to be tweaked?

the rings/discs are more a grill pattern, it doesn't have fangs, and its lips should be more defined/humanish. There's still a lot that needs modeling, Though you are (correctly) planning to use displacement maps. So I'll wait and see how much you intend to do with those. The area inside the nose wants to be more delicate, probably broken even. The "eyes" aren't too bad, but seem too evil for want of a better word. They want to be changed slightly to give a more hopeless/sad/generic appearance to them. Also the area's below the eyes should sag a little, changing it from what would appear to be a semi-normal skull to something that looks almost melted and distorted.

I can't really make out the rest as its too dark

I'm gonna assume you'll be converting it to NURBS before using displacement mapping right? Otherwise the sheer number of polygons required in a subd displaced version will be a bit OTT for rendering it. NURBS however wont suffer as badly with render times, and doesn't have the errors that crop up when using highly subdivided polygon models. From there you bake the normal maps the NURBS version gives, and map them onto a subd polygon version that isn't as highly subdivided or displaced to get all the tiny details without the errors while keeping the larger displaced area's. Works better than just using regular height/bump mapping for the smaller details.

It is looking good though. You need to read up on three point lighting though, for these test renders, so the model is clearly visible and looks better in tests. Don't plump for GI, especially when the normal maps are setup as they don't generally see GI lighting. Though you can always fake it with conventional lighting which the normal maps will see. As for the displacement maps, its quite natural, to get it right, that you'll be using ones at rediculously high resolutions. Same goes for the normal maps, but as its pre-rendered thats not an issue.

I would definately convert from a subd polygon object to NURBS though. Because of how NURBS work you can go crazy with the displacement mapping details. Like the CG Godzilla or Jurrassic park dinosaurs and countless other movie creatures, far less error prone than subd displacement IMPO.

Definately looking forward to seeing it all completed though.

 

[softmonkey]

I would definately convert from a subd polygon object to NURBS though. Because of how NURBS work you can go crazy with the displacement mapping details. Like the CG Godzilla or Jurrassic park dinosaurs and countless other movie creatures, far less error prone than subd displacement IMPO.

The main reason people have dificulty with displacement maps with Polygons and SubDs is UVs are ususally discontinuous across the mesh, so you get ripping. You can solve this through really good painting of the map, or by using proceedural textures. By using Proceedurals, you have infinite resolution can can dolly right up to the skin surface, but its heavy, and will add significant time to your render.

All that may not sound important, but I think every modeller should be aware of the pipeline to get the image out of the door - so animation, rigging and rendering.

---

Another cool technique for this sort of thing is called tension mapping. It works similar to normal mapping, I guess, with some subtle differences.

First you have your high resolution, displaced geometry. You have a second, low res model contained inside. Using some sort of render to texture tool you bake the distance between the two into an image. You then use this image to drive the displacement on the low resolution model, recreating the high resolution one. More info ... here in "Cutting Edge Character Design and Production Techniques " by Aaron Simm

 

[The Dark Elf]

Your advice is fine for newbies but isn't useful on this. Procedurals wont actually help in any way with the subd errors when it comes to displacement mapping highly subdivided surfaces, especially on corners and inside grooves. This is simpyl because polygons aren't very good at it, sure, you can get great smooth curves, but small little details created by displacements are a bitch to do with polygons, because you would require millions of polys just to be able to get the kind of clarity needed. This alone will likely kill most apps, including Softimage . So you use NURBS. Their not polygons and they don't suffer the same errors. You can get far far far greater detail with displacement mapping using NURBS surfaces than you can subdivided polygons. Also polygons don't like being stretched, unavoidable with displacement mapping

For example, Softimage could quite happily create a displacement map using height maps created from high resolution DEM files, to cover the entire planet, though granted it'll grind that Hard Drive like mad. Now try doing the same thing using a subdivided polygon surface. It will kill the software, I couldn't even begin to guess how many polygons it would require to do it even. A single DEM would require a good million polys for a decent quality displacement. subd would screw up, NURBS on the other hand, yes they'd grind the drive, use up all the memory, and take forever, but XSI could do it eventually with NURBS. I should know, i sneezed once while setting the displacement resolution for a NURBS surface, didn't realise I'd set it incredibly high. Did XSI crash? nope. It took ages but it managed it in the end, and that was a procedural image I was using for the displacement too, and I gotta admit it looked fecking sweet, perfect surface to it, wouldn't get that with poly's neither, not with incredibly detailed displacement.


Edit: Oh and I should actually point out that I am not really a fan of NURBS neither. But I know what the best tool for the job is, and I'd use them because I know they'd give a better result than subdivided polygons, in this case.

 

[softmonkey]

i know its a sphere with a proceedural just stuck on, but here is a small region

rendering statistics
//INFO : RC 0.2 info : tiles rendered 156
//INFO : RC 0.2 info : triangles tested 28393978
//INFO : RC 0.2 info : subtriangles generated 1223484
//INFO : RC 0.2 info : shading calls 326951
//INFO : RC 0.2 info : pixel samples collected 605320
//INFO : RC 0.2 progr: rendering finished
//INFO : RC 0.2 info : wallclock 0:01:40.10 for rendering
//INFO : RC 0.2 info : allocated 296 MB, max resident 305 MB
//INFO : GAPM 0.2 info : triangle count excluding retessellation : 5006601
//INFO : GAPM 0.2 info : triangle count including retessellation : 5006601

(on my laptop)

MR3.3 BTW

this is a v.simple example, so I will do something a bit nicer tomorrow. Its too late and there is programming to do.

 

[The Dark Elf]

If your showing subd displacement vs NURBS displacement you should show an example of both for fairness.


NURBS displacement http://www.comics-lair.frogspace.net/Ulf/artwork/3d/Godzilla.html

 

[softmonkey]

If your showing subd displacement vs NURBS displacement you should show an example of both for fairness.

Will do. Tomorrow. Privately. (BTW, that is a default poly sphere)

i agree, the right tool for the right job. NURBS modelling is a whole different ART to poly modeling. I will be interested to see if Clarky manages the conversion.

Anyway, its Clarky's thread, so I'll let him do the rambling.

 

[The Dark Elf]

Will do. Tomorrow. Privately. (BTW, that is a default poly sphere)

i agree, the right tool for the right job. NURBS modelling is a whole different ART to poly modeling. I will be interested to see if Clarky manages the conversion.

Anyway, its Clarky's thread, so I'll let him do the rambling.

I hope he does manage to get it into NURBS, I was always put off by them in the beginning but glad I gave them a chance. I just don't know if MAX can convert subd to NURBS, to be honest I don't even know if XSI can as I use MAYA to convert to NURBS. The beauty of that I find, is you miss out on the complicated parts involved with actually modeling in NURBS, which I agree is a whole other kettle of fish to poly modeling. Yet you get the benefits of the displacement mapping, and of course the benefits when it comes to UV mapping too. So i find it pretty useful

 

[random.hero]

in reply to post 31:

:dozey:

 

[clarky003]

wow, I think I need to learn more about 3D studio. :rolling: ,,

anyway fenric Ive gone ahead and tried with the best of my knowledge the mapping. Ill do the tweaking if I must. but id very much appreaciate some know how advice. or otherwise simplistic instructions.

I hope he does manage to get it into NURBS, I was always put off by them in the beginning but glad I gave them a chance. I just don't know if MAX can convert subd to NURBS

neither do I ;(

 

[GOoch]

Imo clarky youve taken on the challange and you done a good job.

 

[clarky003]

thanks Gooch, im still insulted slightly at the comments fenric posted in the other thread. but soon I will forget

 

[ray_MAN]

Wow, that is nice. Now that i see what you can do, I take back everything I said in the other thread.

 

[The Dark Elf]

thanks Gooch, im still insulted slightly at the comments fenric posted in the other thread. but soon I will forget

I'm staff, couldn't exactly let you continue to flaunt the rules. Had to do my job.

Anyway, its certainly a good effort on the biomechanoid, better than most I've seen , and its appreciated that you gave it your best shot. And I'd be interest in seeing you try it again when you learn more in MAX, especially displacement mapping which is a cool feature

Edit: and don't worry about the mapping

Edit2: Still got the fangs though hehe naa just messing

 

[GOoch]

Yay thats it everyones friends again....

i love the fangs..