I’ve created a test environment to set up the compositing pipeline in Nuke that I will be using at the end of the project for compositing the renders. I also tested several material techniques to achieve different realistic material looks. I made a really simple cliff in ZBrush where I polypainted a texture and also an alpha texture for growing grass on the cliff. I also made an ocean with internal sub-surface scattering (particles light bounces off) to give the water a realistic look. It didn’t take much longer then 4 hours to put this scene together, so I am very confident about the speed in wish the final environment will be created for my final project.

When I render out images with VRay I always save them as floating-point 32-bit OpenEXR (.exr) image files. The advantage with using OpenEXR is that all the render passes gets saved inside one EXR image file, which makes it so much easier to work with the compositing. When importing EXR files into Nuke; Nuke automatically reads all the render passes so you can extract and composite the render as you like with ease. The pipeline you see in the image above was the first pipeline I put together quickly.

I wasn’t entirely happy with the setup the previous pipeline had, so I created a new and improved one that also allows for a bit more control. In this pipeline the lighting and global illumination passes are divided by the diffuse filter in order to extract the raw passes (so I don’t need to actually render the raw passes out). The raw passes are the lighting and global illumination unaffected by materials, so you can realistically change the lighting without breaking the realism.

Compositing allows you to manipulate elements of the render without needing to render again and again. The entire purpose of compositing is to greatly enhance and improve the visual quality of your renders. It also saves you a LOT of time in the big scheme of things.

These two renders took 17 minutes each to render out. Which is pretty fast for still shots. If I where to animate the environment, I would change the displacement with normal mapping instead which would greatly decrease the render time. The visual quality would still look the same as long as you don’t directly pause the animation and look closely at the terrain. For still frames using displacement is definitely a plus since it adds an extra level of immersion in detail.

VRayLightMtl (VRay light material) is a material I will definitely use in my project. It is a material that illuminates the scene through the global illumination pass and can create very interesting environment lighting when the material is masked to give certain effects. The advantage of using light materials in VRay is how fast you can achieve noiseless render quality in animation and still frames. Magical effects, glowing eyes, and so on can look really good with this material as it will emit light into environment.

This is a render I created some time ago which directly benefited from the usage of VRayLightMtl. The scene also uses VRayEnvironmentFog so that the light from the lava scatters into the atmosphere.

Once the base meshes are imported into ZBrush I start sculpting. Most of the elements will exceed 2 million polygons. The armour vest ended up on 4 million polygons for example. Some of these elements will need retopologizing and some are just fine as they are already.

I’m a little over half way done with the clothing and then I’ll retopologize the meshes and the body and start fleshing out the real details, specially the characters skin and also get the personality in the face right.

Here you can see all the elements the character is made of right now.

I created a simply box in 3Ds Max where the ears are suppose to be and imported it into zbrush and then sculpted it to intersect with the main body. I can easily move the placement of the ears without worrying about masking parts of the body off to not ruin other parts of the model.

The modelling of the spikes is a bit of a challenge. I knew I couldn’t create them from the body so they are made as a separate object. The spikes are a bunch of cylindrical spikes that has been copied, pasted and deformed to fit their place, one after another. This becomes the base mesh for the sculpting of the spikes. I modelled the spikes all the way down to the shoulders, but I am not sure if I should use those small ones and maybe just model those smaller spikes out of the skin of  the main body of the character instead.

Just a quick post to show this aspect of the planning.

ZBrush’s ZSphere have helped my work flow a lot and really empowered me (and all the other users of ZBrush) to easily create form and figures from scratch without concern about topology. ZSpheres increases the productivity of character production pipelines, so everyone who wants to create characters should really try ZBrush.

When I got the ZSphere mesh generated I start sculpting it until it the model takes the form of the character. I subdivide the mesh step by step as I establish more and more general forms. When the body is properly sculpted and retopologized, I will have to do a modelling pass where I refine everything on the model to make it look really good.

When most of the overall form is established I will start on the ears and the spikes on his head.

When importing and exporting between ZBrush and 3Ds Max with default settings, you will always find that the models are in the wrong orientation, in one of the programs. This is due to that ZBrush and 3Ds Max uses the XYZ axis in a different order, like Maya differs from 3Ds Max’s XYZ. I’ve found that the the iFlipY, iFlipZ, eFlipY and eFlipZ must be on in order to accommodate the XYZ arrangement between ZBrush and 3Ds Max.

iFlipX,Y,Z means that on model import; X, Y and/or Z axis will be flipped. eFlipX,Y,Z means that on model import; X, Y and/or Z axis will be flipped. There are a ton of other buttons in the Importexport tab that changes other things like flipping normals on import or export and so on.

I still haven’t fleshed out the story of the character completely, and I won’t name him before I find a fitting name. Best to avoid the typical fantasy names every internet role-player names him/herself, names where the starting and ending vowel always is “A”.

Here are the sketches I created as I tested different looks and cloth design, I will upload several more later when I scan what I drew on paper as well.

I did use some extra time to refine them, particularly the grey one.  Under completion I felt that I still hadn’t quite found the design I wanted, but I had narrowed it down enough so I started on the character template next. I knew the shape of the body so I would only need to worry about the cloth design and colours. Starting on the final cloth design, I also made up the story of how the cloth where suppose to be designed. The characters cloth are designed to silhouette the appearance of scales from dragon-like creatures that lives on the planet, to scare of dangerous animals away at a distance in the environments the character encounters.

Here is the final design.

I am quite happy with the look. Now there is no time to waste, on with the 3D production!

This is my artistic interpretation of the ten avatars of Vishnu from the Hindu religion. This was a task for the Drawing & Composition 3 module. I’ve explored different visual styles while creating these and have learned a lot of methods for working much faster digitally. Some of these where created in the time span of about 1 hour. I made everything in Adobe Photoshop CS5 except for Matsya, the scanned one.

Matsya

Kurma

Varaha

Narasimha

Vamana

Parashurama

Rama

Krishna

Buddha

Kalki

The Outline:

The main goal of this project is to show what you can do within the field you want to work in. My plan is to show my skills in working in a generic 3D production pipeline that consists of creating a 3D character in a 3D environment  with detailed documentation of the creative and technical process that I use to create a complete 3D scene with an industry standard finished result. The final result will consist of several high-resolution renders of the character in his/her environment in several poses, an animated composition breakdown of everyone of those renders, and several 3D turnables (orbiting/flying camera) of the character and environment in full render, clay render and low-poly wireframe render.

The Story:

The story is about the main character discovering the planet he/she lives on exists within itself as a miniature planet, like a voodoo doll, but instead of being a copy, it is an exact instance of the planet, a loop within itself. The main character faces an extraordinary discovery of the true nature of his/her world and realizes how in danger the fate of the world is due to this reality. If he/she puts a hand on the surface of the miniature world, the immense force that multiplies would amount to beyond catastrophic consequences. The main character finds him/her in the position of absolute control over the fate of his/her world. With the power to protect, manipulate or destroy all that there is.

The Challenge:

This is an artistically and technically demanding project. The most important aspect artistically in this project is creating strong storytelling shots. Since I am not creating a short film, the still renders should consist of great posing and strong visual presentation to express the story on its own.

Like any project, there will be obstacles both technically and artistically. I have done a great deal of research and preparation in the various phases this project will undergo so the creation process should go as smooth as possible. There are three cornerstones that this projects final result rests on; model quality, texture quality and render quality. I have worked very hard up to this point to be able to recreate any type of material imaginable in the physically correct manner, from the most simple anisotropic metallic surfaces to the more advanced skin-shaders and the more complex chromatic aberrations visible on the reflective side of a CD. A good skin-shader is necessary for making the character visually appealing and believable. Many materials are render expensive, so I will have to take several decisions on what method to use on different materials if necessary. I will be creating a high resolution 360 degree matte-painting for the environment background that will be composited into the scene.

The Artefact:

• Several high-resolution renders of the character in its environment.
• Animated breakdown of the high-resolution renders, showing the many layers the final shots are built of.
• Several turnables of the character and environment in full render, clay render and low-poly wireframe.

optional if extra time is available

· Animation of the character walking about.

Production Chronology:

Phase A

◊ Character and environment mock-up
◊ Create character basemesh for modeling
◊ Create environment basemesh for modeling
♦ Document production on blog + Draft project report

Phase B

◊ Character modeling & props
◊ Environment modeling
◊ Basic scene light for texturing
◊ Character texturing
◊ Environment texturing
◊ Character rigging
♦ Document production on blog + Draft project report
♦ Start advertising project on 3D forums (cgaffinity, zbrushcentral, 3dhue, 3dtotal, etc)

Phase C

◊ Scene lighting and atmospheric effects
◊ Rendering
◊ Compositing
♦ Document production on blog + Draft project report
♦ Advertise project on 3D forums (cgaffinity, zbrushcentral, 3dhue, 3dtotal, etc)

Phase D

◊ Create posters
◊ Complete project report
♦ Document production on blog

Project Plan:

Project Plan (Draft) – Excel Document

For everyone who have visited my blog by www.insanetk.com, I’ve claimed ownership the domain www.cgaffinity.com, which my new website and all its links are now defaulted to. I have upgraded the design of my website to a more professional look to aid the presentation of all my future projects. My old gallery from www.insanetk.com will be up in short time as well.