Tauren Marine

[ktysdal]

hello,

this is my first artwork post on this forum so I'll introduce myself. My name is Kjartan, I'm a Norwegian freelance CG artist. Last year I worked on Tears of Steel, I was the guy who made the robots. I used to use C4d+Vray in my previous job, and I've also done architecture projects in 3dsMax+Vray. So I decided to get the vray standalone and try out the Blender version.
I'm currently working on a modeling/texturing reel so that's why I'm making this guy:

hires - http://www.kjartantysdal.com/images/...en_01_vray.jpg

here's the WIP thread from blenderartists:
http://blenderartists.org/forum/show...-Tauren-Marine

This project started in Cycles, but after Easter I decided to convert it over to VRay. I like to experiment with different rendering engines when I do my personal projects. I find that it is a really good way to compare and learn different engines.
Hope you like it

[ArnaudT]

Re: Tauren Marine

waow, great job !

[bdancer]

Re: Tauren Marine

Super!

[Wolf3D]

Re: Tauren Marine

Great!

[ktysdal]

Re: Tauren Marine

thanks guys!
the plan is to render the main passes in vray, then render a couple additional passes separately. I'll probably do one render in BI for smoke(from his cigar, the gun, the two things sticking from back). I'll use vray hair for hair shadows in the main render, but i'll probably render a separate hair pass in Cycles.

i do have a couple of questions:
There is currently no UV support for hair right?
Is it possible to map a gradient to the length of a hair strand (so that we can make only the tip transparent)?

today i've been doing some sculpting

i've been experimenting with 32-bit displacement maps from zbrush and rendering them vray.. but i'm getting some really funky results
Is 32-bit displacement supported? and if yes, do anyone know how to make them render properly?
(if no one knows then it's not a big problem. i'll just make due with 8 or 16 bit displacement.)

update:
i figured out the displacement thing.. it took me 6 hours of experimentation to figure it out though

still not perfect, but good enough

[leandro_cs]

Re: Tauren Marine

great work!

[ktysdal]

Re: Tauren Marine

thanks cyberlecs

i put together a video on youtube showing the WIP
[youtube:5ie4nvek]h1fCqwh0Vbk[/youtube:5ie4nvek]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1fCqwh0Vbk

if you read this bdancer, i think the "Allow negative color" checkbox under Image Texture/Bitmap is broken. It seemed like negative colors for 32-bit images gets clipped. I can provide a test-file if you like.

btw, is there a specific place where we can put vray/blender-bugs?

[bdancer]

Re: Tauren Marine

i figured out the displacement thing.. it took me 6 hours of experimentation to figure it out though

So, what was the issue?

if you read this bdancer, i think the "Allow negative color" checkbox under Image Texture/Bitmap is broken. It seemed like negative colors for 32-bit images gets clipped. I can provide a test-file if you like.

Test scene would be great!

btw, is there a specific place where we can put vray/blender-bugs?

You could put them here or here.

[ktysdal]

Re: Tauren Marine

"So, what was the issue?"
where do i start.. well there was a lot of variables on the zbrush side that gave me problems. But the biggest thing was probably that zbrush outputs 32-bit Tiff in grayscale mode, and that type of Tiff is not supported in blender, so I had to convert it into a RGB OpenEXR.. that took me a long time to figure out.

There's also a lot of variables that I had to test on the blender side.. setting color space to linear and testing "allow negative colors" and "keep continuity" and so on and so on.. Man, displacements is haarrd

"Test scene would be great!"
Great! Here you go -> viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1176

[ktysdal]

Re: Tauren Marine

Here's a clay render of him in his pose. I'm having some issues with the textured version, so only clay render this time.

http://www.kjartantysdal.com/images/..._pose_720p.jpg
I need to have something presentable for my reel soon'ish so I'm trying do the finishing touches. If you see anything that stands out as being "wrong" or "not as good as it should be" then please feel free to tell me

[ktysdal]

Re: Tauren Marine

here's a couple freshly rendered frames. There's still a lot of small tiny little things that needs attention, but it's getting close

http://www.kjartantysdal.com/images/...03_pose_hi.jpg

i noticed that rendered frames from vray doesn't line up with renders from cycles/bi. That makes compositing very tricky.
So I decided to use vray fur for certain parts of his body and just render it directly in the main render. But the main hair on his head and beard is rendered separately in cycles, it seems to work okey'ish.

[ktysdal]

Re: Tauren Marine

i'm finishing up the work on the turntable animations for this guy. Here's the last frame

man, after working on this since.. end of January (!) I think this project is finally coming to an end
(i can see the light at the end of the tunnel.. i think)

shaded

and wire

[bdancer]

Re: Tauren Marine

Very impressive =)

[ktysdal]

Re: Tauren Marine

thanks bdancer!

here's the finished turntable animation on youtube
[youtube:1fmgav3j]3ythsZL61B0[/youtube:1fmgav3j]

and you can also see it as part if my brand new reel
[vimeo:1fmgav3j]65131113[/vimeo:1fmgav3j]

the composited smoke from BI actually worked pretty well. It didn't line up exactly 100% with the vray render, but i don't think anyone is going to notice

[Wolf3D]

Re: Tauren Marine

For the God of Mechwarrior! Very very impressive, congratulations!