Paradise Lost WIP

[Raptor365]

I'm attempting the Gustave Doré ' Milton's Paradise Lost, Satan flies up to Earth.
I'll be showing my progress as I go.

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w289/TheRaptor365/misc/Paradise_Lost_14.jpg (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Dor%C3%A9)

[Raptor365]

Started on it last night with little succes, mostly with trying to get the main mountain shape. Got it first thing this morning and have spent about 8 hrs on it so far.

-I had some rendering issues. Because of my current RAM limitations some objects are not getting rendered. The river is supposed to be blue water but is rendered dark grey. And there is a shoreline of smaller rocks around the upper part of the river in the picture, again, didn't get rendered.

-Should have more RAM in 4 to 8 weeks so not a big deal.

-A number of things to fix up, the sky with god rays I'll do last, not a biggee, and the character, plus the finer details to fix up, and other little changes I want to make.

So here's what I have roughed in so far. It seems to be coming together though. (lower res rendering)

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w289/TheRaptor365/misc/paradise_lost_0006.jpg

[djembeplay]

wow... nice work.

I can appreciate how well you executed the trees having went through the same challenge myself... it's something that can eat up your resources at the snap of a finger if your not careful. So, the balance between realistic trees and 'light' models is tricky... so, yeah, I'm impressed.

Do you mind me asking how you made the tree? I usually just model the trunk and use a bunch of sweep-nurbs offshoots for the branches...

// oh, and the rock - is that displacement mapping that you painted or layered noise? Did you use C4D for it all or was some done in that external displacement modeling program you use (I cannot remember the name right now)?

[djembeplay]

///btw, I love organic modeling.

[Raptor365]

I'm doing this one in Vue. The trees are pretty simple since they are vue objects.
You just add a tree and it grows each one differently. You can also edit the tree somewhat to change the droop and diameter ect.

The main mountain on the left is mostly a texture of rocks and stones.
I added some displacement to help bring out finer details. And there are some actual rocks at the peak to create the steps where the character will be standing on.
Also a couple more scattered around. I still have to rework that.

I tried a number of things to get the overall shape including using terrains and tried modeling a generic shape in C4D.
In the end I ended up using big 3 rocks.

I worked on the section with the river and the forrest behind it yesterday.
I'm going to have to render in layers and composite it afterwards. That back section has around 3 gig polys :). Yes, I said 2,800,000,000-plus polys.

But speaking of trees, I played around doing one in C4D a few months ago.
I modelled it backwards, that is I started with the smallest tip of a branch then copied and joined, later copying larger more completed branches and continued until it was done.
I used a basic cubic shape and then added a hyper nurbs to smooth it.
It was a little tedious and took 4 hours to model. I've been thinking of better ways to make them and played around with some plugin code.

But the trick was in the joints so I've highlight them in red in the wire.
That's one way to do it anyways. Oh, it could also use some further sculpting like with ZBrush of Mudbox or something, mainly if it were a closeup tree.
The leaves were cloned onto polygon pieces taken from the original model.

Anyways, a C4D tree.

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w289/TheRaptor365/misc/tree_0003.jpg

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w289/TheRaptor365/misc/tree_0004.jpg

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w289/TheRaptor365/misc/tree_wire.jpg

[triplej96]

Looks like a great start Gord! I figured it was Vue since that wip scene would have been really tough just in C4D! Nice job on the C4D tree it looks really good!

Glad to see a wip from you. I hope to have one soon!

[djembeplay]

Wow, that's quite a nice tree.

So do you mean you had seperate branches modeled, connected them as one polygon mesh, then connected them together at the joints?

You've inspired me to post one of my WIPs... (finally).

[Raptor365]

Re C4D tree branches: I just started with a basic 'y' shape, copy it then extend the copied piece to it, so now it's a branch with 2 y's. I kept doing that making copies, extending and reattaching various copies and also scaling up a bit along the way. I'll try and make brief tutorial one of these days.

Hey Josh good to see you up and about.

Finally got it all to render in one shot. Still a few minor things I'd like to fix including a boxy shadow that got in there and the split rock texture went a little wonky.

Probably have a look at the sky and character next as well.
Anyhoot...

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w289/TheRaptor365/misc/ParadiseLostWip_2.jpg

[djembeplay]

I think I get what your saying regarding modeling the tree.

Awesome render man... I wouldn't have that pegged as 3D at all if I had seen it out of context of this thread. It looks more like detailed stencil art or even a finely woven oriental piece. How did you achieve this look?

[Anhar Miah]

wow, Gord thats pretty impressive, for a split second i thought that was a reference photo!

Keep it comming!

Just my thoughts:

The original seems to have some very very strange perspective, visually I find it hard to see where the artist is trying to draw my attention too, for some reason there is something about it that is flat, I would expect something more dramatic for such a context,

I think would I would do (JUST my view!) would be to bring Satan much, much closer to the camera, and just leave a hint of the moutain top, the rest of the background can then show the clouds/ trees and horizon, by bringing the character closer to the 'focal point' (not camera context, visually) you could make it really dramatic, eg put detail into the anguish/anger of the character and show that from his pose.

Anhar

[Raptor365]

DJ: That's just the Vue render engine. All of the textures and models used so far ship with Vue.

Anhar: I thought about the perspective too. I also noticed he had the point of interest on the left rather than the right like North American photos. I understand that the Japanese, for example, use the left because they read right to left so the left is the stronger part of the image.

I agree it does look flat, particulary the forrest but I'm going to leave that for now.
And I agree there doesn't seem to be a point of interest on the right. But, with the sky I have planned it should, if it works, should bring the context of the picture together and give it meaning. I may not show that until I'm done because I want to keep something a surprise for the final pic. It should bring it all together though.

Also I considered modeling the trees on the hill the way they are depicted, but then should I really be trying to copy it that closely? Because then it becomes surreal and the textures I'm using probably wouldn't work then. So maybe for this experiment anyways maybe I should keep it with a current day look.

Also about changing the camera and focal points ect, I would do that if I were framing for video. In fact it might be interesting to replace the forrest with a city scape in a video scene.

At any rate, this is good practice for me anyways and I think I'll just complete it the way it's going. I want to try a couple more of his portraits after so I'd better just get this wrapped and not get too bogged down with changing everything too much. I'm just fixing the little parts that tend to annoy me, and go with the rest I guess, haha.

//edit: On the other hand, I think I'll have another 'quick' look at that forrest. It is awfully flat and could use some more variation in depth. :)

[Raptor365]

I did some work on the character today so here's an update. I started with a lo poly human model that can be downloaded from the Zbrush site then did some basic reshaping in C4D, then modeled and added the wings then unwrapped the uv's.

I hope the horns aren't too goofy. I didn't want those big mountain goat horns nor hooves for feet.

This is the beginning of the sculpting in Zbrush. It's not something I'm too familiar with yet so...I'm working on it.

I'm starting on the head. A tablet would be handy too.


http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w289/TheRaptor365/misc/gust_char_wip_1.jpg

[Raptor365]

Without the planned teeth in place it looks like he's crying. We'll, maybe he should be? haha.
But in the final render I doubt any detail will be noticeable. Hopefully a little bit of the anguish will come across in the final? I will be giving him a different pose and suggesting an alternate meaning in context to the original picture. :beer:

Besides, I have a different take on what the picture means and what I hope to translate. Interprepation I guess.

[djembeplay]

Nice - can't wait to see the final.

One thought was... if he is of the same scale as well as posed with his back to the camera, the subtle face detail won't be visible, will it?

[Raptor365]

His head will be angled a bit so you can see part of the face but I doubt the finer details would be noticable at that distance/scale. And I suppose if I wanted to reuse the character for another pic I could always detail it up some more. I'll add a bit more detail to it but I'm not going to go crazy with it. It should be fine for this picture. I'll find out soon enough.

[Raptor365]

Spents a few more hours on it tonight. I stuck a texture on it to get a feel for the look.
The model should be fine for this purpose so I'll work a bit on the texturing next.
That's all for tonight though.

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w289/TheRaptor365/misc/gust_char_wip_2.jpg

[djembeplay]

Nice model... looks great as-is to me.

[Raptor365]

Yeah, I may get him in the picture and won't be able to make out anything, haha.

Here's another grab. He's a bit on the red side. I guess I'll get him posed and put him in the scene and see what needs to be changed.
I may add a tail, maybe.

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w289/TheRaptor365/misc/gustav_char_wip_4.jpg

[Raptor365]

I tweaked up the character texture some more. This is a fixed mesh with the displacement baked in.
I lost a bit of detail like the abs when I baked everything .
The texture is also baked. This is what I'm importing into Vue.

The sky and rendering/compositing left to finish now.


http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w289/TheRaptor365/misc/Gustav_char_wip_5.jpg

[Raptor365]

Here's an update and a bit of my thinking as I go along for anyone following along.
Still picking away at it between other things. (Just finished watching the live dvxfest feed.)

-The texturing I did for the character prior didn't fit with the textures of the rest of the scene so I decided to abandon my original concept and make him a statue posed as in the original sketch. I also added 'pants' to the character as per the sketch.

-While not what I planned and not what I wanted my interpretation of the image to be,
I think this version will at least be acceptable and be texturally consistant.
My personal artistic statement/vision won't be there but I think it'll work as a visual representation of what it might look like if someone were to actually sculpt the character atop a hill inspired by the original sketch.
So I'm hoping it will at least work on that level when completed.


-So here's a foreground layer. Very lo res. The sky shown here will not be seen in the final picture.
This sky I'm using just to get certain highlights and shadows that I'll blend in with pics using the visual sky.
My reason for that is the final sky has a sun too low on the horizon to light the scene properly.
The visual suns position was chosen specifically to highlight the clouds, thus I need extra sky passes for terrain lighting.

I also have ambient sky passes as well which will all be composited together.

As for adding seperate omni lights to highlight specific areas, I may have to do that also (:)) but I've found with Vue the suns have a different lighting affect on the materials that I prefer.

As I said, it's not what I planned and won't be as dramatic, but I think I can still save it.
Should be done in a week or two. I've already started on the next one. No wips for that one I promise, haha.

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w289/TheRaptor365/misc/foregroundchar4_lores.jpg

[Raptor365]

Well, I guess I got it done early. Here's what I came up with.
Crits are awalys welcome.


http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w289/TheRaptor365/misc/Paradise_Lost_SFUTE_small.jpg

[Sad Max]

The sky seems more photographic and less stylized than the forest, promontory, or figure in the foreground.

But it's heading in a cool direction. If Dore worked in color he might have gone this way.

[Raptor365]

I very much appreciate the feedback Max.

Getting a consitant stylized look is something that I still need to develop.
I'm not at the point where I can express myself visually the way I want yet. Bummer. :)

But I think style comes only after many trials and much experience and I'm not there yet, as in this case. Hopefully in time that will come by trying, experimenting with a bit of everything. Kind of like music I suppose.

Appreciated and noted.

-Thanks again.

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

Well, I guess I got it done early. Here's what I came up with.
Crits are awalys welcome.

.....




The connection of Satan's foot, and the surface of the 'rock' seems to be not quite right to me.

As mentioned the photoness of the sunset needs to be more stylized.

I also think there needs to be more shadow depth in the forest below.

The 'brite' folage at the bottom of the frame also 'drags' the eye down... and not in a metaphysical sense...

I think you can also work on the dead tree at the bottom to make it more skeletal like.

[Raptor365]

The connection of Satan's foot, and the surface of the 'rock' seems to be not quite right to me.

:). Yeah, I had a problem there.

As mentioned the photoness of the sunset needs to be more stylized.

I also think there needs to be more shadow depth in the forest below.

The 'brite' folage at the bottom of the frame also 'drags' the eye down... and not in a metaphysical sense...

Very good points. The bright foilage at the lower right dragging the eye down...
yeah, you're right. Huh, I didn't catch that one.

I think you can also work on the dead tree at the bottom to make it more skeletal like.

Yeah, I think I'll just call this one a learning experience (cough). I'm going to try another one and try a couple things differently, specifically the trees and sky.
It may take me a few tries before I get a 'good one'. :beer:

Alright. Rock'n'roll.

[Anhar Miah]

Congrats!


my suggestions:

Light + Shadow:

draw a line down the tip of Satains horn and bring that line vertically down, now everything on the left hand side (in my mind) should be in darkness, everything else on the other side should be illuminated from the suns rays...

[Raptor365]

Thanks Anhar. I was trying to highlight the right side of the hill. I guess I didn't take it far enough. If I make the left side darker there won't be much left to see so I think a color change instead might do it.

The lower right bush I can fix no problem.

My main worry right now is the sky though. I'm playing around with a few ideas on how to achieve that. Any suggestions?

I'm experimenting with photoshopping it but I have to learn how to paint clouds. There's also matte painting by cloning from real photos or even 3D renders.
Doing it all in 3D with meta clouds would be nuts. Another way may be some photo effect on the 3D sky with a bit of painting tossed in. I don't know yet.

When I get something new for the sky I'll be sure to update the pic again.

//I'm getting some cool looks with the cloud texture brush in phototshop. With a bit of practice I think that might do it.

[djembeplay]

What about pyrocluster? You can get tons of different looks by playin' with the settings.


Pretty sick work... nice job. Any suggestions are, of course, subjective to the artistic style of each individual reviewer. Art is what it is... if you are happy with the result, then it's finished.

Now, having said that... A couple thoughts. First, I agree with the comment about the meeting of the foot and the rock... it looks like a composited image... a little shadow detail there would do the trick.

Second... maybe I'm splitting hairs, but it looks like there are light shafts on the forest floor that indicate the light source to be to the back-right of the photo's perspective.

[Raptor365]

Hey DJ. I considered pyrocluster but in the past I've had a lot of trouble getting the lighting/shadows right and it's takes a lot of time experimenting.
I'll think I'll focus on learning to paint clouds in photoshop as in the end that would give me greater control.

The foot was a problem because of the way the light hits it, the shadow fell at an angle that didn't hit the rock. For a little thing like that I could do a quick fix in photoshop. Or spend a few hours trying different lighting on that one section. Even if it were in a video NLE a little masking and such could fix that. I'll have a look at it when I'm updating the picture again.

The shadows on the forrest floor: Yep, I used 3 suns for lighting, and in hindsight, yes the angles are a bit wrong. Same with the shadows on the hill but the hill shadow angles I'm not concerned about. I'll check the forrest/sun renders, see which one is casting the wrong shadows and maybe I can remove those and just leave the proper ones.

Thanks for the suggestions. There's so many technical things to worry about it's easy to overlook the obvious sometimes.

[djembeplay]

Ya... it's insane how many little catches there are when finishing a project. I'm actually relieved to hear you say that (regarding the technical things to worry about)... because I haven't had a project yet where I haven't had to go back and patch things up over and over, re-rendering and post compositing, just to get things 'right'.

Actually, sometimes that process is over half of my entire production time. So, ya, its good to hear that you run into the same stuff :).

One thing that has been getting me lately is forgetting to set my image sampling from 'mip' to 'sat' and to dial up my blur settings a little bit. Without doing this, I always get crazy flickering... unacceptable to me most of the time. Either that or I could force higher AA on the object, but that is more render-intensive. Of course, now my attention is on it, so it seems even worse when I see it.

Anyways, I digress.

The things I pointed out are very minor, of course... I'm just used to looking at the details at this point. This is definitly work to be proud of.

[Raptor365]

Well, I appreciate it DJ. As long as I'm inching ahead I'm happy I guess. Never will be happy with anything I suppose but at least once I'd like to sit and say "yeah, I nailed that one."

Another problem is when working on this stuff that takes so long, while in the process, I get other ideas that I really want to experiment with.

Oh, and other people's projects that I want to help out on sometimes.

On one hand I know I should draw the line and start specializing but on the other hand there's too much that interests me. So I guess I'm F'd in that sense, lol.

On the other hand, my age pretty much allows me to not give a Sht.
I mean, at this point in my life, what I have left, I'm doing this for me. Not some f'd up employer. Otherwise, if I were younger, I'd attack things a bit differently.

Disclaimer: Kids, Don't try this at home, lol. :beer:

[Raptor365]

So here ya go for the loyal 3D guys, the first ever glimpse of Raptor taken a few moments ago, on the fly. Sorry, I didn't shave, this was a spontaneous moment.
( a little bit of a green CC cell-phone-deal + brillo-pad-face going on there.)

I don't know, I think if I shaved that hash & stash, lost the hat and glasses, I'd be on the husslin' trail again. Nawwww, fk it. Iyzzz got my beer and my dvxuser. What more does a guy need? :beer:

And yeah, that's dvxuser in the background.


http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w289/TheRaptor365/me_2K9-half.jpg

[djembeplay]

Man, I missed it... I guess it was a limited time only thing :)

Ya I'm of the 'loose planning' philosophy... I go at things with a general image but leave room for lots of play in the process... that's an artistic methodology. It might not be as effective when working under strict supervision with tight guidelines and for a high price... but as an artist that sounds like stifling conditions.

Along the same lines... I'm sure if you specialized, you could move to a big polluted city and make oodles of money. Would you prefer that to a more practical existence that leaves room for personal creation? It's a tough trade-off... I find myself asking that question. However, I don't think one NEEDS to specialize in order to make a living at their art...

Oh, and don't try to pass it off on us that your an old man... didn't you say that you just turned 50? You've still got close to half your life to live, dude :)

[Raptor365]

lol, yeah I got kind of tuned up the other night. When I woke up I thought "oh no, I posted a picture?" so I took it down, haha. Yeah, I was babbling. The things I do sometimes.
Yeah I'm 50, but that's another story (shakes head).
Moving right along...

[Raptor365]

Yeah, I live a 5 minute walk from protected wetlands.
The big cites don't suite me though, let's leave it at that.

...polluted city and oodles of money...
haha, yeah, I'll pass.

Well here's a little pic, the same one, smaller. Not a big deal. I thought I didn't shave that day. It was just visual noise from the cell phone camera.:beer:

Anyways, this thread is getting waaaay off topic, my fault, my bad, get chatting, so let's dump it and get back to biz. :beer:


http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w289/TheRaptor365/misc/me_2K9-half.jpg

[Raptor365]

Had company over from Scotland the past couple weeks.

So what are you guys working on? I'm doing a ship for Matty but can't post the progress. It's gonna be cool though. A step up from the Valkyrie anyways.

Nobody working on anything?

[Sad Max]

A step up from *which* Valkyrie?

[djembeplay]

Nice - it's fun to see the face behind all our dialogue.

Ya I'm working on 2 ads at the same time... they are both finished except for the sound. They should be all wrapped up by the end of the week. I'll post them here when I'm finished.

[Raptor365]

Max, I mean the space ship I did for Mark Johnsons 02 short. It was called the Valkyrie before the T.V. show. So I mean for me it'll be a personal step up modeling wise for a space ship.

DJ, sounds good man.

[Sad Max]

I was thinking of our Valkyrie from Avatar.

Don't anybody go dissing our Valkyrie from Avatar.

I enjoyed O2. Some good work there.

[Raptor365]

No, I understand Avatar is ground breaking so I'm looking forward to that. I didn't know about your Valkyrie. It seems to be going around then? :). Haven't seen the Avatar nor Valkyrie TV shows yet , (cringe, I have no TV) but I've heard the Avatar movie is coming out soon? So I'm I'm really looking forward to that.

No, I wouldn't hope to imply I'm competing with the big dogs. Not at all.
But we, er, Mark, had the name first, (didn't he, lol?)

Alright, lets me get back to work people! :beer:

[Sad Max]

Why shouldn't you compete with the big dogs? What's the worst that could happen?

The Avatar Valkyrie has borne that name for about four years (since early drafts of the script) but it's not like anyone specifically copyrighted it, or anything.

[Raptor365]

I wasn't aware of the Valkyrie history, name wise I guess. lol. No, Mark called his ship that and I had never heard of it before then so...first for me. lol. that's funny though. It's just a name.
I think Mark's got it under control though. :beer:

[Sad Max]

Coincidence, of course.

[Raptor365]

On one hand I know I should draw the line and start specializing but on the other hand there's too much that interests me. So I guess I'm F'd in that sense, lol.

On the other hand, my age pretty much allows me to not give a Sht.

I accidentally stumbled across the quote below tonight while looking for an old mans face to model tonight, for something 'else' to break from the other stuff while knocking back the cans and listening to Pink Floyd 'Pulse Live'.



There may be no concrete difference on turning fifty, but I have a feeling that this is probably a psychologically important landmark. It seems like an age where you can finally accept that you are what you are - in both good and bad senses - and feel at peace with yourself. This isn't to rule out scope for self-improvement, or to defend being completely set in one's ways, but more to acknowledge that any real or imaginary pressure is off. Other people might still wish for better things from you, but the fact that you have turned fifty makes it more likely that such wishes will remain wishes rather than becoming expectations. (And so may begin the slippery slope to crotchety old man status, when one becomes impossible and is proud of it.) So what benefit may derive from the new serenity? I think it is an age-related license to be oneself. On the one hand, one can try doing things even if one seems entirely unsuited to them, without any fears of embarrassment. On the other hand, one can avoid doing things that feel inappropriate or uninteresting, without too many concerns about causing upset. Overall, one can be open about one's thinking. So this is the theory. Only time will tell whether this turns into my own practice. Meanwhile, let this very commentary be an early exemplar of some openness about my thinking.
link (http://gordon.brebner.googlepages.com/lifeafterfifty)
Well there ya go. I might be semi normal after all. :beer:

(I'll try and refrain from chatting in this thread but couldn't resist this one. There won't be any picture updates of this one in the next month or two probably so don't look for those. I have to get the coulds down so that'll take awhile.

I'll take a quick stab at another face model tonight, or something else, (need the practice). If I get anywhere with it tonight, probably not though, I'll post it in another thread.) Cheers. :beer:

[Sad Max]

Well, Fifty is the new Forty so perhaps you should also consider whatever sage observations people have to offer, regarding being Forty.