mies - insect - scarabee

[mies]

I want to make a kick ass scarabee. One with one big horn and nice bright collors. i hope i can make it as cool as it looks inside my head. More to come guys.

[mies]

Made a first digital sketch of the bug i want to make. Because i dont know how much time i can spare for this contest i desided to simply work of my 3D sketch in max and see how far ill get.

so what u guys think of it sofar?

[xxxcubanxxx]

looking good so far mies, looking forward to more updates.

[tompa]

he's so funny looking *laughing* ..chocked yet curious

[mies]

thnx for the replies guys :) really cool. still thinking of how to make it look better..any suggestions would be very welcome :)

[gfxengine]

Looking cool man :haha:

[mies]

Ok guys, an update. It may not be what u guys expected but hope u like it. any suggestions or ideas are welcome.

[Novian]

miles: Looks good so far. The eye is especially good. Is he made of leaves? My only concern is that the body and the limbs look like they are two different scales for the paint. Can we see the UV layout? That might help narrow it down.

Keep up the good work!

Cheers~

[Raul]

the textures need some more shading. Right now it just looks like you slapped some dirt and leaf texture on the thing and called a day.

I like the eyes, but they look too innocent, not sure if this is what you were going for or not.

[mies]

thnx for the replies guys :)

Novian: sharply noticed novian :) the reason it looks like that is kinda that i showed it to a friend earlier and he didnt get what i ment. so i did a quick unwrap and a super quick texture so hed understand what i ment.

im thinking of handpainting the entire thing and see how that will go. if that wont work ill redo the textures and make sure everything is at the same resolution. Ill add a uvw layout of how it looks atm though im not sure it will be very helpfull since its gonna change alot.

thnx alot for ur replies and sharply noticed :)

Neto: i kinda did slap it on and called it a day. shame on me :P im thinking of handpainting the leaves since i need alot of practis with painting my own textures. u think thats gonna work as nicely as the leaves as they are now?

and the eyes..well i want this bug to look as cute as it can be so if the eyes look innocent im very happy :)

thnx for ur observation and comments :)

[mies]

forgot the uvw..silly me.

[Perversonality]

Looks disarmingly cute... No wonder it's the worst insect; no one would ever suspect :)

[Novian]

Yeah people will let their guard down around it. "Ohh its so cute.." *HORRIBLE BLOOD CURDLING SCREAMS follow. lol

Cheers~

[mies]

hahahahah exactly! so when ever u see this one, dont be fooled! RUN RUN RUUUUUUN! hahahaha

[mies]

Ok another update guys, atm im at 742 tris so still got some geo to spare. what do you think and if you have any suggestions let me know. Specialy about its head..not sure what do to with it atm.. here it is:

[Raul]

Im really digging the little details like the mushrooms and such. But the textures..i dunno so much. For example the mushrooms, have a nice amount of detail texture stuff going on in them, but then you have the face that is completly flat. And again, compared to the legs that are super detailed ( and still look like you just slapped the texture on :P)

If i may suggest. Bake out an ao map of your model. Use this an an overlay for your textures. Simplfly your textures using a photoshop filter. I think cutout filter will give you a nice cartoonish effect. But try to make them all moatch. Also, desaturate the mushroom a little bit. It is too bright and saturated next to the leaf. I would just bring the saturation of the oranges down a bit.


About the eyes. Since he looks so cute with those big eyes, you want to make sure they eyes looks really good. On your uvs, give a lot more space to the eyes so you cna get the most out of the pixels.

Other than that, good job man! :)

[mies]

Neto: thnx for ur advice its very usefull and very well based on my model. And i like to react on some of the things u mentioned.

the face is flat cuz im still working on it. atm still thinking of what to do with it :)

On the legs i did some work with some filthers. ill post the texture sheet of how it looks sofar and maybe it will show abit better. but ill look into it to see if i can improve my phototextures :)

the orange is abit hard atm but i want it to be a key feature of the model so i might keep m abit bright. but ill try to desaturate them just a bit to match them abit more.

eyes are gonna completely redone cuz every1 seems to fall over them ^^ more to come on that subject.

al together super usefull tips and thnx very much :)

oh and a quick question, what would a OA map add in this case? i dont really get it..

[roel]

Hi Mies, what you can do is: export you model as obj and make a cool high poly version in Zbrush, generate a displacement map in Zbrush, and bake it directly with a cool material into the texture map... It's really easy to do (if even I, a newbe, can do it...) and gives some great results. Posibly it's not the best way (as you bake the 'light' into your texture), but it's really easy and gives some cools results fast.

[mies]

thnx for youre comments roel. I have made AO maps b4..i didnt mean i dont understand how its made or what it does. it captures light and shadows to use in a texture. What i ment with my question is what does it add. im using photo textures with light and shadow in them so not sure how it wil inrich my texture.

also i wasnt really planning on making a high poly object..but ill think about it.

well see how this all will work out.

thnx for the comments though ^^ peace

[Raul]

Let me start off by briefly explaining wut an ao map is. it captures the shadows that casted between objects by inderect ligth. Look at your desk, then your keyboard the shadpw underneat it is prolly being casted by the ligths in your room. However the shadows that go in deeper, that's ao. Ur textures will benefit from it because u can bake an ao map of ur current model and use it as a multiply layer and get all of ur shading rigth on it.

I was going to suggest the whole normal mapping zbrush material thing also. But that's going 50 miles forward on detail tightness. U will get tons more of detail if u do it that way.

I will try to post some examples later on the ao stuff.

[mies]

Made a AO map from my model as it is in 3dsMax. didnt do any of the other suggestions yet but i will. on the left the original bug on the right the one with a OA map on multeply. also here the AO map i got outa it. whats youre thoughts guys?

[Novian]

miles: Try playing with the layer settings for your AO its making him very dark. Also if you tweak the Histogram you can get your full range out of it. If you dont know how to do this and no one else shows you before I get home I'll make a guide image for you.

Also, how about some mushroom eyebrows or something? Just a thought.

Cheers~

[mies]

Novian: thnx man ^^ oh and its Mies not Miles ;P ill play around with the histogram and layer settings as u you said and well see if i can get anything out of it.

that guys would be most welcome :) thnx in advance.

the mushroom eye brow idea made me smile so we gonna have to try that to. just not sure how ud see that happen. any more words on that subject?

[Novian]

"mies": Firstly, sorry for that mistype. Should just stick to copy and paste. lol Id imagine maybe two small mushrooms for each eyebrow. So one big one on the inner most half of the brow and then one smaller one on the outermost half. See diagram:

http://www.mentallic.com/Shogun/eyebrowidea.jpg

The first image is a regular eyebrow. The second with the mushrooms overtop, and the third is a see through. Sorry for the crappy diagram all I have here is PowerPoint and a touch mouse. :(

Cheers~

[Raul]

Yeah I was going to say the same thing. Ur textures look to dark. Remember that the ao should be the above all the other layers. If muktply doesn't work just play around until u get something u like. Also. I would ligth up the scene a little brigther. To see the textures better.

Your doing good man! good job!

[mies]

Neto: lighten up my scene? this isnt a render just a screenshot.not sure how to lighten up the screen in 3DsMax but i can rework some stuff in photoshop to make it more visible. ill try to keep it in my mind next time ill post something :)

and the AO is top layer but ill make it work somehow :) well see. and if i cant i atleast tried right :)

Neto: thats a great idea. were u thinking just texture or some geo? i got some spare so i could try to see how it looks. and i could try those faryseets or ferybench ones? u know those? they grow on trees like a bench..ill try some stuff. thanx a bunch for the nice input of ideas.

thanx guys :) well make something nice outa this! i know it for sure!

[mies]

Ok i tried some of the advices you guys gave me.

i tried more different effects on the photo textures, i tried the eyebrow thing and the AO thing. also lowered the collor on the mushrooms and added al that into 1 pic. and im very currius to what u guys think of what is an improvement and what should be turned back.

ive got some ideas of my own about that but lets see what you guys think :)

[mies]

Ok i forgot to add a pic again..god am i ever gonna learn how this work or not XD

[Raul]

Now that's wut I'm talking about! Yeah! Nicely done sir!

Tho, what bout the face? Are u going to start texturing that next? Also. I like wut u did on the body with the textures. I think ur legs need a few brown spots or something. Maybe a gradient of brown to green where the body and legs meet.

[mies]

what about the eye brows? are they any good? im having some mixed feelings about them..

[Raul]

Sorry, last time i looked at this was from my phone. Well Now that i look at this closer , i dunno that looks a bit odd. Is not that it doesnt look good, it just looks a bit empty. I think it would work better if you sculpt lower rez mushrooms and put them all around the eyebrows. So that these will make up the eyebrow, maybe? Then use the other mushrooms and put some on the forehead.

[Perversonality]

For the eyebrows, have a quick search for images of tree mushrooms as I think a shelf-like mushroom would work better. If you then make the head sort of bark-like then it could work very well

[mies]

thnx for the advice guys, im gonna look into the shelf like mushrooms but i might just remove them al together and start over on the face..may be something fresh and new..

[mies]

Ok i did some work on the head and im really curius to what you guys of it. On the left i redid some edges and made the cut out effect about more powerfull but i got some mixed feelings about that. it does put my tris to 980 more or less wich is very nice..so what do you guys think? (ps. in case its not that obvius the face is the wood underneeth the treebark of the three..).

[Raul]

That looks alrigth. Tho, wut if you were to use alpha textures and fill his face with leaves. that way u will be adding more volume to the character, adding to the silhoutte value and problably helping your tri count. Just a suggestion, that's all.

[mies]

Hmmm thnx for ur advice neto :) A friend gave me a suggestion to use an alfa on the leaves so the are more spiked and not so round and boring. so im planning on using one. but i have to say i dont really understand what u mean exactly. it sounds very interesting sofar i can understand. can u make a draw over or so? im very interested in understanding what u mean :)

oh and btw nice work on ur bug! it looks super nice :)

[Raul]

Sorry bro, i got a little caugth up at work the other day when i tried to do something for this.

Here is rhino scarab

http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/willow/hercules-beetle-info0.gif

Excuse my quick doodles, please. lol. Basicly i painted the polies that could be your alphas in red to give you an idea of where to position them. Your feet are still leaves. The only reason i put the scarab picture is to give you an idea of how to simplifly ur textures.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y259/RaulXpT/challenges/3dt_LP_031b_insect/modeling__015.jpg

Hope that helps!!

[mies]

hope that helps? dude, that rocks! specialy the eye brows! i hope my end result will look half that cool :) there are some parts that i might keep a little diferent but most features look super cool. thnx a bunch :)

[Raul]

Hey man no problem! Looking forward to see you finish