Buzzy - Snow Creature

[Buzzy]

Not much idea what I'm making yet. Ideas soon to follow. At least this time I'll get the full month (even though it is a short month).

[Buzzy]

I'm thinking of making an ice-crystal creature....I figure I could do some real cool shader effects with semi-translucent glowing crystals. I generally find quadrapeds to be rather uninteresting, but I haven't made one in a looooooong time, so I might go that route. And there will probably hair too. I think I will actually do concepting for this comp.... there's a first for everything, right?

[BiG ToE-3DT]

so if crystals are like diamonds, and diamonds are a girl breast friend. This will be female, right?

[Buzzy]

girl breast friend

Please tell me that was intentional.

[BiG ToE-3DT]

sure it was.

[chris_solo]

:D !

> great concept, I'll follow your thread :)

[Buzzy]

An ice gorilla perhaps? Or a crystal snapping turtle....hmmmm. So many ideas.

[Insania]

Nice to see you in this challenge. Good luck.:D

[Warlock 279]

An gorilla is really just a sasquatch/yeti isn't it? I'm liking the turtle personally. A shell made of ice would be pretty darn cool.

[Buzzy]

Good point about the gorilla warlock. That actually hadn't even crossed my mind. Haha.

Turtle it is.

[Buzzy]

threw together some reference.

[Buzzy]

...and a rough concept.
I will probably alter the proportions greatly, but this is just an idea of what I'm going to do.

[setschaos]

I like the snapping turtle look you are going for, try looking for images of the alligator snapping turtle, it's huge and scary looking! maybe you can find some more of what you are looking for there. (including some more open mouth pics)

http://sayingsofsam.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/raaaah.jpg
http://www.arkive.org/media/F8/F8D56702-CB5B-402B-A906-F8187F714DA7/Presentation.Large/photo.jpg

[Buzzy]

Thanks setchaos! I am definately looking at reference of the alligator snapper. The black turtle on the right in my ref image is an alligator snapper.

Those pics you linked to are really great! Especially the closeup of his head.

[McKronic]

pretty solid concept. He's going to be tough, will he be aggressive or more defensive because of his shell?

[Buzzy]

Making crystals for the shell. I decided to go with giant Krypton crystals.

[gauravcg]

cool you going......!
nice concept!

[MaddGoat]

Very nice start :D
Makes me really curious how it will look eventually!

[Buzzy]

realtime screengrab of the low-res shell....testing shaders and such
unwrapping this was a B-I-T-C-H
still not perfect.

2142 triangles

[Buzzy]

i suppose you'll all want a wireframe

[DeadlyFreeze]

Its looking good so far, let us know if you find a good shader. Everything I tried with any culling get jacked.

[Ojah]

Looks great! But couldnt you remove the extra loops in the big crystals and quite a lot on the low crystals by projecting the current version as a normal map and save loads of tris?

[Raul]

Cool! That is something ive always wondered tho, since crystals are nothing ( for the most part ) hard surfaces, could you purposely have weird geometry and artifacts to make them look better? That plus the textures and the shader?

I wanna see more!!

[Buzzy]

Ojah - There is very little waste so far. I could probably save some tris, but probably no more than a hundred or so. Besides, the shell is only 2100 triangles so far, so I'm not worried yet.

[Buzzy]

Raul - That is exactly what I did for the hi-res version of the small "crusty" crystals around the bottom. I just made a pointy, faceted hex shape and duplicated it all over the surface of the shell. So there are all sorts of artifacts and weird intersecting shapes.

[Buzzy]

roughing in proportions
his legs look long because they are fully extended (helps rigging)

[armians]

how did you do those cristals?! O_o sooooo beautiful
are they already textured? or is this some kind of fancy material? and which material? i wanna know everything! :D

[setschaos]

RAWR WTB BIGGER HEAD PLOX!

Looks great so far, I love the detail in the crystals, nice touch. I would personally like to see it more aggressive looking, and a predator is typically characterized by a larger head.

Keep up the great work.

[anima3d]

RAWR WTB BIGGER HEAD PLOX!


this sounds so wowish ;P

[Buzzy]

I tried a bigger head. I want this to be a giant turtle (maybe 40 feet long). However, adding a bigger head just made the whole creature look smaller (like how young animals always have propotionally larger heads).

I kind of want an aggressive and predatory look, but a larger head won't work in this case. I need to come up with a different way.

[Cordero]

Spare some tris for a little stick figure, which will represent a normal human.. this way everyone will know how big is your turtle...:D

Or maybe some human skeletons crystalized in his back, which will also show the size of him. Or as seen on Lex's previous dominance war entry, build a little tower on his back somewhere, which could also show the size of him. If he is that big:D

Any way good stuff as always. This time you got the topic better:D

[kogen]

The crystals look like they come directly from Starcraft 2 (thats no crit). Very nice. Can't wait to see the turtle finished.

[setschaos]

I agree with Cordero: however, I think that if you toss some landscape into your podium that it will illustrate the thought. I think that if you add some corpses or part of structure, that you will take away from the 'undiscovered' feel of your creature.

However, I hope you don't mind the paint over, but I wanted to illustrate my words a bit. Yes, large heads do often illustrate youth-fullness, however, the smoothness of your model also lends that feeling, so I tossed dome scrapped in spikes to give a feel of how the final shape would look.

Hopefully it will be helpful!

[Linc]

Think you should resort back to the pointy crystals, it looked all kinds of awesome, but the addition of the smooth mod makes them look sucky.

[setschaos]

meh I'm sure a mudbox/zbrush pass will remedy that. Good pointer though.

[Buzzy]

Thanks for the great feedback everyone!

setchaos - awesome drawover, thanks! Small details will help scale, as will the podium. Good ideas.

Linc - The "smooth" crystals are just what they look like without normalmaps. They are still the same, just no textures.

[behemoth]

I'm really liking the ideas flowing here. This is my first time joining 3D Total forums so feeling a little new and overwhelmed lol. Everyone has such cool ideas. Keep it up! :D

[Joseph Pomeisl]

looks like big challenge is to get ice that looks like ice...I wish us both luck

[strict9]

ice look like ice goes with gold look like gold and hair like hair........good to see the mighty struggle as well :D

[Buzzy]

Out of town all last week, so sorry for the lack of updates.

I began sculpting the head.

[Buzzy]

1000th post!! Woohoo!

[BiG ToE-3DT]

I'm guessing he is a snapping turtle.

[Stoneking]

Hey Buzzy,
I really dig the Head, really awesome conratulations
Cheers

[Buzzy]

Another update.

Gonna start fine detail soon (scales, warts, etc.)

[Buzzy]

K, probably the last update for today. Maybe if I'm feeling real ambitious I'll try to get another.

I decided to go with 4 eyes. Seems everyone else is.

[kogen]

Amazing! The detailing in the last two shots is just marvellous. Can't wait to see it projected.

[snakeeaterjns]

I confess that I found their model in the beginning, rather simple, but now with this excellent work of sculpture, I have to say is becoming one of the best.
lot of luck to you.

[setschaos]

you really nailed it man, I'm proud

[Buzzy]

Thanks for the comments everyone.

Here's another update. I added some ice crystals to his body, made eyeballs, and added some other small details here and there. My next task is to add icicles and stuff around the rim of the shell.

http://www.similarsandals.com/starlet/sculpt05.jpg

[Joseph Pomeisl]

the crystal valley/areas on the legs and tail are awesome. like to see him posed cause right now he looks all dangly:D

[BiG ToE-3DT]

I see I need to step my sculpt up. Maybe dual core. Either way, I compete with quad core Buzzy.

[Buzzy]

Sculpt is nearly done.

[Buzzy]

more images
http://similarsandals.com/threedy/snowcreature/silhouette.jpg
http://similarsandals.com/threedy/snowcreature/sculpt06b.jpg
http://similarsandals.com/threedy/snowcreature/sculpt07.jpg
http://similarsandals.com/threedy/snowcreature/sculpt08.jpg
http://similarsandals.com/threedy/snowcreature/sculpt09.jpg
http://similarsandals.com/threedy/snowcreature/sculpt10.jpg

[Warlock 279]

Hey hey hey, now that's looking pretty sharp. I like the icicles hanging off his sides.

[chris_solo]

nice sculpt! I love this concept that you've been there,
so, I just extended the hind legs, just my feeling..

[chris_solo]

after reflection I withdraw what I said, it would be too symmetrical with the front!

[E4sY]

nice progress. really liking the attention to realism, even though it's a fantasy character.

[Bigley]

um... damn! This stuff really is getting out of hand over here. Great work Buzzy! I can't wait to see the normals on this thing :D

[sagiarts]

Wow like it .........

[Martin_x]

Great sculpt! I like those little crystals you added.

[Rezdoggy]

this is absolutly awsome i love it! maybe you could add a few small scratches/dints onto the crystals on his back? at the moment they look a bit clean compared to all the detail on his body. but i still love it!

[MightyReg]

That sculpt is really awesome, so much cool details, great job! The material is looking pretty cool too, can't wait to see this in colors.

[Buzzy]

Thanks for all the great comments everyone!

Here's a first pass at a lo-res bake. It's only 7600 tris.

[frostsnake]

thats a nice bake! crystals look realy good,
going to be awesome with colors:)

[lampshadehead]

The bake turned out really good. With all those extra tris you could give him a samuri sword, or maybe lazers attached to his head!

[Martin_x]

Great Job. Looks really cool.

[Buzzy]

This is by no means final. I was just messing around and trying to get the shader to work. Again, nothing here is final, just showing progress.
(The ice looks much better in actual 3d than in a still image)

EDIT: Any suggestions on colors?

[BiG ToE-3DT]

not a color suggestion, but, you have some tris left over, so. OK, hear me out, make a few planes and place them inside the larger crystals, give them different shades and what not, then, add a transparency to the crystals, so the color bleeds through, if that makes any since.

[xxxcubanxxx]

progress looks good, for sure I would change the color of the claws, Teeth and beak to a more earthly/warm color. Some of the scales on the feet and top could have some variation in color too (more apparent variation). The head mainly since most of the rest is covered either by scales or ice, hope I'm not confusing you even more. :haha:

Also Toe's idea seems really nice and could give you the extra pinch to pull that icy look.

[setschaos]

Actually, what you could do (playing with toe's idea) is to place a few cloned crystals from his back inside of the crystals already there (to save texture space and normal map fuss) and then create random splotches of opacity in the original crystals, then invert the normals of the cloned crystals to create an interior look to them, that way you'll have a nice translucent look to your turtle.

Looks fantastic by the way, great work.

[Joseph Pomeisl]

not a color suggestion, but, you have some tris left over, so. OK, hear me out, make a few planes and place them inside the larger crystals, give them different shades and what not, then, add a transparency to the crystals, so the color bleeds through, if that makes any since.

it makes sense; would help out the crystaly effect in the stills methinks.

...only 7600? nice work on the low poly.

[Insania]

Just cool. (I had nothing to say) :D

[poopipe]

i agree with cuban on beak colours etc.

time's a wasting...

[Buzzy]

Yeah time is a-wasting... started a new job this week so not alot of time for this.

Should be able to finish this weekend though. Might not have time for a pedastal though.

[Buzzy]

Ice is HARD.

I've been trying all day to get a decent shader, but to little avail.
I tried using transparency, but that was more or less hopeless. So this is what I have for now. I'm still unsatisfied and will continue to tinker. I would love to have another week just to work on shaders.

I could always use mental ray, but I am entirely too pre-occupied with the challenge of making realtime ice.

I still need to make a rig too.

[Buzzy]

More tinkering

[BiG ToE-3DT]

well, it is looking good.

[Buzzy]

http://www.similarsandals.com/threedy/snowcreature/image01.jpg

http://www.similarsandals.com/threedy/snowcreature/image02.jpg

http://www.similarsandals.com/threedy/snowcreature/image04.jpg

http://www.similarsandals.com/threedy/snowcreature/image03.jpg