Coming of Ice - Tundra Basilisk

[behemoth]

Feb 8/2010 Initial Concept

I'm new to 3D Total forums and well, so I will try my best to keep up with all you pros. None the less, this is my concept I roughed out and will be figuring out the finer details soon enough.
The specs for this creature are that it's basically a reptilian hunter that migrates through the frozen wastelands. It is blind but has an incredibly high sense of smell, it can smell blood from 10 km away. Its serpent like body is used to move at high speeds and its leathery skin covered with plates and barbs protect it from other hostile creatures. It can only survive in sub zero temperatures due to its normal body/blood temperature being unusually low.
To create this monster I will be using Autodesk Maya and Photoshop CS3. I will be posting an in depth WIP as the days role out (including the model sheet and any other model screenshots I can muster). Any comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!




UPDATE: FEB 09/2010 Model Sheet

I have now posted my model sheet that I constructed tonight. Its kinda rough like my concept sketch but it'll due none the less. Any feedback on some methods of achieving the muscle work with a normal map would be appreciated muchly. I'm trying to learn as much as I can from these contests so feedback and comments is totally awesome.
My plan of action to give this creature a strong specular map to shine in the tundra, its reflectiveness also is a lot of what the probes would have been capturing on their feed. They move very fast so the probe never does actually see the, however. I will likely be making the creatures skin pale white to lighter gray. It will also be very coarse & leathery looking. The spikes will stand out quite a lot but not sure what they're made of yet. The patches on the skin use see that have a sort of turtle/plated look to them will be similar to crocodile skin. I think the black spikes with the pale white skin will stand out very well in a well lit glaciel environment. Please leave me some comments and thanks muchly!

[setschaos]

How do you go about in your process of modelling/sculpting? I used to model a detailed low poly, then send it to Zbrush and use the 'Render to Texture' feature in max after importing the high poly sculpt.

What I do now is create a basic low poly, import to Zbrush and do ANYTHING I want to it, drop it into Topogun to retopologize THEN render to texture. Adding the retopology tool of topogun really makes an impact on the pipeling of process. You should look into it. They have a free trial version, HOWEVER you cant export the lowpoly mesh. Unfortunately the program is $100, but Threedy comps do offer the program as a prize for winning ^_^

Based on what method you use to create your models, there are different ways to go about getting your nice normal map with the muscular system. My brother sculpts in Zbrush and then lowers the division levels to get his low poly object and then uses Zmapper. There are lots of ways to go about getting the mesh that you want.

Hopefully this little ramble does you some good. Your concept looks great and I'd like to see you finish!

[behemoth]

Hey thanks dude! yeh I don't usually deal with normal maps but one way I'm familiar with is to actually use your baked ambient occlusion to gauge the proper distance of your normal map with NVidia Filter in Photoshop. I was hoping someone would know the method you told me, thanks muchly. I don't frequently use sculpting programs, been strictly modelling vehicles, environments, robots and infrastructure more so than characters.
I guess thats why this competition appealed to me (besides the awesome theme of course lol). Anywho, thanks again, I will play around with your method and see what happens once I can actually get the time to finish the base mesh. Later

[behemoth]

UPDATE: FEB 15/2010 Base Mesh - Body

Well, this has been rather slow going for sure. This is the first character I've done in over a year, aside from my 3D job eating up a lot of time as well. I still have about 30 minutes of vert tweaking to get the mesh flow perfect before I move on to the head, and then to sculpt. I will be using Mudbox to sculpt and it will actually be my first time running through the process so any more help in the normal mapping process in Maya after finishing the sculpt would be greatly appreciated. Setschaos has already given me some great comments, anyone else with an opinion on the matter or even some critique would be sweet.

[Rezdoggy]

this is lookin great man. The start of the tail could do with a little tweaking to make it look more round. i think if you were to sculpt it it woul be best if you straightened out the tail, which will mean less texture stretching and would be easier for symmetry aswell. However, im new to this aswell so i cant relaly help you much :P

[behemoth]

UPDATE: FEB 17/2010 Head& Base Mesh

Thanks to all who've posted. Its good getting some feedback. I've worked on the base mesh some more and completed the head and body. I'm not super optimistic about finishing this whole piece before the 28th due to work and things coming up the next couple weeks but I will sure try. This is my first character model in a long time and im new to sculpting so this is all kinda fun for me. I'm learning a lot from this project and hope to keep doing this challenges every month, complete or not lol. Anywho, i will be reworking the body some more before finalizing in Mudbox but in the renders you see the basic premise of the mesh. Other details will be added later in sculpting and texturing. Anywho, any comments on the WIP would be sweet. The feedback ive received thus far was very helpful.