SMC#5 - The Lost Jungle - Tree City - behemoth

[behemoth]

Ok it took like two weeks for me to have the time but I'm totally in. I'm going to be working on a tree house/city of sorts. Aiming for something with a little more of a toonish flare. I will likely be posting most of the work this weekend, so stay tuned lol. Good luck to everyone!

[behemoth]

Well here's my concept roughed out in a very loose sketch done in "Sketchbook Pro". I wanted to get a few things across in this image and not add so much detail so the modeling wouldn't get out of hand and I'd run into issues with time. Thus these are the major component break-downs of what you will be seeing.

1) Large detailed tree sanctuary to symbolize the fictional culture's living quarters. I wanted to put this in the foreground but on an interesting angle so its adds some visual eye candy to show the model's detail off.

2) Small basic house designs to add to the sanctuary that won't take too much time to model but all will be different versions of the same house. I will likely use deformers to vary each house to make them look kinda toonish and funky.

3) Some other little foreground and background details not totally captured in the image but they will be there. Some examples are vines, branches, rubble, and so on.

4) Other man made objects that show more acts of a civilized culture. Lights in the windows, ladders and side railings will be some extra modeling detail to show that this culture is good with improvising with what they have and are surviving quite well without help.

I will update model breakdowns as soon as they are complete. Comments and critique are greatly accepted. Keep up the good work everyone!

[EpiPlayer]

very cool. I like to see 2d concepts turn 3d. it's always a fun thing to see.

[Mr. Bluesummers-3DT]

That's pretty ambitious- better move quick on the big items in order to pack in all that detail!

[behemoth]

Well, I'm up to about 75 minutes. I'm not super happy with the time it took to get this done but the lower deck took some time when it came to merging up some geometry to get the correct flow. Needless to say this is done . I will finesse this a bit more if I have time in the end. The buildings will be very easy to complete, as well as the other minor accessories. I'm happy with how its going so far, any comments on the mesh so far would be awesome. Thanks guys!



EpiPlayer - Yeh I enjoy watching 2D transfer to 3D myself. I was trained to always rough everything out on paper before jumping right into modelling. I think its a pretty important practise for everyone really. Thanks for the comment!

BlueSummers-3DT - Agreed, I hope I'm not biting off more than I can chew but thus far it seems things are going quite smoothly. I'm optimistic in my progress. Thanks muchly for the comment and links!

[Mr. Bluesummers-3DT]

Oh; heh; the links are my sig. They're automatic- but if they help, so much the better. ^_^

[behemoth]

So I'm now sitting at the two hour mark after working a little tonight. I realized in the quick 2d concept that the fundamental structuring of the houses sitting on branches just wouldn't work. So in conjunction to this I created a plateau fixture that creates support for the soon to be created buildings. The last mandatory items to be created are the buildings and since I have two hours left, I strongly believe I will have some extra time to make some extra details happen. Anywho, hope you all like thus far, I'm liking the updates in the other posts I've been seeing. I think we have some great models underway this month!

[adamos]

I have never in my live make 2d concept and still come out with good stuff (i think). But thats just the way i work, some people do other way. But still you have some good modeling. Waiting for more.

[chunkymunky]

Very unusual but interesting look to this one, be good to see more

[behemoth]

Well I didn't have a lot of time the past couple days but I managed to get this done tonight. I added the tree leaves mesh and managed to rearrange that in such a fashion that seemed to fit the image. I also added the railing and final cylinder support for the upper deck. I also changed the angle of the wooden beams coming from the upper deck to a lesser degree. Its not much, but almost done here so hope you like. All that's left is ladders and houses, and with 1 hour 30 mins remaining, this is quite achieveable.






Adamos - Yeah, I find that modelling from 2D is my preference but I always wind up deviating from my original design. Nothing I've ever modelled from paper has ever come out 100% the way I intended. I envy those that can model strictly from their head. I consistently need some sort of reference to be accurate. Thanks for the comment.

chunkymunky - Yeh its a little weird, agreed lol The more I look at it the more I'm wondering how much sleep I had that day. Thanks for the compliment/comment!

[Mr. Bluesummers-3DT]

That's a bummer that it ended up taking more time than expected in the base object. The platforms take this in a good direction, so some unifying elements that give it purpose might bring this entry home.

[behemoth]

Well, it has been a good run but I am finally complete. There were some things that I wanted to add to this piece, but simply ran out of time. I've learned quite a lot from this piece including how to use Maya's deformers more quickly and efficiently. the houses that were built took much longer than anticipated due to lack of experience using Maya's Flare and Sine Deformers. However, I picked up on them pretty quickly for my first time and the houses are all done and positioned as you can see. I also had just enough time to quickly place a ladder to connect the two levels. So the way this works is the inside of the tree is the main living quarters and the houses outside are storage, shops and outdoor living quarters. There are many ways to travel within the tree to then move to ground level and perhaps visit other tree houses such as these in the jungle. I will be posting the final images as soon as they are complete. Thanks for all your comments.







BlueSummers - Thanks man! encouragement is always good. Thats what I like about this forum. I feel like the community is very helpful. I'm in these competitions to learn and meet other artists. Some forums take things a little too seriously. Good luck to you and all who participated!

[behemoth]

Here's a couple more quick images I comprived for the night. I'm off to get some sleep, long week folks. Enjoy!

[chichiri]

You really managed to make a nice model but I think that we don't see the houses enough in your test renders. Good luck!

[behemoth]

Here are some more test renders but with everything textured fully. I may need a little help here, I'm deciding between two render styles here. The first image is using 2 spotlights with the addition of Maya's "Physical Sun and Sky". The second is using an HDR image with a basic 3 point lighting setup. I'm liking the realism of the 2nd image more but there are some little things about the first image that stand out more. The leaves are also just experimental at this point. I will be working on them much more as I do more rendering. The post work will compliment the leaves a lot more than the initial rendering. Any comment to help me out here would be awesome!





chichiri - Thanks man! Yeah I think you are right. The work done on the houses should be complimented more. I'll try some new camera work and see if that helps