CORAL NIGHTS (ZBrush Beta Picture...test)

[Mentat7]

This is a small test of some ideas I have concerning an underwater scene I wish to make. This was primarily done to test out some textures concepts. I added the floating particulates and the fish just to flush it out. It is done at 640 x 480 to reduce rendering time...there are many materials, glows, lights, and fogs used so the render time was quite long even for such a small image. I will begin a larger picture shortly. In the meanwhile I hope you like this little test. And DeeVee if you happen to have any excellent links to awesome underwater pics I would be most appreciative to have them! I wish to make the coral etc more realistic looking (I was going off of memory on this pic). And yes it was created in ZBrush beta 1.5.

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1027277403oiy.jpg

[Vikki]

Terrific image!

Mentat poised his fingers over the keyboard and wrote:
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It is done at 640 x 480 to reduce rendering time...there are many materials, glows, lights, and fogs used so the render time was quite long even for such a small image.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm missing something. Please forgive if this is a dumb question. Is there a render option that takes longer than others? And can you tell me why? :D And is it just in 1.5 or is it in 1.23b also?

[Ron Harris]

nice believable image Lonnie...looks to me like you got a good feel to the piece. You mentioned fogs? plural? Can you explain that to me...I take it you can use fog on different layers(fog is an area I am still pretty dense about) so Vikki don't feel bad....under your render options you have the different renders in 1.23b...and when you choose best render it takes a bit longer for the computer to render the scene. The more elements you add the longer it takes to render. Canvas size (document&gt;modifiers&gt; ) is there. He is talking about the default canvas but you can make that size a lot lot lot larger, but when you do it takes longer to render the scene but you then have a larger canvas to work on and can add more detail to your work and then your finished work looks a bit more realistic when you shrink it back down to a viewable size. I think that is what you were asking. Lonnie I look forward to see some more underwater stuff....National Geographics magazines were always chocked full of excellant images, that might be a resource to try out....
:tu: :tu: :tu: :tu:

[Mentat7]

Vikki and Ron to answer your question(s) I have several different effects going on in seperate layers. There are twelve layers in all with some transparency, glow materials, and I used Supersampling on the render. Subsequently I have Flatten Layers turned off so it renders all twelve layers in succession. That's why it takes a little longer. I used a slight modification available in the beta but it didn't affect it all that much. When I said multiple fogs what I meant was I made several layers, rendered them together with fog and baked them then duplicated that layer, made adjustments, then used fog again in the final render. Hope that is clear :)

[Frenchy Pilou]

Hi Menta
may be this "photo bank" of Coral in the world http://tools.coralreef.org/content/objects/browse-objects.acs?object_type_id=10
Hope thisshelp in your Zmodeling of beauty of nature :)
Pilou

[Vikki]

Ron, thanks for the answer. I do use the best render option but it takes only seconds even on my 1200 x 1200 canvases with 5 lights and fog. I see though there was something I was missing. :D

Mentat, ok, now I see. It's the SuperSample size and Flatten Layers *turned off* I was not trying out. It definitely ups the render time on just a quick try out. :D Also, I still haven't figured out how to have a large canvas with more than 2 or 3 layers without Z crashing and then not being able to reopen the document if I was able to save before crashing. Maybe I need to allocate more memory or something. :confused:

[Mentat7]

Thanks Frenchy! That will indeed come in handy!!

[Mentat7]

Here is yet another version. This time with a fog alpha. A little lighter and murkier.

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1027293015gmf.jpg

[Fouad B.]

hey!! where are you find this photographie of my aquarium ???
are you spying my house??
:)
are they implement a wabcam into 1.5 version ??

Great Job !!
it misses just fish and it passes out of saver of screen :D :tu:

[DeeVee]

Mentat great images. This link will lead you to the very best in underwater photography. As a matter of fact she has a school which is world renowned, and best of all she lives in the Cayman Islands. www.cathychurch.com (http://www.cathychurch.com)
I am sure this will help you a lot.
DeeVee,
Joe.
Also try this one: http://www.coralreefalliance.org/
Edit and this: http://www.ocean-gallery.com/coral.htm[/URL]

[Mentat7]

Thanks Joe! That site will indeed be very helpful! I may be even tempted to buy a few of her pictures...they are that good!

[Tag]

Very nice Mentat. I especially like the lighting effect on the second one :tu:

One of my favorite sites for coral is http://www.garf.org/. It has shots of reef aquariums rather than ocean shots, but lots of close ups of various types of coral.

[juandel]

i bet you have enough reference material for this wonderful looking project by now, Mentat, but couldnt resist to make a search myself... the best i found apart from the already posted links are both from NOAA:

coral kingdom (http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/reef/index.html)

national marine sanctuaries (http://www.sanctuaries.nos.noaa.gov/pgallery/pgallery.html)

- juandel

[filament9]

Mentat, the textures are superbly done. Updates to this image, well, you gotta share them!

[Mentat7]

Filament,

Glad to see you back buddy! This is an initial test image. Now that I have worked a few things out with it and have some reference material I plan on doing a larger picture. Of course it will not look like this one...I hope it will be much better. :) I will be putting more marine life into the next one as well.........

[MrBraun]

U are superb Mentat!! :D :tu:

[DMerchen]

I really like that second one. You can really feel the depth, and I don't just mean the depth of the sea. :)

[DLee]

Mentat would you like a closeup of barnacles for the rocks? Hesitant to offer since it may offend. Might want to make your own.... only offering since I took one the other day down on the beach.

Your picture looks super. Don't need this really... but maybe someone else might.

quite large 300 dpi http://home.cablerocket.com/~outlaw/stuff/barnacles.jpg

[Mentat7]

Thanks DLee!!! I will take all the reference material I can get. Nice detailed pic!

[Flycatcher]

Judging by the quality of these preliminary sketches, the final work is going to be awesome. Excellent start to the project. :tu: :tu: :tu: