Ikarus

[stumpf]

This is my new personal project »IKARUS«

I think you know the story, and you know there is no happy end.
I my image I will show the point of no return. It's a great point of a good tale.
He is on the highest point of his life, but he know the end is near.
No time to think about hell or heaven, only time to think »Who I am«.

I build the model from scratch in Maya and I build it in pose like a sculpture,
so I can't animate this. I import different parts in ZBrush, make GUV's
and import this back in Maya to assemble the parts to one mesh,
but with multiple UV spaces. So I can later write multiple displacements.
At the end of the process I try to render in Maya with Mental Ray and sss.
I think I work on this for a month, if there are not to many jobs in between.

It's a wip, so be not so hard, but suggestions always welcome.

Cheers

Ralf Stumpf

Ikarus#01.jpg

Ikarus#02.jpg

Ikarus#03.jpg

[brice de nice]

look so cool its very nice that model is so great:D:tu:

[ilusiondigital]

Look excellent as usual, hope to see your progress, friend

[odhinn]

Amazing work...:tu:

[Logick]

i likey!

[SolidSnakexxx]

Amazing work as usual :) You are such a wonderful sculpture



Yong

[Frenchy Pilou]

...no suspense for the end of the story :D
Cool sculpture :cool:
Pilou

[stumpf]

Thanks Ilusiondigital, odhinn, Logick, SolidSnake and Frenchy Pilou
for kind comments.

I finish the upper part of the body. Hope you like it.

Ralf Stumpf

Ikarus#04.jpg

[odhinn]

Wicked anatomy bro, I'm envious:mad::tu::tu::tu:

[davide]

What a great work!

www.nobuart.com (http://www.nobuart.com)

[monstermaker]

cool! I like it!
mm

[Dickie]

Ralf: Ahhhh, such clean modeling. Excellent anatomy. Can't wait to see where this one is going...:D

I've said it before, but you, my friend, have influenced and helped me evolve my sculpting style more than any other artist here. Our styles are a bit different, but your models got me to clean up my lines and flow and for that, I thank you for the inspiration...:D

Dickie

[lemonnado]

Is he just realizing that wax is a construction compound not certified by the FAA???

Excellent Model !!!!

:tu::tu::tu:
LemonNado

[Drummer]

WOW !!
great so far, man !!
looking for your other updates !!!
great ! :cool: :tu:

[SolidSnakexxx]

It's really nice model and gets better every post :)

Yong

[chris543]

:) Great

[GLmig]

Cant wait to see the wings

[Mahlikus The Black]

Wow, really nice. Base wire is sweet too!

[Abyssis]

excellent, Ralf:tu: :tu:

[honiley]

five and a half million poly's:confused: My computer would roll over & die:p When can we see the rest of it, ie, the back end.

[Dutchman]

Wow! :eek: :o What an awesome modelling job! :tu: Really cool 'clean' style and good geometry! :cool: In every case it's very inspirable to me! :)

Good luck with further updates! :) I can't wait for them!

[remcv8]

Holy crap!!! 5million polys!!! That is awesome. Excellent sculpture.

[stumpf]

odhinn, davide, monstermaker, Dickie (your work has inspired me too),
lemonnado, Drummer, SolidSnake, chris543, GLmig, Mahlikus The Black,
Abyssis, honiley, Dutchman and remcv8...Thanks for comments and compliments.
I have a job this week, so I can't work much on »IKARUS«, maybe at the weekend.
Next I must clear the design of the wings. I show more soon as possible.

Ralf Stumpf

[vivien]

cool and original as always :) great work.

[DimitrisLiatsos]

If i may say..the amount of detail is amazing...but most of all i am impressed by the point of his life u are trying to capture.
Curious to see the rest of it...

Very good work .

[Baryonix]

Perfect exercise of anatomy. :tu:

[Zork]

great stuff as usual. judging by the facial expression, the wings must have started to melt :), no crits, just hoping you'll have more time to work on this soon!

[stumpf]

Hi all, and thanks for kind regards.
Here is an up-date, I bring all finished parts to Maya (half million polys)
and render with the standard Maya render.

Cheers

Ralf Stumpf

Ikarus#05.jpg

[IllustrateLife]

nice update...I was liking the brighter renders though :)

When do u think we're gunna see wings?

[cedell]

Hey Stumpf,

I think have have had excellent progress with this model, and I look forward to the improvements you make on it.

Honestly, I would like to just comment that I think you have done a perfect job...but there is something that I noticed in the first image that has lingered with me for a while now. I don't mean to insult, by any means, but I hope to offer an opinion on what I personaly see in your work.

The model's body seems arched too much at a 90 degree angle for my taste. Given that the torso is coming into the scene on an even horizontal line, it would seem quite difficult to arch the back and neck in such a way to look (easily) forward. To give a more realisitic feel, I would tilt the head lower, to give a more "Superman flying" type of forward motion. Perhaps even tilting the head slightly to the side to get rid of such a rigid pose. Iif the desired affect is a forced backwards feeling...perhaps you could change the face to convey such additional anguish. Like a stretched out neck with veins popping, eyes rolling back into the head... something else to display that kind of contorted sensation.

If you are not entirely sure what I mean by the "Superman flying" motion, I can draw some pictures for reference to give a better idea of what I'm trying to say.

I, myself, am an anatomy man, and I like to make my models as anatomically correct as possible. So, if this wasn't your intention, I apoligize. It's just that I think your model is extremely good and I beleive it could come off more realistic, in my opinion.

I really think you've done an awesome job and I look forward to your updates. :D

cedell

[stumpf]

Thanks for viewing.

IllustrateLife: This is not the final render and I don't know how bright or dark I render
in the final image. A important part of the final image is composing and color
correction, and therefore it's to early. I work on the wings in sketch mode,
so I can't say when they are readily.

cedell: Thank you for your opinion in detail, but it's to late to change the pose
in this project. And for that what I want I think its right. For me on first place in
general comes expression. But I think on your words for my next project.

Ralf Stumpf

[IllustrateLife]

Oh I see...so you arent actually doing the wings in 3d? they are 2d drawings?

[stumpf]

Hi all,

here is a close up of the Ikarus head.
I have several problems with Maya and Mental Ray.
The Maya Renderer understand a model with different UV spaces (0-1, 1-2, 2-3 and so on)
but Mental Ray don't understand this and crashes.
The sss fast skin works fine, but in the end I would
like to render with min. 5k. The sss_light-map must have the double solution in heigh and the
normal solution in wide, so I need a light-map with 10000x 5000 pixels...but MR can only
generate light-maps with 5000x2500 pixels.
Maybe someone here know a solution or workaround for this problem?
I know this is the ZBrush forum, but also it's the forum with the best artists in the world.

ZBrush works without any problem in this project,
so I go back to ZBrush and detailing the head, it's 5.5 mio polys now (only the head).
hope you like it.

Ralf Stumpf
-----------------------------------------------
......sure, soon I will able to show all in a textured and animated scene.

Ikarus#07.jpg

[abxy]

the head alone is 5.5 million polys?!

[stumpf]

abxy: yes, I separate the model in four pieces to have enough polys for details

Cheers

Ralf Stumpf

[odhinn]

Outstanding RALF:tu:

[Buckie]

5.5 million polys...:eek:

[CatManDude]

Hi Ralph,

Mind sharing your system specs that allow you to get that much poly information? Like your presentation style for your image postings.

CMD

[CatManDude]

Sorry Ralf, I got you spelling wronge! Too many late nights!

CMD

[stumpf]

Thanks for comments.
odhinn: Thanks for compliment.
Buckie: yes.
CatManDude: Thanks for your information about the 3d printer
and hope to see more from you in the future.
Specs: HP Workstation with 2GB Ram, Quadro4 980xgl

But may I say, it's a pity that only the 5.5 mio polys are interesting on this pic.

Ralf Stumpf

[PoisenSoul]

hey Ralph!
ive been following this thread, really killer work!
interested to see how your doing the legs, very interested in how it appears your going for flowing tendrils/geometry from the legs.

keep it up!:tu:

[stumpf]

Hi Poisen,

Thanks for comment.
........but no legs, the frame ends under the bottom you can see it in
5th image of this thread.

Ralf Stumpf

[aminuts]

hi Ralf,
been watching when I can, I have to say I am very intrigued by your latest post. As usual, I love your crisp clean lines and details and I can't wait to see how this comes together in a scene given the coloring of last.

If you have the time I would love to see the render passes ya did....if ya still have em and can post em that is.

Again....can't wait to see how it all comes together....love your stuff!

[stumpf]

Thanks aminuts,

long time not heared from you.
The render passes are simular as in my "nature" tread.
And I must work on the wings and the rest of the body,
and I'm also curious about it how that comes out in the end.
But I must solve tons of problems to take a step forward.

Ralf Stumpf

[keridan]

I have several problems with Maya and Mental Ray.
The Maya Renderer understand a model with different UV spaces (0-1, 1-2, 2-3 and so on)
but Mental Ray don't understand this and crashes.
MR can only generate light-maps with 5000x2500 pixels.
Maybe someone here know a solution or workaround for this problem?

Hello Ralf,

I love your work.

Illuminate Labs Turtle (http://www.illuminatelabs.com/) Renderer can handle these problems that you are having. You can also try (http://www.illuminatelabs.com/eval.asp) it out. They are very responsive to user requests and are constantly improving their software. It handles displacement from ZBrush very well at high resolutions.

Cheers,

Keridan

[stumpf]

Thanks keridan,

for the information, I have seen Turtle. The ambient occlusion looks very well
but I think it has no SSShader.

Ralf Stumpf

[CatManDude]

Hey Ralf only reason for showing interest in the polycount is that it is a vital piece of the ZBrush workflow.......no res ....... no detail. Of course we love your art otherwise we would'nt be posting here!

CMD

[Maxter]

Simply awesome!! :eek: great detail...

[voxelMan]

Hi Ralph,
First off, great work. I really love your style and attention to details.
Your post about MR crash because of the UV space is puzzling to me.
I am using MR for rendering multi-UV coordinates with no problems,
could it be something else?
Z.

[aminuts]

Hi ralf,

i am not as familiar with maya as i would like to be but Odhinn just posted this.... check his latest post with wireframe .....his words there might provide a tip for you....but not sure....but ya never know!

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=24940

Remember there are no problems...just bumps in the road....sometimes ya can back up and drive over 'em sometimes ya gotta drive around em but ya get around em eventually!!:D

[Abyssis]

Good work, but the ear is not good enough... (details and anatomy)

[lsddigital]

m a g n i f i c o ! ! ! !

really very very good technique!

I can´t wait to see it completly, don´t you?

[kendo]

Ralph thats truly some incredible work your producing there, im very interested in seeing the final product. Can i ask that you post up a picture of your model in "FLAT" render mode in zbrush so its minus any shaders.

[stumpf]

Thanks for viewing and for comments,
special thanks to keridan, aminuts (life is a bump) and voxelMan, try to help
by the Maya/MR bump (problem).
and thanks to CatManDude for my new subline "no res...no detail"

Ralf Stumpf

Ikarus#08.jpg

[odhinn]

I tried something new with another piece of software that "Aminuts" mentioned on an earlier post; it's kind of cheating but you should find it works with Maya and mentalray well.
I don't have the time to spend sewing UV maps together and while GUV files work well if your going to paint in Zbrush that look very rough when exported to a pro paint program like bodypaint. This is as you know because seams will cause paint to pixelate.
If you take a snapshot of your uv layout in only the angle that will be seen after render you can have a perfect uv layout in seconds that renders really well with displacements,bump-maps, and projections or imported textures.
WARNING: THIS METHOD CANNOT BE USED FOR ANIMATIONS!!!
UV's will overlap and produce really horrible results.
My way of laying out the uv maps is similiar to PLANAR mapping only with 3d results.
I'm using MAXON's Bodypaint 3d for my uv snapshot layouts with alot of success in Mentalray. I even use high photon outputs with low render times on reflections. also be aware that mentalray is aware of scale so adjust your scale accordingly. large scale must use different displacement output settings.
I'm a huge fan of your art Ralf so let me know if that was any help./Odhinn

[MrLearner]

whats with the huge yellow mode, that was a bit uncalled for. no?

[MrLearner]

oh, and great work of course stumpf. Looking forward to seeing it evolve

[booska]

This is really great sculpting. One observation I could make though, is that his right shoulder needs to be a bit mor forward in the direction of motion. And his left shoulder needs to be back a bit. Also, if the body were twisted a bit to emphasize the flow of motion, I think it could be a more natural pose. Try looking at side view photos of olympic swimmers!

Keep up the great work!!

[hindus]

how you add those cool white lines in your work ? I mean this contur line ? is there some trick ? btw excelent work as allways ;)

[noSkillz]

This is actually my favorite thread on the site, just wondering if you had an updated version to show off or any info to give lol. :p

[highlander_72]

Absolutely amazing work! Großartig, mal als understatement! :D I love your vision of Ikarus. With all the flat charactered, shallow looking, pretty people featured in the arts and entertainment these days, this a really fresh breeze for such a high profile character. I can't wait so see the final result!

What kind of machine (ram, cpu) are you working on for such detail and high poly count? My machine starts getting really choppy and Zbrush even crashes when I reach somewhere about 2-3 million poly's.

Btw, some mentioned the arc of the back being to unnatural. I heartily disagree. The way you have it nicely shows the distress the character is in!

More pics, is all I can say to end this post!:tu: