long time no post

[monstermaker]

skullsroots.jpg skullonfloor.jpg
Hi all , I've been really busy lately and haven't had much free time to ZBrush. With the free time that I have had I have been beta testing two apps that claim to work well with ZBrush displacements. The good news is that they work. These two images were rendered in Lightwave using displacement ,color, and bump maps made in ZBrush. Not as detailed as they are in ZBrush but it is a step in the right direction. Just thought I'd share and say hi to my ZBuddies

[froyd]

hey Rick! these are indeed great skulls, the teeth look awesome! thx for showing.

greets
froyd

[JohnnyBoy]

Great job as always - I love those vines?

[jantim]

Do you have a Modo 201 render of the displacementmaps or is that the "bad" news ?...Great teeth on the skull, but i prefer your Zrenders !

jantim

[Paul from Australia]

Absolutely amazing work.

The teeth are awsome.

Paul.

[Sebcesoir]

Nice!
tooth rendering is neat!

[Wordsmith]

Love the teeth also. Thanks for sharing your tests.

Word.

[John Turner]

awesome skulls and nice atmosphere in the lighting.

[Ron Harris]

Haven't been around myself for a bit...:cry:

Love your skulls though:tu: :cool: :tu:
Ron
catfishmn@aol.com

[monstermaker]

oldmanlookingup.jpg
Hi Guys nice to hear from my old ZFriends . jantim the good news is that modo 201 works fine too here is my old man rendered in modo. It's a little softer than the Zbrush version but than again I 'm not really sure how to use it properly yet.

[bicc39]

Of the works you have posted this( Father), in my opinion ,and it's
variations, are your best.
That is one persons opinion.

Best of luck and more like this

Edit: for this reason, I believe it deserves a thread of
it's own and not as a "tag-a-long"
Respectfully.

[jantim]

Wow...i'm impressed by the Modo rendering !....if you can make it look so good now it must be fantastic if you mastered it !!
I know you worked in Lightwave but what about the "Big Guns" like Maya and XSI ??

jantim

[Sebcesoir]

Damn great rendering... modo rocks!
But you had a good base!

[vlad74]

He looks alive. Wonderful job. Modo has pretty good renderer.

[GORILLA]

Nice Skull Rick!!! :D
Seen the other pic over at Modo.

[DerLandvogt]

Yep
Great work!!
*RESPECT*

hilmar

[lemonnado]

Great stuff. Specially the depiction of the Modo 103 owners waiting for the 201 release.
:D Lemo

[crossbones]

Hey Rick, Do you find a need to use tools like LW etc when most of your work is 2D Stills and not 3D animations?

Are you modeling anything in Modo yet?

[voodoomonkey]

Hey Monster Maker.
I really like the render.
Is that real sub or faked?
Sorry don't know much about Modo.
How easy was it to achieve?
In Maya it can be a pain.
Cheers
Cesar Dacol Jr.
Aka, The Voodoo Monkey

[Moochie]

The eyes in your pieces are always so expressive. It's also very exciting to see the subtle yet significant leaps you're making with your texturing.

Can leaps be subtle?

[saltapiedras]

¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡:tu: :tu: :tu:

[Patton]

Hey MM, great job as always.
I have not used Modo, but the render looks very cool, I have been making some real headway with Xsi/Mental ray ( hey, it's exciting to me!).

I'm sorry we didn't get to lunch, but I was, and will soon be again, in Texas watching the fireworks on the new R.R./Q.T movie!!

Keep posting we all need the push!! Patton

[Voidmonster]

Wow. The Modo render looks great!

[monstermaker]

Hey thanks everyone.
bicc39, I agree I think the model of my dad is my best I spent more time on it than the others,though I think my Frankenstein's monster isn't bad either.
jantim, Modo 201 is cool and easy I haven't tried maya or xsi maybe some day when I get more time.
lemonnado 201 will be worth the wait the beta version is pretty cool!
crossbones ,I've been animating my stuff that is why I'm using LW .I modeled the skull in Modo as well as a bunch of other stuff. And with both apps I like the controll you have over the lights and they both now have sss.
voodoomonkey that is real sss and It was very easy in Modo
Patton, Let's do lunch when you get back from Texas. Give my regards to RR and QT.
everyone else thanks

[abone114]

wow, excellent lighting, very dramatic. love the eyes too and the sss. perfect all around!

[GhostofMacbeth]

Very cool work. As usual.

[Tartan]

I agree thats this is great stuff MM. You are a true artist in every sense of the word, The only thing I Dont agree with is what our hit and run 1 star poster did when he rated this thread a 1star! Whoever he is, he does this on a remarkably consistent basis and seems to pick on those that have been around this forum for quite sometime. I suspect he does this because he is Jealous. Yes Jealous! :D He probably cant even render a Z sphere! In my mind I see this as a 5 star and definitely deserving of the same. I am glad to see you posting again and look forward to future efforts when you have time to indulge and break away from your day to day. I rate this thread a 5! :tu:

( edited: hmm I wonder if I jumped the gun by saying that someone rated this a 1 and I may have mistaken it for one that was close by. Usually when someone rates a thread a 1 all a 5 does is balance it out so its greater than the 1 but less than the 5. Who cares! 5 it is :)

[crossbones]

Rick,
Very cool ! I can't wait to see your animation and lighting come alive in 3D.

You should check out the messiah render, You can now use GUV and AUV tiles for uv mapping without problems. I think you would get much closer results if not exact results to what you have in Zbrush. Check it out when you find the time!

[venomize]

I love the old man. Great wrinkle work under the chin. :tu:

[Davlin]

Hey MM,

Nice pic here. :)
I'm really looking forward to see the stuff you'll be able to do with SSS and more complex 3D packages, particulary in different skin tones. On my part, I've had problems creating believable human blue skins, so if you try to do your Frankenstein with SSS, I'll be curious to see the achieved project. ;)

Good luck exploring those tools !

Bye !

P.S : One small crit thought : In my opinion, old bones should have a bit of translucy in the material, because of the very hollow structure throught light can go.

[monstermaker]

crossbones ,I curious to give Messiah a go but I can't get into working on a PC and my PC took a major dump a while back and I haven't got it up and running yet.
Deviln, I agree with you on the translucency, I tried a couple and they kept looking too waxy. This one is more translucent but I think too wax like.The problem with human blue skins are that humans don't have blue skin. Any time you try and do a primary color skin it is really hard to make it look good.
Tartan, it is a real shame that people give some really nice work low ratings and screw up the average.I've seen some terrific work here with say 13x4 stars and you just know that some jerk gave it one star to screw up their rating.

[Davlin]

I agree with you MM, but I'd like to add some thoughts.

About the bones : Hmm... In my opinion, the skull appears to be waxy because of two things. First, the SSS kills a bit of the shadows, mainly the small ones. So all the little shadow details, like pores or cracks, disappear when you use SSS. Bones structure is made of fiber-like cells, and those fibers give a matte, porous, non-smoothed texture.
The other thing is light propagation throught the material. In materials such as wax, gelatin, silicone or whatever, the light can go wherever it wants because the material is even, it is the same everywhere ( this is the reason why teeth can be rendered great with 3D ). In bones, you have opaque material ( bone fibers ) that are also hollow, but this is uneven ; So I guess there's some areas with more translucy and areas more opaque. I'm no expert at all, but I guess that if I wanted to render some bone material, I would try to do it with a thin SSS material, small propagation radius, and a really big bump map ( or, a tiled one ) with a bit more increased details than normal. I'll try to do some tests about that, I'm really curious about this matter. :)

About the skin colors, I'm sure you must have had to try many times to do this kind of stuff. :)
But the thing that bugs me is that you can do great stuff with make-up, by coloring skin even with flashy colors. We also got used to see cartoons characters with particular skin. So why different colors are not working in 3D ? Why is it so difficult to do with ZBrush or other 3D package ? Because of the blood system ? Trying to paint it human-like would make it too human to be believable ? Because of the variations of skintones, some areas with more blood would turn purple, and then humanlike again ?
Or maybe because there's no one to bring like from inside the non-human appearance ? That would explain a lot, but would be difficult to render throught a single, still 3D picture.

Sorry for all this babbling, but I think those points could be really interesting to discuss. :P

Bye !

[voodoomonkey]

Monstermaker, I have to say that I was...
Well the last post to me was sad.
This is a forum for learning.
I have yet to see the perfect anything in this world, there's always someone better, stronger, faster, more talented.
We all know how good you are at your chosen profession.
This forum should not be about why isn't your work up to par.
This is a new medium for you and with all new mediums there is a
learning curve.
Look how far you've come in a year of Zbrushing.
You have every right and should keep posting anything you feel like.
In fact I look forward to seeing many peoples work on this forum for just that reason.
It's a way for me to say, "OK, I'm not the only one".
Others are struggling as well.
Don't listen to the, "amateur", remark.
The important part is the attempt, then the next one and the one after that.
A wise man once said it's about the journey not the destination.
Keep going.
Have a great day.
Cheers
Cesar Dacol Jr.
Aka, The Voodoo Monkey

[Tartan]

>>>>> at JFSebastian

I am just kind of curious JFSebastian, I went and did a search on your name and you seem like a remarkably negative person. For you to comment (which you haven't so this isn't vindictive on my part} extremely amateurish on My efforts would be fitting because they are. And at least you have the Guts to say whether or not you like something. This is to be admired up to a point but only up to a Point. I want to see something You have done so I can judge the Professionalism or lack of in your own works :) So Please show us your art so those of us who are unworthy can see and shed a little :idea: on the subject.

Tartan

[boozy floozie]

Don't be sad little monkey I think Davlin is trying to open up a technical discussion rather than trading insults or offence.

Monstermaker, fine work.
I never knew Modo created renders.

p.s Are you testing LW9 there?

:tu: :tu: :tu:

[lemonnado]

JFS... This pic and it's depicted technical challenges go beyond the obvious. Nobody who ever tried to create transparency, SSS and or refraction is able to see the challenge. Sorry, you missed that.
Lemo

PS:Here's a link to your 6 Oscar amateur:

http://pixologic.com/zbrush/interviews/baker_interview.html

[lemonnado]

I never knew Modo created renders.
:tu: :tu: :tu:

Luxology decided to let Monstermaker play with the Modo 201 beta which can render and 3d paint rather well from what I saw. Probably because of his amateurisch work.. looool sorry could not resist.

[Frenchy Pilou]

...all is vanity ;)
ps In fact I don't know the english word for that ? In french it's a "Vanité"
Philippe Champaigne follow 1645-1650 (1602-1674)

vanite.jpg

[Dezz]

Really amateur that last pic :confused: looks like it was made in early 90's...But keeping in mind that you are learning 3d, not bad at all. But if it was me i would keep these test works for miself.well jfsebastian, it is not your work so as you can't keep this image for yourself maybe you could keep your comment for yourself?
your comment is not very nice and not helpfull at all, what's the use?

monstermaker, it's nice to see you're going further with 3D, I mean not keeping with zbrush. can't wait to see your progress. ;)

[voodoomonkey]

I don't think I traded insults with anyone Boozy...
I simply thought that the remark Was harsh and out of place.
There are much more tactile ways of opening a discussion.
I think it's very easy to use harsh words on a forum.
Everyone is entitled to their opinions.
Lets just remember we can also be constructive.
Have a great day! :D
Cesar Dacol Jr.
Aka, The Voodoo Monkey

[boozy floozie]

Voodoo ofcoarse I agree 100%.

Methinks Davlin's pillow talk may be a little intense for a first date. :)

Thank you the Lemon for the squeeze on the Modo release.

[Davlin]

@ boozie floozie : in fact, I think voodomonkey was talking about JFSebastian's remark, not my post. I hope ! :/

Sorry for my technical babbling, I tried to open the discussion on more specific use of SSS and translucy, taking on the opportunity from MM's tests. I don't pretend I know everything, so it is a great place to exchange informations and be able to learn more. ;)

Bye !

[voodoomonkey]

Davlin, Sorry if I cause you any grief.
You are correct in your observation.
No need for apologies, your points were well thought out and an attempt to dissect a solution.
Keep it coming. ;)
Cheers
Cesar Dacol Jr.
Aka, The Voodoo Monkey

[Tartan]

Dav,

Voodoo was indeed talking about Sebastians remark. As has been said this is a forum for Learning and while I am not the Pro here I know what I like and I know what I dislike. I have never seen anything MM has done that I Didn't like. I might disagree with you over certain parts of your own analysis. Now then irregardless, Sebastian really is Entitled to his opinion and as I have said it takes Guts to come on a forum like this and say that. The only thing that bothers me is that along with the dislike of the image in question comes the comment about keeping MMs work to himself. Which brings us back to the point that this is indeed a Learning forum. Now how in the hell can a person learn on this forum if they keep their works to themselves? It "ain't" possible :) Dav I think your remarks are constructive.

So (at) Sebastian, forget the rancor your post has caused and tell MM how he Can make the Image better in your opinion. Knowledge is important in the . learning process and there are a gazillion ways of doing the same thing. Redeem yourself, Forums are social in nature and any helpful comments you have would be appreciated :tu:

Tartan

[Davlin]

@ voodoomonkey and Tartan : Thank you very much to the both of you. ;)

@ JFSebastian : Showing stuff, even if it's not the greatest piece of art, is often necessary if you want other people to help you, or/and to spark constructive discussions, and that regardless of the skills.
Even if I would be the king, I wouldn't mind showing a simple cube, if it was useful to the comprehension. ;)

Bye !

[monstermaker]

Wow! What a surprise this morning when I checked my email. I never dreamed when I posted a thumbnail of a test render to show Davlin a skull that I rendered that I thought was too waxy that it would cause so much uproar. Yes JFSebastian it is amateur work by an amateur. I have been doing this CG stuff for a little more than a year. I didn't go to school I just started playing with it and am still trying to figure it out. I do it for fun it is not what I do for my profession. I posted it because I agreed with Devlin's constructive criticism and wanted to show him an earlier render so that we could farther discuss trying to make realistic looking bone. The image that caused all of this was ,in fact, me playing around with a new software trying to see how different aspects of it work. How well does the image mapping function work, what does the wood procedural texture look like, let's see what the transparency and refraction does,you know stuff like that. If I kept my test works to myself I wouldn't have posted anything because basically they are all tests. I assuming that you are taking your own advice about keeping your test works to yourself as there are no images in your user gallery. Come on go a head and post something. I think that you will find that the majority of the people who post replies on this forum are nice and give very helpfull constructive criticisms.
Boozy, Modo 201 which is not out yet does in fact render and I am also playing with the beta LW9,which the first skull images were rendered in. I like them both and am having lots of fun playing with them. And yes I believe that Voodoo was referring to FUSebastians comments not Davlin"s

[frogspasm]

It would be really nice, in addition to the "add person to buddy list" function to have an "add person to ignore list". That way when an obivous troll comes around you could hit the button, and not have to view their posts any more.

~Mike D.

[lemonnado]

I bet bicc39 will come around in a few minutes and will ask:
"What was the purpose of this thread again?"

Lemo :lol:

[bicc39]

What was the purpose of this thread again?:D
Has anyone heard anything about Lemonnado's rehab?

[boozy floozie]

Monstermaker, I'd love to ask more questions on how your finding the new version of Lightwave but I think all Beta testers are sworn to keeping hush.

Seems to be taking ages to be released

[Davlin]

I posted it because I agreed with Davlin's constructive criticism and wanted to show him an earlier render so that we could farther discuss trying to make realistic looking bone.That matter is still to be solved. ^_^

I'll do some test renders this WE, to try and see for myself if I can get near a realistic bone. You started with a skull, I'll use the same shape.
This will be also the occasion to try to do a dust-covered material too, something I do not have the slightest idea how to do it.
Monstermaker, if you have better results or progressed meanwhile, don't hesitate to post, it should help me. ;)

Bye !

[billrobertson42]

I have learned by seeing Rick's image and reading Davlin's commentary. I don't think it's anything that I can put to use just yet, but it's a definite addition to the slowly accumulating body of knowlege that will eventually hook up with something else in there.

Thanks!

[Tim Leydecker]

Good morning folks,

I´d like to add some constructive criticism, hoping it helps getting
better results and adds more control when trying to achieve the
true artist´s vision in a somewhat hostile atmosphere like a 3D app...

A brief history about myself, to give people a base for judging my
opinion as stated below. I´m a postgrad student at a fine art college,
teach a fundamentals maya class there, work as an assistant graphics
artist pushing the [Next] button on a highend realtime titler in broadcast
some 5days/month and admire Rick Baker for his traditional anatomical skills.


I´ve looked at the wip images in this thread and must admit they indeed
look like made in the early nineties. Imho, mostly for the following reasons:

- You have no bouncelight in your shadows, therefor the images tend to
become very dark and heavy and loose detail that would be defined through
subtile fill lights in an angle to the main lightsource. Coloring lights in a later
step would additionally add depth, the basic technique I halfdecently can
use is to give shadow parts a slight blueish tint and add warmth to the key.

- The cameraangles aren´t ideal, as they don´t help putting focus on an
area in the image. This also applies to the focal lenghts used, exept for
the one with the old man character, the image allready tells a story, is
staged pretty successful. Fritz Lang Metropolisposter with the Robotgirl?

- The third distracting thing may be the resolution of the testobjects,
without backroundinfo one could see them as amateurish, given the
huge difference of surfacedetail between skull and cross for example.


If you don´t mind, I´d like to add some tricks that help me designing things:

-For lighting, I work with basegrey materials, setting up the key as a
broad arealight (your arealight in the skull/cross images is too small)
and flood the image with shadow. I try to build up light by adding
fillers until I´m satisfied. I mostly suck, tho.

- It´s great to have any sort of ambient oclusion pass to be used in comp,
it helps in getting out fine details by darkening caveats that would be lost
when lit directly. You could start by (de)activating cavity properties on
your shader and rendering it out.

- SSS is a bitchy thing as it´s difficult to control the amount of front and
backlight shatter with all those knobs...I mostly get it 25% right and then
take everything over to a compositing app to get to play with it more
before I return to finetune my results in the 3D app (if neccessary).

Here´s a link to a layered photoshop 7 document, play with the layers
to see different effects that would be tedious to re-render just for tests.

www.hafenlola.com/downloads/Ley_buddy_layers.psd (http://www.hafenlola.com/downloads/Ley_buddy_layers.psd) (4Mb)

Preview:

http://www.hafenlola.com/downloads/Ley_buddy_layers.jpg


I hope you find this useful, it´s not meant to be a shameless plug,
instead I´d like to give back on the great attitude you´ve displayed
in this forum. Allways helpful, kind and constructive.

Thank you,

tim

[jantim]

....very clever analysis of the SSS-subject ,Tim !...but i still think that Rick has the right to post,in his own thread, any test-render he likes, regardless of the fact that it could look better if he only had ......!
This is not a Artist-forum for finished masterpieces but a Users-forum for discussing idea's about Zbrush related topics in rendering ,modelling etc.
If a test-render would look like a finished work..it would no longer be a test-render...i rest my case ;)

jantim

[Tim Leydecker]

Just to clarify, I wouldn´t want to keep anyone from
posting images that don´t work out the way they where
supposed to be or that seem off for whatever reason.

I tried to share my findings since I think it´s about getting
to a point where you can do what you have had in mind.

If an image shows an effect that didn´t work out, that will
also help - especially if you get to the point where you know why...

Cheers

tim

[Davlin]

Okay, I had a couple free hours to tweak a test of a realistic 3D bone.

Please, bear in mind that the model is crappy ( I found nothing but this one, no luck ! ) and that everything could be bettered ( UV's unwrap, texture and lightning ). Tim's advices were excellent, but in this case it is just a quick and humble SSS / texture test.

And I thought that, starting with a low-quality skull and trying to make it realistic anyway could be a good challenge. ^_^

All the maps were painted with ZBrush. Projection Master is really handy for these kind of things. But I guess Maya's Hypershade could be more appropriate than Max's material Editor to go farther in the SSS tweaking.

So, here are two pics, my 3D skull and a reference photo of a real human skull. If you guys think it could be useful to you, I'll post my SSS setup and one or two tips.

Monstermaker, something I didn't mention in my previous post was the specular factor, the way things are shining. Ask yourself what, in 3D, is the difference between plastic and metallic appearances. And then, look at you waxy skull. ;)

Bye !

[billrobertson42]

Where did you find that skull? It's better than my crappy one. :D

[Davlin]

@ Billrobertson42 : You may want to try the website " Turbosquid ", there's ton of free stuff. Some is very high quality, some is low quality ; It depends, but it's worth the try. Hope I helped ! ;)

Bye !

[Tim Leydecker]

[seems the quote has been removed by an admin//my comment below
is therefor obsolete, too. I wasn´t adressing Mr. monstermaker, btw...]

Umhh. Hush, hush, go away. No sense in shifting things towards an insult
just because you have difficulties getting the problem. You could get some.

Cheers

tim

P.S: Oh, I didn´t forget this isn´t my thread...

[monstermaker]

bigl5skull.jpg

[womball]

This material looks a lot better! Just needs a slight bit more specularity to it, before it feels right. Also maybe a high res texture too. But the overal color is there!

[Davlin]

@ Womball : You're right, but you're wrong. :D

To be more specific : If I had more specular, the lights will " burn " the surface. Instead of specular, I think it should need more glossiness, to break the specular reflection into more details and hard reflects.

As for the texture def, the maps I painted were 2048². I think it is enough ( see the bump, it has clean edges ), but this skull should definitely need a better UV mapping, because the wrong UVs are stretching the map ( right above the nose ) and thus making it more blurry.

Hope I understood your advices correctly, and this post being of some help. ;)

Bye !

[DerLandvogt]

Hi Womball
nice to meet you at zbrushcentral :D
How is your contestEntry going? Mine runns a little bit out of time :o
But I hope I can handel it.
Greez
Hilmar DerLandvogt

[womball]

Hey DerLandVogh!Haven't had time to work on my entry. Won't have time until this Friday. :cry: However I think I can texture pretty quickly now with zbrush so I should be able to create all of the textures I need rather quickly!

Maybe more reflectively for the skull than? The color map is what seemed off here.

[DerLandvogt]

Womball, If you have not done jet YOU MUST TAKE A CLOSER LOOK TO the ZAPPplugin. This plugin is amazing!!! Texturing could be so easy now :D

[polyguns]

Really amateur that last pic :confused: looks like it was made in early 90's...But keeping in mind that you are learning 3d, not bad at all. But if it was me i would keep these test works for miself.

This is new to me. Hell i get called a troll in like gaming forums when i don't toe the corporate line, but at the same time, I went back and read that and laughed my hiney off.

I mean its a wip, a sss wip, and rick is prolly kinda new to the 3d aps, but my lord he literally has made some of the best zbrush stuff ive ever seen on these here boards, and no offense since rick is still a good looking dude, but he was a professional at what we all aspire to do when most of us were stll aspiring to breast feed.

anyways, good luck on the skull. and hey why does it have to be areal skull anyways? add a wick and make it all melty and make it a skull candle, glowing from the inside out, that would be more interesting then a real skull anyways.

well glad to see that people around here can get in battles over art like we can over games, makes everyone look more human while we make superhumans, subhumans, trolls and of course old men portraits :P


sss always seems to start out looking like candle wax. whereas sokar you get a more realistic immediate result. traditional 3d aps take more work to get better results.