Halloween Bat for all...

[Jason Belec]

A little something for everyone to express themselves with... ;)

Note!!! Store the zsphere morph before modeling if you intend to pose this little fella or your variant.


Picture 6.jpg

[wolfie]

Again thank you very much:tu: Its like xmas come early for me lol

[Jason Belec]

Well glad you like it wolfie. Here is a proof positive you can have fun.

Posed the toes, fingers all different. Posed arms, elbows, rotated wrists, posed legs and feet, twisted and angled an ear forward, open mouth to full extention, twisted neck. Yup, works fine, now the fun can begin. I have done some modeling already just to show some of you the basics. Make sure you store that morph target right after the script has run!!!

It'll be interesting to see what people post back here. ;)

Scream if you have issues!! :lol:

Picture 8.jpg
Picture 9.jpg

[willbrown1]

This little guy is terrific!

[Okssipin]

Thankx.
Lovely

[feureau]

Nice bat! Thanks for the effort! :)

Just downloaded it, let's see what I can come up with it...

[Wordsmith]

Jason, you always have the coolest Zspere stuff. Another great tool Thanks!

Really appreciate you sharing this with everyone.

Word.

[Ron Harris]

Thnx for the gift,JB!!! I will work with it hopefully tomorrow....gotta pull the harddrive offline in a bit so I dunno if I will get to play with it tonight or not...but he sure looks fun:tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: Will post my results here.


thnx
Ron
catfishmn@aol.com

[Jason Belec]

Welcome all! Glad this little fella is of interest. Go for your style, toon, real, anime, whatever turns you on. I had an idea for a toon style and a very nasty realistic horror style - sort Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde kinda thing. ;)

[godlike27]

Thanks for the zscript Jason, I love watching them,
I try to watch at least once a day... to stay healthy
(by the way are there any more 3d applications that has that kind of thing?,
(I mean the ability to record) I know Izware Nendo does something like that...
It's kinda makes fun to learn.

[Jason Belec]

getting close now.... ;)

OK where are the rest of the bat-allion! ;)


Picture 10.jpg

[Jason Belec]

godlike27, now that's a name to live upto.

You can search around for scripts, a posted a bike tire the other day to help wolfie.

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=38895

[Bimm the Stone]

Wooo, thanks for the download Jason, playtime.... give me some time to play ;) :tu:

[feureau]

OK where are the rest of the bat-allion! ;)
Oh, man that's so gonna unleash a ton of bat-lingo. LOL :D

Anyway,
Just to say that I'm a-still bat-working on the bat.
ZBrush-Document.jpg

Btw, how did you bat-render your bat, Jason? That is ZB render, right? How did you get such nice shadow? My ZB renders don't look as good as my maya render.

[Jason Belec]

Hehehehe feureau, well I love the light and material Pixolator posted some time back. For his dino models. It's the best thing I've found in referencing Zbrush to REYES renderers like Renderman, Pixie, 3Delight, etc., in other words - things match up to give a nice starting point. Eliminates a lot of messing around. ;) I've used it a lot, even for the base of many toon materials I have posted over time.

Cool face on your bat to start with!

Bimm the Stone, can't wait, I'm giddy with aniticipation! ;)

[Jason Belec]

Level 4, getting closer. I think I'll name him Belfry for now! ;) It's hard to get this done between, renders, composites, and the other nonsense of day to day business like conference calls. However I am, where's yours???


Picture 8.jpg

[Mr.Monster]

Jason,

Nice work so far and good charactor. Especally at this level.
Looking forward to more.

Good work :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu:

~BW

[Tartan]

Very nice Jason. Nice toy to play with! You are one of the few I know that utilize z spheres to their potential. Happy Halloween and dont eat too much candy! :D:tu:

[Jason Belec]

Welcome to the party. I've posted mine again to help get people flowing. This could be real fun with 50-60 bats to put into a scene. I'll even open up a webdav for everyone to drop them onto and I'll do all the dirty work. Team effort!

OK, so I'm still on level 4, but I did a pose and moved to level 6 just to render and see. I do this lot! So I can see where things are working and not.

Considering how quick I whipped this up for everyone without testing, I'm impressed. Areas to watch - not worry - are the butt when you move the legs, the wing edges when you move the arms. Just grab the smooth tool and voila, perfect.

So here I bent all toes, fingers, wrists, ankles, claws, twisted head and neck, tail and an ear.

Picture 7.jpg

[Jason Belec]

Light test, now I'm gonna sleep for a few hours. ;)

Picture 8.jpg

[Ron Harris]

JB, just so you didnt think I lied...I went to work on the bat and my Z said it was broken so I am awaiting info from support so I can get back in the saddle with ya. Can't wait to play with the bat.

Ron
catfishmn@aol.com

[feureau]

Z said it was broken

Broken? You mean the zScript wouldn't run or it just died halfway?

It worked fine with mine. I could upload you the ztl if it's okay with JB.

BTW, JB, I couldn't find the pixolator material and lights. Could you point me in the right direction. Thanks a bunch. Pixolator uploaded so much stuff that it's probably buried within his own stuff. LOL :D

Anyway, here's mine bat so far. Haven't got much bat-time to work on it and the bat-render still suck. Then my ISP decided to cut off my internet connection to my Workstation so I have to transfer this to another PC. rats.

ZBrush-Document.jpg

Anyway, I hope to upload my finished .ztl file. And perhaps everyone would upload theirs? Then maybe we can have a "group photo" (one render with all the bats mingling together) of everyone's Bat?

[feureau]

a quick bat-update and a small bat-upload. A ZTL file created off of Jason's script.
ZBrush-Document.jpg

[Jason Belec]

Looking good feureau. Sad to hear about ISP, I have no limits, in fact I'm the largest user by far. ;) Sorry to hear that Ron. Thank you Tartan, I love your stuff. Mr. Monster with your abilities, we should see a pretty amazing bat mutation to add to the bat-tallion! Atwooki should be adding a version of his here today, we chatted last night and I think he had some wild idea.

Where are the rest people? Think how cool this could look and everyone will have contributed. I feel like one of those paid advertisement motivational speakers, shheeeeshh! ;)

[Jason Belec]

Requested light and material. With great power comes great responsibility. ;)

EDIT: updated file

[Jason Belec]

OK tried a very severe pose! And normal material test, my modded Pixolator material test and Pixolator material test, last 2 under my light mod. I use the modded material to help me see things... ;)

Note, same issues as mentioned above when posing, wings, but had issues, easily fixed with smooth tool at lower levels and work up after posed. Sorry about that, but what do you expect for free!!!????!!!!

Picture 9.jpg
Picture 8.jpg
Picture 7.jpg

[womball]

Its looking really good! Really great style too.

[calum5ZB]

Really incredible work Jason !What a cool Bat!Bye cal

[Jason Belec]

Appreciate the kudos womball, calum5ZB, on hold till others catch up. No fun if we don't have a lot of bats in the attic. ;)

[feureau]

Thanks for the light-material, Jason.
You know, I don't usually use zSpheres since I thought they won't rig very well, so, this is probably my first full scale zsphere project. And from the look of it, it seems this'll rig pretty nicely. Thanks for the thread, Jason. :tu:

Happy to see Atwooki's on board too! :P

I want to see more bat in the attic, too, so please, people, post your WIPs!!!


Btw, is there any way to move (1) to (2) without having to rebuild the entire (1)?
ZBrush-Document.jpg

[Jason Belec]

feureau, zsphere creations rig rather well as long as like anything else you follow some rules. See the zsphere thread! Hahaha.

I've used zsphere structures for quite some time, hopefully when various features hit theatres or shelves I can be a little more open. However, I have used them in everything from vfx, tv and feature work and had very few issues. No more issues than other processes anyway. Yes everyone has a favorite way to do things, and that is both the beauty and curse of many things we do. ;)

The part I really like about zsphere's, is seeing where I might have issues long before the pain of rigging. In fact this has greased many processes and reduced dependancies on headache medication. So very early on I can show a 'functional model' and decisions can be made. It's also nice to be able to strike key poses early on at the design stage.

Atwooki could probably give some more specific input concerning rigging, not that he's rigged mine, but he is pretty talented in that area with some pretty decent industry experience to back it up and used many apps,tools, tricks. He has put fur on some of mine though!

I think everyone would love to see anything you work up, or anything anyone works up, my stuff is getting old like me. ;)

[Jason Belec]

Sorry feureau, the picture had not loaded earlier.

Just drag the zsphere 1, from just behind it (near 2) - drag it back towards 2.

You can scale, rotate move at will, as long as that initial morph is done or you can do it then store the morph, just don't model until you do. ;)

[Jason Belec]

Bad day at the lab.... ;)

I just scaled various zsphere's or zsphere chains......

Picture 8.jpg
Picture 7.jpg

And a toon look of course.

[LittleDedder]

Played with it over that last hr.

I came up with the following 2 version.

Bat.jpg


Bat_Alt.jpg

[Ron Harris]

no the script isnt broken, but my zbrush is broken:cry:

hopefully I will be back up and running soon
Ron

[cspalak]

Well here is what I have so far, been fooling around with it for a few hours tonight. Prolly should be sleeping =P. The thing on the left leg is sposed to be a stump, and then having the long roots(former toes) turning into snakes. Just what came to mind this late lol.

hallobat.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2742442%27,%27hallobat.jpg%27,1, 0%29)

[feureau]

The cavalry's coming! LOL :D
Such pretty ZBRenders.

Jason, my bad, :P I didn't mean moving it as in reposing along with rotate and scale. I mean moving as in reattaching the claw somewhere else. Putting (1) into (2).
I tried deleting (2) and moving (1) up to (2) but deleting zSpheres, as it turns out, deletes the morph target.
ZBrush-Document2.jpg



So, is there a way to reattach (1) to (2)?

Also, thanks for the lengthy explanation on zSpheres. You've made a convert. :D You've convinced me to use more zspheres. I've read lengthy zsphereians talk about doing this or that, but so far, not much has been spoken about what you'd use them for. So far I've been making low rez subD meshes in maya then import them into zbrush for detailing, but the problem has always been rigging. Some meshes would get into unsuspected "blowout" in more detailed areas. Being able to test it (with the reyes lookin' light and material) practically "on the fly" would certainly help. Thanks, man!

Ron, sorry to hear 'bout your Z. Have you tried reinstalling it?

[Jason Belec]

feureau, I believe a fella has a script around here that would allow you to cut/copy and paste various zsphere structures, tried it a long time ago, but it didn't improve my workflow. However yes, that will kill the morph.

Now you could alter the zscript I suppose and re-run it.

Or just duplicate (manually) the hand where you want it.

Either way you will need to delete the morph and preview and redo. Thus any current modeling will be trashed.

As for all the other bats appearing, GREAT! This will be rather fun. As an exercise, before some of you get too far, you might wanna try a pose so you understand the relationship to the surfaces. ;)

More bats for 'bat-tallion'!!!

Bye the way, do yours have names???? ;)

[Mr.Monster]

Jason,

This thread is great! Lot's of people having fun here..Whoo-Hoo!

Great idea for Halloween:D
~BW

[Jason Belec]

Hey Mr. Monster - clean out your Zbrush mail will ya - hard to respond!

OK, where is yours Mr. Monster? Let's see that sculpting talent put to good halloween fun!! Eerrr, terror, fright, or something like that!

Everyone,
If you are done, take some time getting the pose you want, cleaning up any goofed areas like the butt and wing edges I mentioned earlier. Then I think we'll have everyone create a polymesh in that pose OR export an OBJ, you may have to use cage to keep the geometry. If you have issues, ask. Then we'll get each one to me, and I'll get them into a scene and start posting updates as they arrive. ;)

[feureau]

Jason, I think I've stubled onto that script a while ago, but well, it's buried under threads. Anyway, I still have to start from the beginning so I decided to do so by deleting moving etc.

Also, do you want us to post our obj/polymesh here or on that webdav thing you mentioned earlier?
(webdav? webdev?)

Also, for the final pic, will there be a theme or will it just be a lineup pic? I think it'd be neat if we could preset a background and maybe mark some location where the bats could go so people could claim their bat's mark and pose them appropriately.

Then after that, maybe post it on the halloween challenge? http://pixolator.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=38797 (If we can make the time)

[Mr.Monster]

Jason,

Their's a little free room now for a PM or two. *The maid has kindly managed to empty the small waste basket near my work desk. (She only does it when it's pay day, wink, wink! ;) )

Ok, I want to play too! Let me first get a little shut eye, (it's 3:40 am here in Prague), and I am seeing Draw size and Focal shift rings on the insides of my eye lids! Yikes!
I will take Se***324;ior Hallowen ZBat out for a spin tomarrow. Loooooks like fun!!

~BW

[Atwooki]

K Jason I'm in now ;)
Had a little time the last couple of evenings to get to this stage with the little critter..

HalloBat_wip2.jpg

[Jason Belec]

Alright Atwooki, nice start! Mr. Monster it will be cool!

feureau, I will make a webdav available and provide instructions. I agree on the set, I was thinking that over today. Open to suggestions, I was sorta going to wait and see what everyone came up with and add them as it seemed fit. It might change a bit, not sure. However I am open to any suggestions.

I was initially thinking a simple cave surface, rocks, and all our bats placed about with the same light and shader. Or we could do the Justice League hero line up left to right. Or.... ;)

If you want to provide more than 1 pose, that is also great as it will fill up the scene.

[Atwooki]

Alrighty; minor update here.... gonna fix the mouth and nostrils next, but dreading getting onto the feet (no symmetry to work off) and get some texturing in place.. :)

Chris

HalloBat_wip3.jpg

[feureau]

14 hours and no post? Well, here's a free bump. :D

Jason, please no Justice Leage lineup pic. It'd look good for a poster on a convention but it's just too plain.
Another suggestion: a prehistoric kinda scene with cliff, beach on the bottom and oceans and the bats mingling on the beach, cliffs, some flying etc. One bat crashed onto the cliff. LOL :D

Just a quick update.

I had to start over due to the claw replacement therapy. I think the claw's too big. No eyes yet. And the torso's still rough. Although the render has certainly improved. Thanks to Jason for modified (and original pixolator) lights-material. ;)
ZBrush-Document.jpg

Dino white skin from Jason. Is this supposed to be a bat-toon shader, J? (Think I screwed the bat-ZRender)
ZBrush-Document1.jpg

The Dino bat-white.
ZBrush-Document2.jpg

And a quickie bat-posing bat-test, problem with the bat-wings, as seen on your left hand side. (unless your left hand's on your right, then it's on the left side of your right hand) Had to smooth it (as seen on the right side).
The amount of invisible ZSpheres clutters the posing process.
ZBrush-Document3.jpg

The nuzzle part of the head looks like snoopy's head at this point. LOL :D

So, 121 anyone? :P Thanks in advance.

after post edit: oooh, Atwooki beat me to the post by a minute. No matter. :D

[Jason Belec]

Atwooki, looks great - what did you do to the feet? I know, Iknow, used symmetry!! Hahaha, it still isn't correct in Zbrush and I did this script fast so I didn't go back and correct for it. If you had masked from the knees down, symmetry would work without messing the footsies onthis guy.

Nice feureau, the special shader actually is what I use to view form when posing, not toon, but I have lots of toon shaders if you like. As for posing - rules are on the zsphre thread, but to be quick, each zsphere can only be rotated in 1 axis!! If you try to make it do more than that - wammo! Equivalent to 'gimble-lock' in animation apps.

Everything I see in you image can be fixed, drop to lowest res and work up with the smooth tool selected and work those areas back into place. It's mostly because the script has different resulting zsphere structure on Mac/PC so I can't make a truly universal file. (Bad Zbrush, Bad!) It can be overcome, Atwooki and I have proven it. Just not for this bat, sorry.

I like your scene idea, I started a nice matte this morning. Hope to get back on it later and post something and people can mark where they want their bat to go. Yeah, yeah, Hell - I know, I know...

[feureau]

Jason, glad you liked the idea. And thanks for going thru all this trouble for us. Great job. Hell, yeah!

I thought the shader was toon because it generates all those lines in the second pic that doensn't appear on all other shaders.

On rotation, how could I make sure I've only rotated on 1 axis? It seems Zbrush rotations seems to rotate on the XY plane. (the monitor screen plane) Gimbal lock stinks yet you always get gimbal locks once in a while. The fourth pic was smoothed on the lowest level, but the mesh explosion ascended up to the higher level.

On symmetry, the script generated a mesh on a Y axis symmetry while Z defaults to X, my mesh blew up when I clicked on smart resym without thinking. :D Also, seems the mesh will blow up if you smart resym without first resym the mesh. Does sound this similar to your problem, Atwooki? On my workstation this happens with the default bat and my modified zsphere bat. And it's curious too, Jason, why do you work on a Y axis symmetry? What software do you export your meshes to?

Is your toon shader the ones posted on this forum some time ago? (I got some toon shaders from here but which came from where escapes me right now) :D

[Atwooki]

Here's my last update....
As I'm unable to find a way of getting these ziff toes back in place - because rotating one toe rotates a different on on the other foot unsymmetrically for instance , I guess that's it for me with this; unless I was to spend hours fiddling with it... and don't have time for that unfortunately ;(

Anybody on a PC (or MAC of course) is welcome to check out the ZTL here:

http://www.custom3d.co.uk/zb/hallo_bat3.zip

cheers

Chris

hallo_bat3_image.jpg

[Jason Belec]

Rotate from the body out zsphere by zsphere, only rotate each in a particular direction, simplest way to describe it without practice.

Symmetry is an issue with certain structures in zspheres. It can be overcome, but I hadn't intended doing all the work and Ihad tolet the script run on each of your machines and the result is slightly different ffor Mac and PC users. Just don't blindly click those buttons! ;)

I work on different axis to explore things. This one just took off in that direction, but it is not the source of the problems. I usually throw it in maya for all of a few seconds to export either to Motion Builder or out to RIBs for rendering. Maya has pretty much become a container and not much more around my lab of horror.

A lot of toon shaders...
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=21627&page=3&pp=15

I was messing around and roughed out a few ideas, started to like this one and before I worked it up I thought I'd provide everyone with a chance to influence this as well.

Picture 12.jpg

[feureau]

Atwooki: I downloaded your ztl and will look into it. If it can be fixed, will you continue working on it? ;)

Oooh, new shader to play with :P Love that toon 'specially the one by stumpf. Thanks.

Ooh, is motionBuilder as good as its cracked up to be? I use maya too. I was a bit baffled when I found it in Y axis symmetry. :D I tried liquidMaya but only managed to render out a plain old ugly sphere. LOL :D It is still a bit rough around the edges. Looks promising though. But why didn't they raise legal issues with liquid as they did with BMRT? oh, getting OT.

The background you sketched out looks promising. But I'm having problem imagining where the bats could hang around other than on the rock bridge and some flying on the holes. Maybe one perched on one of them teeth-like rocks? How did you make the rock bridge? Instanced on? I think I saw a script around here somewhere to 'spray' on meshes. Was that it?

[Atwooki]

Jason
Given time, I'd happily carry on rotating this and that to realign the ziffs, but other projects call right now ;)

feureau - Once I'm done with some concepts I have to do (quick sketches) then if there's still time I'd like to finish this off, and thanks for checking it out :)
At each preview I'm back up to the top level again which also slows things down a lot - preferably I'd hide all except the lrgs for BOTH ziff-view and preview, but it ain't happening..!

When done sketching, I'll check back in (couple hours)

cheers guys :tu::tu:

Chris

[Jason Belec]

Sorry Atwooki, that post was for feureau, you just beat me and I was careless in not addressing it. I know you know how to fix it! You should by now! Looks cool anyway, sort representing those with disabilities.

feureau, MB is an amazing tool. I'm not too keen on the new pricing, especially as they are pushing MB as the tool to use in their new suite. I've been using it since it was called 'Filmbox' under Kaydara. It is very fast and powerful. I use it for pre-vis, updates, animation, etc., as much as possible because of flexibility. I can export a sequence to an animator using most major apps, get it back drop it in and export to Maya for output. Keeps the headache medication in the cabinet. Just understand it does not rig, it just provides motion and editing of everything in a scene, light, cameras, vfx, etc.

Liquid is actually one of the best tools available, but it is really designed for those off us handling pipelines - thank you Mr. Doncaster (spelling?). Once you realize what it can do, you never go back. That said, it will dump out any Maya scene to a Renderman API renderer directly, it just can't interpret Maya shaders. I hear a few guys might be working on that. Instead of Maya shaders, you use Liquid structure which just links to SL shaders (Renderman). I used to use a custom app that we developed in-house and still do for very complex scenes. Everything is modular in Liquid. It is not a renderer. Those it accesses are not braking any laws, they conform to the Renderman spec. Currently non of these renderers has broken the taboo that Exluna did, legal or not. Those guys are well protected now by Nvidia and doing fine.

As for the sketch it's a rough, and we are looking up at the ceiling from the cave floor. But it was a 10 minute sketch from some exisitng ZTLs, I'll work on it.

[Atwooki]

OK; gone back and did some poly-edits to the feet - smoothed all levels; inflate, smooth, move, smooth etc.... what the heck; if it holds up, it'll do ;)

That would be Mr. Gritz of whom you speak, Jason? very nice guy he is too :tu:

C.

bat_feet_remodeled.jpg

[Jason Belec]

Yes Atwookie and yes that looks very cool! ;)

[feureau]

Atwooki - Seems you already got it fixed. Finished early with your sketches? When I opened the model I was like, "What the hell happened here". It looks like some over-move that causes some zSpheres to connect to the wrong side of its parent zspheres. Particularly the pinky. And some problem with resym that blew up the mesh. As I said,I don't have much experience with zSpheres so my tweak don't look as good as yours. The symmetricality is lost but I got the topology right. :D So, please tell me what happened and how did you fix it?
Here's what the claws looks like on mine. The rest of the mesh is untouched and unmodified. . . . this is rather embarassing.:lol:

Atwooki's.jpg

Jason - Yeah, I heard what happened with those guys, didn't they settled out of court or something? And eventually end up with Nvidia making Gelato. Nvidia's Gelato renders is, well, okay, it's not as good as a software renderer should be. I understand Liquid is like Renderman not PRman. So, do you still use it to connect to your in-house renderer or do you use open source renderers? It's nice to have liquid 'preconfigured' to use with renderers like aqsis, 3Dlight. I tried liquid maya with pixie that got me that basic render I mentioned. The only thing I think is missing, is, well, that shader conversion thing.;)
From your description, it seems that Maya can do pretty much everything that MB does except better interoperability across different software packages. I know Maya gets FBIK from MB, is there a more advanced stuff like FBIK in MB? (That maybe would get transplanted into Maya too?) :P

Also, a quick bat-update. (I spent the last hour "fixing" Atwooki's mesh):D

36978492044724l.jpg

[Jason Belec]

Nice update!

Well Liquid is just an exporter really. You can use any REYES renderer with it including Renderman. I used and worked with developing 3Delight years ago, great system. I use the Open Source Liquid/Pixie combo these days, and specifics will be apparent over the next few months. As for the shaders, the largest type of shaders on the web are SL. And with various tools available like Shaderman, Cutter, any text editor, it's pretty easy. It's the flexibility many of us prefer - total control of each and every ray of light for every surface independantly. Gelato has potential but it requires graphic cards, which just doesn't work for me. I've been working development for years and can whup those renders with small systems called BriQs and a process that has proven itself over and over. I heard a lot of talk about how the graphic card renderer was going to take over, but the heat issue alone has not been overcome. Someday, maybe it will come along. Playing with cutting edge toys these days, they should make a big splash in a few months.

Maya has been integrating with MB for some time now. It is improved, but I still find Maya a pain and lethargic. I can do it in MB in a fraction of the time and with a far less powerful system. But everyone works a little differently and with different goals. MB just allows me to work with more people around the world with fewer issues. The think bothering many of us is Autodesk trying to tie Max/Maya/MB together, raising the prices and pushing them as integrated package. Well - crap, with little or no real improvements its a cash grab. But what ya gonna do?

Oh well, time for some sleep... ;)

[Atwooki]

Hi guys

Feureau - thanks for putting in the time on my guys feet; all a bit of a mess, eh :lol:
Still; snatched some time today to do some further leg-work, and will carry on shortly.....

cheers

Chris

bat_legs.jpg

[feureau]

Atwooki - Yeah, sorry I couldn't do a better job, though. I don't use zSpheres very often. Always seems to get the same issue on your model's foot, like the zspheres would twist and attach itself on the wrong faces. Although, I must say I rarely get mesh blowout like that due to zSpheres. The unsymmetric rotation you mentioned is reproducible on my machine and it's the same on my bat. But the rotation is reversed from the left to the right side of my model. It's unsymmetrical only if the zspheres aren't symmetrcial. I think this is normal behavior with zspheres... though....

Jason - I've heard of render boxes with a bunch of GPUs on them. Is that the toys you're talking about? And, on BriQs, is this renderman compliant? Hardwares like that Sun servers that's made of mainstream hardwares? (Or is it one of them signed secrecy thing?)

I tried Liquid with 3Delight, Aqsis and Pixie. I didn't know you were 3Delight developer. Cool! :cool: Shaderman lost me. There hasn't been any tutorials on zbrush-maya-liquid-open source REYES workflows around. (preferably pixie?) I looked for this topic couple of months ago to no avail. Maybe one day you can make a tutorial on this technique? :P I believe many of us would really appreciate it.

Open source is really the way to go. Have you seen Elephant's Dream? Although the animation is pretty amateurish, it's amazing what you can achieve with free stuff lately.

I'm not sure what's up with autodesk snatching up maya and max. Although they said would separate the two development team, I think eventually the two would be merged. Currently, the integration between the three (maya/max/MB) seems to be pretty bad with FBX. I heard max exports/imports FBX quickly while (at least on my box) maya takes a while to import FBX scenes. Maybe one day when they're all in one package.

uh oh. . . getting even more OT. I hope it's okay with everyone. :lol: This thread is gold. Once again, thank you Jason for everything.

[Atwooki]

Hi feureau - that's a mad nose on your bat, btw! nice work.. :tu:

By the way; by mess earlier, I was referring to the screwy ziffs (aPC transferal ailment I guess) !!

As a thought.. here a simple ZTL to show my general foot-setup:

Chris

feet_generic.jpg

[Jason Belec]

Hi feureau, not a 3Delight developer, just a helper. At the time it was just 2 fellas at 3Delight, one left, one remained another joined. I was one of the first farms to use 3Delight in production and tested stuff thoroughly on a daily bases. We rendered a million full HD frames in the first year alone. They used to have some cooll images in the gallery where I had done so very amazing clouds. I think I still get mentioned in the acknowledgements along with Graeme Nattress (my bus. partner at the time) and other greats like Moritz Moeller and Phillpipe LaPrince.

As for shaders, here is a graphic interface that has become recent, like Shake or Maya interface...

Current Sler (shader maker) may be recieved from CVS:

cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@ribkit.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ribkit co -P sler

Yet another screenshot:
1.jpg

BriQs run the PPC processor, base that IBM uses, Terra Soft uses, it is even the core of the Cell processor Sony is using. They are very small, and very efficient. I know I helped make tham that way, and the guy who designed tham works with me now as a business partner.

Maya always sucked at import, that is why I work almost completely modularly so I don't have to suffer. ;)

Contact me directly and I can give you a workflow. Help you get setup, once you are it's just like any other system.

[Atwooki]

Just noticed your bat-cave set J - cool :D Can't think why that escaped me earlier..
back with updates shortly

C.

[50'sKID]

Hello, Jason! It's nice of the 'ZSphere Master' to treat everyone to such a nice bat. :tu: 50.

[Atwooki]

Got to grips with a quick bit of texturing for a change... dunno if it's quite right for the little guy, but it kinda 'wip' right now ;)

Chris

bat_tex_wip.jpg

[feureau]

Whoa! Thanks J, I'll be contacting you. All OT diverted. ;)

Everyone, please post your WIPs, it's been very slow on updates this last hours.

Atwooki, thanks for the ztl. I'll look into it.

[cspalak]

Well haven't done a whole lot to it, but heres my small update. Haven't touched the hands yet, not quite sure how im gonna do that. Tried to play with them a little but just got into problems lol. Nice set jason, dunno how my bat will fit in with the weird leg stump tho. Nice bats everyone =P.
batty2.jpg

[Atwooki]

Hi all,

Done some further texture updates - just about done now ;)

cheers!

Chris

hallobat_texs_wip2.jpg

[Mr.Monster]

Atwooki,

Looking good amigo!

~BW

[Jason Belec]

50'sKID!!! Dude! Thought we lost you again, I guess we sorta did with the death of the machine! Let me know how that gets on. (pssttt get a macbookpro) :D

Atwooki, that is looking cool. Guess I have to get back to mine when I get back Friday, bugger.... ;)

cspalak, looking very original and that's not easy these days. So what may I ask gave the idea for the tree trunk limb? ;)

[feureau]

Just wanna say that I'm still-a workin' on the bat. I have to start from the beginning again. Zbrush failed to save the bat and the file's now corrupt. :confused:

[Atwooki]

Argh!!! - that's terrible news, feureau - no back I s'pose? hmm....

Still, if it's any consolation you'll remember and improve your edits both quicker and better :)

Could you shoot the file over here to see if I can open it?
It's a long shot, but you never know ;) PM me your thoughts...

Chris

[Ron Harris]

:D Wow Jason, I think you have created a monster:D

I worked a while with him, and changed the hand a little...I deleted two fingers and kept the thumb and then gave him one other finger...here is my test so far...eye texture by Stevie Rae and I had an ole set of fangs to pop in his pie hole LIght and mats by Mtb.

thnx
Ron
JasonsBatTest1J.JPG

[Jason Belec]

Aaaaaaaghhggghghhhhhh, feureau!!! I usually have a new version saved every few minutes. In some cases the files have suffix's with numbers upto 056 and beyond, until I'm sure I have it! I also save scripts from each session, so that I can run then again on the previous ZTL. Can really be a saver. ;)

Nice input Ron! Looks very nasty!

So the deadline is going to be Sunday 29th October, depending on your time zone. I'll set a WEBDAV up tomorrow and post the instructions by PM to each of you listed here. So if you wanna join, make sure you post some work here so we know you're in! Then take it off line as soon as I have them all. I'd appreciate speed when I do, so I can shut it down and start seeing how to get them all into a scene. ;)

[feureau]

Atwooki, thanks for the offer. And the support! Really appreciate it, man! ;)
But I've already proceeded to have the thing rebuilt. I do have a backup but it's at after I modified the zSpheres.

I tried using an autosave script. (I think it's in this forum somewhere) but found that it really crapped on the workflow. Stopping you from working every after a few minutes and then having all those files hogging the hard drive. Having 10 version of the same files at 300mb each is just too much. So I got another script. (sorry, the name of the script escapes me right now but I'll credit it on my next post) and hotkeyed it into the J key to save a copy in incremental number. Unfortunately, sometimes, I overwrite.

Jason, saving the zscripts of every session is a great idea! Thanks for the tip, I'll be doing that from now on. I just hope the script that I use would do that.

I'm so used to having this kinda crash (during saving, and when going up geometry level) that hair tearing is no longer an issue. :lol:

Well, guess I'd have to hurry and have it wrapped up by October 29th. (midnight UTC?) I'm also interested in having a copy of everyone's bat. I'm sure many people here is interested in looking into at everyone else's work And maybe learn a thing or two. Is there a way we can arrange an open source license of some sort? Maybe cc attribution?

Jason, are you gonna submit the finished thing into the halloween gallery 2006 thread?

[cspalak]

Ha yikes not much time to finish it =P. I save my work way to often, I got one file up to 107, and it really isn't even that detailed lol. It is kind of fun having all these different saves though so I can go back, and see how my stuff evolved. Also helps having about 5-600 gigs in hd space lol... though a lot of it is full...

Jason: Think the limb idea came from remebering a model someone did of a girl coming out a tree. Was a really cool model, not that my guys coming out of the wood or anything, but just thats where the thought came from I think lol. My latest ones even weirder.... So uh =P sorry if it turns out a little rediculous haha. Having fun with it tho. Post an update tommorow.

[Jason Belec]

feureau, we can post it on the Halloween thread, although I wish Pixolator could have a been a little more creative this year, that rehashed start page isn't very inspiring.

As for sharing, it's hard to say. I was only asking for and OBJ of the final from each of you to post it up in a scene - for fun. If people want to start sharing the ZTLs I think each person would have to put them up on an ftp and give the link to the thread or email to the people in the thread to control access.

I have set aside space to get files from those who posted works in this thread, I could have just said put it on your ftp or whatever and give me a link. I just thought it more friendly for me to offer temp space and access.

Now anyone here can post the wonderful work they did in any thread and do something on your own, my feelings will not be heart. I have none.

cspalak, it's cool. Sorta like the headless horseman in the Johnny Depp movie coming from the tree. ;)

I will start Monday my time to get things into 1 file. So that's EST as I'm presently in Ottawa, Ontario Canada. Those of you across the dateline get less/or more time! ;)

[feureau]

we can post it on the Halloween thread, although I wish Pixolator could have a been a little more creative this year, that rehashed start page isn't very inspiring.

Yeah, there isn't much going on on that thread too, although, since this is a haloween-themed project, I think we should submit an entry. :D

And, I don't know about everyone else, but I'll be releasing my ztl here. Hey, you gave us a seed and in turn, we should give back the fruit of our labor. There's just a tiny issue of license. I'll be releasing the ztl on the same term as the original script. So, it's up to you, Jason. Although, CC - no derivative is out of the question..... I just think that having a clear term, people could use the stuff with more confidence. (you know, what they can and can't do with them)

[cspalak]

I don't mind releasing my ztl either. Well I said I would post an update today about where i went with it. I am kinda iffy bout posting it cause it is kind of weird, and doesn't make a lot of sense lol, but uh here it is.

batty3.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2743014%27,%27batty3.jpg%27,1,0% 29)

[Jason Belec]

Hahaha, hey it's Halloween, everything is weird! ;)

[Jason Belec]

For those listed here I'm PM'ing you with instructions. You poor Windows users, I feel for you. Anyone else using any form of Linux or OS X can do this in 2 steps and MS wrote the format and procedures, go figure! Let me know if you fail and if you succeed - assuming you want to contribute to this mayhem. ;) It's WEBDAV which uses http protocol, so you shouldn't have issues even if you behind a firewall. After all you can browse the web can't you?! Upon connection a folder will appear on your desktop, just drag the file(s) in as per instructions (OBJ) we outlined earlier. Now if you want to provide a ZTL let me know so we can figure out ameans of sharing these large files. PLEASE compress your files.

Thanks for your contribution to the Bat-tallion! ;)

[Atwooki]

OK; finished up here, Jason....
You'll find the ZTL's as explained in my email to you.. hope all your comping goes well ;)

Chris

halloBat_fin.jpg

[Jason Belec]

Well since Atwooki was first getting a file to me... here is test 1. I will put my fella farthest back to give everyone a chance to be seen. I added the little fella up front from my 'Don't Shoot!' gag and will give him a little more terror to make the scene. ;)

Atwooki, the ztl loaded perfectly, the fix you did was as we both know all it takes for cross-platform.

Picture 10.jpg

[Jason Belec]

test2, tossed mine in to th efarthest point in the background to see how the composition might start.... ;)

Picture 8.jpg

[Jason Belec]

Well it's nice the webdav works. Some are having issues, but cspalak just started his upload fine and I'm watching it. Everyone else that are having issues, your best efforts to find a means to get your bat will be rewarded - KARMA! ;)

[cspalak]

I downloaded a program called bitkinex, hopefully spy/adware free =P. It seems to work fine for windows.

[Jason Belec]

I hadn't heard of that one, will check it and have a few people try it ass well. Thanks for the info. ;)

[Jason Belec]

test3 with cspalak ztl added. ;)

Picture 9.jpg

[Mr.Monster]

Jason,
This has come so far so fast!
I downloaded your .ztl, (thanks for sharing it), and started playing with it and realised their was so much going on with it, combined with my newbish-ness that I had to "cry "Uncle". (Boo-hoo). The sad truth.

I am looking forward to seeing what comes of this, as it is a unique Jason B. -group effort, sure to please!

Atwooki, Looking good amigo!

[feureau]

ZBrush-Document.jpg

Well, this is probably it for me. (Bad bat-Zrender, I shouldn't've chosen that frugly orange-brown) Given the bat-time limit and my own compendium of disorderliness. That's probably it. I think this is about 29% bat-complete. The bat-texture is pretty crappy and the bat-mesh needs a lot more work. That horn don't look as good rendered. I submitted the ztl in 6 part rar to the webDav. Totaling 58 mb. If anyone is interested, you can bat-download and build upon them as you did the original. Maybe you can bat-finish it? And then bat-share your work. I'll be looking for a suitable bat-hosting to let these bat-files available for a while and post the links here. (Don't you hate it when you stumble upon a bat-thread that links to an external bat-file that's been removed?)

meshnote for he-who-downloads-the-tool:On the bat-claws, there's a bat-pair of zspheres that's attached to one zsphere "face" up its bat-hierarchy that causes the bat-mesh to come out of a bat-face. I don't know why but you can't move it around as it'll bat-delete the morph target. (Sometimes you can bat-attach a zsphere to another face and keep the bat-morph target, but, well) Also, the bat-mesh would sometimes "blow up" if you bat-repose it. Watch out.

Special thanks to Jason Belec for organizing the entire thing and the initial spark. I hope we can have more group projects like this. There's much that I have learn from this unique experience. Thanks, man!

BATTALION!

PS. the autosave script I mentioned is psnap.

[Jason Belec]

Hehehehehe, nice post feureau, grabbing the fella/gal now.

Atwooki was of the same mind as you, we chatted last night and thought we'd ask here... Do ya wannnaaaaa!!!!!

We were thinking that for various events, like Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year, Spring, Ground Hog Day, anything! Just post here if you like the idea, and some suggestions. I won't assume to know all cultures even though I've probably experienced many, so post the event and a short description and we'll see about trying this out. Assuming interest exists.

I may do it again just because I had a great idea for winter after chatting with Atwooki, it's mind blowing!!!! ;)

Working hard between things to get this image out and put up here and in the Hallowwen thread. ;)

[Jason Belec]

OK, I don't have a file yet from feureau that I can use. However here we are... ;)

Picture 12.jpg
Picture 10.jpg

[wckedsunny]

Nice going Jason

It is coming out good.

[Jason Belec]

We all thank you wckedsunny!

OK, everyone who had something to offer got it all to me last night. Special thanks to Atwooki for also texturing our victim! I didn't have time to do the final tweaks to my texture, too bad so sad.

As everyone knows, no rules, everyone did what they wanted and then I tried to whip up a scene and place the cool bats provided in order that they arrived. Ha! Just like working with some producers I know. :lol:

Posted this update to the Halloween thread as well.

Picture 13.jpg
Picture 9.jpg

[Jason Belec]

Well not that it matters, but it would seem we have had almost as many views on this thread as on the Halloween Challenge.

Go figure!

Ah, Zbrush Trivia shall be born from this! ;)

[womball]

He looks like he is in sheer terror because his right nipple is stretched.

[Jason Belec]

The bats are known for tweaking nipples!! Atwooki, it would seem that you have been found out, you paint based on your physical structure! And it is twisted!!!! ;)

[Atwooki]

Aaah...! What happened to the nipple ring you promised then, Jason???

Looking really fine, I must say; all came together nicely, and everyones conribution has been well worth it :)
BTW: I'm REALLY digging Jasons bats coloring; that's dynamic paintwork alright :)

Just kidding about the 'ring' guys.... though it's open for edit, right J :lol:

Chris

[Jason Belec]

Ring???!!! Oh man did I mess that up! I though you said dingaling and figured it was out of picture and is probably shriveled in that shot! ;)

My bat had a really cool texture started, based loosley off that little fat fella I was doing on the zsphere thread. Will finish it soon.

I apologize for not putting more time into making you all look good. This week I did work with K and get a cross-compiler compiled under FC5, I did get the latest Pixie under YDL running, I did render out 30,000 frames of 3D under Pixie, I did get some new toys on the go for the US network, I did pull a lot of production data from the database - manually, I did get a project layed out in FCP and rendering, I did restore all the backups for a friends dental office after a massive power surge, I did answer all my emails, I did keep my wife happy, and I will get that bat done and post him to the zsphere thread. (ppsstttt - got access to some new Sony toys...)

I really enjoyed this little project and want to thank all those that dropped by and everyone who participated. I hope it was fun for you!

Should we do it again???? Say a month from now?? I already have the idea for the zscript. ;)

[feureau]

I'm for the ring. At least up the guy's nose.

Wow. Seems you got a very busy week, Jason. (hint on the new sony project?:P) Thanks for putting this in between everything. -sorry 'bout the files fiasco-
That's a pretty strange texture on the bat, btw. (the cool kinda strange, that is)

A month from now? Let's make it a monthly project. It's the beginning of November and we can have a complete render at the end of november. With the number of hits rivaling the haloween thread, I think more people would participate in the coming months. So, lets make it a longer period so people could do the modeling at a more relaxed pace and you wouldn't be rushed to do a final rendering, too.

Also, I'm gonna be pushing a little bit more on the open sourceness of this thing. Maybe we should license the stuff under Creative Commons? (Or GPL if everyone prefers it?) I mean if this takes off, every month, there's gonna be a repository of models made and I hope we can make them all available for the public.

I know, I haven't posted my model yet, I promise I'll upload it in a day or two. (to be made available to the thread) Been on a busy rush plus my workstation is still off-the net... again...
(Btw, what is the limit on ZBC file upload?)
So, where's everyone's meshes? I only saw cspalak's model on the webdav.

[Jason Belec]

We could do something monthly but it's harder and probably not as much fun.
We just don't have the storage to keep everything going with full and final models and textures. I could make a drive and server access available with MoléCubes, I'll run it by Karsten. No way can we can post it here.

The only thing that might work is that scripts from each persons sessions are saved (without fail) and those are posted. Then anyone could start from the base, and follow what ever sequence of scripts they desire. In production, I make it a rule, as the files are small and everything can be rebuilt, especially across platform due to some changes people may make that violate zsphere rules. Scripts can be posted here easily.

Not everyone will want to share, its hard for some to let go of their creations, except as images.

I'll ponder this a bit and we'll see. ;)

[Atwooki]

Hi Guys

Yes, I'll upload mine onto the dav; I've no qualms about sharing this if its useful to anybody in the 'team' ;)

And give the poor fella a ring Jason, please.....blurp!

EDIT: How do you get all your posted images to appear the correct size in the thread?
I put my 'other' Halloween card yesterday on the main 'Halloween' thread, and it seems a bit hit and miss - sometimes it suddenly appears right; others a thumbnail...:qu:
And yes; I have searched ;)

Chris

[feureau]

Well, I guess it's true, that the practice of making fun a routine would take the fun out of doing it. Although, there's practically a theme/celebration on every month. History has shown that Man has made it a priority of coming up with an excuse for at least to gain a day's off of work.:lol:
Like Thanksgiving in November; Christmas, kwanzaa, hannukah etc in december. There's a new year celebration in December and January. Martin Luther's day. Valentine, Chinese new year in February. I think the last hurdle would just be the final rendering. Rotate final rendering task every month?

I'm not sure about thumbnails and normal pics. I've used both the ATN tag, and the ATT tag with thumbnail=1, and it seems everything shows up sometimes as thumbnail, sometimes fullsize. :rolleyes:

And, on file sizes:
---begins---
Image types can be GIF (extension '.gif') or JPEG ('.jpg', '.jpe', '.jpeg'), with a maximum file size of 200K. Other file types can be Text files ('.txt'), ZIP archives ('.zip') or PDF documents ('.pdf'), with a maximum size of 500K.
---ends---

Hmmm... Rar can split the files to 500Ks... I dunno. I hope this forum could provide somewhat of a hosting for complete tools. Limits at 5MB or 10MB is more reasonable. Maybe a petition to Pixolator or aurick? To make a thread with a loosened filesize limitaition? Really now, if this thing flies, it'd help pixologic, don't you think?

Jason, you've really been very generous in running this thread, I don't what to trouble you with the burden of burgeouning files at MoléCubes. Not to mention the bandwidth.

I think the most viable solution for now is the script thing you said. Although scripts from different sessions must be combined and it shows a modeler's skill and really informational. Although, if you only want the finished model, you'd have to sit thru all that modelling session and not to mention broken scripts...

And most of all, I think, apparently, practically everybody basically would be willing to share their models/scripts and this chance would be a great opportunity to have something going on here in this beloved forum.. this sweet.. .sweet nectar of. . well, ehm. So, let's get this right, have a set of procedures and licensing. Because, if you have your models out there and one day you came across something online that's recognizably yours and there's no license declared for the mesh, well, you know how it goes.
LOL :D yeah, I'm gonna be pushing for somekind of open source license for a while here, so, let's talk about it please? I think at least we should say, that we have this file out for certain purposes like education or something.

[Jason Belec]

All valid points feureau.

As to a form of license, well that has been around for many years. It's called copyright. The problem is and always will be that if someone wants to do wrong they will. You cannot change that. So if you decide to show an idea, display a work, share something, you have to take the responsibility that it is going to get replicated, modded, mutated, what-have-you. I accepted long ago that I have no control after the ideas escape my mind. Which I think is a very good thing. After all imitation is flatery - steal it all!!

My wife has pointed out over the years, where certain ad styles, web campaings, technologies have looked pretty darn similar to mine - done years earlier. It just makes me smile, you see I was first. Or was I? Does it matter? I'm certainly not going to waste my life tracking down everyone that is too lazy to do their own work. That would include a large percentage of the last 2 generations. Many of my former students, employees, business partners, and probably a lot of people I don't know would probably fit into that catagory. Even here on Zbrush Central.

I guess what I'm suggesting, is that if you can't give freely, don't. Life is short and Karma has a long and poetic memory.

We'll see what can be done. I'll have a chat with the funny looking folks at Pixologic... ;)

[feureau]

I guess what I'm suggesting, is that if you can't give freely, don't. Life is short and Karma has a long and poetic memory.
Yeah, that's exactly what I mean, you know. If you're participating and uploading a mesh you're basically giving out something for free. But unfortunately, life isn't that simple. I was reading opera mini EULA the other day and it mentioned restriction on the software's usage to control nuclear reactor. I mean, yeah, you can give give something for free but you may be liable for something that people use it for. At the least we could say something like if you can't give your mesh freely and handle the consequences, don't give. And like "use at your own risk." e.g. the very least the creator of the original zscript or ztl where all the models derive from could get somekind of "protection" if running the script or tool destroyed someone's zbrush software. And the license is at most important on the original model. I mean if it's placed under (for a bad example) CC No derivative then all the derivs are illegal. And without declaration, everything is in limbo.

And getting legal license like GPL or Creative Commons would give further more legal assurances.

I hope pixologic would somewhat supports the file hosting/sharing because, this thread is more like a class than merely a collaboration. :D People could learn a lot by sharing knowledge, collaborating, helping one another, in this thread.

[Jason Belec]

Don't get me wrong feureau, but I don't think it's a viable approach - this license thing. I mean many of us post ztl's and scripts, mess with it if you want. It's the only way to learn and if you do something better than the original work - 'ups' to ya!

I should have time later this week to get in touch with Pixologic, but don't get excited - space is money. Scripts would be the only viable approach that I can see.

Although maybe all you say is true, and that is why Pixolator no longer plays with us.

I don't mind posting a script now and again to get people to blow off steam, so I'll be the one. If others don't want to play along and be part of a final image, that is fine, they can post an image and laugh with glee at the sheer cunning. ;)

I think next time I will move this back to the zsphere thread, as that is where it will do the most good. ;)

[feureau]

Well, I guess all that matters is that people who post their scripts/ztls understand that their contribution could/would get edited and abused mercilessly. And I suppose that this is somewhat of an 'accord' across this forum since there's so many people giving tons of free stuff here.

Anyway, althogh I've been leeching for a while. You used to be able to see pixolator's portfolio on pixolator.com. But the pages seems to disappear. (Do you visit zbc via pixolator.com or zbrushcentral.com?) And LOTs of pixolator's stuff, but the guy seems to be in low profile lately. Do you know what happened to pixolator? I'd hate to bring up old issue that irks the guy. He's given a lot to the community.

Jason, I think given the amount of post this thread generates, it's best to have it's own thread. Just give it a distinguishing prefix. Like monthly collaboration: (the title of the work). (bad example, I know)

I hope this can take off. I really enjoy your script and had lots of fun (while learning a lot) doing the tool. :tu: :tu: :tu:

Keep us posted with the pixologic connection. ;)

[feureau]

Here's the link to my bat. Please treat it with respect.

http://mihd.net/ih3x2r

The file expires in three months. After then, if you stumbles onto this thread after the link expired, and wants to get a copy of the bat. You can PM me.

Edit:
A more permanent link. They promised no deletion. But if deleted, the above applies.
http://www.mediafire.com/?9nmydgfyyot