Antoine in the forest

[YONA]

Hello everybody



Here is my quite 1st Zbrush and XSI rendering project! 1st from 1st!!and also my first post here.

As I have difficulty in making things half, I said to myself "If you have to learn, try to learn a lot!!"

The illustration in watercolour and photoshop which you can see at the top to the left comes from a project of full-length film i hope to direct one day. I am a fanatical about 2D / 3D mix and camera mapping.

At the beginning I thought of making this project with 2D characters. But now I'm thinking of making a full 3D project to complete the work of camera mapping


I'm an illustrator, and I work as D.A or Director on several animation projects in Paris but my knowledge in 3D is limited to modelling and a bit of texturing. Now, I ‘ve decided to improve my knowledge by learning Zbrush and xsi rendering.

It’s been a month that I watch a lot of tutorials. This project will be, I hope, the result of my learning.



You can see all the steps of my WIP, from the 1st illustration to the character modelling (WIP01). I just note that I still have to make the modelling of the “money bag”. That why Antoine has a strange pose for his left harm.


WIP_ANTOINE01(2).jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27129305%27,%27WIP_ANTOINE01%282 %29.jpg%27,1,0%29)


In the WIP02, here’s the layout of the final illustration (a quiet little forest close from a river)


WIP_ANTOINE02(2).jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27129306%27,%27WIP_ANTOINE02%282 %29.jpg%27,1,0%29)

The strange characters that you can see in the next picture are “Lupios”. I’m going to put 3 of them just behind the tree as they are hiding from Antoine.

PERSOS05_low(2).jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27129307%27,%27PERSOS05_low%282% 29.jpg%27,1,0%29)

The WIP03 shows the BG modelling. I don’t think that I will go further though the floor will be covered by leaves and grass (an other thing easy to make http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/wink.gif )


WIP_ANTOINE03(2).jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27129308%27,%27WIP_ANTOINE03%282 %29.jpg%27,1,0%29)


All the textures except for the character will be camera mapped with watercolour textures.



Next step, TEXTURES! Yes! And after that I’ll have to watch a loooooot of rendering tutorials on xsi http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/grin.gif



I hope that you’ll like this project

[YONA]

that's better with bigger images :D
a bit to big!!! sorry!!

[SalmonGod]

I'll be keeping my eye on this one for sure... it really strikes a chord with me, because I've been thinking a lot these days about how my kids will likely never experience natural beauty or innocent adventure such as this

[SolidSnakexxx]

Lovely piece...I like both the design direction and your sculpt so far... Really nice style! :tu: :tu:

[YONA]

Thanks a lot!
Today i'm going to paint all the textures for the BG and do a multi camera mapping. I'm a bit scared :D
I hope you'll like the result!

[YONA]

thanks for your comments! it motivates me a lot!
here's a little update...The bag was missing...now it's done!
I hope to be able to show you the texture process during the wkend

WIP_ANTOINE04.jpg (javascript:zb_insimg('129692','WIP_ANTOINE04.jpg' ,1,0))

[sasquatchpoacher]

like it! great style.

[YONA]

Hello guys!

Here is a bit of traditionnal stuffs lost in this numeric world :D
I've spent my saturday aftenoon preparing the texturing of the BG.
As i wanted to keep the watercolour style...well hum i took out my watercolour equipment ;)
you can see all the steps bellow:

Image01 :
In order to prepare the camera mapping for the watercolour, i've prepared 5 cameras in XSI i order to have a 360° texturing work. I have rendered 5 pictures with the toon shader and a bit of occlusion for details.
After that, i took my precious sepia pen and used a light table to transfer theses pictures on a watercolour paper.
Usually, when i do a camera mapping, i do the modeling from the illustration. The illustration is detailled and i don't have to take care of the shadows which are drawn in the picture.
As i have only one picture, the camera work is also very limitated.
But for this project i want to have a 360°camera work and i want to use the Physical light of Xsi. So i don't need to have to much details in my 5 watercolour illustrations. Anyway, if i draw to much details i will have too much work retaking the transition between the 5 camera maping.
I just try to make some variation on the tree, the stones, and the ground (as the grass will be generated by the color of the ground)
At the end when the texturing will be done, i will be able, using the render map, to add all the details i need ;)
You can also see that i use all the paper in order to paint all the textures i will need for details such as stones under the water, leaves, stone and wood textures...

WIP-06.jpg (javascript:zb_insimg('130037','WIP-06.jpg',1,0))

Image 02 :
the first picture is an old camera mapping wtih details and shadows included in the illustration.The model was built on an illustration. For my actual project, i start from the 3D model so it's different ;) i hope it will work :confused:
And below, you can see all the textures and the 5 images for camera mapping...

WIP-07.jpg (javascript:zb_insimg('130038','WIP-07.jpg',1,0))

Once the texturing done, i'll be able to add all the details i want! I think that i will use Zapplink a lot!!! I have a lot of work but it's very motivating! i lurn a lot...
If you have any advices!!! i'm listening!

[- FoOD -]

Very cool YONA - like the water colour and sculps are very nice for your first attempt :tu:

[Danny R]

Looking forward for the results, excellent!

[Etcher]

Beautiful! Thanks for sharing all those WIP shots! Keep goin'! :tu: !

[Martin@PIXOLOGIC]

Keep up the great work!!

[Al.Tintop]

really lovely design. i like both the
2d and 3d version but in the 3d version
antoines legs seem to be a little thin
but as it is work in progress i think it will
finish in a fantastic way.keep it up i'm
lookin forward to see more of this.:)

[bicc39]

This is going to be a biggie!!!!

Fingers crossed for your progress.

[YONA]

humm...the more i look at my tree in the watercolour illustration, the more i think it is too dark...i think that i will have to make a brighter version...
Anyway, i'll see after the camera mapping ;)

[agrmrs]

great work man:tu::tu::tu: really love it .........specially i like very much that kinda styles:):):) waiting for more updates:):):)

[N8]

looking good! More please. :P

[Moni-Poroni]

Oh your work is so beautiful! Sweet idea!
Great scene! I like your style and I can´t wait to see the "Lupios". :)

[maxinkuk]

What a splendid project. I really like a lot all you've done. Excellent.

[YONA]

Hello!
here is a new update!
i've spent this afternoon to do the camera mapping with 5 Cameras for each object :D.
I'm really happy of what it looks like and now i can make a 360° camera work..for a still image..yeah i Know but i wanted to lurn :D
You can also see the beginning of Antoine's texturing... of course this is flat and there's no rendering...but i wanted to see what it looked like ;)

WIP_BG01.jpg

next step : GRASS and LEAVES tests! and a bit of Lupio's modeling

Thanks for your support!!

[Captain Sensible]

Wonderful illustration! :tu:

[YONA]

After a very bad day during which I was unable to make something of good...
I have succeed in finishing the grass (1st picture) and beginning water :D (2nd picture)
I haven't put grass on sides because I am going to cut the model.

WIP_BG02.jpg

Thanks to the water, i know how to retake the textures of my rocks...i'm gonna make them older with a bit more of humidity...
And of course there's still no lighting, occlusion etc...

WIP_BG03.jpg

tomorrow, i'll finish the textures of rocks and clean the water shader.
Than i'll go back to the characters!

[Jason Belec]

Very cool style!!! ;)

[RiVvenGuard]

interesting approach...

[womball]

Awesome style and one of the best cel shading I have seen. Is this going to be animated?

[Etcher]

Great update, the grass is looking very good! :tu: !

[bryzol]

Whole picture is looking cool! I like this style of texture. Very pictorial. I dream to see animated movie in this style! You have my 5* Keep it up, it's fantastic!

[YONA]

Bryzol what you say to me touches me a lot. In fact this image is a test for an animated movie that i hope to direct in 2010. i'm working with a producer who's really involved in the project.
I've this 3D style in mind for a long time, that's why this little project is really important for me and that's also why i'm so happy that you like the approach!

i'll do my my best to not disappoint you!
THANKS AGAIN!

[Goobatastic]

I will be watching the thread closely. :D

[Al.Tintop]

i'm sure it will be stunning when it's finished.
i really like your process for so far and an
animated movie would be so supercool.
wish you luck with these but i think you
won't need luck, it seems fantastic.
the texture process is amazing:tu:

[bryzol]

Whell I like it a lot, so I'm happy that the movie in this style will come to us soon. It's great that you use watercolor to paint textures. Thanks to that it's closer to traditional art and animation! Keep it that way and it will be a success! i will be watching you :cool:

[abhominal]

I really like where this is going! I keep meaning to hand paint my textures too, probably in acrylic. Give the textures extra depth that you cannot really capture digitally.

[YONA]

here's a new update...
As a newbie, i spendt my friday lurning how to do passes in XSI..So i had to put aside the artistic part of my project : lupio's modeling, leaves, volumetric lighting (which is going to be a Huuuuuge lesson :D ), etc...
But finally, thanks to precomp, i can see what to modify and where to improve quality!

PRECOMP_LOW01.jpg

You'll notice that there's no details on Antoine (such as the mouth, the hair details etc...) it's because i'm working on the normals maps...they will come soon! The tree is a bit flat too so i'm gonna bring the HD model from Zbrush to optimize the rendering in the occlusion for example. It will be beautiful at the end!
At the begining of the project i thought to cut the BG oneach side (where the grass stops) but know i think that i should put grass everywhere! :D
There's some alpha problems as you can see on the foreground of the 2nd picture (do i fix it or do i put a Lupio to hide it ?:D )
The river is too transparent i'm gonna work on this too..
I still have to do the lupios, the leaves and i'm gonna add some flowers (alphas)
When this list will be done (ARRRGGGGH) i'll add a volumetric light so that we'll see light rays an small particules in the air...
But not too much of course, i want to keep this watercolour touch :D

I think that i won't have finished next saturday as i planed but it's ok!! it's 1 day/1 lesson trip and it's very exciting!

hope you'll like the update
any advices, i'm listening!

[Etcher]

Sorry Yona, can't give you advice, only encouragment, so: keep goin'! :tu: !

[BoneCandy]

This is utterly fantastic. Very innovative and beautiful. I also love the mix of 2d/3d. I would love to see a movie in this style. Would it be possible to get some higher res images?

[Moni-Poroni]

Your work is one of the coolest things I´ve ever seen!
The watercolor touch is wow.... I don´t understand how you did that.
But I don´t have to :) -- I just enjoy your beautiful work!
Keep it up!

[YONA]

thanks for all your nice comments!
BoneCandy : I' mworking on my blog where you'll find HD images.
Moni-Poroni : If i have time at the end of the project i'll do a short making of.

I'll keep you in touch!

[Moni-Poroni]

I have time.
Can´t wait to see it! :)

[bryzol]

Great update. As I said befor: Ilove it! Keep it up!
Maybe you could move a little bit light sorce so that whould lighten Lupio's face. Just think about it... ;)

[YONA]

All the lupios we'll be hiden by the tree... we'll only see their heads..i'll do a little sketch to prepare the composition..i know that Antoine is in the shadow but i like him that way..maybe after posing the lupios i'll change my mind to move him into the light...
as the lupios have shiny colors i'll maybe have to move the light to make Antoine more present in the image as you said (i think that you were talking about Antoine..the lupios are the strange little characters that you can see in my first post)

[bryzol]

yes you're right, I was talking about Antoine :) my misteake :)
I whould show his face in the light or hide it all, now he has a little bit of light on his hair and it's a little disturbing for me ;)

[YONA]

you're right! i'm gonna change that!

[bryzol]

:)

[Al.Tintop]

just awesome.:tu:

[selvakumar]

amazing try
Waiting for more

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/attachment.php?attachmentid=131668

[YONA]

a quick update just to let you know that i've finished to prepare all the passes (with the leaves, tree details and the lupios)...my pc is rendering so i can't make the composite but i wanted to show you few passes (i have muuuuch more passes ;) )

PASSES.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27131896%27,%27PASSES.jpg%27,1,0 %29)

I've fixed the little problem in my lighting pass (the hair is glowing )...
I can't wait tomorrow morning to test the composite...but the final one will be for monday i think!

hope you'll like the little update

[Moni-Poroni]

I know nothing about passes so far but it looks great! :)
Are all the leaves subtools ?
Can´t wait to see the final result. :)

[BoneCandy]

Wow looks like alot of work goes in to make it look great. I too dont know much about all the passes. Could you list down the ones you've used?

[bryzol]

I see there is no specular on Antoine already :) It will be graet when you will compose those layers to one piece, I can't wait to see it :) :tu::tu:

[YONA]

Bryzol : you think that i need specular? i'm not sure of that, i would like to keep this smooth touch. except on the water, where would you put it?

Moni-Poroni : I could have done the leaves with subtools but i've prefered to use XSI. Sometimes the old good softwares are faster to do this kind of thing ;)

BoneCandy : Here are the passes i use
-MainPass : with all the objects in constant color
-HairPass: for the grass in constant color
-BG beauty pass : all the Bg in constant color with no grass
-Beauty charater : constant
-BG occlu pass : ambient occlusion for the bg but the grass
-Character occlu pass : ambient occlusion
-River Pass : With an architectural light with reflection an refraction
-Caustic pass : caustic which comes from the river. It's very soft but it's not a real caustic but a texture projected on all the scene.
-GLOBAL LIGHTING : a physical light with FG for all the scene
-GLOBAL INCIDENCE : for all the scene
-Backlight pass : a simple lambert for all the scene. A very soft light which comes from the river.
-VOLUMETRIC PASS: with a volume shader to creat the ambience in all the scene
-Leaves beauty pass: in order to change the ugly actual color (hue/saturation/levels etc....)
-Beauty pass Lupios : for the lupios ;)
-Tree mask which works with :
-Ambient occ HD TREE and Incidence HD TREE
for these 2 last passes, my idea is to keep all the information of the HD Zbrush model of the tree. I will cut these passes with the actual profile of the tree in order to add details inside the tree without changing the profile.
I could have used normals maps but it didn't fit with what i wanted.
-Particules pass : small pollen particules

That's all!! :D
of course there's Alpha in each pass so i can cut whatever pass i want.
I do compositing for a long time and now i know that the more passes you have the more confortable your composite will be! even if you don't use all the passes!


But today i have a little problem with my passes...They flick so i've to change the sampling...Anyway! i can do a still image! see you on monday ;) with the final image i hope :)

[Moni-Poroni]

Cool! And thanks for the info regarding the passes.

Just one little question: Are you rendering the particular passes within Zbrush...and than? Are you using Photoshop to composite all?
Is this how it works?

I hope on day I´ll understand what you all are talking about. :)

I´m looking forward to monday. :)

[YONA]

In fact i've just used Zbrush for the modeling of the scene, I also used it for texturing. I can't work anymore without Zapplink linked to photoshop...hairs, rendering and particules are made and rendered in XSi..

I'm glad that you like my projetc! :D

[Moni-Poroni]

Thanks Yona. And yes, I like it a lot. :)

[M-Wicz]

Hi Yona, really like the anime style remind me the Hayao Miyazaki stories, wait to see the final result, go on!

[bryzol]

No i don't think you need specular, maybe I've used wrong words. I wanted to say that this is good that there is no sudden light on Antoine :)
You're doing great job!

[AndreaF]

this is going to be something quite special!

I love the fact that you want to make this not a static image but instead you will move the camera. Would be awesome if you could find the time to animate the boy too...

I'm really looking forward to seeing the final video and all the work in progress you post in the meantime, superb work!



Andrea

[YONA]

Hi everyone

As promised here's the final picture.
I'm quite happy of the result even if i have so many many things i'm not proud of. But it's my first Zbrush/Xsi project so please don't be too hard with me :D!

I've finally decided to add a Background to the picture.. So i've used the picture you could see in my first post. I'm happy because it fits very well. It shows that for my animated feature film project, i'll be able to mix 2D and 3D as i wanted!!
Sometimes you have to make decisions. If you remember i wanted to had volumetric lights and particules...well hum...it wasn't good at all.. it was to 3D like...the more important was to keep this fine border between 2D and 3D. So i've decided to remove them.

COMP-DEF-LOW_800px.jpg

If you have any questions don't hesitate!
Now i want to move on an other project..Zbrush and xsi are so exciting and i have so much to lurn

Andrea : i'll try to make the video but it's long to render 300 frames in 2K. So you will have to wait :D i'm sorry.
Anyway, i want to composite a higher resolution image. This one is only HDTV so it's quite small to see details..I would like to make a clean version of ANtoine alone too...But for now i want to do something new with what i've lurn

[Lucky_1]

Awesome work Yona !

[selvakumar]

I will be waiting to see your final render ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,:tu:

[YONA]

but it's my final render :$
what do you want to see more?

[Moni-Poroni]

Beautiful result YONA!
Great to see the Lupios! :) :) :)
Hope to see more of your great work in the future.

[Etcher]

Hi Yona! Totally agree with Moni! Beautifull! Lookin' forward to the next! Oh, maybe you can post a bigger render of the final pic so we can admire all the detail! :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: !

[YONA]

OK i'll try to post a higher resolution soon
if you want you can see a bigger one in my blog...But it's not so big ;)

[Disco Stu]

a short animation would be great.

i love the render

[aiman]

Very Nice. Gr8 Lighting and Textures. Theme is kind of Miyazaki-ish. I like it.

[bryzol]

I think it fits perfectly:tu: Great work! It looks like it was painted and I think this is what you wanted to achieve:tu::tu: 5*

[Jason Belec]

Exceptional idea and work. Integration as you desired of 3D and 2D is also very well done. Congrats. ;)

[YONA]

THANK YOU GUYS! YOU'RE TO NICE WITH ME!! :D
i'm already working on my new project...I can only say that it's more focused on several characters (6 characters argh..) better than BG this time..
Working on ZB was one of the best things that happenned to me in my short carrier...Now i think i'll never be able to stop :D

see u very soon!!

[Etcher]

Hi Cédric! Ton blog est superb! Quel beau style! Dommage que les images sont petits (le concept art, les personnages sont tres beaux, mais difficiles a voire :cry: ). Le travail des "Intervalistes" est exceptionel! J' espere que tu vas continuer tes "posts "a ZBC! :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: !

Hi Cédric! your blog is exceptional! What a beautiful style! Too bad that the pics are small (the concept art, the characters are very beautifull,but hard to see). The work of the "Intervalistes" is outstanding! I hope you will continue to post on ZBC! :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: !

[KillahPriest]

Wow that's incredible.

[YONA]

etcher : oui je suis désolé pour la petitesse des images....a force de vouloir optimiser pour internet on en oublie de faire des images visibles...je vais essayer de rattraper ca..en tout cas un grand merci!
yes, i'm sorry regarding the size of my images...the more you try to optimize your images for internet the more you forget the quality..i'll try to take care of that..anyway THAnK YOU!!

[SalmonGod]

I'd also love to see a higher res image... it turned out fantastic... the feel of the forest is so mystical in a happy childhood fantasy kind of way... everything has such a colorful glow