Happy Lizard on Tree

[Ken B]

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1035651286fcr.jpg

That's not much of a creative spin on the title, but it is what it is.

This image was done for the Creation Engine catalog cover. http://www.creationengine.com

Until the next upgrade of ZB comes out, I had to do displacements the old fashioned way: A cylinder was Divided several times (3 or 4). A texture was converted to an alpha, which was then converted into a masking alpha in the selection panel. The Inflate command was used on the object to push out the detail.
http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1035651978ziz.jpg

the lizard, was of course, the friendly Zsphere.

[Ron Harris]

nice job and tip Ken!! love the lizard and the tree...you definitely have a good grasp of reptiles.. the method you used on the tree,, is that the same way you do really wrinkled skin?

[DLee]

Weird, just the other day I decided I wanted to do a Gecko... basicly a lizard and here you are with an awesome one.

You're getting the photo quality down pat. Super job.

[banez]

nice pick :tu:

[Mahlikus The Black]

Amazing as always Ken!!

[Mahlikus The Black]

Amazing as always Ken!!

[DeeVee]

Well done Mr.K! :) :tu: :tu: :tu:

[Fouad B.]

very nice pict !! :D

[The Namek]

really great image , the tree and lizard look great :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu:

[DMerchen]

That turned out quite nice. Thanks for the tip once again. Keep it up! :tu:

[MrBraun]

Great image Ken!!! Tnx for sharing your tecnique !! :D :tu: :tu:

[Ken B]

Thanks all.

Ron, I do not usually make heads or characters this way. Just through 3D modeling and 2.5D work.

[Jaycephus]

Very nice! :) :tu:

[wenna]

Very Very nice! Thanks for the tip!! :tu: :tu:

[Flycatcher]

Another beautiful very-near-photographic image, Ken. And thanks for the tip. :tu: :tu: :tu:

[JOHNVQ3]

:) very realistic image,great tree textureandit goes good with the smiling lizard :tu: :tu: :tu:

[Rage]

Great work! Very realistic skins.

[Azlan]

Well I'll be damned if that doesn't look like a photograph of a real lizard on a real tree. Great texturing and color usage. I love to see work like this. Keep it coming. :tu: :tu: :tu:

[Bastard76]

It is a great fantastic picture,Ken!

[KingSalami]

Very nice! I think the bottom left leaf competes for too much attention, my eyes kept shifting between the leaf and the lizard.

[dO]

Hiho!
Cool work, but isn't it the same if you use any texture and set the colorbump of the material to 1 or something ?

[Jaycephus]

Colorbump is a 'bump-mapping' technique. It only looks good when when doing fine textures like rough skin, or at the most, sand-paper. It also fades out to nothing as the 'normals' of a polygon surface face further away from the camera. So on a sphere, the edges of the sphere will have a reduced bump effect, fading to none at the very edge. It also does not affect the geometry of the object. So on a sphere, the silouette is perfectly smooth (depending on the polygon density).

If you apply the mask and inflate method that Ken used, you are affecting the geometry, so shadows and highlights look very realistic all the way to the edge, and the silouette is 'bumpy' too. The downside, at least until displacement mapping is added, is that the polygon density of the object must usually be VERY high to adequately model most rough surfaces. Basically, there are times when simple colorbump will be fine or look better than any other method, and there are things, like rough treebark, that will look better with some form of displacement, which is what mask and inflate basically is.

I'm doing a leather texture on a book right now, and colorbump is perfect for that scale of texture. However, the leather texture is too subtle for the mask and inflate method on my book, but the new displacement map would also be an option.

[Ken B]

Thanks Jaycephus for the well-worded explanation of bump vs. displacements. I used the displacement for the very reason you stated; to have the geometry, especially at the edges, be noticably altered. If this tree were in the distance, I wouldn't go to such lengths.

KingSalomi: THank you for the leaf comment.