First attempts

[voodoodad]

Glenn and Dragon, thank you guys. If I didn't have people like you spurring and inspiring me onward and upward I probably would've quit Zbrush 2 weeks into it lol. Glenn, one more thing about those arches and gravity. Gravity really only works well as far as symmetry is concerned when the object you're editing is sitting dead center of your document. It seem like if it's off center on the x or z axis it pulls more on one side than the other. So when I did these, I picked the thick plane primitive and did most of the editing before I appended it to the man scene. That way I didn't have anything else in the way and didn't have to turn any visibility options on or off.
Dragon, as you'll see in the new render below I've got all the main pieces in place now. It's just a question of getting things looking exactly like I want them. The building (lodge is what sticks in my mind for some reason) needs a lot of work as it's sitting as a barely edited block of clay right now. And I've been working on the water surface all day and I'm still not satisfied with it. It's got some decent looking ripples, but I need it to have some wake type action around the pillars and parts of the landscape to give it a flowing sensation. Also, the specularity is off. I'm not getting any highlights from the matcap I'm using right now. If anyone has tips for this, please help a brutha out!

I've changed the angle on this render, which is one of the things I love about doing a big piece like this. There are so many possibilities to create different moods just by changing the angle it's incredible. I also enlarged my characters a little when I realized they actually weren't standing on the floor of the gazebo thing. Wow, how did I miss that? Lastly and most obviously, I added a background image and more lighting. Thanks for watching, guys. Stay tuned. Same bat-time, same bat-channel!

[deckard01]

I can see my house from there.

keep up the good work bud.

Dan

[voodoodad]

I can see my house from there.

keep up the good work bud.

Dan

You live in Rivendell?!? Thank you Dan! Umm, if you happen to stop by again could you possibly give me a hint or two about getting the water right? Jeez, I'm completely without shame...

[deckard01]

Well firstly I'd try out the Jelly bean material ( tinted to your favorite water color ) set to transperant in render settings & subtool then transperant in display settings for that subtool and tweek the light to and see what sort of reflections you get as a start

Then you can play with transperancy settings in BPR for best results - hope those directions work I'm typing from memory.

Dan.

[deckard01]

Oh one thing i forgot to mention as i cant tell from you render is your plane surface must have a sculpted undulating surface for this to work use the pinch brush over standard peaks and valleys

[voodoodad]

Thank you Dan. I need to refine my technique with some practice, but your tips were just what I needed. I had been trying variations of the standard brush to create some waves, but it didn't seem to come close to what I wanted. I never would've thought of using the pinch brush!

Here's my first clumsy tries at making it look like I need. By the way, The jelly bean mat was exactly the right call. Thanks again!

[voodoodad]

If nothing else, I learned how to make a decent looking ripple brush.

[Dragon]

Oh wow, let's give Dan a high five for making such a good call on the material to use- Going to remember this one (thanks a million Dan). Gary, that last image looks real cool. But the water looks too PURPLE. But hey, if that is what your going for, right on (maybe add some highlights of blue??). One thing that may help is, put 'shining' refecltions from the water onto the pillars and under the bridge. And don't forget, water acts like a mirror as well i.e. put reflections of the pillars, bridge, clouds, hills, etc onto the waters surface... ya know, like Bob Ross would do with his lakes, trees, and mountains-HE WOULD PUT THE REFLECTIONS OF THE MOUNTAINS AND TREES INTO THE LAKE. But, I really like how the transparency came out! Totally cool! Man, I am tired (just got off work). Anwywho, will holla at ya again. Best.

[Dragon]

Oh man, you must have been posting while I was writting the last comment. I like THIS last image even more. The ripples are cool. But make them suddle. Best.

[voodoodad]

Hey, Dragon! Yeah, the purple was my color blindness rearing its ugly head again. All of my "color checkers" are snug in there beds, while daddy doesn't get enough sleep and visions of zbrush stuff dances in his head. As for the reflections, that's something that I've been obsessing over all evening, but haven't found a way to do it in zbrush yet. I know I could do it pretty easily in Photoshop, but I'm really wanting to keep this one totally in zbrush. Oh well. Maybe I'll get a few hours sleep and have a revelation in my dreams. The sleeping part sounds good, but my wife HATES it when I wake up screaming "EUREKA"!

[MealeaYing]

Its 3:22am and you are inventing ways of making water in ZBrush???
This is wonderful!
I cant wait to see where this goes, Im making coffee!

[voodoodad]

Its 3:22am and you are inventing ways of making water in ZBrush???
This is wonderful!
I cant wait to see where this goes, Im making coffee!

And now I feel guilty for sleeping for three hours... Thanks, Mealeaying. Thanks a lot. Seriously, I just woke up... at my keyboard... good lord, this is getting out of hand. But in a good way!

[voodoodad]

Changed background and still messing with the water.

[MealeaYing]

Holy mackerel thats nice!



Also feeling guilty about being infatuated with ZBrush is silly, its good for you. Notice I caught you at somewhere past 3:00am? there is a reason for that.
GRIN!
Just make more coffee and you will be fine.

[voodoodad]

Holy mackerel thats nice!



Also feeling guilty about being infatuated with ZBrush is silly, its good for you. Notice I caught you at somewhere past 3:00am? there is a reason for that.
GRIN!
Just make more coffee and you will be fine.

Thanks, Mealeaying! I am so loving doing this one and I can't wait to do more! The first few times I tried adding a background in zbrush, I guess I just didn't push as far as I am with this one. The backgrounds never really seemed to match up as well as this one does. The best thing about it is that the image is big enough that there are numerous views I can use it from, and my model is also big enough that I can swing the whole thing around to get any number of final renders out of it. I'm already collecting reference images for my next environmental piece even though I've still got a ton of stuff I want to do with this one.

Gotta go for now. The tv show "My Strange Addiction" is calling. What in the world could they want?