Taron

Again I could spend plenty of lines to simply thank you all over and over again, it's tempting to do so, but I don't want to bore you with my endless gratitude for your reactions!

I've never really used Max or Maya, while I had looked at them and played with them a little, but I quickly had to find out that enough was missing and too much there to be dealt with and learned before I could do something that's even remotely as controlled as what I do with my set of packages. By now I'm really in love with my setup and not only because of what it is, or better what they are, but what they are becomming. ZBrush about to reach the next level. Messiah about to reach the next level. My confidence and your encouragement bringing me yet another boost. While this all makes me wish that I can return that boost to some or even all of you, but I'm absolutely certain that these packages will take care of that and you'll get to find out what energies you really have. I often want to say that it becomes easier to create great art with our tools, but instead I think it becomes easier to discover the great art within us. Making it will always be as challenging as it is within our imagination.

When I begin to walk you through the creation of "people" (that somehow sounds truely arrogant...hmmm)...I really believe you will get yet again a stronger idea about the powers we are privileged to deal with these days.

As for my satisfaction...hmm...I'm happy and empowered and have even stronger urges to explore and exploid the current direction a lot more to finally begin creating the kind of piece I believe and wish I can create. I can only hope that one day I may be able to say: "yeah, I'm really satisfied!", but as of now I'm much rather excited in a fantastically positive way! Making this clip gave me merely a better idea of what's possible now and what I can do with it, too. But it also still is rather a hint, considering the little time that went into it, even if it was truely intense.

Regarding the interviews...sometimes I think I manage to express myself relatively well, but I have to admit that I'm still very impulsive and tend to write things that don't immediately make any sense....yup, that happens. Then it gets somehow magically translated into something that makes even lesser sense (hahahaha)....really entertaining, but generally the simple fact that I have no political agenda allows me to store and share my real thoughts, whether contemporary or privately accumulated to last. The kind of attention it generates is therefore also not as threatening as it could be in terms of pressure for me to create the next leap everytime...I don't think anyone could deal with that, but certainly not me. Instead I really enjoy the ride and hope that the highlight of my carreer will always be ahead of me.

And one more answer about the software setup of mine...I use messiah:Studio, because it gives me complete freedom of combining and inventing solutions to animate, automate and render displacements on the fly in a natural, simple and understandable way. The simple sense of logic takes me where ever I want to go and I don't need to rely on knowledge or numbers that I wouldn't understand. This unique blend of technology and simplicity is in my eyes the perfect extension of the artistic experience I carry with me from the ZBrush sessions. Feels like there's nothing I simply have to accept, whether I get it or not, but instead I have full control over what I want and how I want it and that as fast as it needs to be in order to be truely pleasant. We're coming close to a point in time, where speed becomes lesser and lesser and issue....which is well worth wishing of course. Nobody's completely there yet, but my current setup really gives me a good idea of what it's going to be like soon.

Taron

Hi everyone, first of all I want to apologize for the long delay for posting the step by step on "people". But without much of a foreword I'll just go ahead and start with the show...

DAY ONE:

In the beginning there was a thought and it started off with the knowledge that only little time was available, in fact 8 days, before this clip was ment to be seen. So the first thing I did was to ignore everything else and simply focus on what it was that I wanted to do and that it had to be something I could do so fluently, that it would fit into the given timeframe. I started by doing what I knew was needed the most. Geometry!

Thanx to ZBrush, geometry is actually all it takes to then go where ever it would take me. After having done the changing Neckling I had enough proof to assume I could start with any type of polygon mesh that would animate nicely. So all I needed to take care of was a decent shape that covered all my displacement directions and that would deform correctly into the directions it needed to. Since I have most practice in doing heads, it was already clear, that it would be the most logical thing for me to approach. So I went into Lightwave and started with the basic geometry. Since everything will depend on this geometry, it was vital to make it as clean and as "perfect" as possible to go into a smooth ride.


Important to this geometry was the distribution and placement of the so-called "valon 4"(if that's the correct term) occurances. Those little stars that show up, when more than four edges come to one point.

These kind of contructional features do always cause troubles in any application, due to their break of continuity in the geomtry's flow, while this may not effect the rendering itself as much, it will certainly effect the feel of the animation. But if they are placed or better "transferred" to the right place, they are not only no trouble, but may even help to suggest certain creases or wrinkles. However, they are to be dealt with with care! That's also why this model took me longer to make then just a fancy looking subdiv head model. I spend several hours on this foundation for the clip.
Once it felt right, it was time for the UVmapping. Inspired by a funny idea of Chris Reid, I decided to explore a working application of it by approach them like turning the head inside out by a single opening. In this case a single polygon of the back of the head.



It appears somewhat tedious while doing this, because it requires a lot of carefully executed manual labor - and I do mean labor - but as I was putting it before, the puzzle like nature of this process is "almost fun" and goes much faster than it feels. The uv map is as vital as the geometry itself, although my working habits with ZBrush have brought me to a point at which I'm not afraid of possible mistakes anymore. I've learned to deal with changing things around even after I have finished some details in ZBrush.

However, to test this mesh and its potential for displacement I went right way into ZBrush and made a first set of heads that same night, ran it through messiah and tested it out. At the end I kept actually two of the four characters of that session, the introducer "Leon" and "Kaylee", the first girl in the mix. After having started with the setup in messiah:studio I realized that something in the geometry didn't work as good as I wanted it, so I made the little changes, which also effected the uv map. This required me to rework the ZBrush displacement again as well, but I could simply reapply the previously generated displacement to the new geometry inside of ZBrush. This involved some minor fixes and obviously fixing of the area that had changed the most. But I will get into all of this in far more detail as soon as we approach day 2 - 3!

But as a little taste for the next round, here's "Kaylee" as seen on the inside...



wrapping up day ONE...

Taron

lemonnado

Thank you SOOO much for taking your time to explain all those details!

LemonNado

Moochie

Oh man. Front row in a master-class! What joy! Thank you.

Ron Harris

thank you very much...looking forward to hearing more...very kewl stuff.

ron

abxy

haven't even read the post yet. I just know it's from Taron. THANKYOU THANKYOU THANKYOU!

now to read the post

__________________

Frenchy Pilou

Pilou

__________________
Is beautiful that please without concept! ( Me and maybe also E Kant)
Pilou's Galerie Pilou's Tips Tuts Page
Cameyo's ZPlace Art Surfing Albums
Dedicaces Perpetual Challenges

rick woodward

I had no sound either. But it was amazing to watch.

aurick

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If you continue to have trouble, we'll need more information about your system including things like your operating system, processor, audio card, and the browser that you're using.

Buckie

Respect...............................

Frenchy Pilou

...but my message is too old for "Editing"
Pilou

__________________
Is beautiful that please without concept! ( Me and maybe also E Kant)
Pilou's Galerie Pilou's Tips Tuts Page
Cameyo's ZPlace Art Surfing Albums
Dedicaces Perpetual Challenges

chadtheartist

Thank you for your walkthrough! And to think you only took 8 days to set this up! Quit impressive!

Keep it up man, you're definitely inspiring a bunch of people!

Taron

hehe...it took 7 days!

chadtheartist

HAHA! OK... rub it in! :P

Seriously though, you did an awesome job. I still think the last girl is my fav! I'd love to see a zscript or even a timelapse of your modeling.