I really like this character --great modeling job and texture work so far!
The only part I’m not too sure about is the shell. It doesn’t look attached to the rest of him, and rides too high on his back. It doesn’t seem to look very practical/functional as is. What do you think about something like a spikey, crusty back like some dinosaurs i’ve seen? Overall, a great character! 
Web head,
Thanks for the Critiques/compliments. The reason the shell on his back is so high is for protection from attackers from behind.
I’m envisioning that a Tortosaurs would be very slow moving in nature but very powerful at the same time. If there was a faster more agile attacker from behind his only means of self defense would be his shell on the back. The shell on the front doesn’t need to be so large because if he got his hands on then you would be in for some serious pain!
I like the idea of a spiny or spiky shell for his back, but this version that I’m making is a good Tortosaur, I would like to reserve that look for a nastier evil Tortosaur.
I have an update on the eyes and their shaders. I rebuilt the eye so there is actually an iris, cornea and a pupil that dilates with a blend shape/morph target. I also set up some eye look at constraints so you can move around a locator and the eyes will follow.
I also updated the desktop image of the neck and head renders that I posted earlier in this thread to include the new eyes. (Don’t even know if anyone will pick up on the changes but it is now ready for animation.)
I’m also including some of the alphas that I have been making to paint this guys skin textures.
Peace,
NickZ. P
Here is an update on the bump map for the Torsosaur Arm.
For some reason I’m not able to get the fix texure seam to work for me. (you can see the problem area arond my wrist and the shoulder area.) ZBrush says it is running the tool and goes through the motions, I tried putting the border bleede to like 50 pixels and that gave me a really bad results. A smaller number like 12 appears to be doing nothing. The map I’m trying to run the tool on is 4096 X 4096. Has anyone else encountered a problem using this tool? Does there need to be any special settings to get this to work correctly?
Peace,
NickZ. 
triit the edge of tile error with BUMP or DISPLACEMENT ?
Greetz
Elron
Man, it´s one of the coolest character design I´ve seen in years! amazing!
Elron: the error that I’m getting is a bump map texture map. I’m just painting as a color map with the bump viewer material, I’m not sure why the tool is only working part of the time for me??? (Dunno??)
Mecman: Thanks for the compliment.
Here is an update on the arm with color. Still not done. want to add more dirt and stains.
Peace,
NickZ! 
Dude, it’s rocking!!!
I just love the concept of this character! Awesome.
no crits, you got it right!
OUTSTANIG WORK YOU ARE DOING.
Looking forward tolook the final result, the texture details is awsome ROCKS!!!
Here is an updae on the Tortosaur’s arms. I still need to find a good solution for getting rid of the seaming issue! I might have to use Deep Paint…Grrr. Can’t wait until I can do everything in ZBrush! Life will be good!
Peace,
NickZ.
P.S. (Rendered in Maya’s default software renderer.)
Can you explain the seeming issue, or provide a botter example. I think I see what you are referring to, and I believe it has more to do with geometry than texture. Assuming we are talking the same language.
Every texturing issue I have ever had has been easily fixable in Zbrush. Right - Aurick? 
In the picture of the middle of the arm running down the middle of the inside of the arm there is a real bad seam on the bump map on my boarder edge (or UV boarder edge) of my model. for some reason I’m not always able to get the “Fix Texture Seam” operation to work in ZBrush. My map is a 4086 X 4086. There have been times when the operation works (I can see it drawn in the map) but there is still a slight seam in ZBrush. (I’m using the bump viewer shader so I can pain my bump map in realtime… well projection real-time that is.)
The other seaming problem I’m having is where 2 surfaces meet… say the arm and the wrist. I need to be able to paint across to surfaces simultaneously but each of my surfaces are mapped with a 4086 X 4086 map so that is not possible right now in Zbrush. I’ve been trying to take pieces of models and have them all exist on one texture page, paint across the seam areas and then cut the resulting map up in Photoshop and reposition them in their original. The only problem is that I didn’t build my UV’s in a friendly way to easily do this. ( you learn as you go.)
The next time I do a character I’m going to set up my UV’s in all in a flat square pattern that has areas around the boarders that can easily be taken on and off and repositioned in the UV texture window to help out with this problem.
The set up I am thinking of would go something like this.
Hope this is clear.
Peace,
NickZ. 
Yeah pieces, always cause issues.
OK, try this, export an arm and a body from Maya as OBJ. Now apply a texture 2048x2048, it should apply a texture to each object. Try painting across both, I did several tests in the past for a couple of characters and I just did a real quick one and it seemed fine.
I tried a quick test, not exactly the same as yours, but I don’t have yours to test. Hair and body are separate objects.
The reason I suggest the lower resolution, is you might be able to overlap these witht the hi-res and solve your issue. Something I used to do back in Zbrush 1.55b while working on a television series.
However Zbrush should easily be able to handle full res maps this way - if RAM is available.
Also I just noticed that if the models overlap, they will get the information trnansferred to both, aiding in perfect registration.
I am using Messiah to render, but I found that onec I was finished with my displacement maps, if I hit the Fix seams button the displacement map would turn out perfect.
Also to paint accurate color maps. I recommend bringing your base mesh back into Zbrush,Divding to the highest number you want and applying the displacement map within Zbrush. Painting the color map data and then exporting the color info from their. You will get a far more accurate color map this way. Why? I don’t know exactly but this is what Taron told me to do and it works out fine.
Re-laid out my UV’s and I’m using a much larger map now (8192 X 8192)
Still painting everything by hand and having a blast doing it!
Thanks a million to GusYamin for clueing me in on the fact that you can import maps into ZBrush larger than 4096 X 4096.
This rocks. The pick up times from PM are long but well worth the wait!!
Peace,
NickZ. 
Those textures are looking sweet
Hi there, i am in love with your art. I mean i wish i could be as good as you. you must have a lot of time and patience right? oh man you really inspire me to strive. i would like to say everything you have done to this current project is fantastic; great ideas, great modeling and great rendering.
I think i speak for all when i say that you set the bar high and are some what a role model to most of us.
Keep the great stuff coming. You really have that umph in your art.
Fantastic Work INDEED.
Matt
How many polygones for the body ?
I see now that you bumped up to 8192, but why were you using 4086, which isn’t a power of 2?
Looking awesome, BTW
alannoon,
really you only need the power of two to create a blank map for creating a uvtile map in zbrush. after that creating a texture of any size bigger only affects how many pixols per polygon are viewed on your model. haha I hope i just typed that right.
My guess is that 4086 was a typo.
NickZ…I think i will have to one day buy you and gus many beers for that tip. and I am off to test it out.
Pixelsoul - Thank you very mush sir!
Mattybyng - Thank you for the kind words! Makes me feel good to know that people are enjoying the work that I’m producing. A role model? Darn, I’m still trying to learn myself. I just try to do the best I can, hopefully it just keeps getting better with time!
Alannoon - Sorry about that, that was a typo. I meant to say my map was 4096 X 4096. I think I wrote that pretty late at night, and to be honest math and spelling weren’t my best subjects in school. I was always getting in trouble fro drawing all the time…DOH!
Aminuts - Don’t thank me, thank Gus for that one! I owe him a beer or 12 for that one!
Thanks again guys, your kind words do inspire me to keep going on this guy and get him finished!