Unlike Industrial Grind, which took about two hours, I’ve been working on this one on and off for about two weeks. The original was created at 3000x2250, which meant that a lot of detail was lost in conversion to a 1000 width jpg. So I thought that you might also enjoy seeing some of the details at nearly full size (only about 20% reduction).
I’ve seen it before you guys, I’ve seen it before you guys! nyah-nyah!
you already know my opinion on this one, matt!
I’m not sleeping tonight (it’s 3am), so I might as well post a favourable comment for a great composition
I’d like to keep ancient greece out of it, but… it’s a very clasically-minded pic to do just that
someone castrated this guy, though… I like them better with their penises on, I have to admit
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> anything that induces emotion, whether positive or negative, is art <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Darksprite - The Art And Design Of Christos Neofotistos
my renderosity gallery
Clarity is the name of the game with this one. A brighter piece than your last. Nice image.
G
This turned out wonderfully, Aurick…I meant to ask if, in the earlier version I saw, you used baking with ZADD off to get the ‘transparency’ effect on the statue, or is it just the painting you did?
And thanks for including the detail shots…
You certainly do lose a lot of detail!
Great job, Matthew, and an intriguing image!
WOW.
That’s all I have.
Just WOW. :eek:
Absolutely Great !! Thanks for all the close ups–a total triumph -
-but behind the walls and pillars…I see…naked people…
You are so good, when I grow up I would like to be able to use layers as well as you do. another excellent image by a Master.
Another lovely pic by you Aurick, I have a couple of questions though, is this image 100% ZBrush and how does one work on a 3000x3000 size image, do you zoom in and out all the time or how :qu:
I’m used to 1024x768 but after seing your image and the quality loss after resizing makes me want to try out a much higher reso 
Such a quiet, serene scene. It leaves you wondering what is happening, why is this here, what is beyond the stairs. Great detail I can see in the closeups, wow!
wow aurick, this image is breath taken… simply awesome …
Thank you, everyone. This bad boy is probably the most ambitious project I’ve tackled yet. A lot of fun, though.
Let’s see if I can answer some questions/comments:
Christos – He’s not castrated. He’s wearing a loin cloth. I may be a bit twisted, but I’m not cruel. 
Glen – Thanks. Still not on a par with your stuff, though.
Stonecutter – Actually, it’s not a transparent effect, and the image was never baked. I did the sky by painting it and then baking only that layer with a fog in front of it. This was a necessity to get the effect that I was after and also to prevent shadows from the objects from falling on the sky (since baked objects no longer respond to light). For my final render, I used a different fog effect that complimented the existing one. I controlled depth to put part of that fog in front of the distant statue. Combined with the giant legs and feet in the foreground, the fantasy castle at the distant one’s feet, and the strong depth cue, it was meant to convey a sense of distance. Maybe I failed?
Kathy – I’m flattered. You aren’t speechless often.
Robo – I think you see naked people everywhere. lol
DeeVee – Thanks. But layers are easy; they simply serve as a way to keep you main objects separate in case you need to make changes.
Mr Z – Only the two giant statues are imported (from Poser). All else is ZBrush. Oh, and some of the textures (especially stone) are from Curio’s Ultimate Textures set. I like to use them because they are so good, and ZBrush’s material settings can make them look absolutely stunning. As for Zooming, I usually work at two sizes. One is zoomed out enough to show the whole canvas. The other is actual size, for when I want to work on the details. Then I just scroll around the canvas to tackle whatever area suits my mood at the moment. It’s pretty simple.
Muvlo and DJ – I’m glad you like it.
Hope that clears up little mysteries here and there. I’m not really 100% happy with this, but it was quickly reaching a point of diminishing returns with any extra effort.
This really is a great image all round, the rock and stone textures are superb, and the detail excellent.
Dave
I second Kathy’s statement: wow!
A great addition to ZBCentral aurick.
very nice eye candy from my greedy cravings…
Thanks for the info, Aurick, and the term ‘fail’ in the context of this wonderful image is incompatible!
I’m into details so this one I enjoyed very much. I like the crystals growing out of the rocks, and the figure in the distance looks like a very weathered “David”. Someday when I grow up I’m going to attempt a complex scene like this.
Very nice works!
I have a question. Is it easy to get the nice rock by brush painting ?
I was playing with the Zbrush painting . I could not get such nice color, and texture. I got pretty heavy (?) color.
Could you give me any good brush parameters?
HimiCo
Rocks are really simple. The figure above shows my particular technique.
The top left is just a generic rock shape crafted from a Sphere3D, with the default Fast Render material applied. I used this same rock for all of the rocks along the right hand column – just turned them different ways.
The top center rock is the same rock, but with a modified version of Noise Pattern 1 material applied. The diffusion graph is somewhat inverted and the value lowered. The noise graph is all full of spikes, with the noise radius increased to 60. Color Bump is at -4 and specularity is only 10. Material can plainly make a huge difference!
The top right rock is exactly the same, but with a hint of color added. The reason that the pattern is a little different is that materials create procedural textures, which change based on each pixol’s XYZ coordinates. As a result, a material’s appearance can alter radically across the canvas, while still maintaining the same properties.
The bottom rock is exactly the same as all the others, but enlarged and with a seamless photographic texture applied. The material’s color bump responds to the texture, and the noise is also visible through it. In other words, materials work with the texture to create very impressive results! This particular aspect of ZBrush is part of why the rendering engine is so darned good. Unfortunately, a lot of artists forget that the texture and material work together on this level. Not only can noise be used to bring extra realism to a photographic texture, it can also disguise the fact that a texture is actually tiling (the noise acts as a texture within the texture).
In fact, I can hardly wait for when ZBrush has the S3 and S4 material channels available – imagine an object with 2 or 3 types of noise applied to it, in addition to a texture!
If I had wanted to, I could also have created a seamless texture of my own directly on the canvas. Tilde-Scrolling (holding down the ~ key and dragging the canvas) allows you to always paint at the center of the canvas, then bring the edges to the center to paint them. The end result is a seamless pattern. If you start with a base color, then use lots of variations in color and alpha settings on the simple brush, you can create some very remarkable textures very quickly. When you like what you have, you’d use the MRGBZGrabber to pick the texture up from the canvas, then clear the layer.
Whether you decided to use a photographic texture or a self made one will depend on your needs at the time, and your resources.
Hope that helps!
you rock, Matthew! + etc.
Wow