ZBrushCentral

James Vs Reality Creature

ZBrush Artworks
#1

I got to help out on an indie film recently called James Vs Reality
which was directed by Chris Wilson and Tim Feeney.

I have some stills of the creature which I am able to post.
I will do some updates with images of the sculpt soon.
The creature was sculpted in Zbrush and mudbox was partly used for the texturing.
This is my first time doing this sort of work for film and even though my laptop was a piece of crap Zbrush really helped me along the way
and really helped me get through the project it is such a powerful app.

You can see the trailer for it here. http://www.vimeo.com/15135199
or find more info here http://www.wellfixitinpost.com/JvRIndex.htm

JVR_01.jpg

Attachments

JVR_02.jpg

JVR_03.jpg

JVR_04.jpg

JVR_05.jpg

#2

I’m the director Chris Wilson, and I also did all of the creature animation, lighting and compositing in the film. Wanted to give Malcolm a huge thank you here for all the hard work he put into this. Making this film was exhausting for a lot of us and I can’t thank him enough for being a part of this film!

#3

that is very impressive. I just love when dedicated people pull something off like that without a big budget.

I highly recommend everyone also watching that making off part here
http://vimeo.com/17104159

#4

i love compositing! you’re my hero for the night XD this is great though, love the design and weight of the monster. what is your method for taking your zbrush model and prepping it for animation for film if i may ask? :slight_smile:

#5

Hey thanks for the comments.

To get the model animation ready wasn’t too bad with Zbrush. I basicly did a retopo of the subtools in topogun so the edges flow in a way which will animate a bit better and unwrapped it.
I then bring that back into Zbrush and reproject the details onto the new mesh and do any clean up if needed.
I then bake out displacement maps from Zbrush and reexport the lowest level meshes from Zbrush again. I set that up in max with a Vray shader to test it.
I then send those over to Chris and he works his magic.
After this point I can just send over displacement maps for any changes to the mesh.
Zbrush is a very powerful tool for this sort of work I could have even done the retopo and UVs in Zbrush.

#6

forgot to mention that I thought the animation of the creature is outstanding. fantastic rig.

#7

I agree. Great sculpt for sure, but brought to life with excellent animation.

#8

Thanks for the comments on the rig and animation, and yes, I cannot say enough how proud I am of Malcolm for the great job he did creating the wonderful model. It was a nice workflow that we had once I had a finished mesh; he was able to just send updated maps/displacements to me and we could go back and forth on finishing her up. I could be animating her even though she wasn’t finished, allowing for her color maps and tweaks to be made right up to the point where I started to render final passes of her. Turned out to be a really nice workflow.

If anyone has any interest in seeing the film, you can pick up a DVD from my website (www.wellfixitinpost.com). All the proceeds go to funding our festival run.

#9

I thought I would drop in a few earlier progress shots of the sculpt taken from Zbrush. I will sort out some more recent ones soon

head test.jpg

Attachments

frontclaw.jpg

WIP05.jpg

#10

I really like the touch shark in her face. it gives her a unique look.

#11

yes, i relly like his face. Good job !

#12

Great design and nice sculpt:+1:

#13

Thanks again for the comments.

It did help that Tim and Chris had a relatively clear idea of what they wanted and the Shark like head was a core part of that.
Plus Tim had done some great concept sketches for me to work from and if something wasn’t quite working in 3D he would resketch it to make their ideas clearer or we would work together along with Chris to find an alternative which really helped out a lot.
It was also good that Chris and Tim were open to suggestion as well and encouraged ideas.
I found it really nice way of working and liked how the creature evolved over the course of the project and the end result after it was all put together.

I don’t think Tim will mind me posing up some of his sketches

creature concept1.jpg

Attachments

creature concept2.jpg

creature concept.jpg

#14

coooooooooool

#15

Amazing work folks, I have huge admiration for indie stuff which I also like to dabble in myself. Cracking job, well done.

#16

Thanks Mal for posting these. I’m Tim Feeney, and I also wrote and co-directed the film with Chris Wilson. This turned out better than should have been possible with no budget, but the hard work of these two guys to get the creature into the shots was beyond description.
We allowed Mal to just do what he wanted in some of the areas, as long as the larger details were kept in tact, and overall, he made excellent choices that added to the creature and enhanced those details. He’s put so much time into this, and I can’t thank him enough. Chris put some much time animating and doing post on this that I can’t thank him enough.
Thanks to everyone commenting, we’re all glad you enjoy. Try giving the movie a shot!

#17

while this isn’t exactly my type of movie I’ll definitely purchase the DVD. so much effort has to be acknowledged with hard cash.
the purchase process seems a little odd though. once you click the buy button, you get directly to paypal. I would expect shipping options/info and adress fields etc… before paypal. do you ship to europe?

#18

Chris is dealing with the DVDs I will message him and get him to send you a PM when he is on. I am sure he will be able too

#19

Sorry Julian, I’m a better director/animator than I am a web designer (the site is as professional as I know how to make it)!

Yep, we’ll certainly ship to wherever, just follow the instructions on the site (I think we have four different ways for you to purchase one, including our kickstarter page here http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/497466389/james-vs-reality?ref=search ) and I’ll get a DVD out to you that day. The movie is good fun, thanks so much for the interest!

#20

I have been giving my site a long needed overhaul the last couple of days and did some renders of the creature with no textures so I thought I would pop them up here as well

Creature_01.jpg

Attachments

Creature_02.jpg

Creature_03.jpg