i agree with you the last one is just crazy…
Alex please show your models;)
thanks for sharing the wires!!
amazing work xD
Hey that’d be … me !
Hey all, my name is Jerome Denjean and I had the pleasure to supervise this cinematic. Thanks for all the kind words guys, this was such a long haul project - by Blur’s standards - that it feels good to see it so well received.
We started out sometime last summer and wrapped up all the modeling around October November, then animation went on until February or March, and we finished rendering, compositing and FX in June. Even though this seems like a long time to work on a cinematic, it doesn’t mean we had the whole studio working on it for a year. We had tons of other projects going on, and most of the time there wasn’t more than an average of 3 or 4 guys working on it at the same time.
This was a particular project for the character modelers because it was our first big cinematic rendered in mental ray. This allowed us to take advantage of the full power of ZBrush, while in the past we were a lot more limited because of our previous renderer’s lack of rendertime displacement.
As you can see this was a very character centric piece, with lots of very complex models to do in a relatively short amount of time, and there’s no words to express how impressed and humbled I am to work alongside such a talented group of artists. Even though we struggled a bit with mental ray 's complex shaders at first, I think we managed to capture every character’s personality, and they still hold up fairly well a year later - and by that I’m only saying they’d look 1000 times better if we were to start them over today. You guys are just awesome.
There was one thing I asked the guys when they started their models that’s of importance : the displacement cannot affect the silhouette of the characters too much, and it should only be used for high frequency details. Reason for that was concerns I had in how to integrate those characters with FX and atmospherics once we got to final rendering. Even though mental ray is doing a kickass job at reproducing all that creamy ZBrush detail, some of our FX passes - mainly smoke - had to be rendered with our good ol scanline renderer, which means we would have problems matching mattes if the displaced geometry was too different from the base model. The Squig was the one model that was the most heavily displaced and it did kick our ass when we had to burn it 
This limitation should be gone pretty soon, so expect even more ZBrush goodness from the modeling teams in the very near future.
And for those interested here’s the rest of the character sheets we used for approval from the Mythic team. Besides all the modeling superstars you’ve already met above, the mighty Alex Litchinko modeled the Bright Wizard and the Lord of Change,
and I took care of the Chaos Marauder - my only character model in 2 years 
Thanks again all, and a huge thank you to everybody at Mythic for letting us be a part of this wonderful game and universe. These guys are amongst the most passionate group of people I’ve ever worked with, and for having had the pleasure to play the game a few times I can tell you all : it delivers. Can’t wait to play the final version in a few days.
Cheers,
Jed
hello guys
really tnx for share all this beauty models
all the blur’s team, made an amazing n impressive work
i’m really happy to see all this material
tnx
frk
well kudos to Alex for the Lord of Change - it’s an awesome model
awesome models…just awesome
the lord of change is quiet an amazing model man
and that’s great to know u guys start using displacement
really looking forward to the future projects from u guys at blur:D
Jason
Every character is simply stunning.The theatrical trailer is top notch amazed me, watched it twice.Love the BrightWizard what a funky dude he is…Able too regenerate and have that fire ability dam nice…
Some of the best i’ve seen. i watch the trailer everyday atleats once.
Blur is made of gods and do the most amazing work.
Keep it up blur!
at last we have chance to see the works of mighty Alex,although i saw the bright wizard last day on becca Baldwin portfolio
congorat again.
this thread is unbelievable!!!
congrats to everyone who has contributed to it so far,the work is just on another level!
kinda makes me want to stop trying and just throw my pc into a lake and move on 
Hey Guys, Amazing thread…Amazing Works!!!
Bye
This is one of the best threads i’ve ever seen! one amazing character after another, lots of details! incredible work guys! i hope to see more from you guys…congrats!!
exactly! You Blur guys rock
Incredible thread. When I first saw the cinematic before seing this thread I was really amazed with everything on the it, and being able to see the characters in detail here makes them look even better.
5 stars!
damn theres some really nice models here. the gladiator character looks great. so do all the little skulls on him. looks like these guys took forever to make!!
So much incredible work from so many incredible artists all in one thread! My mind is about to blow! 
Totally outstanding works!!!
without words to speak about this work CONGRATS
@:[Blur]Jed vbmenu_register(“postmenu_482893”, true);
glad to know the lighting supervisor, it’s an honor to have you on this thread.
thank you very much for your post and infos, it’s awesome and I do have some more things I would like asking you.
a) why mental ?
why exactly did you choose mental ray as the main render engine ?
is it just because you do have a lot of characters and you can use the good SSS Skin Shader a lot with mental ray ? or any other reasons ?
b) displacment
You wrote a littel bit about struggling with using the displacment maps in mental. What was your problem and how could you fix it ?
Do you usually use the displacment map on the lowest exported level of the mesh + turbo smooth modifier on it ?
c) Mental Ray and Sun & SKy ?
Did you use the mental Ray sun and sky system in order to get that look ?
Would you like to explain a littel bit, how you setup a scene like the cinemtic trailer, in order to obtain such a look ? it’s sooooo fantatic…
d) Sky
I could see a nice sky with clouds etc. I wasn’t sure, in older renderings it looks like cool matte painted images mapped for the environment slot… but for this new cinematic, I could see moving clouds… was this done in 3d or 2d ? and if so, which plug did you use for ?
e) fire sparks:
one of the best atmospheric look for the environemnt I’ve seen are the fire sparks you can see all the time, perfect integrated into the whole scene…
hmm, was this done with 3d particles, or just a post effect in 2d ? or any special plugin ?
I made a lot of vray renderings, but explored more serious now mental ray and I love it too, even if it’s sometimes more complex, and a bit slower. In general, I would love to know how you setup such a complex scene with the lighting…
- did you use final gather, etc…
- which lights do you usually use…
that would be freaking awesome if you would like to let us know more from that wonderful technical part… well, without the right lighting, and this specific atmospheric look, you wouldn’t see such a great cinematic…
I also would be more as intersted how you did the postwork, and which tools you have used for… it’s just amazing…
Thank you so much for every littel information, and letting us all know a littel bit more about that fantastic process… and all hardcore zbrush modeller may be excuse me, if I ask a littel bit more about the max mental ray lighting stuff…
but it’s just soooo brilliant… and I am convinced, it will help every zbrush modeller too, to bring you models in a fantastic light…
thx a lot and till later,
capu
Wow I wasn’t expecting those types of questions on ZBrush Central Sorry guys if it veers a little off topic sometimes … and sorry Ale for hi jacking your thread !
I think you’d be disappointed to see how simple the whole setup is … it really is just that Sun and Sky system. It’s awesome in how powerful yet how simple it is.
All the clouds were 2d images, with the occasional displace filter added in post for those long still shots. There again I think you’d be disappointed by how simple it is.
Most of the FX were done with a Max plugin called fumeFX. As far as I know, the sparks are built in Max particles using fume’s simulation engine.