Getting closer to render quality

I used a basic IBL just to check and sort out and problems with the lighting, I wanted to get the settings as efficient as possible due to render times already being pretty heavy with 30/40 minute renders on my laptop (Not the fastest laptop though!) With the possibility of using a Render farm, I had to both make sure it was efficient with low AA's, this was so that If I do decide to use the render farm I can ramp the AA up one or two just to clean the render that little more.

Once i was happy with how lighting, I used the new file to see how it looked on the character, the coldness on the face was exactly what I wanted, and the colour of the suit with the rocks also matched quite nicely, I didnt want to make the scene to light heavy and have ridiculous render times, as I know I can add alot of drama In after effects.

I was also testing a little motion blur!!

Matte painting exstension

After dropping my matte into maya, and playing with 3D projection, I found that I needed a little more painting to curl around my scene with the pan of the character. I've decided to drop the 3D projection, and keep it as a matte just distant in the background, The main purpose of this was to have fun with exploring a project with my rigger/animator, her to strengthen her rigging and me to develop my modelling skills, with the time getting tight, these extra bits like the projection have had to be dropped, it is a real shame, but I am still happy with the they it looks with the animation.

The reason its quite a basic cloud cover of the bridge is because there is geometry sitting in front of the middle part of the matte painting, so I didnt need to worry about the middle section to much.

Render with Backdrop

Heres a smaller quick render with my matte dropped in behind, I edited the colour of the matte to darken and give similar tones the render, I'm quite happy with this, as I mentioned I want to get into a nice position to set myself up for easier post process editing to colour match and create atmosphere.

Matte painting development

Using my IBL, I found roughly where the horizon sat in the composition, I then worked different images to form the scene which I was happy with, I render out a frame of the scene to put over the painting just to get a feel if the lighting and atmosphere was feeling the same, I think the most challenging part im facing is making sure I feel comfortable with the similar tones in the renders and matte painting and getting myself in a good position to work with these as separate entity's in post.

Ive been working with the painting in Maya, and the renders are coming out good, I'm confident that I'l be able to create an eery atmosphere with effects when I have my final renders.

Base lighting my Scene

Here I have both my first lit render, with no dramatic tone but just generally lit with not many harsh shadows & my second render which has much more of a blue, cold tone, I wanted to take that cinematic blue into post process, then work on top of that rather that have a normal lit render then work it too much in post. These are just basic render, just to get a rough feel of how the light was hitting the objects.

Modelling the foreground scenery

From a very basic shape of filling the composition In my animators early animation, I shaped a plane and took it into Zbrush, I then worked rock shapes and grit into the plane using alphas and brushes. 

The images below are different textures I was trying out on the model, to see what would fit nicely with the character and matte painting ideas. 

The second image is in scene and render with the same lighting i'l be using to base light my model!

the tones are quite blue, but matches nicely with the character, with abit of colour correction in after effects after I render out the project, I will have a nice initial render to tweak. 

Rig reel of the Character!

Rig reel from my rigger Mariya Kozhuharova. Absolute brilliant job, a very complex rig which I was kept updated with regularly, and from working closely throwing back and forth ideas got results that we were both very happy with, we went through alot of the potential problems very early on in the project, and I can say it was an incredibly smooth process where we didn't come across many problems at all. There are some great details in the rig, the complexity of the face, aswell as the separate mechanic parts that follow deforming mesh very accurately without bending itself is a very nice touch. I passed back and forth initial textures to give her an Idea of where to rig and weight the model, The initial model was very nice, then when I had more upto date realistic textures I passed them over and she was able to make tweaks to the remaining parts. 

The model had;

IK/FK arms, Reverse - foot rig, arm twist systems, Hybrid facial rig including blend shapes on curves, offset joints and controllable joints, fleshy eyes, signature hand poses, dynamically parented helmet and armor with offset controls, volume preserving buttock system. 

as I said, I was very happy!!

Check out her full reel at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsJnfLnVpeQ

Texturing the mechanics

Once again another screengrab turnaround, a final turnaround will be given soon!!

I worked alot into giving deep texture on the metal, I used a variety of metal textures and spent time manually painting mud splashes and mud/scratch detail ontop of the initial texture, I think my favorite parts of the texturing is the mud splashes up the back of the shoes and , and the grit collected in certain crevices especially the front chest piece. 

I had to make sure there was grit and mud settled in parts which would occur over time, as the scenery is quite despaired, rocky and gritty. I'm happy with the look and had to make sure I did'nt overwork it, so went back and forth from my body model to this to make sure they were at similar levels of wear.

...and the body!

Once again I began with an initial texture, and unworn/undamaged army styled texture with the different metals, I then reworked the original textures and began adding damage and dust/dirt/mud over the body, I added mudded through masking to certain parts where it would collect most, and hand brushed alot mud over the body, My favourite part is the mud splashes up the backs of the legs, i used various brushes to get those splashes that form from when trekking through mess and unwashed clothes.

another realtime screengrab!

Absolutely love this work, Hats off to Justin Holt

Definitely an Inspiration, especially with seeing Chappie recently looking back on Neill Blomkamps work and seeing the skill of the artists that have worked on his films all across the pipeline, Heres some work from Justin Holt who's show reel shows a range of work featuring his texturing, Give it a watch!

TEXTURE SHOWREEL | 2013 by Justin Holt

Texturing the helmet

I began by colour id'ing my model, then taking it into DDO to give myself a nicely texture based, I then went back and forth from Photoshop and manually painting some details in, I used some quite reflective materials on certain parts to add nice glare in certain places, i'm using these video's to get a feel of the helmet moving, this isn't final render, and was only a real time screen grab.

GetBent' Script!

The GetBent Script by Shon Mitchel was really fun to play with, by building one blade, I was able to mirror and give myself a great starting point for where each blade could slide into the latter very cleanly, It gives you great flexibility over repeating geometry along different axis and much more!

for more about the script, check out his blog at

http://shonmitchell.blogspot.co.uk/

Helmet Development

Had alot of fun creating this helmet, Starting with an inital blob around my characters head to give me the rough size it needed to be, I worked into it cutting it up into manage sizes and using my reference to flatten certain parts to start to get the rough look, I then went through each piece and sculpted it, remeshed it and projected the orginal detail so I had a nicely remesh sculpt with a very similar amount of detail. I went back and forth from Zbrush to maya, becasue sometimes it was just quicker to hop into maya to scuplt some of the smaller parts.

Front render XGEN test

I decided to give a grey/white specular to his facial hair, This is really noticible on the chin and you can see a nice effect breaking up the jawline sillhouette with the XGEN, I really wish I had a little more time to play with the XGEN, but due to time constraints I've decided to work with it more in one of my next projects, I decided not to use the XGEN on the eyebrows, I quite liked the look of them as they were, and I knew it would take a little more work to get realistic eyebrows using XGEN which is time i cannot spare atm. Im defintely feeling I may keep this as a base model if I quickly want to have a play with XGEN in the future.

Tweaking the initial XGEN

A few quick renders just checking how the XGEN was responding to the lighting, 

The Arnold hair shader is very responsive to the lighting, and actually reflected abit to much blue, so I toned down the spectacularity initially, but there was a real flatness created with this method, so after a little tweak I got to a stage with I felt still gave the glossiness of the hair, but didnt distract the eyelashes.

REALTIME RISE Oculus Demo!!

This realtime oculus rift work is so inspiring, I originally checked out the link because of how cool the cyborg model looked, but after seeing this tech demo I couldn't believe the potential that the rift is opening up with gaming and virtual reality experiences, It's definitely making me think more about exploring the rift and its integration into pipelines, with its release meant to be later this year im excited to see if they retain the standard in alot of these tech demo's, and when they will be released onto the market!

 

Amazing realistic models

Saw this model on CGSociety and checked out the artists portfolio on ArtStation (a new and really cool way of viewing artists portfolio work!!

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/courir_cgworld

Some absoloutely amazing artwork from Teruyuki and Yuka, The work orginallyu caught my eye becasue of the cyborg influence, with my current project 'The Lonely Road' im been checking out alot of Sci-fi influences and you can feel that resonate through their portfolio, some brilliant life like models, go check it out!! Here a few more stills!

Lighted with XGEN

This is a soft blue light scene of my face, I tweak the lighting to try and bring out the blemishes in my characters face, I really like the cold, surface skin broken feel that the texture and lighting create, there is also a little XGEN on the beard and eyelashes and head, XGEN is really fun and intuitive, but I can see that it may be tricky when referencing and keeping responsive, Its still a little buggy, and often has 'write-locks' and permission problems when saving out files which caused a few problems, but I'm still planning on using and referencing it into my final collab piece and my character turnarounds! 

Setting up shaders in Maya

My first time trying to setup eye and SSS shaders, I can say I am happy as I can be with the time that I've given myself, I definitely see this as a stepping zone to being better on my next model. I struggled with the eye setup a little more than the SS shader, I found the SSS shader setup is fairly self explanatory, and through playing with various amounts I found a SSS that I was happy with. The eye shader I found a little more tricky, there were a few techniques on the internet that I read, but I couldnt find much on getting a strong setup using Arnold, Ive learnt more than I knew, and I know my eyes will be better next time roumd