Jellyfish like creature concept

[PascalR]

Hi all!

So I'd like to start a thread where I would post my progression on a creature design that will hopefully end up being a 3d render.
My idea is to make a female creature that looks a bit like an aquatic creature with lots of subsurface scattering.
Here is a first and very rough sketch to show you my first intention.

Please criticize this thing away, that's the whole point in showing wip to me :beerchug:

Also, I'd like to try a different render engine than renderman to get a very translucent skin shader. Any suggestions? Mental ray? Modo? what's the best one to get a realistic sss effect?

Cheers

Pascal

these "Man of war" jellyfish look so cool :)

http://justgiving.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/03040225_6.jpg

http://forums.miamibeach411.com/index.php?&ACT=35&fid=15&aid=697_2NWELtICotshqD7BeXD0&board_id=1

[PascalR]

refining the head a little bit...

http://www.cgfeedback.com/galleryPascal/jelly/concept1.jpg

[collings]

looks cool so far, the eyes are already very expressive. are you planning to add background elements to enhance the transparency/translucency of the skin ?

about the render engine, Modo has a cool translucent shader but it's quite tricky to control, at least for me. The Mental ray fast skin shader is more common but it will certainly take more time to render the image. So you should give a shot with Modo, It's fun , fast and the result will surely be convincing :)

check this video from youtube amazing, the Bloodybelly Comb Jelly :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbcnRVkzy8A&feature=player_embedded

[PascalR]

Thanks for your post collings, I'll try modo at some point, I remember there is a nice "real time" preview in the viewport.
And OMG that jellyfish is amazing!:eek: Thanks for the video, that is too cool :rofl:
Cheers
P.

[gkaine]

thanks for posting your character design process. its quite helpful

[PascalR]

Here is a first rough pass in maya, using the artwork as an image plane.
Started from my generic human and basically changed everything :)
Still very WIP!

Cheers

P.

40

[Manki]

Pretty cool can't wait to see the render of this one

Keep it On :bouncy:

[gkaine]

really nice start on that mesh. pretty much perfect!

[PascalR]

thanks guys, will keep you posted on this one.

i won't go that translucent and transparent but that's pretty cool, jelly pizza yummy!

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/51/191676670_81444a9280.jpg?v=0

[collings]

that's quite an amazingly disgusting pizza you got there ^^.

About the face are you modeling it right only for that view ? or is it correct from every angle ? Just asking that as it's for an illustration , do you bother doing it all nice or just effective for what you want to end up with at this end. :)

[PascalR]

Hey Collings,

As this is just a face, I'll probably try to have it work for all angles and do a turntable.
Has anyone ever tried Vray for maya?, I 'd love to get some blurred refraction too (like the thumb through the jellyfish pizza picture) :love:

[Peter Syomka]

Nice idea and sketch Pascal! Can't wait to see when you finish it. Jelly fish are evil but so beautiful :) Where did you get that reference photos?

[PascalR]

Spasiba Peter :) I just googled dead jellyfish and voila!

So here is a quick update on my model, I 've done some quick uvs on it and posed in maya. I call the base mesh done, I'll try to post a quick maya turntable.
Now let's have fun in mudbox :)

Cheers

P.

46

[MiguelAngeloCBT]

Nicely done Pascal! :D Digg that tentacles on the side!
So far so good!

Talking about SSS, on my side, I use the fast skin plus SSS because have the option of reflection (who is good for high translucent and wet objects). Is a combination of the regular Mental Ray SSS + the standard Mental Ray shading (taking off everything and just leaving the reflection). I don't know if Mental Ray for Maya can read *.mi files (cause this one I use it in Max), but, just in case I attached the file to this post.

Can't wait for this one to be finish! A lot of cool areas to work in (modeling and shading!), and the design is so tight, mystic!

Go go!
best,
-Malanjo

[PascalR]

Hey thanks for sharing your sss tips Malanjo!:bouncy:
And thanks for the file, I am not a mental ray user so I wouldn't know about mi files in maya but it sounds like something we should definitely try!
Thanks againclap

Pascal

[PascalR]

Here is a quick turntable of the poly cage:

http://www.cgfeedback.com/galleryPascal/tutJelly/poly.gif

[pitiwazou]

Good start, I'm curious to see the sculpting and rendering ^^

[Intervain]

this looks really promising -I like the idea

[PascalR]

Thanks guys:rofl:

Here is a first play with mudbox, still a lot to do but thought I'd post this first step :D

cheers

P.

http://www.cgfeedback.com/galleryPascal/jelly/mb1.jpg

[MiguelAngeloCBT]

Nice start! :D
Will you do some facial expression on it? Or will be just a simple portrait?

Off Topic: Just watched the new Avatar trailer some seconds ago (awesomely crazy!). What was your work on the movie?

all the best,
-Malanjo

[PascalR]

Thanks Malanjo, I don't think I'll do facial expression on her, maybe a print if I push the model details far enough, but not sure yet. My goal is to achieve a realistic translucent 3d render using a render engine I am not necesseraly familiar with.



Off Topic: Just watched the new Avatar trailer some seconds ago (awesomely crazy!). What was your work on the movie?


Well thanks but that's a team effort to say the least. Many people in this forum have contributed to the movie actually. I did a few things in the movie which I am not sure I can talk about, but to make it simple and safe, I have worked on the Thanator model.


Cheers

Pascal

[MiguelAngeloCBT]

Thanator model is great! You guys did a awesome job, really dig the design! Tight tight! Thanks for sharing! :beerchug:

Waiting for more updates from this one! :thumbsup:

all the best,
-Malanjo

[collings]

you're off to a great start pascal, as usual ;)
just wondering, do you always use mudbox for sculpting or also ZB from time to time ?

[PascalR]

Thanks guys :beerchug:

Collings, I use both ZBrush and Mudbox, I wanted to do this one 100% mudbox for HD modeling and textures as I used Zbrush more for my last personal work. I think both have their own advantages.

Will post an update once I am happy with this model.

Cheers

Pascal

[gkaine]

wow very nice, you dont disapoint!

[PascalR]

getting closer, but not there yet ;)
weekend update:


http://www.cgfeedback.com/galleryPascal/jelly/collageMB.jpg

[collings]

Sweet and clean :)
one question crossed my mind tho; why did you stitch the tentacles to the rest of the mesh ? I don't know but .. for the translucency effects don't you think it will give you some issues ...

[PascalR]

Thanks Collings! Well I'll probably need inner geo to block the shadows with the sss and transparency, but I merged the tentacles to the body because it was in my original drawing and it may also be a renderman user reflex:
The way renderman is computing the sss pass on the point cloud reacts a bit like occlusion (when objects share the same shader). So if you have two pieces of geo too close to each other or worse, crashing into each other, then you will get a lot of sss at the intersections.
I guess I could have kept seperate geo using other renderers, not sure yet which one I'll try. I like modo 401 blurry refractions and real time preview. Is this is this version you are using Collings?

Cheers

Pascal

[collings]

oh ok didn't know how renderman computes the sss, it makes sense now. :)
Yes i'm using that version of modo, love it more and more every day i'm using it.

[PascalR]

Can't wait to try Modo then!
Ok some fine adjustments only here. The topology wouldn't allow me to go smaller than these, bump maps should work fine from here hopefully.
So here is the final model,

cheers!

P.

http://www.cgfeedback.com/galleryPascal/jelly/HD1Crop.jpg

[Manki]

really nice :) i like it
never used renderman for maya but looking at your model makes me want to try it
(sorry for my bad english)

[PascalR]

thanks Manki, this is actually a mudbox screen grab, I'll try modo this time :)
Cheers

P.

[Manki]

hahahaha that's a mudbox

Shame on Me
i've not used it since skymatter was bought by autodesk so sorry for that mistake :)

Okay for modo ....can't wait to see the renders :)

[ZippZopp]

this is coming along nicely, i can't wait to see what you come up with for textures and shading. I think the forehead could use a little more form, it feels a bit uniform and bulbous, unless you plan on making it really translucent which could make it look really cool.

[PascalR]

Thanks guys! Hey Peter, I have put a bit more form in the skull on the last model screenshot, but I also wanted to keep some smooth areas like on the jellyfish top parts. I'll probably need to add inner geo if I start playing with transparency / blurry refraction.

Thanks for the feedback! :dance:

P.

[gkaine]

wow looks so nice, cant wait for an update!

[PascalR]

Thanks guys, here are some raw mudbox screen grabs for wip color and bump. I am not too sure how far I'll push those depending on the final shader and render engine I'll decide to use.
I am using 2 textures at a 4k resolution and it is killing my laptop already :(
Cheers!

P.

http://www.cgfeedback.com/galleryPascal/jelly/colorWIP.jpg

[Manki]

Really great thread cause we've got your process :)
Keep it on Pascal :) great job

[gkaine]

very inspiring. love the speediness of this process.

[PascalR]

Thanks guys, I am trying modo 401 right now and really like the real time shading preview. I need to find some ways to optimize the memory as it is killing my laptop very often, and having used renderman for a while I forgot renders can just not start because of lack of memory ;)
I am still a modo newbie so 15 days free trial is going to be short, I guess it forces me to work faster on this character :)

Will post some renders soon.

cheers

Pascal

[PascalR]

ok here is my first modo render test, using the default lighting and no transparency for now (did a test and it took hours to render at a low resolution).
I am losing quite a bit shape in the model due to sss and displacement settings that are probably wrong :)

Cheers

Pascal

http://www.cgfeedback.com/galleryPascal/modo46min.jpg

[PascalR]

Here is a renderman test, probably too bright. Just testing for now

cheers

P.

http://www.cgfeedback.com/galleryPascal/rfm1h30.jpg

[Intervain]

hey Pascal this is really coming to life - I feel it's a bit too pink at the mo - I really liked the bluish tinges in your references combined with almost white tone... are you going to make her translucent? keep it coming - I'm really looking forward to more:bouncy:

[PascalR]

Thanks Magdalena! Yes it is way too pink, that is because rfm subsurface gets saturated in the shader at some point. There is some transparency in the renderman render, with blurry refraction, that is why I got that white halo around the eye (eyeball trough skin). I will need internal geo for the refraction to show up I think. Will do that later.
For now I want to try other render engines and decide eventually which one I want to focus on :)

Cheers!

Pascal

[Manki]

Really nice !!! :notWorthy:
Yeah it's coming to life

A very good start for the rendering... i think you must keep in this way and use Renderman.

I really want to test it after seeing

What is your setup for this test? i mean only subsurface? some GI stuff

[collings]

looks nice pascal, i prefer your test in renderman so far. the translucence effect on the tentacles won't work inside modo because the one block kind of geometry . And it's strange that it took hours for render at a low res. i didn't experience huge render time with my tests but for the fur.
are you going to put some color variation in the skin or do you want to go for a more or less monochromatic look ?

[PascalR]

Manki: cheer! I've used an hdr image for the env light and an extra spotlight for backlight. No color bleeding , only occlusion with a quite strong sss in the shader. I need to reduce the saturation on the albedo map as it is giving a very pink look right now.
Collings:thanks! Modo was slow as soon as I introduced transparency. Actually I am now setting up the same scene using mental ray , I'll post a render test as soon as I get something decent.
And yes I want to re visit the color map too, I just want to make sure I know which render engine I'll be using before I keep working on the maps.
I'll probably give maxwell a go too, but this may take a while ;)

Thanks for your feedback guys! much appreciated

P.

[James 72]

That's looking really cool, especially the thick muscularture things round the neck....

[PascalR]

Cheers James. Here is a quick Mental ray test.
Is there a way to add transparency/refraction to the miss fast skin shader?
Cheers

P.

94

[PascalR]

Hi guys,

I have tried maxwell 2 demo during the weekend, fun but slow...sooo slow!!

first render took 24h because of the displacement and sss.... any maxwell users that would know some tricks to get rid of the noise in a faster way?

Cheers

P.

102

103

104

105

[collings]

i have no idea never used it, but without the noise no doubt it would be really great !

[PascalR]

Cheers collings.

Well after trying a bit of everything , I think I am going to stick to renderman :banghead:

Here is a still wip version, just tweaked the subsurface and temp comp, temp everything.

P.

http://www.cgfeedback.com/galleryPascal/jelly/rfm.jpg

[Manki]

Really cool
yeah i think you must keep on making your tests in renderman...it's much better

For the crits if i can say something..

i've looked at the earlier sketch and i think in the modelling you've lost something on her face
i mean you've exagerated the forehead and because of that she 's lost her attractiveness (in comparision with the sketch)

Anyway that's only my feelings :) Keep it on :)

Sorry for my poor english and hope i were understandable

[PascalR]

Thanks for the feedback Manki, yeah I agree, I did reduce the eyebrows a bit but still something to be tweaked in here.

Cheers :thumbsup:

[gkaine]

love the last 1, its making me hungry for some sushi!

[PascalR]

Hi guys,
Here I have reduced the eyebrows volume, more texture work on the body, some more work on the eyes.

Cheers

P.

http://www.cgfeedback.com/galleryPascal/jelly/rfm2.jpg

[collings]

sweet :) are you planning to add a layer of vessels, cells and stuff like that ? just to add some depth to the skin layers.

[PascalR]

Cheers Collings, yes actually I'd like to do some tests with paint effect to create the inner vessels structure, put some geo inside for organs and use a transparent material with blurry refraction.At least that's my plan :)
Will keep you posted.

Cheers

P.

[matic]

Why did you not test with Vray Render ?

[PascalR]

Welcome Matic:welcome:

Is there a demo version for maya? I couldn't find it on their website, only Rhino and Sketchup :(

http://www.vray.com/free_vray_demo/

[matic]

This link work for me.

http://www.chaosgroup.com/en/2/downloads.html?s=v-ray-maya

I think you have to login in order to be able to download anything from the website.:rofl:

[PascalR]

Great stuff Matic, will give it a go for sure :thumbsup:

[PascalR]

Playing with refraction and chromatic aberation:

http://www.cgfeedback.com/galleryPascal/jelly/refraction.gif

I'll have to get my inner geo thicker as we don't read it right now ...

Cheers

Pascal

[PascalR]

latest maps and shader tweaks:

http://www.cgfeedback.com/galleryPascal/jelly/refractionNew.jpg

http://www.cgfeedback.com/galleryPascal/jelly/refractionNew1.jpg

[Richardr]

Wow it looks pretty amazing !!!
I love the latest render with the chromatic aberration, it looks great !
You used renderman for this one ?

[PascalR]

Thanks Richard!:rofl: Yes Renderman it is, I did some V-ray tests with the demo, but wasn't too sure about the shader networks. I'll give it more time next time :)

Cheers!

Pascal

[collings]

looking great :), i noticed something tho, i think you should give her a sort of a "blackliner" around the eyes to emphazise it, much more like in the orginal concept you did. That would make her more sensuel i think. ..... Or maybe the upper eyelids should just simply be thicker and the lower one a bit more shaped ....... THis is just some thought i'm having , i could have completely wrong actually ^^

[PascalR]

Hey thanks Collings for the feedback, Yeah I see what you mean, now she looks like an albinos version of the original design :) Will investigate this!

cheers!

P.

[matic]

How many time to render this ?

[PascalR]

Hey Matic, hard to say as I usually bake the occlusion and sss. But alll in all, I think maybe 3h per frame... My shading rate is super low though (0.2)

[Intervain]

heh I actually liked it when the eyes were not outlined too much [they seem to be on the little featured icon]. How did you make those colour variations - are then in the colour map or spec? Nice progress:thumbsup:

[PascalR]

Thanks Intervain, I used the chromatic aberation option in the maya shader refraction section.

I have been reworking the model ( eyes area to match more the concept) will post a render soon.

Cheers

Pascal

[Intervain]

awesome thanks for the tip :) Looking forward to more updates :dance:

[PascalR]

no worries! Here is an update mainly on the eyes area (model and texture tweak).

Cheers

P.

http://www.cgfeedback.com/galleryPascal/jelly/neweyes.jpg

[collings]

oh yeah, cool update i like it much better this way :)

[gkaine]

wow i love the blue. amazing job pascal.

[PascalR]

Thanks guys, just a few tweaks. I think I am calling it done now.
Back view render to come.

Cheers

P.

http://www.cgfeedback.com/galleryPascal/jelly/FinalJelly.jpg

http://www.cgfeedback.com/galleryPascal/jelly/sideFinal.jpg

[PascalR]

back view:

http://www.cgfeedback.com/galleryPascal/jelly/backFinal.jpg

[Manki]

Soo Cool :notWorthy:

I really like it
Do you plan to do a making of of this
because i would like to know how you've done the shading network in renderman

Keep it on !! You rock !!:bouncy:

[Richardr]

Awesome work Pascal !
It looks beautiful, love it :notWorthy:

[PascalR]

Manki: Cheers, maybe I'll write something but I thought this thread would be some kind of tutorial. I will explain more about the shading process eventually.
Richardr: Merci Richard!! Glad you liked it :)


Cheers!

P.

[PaulAdams]

I like the design of this and it's a really interesting effect you're doing, though to me it looks like the transition of colours is too harsh - like they're not blending smoothly enough. Maybe thats what you're after?

I'd be curious to see what it looks like in a 360 turntable. Sweet render.

[ZippZopp]

nice work...i really like how the spec works here, very cool effect

[StephaneS]

Bravo pour cette creation, c'est magnifique.

[ViCoX]

Very nice looking render and model, however it feels quite out of place in open "air", it would be cool to see it in underwater with some nice moody lighting. ; )

Btw, just joined this forum. Seams great place to share works with talented guys. Gotta start some wip asap. : )

[GregStrangis]

Came out great man! I agree with Vicox tho, it would be awesome to see him/her in a underwater scene. Still none the less it is a great piece:thumbsup:

[PascalR]

Thanks guys for the comments, very much appreciated!
I may give the underwater version a shot, but this would induce quite a bit of work on the shading, as the specularity is totally different under the sea.
I am trying to render a turntable, but it takes ages and a lot of disk space. Could be ready in 1 month:banghead:

Thanks all:dance:

[musashidan]

Wow! what a really excellent result with your shader. It turned out superb. I especially love the effect on the deltoid area from the sideview. Great job Pascal. clap

[sebcravoisier]

the neck on the back view seam ful of fat it's not gelly fish like membrane !
pascal

[Lorenzana]

Hello.
I admire your work Pascal, and this creature represents very well your style, the dealing with meta-organics textures and sub-surface semi translucent tissues here is Great. As well as the jellyfish concept is really inspiring by itself.

Thanks.

[El Burritoh]

The Renderman sss results look really good! So it's a litle unclear to me, was this a Mudbox sculpt?

A few words about modo...

Modo's SSS is okay, but you need to be prepared to activate a lot of settings that will increase render time significantly. Frankly, I find modo's SSS options to be a little limited and trimmed down. I know MR has several more options for controlling the look of SSS. I had always hoped modo would give me a one-click solution (or at least, very few clicks) for really good SSS, but it hasn't yet. You can get decent results with it, but it takes some familiarity with the program.

For everything else, I've found modo's rendering quality be very good. Antialising quality is rock solid. Blurry reflections and blurry refractions look good too, although to get them looking really good you have to ramp the settings up a good bit and be prepared for some extra render time.

The problem I have is with modo's shader tree being layer-based, and lacking in shader types. Modo basically has one shader that is kind of mixture between a Mental Ray Blinn, Phong, Architectural, and SSS. Modo users have been clamoring for a node-based system with more shaders, but Luxology doesn't seem to be going for it.

[phoenix]

Wow friend this is some really nice work. :):rofl:


Regards

[leprinoxyz]

wow pascal this is awesome!
respect!

[drummermenco]

super cool! great work on the shader! clap