Protostar

Yes, I have been working with another tutorial for a while. This one is the most complex so far, covering 3Ds and basic modeling, texturing, posing and rendering. The base for this project is a simple character, Bruno. The tutorial is not finished yet but I´ll complete it when I get back to work. Until then check out Bruno’s website at http://www.protostar.se/bruno/

A whole new section has been added to this page, you can find it under Art & Design! I have put together some of my tutorials that I made for my students. Be aware because they are in Swedish, but familiar to the language… Check it out!

Every evil character has it´s own emblem, so do Uriel. This one is seen on the banner hanging in front of his skirt. The logo is vectorized, just in case.

I haven´t updated things on Uriel for a while, well the wheel is still in the roll but in a more turtle-hasty-way… but I got a lot of turtles in the wheel NOW! Soon a new character (Bruno) will appear on the CG-world, he´s a tutorial thingy for my student, what can I say about Bruno so far? Fat mean bastard.  For Uriel the cloth around his waist is finished, uploading some test renders. Been testing a lot with mental ray and materials for those to get a nice dark look, and is not satisfied yet. The red satin is “too” satin, and the leather on the bottles is too shiny. But I’m leaving it for now, need to move on with the rest to see the whole picture.

I had at work some few hours to come up with an After Effects lecture for my students, demonstrating some of the basics techniques … well it ended up to be a Fanta commercial. They just got the colorful happy graphical style that matched this kind of demonstration. So this is it… two hours panic work, from idea to finish.

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The texturing is on the move, sloppy and jelly like a Chinese candy. I finished the belt and the finger ring, and here is some test renders for eye candy (sloppy). I used Shellac material for the belt, not sure if I’m going to have the spec level so high in the end, but as He-Man used to be… same overall body color, he matched himself! …or whatever.

The texturing has begun, with the metal (Thunder in the sky!) bracelet. Well it´s not the fanciest thing on the model but, hey, still a challenge. I’m trying to get the model dirty and gritty, but not arise-from-the-mud-hole-dirty.

The problem with the bracelet was to get it look used and old, but not rusty (who will use a rusty bracelet?) and I think it looks nice for now.
Heading for the next jewelry!

I’m uploading some low-res versions of the maps.

Diffuse

Normal

Dirt

Displacement

Specular

It has been quiet for sometime but I moved… to Windows 7, welcome to the future! First of all Win 7 I smooth like a newborn dingo butt, nice features that only makes life easier. But most important, how does the program works? As far as I can tell it is not like the Vista apocalypse, 3Ds Max 2010 works just fine, whole Adobe Master Suite CS4 also works with no problems at all so far. I had some problem with Zbrush 3.5, but easy solved, just install “vcredist_x86_VS2008_sp1.exe” found in the “Troubleshoot Help” folder. So what has happened to Alchemist aka Uriel… well details! Need no more to say than DETAILS! All normal maps are now finished, hurray for the Z! I post a mix of high-res models as eye candy, before I start with the next part, painting textures! I just love that part, it is now I´ll bring Uriel to life.

Zbrush 3.5 is wonderful in many aspect but WHY did they remove ZMapper? Where just up for trying my new normal maps for the head and other body parts in 3Ds and realize the Zmapper where gone. Well all this is built in now, but you don´t have the control like you had in Zmapper. And what about creating cavity maps? this is the new lengthy way:

Tool>Masking>Mask By Cavity button to create the mask. Then Tool>Masking>Create Alpha to convert the mask into a map that you can export from the Alpha palette.

I miss Zmapper

Now the head is done, I nailed it! I also tried out Zbrush 3,5 for this part, some new really nice brushes and alphas. Haven’t tried out the lightbox yet, but waiting for the Z 4 release where lightbox and spotlight will be introduced for real… going to be BIG Slam!!

Back to Uriel, all the fleshy body parts are finished with their normal maps and cavity maps. Next up is the horns and spikes at his back.