dinocarl

I should have been more explicit. The hair follicles are actually images that have alpha channels made to shape them into feathers. I wanted to make a dinosaur that was as anatomically accurate as I could make it and most paleontologists now feather their smaller theropods, including Velociraptor. I've made raptors in the past, but this one is the most fully textured, the most sophisticated, the most accurate, and in my opinion the best one I've made.

Oops sorry about that! I'll attach it this time.

Been a while since I posted a WIP, so here is a render from a short I'm working on. I'm digging on hair and new and improved displacement maps, which I'm using here instead of bump maps. http://www.dinocarl.com/velociraptor.jpg Comments welcome! Carl

Many thanks to thekamps for having me over on Saturday! The hospitality you and your family extended to me was greatly appreciated and it was great getting to talk AM again! I look forward to the next time we can get together!

How's about Saturday around 1:00? That should give us enough time to chat it up before you have to go to the church potluck. And if meeting at your house is OK with you, let's meet there. Then, next time, you can come over to my house. I can bring my iBook, which may not have all my latest and greatest, still has a thing or two on it. I'll contact you offline to get your address. Carl

Very true: two members may not a group make, but I'll take you up on meeting for a drink or a cup of coffee. I'm not too far from you in Pittsford. Wanna try for an upcoming weekend? BTW, I think we should keep this conversation in the forums for now, in case we get the attention of anyone else who might want to join us. Rodney, thanks for the welcome back. I've been kept too busy with web development, but this summer's all about A:M. Carl

Could I be the only one? I hope not. I moved here to Rochester in September, and have been severely missing the Chicago group. I've even thought of going to the NYNJAMUG meetings, but it's a bit too far for me. I'm hoping there are some more AM users around here that are interested in having some meetings to discuss problems, issues, techniques, etc. Buffalo and Syracuse users, make yourselves heard, too! Hope to hear from you fellow Roch stars! Carl

Thanks for reminding me about the teeth, gazzmataz. I had intended to add some bumpiness to them. I made a newer render that is a lighter than the first and darker than the second and has the bumpy teeth, though they're a little hard to see in this render. I'm still digging on this new radiosity renderer! http://www.dinocarl.com/trexskull3.jpg

A lot of really good stuff there, Stian! Keep up the good work!

Here's the same scene lit more brightly so it's features are easier to see: http://www.dinocarl.com/trexskull2.jpg

Wegg, if you're serious, I'd be honored to let you at it. Contact me offline and I'll make arrangements for you to get it. Otherwise, I'll post another render that's more brightly lit. And thanks for the positive feedback so far, guys!

Hey Everyone! been a while since I posted, so I thought I'd show off my newly polished T. rex skull. I started building this way back when, but I just recently got my hands on a great scale model of one, so I thought I'd try to fix it (you can see an older render of it in my avatar). Some things about the render: The model is just under 4600 patches, and this render uses the cool new radiosity features, so there's just one klieg light in it, and it took just over 30 minutes to render on my 2.3 GHz Athlon64. http://www.dinocarl.com/trexskull.jpg Carl

Hey Billy, Glad to see these guys back in action! The raptor is amazing as are all the others! You, Joe and Brian pushed everything to the limit with them and I have always felt that this group of models represented a watershed in AM - simply the best of the best!

He's off to a great start, ken! Can't wait to see more!

Lookin good, John. I think you did right by Euisung's model by putting in the TSM rig. The one it had in there was a little clunky. All in all, a very good animation; I like the way you move the torso and and get his whole body into the action. To that end, I think the feet staying put is a bit awkward, and you should get them involved. Maybe have him take a step back while he's gearing up for a roar, or one forward during it.

Thanks for all the responses so far! I agree with Daniel's, Mr. Jaqe's and Ken's critiques about improving the walk cycle. I had been working on it for about a week and I feared I was losing perspective on it, so I thought I'd post and see what others thought. Roughy and Ben, I will get started on making textures for him eventually for completeness' sake, though I ultimately intend him to be textureless. Texturing also has never been my strong suit and I have been putting it off to jump right in on animating him. Newbert, that's interesting that you thought it was a toon render, because it was a normal ray-traced render, just with sparse lighting. What's funny about it is that I used to make a lot of toon renders where I did all the shading with lighting and not with the toon renderer - I guess 'toon-lighting' might be a little more ingrained in my rendering habits than I thought. Anyway, thanks again to everyone for the all the comments (especially the nice ones )!

Hey everybody, It's been awhile since I posted something new. I started working on a T. rex last year while i was unemployed, and then put it aside when I found work. I reexamined the model over the winter, I found it rather lacking by way of anatomical accuracy and effective rigging. So here's a brand new T. rex and a walk cycle to go along with it. Comments as always are welcome! T. rex walk cycle

This reply is a little late in coming, but I thought I'd mention it anyway: We have a very active AM group going in Chicago and all are welcome! We coordinate our efforts through a yahoogroups mailing list, and we meet every first Saturday of the month, including this past weekend, at the itoons office in Ravenswood. Check it out. And, Rodney, there are a bunch of great Japanese grocery stores all over Chicago, a ton of Japanese restaurants, not to mention great Korean and Vietnamese groceries and restaurants, and endless Chinese and Thai restaurants. There will be no shortage of Far Eastern cuisine for you if and when you move here .

Thanks, Ross and Sofabutt, and a belated thank you to Justin. Ross, to answer your question, I am painting all the maps in Photoshop. I start with the bump map and use that as a guide for the color map. I paint in all the bumps and ridges pretty much the same way that William was for his Balrog. Then I do another pass for the scales (not yet done on this version). Then I start having some fun with the coloring. Stay tuned for more! Carl

Hi again everyone! I've updated the T. rex model. I've been slooooowly texturing him over the last 2 weeks. I'm close to finishing the head, but thought I'd drop in real fast to see what you guys thought. : ) Texturing is not my forte, and I'm taking my time with this model because it's important to me that it look really good. http://www.dinocarl.com/aesthetics/theropo...trexbellow2.jpg Carl

Hey Ken, I can't imagine why those artifacts would be popping up. What's your scene like? Is there a model behind the word?

Thanks a lot for the positive feedback, everyone! Texturing will certainly be a hefty effort, but I plan on starting that next week. I'm finishing up the smartskinning and mesh tweaking right now. Here's a wire frame of the same scene. http://www.dinocarl.com/aesthetics/theropo...es/trexwire.jpg The whole model is around 6000 patches where almost half are concentrated in the head. I decided to be as fussy as I wanted with this model and not worry at all about being patch-conservative. Ken, you're right about the teeth being from my T. rex skull the small version of which is my avatar, and the fullsize version can be seen here. As a matter of fact, I was using that model as a reference to build this model. It fits pretty snuggly inside this model. As for the job hunt, I've been concentrating my search to the Chicago area (where I live), and not worrying too much about technical requirements of the jobs I apply to. I can't say this is an effective approach as it has as yet borne no fruit. But I remain hopeful that my A:M spline work will land me my next job. : )

Hey everyone, I recently stated elsewhere that I was going to take the comments I got on my demo reel to heart and rework it so that I incorporated all the suggestions. Well, I haven't done that yet, because I decided to build myself a Tyrannosaurus rex. I always wanted to, and now is as good a time as any. Comments welcome! http://www.dinocarl.com/aesthetics/theropo.../trexbellow.jpg Carl

Thanks for all the feedback and well-wishes! I will move this thread over to the WIP section just as soon as the first revamped animation rolls out of my computer. Man, these full body texture maps are no picnic! Carl

So how's this for a scheme - a wireframe still, a textured turntable, and then a brief animation (where applicable)?