Scottj3d

Yeah! I got thinking about some recent topic's and to be honest...people here are very helpful and alot of the stuff I do (so far modelling) is partially the result of the "Free" help I have had access to on this forum not to mention inspiration. Before I came here I could only imagine how the textures got applied to a model but when you look around and see other people demonstrating how to do it suddenly it's "easy" and your skill's improve. I've reverse engineered a few freebies myself. It'll be neat to see what people do with it and also a way to give something back for anybody who might be interested in using it. I can just see Thom swimming along and then the music intensifies and........ After I build it it'll probably sit on my harddrive wishing it were swimming through murky water's eating any model it can find with flailing appendages. For me the enjoyment comes from building it and although I am slowly getting into rigging and animating when I finish the building process I'm already thinking "I want to build this next" or "back to one of the other 5 models I am working on" So yeah this one is no strings free when it's done. Sides it'll be a good primitive for making other species. It wouldn't take much modification to turn it into a hammerhead or mako.

First shot at the upper teeth. I need to do some adjusting to close some gap's but the cookie cut looks like it'll work.

Nice music Joakim. I thought you might say something about it's belly:) Actually I think you mean the "creased" area about halfway between the top and bottom in the gray color. That is the Lateral Line found on all fish. Sort of a sensor array if you will where they pick up vibrations and smells etc. Sharks also have extensive sensory organs in thier nose or snout as well. I'm posting my reference pic to show the LL.(I borrowed it from a website and hope I am not breaking any copyright laws by posting it. All credit for the pic belong's to Steven Brunson) If you mean the second set of fins towards the rear, that's the ventral fin and still need's to be tweaked a bit. The mouth will be tweaked a bit once I get the denture work done but great whites do have a kind of sinister smile on thier faces.

Yeah, that is what I was looking for. I want to have him "fade" in from an inside a cage point of view as he approaches it and I think that will do it. Thanks for the comments everybody! I mostly extruded to form the body and the fins were done the same as you would do legs on a terrestrial animal by creating a hole and extruding then closing the end's or tip's. The teeth will be a patch with a cookie cut decal so I can copy/paste to create the layers of replacement teeth. A bump will make the gills. And a color map for the final body pigments. A fairly easy and fun project.

And from the #5. I plan to post the model for the community when it's finished.

Thanks for the comment's. Here's the #2 view.

I was playing around in AM saturday night and just got an inkling to make this just to see how close I could model a realistic one and a couple of hours later I had this. In AM it's a breeze. I'll be getting his eye's and dentures in soon and decaling. I have a little bit of smoothing to do yet I figure it'll be fairly easy to rig. Any body got any tips on how to create "murky" water.

Yup that's some fine modelling. My father use to work on those in the Air Force. If he were still around he would have been impressed. Nice work!

No idea's as you are probably using this for an RPG or something (hence the terran and AI soldiers and transport's) and too much detail result's in lag. But I do like external weaponry so maybe an E.M pulse turret or something but it's your concept so I'll watch it develop. So far the AI technology shares similarity in design. As to "BatPhim" he's not ready to post here yet and I didn't want to post him on your thread so check your e-mail.

I'm starting to see the bigger picture now. This kinda has the carbon fiber/anodized look. Cool!

I too suffer from this affliction! Rigging seem's to throw a mental block into my spokes. But I too am improving. Figuring out what not to do takes up a good amount of time.

You could make a decal using the same color values for your purple color and black like the rotoscope for the stripe. I'm not sure what you do to get black to render right though if it renders as transparent. I know it has to do with the color value you tell AM to apply the decal as. I'll need to look into that as I have had black on decals show transparent. But a decal should do it. Modelling looks good so far and the belt should be easy to adjust.

Very nice! The only thing that bother's me is thier feet. Maybe it's just fairy feet but they look a bit large and the way they bend at the ankle doe's not look natural the rest is fantastic. I haven't tried modelling feet yet so I may not be qualified to crit. But that is the only thing I see that look's odd.

Almost there!

Well...Here is as far as I got! Had hoped to have him and the Seraphim doing battle. I still have to learn to do backgrounds (oh and fire)anyway. I should have him finished this weekend. Then maybe build a play..er battleground.

Here is the new decal. I have to adjust the color a bit but am happy with this one. It's alot easier to adjust having only 2 instead of 4 stamps to adjust. Thank's again for that info Paul. I enjoy decaling much more now(fear it less) than when I first started decaling this guy.

Thank you very much Paul. That is very helpful! I am making a new decal for the neck and body anyway but getting the belly scales to line up has proven to be a pain. It will be easier to adjust them using the info you have provided. I still doubt I will make the deadline but this will go a long way with my decaling for future uses. I appreciate that!

I think I can adjust the scales to blend with the body better. A single decal for the neck and bod is in the works in the event that it is too difficult to accomplish. If anybody know's. Can you make small adjustments (like tweak the decal) after it is applied. I have been adjusting by re-stamping it and deleting the previous stamp.

First test of the body. Color map not applied on the right side(your right). I will need to adjust the scales a bit transitioning to the wing. This makes me think of Thanksgiving? Maybe a buttery brown and some veggies.

Too many replies to quote. Eos I may try dancing around my PC with some buffalo wings.. Maybe that will work! I am hand painting my decals in PSP and flattening my mesh in actions to apply them (I haven't figured out UV editing yet) and I am averaging 3 or so decals per application to get what I want which eat's up the clock. Eric I think you should be more concerned with Colin and Jim (and a host of others,Mr Higgin's has a secret weapon render ) as they are true masters and I am sure they will be at the top of the competition. I'm going to try to make it but if not there will be other contest's. I am going to apply the decal to the main body tonight( and hopefully post it tonight) The wing (fingers) are almost ready so that leaves the tail , legs and wing membrane and my decaling should be done. The only bones I haven't assigned cp's to are the wings but I am saving that for after the decals. Mcgange (And Eos and Eric) thank's for the compliment's. I am trying to keep the patch count down mainly as practice to save overworking the splinage and suspect the decals for the memory issues although with 2 gig's of memory I feel there should be no issues but as I said V10.5 is behaving fine so I think it is the V11 family that has a problem with memory. Don't know if it's a bug or just hardware (but I am proud of the fact that all my hardware is or once was top of the line). OFF TO PLAY.. er,uh.. WORK!!! Thank's guy's and good luck!!! Oh and here is the whole body with the neck and head.. Same level of progress as the last pic but a shot of the whole thing or most of it.

Here's a wireframe on the half before I copy flipped and attached. The head has been significantly lightened but is still the densest part of the model.

Still plugging away. I was hoping to enter this in the image contest but getting my decals right is quite time consuming. I need to restamp the top of the head as the decal overlaps where the head transitions to the neck (hence the gray area at the top just behind the horns and the scales on the neck just behind where the upper and lower jaw's meet). V11-11.1d have been giving me the memory issues and I was beginning to think something was wrong with my PC but 10.5 is behaving. I doubt he will be ready for the contest but I still want to finish him. He's at 2500 patches right now. If anybody could give me an idea..He (it) has about 6 to 8 decals ranging in size from 30 to about 100 kb's. Is there a limit one should condider as being too big?

And from the top.

Here the top has been stamped. I like this shot! This one is where I convinced myself that I can cut more splines and still get the detail I want with decals. He's getting "heavy" and I'm worried he's gonna drop through the bottom of my monitor.

he's starting to get heavy. I have been downsizing my decals but I may have to split him again and cut some more splinage. I'm happy with the results so far. I'm not so "scared" of decaling anymore although I did mess one of these up under his chin. The "Y" key is too close to the "T" key and I had done too much to it to close without saving. I applied the decal before copy flipping and saved the action to flatten the right side of the head so I may be able to restamp it. Probably wont if I split him again though. Here he is just before stamping the top decal.