HeadlessBill

Well, here is the latest incarnation of the continual WIP, I call 'the teaser image for my animation project'. I also have a probelm with a decal that I cannot seem to fix. Thought someone might be able to provide some suggestions. Link to small version of image with enlargement of problem. Link to full size version of image.

I kinda liked it. It's rather cute. It might be interesting to revisit it in A:M.

Not really a weapon, but you can use it make you into one.

I haven't modeled a sword or gun yet, but here are a couple of shuriken I modeled for the short I'm working on.

Looks very good. You could actually help give the look of the bumpy look on the bottom of the brush by using a bump map on the bottom. The only other thing I would change would be adding a slight bend to the bristles on the brush leaning against the can. It looks to stiff being a straight line like it is. Also, are your objects touching the ground or are you using z-buffered shadows? The shadows kind of make it look like the objects are floating. If the objects are on the floor, try using ray traced shadows. To soften the edges of the shadows when you use ray traced, you could do multi-pass or cast multiple rays or both.

As a visual reference for you, I was trying to find an image of the Martian saucers from the beginning of 'Mars Attacks!', but I couldn't find something detailed enough. Well, anyway, if you haven't seen the movie, you may want to rent it. I have a feeling it may guide you toward some of the suggestions being made here.

Hmmmmm..... This reminds me.... Any of the old-timers have a copy of the image of the toilet that was rendered using one of the old flesh textures available from Eggprops?

Looks really good. I'm very apprehensive about modeling my characters for my animation project I'm working on. I'm not that good of an organic modeler. I'm curious to see how she develops.

It depends. If you only want to use the material on other models, like other styles of glasses, it would be better to make it as a material, this way you can plunk that material onto any model or group you want to use it on. If you don't plan on use it on anything else, setting it in the surafce attributes would be just fine.

Looks good. I'd recommend setting your IOR to about 1.25 - 1.5 on the glass material to look more like glass. With no index of Refraction, it looks more like plastic. Also, is there a bottom to the base? I've got the first model I made lying about somewhere on my harddrive. It was the head of a Lego mini-fig.

Funny, when I saw the image, before I looked at the author, I thought it was something you had created, DarkLimit. I'm going to have to play around with that now. Don't know how I'll use it in my project, but it'll be something useful to know for the future. I can just feel it. To echo others, thanks for sharing, John.

You mean a 'dress form'. It looks like you are going for a more cartoony version of one. One critique though, is that the torso needs to be less cylindrical and more oval, kinda like a real torso. From the way you boned it, I'm assuming it is going to be animaed rather than a set dressing or a prop. Here is a link to a company that makes dress forms. Linky

Rather a drastic measure for not winning in the mascot contest, isn't it? But, it's a very well put together scene. Lots of mood. Care to provide hints on how you did the lighting?

Looks good. I was going to suggest adding a huge moon or planet looming in the background, but you already did that in the last image. I would have to agree with Aminator and his suggestion on giving the image a dutch angle, kinda like the one you have in the second image.

Yves, I did play a bit with ambiance before I started playing with translucency. But I felt it looked 'flat' compared to translucency, plus I kinda liked the speckled look I was getting from translucency. Currently, I am using a gradient combiner to control the amount of translucency on the candles. After the contest, I may play around with a combination of both. And speaking of playing... Will, thanks for the link and the candle image it connects to looks good. Nearly the look I'm trying to get. But, I cannot find the topic you are refering to. I've done searches for 'material effectors' and 'Griffins', but am having no luck. I need to quit working on this thing, though, and actually do my art design and sound design homework. But between work, school, wife and life, I don't have much free time to play with this thing before the contest deadline.

I'm sorry I confused everyone. I had debated with myself over marking the images to show the problems. I guess I should have. My faux pas. wwoelbel & hypnomike, yes that is what I'm trying to point out, and no, I'm not using decals. Anyhow, putting a klieg inside the candle, aiming straight up seems to help minimize the problem. So far, from my brief testing, the problem only seems to mainly occur when there is a bulb light in the scene. I will try to play around with it some more later, but am concentrating more on trying to get the image done for the image contest. yves, as a person that has always been in awe of what you've done with A:M, I'm curious to know what I've done differently.

The colored tubes are acutally the candles. Since the tops of the candles are not going to be in the final image (because I'm having problems creating something that I'm happy with), I didn't model tops to the candles. In the images you see here, I was using bulbs. When I changed the lights all to kleigs, the problem went away, but once I added any bulbs back to the scene, the problem came back. Maybe a bug? Anyhow, by using a combination of kleigs with bulbs has helped minimize the effect, but you can still kinda see it.

Here is a closer larger image of the problem I'm talking about. Oh, I guess I should add: I'm using A:M 10.5 for OSX on a 867MHz PowerBook.

I'm working on my image for the X-mas contest. And I'm running into problem. If you note the image below, there are certain parts of the candles where the translucency is not working properly (It's visible in the reflection on the table, too). I've tried changing materials, checking normals, altering the light source creating the translucency, but everything I try gives me the same results. Suggestions, work-arounds, comments. I can make a larger render if necessary.

Sure, it looks good, but what does it sounds like? But honestly, it does look really good. Something behind the Harmonica might help the glass bowls stand out better in the darkness. I've never seen a real glass harmonica, but is the stand supposed to have a trough or something like that where the player can wet his/her fingers in order to play the instrument?

I do like the Z-Man concepts. When I was looking at the images before I read the posts, I was thinking 'He looks a hell of a lot like Vern.' I like your wizard, as well. I'm not certain what is wrong with it.

Thanks for the replies guys. This is my newest version, taking some of the comments used here into consideration. robcat, that was a great texture you provided, but unfortunately, the way I modeled the candy cane, I couldn't really use it, but it makes a great reference image. But, yes, trying to make the extrusion lines in the cane will be a bit of a sticky wicket. More feedback would be welcome.

I need to improve the textures. Any suggestions?

I like it alot. Looks like he's made out of mud. BTW, have you discussed your lighting set-up before? I like the look of it.