williamgaylord

Gorgeous work regardless of the "boo boos"! The rat lines on the shrouds do look like licorice strings glued onto them, especially since they stick out beyond the outermost shrouds. Amazing work as usual, Eric. You probably have this reference by now, but if not, you might find it interesting (I'm sure you have more directly useful ones):

The thumb pivots on a small carpal bone that is right at the wrist joint. If you feel where the largest bone of your thumb pivots you'll notice it is to the palm side of the rest of the carpals. If you face your hand palm towards you, you can see the most prominant tendon attaches right at this carpal bone. Think of it like a small extension a right angles to your palm on which the thumb sits so it can swing in front of the palm, while all the other fingers fold onto the palm. The carpals, metacarpals, and four fingers are sort of one layer of brick and the thumb and it's carpal start another layer. Most anatomy illustrations don't show this very well. Remembering this when you add bones to the hand might make the movement of the thumb look more natural when you animate it. Great looking hand! I agree about the "webs" between the fingers--the webs are level with the surface at the palm side and slope back between the fingers toward the back. Look at your hand end-on and this becomes obvious. Also the flesh between the thumb and the index finger runs almost straight across from the second joint of the thumb to the first joint of the index finger. Also the joints of the four fingers follow arcs with the middle finger at the peak of the arc. The joints at the palm follow the same arc. Basically subtle tweaks to a very good start.

It's one of the "Old Ones" from H. P. Lovecraft's novel "At the Mountains of Madness". Its a story about what an expedition of paleontologists discover in the mountains of Antarctica--an impossibly ancient city and what they thought were fossilized remains of the original inhabitants. The Old One is one of the inhabitants. Here is the city I did for the "Lost Worlds" contest. I didn't have time to make it look impossibly old, but I did get the scale of the city down:

This has been on the shelf for a while, so I thought I'd dust it off and work on some improvements. Might incorporate it in an entry for the September image contest. So far this design is far too mechanical. I want to modify it quite a bit to give it a more "organic"--and menacing--look. Any suggestions will be quite welcome. The really interesting challange will be to rig it for animation. Any suggestions for that will also be quite welcome. It is basically a "boneless" anatomy according to the novel, so it will probably look best if it can move much like a squid's tentacles or an elephant's trunk. Really looking forward to Guillermo Del Toro's version of "At the Mountains of Madness"--currently in the works for release ~2010.

Wow! Nice work! Have you tried rigging a tank tread for animation yet? I've not tried rigging a tank tread, but I wonder if attaching bones to a Path Constraint is the most straightforward approach. You could even animate the shape of the path to animate the track suspension as it follows the terrain. I'm sure somebody on this forum has done this sort of thing.

Well, I experienced a crash of sorts trying to watch the clip within MS IE, so I just downloaded it and it played fine locally. Looks great, though I agree the end is a bit too abrupt to give a feeling of weight. Just making it rock forward when it stops (tail rising up and rocking back down--like someone's legs going up as they grind to a hault face first in the dirt) could be enough. Make it just slow enough to give it a good sense of weight. Looks like you have enough at the end to work with. Maybe, prop digs in, and the plane rocks up on nose and one wing and then drops back down. Altogether, though, pretty darn good! I have to say I envy your sense of lighting. OOOh! How about some squash and stretch!

Thanks for posting how you did it. Very interesting! I've been working on cigarette smoke for a short film I'm working on. Similar in some ways to your black hole. Cigarette smoke thread...

Wow! Would be interesting to see how you set this up.

Quite enjoyed it! Love the "bounce" in his step.

Oooh! I could use this! I'm working on "The Old Ones" from H. P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness". Their starfish shaped heads are covered with hair that is supposed to be "irredecent". This sort of animation could give it that really alien touch I've been looking for. Thanks, John!

Very interesting! Actually that works quite well.

Amazing work there, Lee!

I missed this! Perhaps we can try this again.

Nice work! Here is a real "mad scientist" syringe for comparison. This is a veterinary syringe I found at an antique shop.

Nice work all around! Suggestions about the nose (all very subtle changes): The back side of the nostrils should stand out more from the face. The tip of the nose should be a tad rounder so that where the "upside-down bowls" of the nostrils meet the tip of the nose there should be a slight reverse curve that differentiates the nostrils a bit from the tip of the nose. (Imagine a marble as defining the shape of the tip of the nose.) The bridge of the nose is fairly wide by proportion on a baby's face since it doesn't stand out much and the flesh on either side softens the curve across the bridge. These fleshy bulges slope down from the bridge to each side. They also emphasize the crease around the back and top side of the nostrils a bit. Like I said, these are suggestions for subtle changes, since overall you've done a fine job on the nose, and indeed the whole head! A couple illustrations:

And here is the ship the engine was made for! Emma Maersk Sorry, Stian! Don't mean to steal your thread. No more distractions...I promise! That is indeed a very fine model of the Peterbilt 379. Are you going to do any interior details? Bill Gaylord

Nice work! You are way ahead of me! I guess vanity is bogging me down in the modeling stage... Maybe an animated seft portrait category should be added to the list of contests. The emphasis would be on the animation--especially doing things with your virtual self that would be hard to do in real life. Like a superhero alter-ego, or a squash-and-stretch persona, clones...let your imagination go wild!

Stian, maybe this could be your next project! Your Peterbilt got me wondering what is the world's largest diesel engine. I found it! Largest diesel engine in the world. Thought you might find it interesting. 25,480 liters of displacement, 108,920 hp at 102 rpm, 5,608,312 lb/ft of torque at 102rpm. Engine weighs 2300 tons, 300 of which is just the crankshaft! It consumes 1,660 gallons of heavy fuel oil per hour, at %50 efficiency, which is actually pretty efficient. (Most engines run 25-35%.)

Those are the air filters for the engine. Stian, you always amaze me how fast you produce these models at such amazing quality! You are quite a gifted 3D modeler. Bill Gaylord

Thanks for posting these, Rusty. They look great to me! I think getting proportions around the eyes and getting the eyes themselves to look right is a challenge, but I could be wrong. I think we are just programmed to be very sensitive to subtleties of the eyes. You've done a great job! I'll enjoy seeing animations of these two! Suggestions for some minor tweaks on the noses: Round the tip of the noses (mainly yours) a tad more, tucking the front side of the nostrils in a bit so the reverse curve between the tip of the nose and the nostril stands out a bit more. Imagine the tip of the nose as a sphere and the two nostrils as two upside down bowls intersecting it. Sculpt above the nostrils a bit more so the slight dimples on each side of the nose stand out a bit more. The crease around the back side of the nostrils that starts under the mounds of flesh that slope to either side of the bridge of the nose should wrap around the nostril almost all the way to the ridge between the nostrils (the "columella"). The nostril openings should stand out more from the face at the bottom/back...think of it more like applying a loop of clay starting from the side of the tip of the nose, wrapping around and then attaching about the middle of the "columella" instead of the corner of the nostril. These are all subtle tweaks...a matter of adjusting the shapes slightly rather than any mesh restructuring.

Indeed, Bill Young's tutorial certainly gave me a big "head" start! Seriously, most of it followed Bill Young's example very closely. I used photos of myself for rotoscopes, and large machinist calipers to take more precise measurements (a mirror also helped). The ears were mostly my own work though, with some big hints taken from the fine splinage of Mark Strohbehn and Yves Poissant. By the way, if you take photos for rotoscopes of someone as your model, use as long a telephoto lens focal length as you can and take the photo from as far away as you can short of losing details. Otherwise the point of view will cause distortions (most obvious in an extreme closeup) that will make it hard to match the front view with the side view. You want to approximate an isometric view rather than a perspective view. How about one of my baby pictures:

I'd love to see your portraits, Rusty. Go ahead and start a parallel thread. Have you rigged yours yet? I'm looking forward to giving the Squetch rig a try once I get all the missing pieces added. Also might try some facial rigging ideas of my own. Bill Gaylord

Anzovin Studio's "Model a Face with Bill Young" is a good tutorial to start with. Anything that will help you learn art anatomy, like Berne Hogarth's "Dynamic Figure Drawing" would also help. Jason Osipa's "Stop Staring" is one of the best books on facial animation and modeling, so you might check that out, too. And practice! Check out the examples you can find on the forum as well. Ears are the hardest part, so check out how I worked them out by tracing back to the "Ear" thread through the link at the beginning of this thread. Since this all started with an ear, I should do a short where a whole human grows from the ear! Bill Gaylord

Yes, probably could reduce the number of splines in a number of places. I've seen some amazingly efficient splinage, especially in some of the semi-realistic models posted. Haven't done this before so I've got a lot to learn. I'm trying to work this so it will animate well, so any suggestions for improvement along those lines will be much appreciated. I have Jason Osipa's book "Stop Staring" which is a good reference in that respect. Look forward to trying out the Squetch rig, too.

My "real" job has kept me from getting much done in A:M for some time now, but recently the situation has improved and I'm working more normal hours. I might even get back involved in TWO. This is something I did last year: Self Portrait Thread I still have some tweaks left and of course eyes instead of mere spheres...and teeth and gums and a tongue and throat and texturing and hair and rigging...and maybe even a body! Here is it's current state: