Another Dragon

[Scottj3d]

Well I see multiple cars out here and my Seraphim need's an adversary or two and I airbrushed this one about 15 yrs ago. So I ressurected an old project.

[Scottj3d]

Here's the model. No decals yet,bump for the eye sockets and scales are coming very soon. I did play a bit with the "inhouse A.M settings" and have some idea's there but welcome input.

[Scottj3d]

And another.

[KenH]

Oh....evil looking. He could fight the other dragon!

[Grubber]

mmm... I like green

But the fingers (if it fingers) on wings should be closer to each other, don't they?

[Eos]

This sounds like a challenge!

 

Can't wait to finish the texturing and send my dragon to battle against yours!

 

It looks good! Although the pieces of hanging skin under the yaw don't look very real.

[Scottj3d]

mmm... I like green

But the fingers (if it fingers) on wings should be closer to each other, don't they?

Yes.... Eventually they will look more like hands and come off the wing a little differently in thier final position. The knuckles will be modified as pad's for him to use the wing as a front leg on the ground.

[Scottj3d]

This sounds like a challenge! 

 

Can't wait to finish the texturing and send my dragon to battle against yours!

 

It looks good! Although the pieces of hanging skin under the yaw don't look very real.

Is this better? I'm just starting to decal it. I still need to enhance the "fin ray's" a bit and fix the green I missed on my decal. I like your dragon! It made me dig this one out and start working on it again. 2425 patches and counting.

[Scottj3d]

I just lost the whole project. I was thinking I should make a back-up and before I could A.M gave me an out of memory message and stopped responding. I had to shut down from the start button and when I went to re-open it there is nothing there! I have 2 gigs ARRRGGHHH!!!! I still have half of him and my decals so... "I'll be back"!!! GRRRRRR!!!!

[KenH]

I wouldn't give up trying to salvage the project so easy. Support might be able to help.

[msfolly]

Heartbreaking. He was really looking good.

[Eos]

I know how does that feel... I've lost tons of work just because the hardrive decides somehow to collapse. Keep up the good spirit and consider this a good chance to correct mistakes and do certain things over again. You'll discover that it ends better than if you didn't lost it. Those were bad news

[higginsdj]

I know how you feel. There's been a lot of these loses lately (comparitively speaking)! Hopefully something hasn't snuck into the latest v11 release!

 

Cheers

[Scottj3d]

I saved a backup half from before I added the rear leg and have resplined some areas that I wasn't happy with so it wasn't a total loss. He'll look a little different but for the most part the same. David I am running V 11.1b and it's been doing some "odd" little things lately like when I place a marker in the ruler it is visible from the #8 view but in the #2 view I can see it only if I click on the arrow where it is placed, as soon as I release the mouse button it disappears again but go to rear view and it's there. That was in backup #1, backup #2 works fine. Ken, I sent the project to Hash tech support this morning but as yet have not gotten a reply. From now on I'll have backup's for my backup's. So all is not lost but that was 3 day's work and I hated to see it vanish like that. I'm not complaining but instead of new features I would sure like to see some more improvement's to make "BIG" model's less likeley to crash like this one did. It doesn't happen very often(this is the first lost project for me. It's usually a quick trip to the desktop) and some of it is probably my own fault. I have to say though that V11.1b has been pretty stable and runs better with BIG models than earlier versions have. It "normally" only crashes on me when I am dis and re-connecting splines and it seem's with certain hook's. I still LOVE A.M in spite of it.

[Scottj3d]

Here he is monday at 9:00 easterntime. Watchout Eos!!! Just kidding I have his leg on and made some adjustments to the mesh but he should be functional in a day or two.

[Scottj3d]

And the head. I'm curious if Hash can salvage him from the project file, can they do it before I get him back up.

[KenH]

Cool. Can you make him a different colour? Cos the other one's green too.

[Scottj3d]

Here is where he came from. I made a ramskull (now my avatar) and saw my dragon in it while staring at it (studying it) so I started adjusting things. It's amazing how one mesh can be used to make any number of other things with little modification.

[Scottj3d]

Cool. Can you make him a different colour? Cos the other one's green too.

My original painting is green as is my homemade mechanical one (I'll post an image) and I plan to stay with the concept. But I may try some different colors on variations of it. It's not a copying thing I just like my dragons green. But the patterns will be different.

[Scottj3d]

My mechanical one. Poor pic about 15 years old.

[KenH]

Mechanical Dragon? Cool! Yet weird! Did you make it for a puppet show or something?

[Scottj3d]

Mechanical Dragon? Cool! Yet weird! Did you make it for a puppet show or something?

Halloween contest's. I have always been interested in "Movie Magic" and making mask's and such. He has a fiberglas skeleton and cables and about 20 vertebrae with cables to actuate him. Not to go "off topic" but here is a pic of a mask (I have a predator as well) made for contests and won a decent share of cash and recognition locally as the guy to call for halloween props. I wanted to do it professionally but it's hard to get a "foot in the door" so it remained a hobby. Just as I was getting good CG started replacing prosthetic's and until finding A.M I thought it was beyond me. I apologize as this is not an A.M model (but maybe will be soon) and I'll stick to posting A.M stuff from here on. BTW it's alot easier to do this in A.M and so much less mess and fumes not to mention storage.

[KenH]

Cool. Yeah I've tried my hand at sculptuing ape faces and trying to make it into a puppet thing. I wasn't very good at it heh. I prefer making things in AM even if you can't touch them.....they look cooler and you can do more things with them. My dream would be to use AM in the effects for a movie.

BTW, someone else made a terminator in AM a while back.

[Eos]

It's not my intention to go off-topic but, wow that's an incredible mask! Are the teeth for real?

 

I don't mind either that your dragon is green like mine, your airbrush art is fantastic by the way (it also means that i have no intentions to change mine just because it's green too, actually i couldn't think of another color for a dragon than green, well maybe red)

 

Keep up the good work! I can't wait to see those fellas fight each other in incarnated battle!

[Scottj3d]

It's not my intention to go off-topic but, wow that's an incredible mask! Are the teeth for real?

 

I don't mind either that your dragon is green like mine, your airbrush art is fantastic by the way (it also means that i have no intentions to change mine just because it's green too, actually i couldn't think of another color for a dragon than green, well maybe red)

 

Keep up the good work! I can't wait to see those fellas fight each other in incarnated battle!

Eos, The teeth are made from a mold (don't try this at home unless you know what you are doing) of my own teeth the gums are acrylic and the teeth are epoxy which is why the pink from the gums bled into the teeth. I am staying with the green on my dragon but... I am also working on another color, but I'll leave you guy's hanging on that one for a couple day's. I had the same memory message and hang up last night and almost lost the second project (but it IS backed up this time). I am not sure if it's A.M or Windows XP so just in case I am formatting and reinstalling everything tonight. I have alot of games on that PC and maybe they have corrupted the data on the drive. It will now be dedicated to A.M and my graphics software and I'll see how it works out. I just cant see how with 2 gig's of memory I can be out of memory. I have two decals about 80 to 100 kb's each and it seem's after I add the cookie cut for the "fin's" on the side of the jaw's A.M starts acting up. ther must be a memory thread or leak somewhere thats clogging the memory. All I know is this is getting to be a pain. I want detail and try to use minimal splines. the project is about 245 kb and add another 200 or so for the decals so I just don't know. I also don't know how much A.M need's to run but surely 2Gig's should be enough. Anyway I'll be splining in a few hours if I have the "gut's" to open the project.

[Scottj3d]

Ooh! Look at the new IGNORE button! I hope I never have to use it. But I think I know what inspired that one.

[Scottj3d]

OK, All restored and testing 11.1D. I mentioned an alternate color and hre is what I have so far. I still need to do the tip of the lower jaw but i am happy with the decal so far. It needs some tweaking but I am still getting the hang of decaling and am doing this one in sections seeing how far I get before I start having problems (fingers crossed). I am working on just the neck and head currently. But if all goe's well will chop the body this weekend and add it to this model. I did alot of rethinking on the mesh and have cut as mamy splines as I am currently happy to cut. I think green is a natural color for a dragon but having dealt with many reptiles in the past could only think of one other color that although un-natural still shows up from time to time in many pythons and some lizards....Albino! I have to admit decaling "scares" me.

[Guest RemoteViewer]

*Deleted*

[Scottj3d]

Scottj3d  Posted on Mar 17 2005, 08:43 PM

 

Well you are doing one heck of a good job at it! That is a great start at texturing and a good color.

 

I LIKE it!

Thank's R.V. I was really suprised when I finally rendered it to see if it went on ok.

[KenH]

Very original colouring! Is that all decals?

There's something in his design that doesn't look natural. Maybe the eye area....can't put my finger on it. But it'd just be a matter of tweaking. Are you working off a sketch or making him as you go?

[Eos]

Nice and scary.

 

Keep up and make some vudu to your computer. Sometimes I've thought that there should be a computer ritual like those they make to bring up the dead. Imagine the witch doctor in front of a PC, dancing and shaking a chicken in front of the screen, shouting "Control... alt...supr... I forbid thee!"

[Scottj3d]

Very original colouring! Is that all decals?

There's something in his design that doesn't look natural. Maybe the eye area....can't put my finger on it. But it'd just be a matter of tweaking. Are you working off a sketch or making him as you go?

It's all decals except the eye area (if you mean the socket),horn base ,neck beyond the decal and of course the tip of the lower jaw I need to make a bump and matching color decal for each. Actually I am redoing all the decals. Gonna try using the U.V editor. I manually flattened the side then in the same actoin flattened the top for the top decal you can't see there so (I haven't looked yet) I may have altered the side flattening in the process and the original decal will be a pain to restamp. This one is freehand as was the green one and the original Ram mesh. I have drawn this head so many times it is second nature. I have several types of dragons I have done in my sketch books and when this guy is finally finished I'll do my aquatic one (ghecko like head and small teeth(but sharp). This one is "based" on a monitor lizard and alligators features kinda (if you could morph them together). And the classic dragon configuration for the body(classic being 2 or 4 legged with wings and a long neck and tail). I want a better "banding effect" for the base skin. The coloring is referenced from an albino burmese python and a tropical fish called a Sailfin Molly(available in an albino mutation). Basically it is a bump and a color decal stamed on top of each other.

[Scottj3d]

Nice and scary.

 

Keep up and make some vudu to your computer. Sometimes I've thought that there should be a computer ritual like those they make to bring up the dead. Imagine the witch doctor in front of a PC, dancing and shaking a chicken in front of the screen, shouting "Control... alt...supr... I forbid thee!"

I keep trying to catch this chicken running around the neiborhood but I think she's wise to me!!

[Scottj3d]

Here's the "almost final" side decal. I had a couple of "lip"scales at the tip of the snout blending together and have hopefully fixed that with the edited bump and color maps. After I restamp it I'll copy flip and connect the other half and finish decaling the top of the head and add the tongue and throat interior mesh. The edited decal should be pretty much the same as this. I like the moment just after applying the decal when the quick render just appear's especially if the result's are desirable!

[Scottj3d]

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.

[Scottj3d]

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.

[Scottj3d]

And from the top.

[Scottj3d]

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?

[Scottj3d]

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.

[Eos]

That's an awesome texturing you have! I want to see it finished...

 

About your question of texture sizes, don't worry. Your 100 kb maps are veery decent options if you compare them to the 3.5 Mb tga maps i used for my dragon. Now that's a heavy file! And it didn't break down... yet.

 

I ended up with almost 5000 patches too. It's very adviceable to reduce the patchcount as much as one can, but sometimes you can't sacrifice some details that enhance the visual quality. So this is some sort of fight between the detail and the kind of possible danger that your computer bursts in a huge ball of fire. You're doing good, but you might consider wise to catch that chicken.

 

Eos

[Octropos]

I just want to add, and I hope you see this for the complement it is, that since viewing your latest, I am now highly motivated _not_ to slack off on my contest entry.

 

This fellow(Lady?) is shaping up very nicely!

[mcgange]

I just wanted to compliment you on the job you're doing, and point out that the main reason for reducing your patch count is to make animation (or posing) easier, not to save memory. The model data is stored in a text file; I'd worry more about the textures than the geometry. Good luck and try to finish up for the contest; I know I'm trying to finish.

[Scottj3d]

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.

[Scottj3d]

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.

[Scottj3d]

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.

[Paul Forwood]

Once you have applied a decal you can go in and adjust it's placement by double clicking on the stamp, in the PWS. A new window will open with a flattened view of your decalled geometry. You can move cps around in this window while viewing the results in any other window.

[Scottj3d]

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!

[Scottj3d]

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.

[Scottj3d]

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.

[Scottj3d]

Almost there!