Alligator head

[agep]

Hi all

First off I want to thank you for the votes that was given to my image on the contest. Im very proud of winning the contest.

 

This image started of as an personal project/challenge with no goal. After I had done the head If figured; why not try to make this an entry (I don't regret that now..lol). I've also posted this image on CGTalk

 

I do consider donating this project to the Extra DVD

 

Any comments or crits is highly appreciated

 

Best regards

Stian

 

[attachmentid=18186]

 

 

and here is a shaded wireframe:)

[attachmentid=18187]

[UNGLAUBLICHUSA]

Love the work. The bricks could use something to make them look a little less uniform. That said, I do not think I could have done better. Very inspiring!!!

 

I give it a 9.97 out of 10. Fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[martin]

First off I want to thank you for the votes that was given to my image on the contest. Im very proud of winning the contest.

Deservedly so!

I do consider donating this project to the Extra DVD

I'm sure many people will learn from the simplicity and elegance of its construction.

Any comments or crits is highly appreciated

1) The head looks like a photograph except that the teeth could benefit from a stained texture and bump maps (but I'm not an expert of alligator head teeth).

2) The "bricks" look like a photograph of some kind of building material (just not bricks).

3) The "clapper" looks like a photograph, period.

4) The composition is excellent (I want one of those mechanical alligator heads).

5) The lighting is excellent (my mom would think this was a photograph).

6) I do not recommend changing it but "real" photographs are blurrier and grainier than this and have more DOF in such a close-up shot.

[KenH]

It's great. I would have liked the teeth to have more detail. But I still voted for it!

[Dhar]

When we were at the Hash Bash, my wife & I thought it was a photograph until Stian told us he made it. We marveled at Stian's skill level at realism.

 

I too voted for it. I'm glad to see it take 1st place. Deservedly so.

[ddustin]

I find myself in awe (actually green with envy) of Stian's abilities.

 

If only.............

 

 

David

[oakchas]

Stian,

 

Excellent work, as usual.

 

I agree with all of Martin's crits... but for one thing...

 

The virtual alligator is a mechanical prop for a movie. It probably wouldn't look any more real than it does. The actual filming of the movie, with the head in motion, would make it look more realistic. So, we have many levels of "unreality."

 

I really liked it Stian.

 

You're so quick and precise in modeling, I can certainly see you filling alot of needs in the Jobs Forum coming soon!

[John Bigboote]

Great work, Stian!

[NancyGormezano]

What blew me away in your entry was the intriguing, imaginative story that was being told - took it out of the ordinary for me - and of course it was excellently executed. Loved it.

 

(as a matter of fact there were many entries this time that really had interesting stories as well)

[Zaryin]

Yeah, the only problem I saw with it was the teeth and the bricks. They were very small though compared with the excellence of everything else .

[agep]

Thank you all for your comments

Yeah, the only problem I saw with it was the teeth and the bricks

I agree to that. I also had some problems avoiding the stretching on the head decal (you can spot one ugliness between his eyes)

 

Regards

Stian

[bedheadben]

Nice job, all but that spot on it's head. I wish I was that good!

[heyvern]

Very recently I saw an extreme close up of the open mouth of an aligator. A young one about the size of your image.

 

The teeth were absolutely perfectly smooth and unstained. They were so smooth and perfect they sort of looked "fake".

 

I see only two things slightly "off" with the teeth...

 

Too sharp. The teeth are not sharp to a point. they are much more rounded at the tip. Practically blunt.

 

Translucency. The teeth I saw in the photo were very "perlescent"... they were transluscent around the edges.

 

Granted... this was most likely some kind of "zoo" gator I saw... probably had a gator dentist cleaning his teeth...

 

These are small nit picks to be honest. The only one that jumps out that could be really easy to fix would be to round those teeth off.

 

 

-Vern

[bedheadben]

Translucency. The teeth I saw in the photo were very "perlescent"... they were transluscent around the edges.

That sounds like it would be quite a bit of work... Or not, maybe just change the texture on the edges to make it slightly more translucent.

[UNGLAUBLICHUSA]

Me again. As I work for a manufacturer of dental restoration materials, I thought I would share some factoids. Teeth are composed of many components, the root, the dentin and the enamel are some. For the most part we can forget about the others like the root and focus on the main two.

 

The dentin is the material underneath the enamel. dentin is semi-translucent but mostly opaque. The enamel is the opposite, mostly translucent. I am experimenting with a way to model more realistic teeth that involves having each tooth made of two models (sets of patches), one inside the other. The outer model would have a degree of translucency and the inner opaque.

 

Also, different teeth have various degrees of where the tooth is most translucent. There is no real need to go to great lengths modelling and texturing human molars as they are in the back of the mouth. Incisors (the pointy ones) have a different translucency ratio than the first front 3 (top/bottom).

 

Also consider that except for cases like those of extreme make overs, teeth are not perfect. They lean one way or another, are not horizontally level, have berry stains, tartar, etc. As a movie prop, the teeth may not be easily distinguished as 'perfect' on this great reptile model so detail on a prop like this would not have been required.

 

For stills, the eye can recognize the perfection and think "hey, this doesn't look right", simply because it lacks imperfection. That is one of the issues with the uncanny valley effect as most 3D humans have perfectly mirrored right & left halfs, this is unnatural and the mind notices. Eyes are not always horizontally centered, mouths are slightly crooked, jaw bones do not always grow mirrored perfectly. Wrinkles are not symmetrical.

 

Perfection for us in the artistic world can more easily be found in imperfection.

 

I have tried to keep this as layman as possible and left out many technical terms on purpose. Please examine opportunities in your experience and share them with the forum. Thanks,

[agep]

I've just consolidated the project to be sent to the Extra DVD. I did resize some of the textures so that the project didn't get so very big. From being over 80MB its now scaled down and zipped up to 7MB Since I used IBL on this project and the HDRI images was taken from here: HDRI images, is it legal to include them in the consolidated file?