PB

[goodguy20k]

Ok, so... Humans aren't my modeling forte. Actually, modelling isn't my forte period. But, I have a character, and I know his personality quite well, so the trick is getting him on screen.

 

His name is Peanut Butter. Don't knock it, my little bro named him. He IS modelled after a real teddy bear we have (hence, the personality). This is my first real model, and he needs a bit of work still. (With school and TWO, I haven't had a lot of time to spend on him.) Take a look and tell me what you think.

 

The biggest thing that I've had to fight with is hair. Too much hair, and it won't render (and takes forever to render). Too little, and it doesn't look right.

 

Just a note, the muzzle is actually how I want it. The real bear doesn't have those sharp lines, but I've come to appreciate those. (Oh, and he doesn't talk, as he has no mouth. It's all in the facial features... Which I've yet to figure out how to rig. )

 

(The ears are free floating... I haven't gotten up the nerve to stitch them in.)

[case]

great job man looks cool!!!

 

 

I love bears man there so cool!LOL

[Chrury Sanson]

Ah, so he's the guy in your avatar. Cuuute.

 

I'm thinking with his spline make-up, most of the emotion would be shown through the forhead by doing some eyebrow impersonations.

[the_black_mage]

i think you did a very good job on this, and you say modeling isn't something your good at.....

 

lol it would be cool so see him a a scene. he dosn't have ot be in action, just something like him laying on a bed or something. it would be a great chance to improve on posing, lighting, and modeling(as in the bed and/or the backgorund). try it...id be looking very forward to it if you do.

[goodguy20k]

i think you did a very good job on this, and you say modeling isn't something your good at.....

 

This is version 2.2. About 6 times of total deletion and recreation. This was the first that I got up the nerve to actually stitch together.

 

Thank you for the encouragement, though. I'd still be interested any spline optimization y'all have.

[Caroline]

He's very cute.

 

Have you tried using hooks instead of dead-ending the splines? This would mean that you have a few less 5 pointers.

 

I tried making a dog, that had the same nose spline problem - I ended up with a spline running around the end of the muzzle, and 3 point patches at the corners.

[goodguy20k]

He's very cute.

 

Have you tried using hooks instead of dead-ending the splines? This would mean that you have a few less 5 pointers.

 

I tried making a dog, that had the same nose spline problem - I ended up with a spline running around the end of the muzzle, and 3 point patches at the corners.

 

Hooks and I don't get along terribly well. Neither do 5 pointers. (Especially with the hair. :shock:)

 

But, I'm willing to try anything!

 

*Makes backup*

[Caroline]

You could just try it on the end of one of the feet - looking at the furred picture, there's something happening there, and I can't see the splines well. But I haven't had experience of fur and odd patches, so let us know how it turns out!

[goodguy20k]

You could just try it on the end of one of the feet - looking at the furred picture, there's something happening there, and I can't see the splines well. But I haven't had experience of fur and odd patches, so let us know how it turns out!

 

Ahh! Yes, the feet and paws have that. That's a remain from the first rev's paws. That's further down on my todo list.

 

Thanks for the suggestion.

[Vong]

I'm really digging this bear... Reminds me of the one my Grandma gave me when I was 5 years old.

[goodguy20k]

I'm having trouble getting the fur to react to a force. Anyone got some "fool proof" hair settings for fur and a force? I'll show you my settings when I can grab 'em.

[goodguy20k]

Ok, so, here's what's up. I have the fur/hair settings as shown in the screenshot below. However, when I render it in front of a force, it... Doesn't blow around like fur should. I've put some SimCloth behind him so you can see what the force is doing. SOME of the fur moves around (look at the top). Sorry for the reduced fur count. I didn't feel like waiting a week for it to do a full render.

 

All help is appreciated!

hair2.mov

[the_black_mage]

i think you did a very good job on this, and you say modeling isn't something your good at.....

 

This is version 2.2. About 6 times of total deletion and recreation. This was the first that I got up the nerve to actually stitch together.

 

Thank you for the encouragement, though. I'd still be interested any spline optimization y'all have.

 

so... when i first started modeling i made a head around that many times before i was finally satisfied. the worst part was i never got to do the body, my mom doesn't like me modeling(or drawing) female characters....

[the_black_mage]

the angle limit.... put it back to 90 degrees. And plus your hair isn't that long, also turn object collisions on.

[goodguy20k]

the angle limit.... put it back to 90 degrees. And plus your hair isn't that long, also turn object collisions on.

 

 

I LOVE YOU!

 

Object collisions was it! I figured I could cut some calculation time by turning it off, but I didn't know it had anything to do with forces! Thank you SO much!

[the_black_mage]

the angle limit.... put it back to 90 degrees. And plus your hair isn't that long, also turn object collisions on.

 

 

I LOVE YOU!

 

Object collisions was it! I figured I could cut some calculation time by turning it off, but I didn't know it had anything to do with forces! Thank you SO much!

 

 

lol you give me to much credit lol....btw i know what you mean by calculation time. what you need to do is turn off hair when your not rendering, never make changes or move the frames with hair on. turn it on only when your moving frames in a positive direction never backwards. type in frames if necessary. these will stop the annoying long calculating.

[goodguy20k]

Ok, so, as I'm not sure what's going to go where in my life yet, I'm not committing to more TWO work (yet). But, I've become addicted to working with A:M, so I pulled PB out, as well as V14 A5. I just HAD to get my paws on the new hair material and shader. I was quite shocked, to put it mildly. I was getting in v13 error after error about the render failing because it ran out of memory to render the fur. Plus, the renders were taking hours per frame, for an estimated 8,000 hairs. :shock: Now, with v14, I'm rendering at an estimated 100,000 pieces of hair in 11 minutes! That just ROCKS!

 

Here's the latest.

[largento]

That's really awesome, dude! The fur on the ears looks especially cool!

[the_black_mage]

ok i have to update now.....

[mfortunato]

Wow, Daniel - Peanut Butter looks fantastic! And the model with that much hair rendered in 11 minutes? Hmmmm...I may indeed have to upgrade to v.14. I remember doing the Wookie tut and it took FOREVER to render that bloody Wookie fur (but it looked great when it was done ). I really dig PB - beautiful job. I'd love to see him in a room, sitting on a bed or a chair, perhaps with some diffused sunlight coming in through a window.....marvelous.

 

- Michael

[goodguy20k]

Michael, your post made me smile... But... As you mentioned each additional thing, I'm imagining the render time rising! :shock:

 

But I can definitely picture it!

 

I wanted to see the effect of a multipass... Here's 16X softened. 1080i res. Total render time 1:14 hours.

[goodguy20k]

Ok, so, here's the latest. I tried bumping it up to 200,000 hairs, but that didn't do much, and added about 5 minutes of time per frame. So, I'm back to 100,000. Here he is:

 

Now, if David would get the Squetch rig for v14...

[mtpeak2]

V13's squetch rig will work just fine in v14.

[goodguy20k]

I should have been more specific. If the squetch rig installation would work with v14. Which, you may say does, and may very well be right. I'm still researching that move.

 

Ok, I've been playing around with it a bit. V13's rig certainly opens in v14, and the plug-ins seem to work. Now I just need to find time to watch the whole tutorial... Yeah... That'll be a while..

[goodguy20k]

So, I finally came up with a way to really tax the render system. I wanted to do an overnight render, so, with a nice pose, a wind force, and 100,000 hairs at 9 pass, no soften, this is what I got. (Sorry, I wanted to see it high res, so it's 1280X720.)

 

hair.mov

 

Now, that was pretty awesome to me, but the wind needs work. Anyone know of an expression formula for wind amplitude?

[bneacetp]

Nice job, goodguy20k!

[mfortunato]

The fur definitely appears to be reacting correctly! Nicely done. I'm still wistfully imaging that adorable scene......

 

- Michael

[the_black_mage]

hey are you gonna change your avatar and sig?

[goodguy20k]

Definitely! Just a few reworks and I'll update. (Animated ones, if I can do it. )

[goodguy20k]

Ok, PB's setting off on his first film adventure... But I need some thoughts on it technically do-hickies...

 

How would people suggest tackling footprints/depressions in a sand ground? And the foot prints are going to stick around... For a while. Through many "scenes". Any thoughts?

[the_black_mage]

bump decals turned off until some one steps there, then its turned on and visible...that might work...its just an idea.

[Caroline]

There's this tutorial:

 

Footsteps in the Snow

 

(I haven't tried it though)

[goodguy20k]

Thanks Caroline. That tutorial should do in the worst case. While searching this up, I saw this thread: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showt...mp;hl=footprint

I wish that plug-in was 1) available, 2) worked in v13/14.

 

Oh well. I'm going to really want an automated method, so I think I'll play around with it a bit.

[dre4mer]

Daniel great job on the fur! Massive improvments there, it would be really neat to see him rigged and walking lightly around with that sort of innocent expression I think you have the makings of a winner here!

 

-Ethan

[goodguy20k]

Ethan, somethin' like this:

skipping

 

I was trying to save that for a bigger "update" to give, but... Why not show off now?

[goodguy20k]

Just thought I'd throw out a frame from one of my renders. What do y'all think of the lighting? C&C greatly welcomed!

[mfortunato]

PB is so cute! Sorry, couldn't resist. Looks good. My only comments on the lighting: I like the deep blue you've got on the stones, the ground, the tent and the rock. But why isn't that light also on PB? He almost looks like he was pasted in. It's kind of strange. He's only orange.

 

Just my two cents. Otherwise, I love it! Now add trees to the bg and flames to the fire (and some roasting marshmallows) and you've got a camping scene! .

 

- Michael

[goodguy20k]

I think that's because of the fur settings... I've been... Hesitant to tamper with the fur after I finally got it to where it is. But I should adjust the settings.

[LeeAnderson]

Nice render Daniel! I like the composition. Mountains always seem steep and slippery to me and I think you've made this more exaggerated with the tilt in the camera. As far as lighting goes, I would add a backlight on PB's right side to seperate him more from the background--the moon maybe?

 

Lee

[the_black_mage]

i like the lighting, i would recommend more sky illumination on him(a blue light). also one thing you could try is having a specularity only light on PB(which stands for poo bear right?) to increase highlights. some times making it high intensity will help in the look.you have to turn everything off but specularity.