Texturing Dark Dark

[Parlo]

As the last push on this project commences (5 months and counting), I've been going back and reworking some of the older elements to bring them in line with the most recent - I've been working on this on and off for 3 and a half years so there is a very large difference in quality between the older stuff and the newer stuff! Anyhow, I thought I'd bring something to show and tell this week so here's my main character re-worked and re-textured for 2004. I'm only using decals (no materials) to save on render time and the maps were created in a method almost identical to that documented so well by Jim Talbot. There's some more work to be done on the lips, eye, forehead and scars but the basics are there.

 

The render below was done with a 2 light skycast rig, 16x multipass, on a pentium 4 1.5 in 5:36mins

 

As always, all crits more than welcome -

 

[JTalbotski]

Freaky! I remember this guy in a short night-time animation a couple years (?) ago. Great original style to the character! The skin texture almost looks like pastels. Very cool and disturbing...in a good way.

 

I'd love to see some other renders of characters and sets, too.

 

Jim

[Iham Wrong]

Wow! That is freaky neat. I'd hate to see his mother and father up close.

[Rodney]

This story will have a happy ending right? right???

This new image is now burned into my mind. Threatening to remove DarkLimit's hold on that fragile piece of real estate.

 

I see... darkness closing in...

images... dreadful... frightening

 

or is it a comedy?

 

 

Looking Good.

Can't wait to see the finished product.

Rodney

(I just have to learn the Talbotski Decalling method)

[Ross Smith]

Awesome! I really like the style. His face resembles a voodoo mask of some sort.

What's the rest of his body look like? Can we see?

[Parlo]

Thanks for the great responses! A few answers, but it's late so I might not make much sense -

 

Jim - Yep this is the fella from way back and that 'short' you saw was an early version of the opening of the film. It's interesting that you mention pastels as I created my pallette by scanning in a pencil colour sketch, blurring it to produce strong blocks of colour then sampling these in. I find that coloured pencils are great for this kind of thing because you can't mix them and therefore have to layer them to create strong shading. This is great when it comes to working in the computer because it's given you a very primitive understanding of what you want to achieve and also helps to make you bolder in your choices of colour.

 

I'll be posting other bits and pieces as they pass through the '04 inspection and revision phase!

 

bakerrod - Happy ending? Comedy? Well..... Happy-ish and as creepy as I can make it! It's makes me laugh that I got the idea to redden his eyes and lids from looking at my exhausted face in the mirror one night whilst brushing my teeth after spending a 15 hour day animating!

 

Ross - The rest of him is very spindley and spider like... I'll post some more of him once I've sorted out some of the problems in his hands.

[Parlo]

Here is another of the characters that's going through a more aggressive rebuild - The pencil sketch is the blueprint for the redesign....

[modernhorse]

I love it I love it ! Particularly the oddball style. It's very different and individual to my eyes. Show the whole creature please.

 

You likeness to sketch for the boy is really fantastic. More !!

 

Doug

[Zaryin]

This is excellent. I especially like the hair on the little guy. How did you make that hair?

[Parlo]

Thanks again to everyone for being so positive -

 

The hair is created by modelling a series of straight tubes, applying a decal to them, then - in a pose - sculpting the tubes into hair. It took some time but I'm really pleased with the look.

 

Here's a different angle and total change of expression for the creature - I'm having some problems with the cookie cut on the collar but you get the general idea...

[zacktaich]

His pores look at bit big to my eye if they are a material then just turn down the scale.

[Ross Smith]

I remember that kid! You were posting him earlier this year, in the autumn, methinks.

 

I'm really looking forward to the completed animation. That creature's expressions! Really good stuff.

[Parlo]

His pores look at bit big to my eye if they are a material then just turn down the scale.

 

yeah, I've been playing around with how large I can make the pores and pocks on his face before they seem too big. If you've ever seen an old man with a what I would call a "dead skin nose" you'll know the look I'm after - one of those noses that's lost alot of it's circulation, and has pores the size of saucers.

 

I actually just using decals, and the 'pores' are created with a noise layer in a photoshop composite so I'm playing around with the scale of this to see if I can get the exact look that I'm after.

[JTalbotski]

Your style is very ...uh, captivating. I find myself staring at the characters in a kind of morbid way...

 

I need help, I guess.

 

Jim

 

P.S. Are you still having problems with the cookis cut map?

[Parlo]

Jim - thanks for the er.. compliment I think that there is an inherent sadness to these characters. Part of it is intentional and I think part of it is just me. It's very odd how it's crept in.

 

Yes I'm still having problems with cookie cut's, though the same imsge works fine as a transparency map. I can't figure it out and may try rebuilding the decal from scratch to see if it's just one of those problems that occurs when a model has been poked, tweaked and proded over a prolonged period of time and in differents versions.

[Ross Smith]

*wishes he knew what a cookie-cut map was*

 

The big-pores look you're going for is called rosacea, I believe.

[shaunf]

Parlo. I really like your style of character. They're all a little sort of 'off' in a fascinating way. I dunno what it is but the characters, (particularly the old guy) kind of rope me in and I want to keep looking at them!

 

Beautiful stuff!

[JohnArtbox]

great model for the little boy Sam, almost makes me want to go back and rebuild Timmy , but I won't. I have stripey blue pajamas on him, but now I feel like I better change it .

His face is fantastic and the hair looks phenomenal. Are you going to give him feet or leave him in slippers?

I like the pencil sketch too. Can we see a wireframe?

Ross: a cookie cut map is like a combined colour and transparency decal. It applies the colour as expected and makes the object transparent where thedecal is transparent(using then alpha channel or key colour as a guide)

[Rodney]

The boys style fits nicely with what you've got going so far.

 

Lots of great projects going on in the A:M community.

Sure wish I could be a bug on everyone's shoulder as you all work your magic.

 

When all these projects are completed you've just got to get them together for a Group shot. Now that would make a great CD cover.

 

Rodney

[Parlo]

Shaun - You make me blush. I suppose it's just the way I see the world - slightly off. I'm a massive fan of the illustration work of Maurice Sendak and Arthur Rackham. I Love when things are off kilter, proportionally obscene or just so much 'not normal' to make you ponder why? My background is in the theatre (every time I say that I wonder where I put my monocle) and there was a 90's theatre design trend here in the uk that really started to take advantage of perspective and a disregard for proportion. An internationally famous example of this would be Ian MacNeil's design for 'An Inspector Calls' - an Edwardian drawing room drama reinvented in what looked like a dolls house perched on a cobbled wasteland. This sort of stuff sticks so clearly in my mind - I suppose it helps to make the viewer's experience more childlike. Anyhow I first sketched the old guy in a motel on the outskirts of Charlottesville Virginia, April 2000 if that's any help?

 

John - I'll post a wireframe of Alfie as soon as I've got my next model ready for looking at. I think I'm going to leave him in slippers/socks, I think that toes would be too much detail in the wrong place. The face has gone through so many revisions I can't keep count... all of the older versions are too embarrassing to even contemplate, though when he's finished I might well post them all to show the 'progression' if there is any interest.

 

Ross - I don't think it's Rosceta, it's more or a grey-blue than red discolouration. My grandmother has got it and a friend of my father's had it so bad parts of his nose when black. Oh, the human body is such a beautiful thing.

[Dearmad]

Thumbs up. The boy is especially interesting to look at. I'd like to know how you rigged his eyes for tracking and deform the lids for blinks. Looks nice.

 

Only crit... You saving time by using decals then utterly destroying your render time with an overdone lighting rig that, in these images at least, isn't buying you anything, IMHO.

 

Besides, a more dramatic, less HDI (whatever) style would do your models proud!

 

Uh... that's my crit.

[Parlo]

Dearmad - yeah you are right, the lighting on these images is very soft and lacks drama but then they are entirely 'key'less. The pictures of the old guy are in the 6 and a half minute range at a large resolution, and with 16x multipass. Before this, using materials I was in the 12-14 minute range for the same image, with a much less forgiving look (i.e. more obvious creases, 5 points and texture crawl when in motion). And this was before i did any composting after the render. What's so great about working with a rig like sky cast is that you can use it as a base, and you know that you won't have to spend any time tweaking each new lighting set up to make the model look 'good enough' and hide flaws - it always will. Any lighting tweaks therefore become an artistic exercise rather than a technical one.

 

A current example of the above is I have a number of shots outdoors in the moonlight (which, quite frankly, is where the old man belongs!) I'm using the rig for ambient blue light, a key for the moon, and a key for a 'practical' lantern light. The blue is very dark, but it gives texture to the shadows. I love looking into shadows or darkness and realising that I can pick out more detail than I thought.

 

Anyhow I'm using those 6 minutes for stretching my legs, doing a couple of reps, making some camomile tea and checking the forum. Every job in the world should have test render time, I can't live without it

[Parlo]

He's the boy's wireframe - in the model window (before the hair sculpiting pose has been applied) and in an action window (after)....

There's still a fair amount of tweaking to do, especially to his profile.. and looking at it now there's a cp on his neck that's practically trying to start a fight! I'm not concerned with an 'animatable' lower face (mouth and checks) as this little blighter expresses himself purely through his eyes and eyebrows.

[Rodney]

Reply edited because I don't have a clue when it comes to the new hair system.

I mistakingly believed a spline could be used to establish hair. Seems a patch is necessary. Not sure where I got that idea. Sorry.

Rodney

[Parlo]

Here's one of the sets that's in the process fo being reworked - I actually laughed at the original when I loaded it into A:M the other day... sweet laughter, the kind you voice when a child mispronounces a word.

 

It's a house perched on a hill (I'm very fond of cliche me), the hill as yet isn't there, and the staircase is going to be constructed kind of on stilts. What textures are there are those left over from the model's childhood. The rocks are textured with a material at the moment and it's giving me one heck of a render hit. I'm trying to work out what'll be the best way to decal them.

 

bakerrod - I considered updating the boys hair to the new alpha hair but I don't think it's a necessity and I've got to be ruthless if I'm going to get this project finished. Anyhow I like the stylised look his 'solid' hair gives him. I might however, give the hill some new-hair-grass, if I can manage the render time correctly that is.

[JTalbotski]

I like the house, Sam. They always seem to have faces, to me anyway. The sketch looks like the doorway is much smaller in proportion to the rest of the house. It adds a bit to the scariness, I think.

 

Rodney, you were right. In v 10.5 you could make a spline a hair guide. It's different in v 11.

 

Jim

[Parlo]

Jim,

 

You've hit the nail on the head with the door scale - it's proportionally the same as the rotoscope in the modelling window but once it's in a choreography and my fetish for wide angles kicks in, the house's depth plays havoc with the proportions. I'm going to do some rescaling when I next work on it. Thank your eyes for me.

 

I keep on seeing Scarlett Johansen's face in it, I don't know why but I do. And before you ask, no I am not drunk.

[Hutch]

Hey Parlo, I love your sort of surreal style. I am wondering on the boy, what are the advantages of posing the hair in an action window rather than modelling them that way?

[mediaho]

Awesome character designs. Reminds me of a cross between Tim Burton and Salvadore Dali. Can't wait to see the finished product.

[modernhorse]

Hey Parlo -

Would you mind describing why you would sculpt the hair in an action window as opposed to modeling it that way? Is this so you can animate the hair eventually?

 

I'm so excited about seeing this develop. I really love the proportions of the characters.

 

 

Doug

[Parlo]

The advantage of sculpting the hair in a pose is that I was able to make a material deform with the hair....

Additional poses can then be created to animate the hair. It still needs some work but the principal is there.

 

mediaho - thanks. I'm amazed that this topic got to page 3 before anyone mentioned the 'B' word!

[modernhorse]

I see, thanks Parlo.

 

Doug

[Parlo]

ooh, it's been a while.

 

I've been busy with other things but reworked the house idea over the weekend. I suddenly remembered that I was doing a piece of animation and therefore wasn't bound by the realm of reality. It's funny how often you forget that....

 

[ZachBG]

I missed this thread the first time around and just looked back at the beginning.

 

Holy s--t.

 

Parlo, your skills and style are awe-inspiring.

 

That's all I'm going to say, 'cuz I'm too depressed to ever touch A:M again. Just kidding--practice, practice, practice!

 

Zach

[Parlo]

lol - Hey Zach, that's one heck of a compliment! I feel exactly the same way when I look at alot of others work here too - the only reason I keep striving with my work is that I find it far less than 'awe-inspiring' and am never truly happy with it. One of these days I should find the first version of my old man character and you'll see exactly what I mean!

 

Thanks for the big up!

[Ross Smith]

I get the same feeling, looking at the work you guys do... hmm. This sounds like a trend.

Perhaps A:M should be shipped with a light scourge for new users to self-flagellate. Limited time only!

[Parlo]

I did a little search and here's pretty much the first version of him I did (and the first head I completed in A:M). The stage between this and what I've got now is what Jim Talbot accurately describes as 'tweaking'.