A Giant Crab with a Crab-Dude Riding it (Unfinished Petrol/Blood Entry)
interpolator
I still have not named them, so the thread name is entirely ridiculous. I apologize.
Contest thread: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=136980
So, since improving my 2D stuff is more of a side project than my main focus right now, I figured I'd finish some of my 3D projects that've been left in limbo for a while, while I was busy fetching coffee for my bosses, lol. I'd really like to have some finished projects to show for the work I do, instead of an empty portfolio and roughly 20,000 WIPs. :poly142:
Therefore: Actually finishing my part-done PETROL/Blood Entry.
I got slapped in the face by this project, having started it with no computer or internet access outside of work, and ending it on finding out DDO (a requirement for entering the contest) didn't work on the computer I got to work at home.
TL;DR: I have a need to finish more stuff, didn't finish this, so I'm digging it back up.
Current state
The aim is to have the bulk of the work (any mesh/sculpt/UV/bake re-working, base albedo/gloss and missing assets) done over the course of the next week, with all the final touches done in the week or two after that.
I'll be finishing both poses, though the second needs much more done than the first. Oh, and if anyone has an idea on how to give the look of something gelatinous and translucent (think a pile of wet frog eggs) in Marmoset, I'd be very interested to know. I've got my own ideas based on prior experience with this kinda of material in TB2, but working in a vacuum of ones own experiences sucks sometimes.
Final note, any C&C is super appreciated and will certainly be taken into account.
Contest thread: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=136980
So, since improving my 2D stuff is more of a side project than my main focus right now, I figured I'd finish some of my 3D projects that've been left in limbo for a while, while I was busy fetching coffee for my bosses, lol. I'd really like to have some finished projects to show for the work I do, instead of an empty portfolio and roughly 20,000 WIPs. :poly142:
Therefore: Actually finishing my part-done PETROL/Blood Entry.
I got slapped in the face by this project, having started it with no computer or internet access outside of work, and ending it on finding out DDO (a requirement for entering the contest) didn't work on the computer I got to work at home.
TL;DR: I have a need to finish more stuff, didn't finish this, so I'm digging it back up.
Current state
The aim is to have the bulk of the work (any mesh/sculpt/UV/bake re-working, base albedo/gloss and missing assets) done over the course of the next week, with all the final touches done in the week or two after that.
I'll be finishing both poses, though the second needs much more done than the first. Oh, and if anyone has an idea on how to give the look of something gelatinous and translucent (think a pile of wet frog eggs) in Marmoset, I'd be very interested to know. I've got my own ideas based on prior experience with this kinda of material in TB2, but working in a vacuum of ones own experiences sucks sometimes.
Final note, any C&C is super appreciated and will certainly be taken into account.
Replies
Crab people, crab people, looks like crab, talk like people.
Thanks, mate.
Okay, I actually went in and did the low poly bake for the main Water (as well as touching up the sculpt), and also baked the props for the second pose. Still have one or two props to do from scratch for this, and have about three more on the in-action shot, too.
Feels nice to be doing something for myself though.
What are your goals with this? I think the second pose needs to go, honestly. The first pose is so goddamn awesome. I mean a crazy crab dude rodeo riding a gigantic monster crab that he caught himself with nothing but rope and pure exoskeletal prowess? Awesome. Harry the Handyman? Different vein of media I say.
I love the colours though, as much as the above paragraphs encourage the grimdark manly hardcore route, it's awesome to see some super colourful models being made. They remind me of these crabs from Nicaragua
Oh god this whole post makes no sense. I'm sorry. Your work is great, keep it up.
EDIT: Your concept image is a far better pose in the same vein as the current one.
I'll have a look at changing the second pose, thank you for the feedback.
I just kind of like it, because the guy isn't a predator at all-- just a goofball who loves himself a deathmatch by the sea. Seriously, I really don't want to go the more predatory route for the second image at all, the intent was to have a tender moment with his (now teeny) beast after the deathmatch finished. If you'll notice, he's even carrying around a bag of his babies-- eggs. He's a papa, and a happy one. Perhaps not so responsible, considering he took them to a vehicular deathmatch before they were even hatched, but hey.
To clarify, though, the original contest requirements called for one in-action pose, and one that showed the more emotional connection between the vehicle and the driver (or in this case, rider and beast). I went with them in the middle of the fight for the first, and them after packing up in the second.
All that said, the pose is fairly half-baked in comparison and yes, a little boring, so I'll think on it. I mean, if I have to explain what I was going for, it's no good. I just have to figure out where to go from here, and if it's viable (like... my rig sucks and I'd have to re-start the props, mainly).
Also, I was thinking of this kind of color scheme for the final. About the same colors, thanks for shooting me the ref!
I can't keep modelling, I've already done too much that I can't really go back and redo/reuse as it is. I am also learning that conveying two personalities and a relationship dynamic in two shots is hard as hell, not really sure any of these pose doodles are better than the one I already had going (though I kind of like the face-planting-off-the-crab one).
Having a lot of trouble making anything "serious" with this, I tried but then realized that I'd forgotten the crab and that's #3. #1 and #2 are in the same vein, I feel, maybe a bit too goofy and anti-climatic. #4 is the most solid and goes with the first pose a little more, I think I can fit everything in that I was wanting to go for, too.
C&C welcome (general input on direction or pose would be amazing), as usual. Mind the huge-ass pic.
Edit: My sketches are a mess. Sorry if you just can't even tell what's going on, haha. :poly136:
You have really strong AO there, try out coloring it, maybe a orange-red-ish tone, so you get the effect you want without having this strange black ao-bake look, should look nice with a color
Guy looks pretty cool
This project has been plagued with technical issues from the start, and as I started to try and re-pose and texture roughly a gazillion more popped out of the woodwork. I've been working on this on and off during lunch break at work. So far, I've not been able to get something good for the second pose, but I did manage to get some colors slapped on.
Some areas are a little bit of a clusterfuck right now but I felt some pressure to update and get some feedback on the colors. The Rider's albedo was thrown together in about 2 hours today (I've got a few ideas on shuffling colors around to make it less... unhinged, and I'm really unsure about the skintone), the Crab's on and off for the last month... It kept crashing Photoshop after about 10-15 minutes of work, and straight up will not open at home. :thumbdown:
That said, I'm getting ready to really start finalizing the color location/selection and start polishing since I've ironed out most of the technical issues stopping me, so it would be really awesome to get some feedback!
the rider having the exact same color scheme its a bit hard to differenciate
There's only so much I can do on differentiating them without undermining my core concept, which was that the Rider uses the crab as camouflage and protection. If he stands out from the Crab, it becomes much more obvious that he is not either part of the crab or the crabs baby, and is in fact a squishy, delicious morsel. You're entirely correct that a more subdued color scheme would look really nice, but I'm just hesitant to make the "story" element null.
What would have been cool is if I had thought to do color concepts earlier in the process, I probably would have realized that the color scheme Jacob suggested is awesome (which it is), and been able to change the Rider's design accordingly... It would have been interesting to make him look like a rock or shell instead.
But, as he is already baked, rigged, posed, and the sculpt was finalized months back... I'm inclined to just put that all in my back pocket under "Now I know I need to stop being a lazy ass during my concepting stage", and make sure I never make that mistake again.
That said, I'm not going to leave it like it is (hell nah), and I'm doing my best to take your feedback into account.
How's something like this instead? Please keep in mind that for these colors I'm really just noodling around, so I can change the colors pretty fast, so basically nothing here is final. Just gauging reactions.
Keep going dude, maybe play around with your gloss maps to get some different effects with the reflections (if you don't already plan on doing that that is). Adding a plain black and white grunge map in this slot will do wonders with creating the illusion of glossy and rough surfaces across your materials.
DUDE like we've been wrapping up for the year at work so I haven't had a chance to update but like
Thanks for the feedback, positivity and suggestions, it's been a great help! You don't even know haha.
Finished the LP for the rope.
I'll be shuffling some UVs around on the props sheet and re-baking/texturing some of them, I might throw in a gloss map at the same time, and that should be my next-- albeit boring --update.
Hell yea! Thanks heaps man.
Grubber
Thank you!
Torch
Sorry, I'll try harder next time to include any and all details.
(lol)
Deathstick
Well, I'm glad someone can appreciate good crab wrangling form!
Cheathem
This is just block out color scheme work, by no means the final. I figured I would make sure the colors were final before going too far into variations and textures.
Alright, so I was supposed to get some renders to my school today so they could put this on next years brochure, but Toolbag 2 has hit it's limit on this computer. I'm going to have to get that new one sooner rather than later, because this was ridiculous.
After about 18 crashes and a few days of struggling I only managed to get one shot... It's even on the wrong angle...
At the very least, I did in fact re-do the prop UVs, Props and Rider have a proper gloss map now, just block out. Did a little more work on the Crab's albedo, too. Just some clean up, mostly.
I have to say, my desire to work on this project on this computer is pretty low after the experience I've had with it over the last few days. I'm just tired of all the technical issues I'm getting on it when trying to do basic tasks... New computer couldn't happen soon enough.
But I will leave you with some crab-themed inspiration.
http://youtu.be/MKQq4VWi-RI
EDIT EDIT: I did some quick edits to it to make it read better just while I has PS open for something else. Original pic.
So I am back from doing other things and god do I want to get this hunkajunk done
Bless my new computer, by the way, it isn't even struggling a little with this. Important changes this update are fairly minor but I added a gloss map to the base and props, and the colors on the Crab have been fleshed out.
My working comp doesn't internet just yet so this kind of quick render does not show off the most significant change-- the back end of the crab now fades to a purple the same way the Rider does. The rider's also been modified just a little in the albedo area after this shot because his entire everything looks weird and I want to fix it.
Color variation, Detail variation , and two images of close up details.
Heh, thanks.
Gave the crab a gloss map and worked the albedo a little more (though a lot of that was removing seams, really). I think I want to make the markings on the Rider more obvious so they don't disappear at a distance, but I'm happy with the colors (enough, anyway) so I'm going to keep refining and adding detail and variation now. Really wishing substance painter worked on my good computer right now, because I'd love to take away some of the pain of detailing over my super-rushed seams out of my hands.
I also really want to finish this before I more or less have a day job again-- I'll need to be working on 2D stuff pretty consistently so I would rather not have residual guilt over leaving this unfinished!
Feeling pretty pumped up about it though, as the daily updates imply. Sorry again for any weirdness with colors/sharpness/contrast.
The detail. How do I approach it? When I look at the albedo I get overwhelmed and have no idea where to start. There's a fair bit of variation in values, i think, but it's paying more attention to actual patterns and color variations now and I have no idea where to... even sort of start on that. Just focusing on the crab at the moment, I'm holding on the character so he'll match up.
I keep just ending up with a really noisy albedo and it gives an effect that I don't like and just isn't what I'm looking for-- too cluttered and high-frequency.
Anyone got any tips? Even just on pushing that last 10-20%, it would be super appreciated.
Im not sure what detail you are adding if its surfacing then short answer from me would be to put more of your detail in your roughness map, significantly less in the albedo and avoid using lighting information in the albedo unless you are sure it will work eg some subtle ao. This isnt a rule more just a bit of advice that sometimes works out well depending on the surface you are trying to portray.
If its colour detail then maybe your environment background is overpowering things at the moment making it harder to read what colour things actually are. I think to push this further you may need your lighting to have a bit more contrast, some nice dark shadows and bright highlights, right now its a bit flat. what crab reference are you using now? hopefully your reference will be the best colour pattern/variation guideline.
its a fun character and scene, sorry but I still find his crotch hole a little wierd haha.
I've gotten a lot of feedback from people saying it seemed like the colors were more or less flat/solid, and there needs to be more variation than just orange>red fades with splashes of purple, which I totally get and agree with.
I've then been linked to images like these:
And look, I'm working using a $50 TV monitor to do this right now. The scene setup is for working purposes only, not the final by any means, but if it's washed out/over saturated/blurry/super purple/low contrast I really can't tell right now. I guess I should hurry up on those new monitors if I want to progress on this, because the lack of ability to really look at this accurately seems to be sending me in circles, and prevents other people from seeing what I'm even talking about because my WIP shots are all messed up.
For reference, though, the crab is more or less a mudcrab, but it's textures are more based on these guys: 1, 2 and I've taken a fancy to the dotted patterns of the last two of the images above. I just can't figure out how to approach the variations and patterns though.
Thank you a lot for your input, means a lot, confirms a few things for me. It does seem as if my bad shots aren't helping anyone though, and for the moment I can't do much about that.
Pfft, honestly I'd be a little concerned if you didn't.
Old: 1, 2, 3, 4
Damn, now I'm getting this artifacting and I can't turn up to double rez or even turn on HQ shadows without Marmoset crashing. On my good computer now. God damn it.
Until then, I'm doing some missing props/overdue clean up work.
But today I did none of that and just fiddled around in Substance Designer. :poly136:Made some fisherman's netting.
Mmn, dodgy screenshot:
My first substance (clearly), very hacky and inefficient but it was super fun. Looking forward to being able to work with Designer some more. Certainly less of a hassle than modelling this out would have been. I still want to edit this a little to give it a bit of weight and depth, but the way I set up the nodes was really destructive, so I'm waiting to see how it ends up looking in the scene first, before I go about remaking the whole graph...
I've got some more little props that should get done very quickly and all fit into the one prop sheet that I already have, so that'll be me for the next few days. Fun, fun fun. But after that it's all polish and I'll really be on the home stretch, so I'm getting pumped up again!
Okay, borrowed a setup from school to work on the lighting set up on monitors that aren't shite.
Is this better at all? Can you see what's going on now? Is it okay for seeing WIPs but not really as a final lighting setup? Is it just still a bit shit? Not used to lighting stuff that isn't a full scene or just a character so bear with me. :thumbup:
Edit: Or maybe more contrast still?
EDIT 2:
Walked away from the computer and now I'm not sure I like any of these. Picked a HDRI that gave me a mood I was happier with, think I have a better idea for direction. Might have to go back to 2D and do some mood sketches for my final presentation because I'm not having an easy time here...! :poly141:
[ame]
(video may still be processing, not quite up yet)
Personally, I'd add a spray paint on the crabs underbelly that says "Attack this weakpoint for massive damage."
After all, this is a GIANT ENEMY CRAB.
Thanks man! Yeah, I can see that, haha! Kinda wish I'd planned room for something like that, now.
I tried harder with the lighting. Got some refs, put in a bunch of omnis instead of just the 2/3 directional lights I had in before. Getting closer to what I want. I think I still need to make the front lights a different color/darker. But I'm pretty close, and I should be able to edit this again before I finish so for now, I think I'll do some propwork. Seashells, barnacles, some kelp and maaaybe driftwood... Got some bigger props planned for the back, too, and I gotta re-do the fabric on the back of the crab, or at least edit it a bit.
[ame]
Feeling like everything's coming together, though! Probably try to do a bit more albedo/gloss work this weekend, too, I'll definitely get in there and fix up the visible seams/weird splotches on the prop sheet.
Some junk to throw into the back of the crab.
Alright, I think I'm almost done. Speak now or forever hold your peace, I'm about to start sorting out how I'm going to present this all. I only have a few little texture tweaks (mmmn seams), then in my eyes, I'm more or less done. I've been working on this for 7 million years and I'm a little tired of it. If anyone has anything to say, I'd super appreciate if you could take the time to say it! :thumbup:
dig the work
I'm not a huge fan of the lighting, I think brighter would be better. Like 2:00 Pm during a summer day in Texas. I wanna see all the crabbyd etails.
Thanks!!
@cubitstudios
Thank you a lot, I redid various aspects of the face a few times, so I'm glad it's turned out alright, haha.
@pmiller001
Haha! Thanks. I prefer something moody (though not going with that exact set up anymore), but the breakdown shots will definitely have something lighter so everything can be clearly seen.
@jhoythottle
Yeah, got other complaints about the roughness, too, I'm honestly unsure of what's going on. I'll figure it out. I'll see what I can do about the rope, but some areas might stay a little contrived.
---
Alright, I'm just going to give a quick update.
I kind of thought I was done with this yesterday, and had done my final renders and moved onto comp/final details. In the end, I got a lot of (very good and valid) feedback that more or less culminated in me feeling like I had to go back and redo everything from the gloss maps & lighting onwards and... honestly? A bit of a kick in the gut, since this isn't the first time I've had to go back and redo everything from that point. This project is big, it's draining, and because I'm working blind due to monitor issues, what should be taking me 3 days takes me weeks.
So I'm sort of thinking of shelving it again for a while. Kind of at a bit of a crossroads because I feel like, if I leave it another 3 months or so until I can get in a new monitor and reliably judge my colors and lighting, this project will no longer be at all impressive compared to the other art I'll have put out by then (at least hopefully lol). So it would have been like 7-9 months of wasted effort and that sort of puts me off it. A lot.
I'm sure this is the kind of thing that everyone struggles with early on, but I'm a little stuck again. I'm going to post what I had, and hopefully I'll be back on this sooner than I think with something better. :poly124:
Enough being a anxious whiny prat tho', I'm going to go and do some other work. :thumbup: Sitting around feeling sorry for myself doesn't pay the bills and I need to fill out my portfolio, so I'm moving on for now.