THRONE ROOM – Seat of the Tinkerman – jafo

jafo

Here are some rough sketches I'm using from an old personal project.

The throne will be the driver's seat inside the open head of a large automaton. The skinny character sketch will act as inspiration for this automaton. The sketch of the character with the top-hat and tommy-gun will act as inspiration for mechanical sentry guards that will be suspended from the walls on either side of the throne.

I'll be using the following tools:
Maya
Photoshop
CryEngine

Looking forward to this, should be a lot of fun!

wvaughn409

Great steam-punk concept! This is going to be really cool and interesting scene. Very excited to see this one unfold

jafo

Just starting to layout some basic models in 3D with simple diffuse materials. I like to start with some simple textures that serve my needs but I usually end up changing them several times before I finalize them with spec, gloss, and normals. Right now I have a trim set and a few fill textures. I like having a trim set with a lot of variation so you can get as much mileage out of the texture as possible, saving memory and draw-calls.

jafo

just filling out the main room a little more, added some temp lighting

Arsenal

Nice progress! coming along.

jafo

Little more progress. Not sure I'm happy with the oval shape but as it will most likely fall into shadow after the central elements are placed I'm gonna move on. I wanted it to be a machine element but I don't want the background getting overly complicated and noisy.

jafo

re-worked oval shape, added a few details along transition to ceiling

jafo

added a large central window so I can add an exterior vista, noodled with some lighting, plan to do a first pass on normal and gloss maps.

jafo

I'm not getting the look I originally wanted mainly due to scale problems, so I'm going in a new direction

jafo

added a new border element. aside from the glass the materials are still just diffuse textures with no spec, gloss or bump:

jafo

started laying some ground work for the floor, this will change to allow space for the automaton. made a first pass on normal, spec, and gloss maps for the majority of the current metals used in the scene.

fill3r

This is starting to have a really nice feel to it. I like the new direction.

jafo

thanks!

jafo

added the clock and tweaked some materials to get rid of the excessive fresnel. gonna start the throne next.

jafo

didn't have much time for modeling in the last few days, so I played with the color palette and contrast.

wvaughn409

your new color scheme is definitely way more consistent now with the sky warmed up like you did. Great work! Also the dawn/sundown (i still have trouble visually distinguishing the two - not on your project but in general, so don't feel you are lacking in that) really does wonders for the narrative aspect of your shot. What i mean is that for some unknown reason, imagining this scene with morning or dusk lighting makes my brain speculate more on its lore and the civilization which created this architecture and style. I guess it has to do with the morning representing so many possibilities (because the whole day is ahead) and then translates, with your piece, the subconscious to really extrapolate more story and depth to the world-building aspect of your scene. Great job! amazing how a change in time-of-day can yield such major results to the story and feel your scene portrays

jafo

I was able to finally get some time to actually start what will become the "throne". first pass on the torso of the large automaton.

jafo

first pass on the automaton arms:

jafo

hands, first pass

wvaughn409

this guy would make a freakin sick boss fight in an FF style game!

jafo

very early start on the actual "throne", still got a ways to go. Not sure I'm happy with the levers, I will probably revisit them. Overall for the scene I'm not sure how ornate I want to go with fear of the scene getting too noisy so the seat is going to be my guinea pig.



reference sheet:

jafo

WarrenM

Neat! It think it would be great if each of those round windows was a clock face .. just seems to imply that with all the gears and machinery around.

fnfloresg

Hello there,

This is sick!!! ok... I had to take that off my chest. Cheers

Syros

amazing, style, color, modeling, wow, this is great , i will be quite ok ok , LoL
keep it up \m/

jafo

got a start on the head:

jafo

little more work on the head. I plan to add old monitors, wiring and other control components behind the eyes along with a little more leather padding.

Lawrence Preston

This is brilliant. I think the weakest part is the face. When it's opened, displaying the throne, it looks really cool. However, closed, I think it's lacking, or off mark. It has a bondage feel or a gas mask, neither of which really fit the theme.

jafo

Lawrence Preston wrote: »

This is brilliant. I think the weakest part is the face. When it's opened, displaying the throne, it looks really cool. However, closed, I think it's lacking, or off mark. It has a bondage feel or a gas mask, neither of which really fit the theme.

Actually gas mask is spot on but since I don't really have a way of conveying a back story as to why the mask is necessary, I have another plan for the head that I think may be a lot more interesting. Initially I was going to be a bit lazy over the whole thing since the face would never really be seen because it would have to be open to see the throne properly. But I felt people would want to see it closed in at least one shot.

I really considered making the windows stained glass with the back story of the kingdom displayed across the multiple windows but since I'm only able to dedicate about an hour a 2 each night on this, I wasn't sure if I'd have time to do it justice.

Good feedback though, thanks!

jafo

new face, materials and textures are temp

WarrenM

Really coming together, nice work! Look sweet...

dzibarik

fantastic!

Geno527

This face is way more better

jafo

little more work on the face, got a start on the exterior backdrop as well

jafo

jafo

Censored_ID

Awesome design bro) But your scene really needs some fog or big cloudy\smoky particles to separate this guy with a throne in his head from the background - now it's hard to catch the shape and details..

heyeye

Really great job on this!

I actually really like the bit of cyan on the side of his abdomen. It'd be awesome to see more of that complimentary color come through in the side lantern thingys, it might make your tinkerman really pop as the focus. Just a loose suggestion though, looks great either way.

jafo

jafo

realized I didn't move the God rays after moving the sun to the other side. :poly142:

jafo

added railings to help with scale, made some minor lighting and material tweaks

WarrenM

As cool as the parts of this are, it's REALLY noisy in composition. The throne just gets completely lost in a sea of light and dark pieces ... I KNOW where it is and I have a hard time finding it sometimes. I think spending a few hours playing with lighting or something would be worthwhile here. You have a lot of great stuff in here but at the moment it all sort of jumbles together into one large mass. Try the squint test on it and you'll see what I mean.

Nice work tho! I hope you can find a good lighting set up to complement your nice modeling/texturing...

jafo

Changed the materials on the automaton to try and help it pop out of the background, toned down a lot of the reflective surfaces overall in the scene. Made a lot of other minor lighting and material tweaks. Not sure I'm gonna bother with the exterior city-scape since it's difficult to see and I don't want it competing. Still not happy with it, hopefully I can iron out the remaining stuff before the deadline.

Framedworld

looks awesome, but there is a lot of competing shapes in the scene. I would highlight just the central figure and darken the background, perhaps make it look like the background is illuminating itself with those inset lights. I think the sun shafts lighting everything at the same time really flattens the image. You put so much work into this and it looks beautiful truly. I just think some small lighting tweak will really make this thing pop and send it to the top

heyeye

Yea I agree with the two above, the latest image is close, it killed a lot of the noise. It just needs to get that separation and unity within each of the elements. I think if the cast iron was back lit very subtley it would combine really well with Framedworld's suggestion of allowing the inset lights to illuminate the walls and darken it down a lot. Great work all around.

jafo

Here's my final renders posted to the final submission thread. Still not super happy with it, but then again all art instructors will tell you you're not a real artist if your happy with your work. It was fun though and I was happy to be back in Maya again. Thanks to all who took some time to give me feedback and I hope you like my final piece.

cheers

Maya
Photoshop
CryEngine






Breakdown and reference board

WarrenM

End result reads a LOT clearer, nice work! He really stands out now.