Real time Whale shark

Marko the Maker

I made the hi-res model many months ago, but only now got around to texturing it and, during a slow day at work, modelling the low-res mesh.

The spec map definitely needs work, and his tummy is in dire need of more colorvariation. But other than that, I'm pretty happy with it. My main worry is how the normal map will play out in a real time underwater scene.



Large version.

BTW, that texture is way oversaturated. In real life, whale sharks are a lot more drab and gray, or depending on the water, even black.

Marko the Maker

Here's a medley of some poses and stuff, for those interested:

Ridiculously large version.

Bronco

hey man thats some good stuff,unfortunatily im no mar9ine bialogist so can't really crit the scale,size or genral porpotions a such but to me it looks pretty neat.

The thing that i don't think has worked so well is the gills..im not sure how you could have done them much differently short of modleling them onto the low res mesh but to me they just don't look taht convincing.

Apart from taht I like it,the muscle or bone(?) thats coming out of his back and runs down the fin looks sweet.

Sorry I can't help more.

john

Thermidor

nice looking, maybe you should make the gils show up more on the diffuse map ... or maybe imcrease the contrast on the spec map , im no expert but they look almost invisible to me ...

KDR_11k

Make sure you use the expand colors option of your normalmapper next time you render them out, those black areas tend to screw up the higher MIPs, creating aseams where you absolutely don't want them (and they are even worse on a normalmap since they screw up the lighting calculations and create non-normalized normals).

Marko the Maker

Thanx guys!
I really appreciate your feedback.

The gills have been a problem. The light setup exacerbates the problem, but basically, in any light setup beyond one strong point light, the gills disappear. These are the strategies I have come up with (but have yet to implement):

1.Manually edit the normal map for greater contrast. I did this with the teeth of a skull I made. It was the first time I worked with normal maps, and it almost made me become a monk, but I did manage to make the teeth "pop" more.
2. Use specular to define the shapes.
3. Paint in shadows and light in the diffuse map. A mortal sin when you have a normal map, according to some, but I'm willing to risk it.

Bronco: Well, I have spent a couple years studying whale sharks, a luxury most modellers don't have with their subjects! The body shape of this one is a sort of "median" whale shark. Either a well-fed male or an immature female. Since I didn't model claspers on the low-res version, that makes it a female. The ridges are made of very thick and tough skin and presumably acts as armor.

KDR_11k: That's good advice! I've made some manual changes to the normal map so it looks reasonably OK in my viewport. Of course, this may change when I export the model.