Prodigal son (fish).

Marko the Maker

Big version

Dudes, I need iridescense i the highlights of this fish in Max. Anybody got a helpful pointer?

Here's wires and such:

Big version

On the cobia:
Frequently mistaken for a shark by divers, the cobia or prodigal son either swims in schools of its own kind or "teams up" with large sharks, turtles or dugings. The young fish camouflage themselves as suckerfish with gray and white stripes, while large adults tend to a uniform brown in color. The cobia can grow to up to two meters in length and eats mainly crabs and crustaceans. Other common names for the cobia include: black kingfish, songoro, crabeater, lemonfish and sergeantfish.

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Gallery/Descript/Cobia/Cobia.html

rooster

very convincing! Your render makes the white stripe look a bit dull, but it seems fine in the texture. Also the eye seems a bit brighter than the reference, but it could just be catching the full specular highlight?
nice job over all though

Marko the Maker

The retorting rooster raises reasons for reflection. Unfortunately the stripe will have to become duller still as I will add a falloff to the saturation. Cobia skin is almost gray when seen obliquely.

And the eye needs work. Not sure how much detail I'll put into it, though. I might just reduce the specular a bit. I will go over the opacity too at some point.

Eric Chadwick

One trick for iridescence... use a subtle-rainbow-hued cubemap or spheremap.

Cubik

Looks quite realistic compared to online photos of the fish. There seems to be lot of color variation from fish to fish though, some being green, redish-brown, gray or just as dark brown as yours. The model seems a bit underdetailed, texturewise, when it comes to the inside of the mouth. Are you still working on that?

What are the intended uses for this model? The polycount is a bit strange, too low for pre-renders and there just seems to be too many wasted polys for this to be used as a realtime model.

Lee3dee

nice fish! makes me hungry for fish n' chips

hawken

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nice fish! makes me hungry for fish n' chips

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it would be appreciated if you refrained from mentioning food I cannot obtain.

Nice fish, rig it!!

Steve Schulze

Odd name for a fish. Nice work on him though.

Easiest way to do irridescence is just to add some bright colours to your specular map.

Marko the Maker

Thanks for all the comments, guys. All sound advice and I really appreciate all of them.

I haven't done much on the fish, but here's the most recent render:




Big version.

Erik and Jack: These are good tips. However, I'm going to try some renders where I use a falloff based on highlights to blend in a metallic texture. Oh, and it gets its name because it follows larger fish around. Like a prodigy, see?

Cubik: Yes, the mouth is still in progress. I didn't notice the edges in the tail until you mentioned the polycount. Should be fixed in this render. But I'm a firm believer in that polycounts are meant to be as low as possible.

hawken: Not true! I ate fish&chips in Tokyo just a month ago. They called it tempura and chips.

Josh_Singh

I found a good way to get some fishy skin is to put some noise in your specular map. makes it sparkle.