[STAGE] Samurai Shodown, TamTam, Bbox85
polycounter lvl 9
Time to get crackin!!!! I'll be re-imagining TamTam's stage from Samurai Shodown:
Turns out that TamTam was a Mayan warrior, so I have some great stuff to reference. I always try to attack the areas that I feel I'm lacking in for these comps. Last time is was under water and this time it'll be Jungle. I'll be taking this in a very king kong inspired direction. Which means dense and exaggerated vegetation and grand vistas. Once I establish a convincing jungle setting I'll start adding in hints of Mayan ruins and Stone carvings to replace the totems and large statues in the back.
Here's my reference sheet:
And here are some rough thumbnails of ideas that were going through my head:
I like certain elements from all of them so the final product will probably be a combination of... well, all of them.
Turns out that TamTam was a Mayan warrior, so I have some great stuff to reference. I always try to attack the areas that I feel I'm lacking in for these comps. Last time is was under water and this time it'll be Jungle. I'll be taking this in a very king kong inspired direction. Which means dense and exaggerated vegetation and grand vistas. Once I establish a convincing jungle setting I'll start adding in hints of Mayan ruins and Stone carvings to replace the totems and large statues in the back.
Here's my reference sheet:
And here are some rough thumbnails of ideas that were going through my head:
I like certain elements from all of them so the final product will probably be a combination of... well, all of them.
Replies
I really like the angles on your last rough that are formed by the statues. I also really like the idea of a fallen city with the giant cracked head shows in the 5th rough. Layout-wise, I dig the framing on the 3rd one.
What kind of feel/mood are you going for?
Also this post automatically subscribes me to the thread... thats good.
The 4 would reflect more from the original stage I think.
I'm sure you'll come up with a great environment.
So far, struggling with the space. Trying to do a combination of thumbs 1,3, and 4. For now I'm just using these meshes to block in a general idea of my composition. I'm then taking that and doing paint overs to see what works best. I notice that I lost a bit of detail with addition of moss to the rocks... It may or may not matter since i intend most of this stuff to be covered in thick vegetation, but i'm still gonna see what i can do to bring some of that detail back... I guess it's really not that important at the moment though.
Just wanted to post some sort of progress, it'd been a few days. Not so crazy about it's current state, so things are still subject to change...alot.
My only concern is that the cliff on the left seems a lil "blocky" maybe due to the shadow casting, which create some kind of straight lines.
Great start anyway~
makes me want to see more:)
dustinbrown - Agree with you 100%. What you saw earlier wasn't going to be my final composition, just a progress shot. I'm getting closer to nailing down the composition, but I'm not quite there yet. But I definitely intend to widen things up a bit to make it feel more like a fighting stage. I'll probably also try to incorporate more of a formal pathway probably going horizontal across the screen to distinguish the fighting area from the background. Something to resemble the ugly yellow platform in the original scene. But hopefully it's not ugly when i make it...
rv_el - Yeah, it'd been a while since my last update. I'll try not to let that happen again... YOU on the other hand... WHERE'S YOUR UPDATE?! HMMMM?!?!
rambooze - I'm a rock freak also! I tried to get some nice ones in for this scene, but it looks like they're just losing all form behind the vegetation. Not too big of a deal though since they aren't the main focus of the scene... at least not til I get the Stone Idols in there. As for the render, I'm using UDK. And that sun effect is simply the bloom from the dominant directional light.
Update:
Been working on vegetation mostly. Still needs some tweaking but I feel like it's getting there. The moss is translucent and having issues with the DOF, gonna see if I can figure that out. The composition isn't final yet, still have a lot to do in terms of that. I haven't done anything to the background yet... I'll be hitting that up very soon. The bloom is a bit intense right now, but I'm hoping once I break up the background with some tree silhouettes etc., you won't need sun glasses to look at the image.
I can say that me and allot of others would kill for a small tutorial/general tips from you on the sculpting side! Just saying
Very good looking map Bbox85 :0
My only advice would be to block out the whole scene first to make sure that no drastic rearrangements will be necessary down the road. It looks great now and it would be a shame if you'd have to redo something or throw away just make things fit.
keep it up!
in terms of the moss reacting badly to DOF, have you tried checking use lit translucency depth pass on the material? just an idea.
(i can't really see any flaw with it though!)
Samurai Shodown always had some exaggerated saturation going on in their characters and environments. I'd love to see you work some of those elements into your final piece. I think the color would really give it some extra character. I look forward to the finished work!
WTF is "next-gen"?
Just imagine the trees are made out of metal tech with rivits and the rocks are disco artifacts from the 70's that the world has adapted into a floor built for the art of disco-dance-fighting... Round 1!
Oh, I almost forgot one thing.
[ame]
NoChance - We kid :P In all seriousness, you're correct in saying that this isn't much of a re-imagination in the sense that it's still the same idea and setting. But I only say that because I assume that your definition of a re-imagination is taking something and throwing it into a different genre. (i.e. sci fi, steam punk, medieval, post apocalyptic). While that may be a way to re-imagine something, it's not the only way. When Peter Jackson and the folks at Weta re-imagined the world of King Kong... They didn't put it in space. Same with Tim Burton re-imagining Alice in Wonderland. They kept the idea and setting the same, rather re-imagined it in a way to deeply immerse the viewer in a fantastical world that triggered a feeling of nostalgia. And that's exactly what I'm trying to do here. I'm keeping the idea and setting the same... but when I close my eyes and think about what a small fighting ground in a mayan civilization looks like, this is how my IMAGINATION sees it. Just to clarify, I'm not trying to attack you, I'm just explaining my thought process behind my version of this re-imagination.
sltrOlsson - I'm glad you like it. I actually promised a friend of mine that I would set up a small tutorial on how I create my rocks. I'll be sure to make it available for anyone interested
c0ldhands - Hehe... Thanks bud. I hadn't really had too much practice with creating vegetation, so I try hard to make it convincing. I've been focusing a lot on silhouette, making sure you can't see the polys used to create the veg. The sub surface scattering also helps a bunch to make it that much more convincing.
d1ver - BLOCKOUT!? Gahhhhhhh (*stoops low in chair and kicks feet*) Hehe, Yeah man, I hear ya. If this were a game, the first thing I'd do would be to block this out. However, I feel like doing that for an image kind of hinders me. JUST ME THOUGH!! It's just the way my mind works. Things will inevitably change with this scene... and what may be cool now, I'll probably have to tweak to make room for other things. I have a very organic work flow. I treat this much like a painting... Ill block in my basic shapes, but I still allow for myself to step back and re-evaluate the image from time to time. As it evolves there will be certain aspects that may have once been awesome for the scene but no longer works. I pretty much just try to do whatever is best for the image. I mainly work with thumbnails and paintovers. I just want to let my mind do it's thing and not be restricted by a block out. But just to clarify, I'm not knockin' the block out. It's very important. I'm just stubborn... :P
ImSlightlyBored - I was messin' with that little checkbox in the material... wasn't doing anything. Maybe I'm just dumb... wasn't able to get it to work.
artician - Yeah!!!! I'm trying to think of clever ways to incorporate some saturated colors like in the original. It'll probably be mostly through exotic plants and some painted wood... perhaps the sky as well... Gah, Idunno... BUT IT'S GONNA HAPPEN!!
I totaly should have used a screenshot of Halo and then just dropped some Tam Tam statue in it but make them "Cell phone towers".. lol!!!!
Keep it up man. I can't wait to see where this goes. Sorry I shit all over your thread.
Ok...Update time:
Got the first pass for the faces in. They're still being tweaked. Trying to bring more color into the scene. I'm unsure whether or not to keep the water in the background... some days i like it, some days i don't.
Anyway the composition is ace~
I don't get it. I didn't think rushmore at all.. i really dont see the mt rushmore... but then again I guess I dont dig much into that icon (?)
Ryan Hawkins - Check rv_el's thread :P
Chandler - Yeah, I was having the same issue. I didn't want to mention mt. rushmore just to see if anyone was feeling the same way. Still going through some tweaks to make it feel less so. I'm fighting a bit with whether i want to go full mayan with the stone idols in the back. Since they're so huge, i didn't want there to be much ornate details. For me, that just makes it feel a little less feasible.
felipefrango - Agreed
EzMeow - Shhhhh... It's because I'm hiding my slop... shhhhhhhh... Haha, I know what you're saying. The fog is a bit thick yes. Everything will be balanced out soon. Also, in general I feel like I need to bump the contrast up a tiny bit.
Mini Update -
Started working on the totems. Not your traditional totem, more like a stone sculpture. Tried to work in a few faces in there to make it feel more totem-ish. The bottom and back are serpents. They appear often in Mayan culture so I figured, why not! All in zbrush currently, texture is still very WIP. This actually might result in a resculpt of the large faces in the background to fit more with this style.