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-Zero-

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Posts posted by -Zero-

  1. Here's mine. Not very cluttered and the taskbar is hidden on the left with my core programs. Wallpaper is a custom one that I made a while ago.


     


    Jd2U9Al.jpg


     


    update: I added a second pic with the taskbar shown for comparison. Not a big difference to be honest.


     


    hx97zD2.jpg


  2. new_horizons_wip_chapter_02_by_jael_x-d7

     

    From my DeviantArt description:

     

    "Two days of work and the Look Dev part is somewhat complete. Lots and lots of stuff was hammered down into the scene. Bump maps, gloss maps, changes to the PS&S setup, color correction, VD(the pseudo fog you see in the image on the right), reflection tweaks, lighting tweaks, and all sorts of stuff. This takes care of Part 1 of New Horizons. Part 2 is the fun part, not to mention the longest part. Right now, I've set up a basic scene. Now it's time to customize it to my liking. The following will detail what it is I will be doing for Part 2:


    -I will up-res the geometry in the foreground and mid-ground in Zbrush and replace the textures in that area with textures sourced from Google Earth Pro. This new geometry will be sculpted to add more detail and to counteract the wacky bump map distortion.
    -The entirety of the textures(besides the ones from above) will be upscaled to around 16k. Right now I'm currently making use of 8 8k maps mapped accordingly to the geometry.
    -I will most likely ditch the physical sun & sky system for individual HDR lights, as I don't want a day scene.
    -Cleanup in MARI
    -Fog addition
    -addition of other assets such as trees, grass, flowers etc.


    In addition to all of that, I will be including a special....someone within the scene. This someone is the reason I am calling this New Horizons.

    Part 2 will take me some time to complete. I don't know when I'll be done with it so I'd rather not put down dates, but it's gonna look hella rad!!.....hopefully."

     

    So officially I'm now halfway done. To explain the above in more detail:

     

    Zbrush (as a sculpting tool) will allow me to effortlessly add more detail to the geometry (by making use of its ability to subdivide geometry [this can be done in Maya but it's not as straightforward]). Sculpting will add more details to the cliff, more so than what I could possibly get out of the displacement map alone. Notice how only the foreground/midground will be up-resed. The background will not be dealt with save for the increase in texture size to 16k from 8k. I will use The Foundry's MARI, another 3D program to clean up the textures by literally painting them onto the geometry(that's how it works). The MR PS&S system will be discarded. I don't want this to be a daytime scene so I have no further use for it....sort of. Atmospheric effects such as fog will be added as well, replacing the Visibility Distance tweak that I added. Trees and all sorts of flora will be added to give the world a sense of scale. Right now its pretty hard to judge the scale of the scene. It's actually quite big but the lack of smaller objects (save for the whackass rocks (that I will be removing later)) brings it down. As for the special someone, it's a 3d model I've been working on.....well, STILL working on. I won't reveal anything else on her (there, a freebie, that's it!).

     

    Oh, here's a little extra from my files. This is a screen capture of the shading tree that I created just for the terrain (the one on the right image above):

     

    Shading_Network_Terrain.jpg

  3. WORK IN PROGRESS!!

    Quantum V: New Horizons

     

    new_horizons_wip_chapter_01_by_jael_x-d7

     

    From my DeviantArt description:

     

    "As promised, I have been working on New Horizons from last month up until today. While I didn't include the progress from May 26 (the start date), I'd thought it be fitting to show where I am right now in the pipeline.

    The left image shows the scenery, which was created using USGS Satellite Data of the Horseshoe Bend in Arizona - using Global Mapper to change the data to two TIFF files (one for Orthoimagery and one for Elevation) - - which were then scaled down to 8192 x 4096 px (as Maya can only use up to 8k) within Photoshop. After some other modifications the two 8k TIFFs were sent to Maya to be used as a diffuse map and displacement map respectively. -

    I then quickly created a simple bump map with Filter Forge inside of Photoshop and connected all 3 maps to an MIA_Material_X shader inside of Maya (as I am using Mental Ray for this). A Physical Sun & Sky was set up. The Exposure Simple node connected to the camera was then swapped for an Exposure Photographic Node, which allowed the camera to be tweaked much more. I rechecked everything, including making sure everything was in linear workflow mode and then I rendered the scene, which is shown on the left.

    As for the right image, this shows the scene after I went back into Photoshop and removed all the shadows from the original map, which was resized from 49k to 32k . An Unsharp Mask was then added to well....sharpen it up. I then saved this 32k map (for later use, see below) and I also resized it to 8k x 4k. I then reconnected the diffuse to this new map, moved the Sun's position a little lower and then re-rendered, which gave me the image on the right.

    Right now I'm working on Look Dev (the text above explains the process). I'm trying to hammer down the overall feeling and look of the terrain. There is still much left to be done though.


    On my to-do list:

    - Visibility Distance MEL script addition
    -Reflection and lighting ratio tweaks
    -Color Correction
    -Swapping out the bump map for a more concrete and more solid looking map
    -Changing the 8k map to the 32k by splitting up the 32k into 8 8k maps. These will then be applied to the geometry via a layered texture.
    -Changes to the Physical Sun & Sky (swapping out the actual sky for an image but leaving the lighting intact + other stuff)
    -Gloss map

    And that will complete 1/2 of New Horizons. The next Work-in-Progress Chapter will detail all that I will do for the last half."

     

     

    So yeah, I'm not even 1/2 there yet with this one. At least 1/4. lol.

  4. Sugoi!~ I'm not quite sure what I'm looking out, but that's probably a tribute to how complicated it is.

     

    A little curious, what did you find wrong with this step? Just because to my eyes it looks pretty solid!

    14394635212_0fba2d32b2_o.jpg

     

    Well the thing is. I could add as much detail as I want but that's not a guarantee that those details will appear in the 3D model. This painting however already has enough detail to get me started, so there really isn't anything wrong to it. I'd rather just start building it and add details as I go rather than waste time on a concept which I may or may never be satisfied with.

  5. As the title proclaims, this is the area for which I'll be updating over time with regards to the transforming robot I mentioned.


     


     


     


    I'll label everything accordingly to organize things nicely and I'll do my best to explain everything nicely. If need be, I'll do a video screen capture of my work to help explain things better. Maybe I'll even make a voice debut. Who knows.


     


     


    -June 11, 2014


     


    Coming from the concepts I had created, I realized that while painting in details, there was a very high chance that what I created would end up being discarded in the first place.


     


    Here's the painting in question. This is as far as I got before I decided to dump it (the painting, not the design of course)


     


    14394635212_0fba2d32b2_o.jpg


     


    It's pretty large of course. I won't be working on it anymore. From now on I'll experiment with different models as I go (as in constructing them slowly in Maya and them changing anything I need).


     


    To start me on in this new creation path, I customized an existing Armature model within ZBrush 4r6 to my liking. This is labeled Armature_01 as I might make more to suit my needs better. The Armatures will serve as the backbone of the robot. They will define the overall shape and dimensions of the model.


     


    14372877886_975fa28d18_o.jpg


     


    -This image rendered in Arnold. 1920x1920. Simple aiShader applied to the background plane with a metal aiShader applied to the armature. Lighting is provided via IBL (Skydome Light with a HDRI map connected to its color-


     


    Here's a screenshot of the Zbrush file:


     


    14209638397_7eb57cf451_o.jpg


     


    and the subsequent Maya file after a GoZ export:


     


    14209499740_ba6c6901e5_o.jpg


  6. trololololo update time!!!!!


     


     


    Looks like college took me for a wild ride this past semester. I was so caught up with everything that I didn't have the time to craft anything. But now that it's passed, I'd like to demo a new piece I've been working on for a while. Arguably, it's the first of its kind, for me of course. As you may or may not know, I've been relying on Photoshop for my space art, using photomanipulation as my preferred method, although I did dwell on painting a while back. During this semester, I learned alot about Autodesk Maya. To keep things short, Maya has allowed me to bring a level of unpredecented realism to my planets (although I'm still learning so don't expect much right now, teehee). From displacement maps to reverse nodes, the complexity was and still is overwhelming but it allows for a ridiculous amount of customization options when creating something as complex as a planet. There's only so much one can do with a 2D program. Why fake it when you can make it? Yeah.....that one sucked, I'll show my way out....lololol!!


     


    Anywho, the planet relied on 6 spheres to create the surface, atmosphere and clouds. Rendered with Mental Ray at 4k resolution, the spheres were rendered separately and everything was composited in Photoshop, although I am going to be switching to The Foundry's Nuke soon. The background and other elements were added with Photoshop along with other tweaks and fixes.


     


    I'm going to shut up now and let you guys enjoy it.....or not. I'm open to all suggestions and criticisms. I'm still a bit sketchy on compositing so I hope I did a good job. In any case I'll be relying on Autodesk Maya for my scenes for the foreseeable future.


     


    *Note: this image was linked from my DeviantArt.


     


    a_i_maya___skyfire_by_jael_x-d7kprjn.png


  7. I'm not one to hate on animes. Maybe it's because of how things were resolved or things not making sense but so far there's only been two series (I think?) that have really unnerved me to the point of never watching them again.


     


    Ore no Imōto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai


     


    I don't really need to say much about this one. Kuroneko = Best Girl. Gets screwed over. Kirino being an A+ Bitch all the time is too much.


     


    Mahou Sensou aka Magical Warfare


     


    Never have I been so confused and let down by an anime. This was arguably one of Madhouse's worst adaptions ever, IMHO. Hell even the AUTHOR HIMSELF hates the adaption.


  8.  

    Well guys, I was pretty pleased with #3. It really captures that Gundam slickness and stealth like design, not to mention it looks like a good compliment to the Koenigsegg One:1. I'm going for a slick look and this one captured it quite while. I went back and redid the legs a bit and I pulled in some details from the other models. At this point, I can now move on to the next part of the drawing process which is the long, arduous task of roughing in details and pulling in more stuff from the car itself like the wing spoiler and the wheels. From there I'll clean it up and then get it colored, after which I'll finally have a good concept to work the 3D model out of.

     

     

    Now that you have fixed the hands and feet, #3 looks much better. Seems very similar to the machines of Patlabor.

     

     

    I went and checked out Patlabor. You're right, they do look very similar, although the head piece I have in mind will look drastically different....or not, lol. We'll see how this goes.

     

    Not sure if I'm too late, as your post above me seems like you've sorted it out! But anyway, I like #2, #3, #5.

     

    I think 1 and 4 feel a little pudgy to me, and 6's upper body seems to small.

     

    Yeah sorry about that. I wasn't expecting to choose one so quickly but it's one of those "nail it on the first try" moments, although as you can see I went and redid the legs.

     

    I think Robots 2, 3, 5 and 6, are the best

     

    As for having them move as to transform, is the old fasion way of animation and doind it frame by frame, and moving it a little bit at a tame out of those many frames.

     

    Yeah that's pretty much the gist of it, although it's far more complex than that. Unlike the usual hand_drawn/Flash based animations, I'm dealing with 3 dimensions here. Add to that the fact that what appears to be one object transforming is actually TWO things transforming. I'll get into greater detail later on but you can start seeing where stuff like this is hefty to make, from the modeling to rigging to texturing to rendering to compositing. It's not impossible but for a one man team, it's horrifically time consuming.

     

    lemmingllama, on 28 May 2014 - 06:16 AM, said:

    I personally think that robots 1, 2, 4, and 5 are the coolest of the bunch. Although robot 4 is kinda weird, he also has charm :P Anyways, I look forward to more updates.

     

    Thanks. Hopefully I won't disappoint with the results.

     

    Right idc how you pull this off, I want to see the finished product

     

    Maybe you can do one for me

     

    Haha. Thanks. We'll see how this goes. I know it'll be stupidly time consuming but I always wanted to give this type of thing a shot. If all goes well I might just make one for you.

  9. Well guys, I was pretty pleased with #3. It really captures that Gundam slickness and stealth like design, not to mention it looks like a good compliment to the Koenigsegg One:1. I'm going for a slick look and this one captured it quite while. I went back and redid the legs a bit and I pulled in some details from the other models. At this point, I can now move on to the next part of the drawing process which is the long, arduous task of roughing in details and pulling in more stuff from the car itself like the wing spoiler and the wheels. From there I'll clean it up and then get it colored, after which I'll finally have a good concept to work the 3D model out of.


     


    FCB.jpg


  10. This fight just needs to end. It's beyond ridiculous now.

     

    Naruto kind of went down the crapper after Pain revived everyone of Konoha and since then has been all about people who're already dead. This whole "bring back the dead" jutsu stuff is way overpowered especially in the fact there is no downside and the person revived has infinite chakra and their body continually restores itself. It's just way off base and to counter it, everyone gets ridiculously overpowered that it just seems to have ruined the whole atmosphere of the show.

     

    After this arc; I just wish the show would end. I didn't feel like that before, but now I do.

     

    I agree. The whole Edo Tensei thing was blown way out of proportion. I was expecting a little more psychological impact than what I read but it turned out kind of bland. As for the overpowered thing, I guess it's kind of justified since the revived aren't exactly limited to the rules of the living(lol) but even that sounds retarded. For Naruto and the rest, sharing the bijuu's chakra with everyone to counter it was the only option, not to mention the bijuu are entities derived from the Juubi, the original source of chakra. But then Naruto and Sasuke are put in a higher pedestal and then Madara receives another upgrade and so on and so forth and well it got boring actually. I was actually looking forward to something happening to Madara, just to shut him up. Now I wish something else would happen to the rest to put them down or something. I don't even know what I'm saying anymore. This series is hardly about the term NINJA anymore.

    • Like 1
  11. While messing around with Autodesk Maya and Photoshop, I had the random idea of creating a transforming robot. Now you may be wondering just how the heck I'm going to pull this off. Frankly I don't know either (I do actually) but at this point I know enough about Maya to get something nice out of it. It'll take time, I don't know how long but it'll take time. Now I created some blocked-in concepts just as a way to lay down ideas and what not. Obviously I drew inspiration from sources like Gundam and what not, with some being traced over (this was done as practice, and to get some inspiration for other pieces). These were blocked down by a combination of my Bamboo tablet and the Polygonal Lasso Tool, all within Photoshop, and all in about an hour's time. These are just the building blocks of course, concept art to get my brain started. I may add more over the following days and completely disregard these or maybe I'll choose one of these and refine it further. As to what the robot will be transforming into, it's this:

     

    Koenigsegg_One1_Front_02.jpg

     

    Again, at this time I would ask for people not to ask me how I'm going to be pulling this off because it would take WAAAAAYYYY too much time to explain it right now, from Maya to Zbrush, driven keys to render passes, all that good stuff will be dealt at the very end (which I don't even know when it'll be). I'm thinking about possibly having a dual-transforming robot but that's stretching it right now. The following images are the images I created the past hour. Please feel free to give feedback if you wish. These are very crude but that's intentional and is part of the Concept process. Think of it as step Numero Uno (lol) of who knows how many steps.

     

    Concepts.jpg

     

    Concepts_0000_Basic.jpg

     

    Concepts_0001_00_test.jpg

     


    Concepts_0002_Justice_UCAD.jpg

     


    Concepts_0003_LB_EDI.jpg

     


    Concepts_0004_Deathscythe_00.jpg

     


    Concepts_0005_U17.jpg

  12. Great answers everyone.


     


    Koby and Lemming raise good points. A partial retelling of the series. Perhaps a film or two?


     


    And I'm quite neutral on this subject, if that wasn't clear. I like the anime as is but then again, having a new version of it be released wouldn't be bad either.


     


    Then there's the subject of its age like Nintendon't mentioned. In fact, as of April 7th of this month, it is 6 years old. There is also a 6 year gap between the original Full Metal Alchemist and FMA: Brotherhood, although I don't think this has anything to do with it getting a reboot of any kind.


  13. Now, before you say this or that, hear me out.


     


    As a fan of the manga, I have to say I was somewhat let down at the ending. I won't spoil it, for those who haven't read it yet (I already did once(not the ending, but an important scene in the manga); not one of my brightest decisions, anywho...)


     


    That's not to say I didn't enjoy it, in fact I loved it. I loved all the characters, their development, the events and everything else in between. But I felt that with what happened at the end, a piece of the story will never be known....unless if by some miraculous chance there will be a Soul Eater 2.


     


    This is where I turn to the anime. The anime, at least for me, had a more complete conclusion. Granted, it was nowhere close with what the manga had but you get my point. The conflict was resolved. What happened afterwards (like any other anime/manga/light novel) was left to fan interpretation.


     


    With the news that the spin-off manga, Soul Eater Not!, had received an anime adaption, many people on the interwebs began to talk about a reboot of the Soul Eater anime. Why? well, people wanted a more faithful adaption (at least, that's what I've heard) along the lines of FMA: Brotherhood. Heck, people even started talking about a Soul Eater: Brotherhood anime. Given what BONES had done with Full Metal Alchemist, most people have told me, why not? They should reanimate it.


     


    My question is, should they? What for?


     


    For me, I like the anime as is. I fear that if a faithful reboot a la Brotherhood(I know it sounds weird but it fits) style were to be green-lighted, that new conclusion would be....strange. If you've read the manga to the end, you know what I'm talking about. Of course, there's always the chance that BONES could change things. On the other hand, I would love to see the other elements that the manga has that the anime never had. So there's a balance right there, of sorts. And so, I want to hear your guys' opinions. And let's be serious about this. What do you personally think about this. Who knows, it may or may never come to pass, but if it did, would it be worth it? necessary even?


     


    It may be a sore topic for some but right now this subject deserves some serious discussion from the fans.


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