Shading Opinions

[MatrixNAN]

Hey Guys,

Well several people have been asking me what has been going on with Cyber Fight Animation. Well I have been creating rigs, modeling a second character and working on the shading. So I need your help now in deciding which shaders are the best for the new character. An extra thanks goes to the Houdini team at Siggraph for showing me some new tricks that have made shading this character so much easier. Oh and Jens I did as you recommmended about a year ago scale down the characters in the worldship stomach and totally rescripted the fight sequence. Mind you this shading is far from done. I am going to look at the aliens movies to get some ideas for the Talzon shading. He is going to have torn flesh with muscle tissue exposed so that is the more complex shader that I am still working on. Some more considerations might be to add ramps to do color changes from blue, green, yellow, and red on various parts of the groves in the armor skin plating. The Skin has displacement scales on his skin that is not shown here. Sorry but I am still making the selections and they are very detailed and tend to take some real time to do.

Orginal WorldShip Displacement Shader:

Full Sized Orignal Image

Possible alternate for the WorldShip:

New Shading for the Other Character that I am calling a Talzon

More Shots of the character to get the basic Idea and look of the Character:

Go to my website if you want to see the Modeling Process of this Second Character.

Nate Nesler's Website

Still Images Section

Cheers,

Nate Nesler

P.S. Please don't forget to Vote for the original Line styled Displacement or the tree bark moss style displacement.

[aracid]

hey MatrixNAN

i would pretty much go for the first one, the picture on the html doesnt do justice compared to the full res version.

maybe u can post a link like u did for the first one, for the second image-- would like too see what that looks like

i especially like the complex world/background, quiet a stylalized wireframe look to it, pretty cool,

as for the tubes, i would try to sugest more depth, or dimension to them, cause the world looks awesome, just not big and i think its their fault.

nyways, theres my 15 cents and would love to see more

all the best

aracid

[MatrixNAN]

Hey Aracid,

I am sorry to say that I can not make a larger picture than 640x480 because I do not have a fully licensed copy of Houdini. I only had one for about a month in which I was able to generate that image so I wish I could because yeah alot more details come out in that resolution. Hopefully I will be able to buy a copy and render out to 14400 res for 48 inch print someday. That would be awesome. That character was oversized in the large image and has been scaled down along with the Talzon character. I think I am going to go with the orginal shader after doing some more test renders unless someone can convince me otherwise. I do like the tree bark moss shader up close but not at a distance and I feel like alot of the geometry ends up getting lost. Also the original displacement shader seems to have more of the same artisitic feel that the talzon character has and he is suppose to be native of that WorldShip. It has a more steril rigid feel to it much like the Talzon character. The characters are now nothing but about a 10,000th the size of the worldship stomach. I have rendered shots to show just how massive the place is.

Mossy Tree Bark Displacement Shader:

The Original Line Displacement Shader with the Character in it:

Cheers,

Nate Nesler

P.S. Thanks for your comments and inputs!

[MatrixNAN]

Hey Guys,

Ok well actually that tree bark shader just needed to have the displacement bound turned up but it seems to need to be turned up alot. I can not seem to bake the shaders for Polygons unless someone can tell me how. So my render times are climbing fast since I had to start using the Displacement Bound setting in the Object Render Tab. My character needs it desperately but the render times are climbing really fast. So does anyone know of any tricks to keep the render computations down when it involves displacement bounds? I have done so much optimizing for rendering and yet I need to do more. I really wish I could bake the Poly Shaders. Or if anyone knows how to convert the polys to smooth Nurbs or bezier surfaces that would work too because that would speed up my calculations on the worldship, and I could bake the shaders for all of the characters and worldship.

Cheers,

Nate Nesler

[MatrixNAN]

Hey Guys,

  Ok well actually that tree bark shader just needed to have the displacement bound turned up but it seems to need to be turned up alot.  I can not seem to bake the shaders for Polygons unless someone can tell me how.  So my render times are climbing fast since I had to start using the Displacement Bound setting in the Object Render Tab.  My character needs it desperately but the render times are climbing really fast.  So does anyone know of any tricks to keep the render computations down when it involves displacement bounds?      I have done so much optimizing for rendering and yet I need to do more.  I really wish I could bake the Poly Shaders.  Or if anyone knows how to convert the polys to smooth Nurbs or bezier surfaces that would work too because that would speed up my calculations on the worldship, and I could bake the shaders for all of the characters and worldship. 

Cheers,

Nate Nesler 

13595[/snapback]

Hey Guys,

Ok I am going to answer my own question. lol If you subdivide on a low poly character after your selections are made on the low poly with the geometery set to render polys as subds you will eleminate alot of the displacement bound issues at a much faster render time.

Cheers,

Nate Nesler