Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Project 144: Save an animal

One of the great things about freelancing is the fact is the wide variety of work.
I finish the modelling and texturing for this dutch TV commercial about a hotline for the public to report urgent cases of animal abuse.The time frame given was 2 weeks production for modelling and texturing 3 animals.

Video Update:



The concept is to make this distorted looking animal appear as real animal in this case a horse. While the camera get closer we start to notice the animal is shaped in the numer 144.

Mudbox layered texturing breakdown of the 144 horse. (Click below for a larger version)

The client demand a ill-looking animal with anatomical correct body. Which turns out to be quite a challenge. Sculpted in Dynamesh.


Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Picasa 3 Sync to Web = disaster

Yesterday I was looking for a new way to publish and manage my collection of blog pictures. So i gave free Picasa 3 a try. However after using the "sync to web" features that will basicly sync your blogger account pictures to local drive and vice versa. But the problem is that it can change the status of your webalbum. Suddenly all the links to my blogspot are gone. I was so upset.Looking for answer at google forum and found out that google+ has the same bug:

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Picasa/thread?tid=187a486b42253bd0&hl=en

Fortunately I can recover this by making my album public again in the album settings within PicasaWeb. Wish I could finish fur and hair on Maxime. But duty is calling and I'm gonna visit my old employer office for a commercial shoot. Hope I can find some time to work on Maxime in 2012.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Maxime, A likeness study

Suit Modelling & Texturing

Adding some final details like Peach-fuzz and facial hairs. Subtle but really enhance it. I still need to find a way to make old and dead skin pealing away from the subdermal layer. B/W version still looks the best so far.






Suit modelling and minor skintone tweaks adding moles and some lips enhancement


EyeBrow

Almost done here. Added little specularity. I really like distribution of the browhair. From higher density to more low. Maya hair was used here .Controled by NURBS guide curves.



Compositing in Photoshop

Lensblur is a new photoshop plugins that allows you to do Zblur in a more physical correct way then before possible in photoshop. See here two quick Lensblur:



All you need is a Z-depth image from you favorite renderer. In this case Vray.
I did manually increase the contrast to get a better fall off and feedback. Of course it will replace production quality software renders. But still a good preview.




Hair combing WIP

It's quite a tedious job since I don't have Shave & Haircut to do the job. In order to get total controle I can't avoid placing over 200 guide curves.















Shading ,Lighting.

Adding glasses redness to eyeball. Tearlines. Minor tweaks to mouth and ears.
Changed lighting to see how skin reacts. GI enabled.






Eyeball texturing

Some say eye is the window to the soul and that's why its important to
have a realistic eye. No matter how good the skin is .The eye has to work and
match the skintones. Handpainted in 4K.





BW croptest



Texturing Day 3 :

Balance of the skin looks really good so far. I decrease the normalmaps strenght.
Added a highfrequentie detail to the normal maps that will breaks the specular highlights more into a more diffuse and realistic skinreflections. Next step is
texture and shade the eyes. I've been using my old setup so far which is a procedural eye made with ramptextures.





Texturing Day 2 :

Texturing the subdermal layer is much more complicated then texturing hard surface.
You really need a good lightsetup and determine the right thickness for your SSS.
Really like the overal skintones. Need to tighten up the details like pores and irregular veins and add pimples later.




Texturing Day 1 :

Texturing in Mudbox in a non destructive way. Nothing is collapsed. Even though
the skintones looks very immature. It does represent some of the hues and tones I found on the orginal photograph.Check out the mudbox screenshot.





Some shader setup.. and preparing for texturing. Vray Fast SS2 proven to be fast and accurate.




I like to work on simultaneously on model and texturing. I think they shouldn't be treated like separated task. So before I finalize my wrinkles and details. I always put some basic skin diffuse colors to work in context. Zbrush 4 Skin shader really looks amazing.



In order to achieve a better model and for texturing sake. A new topology is required. DynaMesh creates nice quads for sculpting but not suitable for animation.
Although I only gonna render it from the front view. I model a complete head for hair growing. No politician are being hurt during production :p



Using Spotlight module in Zbrush to create some textures for this face.
Even as a bald model it start to looks like him. I'm happy about the likeness.



By changing the model opacity and using an imageplane. A quick texture look is a piece of cake.



Side by side comparison of the actual photograph that I try to match.



Maxime Verhagen is a Dutch politician in the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) party
One of the hardest thing to do for a sculptor is to capture a likeness of the real model. I'm trying to model a buste using a few photographs I found online.



Thursday, November 17, 2011

Yeti Poster project


Working on a new Film poster project for an independent movie maker.
A photoshop quick mockup using photographs.



Bit lack of contrast..but the snowshader start to get that velvet dusty look:




Some Ice shader test.Using the MR subsurface shader I can archieve a deep bluish vibrant look. Still need to texture the whole thing



Building props and Ice sculptures




Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Monk WIP V3



While surfing the web looking for rock reference . I found this amazing photo. I think this is the kind of environment I would like to see my monk meditate.



Start to block in some rockformation. It start to look the way I have in my head.
It's quite a challenge to model the rocks.Some polypaint makes a huge difference. I prefer to work with colors after blocking is done.



Friday, November 4, 2011

Christopher Stratos

Just received a skull resin from the talented sculptor Christopher Stratos.
Amazing detail and very handy as reference for head modelling.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Zbrush 4 doodling (Meditating Monk)

Adding clothing to the monk. Pure blocking. Try to find a balance between realistic monk cloth and fantasy clothing.











Thursday, July 28, 2011

Freelancing

Sorry guys..no time to update my blog. After 10 years working in games,postproduction and film . It's time to start my own business. I'm available for freelance work from August 2011. I hope I can post some work in progress of some ongoing project the next time.

Friday, June 10, 2011

Far from Fong exhibition





1I'm invited to be part of a exhibition about Chinese/dutch artist who got inspired by Fong Leng.I've worked one month on a video projection which I call "Four Seasons" Which visualize the dutch season in clothing and weather condition using
computer rendering techniques. Come to "Het Gemaal" and check out.

starting from 09/06/2011 to 27/08/2011


opening of Exhibition Far From Fong
- Exhibition design / Tangram Dining / Mungbean Couch made by Dada

9 juni t/m 27 augustus 2011
Opening: donderdag 9 juni, 20.00uur

Fenmei Hu, Khitan, Erwin Kho, Fong-Leng, Kwannie Tang, Zhen Tian en Dada Wang.

TENT/CBK presents in South Rotterdam project space Het Gemaal op Zuid topical work by young Chinese-Dutch artists. How do these fashion designers, illustrators, artists and designers deal with their cultural background?

The legendary fashion designer Fong-Leng was born almost seventy years ago in ‘de Kaap’ (Katendrecht, Rotterdam) to Chinese-Dutch parents. She became world-famous for a spectacular series of coats and dresses in which oriental techniques and motifs were combined into a totally stylish look for the Dutch beau monde at that time. Now, forty years later, a new generation of artists are creating a distinct profile for themselves and, in the spirit of Fong-Leng, are drawing on their cultural roots to sketch a contemporary image of our society.

In Het Gemaal op Zuid, based around two monumental gowns by Fong-Leng, a podium is offered to six contemporary Chinese-Dutch artists from various disciplines. The exhibition space is designed by interior architect Dada Wang as a mise en scène, a living room setting in which the artists’ works are placed and where Fong-Leng’s dresses function as colourful personages.

Gemaal op Zuid
Pretorialaan 141
3072 EL Rotterdam Zuid
T +31 010 290 7605
www.gemaalopzuid.nl
Wednesday – Saturday
11.00 – 17.00 hrs
Admission is free

Far From Fong came about thanks in part to Programma Cultuurbereik dienst Kunst & Cultuur, Museum Rotterdam, Centrum Beeldende Kunst Rotterdam, School voor Fotografie, Wendelien Daan, Ferry van der Nat and China op de Kaap festival. With special thanks to Fong-Leng.

Het Gemaal op Zuid is an initiative of TENT/CBK, Kosmopolis Rotterdam and Museum Rotterdam and is supported by the Pact op Zuid programme and housing corporation Vestia.