Pin-up girl

Hi this is my latest work that I've done. Basemesh with zsphere in zbrush. Posed and textured in zbrush and photoshop.  Image rendered in mental ray and  composited in Photoshop. Hope you like it. It took me a couple of month in spare times. Ive rushed a lot on the hair because I wanted to use solution like hair farm and hair fur but it didnt work well for me on this project because I wanted a particular style. Ive modeled the hair and came out with this style. The skin is done with sss fast skin in 3ds max. thanks, comments are welcome!

Gladiator

Heavy built gladiator in a power stance. Sculpt in zbrush. Textured in both zbrush and photoshop. Rendered in mental ray 3ds max.

almost finish!

Somehow I manage to do a nice render last night. However talking with a friend about the trouble Ive got regarding rigging and skinning he offer me to take a look at it. I had trouble with the hand and was not able to close them properly and he see why. Also I had trouble with the legs and he found that it was because the clavicul was to much on the side of the legs... These are all stuff that I don't know to much about, at my former studio I was the one modelling the character and he with another guy were the one rigging and skinning so they have much experience in that than me. But it is okay everyone may specialized in wich they like the most.. I understand tought that I may have to do it properly in a next company and it sad when you are not able to put in a nice pose your own character...




My friend specialized himself in animation and he is very good at it. He is also a very good technical guy and a good 3d artist. Go see his portfolio ---->




http://pierre-luclacroix.blogspot.com/



So this is what it look so far, all textured except for the eyes I kept them for the end. It is not the definitive stance. My friend offers me to do me a nice rigging and I will have to redo the skinning. In definitive I don't think I'm gonna finish it before 5 o'clock, but it will be for the good as the result will be better.





I kinda like the lighting but I will work that a little bit much. I want to add some reddish and more blue color to it... I will also boost a little bit more mental ray as it is at a low setting now. When Ill finish it I will post it on zbrush central and on cgtalk, so you will be please to put some comments and crits as usual! :O)


Sam the 3d blogger
www.the3dblogger.blogspot.com

Mental Ray Or Vray??

Humm,,, a fellow twitter friend ask me which renderer I use and which one I prefer? Personally I use mental ray and the default scanline renderer in max. I think both could give good result. Take a look at these two image. The first is a mental ray generated image and the second a render done with the default scanline renderer.

Both images are interesting. Some may prefer the mental ray one and other the scanline. Personally I prefer the mental ray one. I think it kinda give that clean and photo realistic look to the picture. I remember when Ive finish this picture people at work prefer the right one (the scanline one) They said the image as more personality to it. I think you can achieve great result in scanline, you can even fake global illumination but it is more difficult to get that pelicular effect as in mental ray. You really got to work the light and the shadows to do it. Here is a picture that I'm proud of entirely done in scanline.

But enough talking about my work. Is v-ray good? Of what I heard it is more easier to get a photo realistic image with v-ray. Some even say it work better and that it is more easy to set a good render than with mental ray. I may not tell it myself but it is the subject to this post. I want to know which renderer you use and why. I'm planning to use v-ray as it have a really good reputation but doesn't it worth the purchase or may I continue with mental ray?

here is a link to a forum on it but I want to hear from you here to get some action! :

http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/8300-mental-ray-vs-vray.html

a link where you can download a demo version v-ray:

http://www.digimation.com/home/Downloads.aspx?sm=vr


Sam The 3d Blogger
www.the3dblogger.blogspot.com

Good Sunday Morning!

Hi everyone! Just a little word to takes everybody who follow me directly or by rss. I'm about to reach the 1000 page impressions since a start this blog. I am pretty happy of it, that show it is beginning to grow! The week-end I'm never to much into 3d arts but this week Ill try to write a good article by day so you can enjoy it more.




Right now on the Nick 3d Project except for little things to correct and the belt to do in zbrush, I'm almost done with the sculpting. Next stage will be to generate the normal map for all the pieces and maybe reexport all the low subdivision in 3ds max if needed. Originally I planned to use the original meshes of 3ds max but I don't know yet if the mesh is not to different now... I should have use the store morph target button. In this way he should have remain the same. What happen with zbrush is that if you subdivide the mesh and you got the smooth button on the way the algorithm works is that it smooth also the first subdivision. The result is that when you came back in example from the 6Th level to the first it kinda smooth the mesh in reverse to... Don't know really why but it is what it do. So Zbrush have now the store morph target... If any have question on how Ive modelled some details please feel free to ask. Ill may do a small tutorial or video to show how I do it this week.





Here is an other project that Ive done in November 2007. It is a warhammer priest. Ive done it with a reference sketch that Ive found on the warhammeronline site. It is the first model that I heavily use Zbrush to put detail on the mesh. I kinda use the same technique as for the Nick 3d project. I used separated piece so I could put more detail in each one and each pieces have their own texture. Also As I'm not so good at rigging it is easier in this way to put it in a cool stance. However at this time I was using Maya and my computer doesn't want to generate the render for the character because it was to heavy so I manage to put all the pieces together in Zbrush and do a Zbrush render. Now I'm using 3ds max and the normal map seems to work better and easier in 3ds max for me so I will be able to do a nice render in mental ray.


So that's it for now I may send you some update this afternoon on the Nick 3d project. Stay tune and thanks again for the following!


Sam The 3d Blogger
www.the3dblogger.blogspot.com