The bugs that ate San Francisco....

I posted a piece of concept work ages and ages ago, so long I can’t find the WIP thread it was part of… It’s only in the last week that I’ve got around to doing some work on it…

Basically, it’s inspired by a whole bunch of films I enjoyed over the years… alien/aliens, predator, starship troopers etc etc

I’ve done some base models and would like to use the new volumetrics stuff, but am also investigating external renderers with blender for the first time… it’s like a huge big hole that I’m throwing project time into and getting annoyed that progress is so slow!!!

anyway, here’s some images:
(alien creature modelled in blender, detailed in z-brush)

http://www.cowtoolsmedia.co.uk/assets/bugs/alien.jpg

http://www.cowtoolsmedia.co.uk/assets/bugs/bug6,jpg

The next is a low poly standin rendered in the built in yafray: The floor is untouched… I want to put a lot of detail in and break th eground like an earthquake/war is going on!

(it’s a steep slope in San Fran BTW, in case the perspective looks strange!)
http://www.cowtoolsmedia.co.uk/assets/bugs/yafray.jpg

Same scene in Yafaray…
http://www.cowtoolsmedia.co.uk/assets/bugs/yafaray.jpg

I tried the sunsky thing, which is cool, but not really what I want to be going for…

http://www.cowtoolsmedia.co.uk/assets/bugs/yafsky.jpg

Finally, I started moving some building around wondering how far to go with the quake/destruction thing…

http://www.cowtoolsmedia.co.uk/assets/bugs/quake.jpg

I really must figure out the settings a bit!

I’ve also tried indigo, but found it too picky on my geometry… (I’m using a lot of arrays, duplifaces/verts etc etc… Haven’t got it to work on anything but the most simple stripped back stuff)

I’ve also been trying Vray, which I’m liking the look of, but it seems to give me too much “sky light” and get the sun direction wrong ( probably user error I know)…

I really want to use the "sim physics "branch for the volumetric stuff… WHen I try the patched version with the photon mapping I can only ever get it to output a gradient… ho hum

Next I aim to model the damage and the floor plane in much more detail… I’ll probably get some textures going for the intenal renderer and try yafaray some more… It seems to be the closest to what I need for this shot, though compositing in the volumetrics from sim phys will be another little tech challenge fro me!

That’ sit for now!

i love the set up you have and the creature you got going, nice work on the sculpting too, only crit would be that your building are falling over and getting more destroyed close to the camera but the alien is at eh back of the scene, kinda makes it look like the alien is walking backwards breaking things. just my 2 cents.

peace

I like the first two Yaf(a)ray shots, real old fashioned ‘creature feature’ lighting. You can do some volumetric lighting with Yaf(a)ray too if that is what you intend.

Looks interesting though, I’ll definitely check back later.

That will be a danger here… I’m not fully decided yet on the composition, but it will make sense eventually!

I initially wanted the ground to be massively cracked like a giant fissure straight down the road… like an earthquake with teh bugs creature(s) wriggling out from the ground…

I’m also toying with it breathing gouts of flame or having "lazer beam eyes busting up the road…

another tack I’m toying with is having a “meteor shower” raining down…

I like the first two Yaf(a)ray shots, real old fashioned ‘creature feature’ lighting. You can do some volumetric lighting with Yaf(a)ray too if that is what you intend.

Looks interesting though, I’ll definitely check back later.

Yep, the yafaray shot without “skylight” is the closest to the direction I want to go, perhaps with a “mackerel” sky…

Orgainc, any idea where I could find out about yafaray volumetrics? All I get when searching are the “docs” pages which aren’t written yet…

There actually isn’t much documentation on it yet. The information I know of is here - http://www.yafray.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2033

Very nice modeling , and very intersting creature, but I think the model could be improved. At the moment , everything is too curved and too soft. I would expect more sharp edges from a mean creature like this.

Oooooh that looks uber kewl… maybe you can make like a mother bug in the background that’s like supersized rising from the sea and destroying the GG bridge! Mwahahaha! And the organics roundness looks fine for me… the textures and stuff should actually bring the meaness out of this one.

Heavens to betsy but I’ve gotta pick up the pace in blender so that I too can live out my evil genius dreams. To have my own monsters trampeling suits and chewing on grannies at random. :evilgrin:

Sigh…

New stuff…

Volumetrics are going to be a headache here!

They’re broken in yafaray, being re-written in luxrender…

The sim physics branch of bledner seems overly complex

I looked out my old Lightwave dongle for 8.5 and tried that again… Hypervoxels are cool, but look a little dated for actual lighting… could just be that I’m messing them up…

Looks like I’ll use Luxrender for the heavy lifting… still not sure about how to do the smoke stuff…

Here’s another test render with smoke and clouds sketched in with gimp. Must get on and do the texturing, really!

http://www.cowtoolsmedia.co.uk/assets/VISTARGET2.jpg

Ummmmm SWEET!!

No, but seriously that is awesome, The lighting is really well done as well as the textures.

Nice scene to.

Keep it up

I’m still doing this! (real life keeps getting in the way) still a way to go before finished!

This is done with Luxrender 0.6 rc2. I’m LOVING luxrender, though it still has a few things missing I really want it’s shaping up very nicely…

BTW this is just a “direct lighting” preview render rather than a full solution at this point!

The only post pro is dropping an LDR sky in the background and a resize.

enough blabber, here’s the update:

http://www.cowtoolsmedia.co.uk/assets/bugs/sanfran.jpg

astonishing work… :eek:
the latest image is simply great and it’s a pity blender can yet does such a sculpting work on your model!

Thanks man!

I could probably have done the sculpt in blender, it’s just so much easier in z-brush though!

Must do the displacement maps and textures for the creature and then there’s the particles to do too…

I’m doing another (faster) piece to get a break from this… it feels like I’ve been doing it forever…

But your words of encouragement are good to hear and I’ll be back on it soon!

seeing your previously image, I just thought the scene deserves rain! Please make it rain :slight_smile: the tarmac is already so glossed it seems the next logical step.
why are the cars lateral to the road, to perfect. With that level of chaos the cars would be facing the sides, and steering different directions!
rated :slight_smile:

I want one of those… on a leash! The seem intelligent… are they going to be?

why are the cars lateral to the road, to perfect. With that level of chaos the cars would be facing the sides, and steering different directions

quoted for agreement… and is the car on right in air?? i suggest it should have been on ground… and a bit more broken…

(sorry for missing punctuation etc… just too much used to internet :P)

… those cars are parked, so no steering…

the car on the right is on the ground… I’ve noticed in other peoples renders as well as this one that sometimes shadows below things can be a little weak in Luxrender and make stuff look a little “floaty”

in an animated sequence I think the eye will be drawn to the action so this won’t matter… for a still, I’m no purist, it’s easy to fix in post so I’m not too concerned…

there are still a few elements to be added to this piece, and there a few more shots I’d like to do as variants on this theme… just need to get on with it!

I’m totally creeped out now! Remind me never to move to San Fransico…

Incredible work!! Are you gonna texture your buggy thing?

Hell yes!

Kewl. Can’t wait to see it!

Buildings are awesome! Nicely rendered.
The vehicles looks like being pasted on - kinda weird.