I'm so proud...

Artwork Works in Progress
#1

Hi guys :slight_smile:

I’m a complete newbie and am slowly working my way through the tutorials. Finding this quite hard because Blender 2.40 seems to be quite drastically different from the version(s) the tutorials were written with. (Took me 2 days to find the SubSurf command!!! ARGHHH !)

But having just completed the Octopuss model tutorial I wanted to share my minor additions to it, because I’m just so proud of myself :smiley:

Please do C&C it, I want to make a whole little Nemo scene :slight_smile: But if you could explain How / Where to implement any suggestions, rather than just ‘Add a radiosity whizzbanger with Zbuffer overcast’ that would be muchly appreciated - otherwise I won’t know how to do anything you suggest !!

PS. Since this render I’ve done the SetSmooth command and increased SubSurf to render at 3 Levels, so it’s all looking a lot smoother.

Many thanks :slight_smile:

http://photobucket.com/albums/f133/esvcv/oct.jpg

#2

I can’t see the picture.

#3

sorry about that, not sure what’s going on, but a direct link to the Pic is at:

http://www32.brinkster.com/esvcv001/photos/oct.jpg

#4

Hmmmmm…

HTTP1.1 STATUS 403 Remote Access to this object forbidden This file cannot be directly accessed from a remote site, but must be linked through the Brinkster Member’s site.

Try www.imageshack.us or www.photobucket.com - you seem to be having problems!

#5

thanks, i’ll try one of those two… but if you copy the link and paste it into a web browser directly i think that might work :frowning:

#6

Oh yeah! (Durrr! :smiley: )
Sorry 'bout that.

Very nice, a rather cheeky-looking chap if I may say so.
In terms of crit, obviously it looks a little empty at the moment, but as you said you may be doing a whole scene anyway.
Try adding a little more interest to the texturing of the octopus and plant - just something like clouds or Voronoi mapped to Nor rather than Col, just to give it less of a plastic feel.
Also, try changing the Specularity value of the oct and plant, as they seem to be at the standard Blender setting, which is always very plastic!
(Handy hint - you can always improve your models and scenes (at least in the eyes of someone else) drastically by changing the model colour, sky colour and spec - Blenderers get sick of that plastic grey and dark blue! :smiley: )
May I ask what method you used for the seafloor - is it textured or modelled?

#7

thanks Xarton :slight_smile:

i’ve created an account with that Photobucket place and updated the link in my original post - is that working now ??

thanks for the suggestions ! i’ll try that Nor / Col thing and the Spec values etc :slight_smile:

the floor is a mixture of stuff. i used the Subdivide Fractal command on a Plane to make a terrain and then added a Veroni (??) texture and then a Noise texture (I was a bit chuffed at the result, Veroni was the first in the list that i tried and it was just perfect, !!)

i’ll do some more work and post again asap.

ps. thanks very much for the Photobucket link !

#8

Interesting, and nice for a beginner project. One of the big things that can make scenes better is a smattering of random, small, uninportant junk. Little rocks, bits of seawead, that kind of thing. Also, I guess you could make your seaweed with a texture mapped to Alpha, which would save you modelling it I guess, but might only work if its a ways from the camera.

Nice work, and keep Blending!

XrQLz :wink:

#9

Thanks XrQLz :smiley:

good plan about the rocks and stuff, i’ll definitely try that !

i was also toying with the idea of using some kind of Static Particle to create a mass of reeds of something ??

errrr… what do you mean by ‘map to Alpha’ please ?? i thought the Alpha bit was to do with transparency ? i did try fiddling with that, enabling the Zbuffer things in the other tab for it to take effect. but i didn’t like the results much. had to set the Alpha thing to at least 0.7 before you realised it was even transparent, but because there’s nothing behind it (yet) it was just a bit dull.

maybe will look better when i’ve put your rocks and stuff in :slight_smile:

#10

I think the static particle thing’s a good idea and would look very effective, as long as it stayed in the toon style.

What zrqlz meant about alpha was the following:
If you have a picture of seaweed that you made, say in the GIMP, and had saved it as a PNG file with the parts that weren’t seaweed as transparency, you could then apply this image as a texture to a plane. Then:
Turn on UseAlpha in the texture settings
Turn on Col and Alpha under the ‘Map To’ settings.
Turn the alpha of the material itself all the way down to 0.
Give it a try - obviously, you don’t have to use it for this, but it’s a very useful technique to learn anyway.

#11

that’s a bit sneeky isn’t it !! thanks for the translation Xarton :slight_smile:

i’m actually a bit rubbish at creating ‘normal’ pictures in normal photo-editing packages, so doubt any seaweed i tried to make would look anything like what it’s supposed to…

but i can see the potential of the operation and so will definitely give it a shot, even if, as you say, it’s just to learn the process :slight_smile:

i desperately want to get off home and continue playing around with it now !! pfft - another 3 hours of work to go i guess :frowning:

#12

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f133/esvcv/oct4.png

Ok, so the mist effect which is a rather dull Blue / Grey in this image is supposed to be 2 shades of Blue. And it rendered as such, but just doesn’t appear to have been saved correctly :frowning: It’s a .PNG file, but I think the PhotoBucket website has fiddled with the picture a little. Anyway - you get the idea :slight_smile:

So I tried to add a Static Particle system, but it was a resoundingly dismal and in fact laughable failure. Any tips (read as: full and details instructions) on where to begin with that, please feel free !

My next idea was maybe to add a Pirates Treasure Chest somewhere in the background, and maybe a ‘message in a bottle’ ? What do you think ?

#13

Sounds like a good idea - it’ll liven it up a bit!

In terms of static particles, I think Nico just posted a link to a Flash tutorial he made about grass using static particles - have a search for it.

#14

awesome, thank you, i’ll investigate :slight_smile:

#15

Ok, nice work, this is really coming along. I think the next step should be the seaweed (IMHO). If you’re planning more detailed weeds, you can make them into particles, having them be emmited from a copy of part of the sandy bottom. Make sure you leave the ‘Mesh’ option off on this one, because you won’t want a big mass of green stuff as the floor. So, you can apply a force to the particle system to move the seaweed, so it would look like there was a current or something. I’ve just done some grass, so I hope I know what I’m talking about. Make the ends of the strands narrower, and then make it green. Play around with the forces and stuff until you like the look.

#16

thanks xrqlz,

i definitely want to add particles as you’ve described, and had a go at this last night, but after endless confused fiddling the best i could get was a mass of straight black lines.

Xarton suggested i do a search for a new particle tutorial that’s been posted recently, so i’ll do that and see how i get on, but if i get stuck maybe you could give me some pointers ???

i’m using Blender 2.40, so some of the buttons are re-lablled or hiding in slightly different areas, which is slowing me down somewhat when it comes to following some of the tutorials :o

#17

http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/6712/oct55su.png

I’m not convinced myself, what do you think ?

#18

nice work with the particles! When I do grass it’s usually thinner than that, but I like the look of the seaweed! If you haven’t already, put a clouds texture or something on the seeweed, and map it to color, with a slightly darker or lighter shade (to make it look a little more varied). Also, you might want to make the seaweed spread around more, not just in that little circle (although both ways are fine) Everything seems right on in this image, I wouldn’t do much more to it.

GOOD WORK!!!

XrQLz :wink:

#19

Instead of a chest you can make a pirate ship wreck. They are much more fun to do. I think your image is pretty good. But you should change the texture for the octopus so it will be more red. Here you can find a pic of an octopus http://fusionanomaly.net/octopus.jpg

#20

thanks guys :slight_smile:

i don’t think i’m quite up for a pirate ship-wreck yet !! but will def bare it in mind for a future project :slight_smile:

i think i’m done with this one now, and have started work on something else. will post again for c&c in a different thread when ready.

thanks for all your help and suggestions !