Getting into the mood for my cruise to the carribean this week i decided to get the latest cvs and started blending - of course inspired by my favorite cartoonist VenomGFX (www.venomgfx.com.ar). I made the sequel to my InCh WoRm image called SeA SnAiL. I’ll be posting it in my gallery soon but haven’t quite finished it up … a little more detail to the shell and materials is still needed.
The bads are basically that I haven’t refined the plant life and haven’t added any detail to the sand and surroundings. Also the guy isn’t rigged yet so his pose is sort of stiff but I’ll loosen that up some more when I get back. I’m thinking of adding some hair to him but haven’t decided. Another point is that he needs to have a better mouth which I’ll work on some more when I get back as well…
The shell looks funny the way it sits on top of the snail. It looks kinda like it was just dumped on the poor guy’s back.
Also the iris on the eye may be a little too big compared to the rest of the body. But since it is a cartoon, I guess proportion is of less importance.
The work has a great feeling to it, much like Pixar. The surrounding gives it a good feeling. I agree about the shell… it doesn’t seem like it’s on him. Also, the eye doesn’t seem to be in. It looks like it’s glued on or something. Other than that, great mood. I’d really like to catch up with you. It’s been a while and I thought you were gone. It’s great to talk to you again.
your background setting is great, no crits their.
i would however suggest a few things for your character.
i would make eyelids so his eye dosnt look like its bulging, or going to fall out.
second i would position the shell differently and make a visable opening so he dosnt look like he just has a shell resting on top of him. at the moment he looks a akward.
hope you dont mind but i added a few of these ideas to your photo
I got a question for you, how did you make the background, lighting and caustics? I am also working on an underwater scene/animation. My only crit is that the plants that you currently have look like beard hair. I would change the color of the plants and shape of them. If you can indicitate surge and swell in your picture via plant movement, I think it will help with the emersiveness (my made up word of the day) of the scene.
Uhh…guys, IT’S A SNAIL, not a snake or a human. Do snails have teeth? No. Do they have bones? No. And as for the shell change, I don’t think it’s necessary either, but it would be nice to see more shadow coming from the true opening of the shell, which would not look like the sketch posted. Overall I like the original image a lot.
I just got back from a week long cruise to Costa Maya, Belize, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel and I went snorkeling and diving alot and took lots of pictures underwater - I’ll see if I can break out the scanner and share them - I didn’t get a chance to take a picture of a real sea snail but I did get lot’s of images of coral and seaweed as well as underwater lighting and caustics so I’ll be working on this image some more to improve the over all look. I’ll be updating the eye to include eyelids, adding depth to the shell to make it look more realistic as well as another bump map for the radial Mother of Pearl color lustra, I also want to add a color map to the sea snail body to make him look younger and cuter by adding spots to his head like freckels… it’ll be a good UV reminder… I also plan on rigging him and updating the surroundings to make them both more realistic and more cartoony. After seeing the effects underwater I think that I’ll also use SubSurface Scattering (SSS) to make everything sort of glow - similiar to how they did it in the hit “Finding Nemo”! Maybe a little PP wouldn’t hurt either - although I’m a lover of pure Blender!
Now to your comments:
I agree that the lack of a shadow on the actual body is decieving but actually it is completely realistic - the body of the snail goes up into the shell! The position is probably a little decieving - i’ll fix that and maybe add some depth to the shell to make it more believeable!
Hey Daniel! It has been a long time… I’m glad to see you are still around! I’ve always been around, I think that like alot of the older ones, we tend to stay in the background some plus i’ve been too busy with work and the studio to really post anything worth wild! Still… nice to hear from you!
The work has a great feeling to it, much like Pixar. The surrounding gives it a good feeling. I agree about the shell… it doesn’t seem like it’s on him. Also, the eye doesn’t seem to be in. It looks like it’s glued on or something. Other than that, great mood. I’d really like to catch up with you. It’s been a while and I thought you were gone. It’s great to talk to you again.
Thanks - it’s the classic Pixar eye so I can’t really take credit for anything special - just a bland little emit map for some sparkle. I agree however that it doesn’t look really in the socket so I’ll add some eyelids!
Thanks - underwater images are my favorites so I like to spend time getting the mood just right… I’m still tweaking it…
i would make eyelids so his eye dosnt look like its bulging, or going to fall out.
second i would position the shell differently and make a visable opening so he dosnt look like he
just has a shell resting on top of him. at the moment he looks a akward.
noted…
Agreed - i need to make the outh better but i don’t think i’ll add teeth maybe something like hard gums… I’ll have to work on it - character modelling is my worst attribute but maybe i’ll get something to work!
Cheekbones are really already there it is just that there is no pose or rigging so they aren’t really visible! I’ll pose him when I get it rigged…
thanks! no snake though… unless of course it is a SeA SnAkE!
So how did you create the caustic effect? I would like to have that for my fish scene. SSS slows rendering down so watch how much you use it, ramps can get similar effects.
Womball: I’ve used SSS many times before - it doesn’t actually increase render times unless used inappropriately - the secret to using it is to remove the lights and only keep the shadows - some extra ambient lights are ok but the highlights should be removed. Still thanks for reminding me!
I’m also already using ramps so it turned out that I didn’t need the SSS afterall as you can see in the update:
You can check it out in my gallery too link and link
As far as the caustics - the first image used a voronoi texture mapped to each light and to the water and the lights were carefully positioned as to not overlap caustics too much - the results on the uneven terrain produce those results. If you keep the texture as black and white it works great. In the second image i swapped out with a more realistic however more costly texture. The blue and white and shades of colors require more tweaking but the results are better IMO.
I didn’t add volumetric lighting in the second image but I did add some DOF. I also didn’t get around to the shell or the rigging maybe I’ll get to that next…
So basically you use a low scatter value, and high intensity lights? Your scene looks much better! My only crit is that your snail still seems to be floating above and not really on the sand. You said your using water as well? How would liquid dynamics work for this type of scene? Does it effect the plants causing surge and swell?
Well, like i said originally, I haven’t rigged the body yet and when I do he’ll be more contoured to the sand making him look more anchored. I’ll also consider deforming the sand around him to compensate. More coral and plant life will be added with a star fish, sand dollar or something else in the background…
As far as the water - all I meant by that was a water mesh with waves on it and bump maps and alpha textures - not water as in the water physics - I’d only use that if I wanted to play with true caustics and that would be by way of Yafray. It’s an interesting idea but I don’t think that the fluid system has a swell effect yet either. I’m currently using wind and shape curves.
Well, I’ll probably be flamed for destroying style here, but I think the snail could use a bump map so it doesn’t look quite so CG (it might fit the environment better). It’s a really great image, though. I like it!
The second image gives a lot more underwater feel. I would let some particles fly though the water.
I once tried to recreate the effect seen in Finding Nemo. I used a few particle emitters and used a small plane with alpha texture that constantly rotated as emitted object. The result was pretty good and I think you scene would benefit from it.
Thanks for all of the positive comments and good criticism! I haven’t found much time to improve the character but I hope to eventually - my goal is to eventually make a really good underwater reef - similiar to Finding Nemo’s - but I don’t have a couple million dollar budget!
unless of course it is a SeA SnAkE!
