8 Attachment(s)
GRIMM Creatures ("morph" time-lapse video added Pg 3)
Hey everyone I'm finally getting around to posting up some of my character work for the NBC series GRIMM.
I'm a character artist at Hive-FX, based in Portland Oregon. www.hive-fx.com
We've been working on GRIMM from the start and are deep into Season 2 as I post this.
Specializing in the "morphing" that they use quite a bit for the show.
Starting from a basemesh, I first sculpt the actor or actress using provided reference views. The basemesh itself took a few iterations to get right. Due to deadlines, I rarely have the chance to create custom topology per character (Excluding the Dragon below). So I needed a male and a female I could sculpt into anything they threw at me. I'm now able to pretty successfully take human proportions and push them towards the monstrous fairly quickly. So it's essentially two finished Morph Targets per character. Point count and UV's have to stay the same in order for the blend to work. This allows our Animators (Matt Estes & Joel Hasse) to have full control over the morphing in Maya.
I morph them into creatures and monsters on a separate 3D layer. It feels similar to what a Prosthetic makeup artist might go through, except using the power and speed of digital sculpting. I'm usually given a piece of concept art from the very talented Jerad S. Marantz and Constantine Sekeris to work from. But lately the production has been using a lot of prosthetic makeup. So in the case of the Sabertooth I'm working from reference of the prosthetic work used on set. Prosthetic doubles can be tough but I'm usually pretty pleased with how they turn out.
After sculpting the model, it's sent to our Rigging TD (Tim Callaway), Hair artist (Eric Reed), and Surfacing in V-Ray. The textures are usually created by Karim Moussa (CG Lead) in Mari or in ZBrush by myself. It all depends on what the character needs and how much time either of us have. Texturing for me is like the icing on the cake, I love seeing a characters skin qualities come to life so I try and help as much as I can.
32 bit displacement and 4K textures are the usual suspects for getting all the ZBrush details down the pipeline efficiently.
We usually have ~3 weeks per episode, sometimes less, but depending on the volume of shots it can get pretty crazy. Often overlapping episodes simultaneously.
There has been some long nights in the name of GRIMM that's for sure, but I feel really fortunate to get to work with such a cool group of artists all day, doing what I enjoy most.
The last image is a direct result of purchasing Paul Gaboury's book ZBrush Professional Tips and Techniques. The comparison is between SkinShade4 at default with basic lighting on the Left, on the Right is multiple quad-shaders coming together with BPR, Material Blend Radius turned to atleast 15, a studio Lightcap setup built inside of Zbrush without any HDRI sourcing, and finally BPR Filters.
In fact all the images above are straight out of ZBrush 4r3/r4 BPR. Photoshop was only used to frame and bug.
Here's a timelapse I managed to capture of the full morphing process, I just wish I recorded the actor sculpt before hand as well as the Final ZBrush look-dev to get the images above.
Marnissier the Sabertooth assassin is one of my favorite characters to date!
<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/52215591?portrait=0&badge=0" width="1200" height="743" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
A special thanks to the ZBC community!!
This place has allowed me to be a self taught ZBrush artist, constantly growing from the amount of raw awesomeness posted on these boards.
I look forward to the future of this community and the new developments Pixologic is sure to dish out!
When I get some free time again I will post up more renders.
Thanks for watching!
www.hive-fx.com
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Fred Dragon Morphing inside Z4r4
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Etcher
Great sculpts -> thanks so much for taking the time to do the timelapse :cool::tu: did you use the custom topology on the Dragon to morph between human and Dragon (with layers) ? Would be cool to see that morph though :)
Etcher this one's for you dude...
<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/52978946?badge=0" width="1000" height="562" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> Grimm - Dragon Morph from Jerod Bogh on Vimeo.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
StormSinger
Great work, very effective. I really hope the series survives for a while. Thanks for the insights.
Thanks for stopping by StormSinger, you are very welcome!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
pappete
brilliant!! gg for the top row!!
Pappete thank you!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Wetterschneider
Beautiful work, sir. It's creepy, effective and superbly executed. Thanks for posting that comparison shot with the two versions of the saber-tooth face. That was really illuminating. I'm following your lead and checking out that book.
Thank you!! I'm so glad someone found the comparison shot useful....
To this day it's one of my favorite stills to see the raw progression I've made in my understanding of ZBrush.
And the progression in that still in particular is very much due to Paul's awesome book. Check it out you won't be sorry.
I think the Zbrush shading system is very versatile, much more than I previously thought, but it most definitely has room to grow and improve as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
j0linar
Great Stuff!
have to admit that am actually following the series and
now seeing your pictures, rly great work ... keep it up
Thanks that's great to hear!! Glad to have a fan checking out the art.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
makan ansari
Great work! :tu:
Thanks Makan Ansari!
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Originally Posted by
Intervain
cool! Great to see who's behind the stuff. I love that show, one of my favs lately!
Sweet! I'm so glad to have fans checking this stuff out!!
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Originally Posted by
Jester
Great job guys, this is one of my favourite shows on TV...
Thank you thank you! I appreciate you taking the time to stop by and let us know!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
aamirart
waooo fantastic
Thanks!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
cherub_rock
Hey! I was also being tested for that job position, and can now see why I didn't make it - top notch work! Congrats! :tu:
Woah Cherub that's a pretty huge compliment coming from you! Thanks!! I've been following your work for some time now... Keep up the great work and thanks a ton for stopping by!!