Crits n Grits - the starts of a gallery...hopefully

**mazz423** · 06-13-10

looks amazing, i'm guessing you're using photos for the texturing, am i wrong?

**RawSunlight** · 06-13-10

Wow, how to describe this process...

It was the intention at the start to use photos, but actually it's been easier to just polypaint, using a bunch of custom brushes (homemade & bought- I'm sure some of you will spot them

) in ZB & photoshop, constantly looking to photos and vids for reference and using odd generic detail as various soft blend modes in PS before reinforcing them in polypaint.

Funny really because we have a whole load of high quality photos of 2 dead sharks (provided most generously by Dr Geremy Cliff)
Darran used these to create beautiful alphas for sculpting the really fine 3D detail, but:
unfortunately, although superbly revelatory photos in their own way, the skin colouring is nothing like a live shark, there is too much light and shade (no flash), and they have too much of their own blood to contend with. Fixing these things to go to 8k is simply too much work.
On top of that, there is no way to match a photo to Darran's sculpting because he used his own small detail alphas.
My approach in the end was to take what details I like from Dr Cliff's photos as well as many (very low-res) pix from the net & TV and using them as a guide to polypaint similar 'distillations and summations' to match to Darran's sculpting and ultimately create an idealised super-great white.

While for the beef carcass, we took our own shots so I was able to project photo details (polypainting seams out - a nightmare job even at 4k) and I THEN scultped detail from that map; the shark however was modeled to exquisite detail already, so that (my prefered process) was never an option.
I guess in a way I have used photos for this in so far as Darran used them for his alphas and so in polypainting in the creases and scars from his work inevitably the source is kinda retained, but really it is polypainted.

In reality my textures close up don't ring that true at all, but rather I sum things up, letting darran's sculpting do the rest of the work and do it admirably.
Not to put myself down, but you can see from this section of texture, that really, on it's own, it isn't convincing close up, but hopefully the effect of the whole I create is good enough.

While for the body I started trying to blend out the pixelation from upping lower res pix, by the time it came to finishing it I'd given that up as a technique. For the head I'd decided it was less work to simply paint it, and far FAR less tedious!
The look i've got is just from having studied so many photos and vids now that my approximation looks fairly convincing, and Darran's fine detail scultping does much of the hard work once lit.

All this said, I have put a fair bit of work into this; there are upward for 40 layers of colour, dirt, scratches, wounds, veins, etc in my PS files, using a multitude of different blend modes and masks. The file is as monstrous as the beast itself

We haven't had feedback on these latest images yet; it may well be that the experts at the Apex Shark Institute tell me it's not right, so I'm a very nervous due to the sheer amount of time any rework would take

I wouldn't dare show them a close up like this one but, fingers crossed, the sum is greater than the parts

**dankatcher** · 06-14-10

Now that's a shark! Top notch! You really got it right.

**RawSunlight** · 06-14-10

errrrrrm...why?

**VictorCS** · 06-14-10

EDIT: This wasnt meant as an insult, but more like a confused question ( that's why the confused smilie was used ) if this was a shark vs something sculpting project.

**michalis** · 06-16-10

This 'peace' under the sharks mouth is killing me.

Great work, amazing textures too.

**RawSunlight** · 07-14-10

Wanted to share the great news, we just got sponsored; Next Limit have very graciously offered to help us out with Realflow & Maxwell Render... a tribute to all the team and their efforts, a great presentation!

Lots of works to do... can't wait!

Posts of Bruce with inner mouth coming soon...

**Drakaran** · 07-14-10

congrats!

**RawSunlight** · 09-23-10

Haven't had any time to play with ZB4 alas, and so much stunning stuff has alreay been done... extraordinary, sometimes I really do feel that new visual paradigm that we cg'ers so often talk about and rarely see. So many new tools... a little bit daunting all over again, but tall mountains were never climbed without blood, sweat and tears

Great work Pixo, great work fellow ZBrushers, hopefully one of these days I'll have a little time of my own to play... & maybe finally settle in to doing a proper piece

Chewed meat...

Funnily enough, out of laziness I made a start on the inner flesh/meat without bothering to get any refs, just to get the ball rolling. Somehow I liked the effect I was getting so much that I finished all the internal bits just by polypainting ( not even photoshop) God bless you Pixologic, polypainting is just fab!

And a doodle, for half an hour's graphic novel style fun in the wee hours, using some old tools I'd created before the real world sucked me in and kept me captive

**krawlin** · 09-23-10

oo. fatty slabs of meat. awesome.

**seriks** · 09-23-10

wow, those chunks of meat do look great... nice work!

**talster** · 09-24-10

more meat please!

**marianosteiner** · 09-24-10

awesome texture on the shark model man!

**sgrell** · 09-24-10

Looking good dude !! I hope that you get into using ZB4 and post more work soon. The Shark and meat are exelent.

**RawSunlight** · 09-24-10

Hey guys, means a lot!
Mario, big fan of your work & great work on the Beta! thanks for popping by.

Simon, i will pop by to see what you've been up to; so pleased to see your Beta work, man, full of character and beautifully executed as always!

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