Carrara Challenge #4: The Twilight Zone - Work In Progress (WIP) thread

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  • Philemo_CarraraPhilemo_Carrara Posts: 1,175
    edited December 1969

    diomede64 said:

    @Philemo

    Can't wait to see your take. That show had so many classic episodes, I know I'll find something I do (frankly) love if I decide to stay with the show. Instead, I'll focus on this other definition of twilight

    The idea is to create a poster advertising the show. It will stage an typical American family from the fifties watching the show along with monsters and characters (from the show or not).
    I haven't decide yet to leave the poster photo-realistic (like a modern one) or to post product it to give it a "fifties" look (like in the attachment).

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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    Here's my latest WIP. I've added more debris, and the big ol' clock, which is ripped off from the Independence Hall model in the Landmarks directory in the Objects browser.

    I modified the clock by swapping in my own hour and minute hands, creating my own shader for the face, using the Black Patina shader from the Metal directory in the Shader browser, and modeling the lens for the clock in the VM.

    The debris is from Dryjack's Ruined Cottage which I added to surface replicators.
    http://www.ShareCG.com/v/55041/view/21/DAZ-Studio/Remains-Set-2-Ruined-Cottage

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  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,924
    edited December 1969

    Philemo and evil, beautiful!!!

    here's Manstan wip. MS is currently indisposed.

    boxes to be replaced my hero, villian, cops, and a car when they are ready lol


    I was just playing around with stonemason's backally when this just started falling together and working well.


    So far 3 items bent and twisted, 3 items exploded. But these are just applied features with some test and set up.


    But ya, it's twilight zone

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  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,924
    edited December 1969

    Manstan WIP.


    Here's the near compleat scene. One more figure to add then it's just trimmings; trash, rats, pigeons, little things people may not even notice.
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  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,924
    edited December 1969

    Manstan WIP

    Here's my 3rd wip


    Like I said, this scene is just falling together. I'll probably spend a lot of time useing the carrara options for special effects. Here I am checking out footprints. This coming together quick gives me plenty of time to work on lighting, textures, and effects.

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  • FractalDimensiaFractalDimensia Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Holy Millennium Cow, Rod! (Yes, Sock, I invoked the name...) 4 days into this challenge and already the posts are heating up!

    And I haven't gotten past the noodle in the head idea phase!

    Phil, Evil, Manstan, all great stuff!

  • FractalDimensiaFractalDimensia Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    ncamp said:
    I felt the need for a wormhole for this one. Made a vertex cone and deleted the end. UV mapped it and applied the Wire shader to it. Spun it around with a twist modifier. Then parented a light on the inside. I think it is a good starting point.


    ncamp

    @ncamp - I like what you have with the spiral. Reminds me of "The Time Machine" - Yep! i'm that old! :)

    Can't wait to see where you take this!

  • FractalDimensiaFractalDimensia Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Playing around with this idea, though I don't think it will make the final cut. Was thinking maybe of making this into a short animation though. :)

    "Somewhere, in that wink of time between twilight and starlight, when waking thoughts give rise to primordial urges, justice is being served. It’s not the kind of justice you might expect, carried out in an extravagant court with high-paid lawyers and judges auctioned to the highest bidder.

    In this dimension, a lonely stretch of road is the courthouse; and an innocent looking bystander is its judge and jury. So, be warned. Sentencing is swift, borne on the vigilant wings of a spirit once pure of heart. And in this justice, there is no higher court. Only the good Samaritan need not fear pulling over in …

    The Twilight Zone"

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  • DUDUDUDU Posts: 1,945
    edited September 2013

    Visitors...

    I do not have much time but I launch out!
    They are characters whom I modelled starting from a simple basic man in .3ds format.
    The idea is very simple: those which “usually visit us” are visited in their turn… the blur and the fog constitutes the atmosphere of this planet.
    I believe that I will add clouds to the level of the ground.
    All is made in Carrara.

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    Post edited by DUDU on
  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    Playing around with this idea, though I don't think it will make the final cut. Was thinking maybe of making this into a short animation though. :)

    "Somewhere, in that wink of time between twilight and starlight, when waking thoughts give rise to primordial urges, justice is being served. It’s not the kind of justice you might expect, carried out in an extravagant court with high-paid lawyers and judges auctioned to the highest bidder.

    In this dimension, a lonely stretch of road is the courthouse; and an innocent looking bystander is its judge and jury. So, be warned. Sentencing is swift, borne on the vigilant wings of a spirit once pure of heart. And in this justice, there is no higher court. Only the good Samaritan need not fear pulling over in …

    The Twilight Zone"

    Looks good!

    I would say that you need a little reflected light in the car provided by the dash lights and reflected light from the headlights.

    I have a couple suggestions for the moon with the stars showing through. One would be to use a sphere as the moon with a moon texture wrapped around it, and the texture also in the Glow channel. Add the 3D aura to it it, with a low intensity, say around 10% and a high spread, such as 16 pixels.

    The moon model should be large and backed a long way off from the camera. Parent a low intensity distant light to it pointing back at the scene to get the moonlight effect.

    Th other thought is to use an image editor and composite a good quality picture of the moon onto a star field background. If this is a still, the image can be placed in the Scene's backdrop slot. It will need to be the same aspect as your final image. If this is for an animation, the stars will need to be a spherical map and it will be a bit of work getting the moon in the right place. The spherical image wou'd be placed in the background slot.

    Both image methods will place the stars and moon behind the atmosphere.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    Visitors...

    I do not have much time but I launch out!
    They are characters whom I modelled starting from a simple basic man in .3ds format.
    The idea is very simple: those which “usually visit us” are visited in their turn… the blur and the fog constitutes the atmosphere of this planet.
    I believe that I will add clouds to the level of the ground.
    All is made in Carrara.

    Looks good so far. I kind of would hate to lose the reflection on the floor, it adds depth I think.

    Is there a way to post screen shots of the mesh work you did on the aliens?

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited September 2013

    So here's my final concept. It's still a WIP as there is a lot more work to do, but this is the direction I want to go. I think it's going to work with a few more adjustments and added details such as some more books and debris, background ruins, etc..

    The perspective is looking through the man's broken glasses. Everything is blurry except through the shards of glass, which hopefully will give the viewer the idea of what has happened and the sense of loss. Of course, this all helps if you're familiar with the TZ episode, Time Enough at Last.

    The glasses and debris are the only Content. The clock is a heavily modified piece of a model in Carrara's native content which I mentioned in a previous post. Everything else is mine. The road is re-purposed from last month's challenge. ;-)

    The glasses were modified in the VM to add thickness to the lenses and to break them apart, which means I collapsed the shading domains when I deleted polygons and pixels, so I had to rebuild the shading domains.


    For the clear image through the shards of glass and blurry everywhere else, I rendered a depth pass and took advantage of the fact that Carrara doesn't respect alphas in the depth pass. I blew it out in Photoshop with brightness and contrast and used that for the Lens Blur filter.

    I'm not so much worried about titles on the books as I am about drawing the eye to them, so I'm using bright colors for them, while at the same time they will be pretty blurry. The rest of the images palette is going to be pretty muted to emphasize the books. For instance, I'm going to adjust the saturation downward on the texture for the ruined building as it's standing out too much for me.

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    Post edited by evilproducer on
  • JonstarkJonstark Posts: 2,738
    edited December 1969

    Wow Evil, I love that effect, very cool! You are on fire in this one, looking like a winner's circle entry already - great work so far, and I'm loving seeing your process develop.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    Thanks Jon. It's a challenge, that's for sure. I'm thinking of another idea as well. We'll see if I have time.

  • DUDUDUDU Posts: 1,945
    edited December 1969

    Evil,
    Super your composition!
    It would be necessary that the image is clear through the glasses (After Effect…).
    You can download my file .car here: http://mhdproductions.be/Visiteurs.car

  • DUDUDUDU Posts: 1,945
    edited December 1969

    Evil,
    I'm sorry, but I had not read your explanatory text concerning the clearness of the fragments of glass!
    I believe that the result could be better still if you did one render without depth of field and a cutting in Photoshop…

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    Evil,
    I'm sorry, but I had not read your explanatory text concerning the clearness of the fragments of glass!
    I believe that the result could be better still if you did one render without depth of field and a cutting in Photoshop…

    Hi Dudu, the depth of field was added in Phtotoshop. I rendered a depth pass and used that to mask the part I didn't want blurred. The image I posted had minimal anti-aliasing and object/shadow accuracy, so hopefully in the final full resolution image the effect I'm going for will be easier to see.


    I'm going to render a version without the glasses and use that to composite into the one with glasses. The one without the glasses will be enlarged and only visible through the glass fragments so that it looks magnified. That one I'm holding off on posting in the WIP thread as I want some element that's not given away before the end, so hopefully it will be a nice surprise for the viewers.


    I'm walking a fine line with the broken glasses. I want to emphasize the clarity of vision through the lens fragments, but I need them to be small enough so that the viewer understands the uselessness of them for reading, if that makes sense.

  • FractalDimensiaFractalDimensia Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Looks good!

    I would say that you need a little reflected light in the car provided by the dash lights and reflected light from the headlights.

    I have a couple suggestions for the moon with the stars showing through. One would be to use a sphere as the moon with a moon texture wrapped around it, and the texture also in the Glow channel. Add the 3D aura to it it, with a low intensity, say around 10% and a high spread, such as 16 pixels.

    The moon model should be large and backed a long way off from the camera. Parent a low intensity distant light to it pointing back at the scene to get the moonlight effect.

    Th other thought is to use an image editor and composite a good quality picture of the moon onto a star field background. If this is a still, the image can be placed in the Scene's backdrop slot. It will need to be the same aspect as your final image. If this is for an animation, the stars will need to be a spherical map and it will be a bit of work getting the moon in the right place. The spherical image wou'd be placed in the background slot.

    Both image methods will place the stars and moon behind the atmosphere.

    Thanks, EP, for the suggestions. Personally, I think the scene moon being BEHIND the background sky is a defect. Everything should be in front of the background sky!

    It was a quick concept model to get a feel for whether I wanted to take it any further. Still won't even call it a WIP, and likely won't go much beyond what I have now. But I am having too much fun playing with the idea to let go yet! Also, wanted to see if I could set up a first-person view and to get started exploring night scenes.

    I suppose I'm also doing this because I am delaying the technical challenges I will have to deal with working on my REAL entry. I suppose I should start soon.... =/

    And happy birthday, Stephen King! ;)

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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969


    Thanks, EP, for the suggestions. Personally, I think the scene moon being BEHIND the background sky is a defect. Everything should be in front of the background sky!

    In reality, from our earthbound perspective, the moon is behind our sky or atmosphere, so if you want to have a planetrise type effect, then it works as it should. I think the RSE needs a star generator along with the moon and the sun disks so that you don't have to worry about stars bleeding through the moon. At the least it needs to be updated to make the moon opaque.

  • DUDUDUDU Posts: 1,945
    edited December 1969

    I have also a composition which goes back to 2006 but I do not find any more the file .car…
    That I had several crashes because of virus, it should be said perhaps is lost or placed somewhere on an hard drive.
    However, I think that it could agree with this topic, the only possible improvements would be done in Photoshop.
    I do not remember any more if I created the alien myself (I believe that yes), but the final composition was made in Photoshop.
    I present it all the same…

    Aurora.

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  • FractalDimensiaFractalDimensia Posts: 0
    edited September 2013


    Thanks, EP, for the suggestions. Personally, I think the scene moon being BEHIND the background sky is a defect. Everything should be in front of the background sky!

    In reality, from our earthbound perspective, the moon is behind our sky or atmosphere, so if you want to have a planetrise type effect, then it works as it should. I think the RSE needs a star generator along with the moon and the sun disks so that you don't have to worry about stars bleeding through the moon. At the least it needs to be updated to make the moon opaque.

    I understand the logic, EP; I just don't agree with it. There's nothing that says all scenes must be from an "earthbound perspective." The (old) user guide even refers to the background as "scene environment," not "earth environment." I just see it that everything should be on the camera's side of the background; otherwise, it can't be in the background.

    Again, different perspectives on the topic.

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  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,083
    edited December 1969

    Holy Millennium Cow, Rod! (Yes, Sock, I invoked the name...) 4 days into this challenge and already the posts are heating up!

    And I haven't gotten past the noodle in the head idea phase!

    Phil, Evil, Manstan, all great stuff!

    I agree. I am really impressed with how quickly everyone is ramping this up. And, did you say millenium cow? I think that calls for rhino cow!

    Dudu, those aliens are great, and I love the atmosphere.

    OK, thinking about twilight in the "fading" sense, I almost went with an aging, injured athlete. Then I thought about North American folktales like John Henry and Paul Bunyan, in which larger than life craftsmen eventually must contest against engine-driven technology. So I did some internet surfing for reference images for Paul Bunyan and Babe (his ox). I've attached a couple of the reference images.

    I've also attached stage 1 of my attempt to model Paul Bunyan. Poor fella doesn't have a face yet. In part, that is because I think I am going to do a toon render, but I'm not 100% committed to it. The render decision will affect how I model and UV Map the details. For example, I will probably model his beard if I toon render, but grow dynamic if I don't.

    Right now I'm leaning toward having Bunyan racing to cut down trees against a guy with a chainsaw while the ox competes with a sled of lumber against a train. Might get better inspiration.

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  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,083
    edited December 1969

    Here is the second WIP. Paul Bunyan has a face now. I'm committed to toon render. I still need to add plenty of detail (collar for his shirt, ruffles to make it look like his shirt sleeves are rolled up, bootlaces). But on the whole, he should be a workable figure for the project.

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  • StezzaStezza Posts: 7,807
    edited December 1969

    Twilight Zone.. hmmm

    I have one in mind.... dunno how it will end up though :vampire:

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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited September 2013

    diomede64 said:
    Here is the second WIP. Paul Bunyan has a face now. I'm committed to toon render. I still need to add plenty of detail (collar for his shirt, ruffles to make it look like his shirt sleeves are rolled up, bootlaces). But on the whole, he should be a workable figure for the project.


    Really cool job, and awesome 'toon effect. I can't wait to see how this one comes out.

    Post edited by evilproducer on
  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    Stezza said:
    Twilight Zone.. hmmm

    I have one in mind.... dunno how it will end up though :vampire:

    This one looks intriguing.

  • StezzaStezza Posts: 7,807
    edited September 2013

    Spent around 4 to 5 hours on this little project this Sunday afternoon..

    creating a kind of window as you would see in a passenger plane..

    Some concept artwork on my creature, getting some hair and eyes working on him

    and then some photoshopping to get it all together to try and look a bit scarey.. :)

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  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,083
    edited December 1969

    Stezza said:
    Spent around 4 to 5 hours on this little project this Sunday afternoon..

    creating a kind of window as you would see in a passenger plane..

    Some concept artwork on my creature, getting some hair and eyes working on him

    and then some photoshopping to get it all together to try and look a bit scarey.. :)

    Another fantastic episode. Stezza, they should have hired you to do the concept art when they made the movie version. Do you plan to use a figure for the gremlin on a plane in the clouds? I could see doing this from the interior of the plane cabin, and using your concept images as a shader on the window. Or are you going to try to have both the interior and the exterior?

    Wow, I'm in suspense. Well done.

  • FractalDimensiaFractalDimensia Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Stezza said:
    Spent around 4 to 5 hours on this little project this Sunday afternoon..

    creating a kind of window as you would see in a passenger plane..

    Some concept artwork on my creature, getting some hair and eyes working on him

    and then some photoshopping to get it all together to try and look a bit scarey.. :)

    Stezza, that is really incredibly good.

    And fast! That would have taken me a week! ;)

  • DUDUDUDU Posts: 1,945
    edited December 1969

    I am very impressed to see the results of the images of Diomède64 and Stezza!
    How do you arrive at such a result ?

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