Swim Merlin Swim!, Step by Step. (Feb.
2005)
I always liked acuatic scenes, each one involves you in unique mood and colours, but over all, i like these kind of scenes because of what it takes to representate them in 2D and also in 3D, to take each of those details and to be depicted in a drawing it's a task that requires lots of observation and a deep study; as i'm not the sort of guy that studies or observates too much, in this kind of “Making Of” you'll find explained step by step the details that in a way or another took me to the final image in February, 2005. Despite the main tool used was Blender, this won't be a software specific guide, it will be a short one about getting the final effects.
Okey, all starts with an idea (or not!). Let's begin.
01. Concept Idea
A concept is basically a quick draw where the main idea is setted, as well as the main characters, the environment, the scene composition, gamma colours and the general mood.
The level of detail in this instance is up to your own personal taste. For this one, various sketches of the characters in several poses and environments were drawn in paper, then they were turned into digital draws to be combined and to try different compositions, also in this way it was easier to test a variety of colours while using layers, always having the concept in a separate layer above them all, in “Multiply”mode.
02. Modeling Characters / Environment
Practically all the models of this scene were made using the well-known technique “Box Modeling”, that consists in modeling starting from a cube or box. In the first picture above there are some renders that i took while making Merlin, here (in youtube, or download 34mb hi-res) you'll find a video that shows me modeling a Merlin like character (very basic) starting from a cube.
More Videos!
A close up to Merlin (pink fella): YouTube | Download 12mb AVI
A close up to Tibolino (shark): YouTube | Download 17mb AVI
A close up to the environment: YouTube | Download 16mb AVI
02.2 Eyes 
The eyes are always a separate issue for me, the method for making them is the one you can see in this screenshot.
For the sand i used a subdivided plane, with a high density of poligons mainly where the rocks and the seastar were supposed to be, to make that zone more detailed than others. 03. Texturizing
Both characters have hand-painted textures, with specials maps in each case. In the screenshot you can see the 6 image maps that the shark uses, the ones known as “Extra Map” are used to define or enhance colours, translucency, and specific parts of the colour texture, etc. Also some procedural textures like Voronoi for the bump, and a Blend texture for the FallOff (check the tutorial!) effect were used.
The floor's material consists only in Clouds type procedural textures of a little size (the noise type use to cause random troubles at render time) and different colours, plus a ColorRamp and again the FallOff effect.
04. FX / Particles / Caustics
For the water's dirt some particles were used, its settings are displayed in the screenshot below:
There are many mesh emitters (subdivided planes) each one with almost the same configuration, some of them biggers, some other smallers, with higher density, etc.
The rays of light from the surface were made with tubes consisting of a transparent edges material which settings are down here:
04.2 Caustics 
At last, another effect that I used was the caustics simulations on the characters and environment, using a Spot type lamp with a caustics texture (created with Caustics Generator (GPL)) modifying the intensity and value. Here you can find a sample file (.blend) with the caustics effect.
05. Rendering ALL 
The rendering stage it is almost done by itself, in the image you can see the differents layers that later will form the finished scene.
A little bit of Mist is useful when trying to get a correct 3D integration, and the depth of field (DoF) help us in getting such effect that the characters will look closer than the rest of the scenery. Nowadays you'd be able to get this kind of effects using the built-in Compositor, a little video showing the process is here. (18mb AVI)
05. Finished? Not yet!, Final Touch
Once the image is rendered, it's easy to give it the general mood if you use tools like "Colour Balance", "Levels", some may prefer to add some noise to the final image so as to get it even more integrated. Effects such as Sharpen may bring you troubles of antialising, but they are also used in specific situations. This tools could be found in any 3D software of professional level, or you can use a separate image editor (GIMP, Krita, Photoshop, etc).
In the screenshot above you can see the before-and-after of the image once you've used this tools.
That's all!
The list of videos once again (just in case you miss them =)
So, that's it, i hope this tips may result useful to you, any doubt don't hesitate in asking me!
Pablo Vazquez
info[at]venomgfx.com.ar
www.venomgfx.com.ar |
