Bourbon: Texture Modification

Before I jumped into rigging I wanted to make some basic texture changes to my character, Bourbon. For starters the blue and yellow/cream fur diffuse was too punchy and bold. I opted to a paler shade of yellow and a still strong copper brown colour as I still wanted my character to reflect a stylised approach rather than realism. I also made some adjustments to the Nut texture on the helmet and pads. I'm fairly happy with his overall look now, although I think I will come in and tweak textures between the rigging process (the carrots for example could do with an SSS2 MTL and I would also like to add a logo to the chest plate). 

Fig.1 Bourbons fresh new colour range. 

Fig.2 The Raw output of the Complete Map 

Fig.2 displays a simple 'length map' for the VRay fur, which utilises monotones to determine a the length of a hair on the basis of 0-100% (black to white value). To produce such a map I used the 'render to texture' tool and rendered a complete map, placing a VRay Dirt MTL into the diffuse channel of a  100% self illuminated white standard 3DS Max shader. I then had to analyse the complete map and paint over a few sections (such as the nose) where I knew no hair would exist. The VRay dirt basically allowed me to bake an ambient occlusion channel across Bourbons UV texture space, meaning objects such as the bag straps and the military vest which previously were penetrated by the hair were now being shortened to a degree in which they were no longer. 

Bourbon: VRay_Fur and Block Texturing

After getting Bourbon modelled I've gone straight into UV/ Block texturing.The textures I have used so far are by no means the final look but a place holder for me to think upon before I come to the final render. 

To make Bourbon look more bunny like and friendly I've also used the VRay fur modifier. Whereby I toggled with the thickness and length until happy and also added an opacity map onto the chest and nose so that those details weren't occluded. 

Fig.1: VRay Fur Base

Fig.2 VRay Fur Toggling Presets 

Fig.3 Texture Blocking

Fig.4: Texture Blocking (Rear)

Fig.5 Texture Blocking Complete

Bourbon_Modelling Complete

It's been a while since I last posted, understandably the Christmas period is extremely busy with work. However bit by bit I've finally, finally managed to get Bourbon modelled!
I'm very happy with the progress, this is my first attempt at modelling a character inside Max and I managed it all without the aid of a single tutorial.
I'll be making a bunny gun for the little soldier too, (which shoots carrots, of course) but the next step is going to be looking into UV'ing and rigging him which as far as I can see looks completely different from what I'm used to in Maya. Game on!

Fig.1 Bourbon Mesh Front

Fig.2 Bourbon Mesh Rear

Bourbon_Modelling

Just a quick update of my WIP so far. Bourbon is well under way, I'll just have to model all the extra little details now! On a side note I'm really liking the EdgeTex wireframe shader map in VRay.

Fig.1

Fig.2

Fig.3

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Fig.5

Bourbon: Character Orthographic Sketches

From one project and onto the next. I've finished my tank and started to get to work on a very different project of producing a cool CG character, Bourbon the Bunny. I had this idea for quite a while but sadly I never got to develop it through out my time at university. Nevertheless I've come back to it now and I will be working on him during my down time. The aim of this project is to take something from nothing all the way until completion. Moving through the rigging/ texturing/ uving/ modelling processes one after each other (whereas my most recent projects in Max have been aimed at developing certain sections of my skill set). I'm very excited to start modelling Bourbon and start to translate the rest of my knowledge in Maya to 3DS Max. Without further a do here are the orthographic sketches I decided to draw by hand. 

Fig.1 Front Orthographic.

Fig.2 Side Orthographic

GOW_LAV Concept Final Render

The Hardcore modelling challenge has been a busy few weeks which have pushed me to get something out of 3DS Max as quickly and efficiently as possible. I'm glad to be approaching my final few renders now, with the debate once composited weather I should try to attempt to create a shock wave effect from the main turret by exploring particle systems or possible environment Fog.

It was also nice to move into Photoshop after so much time and effort spent in 3DS Max, to switch things up with a bit of compositing this afternoon.

 Here is how it's looking so far, I'll have a high quality render with a few changes tomorrow.  

Fig.1 Final Composite 01

After a few tweaks, plus rendering out various passes for the tank I have come to my final render for the Hardcore modelling challenge (see below). 

Fig.2 The Final Render

Fig.3 The Final Render 1600x1200px

(format required for the competition).

Fig.4 :Front Orthographic

Fig.5: Side Orthographic

Fig.6: Aerial Orthographic

Fig.7 Wireframe (1600x1200px)

Fig.8: Wireframe (1920x1080 px)

GOW_LAV Tank Texture Blocking.

Yesterday I started the task of texture blocking my GOW_LAV Tank concept, my main focus to add a cool camo pattern onto the model and strat to get some colour in there.
My next task will be to add some nice bumps, displacement and dirt to the textures before the final pass.
Also a quick note on the default VRAY HDRi sky background; I'm thinking of rendering an alpha pass so I can include a matte painting/ photograph behind the image of sand and tank. For now here is my latest progress.

Fig.1 Making a start to the texture blocking