Curse

KriaKorturi · Jun 13, 2008, 10:25 AM // 10:25

I finally finished this one today. This piece is titled Ambushed!, and it depicts my warrior, Onissa Firebrand, being ambushed by a Maguuma Spider while making camp. It's pretty big at 2048x935, wide screen Panavision 70 aspect ratio.

Technical Details
Software: Softimage XSI and Photoshop
Texture Data: ~150 megabytes of painted or photographed textures
Geometric Data: 11 megabytes of geometry
Polygons: 611 objects comprised of over 1.3 million polygons

I'll post some close-up renders of just the Onissa model later.

Some other projects:
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/3...mpositeyx7.jpg
http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/5127/duofinalqs8.jpg

Edit - Added close-up renders of just Onissa:

Edit - Added close-up render of the Forgotten Sword:

Yol · Jun 13, 2008, 10:33 AM // 10:33

Very nice! I'm impressed. How long did it take you to do?

KriaKorturi · Jun 13, 2008, 10:35 AM // 10:35

A solid month.

GWEXTREEMFAN · Jun 13, 2008, 10:45 AM // 10:45

looks great carry on doin such great pics^^

malko050987 · Jun 13, 2008, 11:53 AM // 11:53

Wow. Al three are awesome, although I prefer the one with the two women playing

Mesmers, I assume?

The only thing I don't like about the first image is the flowers. They look stamped on, not like they grew there ^_^

Sindy · Jun 13, 2008, 01:00 PM // 13:00

Very nice work! You people with talent always amaze me

Sjeng · Jun 13, 2008, 04:52 PM // 16:52

OMG... you made these models from scratch? that is very impressive. *applauds*

komma · Jun 13, 2008, 05:41 PM // 17:41

wow, great work, that looks amazing.

Thierry2 · Jun 13, 2008, 05:49 PM // 17:49

Wow, looks awesome.
Wish i could do that

.

lakatz · Jun 13, 2008, 07:30 PM // 19:30

Hi Kira...

I like your work... interesting style.

I've been playing in Maya for about a month now... just modelling, so, after reading your first post and looking at your work, I checked out SoftImage XSI on their website where they seem to be downplaying the modelling aspect and calling it an animation program and on wikipedia where they handily give more information as to how it functions... but I'd love to know your thoughts on Maya vs SoftImage and why you chose SoftImage.

Did you work with Poser as well? Until this May, I hadn't done any 3D for about 10 years, so I'm trying to catch up on the technology.

Thanks.

Fenryl · Jun 13, 2008, 09:08 PM // 21:08

Wow ^^
I think all you did is great!
Like Thierry2 said, I wish I could do that >.<

KriaKorturi · Jun 13, 2008, 10:33 PM // 22:33

@malko050987
I know, I dropped the ball on the flowers. I was experimenting with a billboarding technique, and it didn't turn out too well. The good thing is that I can easily go in later and replace them with "3D flowers" so they integrate with the scene like everything else.

@lakatz
Back in the early 90's, XSI was called "Softimage 3D", and it was indisputably the best animation package on the market that film studios used. It was later improved and re-branded as "XSI" to compete with the likes of Maya. I'm guessing that since it is so well-known in the industry as a great animation system from years ago, that is the reason they still push the product as such. However, the modeling tools are on par with Maya's, it has cloth and soft/hard body dynamics, particles, and it has integrated mental ray rendering just like Maya has. So, it really is a complete package, even though it may be pushed as an animation system.

From what I know of Maya, it has "more of everything". For example, XSI may have 50 attributes making up a particle system, but Maya would have 100 (these are just arbitrary numbers), yielding more control. Maya also has a fluid simulator, that XSI lacks, which can be used for smoke/fire/fluids. Until recently, Maya's hard body simulator was superior, but XSI has completely replaced theirs now. I've only tried Maya once, a demo, and I didn't like the interface. XSI's interface is quite elegant, easy to find things, and seems more geared towards the artist's usability. That's all I can say about the differences that I'm aware of between the two programs. So finally, as to why I chose XSI, it was 1) the price, and 2) I loved the interface. Coming from LightWave, XSI was quite a step up. I've never used Poser because I like to create my character models from scratch.

Check out Softimage's Face Robot video demos. Amazing stuff.

MrGuildBoi · Jun 13, 2008, 10:37 PM // 22:37

Dang, thats nice, It's what GW2 graphics should be like.

Asplode · Jun 13, 2008, 11:19 PM // 23:19

Excellent work, those textures are so convincingly done, the lighting is nigh perfect, and the scenery is lush and detailed, without overcrowding. Very tasteful ^_^

Though if I may offer criticism I feel as though the water around the feet of both subject and spider could use more distortion, the disturbance almost looks painted in, and around the same size and shape for every appendage in the water, as if they both jumped in at the same time together as the shot was taken, heh. Just a minor thing, really. ^_^

lakatz · Jun 13, 2008, 11:19 PM // 23:19

Hi Kira...

Thank you so much for that. We have Avid here (I'm at work)... I believe we had DS Nitris once... maybe still do. That's where I most recently heard SoftImage come up... DS. I know we have Symphony Nitris... so

I asked our head engineer what he could tell me about SoftImage, using the American pronunciation of image, and he corrected me using the French Canadian pronunciation. After the diction lesson, he said about the same thing you did about the interface, but was surprised to learn their 3D software is still around after all these years. He thought Avid might have abandoned it in favor of their editing software... but then he hasn't dabbled in 3D for about seven or eight years either, so he's lost touch too.

Oh, and I saw the Face Robot product when I was on their site... I'll certainly follow through on your sage advice and watch the demo.

Thank you again.

Mark Nevermiss · Jun 14, 2008, 02:44 AM // 02:44

Amazing work. Very impressed

KriaKorturi · Jun 14, 2008, 04:28 AM // 04:28

Here are the promised renders of just Onissa.

gprunescaper2 · Jun 17, 2008, 08:42 AM // 08:42

[size=2]GOOD WRITTING, NICE WORK...![/size]

Master Ketsu · Jun 27, 2008, 04:11 PM // 16:11

Solid character model you have there. did you just sculpt that in XSI or start out with a low poly mesh and work from there ? and did you use bodypaint ( or an alternative ) to make the texture or is it UV mapped ?

KriaKorturi · Jun 27, 2008, 11:13 PM // 23:13

Everything in the scene (character, spider, trees, water, rocks, entire environment) was modeled from scratch, starting with a blank scene, in XSI. All the objects are UV mapped.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master Ketsu

Solid character model you have there. did you just sculpt that in XSI or start out with a low poly mesh and work from there ? and did you use bodypaint ( or an alternative ) to make the texture or is it UV mapped ?

Edit: Thought I'd add a closeup render of Onissa's Forgotten Sword while I'm at it here: