Here's a stereoscopic version of the final. I a bit surprised that it worked out this well since I had to paint the hair into the depth map...well I'll make the tutorial for this in a couple days.

Grab those glasses and make sure that red is over your left eye.

Fin! I may revist it to add a better cot, straps around the cot joints, and an arm wrap for the guy...for now it is done. yeah!

Couple things I learned on the photoshop side:

- using the "photo filter" option under image->adjustments is great for initial color correction. allows great control if elements are corrected separately.

- painting hair can be a really long process, but nearly as long as rendering the hair with HDR in Max. So, for images I think hair will always be a post effect unless I'm using the default scanline renderer.

- I didn't have time to make a nice bump map for the characters and it really showed in the renderings. However, by apply a "sponge" filter and setting the layer to overlay, I was able to break up the "smoothness" of the skin.

Finished rendering and now working in post. Can see the differences side-by-side...a lot of photoshop work...whew!

Another option for the background. The beach setting is kind of nice as is the warmer color scheme...almost romanticizes the event a bit...ground needs to be warmer and that cruise ship in the background has to go... :)

Playing with some photo backgrounds. Not sure which one I prefer. Would love to hear some feedback from others on this. I'm leaning a little towards the split mount one (first image), but each has some aspects that I like.

Anyway, will end up rendering object channels for each major object so that I can isolate each object easily for additional painting and such. Will also paint in the hair since the render times for full-res and approaching several hours because of the hair.

Created the ink bowl's craddle and restraint strap. Put in some hair using Max's hair system. This really increased my rendertimes. (was: 6min for this res, now: 17min) Not even sure I like it. May be able to just paint in better hair, but will need some geometry hair for the 3D Print.

Also added some vertex coloring to Toma's back to make it look more "worked on." Also colored the ink pen/needle a bit to look like it was actually used.

And finally I exaggerated the wrinkles in the blanket (adding some new ones too) and painted in the artist's beard.

Toma is 100% printer friendly as is the artist. Will have to redo all hair for the printer and maybe the cloth to make it thicker. Overall, 80% of the scene is printer friendly...

posed Toma's hands by re-rigging the hands since the initial rigging was lost along the way.

Realized the artists "support" arm should have a slightly different pose. Not sure how I'm going to fix it since the mesh has been finalized and is *very* high res...might have to bite the bullet and see what I can get away with.

Next up, fix artists support arm (one on top). Then move on to Toma's facial expression, hair, accessories, ...

To break up the monotony a little, I create a stereo image of my last update. Will write a tutorial on this once I finish the image, but it's a pretty simple process and produces good results. Not sure how to do a nice color one, but this will do.

So grab your red/cyan glasses and enjoy. :)

Created a real quick ground in ZBrush. Rocks look a bit more like hills than objects resting on it, but will tackle that later.

Also adjusted Toma's hand pose and facial expression a little. Realized that I can't go back and skin her fingers so I have to do it by hand using soft selection and regular transforms...sigh. Well, once those are in place I can jump into ZBrush and finalize her expression and model.

Added some eyes (what a pain...) and a bowl with ink. Working with the model at this res is such a pain. In the future I'll either do a model for the printer or for image/anim since working with the model at full res in Max is brutal.

Ran into the lofting problem again when trying to wrap the artist's forearms. For some reason the loft/sweep was twisting and I couldn't get it to behave. Once this project is complete, I think I'm going to just spend some time debugging the issue...

Not sure how I'm going to do the hair. I can get printable 3D hair by converting the hair effect into a mesh and capping the holes, but that increases the polycount even higher...will save for end.

Will scatter a couple more bowls around and put a ground in next. Then comes finishing up toma...

Big update...

- finished detailing the various parts and assembled them into one hulking model (1+ mil). Changes include his shoulder scarring, hand poses, and better back and side. (only visible for 3D Print)

- modelled the tattoo pen. decided not to do the traditional "two stick" approach since I didn't like the composition it gave. Also had to make it thicker and shorter due to the 3D Printer specs.

- Started texturing the guy. Kept it simple due to time. I basically chose a base color and used ZBrush's highlighter tool to brighten/darken spots. (peaks got brighter, creases got darker) This accentuated the form and should help when printing it in color since some of the actual surface detail may be lost.

Added a bit of texturing and added some more bulk to the character.

A co-worker of mine suggested using this comp for a potential 3D print, which is a great idea. Unfortunately, the printer needs all geometry to be solid objects and of a very high poly count. (e.g. no open edges, no intersecting parts, etc.) ZBrush seems like the ideal candidate for this since that's it's speciality.

Binging Toma over to the printer shouldn't be too much of an issue. I basically have to close her eye sockets. The artist however, is a bit more complex. Since I decided to use normal maps for the details, I don't have a good base polygon mesh I can just subdivide to get the final mesh (like Toma). I'm in a tough situation.

So, what it comes down to is closing the mouth and eyes for the artist. Then rigging and posing a very high-poly version of him (which is always painful in max - maybe a job for skinwrap), then bring him back into ZBrush and resculpt and texture parts of him.

Since I wasn't planning on animating this guy anyway, I'll probably just call this one "done" and do the rest for the final image/print. If ZBrush 2.5 was out I could rig him in ZBrush, but oh well...

Think I figured out the problems I was having with the seams. It appears to be a direct result of various UV face being inverted. Will look into it a little deeper for my next character, but this seems to be the case.

Because I had to redo the UVs, I also had to resculpt the guy in ZBrush. Still need to clean up the arms, and detail the back and feet. Also need to add scarring and tattoos. Once i finish with the detailing work (don't want to spend too much time on it since the deadline is looming) I'll create his color texture and then start the rigging and posing process.

Linked image compares normal map vs. no normal map and shows the character in a couple different lighting situations.

Worked on sculpting the body a bit more being more careful since I was planning on this being "it".

Unfortunately, I'm running into all kinds of problems with seams for the normal map. Followed all the suggestions and presets for the ZMapper, even the suggestions for someone using v8 and nothing works. So, right now I have a big nasty seam down the sides, across the shoulders and at the wrist...

I like the benefits of normal maps and could see this being my main method of detailing in the future if I can just sort out the seam issue.

Well, the larger image has the same guy w/ normal map in 3 different lighting conditions. (direct, HDR 1, HDR 2)

Next up test this normal map in v8, and start painting the texture.

Spent some more time on the texture and bump maps. Grabbed some eyes I had laying around and plopped those in. (will end up giving him blue eyes in the end) Brought the beard higher so can see it from proposed angle.

Next up is eyebrows, quad strips for the beard, and eyelashes. Hopefully will be done with the head in 3hrs...

Beginnings of the tattoo artist. Bump map was created very quickly using a high pass filter, desaturate, and adjusting the levels. Didn't add any additional pores since I'm still painting the map...

need eyebrows, color to the lips, wrinkles on neck, and texture for the ears. Then on to adding actual eyebrows, eyelashes, eyes, and stubble.

I dropped him in the same test scene, but his colors got completely blown out. Looks the HDR skylight I'm using isn't going to cut it.

quick test to see the tattoo on the other side of the body. I like this much better since it immediately establishes how much she's already been through. Will probably have to touch-up all the edges once I get a little farther, since the alignment involved more than just mirroring the various parts.

up next is to model some hand poses.

Replaced the cot with a more detailed one. The "leaf sheet" caused me a ton of grief. Had some weird problems with the Sweep modifier (was going to build each individually), then had similar problems with the Loft tool...ended up creating a poly object and using textures to handle the details. (strong bump and color) For some reason the shape was twisting along the path even though there was only one shape and the path was created all at once.

Pretty happy with how the bamboo turned out in this lighting. Looks rough. created very simply with tubes, some editing, and a simple beige texture.

Also put in a temp expression on her face. (only one I had from the workshop)

Ended up using Biped for this one since I was having a painful time getting my IK solvers to behave and had to keep moving. Added a couple extra bones to help with weighting, though. (upper arm twist, ass bones, and a pelvis filler bone)

Used SkinMorph to try and get the various extremes to work. This is great tool in Max. It basically allows you to define an angle between bones and then move existing points around for that extreme angle. As the bones approach the extreme, that pose you modeled gets blended in. Unfortunately, I encountered a bug with the system and she never got finished... :(

Can see two morph tests I did for the body (front / back). They playback too fst but scrub nicely. Use the time slider in Quicktime to see the various deformations.

Tested out some morph targets. I unfortunately fell under a common problem when doing morphs...I had to change the base geometry after doing some targets...sigh. Oh well. Here are two quick test animations done.

Eyes / Mouth