Matthew Wood - VFX

Well I was going to post a tutorial on Mudbox texturing but I'll 'irrupt' all over the flow of mud from mudbox with an eruption from KRAKATOA!
... the volumetric particle renderererer...errr.

Not that I need to defend my use of lens flares... but... everyone else is doing it!

3DS Max; PFlow to FumeFx to Krakatoa.
Lat time you saw any of those on this blog I was filling a head with multicoloured particles, I've moved on a bit since then, I have a lot more control and feel comfortable executing my aims rather than just hoping for the best when I press one of the many Krakatoa UI buttons...which can sometimes go wrong...

Yep! They're full of circuit-boards, who knew!?

4 Hours simulation
3 hours render
Soooo many particles that I couldn't show more than %20 of them in the viewport at any one time.
I liked the 'flow' of PFlow so I'm going to be exploring it's usefulness - going to be trying something with a higher viscosity for 'PAINT' the Film... probably something like... paint.

Taking full advantage of Autodesk's wonderful free student licences, I've decided to familiarise myself with Mudbox.

3D digital sculpting and digital painting software gives you the freedom to create production-ready 3D digital artwork without worrying about the technical details.

-http://usa.autodesk.com  

So I’m going to be updating this post with periodic images of my first sculpt, a T-Rex.

My graphics tablet won't work so this is all going to be mouse work.

I'm using this as an anatomy guide:

Q. doyouthinkhesaurus? A. doyouthinkthat'sfunny?

Update 01: Found the 'Knife' and 'Pinch' tool; good for finer detail and sketching in shapes.
Shift-D to move up a subdivision level to add greater detail.

Not looking very T-Rex - will have to check some reference

Update 02: Decided to dial it back and get all the general shapes tied down using a whole host of references. I realised my initial enthusiasm for smaller details would produce a very messy, uneducated model. The main progression is in the legs where I've added much more definition. I have also reshaped the head, specifically he eye socket which was previously lost in the skull.

Update 03: Moving up a sub-div level I started laying in detail using the 'Spray' tool and continued carving using the 'Knife' adding wrinkles in the flesh at joints

More importantly...
I discovered the viewport filter!

'Matthew' learnt the 'apply filter' technique, it's super effective (...or super lazy)

Designed to give you a better feel for the sculpt as if in situ.. I'm using it to make these crude renders more palatable.

I think I'm calling him Rendersaurus-Rex