Great White Shark

[robpauza]

Hi Everyone! :)

I've been wanting to do an underwater scene for a while, so I thought a shark would be pretty cool to animate in it. Here's my progress so far. I haven't really modeled any of the mouth yet -that should be fun. I'm planning on doing some really nice texturing to it... hopefully.

-Rob

[ThreeDBFX]

That's lookin really good man...can't wait to see more.

ThreeDBFX

[renatolazzaroni]

Nice smooth model. Can't wait to see the teeth of this baby !

Renato

[skarab]

yeah that would be cool if you had a few war wounds, maybe some chunks of flesh hanging off or even some rotting flesh. Whether that's realistic in salt water doesn't really matter, it would look cool though.

I think I'm letting my fetish for raw flesh get the better of me, I also have a fetish for james vanderbeek and shopping malls but that's another story.

oliver

[riki]

mmm nice one can't wait to see a baby in it's teeth :)

[Mike Pauza]

Lookin good bro. Why don't you have him eat your raptor?

[dwburman]

why don't you have James Vanderbeek riding him through a mall... ya, know, to make Skarab happy.

["that boy ain't right"]

[hunter]

Looks good! I'd like to see a more perspective view. Working at seaworld as I did during my college days just a few crits:

All 350 or so species with a few exceptions have five gill slits.

The caudal peduncle ($2.00 word for area just in front of the tail) looks odd to me.

And it looks like there may be some pinching aound the corner of the mouth.

I know it's a wip so there's my 2 cents.

Keep up the good work.

[robpauza]

Thanks for the comments everyone. No modeling updates yet, but here's a couple of perspective views for hunter.

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ThreeDBFX & renatolazzaroni:
Thanks. Hopefully, more to come soon.

skarab:
I'm glad the Vanderbeek influence is apparent. I honestly didn't think anyone would catch that.

riki:
A dancing James Vanderbeek baby in its teeth animation is currently in development.

Mike:
Thanks. Maybe I'll give it a try.

dwburman:
:) If it hadn't been done a thousand times before, I'd be all over it.

hunter:
I bet SeaWorld would be a fun place to work. Thanks a bunch for the crits. I totally agree. I was trying to cheat and have just 4 gill slits, but I guess you're not going to let me. :) I'll add another. The pinching in the mouth is because the geometry stops there. (I haven't gotten to the mouth yet.) Thanks again for the help. That's exactly the feedback I was hoping for. Here's a perspective view for you.

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Hopefully, I'll have some time this weekend to do some more work.

-Rob

[hunter]

Another two cents:)
Also was thinking how cool would it be to have motion designer put on the gills. Might have to try something like that myself if I get time. Keep posting. really like your work. Still trying to my dino up and running so to speak.

[marvin]

I like it. Really cool. There is pinching at the end of the mouth. It looks like there may be a little where the side fin (sorry! I don't know my terminology for sharks) meets with the body. Maybe fix up the gills also.

It will look good textured. Animating may be a little difficult (for me anyway). Please show more.

marvin

[robpauza]

Finally an update... :)

Here's a few test renders of what I have done so far (with TEMPORARY procedural textures.) The final will have UV maps and most likely procedurals as well. I haven't modeled the top teeth yet. More to come...

------------------------------

Hunter:
Thanks for taking the time to illustrate the caudal peduncle thingy. I watched a shark program on Discovery the other day and paid close attention to that area. You were right on. Thanks again, and be sure and post your dino.

Marvin:
Thanks. The pinching in the mouth was because I just hadn't done that area yet. I worked on the gills. They still need a little work.

-Rob

[marvin]

Rob,

You are great at the texturing. It made it look a hundred times better. Still looks as though a couple of MINOR model things need to be fixed, but this is excellent. Once again, I am amazed at your work level. Always a fan.

marvin

[riki]

mmm the texturing does make a huge difference. Even though it looks very metalic, maybe something to watch out for when your doing the UVs.

[facial deluxe]

Howdy Rob :)

Nice shark, commings along very well !
My thought is that you should setup an under water lighting (without yellow) and then fix your map.

Keep it up !

[robpauza]

Thanks Facial.

------------------------------------

Hey everybody,

I finally found some more time to work on this thing.

I made the UV maps and started texturing tonight. This is just a start, but I thought I'd share my progress.

(Yes, I'm aware the eyes look like buttons.) :)

Also, I posted a turntable anim at: (no surfacing)
Here (8MB DivX 5) (http://mywebpages.comcast.net/robpauza/shark_divx1.avi)

-Rob

[facial deluxe]

Waaaaaaa ! Excellent ! This shark is going to be real kickass when finished ! You work with photos, don't you ? Realy excellent !

[robpauza]

Wow. Quick response. Thanks man.

Yes, this time I'm using photos, but it's mainly just cloning to get color and texture. Then painting using those samples. I wish I found better ref images so I could just slap the image on there, but oh well...

Thanks again,
-Rob

[Weetos]

I'm really impressed by your texturing... the modeling is great too

keep up the good work and please be sure to show us more

[riki]

Awesome work, the surfacing makes a huge diference.

[hunter]

Looks really good. I'm anxious to see how you get the white belly to blend into the pectoral fins. I notice the white is actually above them now. I had a tough time with that area on a dolphin I did. :) Only other thing I might change is some of the fins. I'm guessing it's a female. (no claspers) I could be wrong but I think the pelvic. dorsal, second dorsal and pectoral fins are shaped like this, see pic I found on the web, they have this little extra bit that sticks off, not connected to the body.
It looks great. Can't wait to see it animated:D

[onslaught]

That's what i'm talking about. NICE!!!:D

[Mike Pauza]

Everything's lookin good bro!


The surfacing looks great so far, and the gums model you sent me looks good too. Maybe you could post a few more pics as his mouth gets textured. He's gonna look sweet animated in a well lit environment.

-Mike

[robpauza]

Marvin & Riki:
Sorry, I forgot to thank you for your previous comments. Thanks.

Weetos:
Thanks a bunch. Hopefully it will get better.

Riki:
I agree. It's a lot less puppet-like now. Thank you.

Onslaught:
Thanks man.

Hunter:
You always go out of your way to help me. I greatly appreciate it. I don't foresee any problems with the pectoral fins. I tried to create my UVs so they blend well in the pectoral and pelvic fins. I guess I'll find out shortly. :) I see what you mean in your ref pic about the "extra bit" that sticks out from the fins. I did model it in the pectoral fins, but couldn't tell from my refs that any other fins have it. I'll look into it. "Claspers" huh? I'm learning all kinds of new words. :) An animation is in the future. Thanks again. BTW- Let's see that dolphin of yours.

Mike:
Thanks. I'm still working on the whole mouth area. I'll post as I make progress.

-Rob

[hrgiger]

Looking good Rob. Can't wait to see it finished. Can't see much to comment on yet, looks good so far.

[robpauza]

Thanks HR.

Here's another update with some more surfacing and some volumetric lighting.

I still have a lot to do, but it's slowly coming along.

BTW- I rendered the water surface separately and then combined it in post. (The shadow map going through the high-poly water surface made for some pitifully slow render times.)

Anyway, here's a larger pic...

-Rob

[facial deluxe]

Wow de Wow !
Getting relly freaky, love that water too.
BTW, I built a shark too, you can check it there (http://vbulletin.newtek.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10042)
Ok, not as accurate as yours... :rolleyes:

[riki]

These sharks are really just one giant floating 'mouth'. You should call him 'Ralph the Mouth' :o

[lasco]

very good work !
and thanx for all the pics, it's always much interesting to
see all the work process !

hem… well 2 questions (I might be wrong) :
- are you sure the limit between blue and white areas of the skin is that sharp ?
Of course it's like this on your schematic picture but I'd have say
it was smoother…

- the "nose", front of the head seems a bit too rounded,
don't you think it could be a bit more "flat-sharped" (horizontally) ?
well it's the image I have of sharks but again I may be wrong…

[lasco]

well seems I was wrong in my suggestions…
see some links :

http://home.mira.net/~areadman/shark.htm
http://freespace.virgin.net/kain.greatwhitesite/GRAPHICS/GALLERY/gallery.html

…and of course this one may be usefull, we should all print these rules
and keep them in our pocket (I personnaly love the 8th and 13th advices :)))

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Kids/Avoid/avoid.htm

[mattclary]

Excellent work!

[hrgiger]

Looking very nice.

I like the volumetric light but the water surface lookis kind of strange. Is it raining?

[anieves]

My wife and I are planning a Great White dive expedition for our 10th anniversary:D

we are fascinated by them. Incredible creature.

Nice job so far.

[hunter]

Lookin' Good! That list of rules left out don't swim with seals or sealions (a great whites favorite food) and we learned here in CA recently why. Just yesterday white sharks were seen in in-shore waters at San Onofre just up the coast from me.:eek: I'll go see if I can get some good close-ups for ya. NOT!
I posted my dolphin in the finished gallery. I don't want him getting to close to your white. She looks Hungry;)

[robpauza]

Thanks Facial. Your shark is pretty freaky too. :)

Riki:
Actually my wife has already nicknamed him "Herman." She also named the raptor I did a while back "Skippy." :rolleyes:

Lasco:
Hehe. There seems to be a lot of proportion variance between one shark and the next. Thanks anyway. I can't believe that "At the beach, don't use fish oil as sunscreen" didn't make the list. :)

Mattclary:
Thank you.

HRGiger:
Yes, it's raining. :) (I agree. I'll work on it)

Anieves:
Super cool. Are you going to Cape Town, South Africa by chance? I ran across this outfitter in my search of ref images a while back:
http://www.unrealdive.com/
I would have a blast... that is, until the White's come... then I believe I would soil myself. Anyway, that sounds like an incredible experience. I hope you and your wife have a great time. Happy Anniversary.

Hunter:
Wow! That's close. I hope they don't make their way up the Tennessee river. :) Thanks for posting your dolphin. It looks great.

-Rob

[robpauza]

Another small update...

I UV mapped and painted the insides of the gills tonight.

If anyone's interested, here's what the color map looks like so far. Also a quick render of the gills. More to come....

-Rob

[hrgiger]

I assume those are the gills in the bottom right hand corner of your UV. How do you get them to blend with the rest of the body?

Looks really cool.

[Xeen]

dude, that is really awesome, i swear to god that render you made was equivalent to the work done by the pros :) reminded me of the finding nemo thing. Unless of course, you really are a pro..

[robpauza]

hrgiger:
Yes, those are the gills. I was just careful selecting the same colors on the poly edges of the gills so they match up with the body. -That plus a little trial and error. I suppose using alpha channels to blend them would work too. You'd have to have overlapping UV maps though.

Xeen:
Thanks a bunch. I do this stuff just for fun currently. Maybe some day that will change. I don't agree that it's up to pro-level yet, but that's definately what I'm hoping for in the end. Thanks again.

-Rob

[marvin]

HA! Herman! That had me laughing. I remember the "skippy" name because you put the little doggy bowl with the name skippy on it.

That's where that came from...

Your texturing work always amazes me. I also like the way you show your progress, although a little amazing.

Your are like those tutorials where they say, "a little more tweaks and you end up with this." And there next pic looks like something out of a photograph, and you're thinking "YEAH! A few more tweaks my a#@. I don't see anything else you need to do to him than animate.

As always, amazing work!

marvin

[j0SH]

it's looking great

[robpauza]

Marvin:
:) Thanks so much. Just a few more tweaks and I'll be done. :)

jOSH:
Thanks.

Jack:
Thank you. The water I have is just temporary. I plan to animate it later, so I'll have to build it differently. I'll probably use the same technique as in the famous "Stormy Ocean Tutorial" over at www.simplylightwave.com. Right now though, my water is just a simple subdivided plane with jiggle applied to the Y axis. I have 2 simple procedurals as bump maps and I'm also using an environment map. I'm using a gradient I made in Photoshop as a background and have fog turned on using that image. I have a spotlight overhead projecting a shadow map and Volumetrics turned on using the same shadow map.

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Okay, I've started an Endomorph for the mouth. Here's what I have so far.

Here's a quick anim:
222k DivX AVI (http://mywebpages.comcast.net/robpauza/mouth.avi)

-Rob

[hrgiger]

Wow, I hate to not have some criticism for you Rob but it looks really great. I love the wrinkles around the mouth when he opens up.

[Mike Pauza]

The winkles do look nice. Are the gums too dark?

[igorstshirts]

Animation.... PLEASE!

[Jimzip]

Very very cool stuff.
I'm trying to get the hang of UV'ing myself at the moment.
How did you do the god rays in the image before!! (Page 2 I think)

Very nice model also, and I'm looking forward to seeing an animation too!

Jimzip :D

[robpauza]

hrgiger:
Thanks. More wrinkles are on the way in a couple more endomorphs for the mouth.

Mike:
Thanks. Yeah, the mouth is a little dark.

igorstshirts:
An animation is planned. I'm doing some tests now to try and work out some of the motion. I'm finding out that sharks have very complicated movements... and my animation skills are pretty much non-existant, so it may take me a while to do something I'm not ashamed of. :)

jackcarter:
Hopefully it will look better in the animation. Perhaps more fog in the stills is in order. Thanks.

Jimzip:
The "god rays" are just a spotlight with a projection image applied. (just clouds in Photoshop) Turn on some fog and check "Volumetric Lighting" in the light properties and just play around with the settings. That's about it. Good luck with the UVs. I used the endomorph method. Thanks for the compliments.

-Rob