Making of DAWN,The Dinotaur

::CONCEPT::

Character:

This project started out as an anatomy study. I didn't feel like making a standard human,and wanted to make something interesting...something that'll keep me hooked to the project. So,I decided to make something that I can relate to,and thus started my first attempt at creating a new character design. I've studied a lot of existing concepts and sculpts for inspiration,and I've always been fascinated by Blizzard Entertainment's Artwork.Tauren Shaman from the World of Warcraft and the Minotaur by Aaron St. Goddard totally inspired me to create a character that is part human and part animal.The human part was there so that I can study human anatomy,and the animal part is to keep me hooked ;) I had to choose the 'animal' part of the character. I'm crazy about Dinosaurs,so it wasn't hard. But I didn't want a simple 'Dinosaur Man',so I added in the Minotaur bit which inspired me in the first place and thats how the 'Dinotaur' was born. Dinotaur or more precisely 'Dinotavr' translates to "Bull of the Dinos".So,I wanted to capture the feel of a strong Warrior,instead of going in the 'scary monster' route.

Armor:

Again,a lot of Blizzard inspired stuff here ;) But I added in a few more things that I love : Samurai Armor Design and a bit of Dinosaur armor too,for example the spikes on the tail were based off a Stegosaur,and the claws on his left hand were added for the 'T-Rex' feel.

* For those who wish to know whatsup with the "Dawn" thing : I wanted to get back to basics and start anew. I had no idea what I'd be making,so the project was codenamed 'Dawn' to reflect my desire. Even after I'd finalised my 'Dinotaur' design,I didn't feel like dumping the 'Dawn' from the name..so I named him 'Dawn',though it doesn't sound like the name of a warrior,it just had to be it.

::MODELING::

BODY:

This was the most exciting part of my project. I was deeply inspired by Kolby Jukes's attention to detail,and I wanted to make my Dinotaur as muscular and organic as I could. This was my anatomy study and I spent a lot of time on studying the human form before I started sculpting.

Basemesh:

I started blocking out the model in 3ds max using the box-modeling technique. I basically put the major forms and the overall proportions in this stage. I had 2 image planes with sketches of the silhouette I wanted. I found that using the DirectX shader will give crisp image quality on the planes.
Once I had the blockout in place,I started subdividing to add more form to the mesh. I wanted a moderately dense basemesh without any of the minor details.I spent quite a bit on getting a good meshflow and found it to be very important for a basemesh. I've tried to keep triangles and 5-sided polygons to the minimum as they would cause distortion later in the sculpt. I found the "Relax" brush in max to be very helpful in cleaningup and spacing the edgeflow for an even topology. The final basemesh turnedout to be roughly 10k triangles. I've unwrapped the mesh using Pelt Mapping in max and exported it to OBJ.I doubled checked my Pivot in max to make sure that its at the absolute center.

At the end of it,I had the basemesh ready for detailing in a sculpting app,in this case,Mudbox.

Sculpt:

While sculpting I had 2 things stamped all over my mind:

1) Concentrate on getting the form correctly
2) Try to get as much form as you can in the current division itself before going to a higher division - sculpt one level at a time

I spent most of my time in the first 2 subdivisions of model.
I will try to explain the process division-wise but before I do,I must mention that digging into the human anatomy is crucial. Start with understanding the various bones in the skeleton,then move on to the individual muscles [what the purpose of each muscle is,how the muscles stretch,how they relate to each other etc].Try to study as many pics as you can[checkout muscle charts,sculpts,pics of real humans.Sketching them out will be a good exercise too].
Understanding the forms lying underneath the skin and how they relate to each other is what you should be stressing on.

Level 0:
I've imported my basemesh into Mudbox and turnedon the X-Symmetry. I spent time on refining the forms and fixing a few proportions. The "Bulge" tool with a low strength helped with the form refinement,and the "Move" tool is the best for fixing minor proportion issues.
Once I'm completely satisfied with the overall form,its time to subdivide to Level 1.

Level 1:
The focus in this division was on getting into the forms developed in the previous level. I had enough polys to hint at the details of each of the individual forms. A lot of time was spent in this division and again I've used the Bulge Brush [along with the Smooth brush] to bringout the forms.Feel free to smoothout a form and refine it if you feel that it didn't turnout well. You can also use the Move tool with a low intensity to move some muscle definition.
At the end of it,I had all the muscles well defined to an extent possible at the current level,its time to make the forms crisper and more organic,so onto the next level.

Level 2:
All of a sudden I've got a LOT of polys to handle. Focus, was again on developing the forms. This time I got enough geometry to addin minor muscles,some subtle,major veins on the neck and the arms and in general more detail to each of the individual forms,and faint muscle striations connecting these forms. I've used the "Curves" in Mudbox to define each of the muscles separately and found it good for poppingout smooth curves that makeup each muscle [which I later smoothed up to the extent that they are very subtle]. I also found the "Pinch Brush" to be a great tool for making the forms crisper. Pinching around the forms really helps them standout better,and adds to the 'organic' feel. Once I'm happy,I divided to start on the actual detailing.

Level 3:
At this stage,I had all the forms in place.No more changes to the major forms/proportions. I started with the detailing. At this level I've found the "layers" feature in Mudbox to be of immense help. I could put all the veins on one layer,crisp bony detail on another,and more minor muscle striations on another etc. And the best part is the ability to control the Transparency of these layers,I could choose how prominent I want the veins to be by playing with the slider.

Level 4:
I'm pretty much done with sculpting my model. This stage was mostly about removing the symmetry and adding more,very subtle details.I've disabled the X-Symmetry,and started using the Move tool to randomly move the forms [very subtle again;I went a division or two lower for more control]...and added in a few asymmetric details all over. The muscle striations were pinched upon to make them look "tighter" and I've added more detail on the face,and the back[the horny detail]. I've also added subtle details like the nipples,cuts on his nails and very minor details even at places that are hard to notice in the standard views.

Level 5:
This is where the scaly reptilian skin details go. I've mostly used aplhas of reptile skin as Stencils for detailing. Again its great to be able to add the detail on separate layers. I've saved some tiling skin detail for later [in the texture]. Once done with the modeling,I've generated the NormalsMap and DispalcementMap from Mudbox[default settings].

It was time to start on the armour. I took screencaps of the Front and Side views,and painted over the armor design in photoshop for a clear picture.

ARMOR:

Blockout:

The shoulder,leg and tail armor plates were extracted from the basemesh,and had a Shell Modifier slapped on for thickness. The torso and waist belts were lofted and the big spikes on the tail were just a bunch of bent cones [same for his horns,except I've added a twist modifier]

The Wraps:

A lot of people asked me how I'd modeled the arm/thigh wraps,so I've decided to explain it in detail. I wish to thank my friend ReplicA who actually suggested this technique.
I used Polyboost for making his wraps.The "PolyDraw" tool allows us to draw polys on a surface,so it kinda helps for making bandages and stuff. If I had to do it the normal way,I'd use Poly-Poly method to make individual wraps and adjust them;but polyboost is SOO MUCH faster ! The individual wraps were later given a shell modifier and were adjusted in Mudbox [Move tool] to reduce intersections. I liked how you can lock/freeze in mudbox such that you can work on one wrap at a time without affecting the others. Make sure that the thickness and the "tightness" is exactly what you want before you detail them,orelse you might endup with a "loose/ready to fall off" look for the wraps. [not many ppl have noticed that its the case with my Dinotaur's ;)]

Sculpt:

Once I had the armor pieces blockedout,I started sculpting the details one piece at a time.
I started with the skull,then moved on to his belts,the loin cloth,armor plates,horns and finally the wraps. Again,layering in Mudbox proved to be priceless here.And more pinching for crisp cuts/dents in the details. I've also added in some spikes in the skull[very lowpoly cones] and belts to hold the skull to the shoulder plate [polyboost again].

WEAPONS:

I made 2 weapons for him. A pike and a big sword.Both of them carried the theme from his armor but I chose to scrap his sword as it just didn't seem to go well. Again the wraps were made using polyboost. The weapons themselves were boxmodeled. Once done with the blockout,I've detailed the weapons in the same way I did the armor

Once I'd finished detailing the weapons,I spent some tweaking the whole character,and when I was finally happy it was time to call the modeling done.

I've made a few quick pose tests and rendered out some "marble" renders. The basemesh was rigged in max using Character Studio and once I had the pose ready,I exported it to an OBJ and imported it into Mudbox as a "layer". The "Import as Layer" is another cool feature that really helps you sculpt regions that are otherwise inaccessible in a particular pose. For example,I openedup his mouth in the basemesh,imported it as a new layer and detailed the mouth.
As for the "Marble Renders",they were basically simple VRay renders[Standard White Material] with some postprocess in photoshop.

::TEXTURING::

BODY:

Before I started the texturing I chose a green color scheme that I liked a lot from a T-Rex sculpt. I wanted to have a blend between human and reptile skin and also wanted to tryout the SSS Skin shaders this time.

I took my NormalMap [which I had generated from Mudbox] and used it as a baselayer in Photoshop to work on. I had many versions of the texture and it was initially all out of place as I had no clue where I was going with the textures/Skin Shader. Thats when I was suggested to do a rough paintover of what I wanted over one of the mudbox screencaps [Thanks to Heber!]. It was really helpful as I got a clear picture of how my final texture would look like.I made a dark green color scheme with tattoos and stuff going on,but I had to scrap it at the last minute as I lost control over my diffuse texture....I didn't organise my layers well in Photoshop and it proved to be expensive. So I've scrapped it and started allover,this time with an organised set of layers that gave me full contorl over all the elements of his texture. I've also basedoff the Skin Shader on Marc Mordlet's excellent VRay Skin material. The bumpmap included my normalmap and an additional bump which had a tiling skin detail it. The specular map was basedoff my Colormap.Basically it was the inverted colormap with a lot of dodging and burning in photoshop.
I was finally happy with the body textures when I got it to look like what I imagined it to be.

ARMOR:

Before starting on texturing the armor,I had the basic color scheme knocked in. I wanted an "Egyptian" feel to the textures,so it was mostly brown.I chose to have a dragon-hide/leathery organic armour. No metal. I also wanted some glowing runes over his armor to break the otherwise plain feel.I couldnt get the runes properly in max,so I chose to do it in postprocess.

Many people felt that my texture job didn't do justice to the modeling. But at the end of it I was happy with what I've learnt along the way and with what I've got for a final texture. I'll surely try to improve upon this in my future projects. This is also the reason why I'm not going very deep with this part of the walkthrough.

::POSING,LIGHTING,RENDERING::

I wanted to convey the emotion of a warrior thinking about his battles...and it was hard. I had to go through many poses before I finally settled for this one.I've used the same pose in both the composites.
For the lighting,I've used 3 Vray lights[for the Key,Bounce and Rim lights]. My friends Dan and Jignesh really helped me get a better idea about lighting a scene.
The renders were made with the "Medium" setting of VRay's Irradiance Map,everything else was at defaults.

::COMPOSTING::

I wanted a Blizzard-esque feel for my final scenes. The first background was my first attempt at making a matte and the 2nd background is an actual photograph taken by Allan aka deviantanonymous from Deviantart.
The postprocess basically involved some hue shifts and quite a bit of touchups in photoshop. When I've made the blue toned variation [it was inspired by 300] I really liked it as it conveyed the mood I hoped to get for a final render. And that was when I called it done.

::FINAL RENDERS::

This pretty much ends this "Making of" of my Dawn. This is my very first anatomy study and also my first ever character design. I wish to thank all my friends and members of TWEAK!,Mudbox and CGTalk Forums for their feedback and support.

Thanks for checking this out,I hope you liked my Dinotaur and find this document helpful in someway.

- Sri Ram Chandra , http://www.sriramatrix.com/

::LINKS::

Kolby Jukes the person who inspired me to start on this character.

Background from my first composite is a photograph taken by Allan AKA deviantanonymous from Deviantart.

Vray Skin Shader based on Marc Mordlet's shader.

Mr.Dan Hecht,Mr.Giovanni Nakpil , Heber Alvarado and my Guru Jeremey Smith for their wonderful tips and inspirational artwork.

References : Aaron St Goddard's Minotaur,T-Rex Sculpt,The Sculptor's Corner

DVDs that helped me on my way : Sub-D Creature Modeling - By Dominic Qwek,Digital Sculpting: Human Anatomy - By Zack Petroc,Drawing Dinosaurs: Anatomy and Sketching - By David KRENTZ.