DKC Atlas Forum

[Cyclone]

*Normal Mapped Trees allows for bigger update*

The renders now show a hint of a story in the composition. I was thinking would it be an interesting idea to animate DK and family's story/journey throughout DK island. Sticking to the background story. Or perhaps it would be too ambitious...

Rain physics concept - NOTE Play in VLC
https://rapidshare.com/files/839560345/rain10(lightning)3(concept)(playwithVLC).mov

The scene so far contains 210 trees and counting and renders without a hitch. Need to save some polys for all the undergrowth to and remove the ugly thick grass. Render time 1min 51sec and aprox 53mil polys - 15mil if you count the high poly version of the tree by the house.





As always creative feedback is welcome.

[Qyzbud]

Oh wow. I haven't even looked at the full images yet, but wanted to express that the thumbnails are very nice looking!

*looks further*

Edit 1:
It's nice to have it start to feel like an environment, but I must say the tree patterns aren't very organic looking. They look like they've been 'drawn' into place, if you know what I mean... and the way there are essentially two exact sizes of tree (small and large) in somewhat defined lines/fields... it looks very artificial. Once you have more variety in size and position (and overall shape/'maturity') for the trees, it'll look a lot nicer.

I think it will help a lot once the grass is replaced with ferns, textured ground, etc., too.

Great to see the butterfly in the scene.

Note: Just so everyone knows — you can click the images Cyclone's thumbnails link to, and view an even bigger version of the images.

Edit 2: The rain and lightning effects look promising!

[Cyclone]

Ok. I don't know what I was thinking with the pattern of trees... The idea is to have a path winding it's way through the jungle. Also using postimage.org so I can post the thumbnails. I don't know how to do it myself using bb code.


Here is an update.

What do you think of the lighting,shadows and sky? It's going to be hard texturing the ground with high detail for close ups and to give it variation. Thanks.



Any other users have comments? Would be much appreciated to have more then one user giving suggestions. Thanks!

[Qyzbud]

I've gotta say, that's looking so much better!

The evening sky and the more natural palm tree distribution looks great, and it's good to see the ferns.

Come on guys — let Cyclone know what you think!

[Soniccuz]

That rock face is gorgouis. Seriously with that texture, and the leaves casting their shadows, that side of the render really pops out to me.
Since you asked, it fills out the picture alright but,the skyline is easily the most uninteresting part of the image to me. Other sections draw my attention and I find my eye wandering on all those areas but, with the sky, well that a sky. A fitting sky at that. Again it fills the image out well, and for that reason it's probably helps the image as a whole by not sticking out.

[Cyclone]

Click Images for HD version.

Camera Angle 1


Camera Angle 2


Camera Angle 3 (concept)


Improved the lighting,sky,shadows and grass. These images are concepts. Trying to find good camera angles to tell a story which may be a comic or an actual animation. If you don't get the story by looking at still then i'm not doing my job. All the scenes/scene elements aren't here yet though...so...

Thanks for the suggestions.

[Qyzbud]

I love the sky, I love the new grass, I love the lighting/shadow improvements... the more organic looking placement and size variations of the trees is looking great.

Coming together very nicely indeed.

I think I speak for everyone when I say we would love to see this story fully animated. I'm sure you could do an awesome job making a comic (and perhaps that could be phase 1 — storyboarding) — but after seeing your animations of Slippa and Gnawty, full motion video is a must.

Keep up the amazing work. Banana for you!

[Cyclone]

Replaced the ground texture. New technique to texturing large surfaces discovered. Vertex Paint


Click Images for HD version.

Camera Angle 1


Camera Angle 2


Any areas that need improving,mainly the ground texturing like should I shange the texturing under the trees? And lighting improvements?

[VideoViking]

Yay for life-like dirt in 3D land.

Do you plan on adding additional texture and detail to the characters or trees?

(Curious, what other models do you have planned?)

[Phyreburnz]

You need more shrubbery!


It's looking great so far! Are you going to add more kinds of plants like those red things and green leafy things?

[Cyclone]

I do plan on modeling more DKC style foliage. I probably won't texture the trees more realistically. It's a balance between a DKC cartoony look and a more realistic one. As for more characters I will model more until I get bored.

[Qyzbud]

Cyclone, you must be getting tired of me constantly gushing about the beauty of your work... but damn man — that's definitely some of your finest work yet.

That ground texture looks phenomenal — massive step up. I wonder if maybe it's a touch too realistic, though? I think if you gave the dirt with a slightly richer, more saturated colour, it might match the DKC style a little better, while still boasting the near photo-realism you've achieved through vertex painting.

Seriously though, this is amazing — straight to Facebook! → linky


That said; I'm with Phyreburnz — we need MOAR SHRUBBERY!

I know that's already on your to-do list, but I just wanted to pitch in my +1 for that sentiment.


As for your query about texture/lighting improvement suggestions; I think it'd look great if the earth was a bit deformed around the base of each tree, so that it looks like the palms have pushed up through the soil. I guess it ought to be mounded/raised slightly, a bit more lumpy/cracked... just experiment and see what looks good — you're the one with environmental modelling talent!

[Ribbedebie]

Oh my gosh this is so amazing I can't even. It looks so official already! I could never make anything like that myself, I'm sure.

Props to you, good sir, and keep up the great work!
Also, maybe you could try adding little patches of 'moss' (just textures like the ground) under clumps of grass/plants to make it look denser, if that's possible of course. But just do whatever you wanna do, it looks splendid either way.

[Soniccuz]

The sky's a vast improvement! Much less cloudy, and the sunsets in the other direction now. It lets the right half of the image compete better with the cabin and cliff.
Agree with Qzy, the new ground is a hell of an improvement but, maybe a little too dull, or muted. Something to experiment with.

Oh, and you fixed those cones trying to pass as blades of grass!

You're an incredible talent.

[Cyclone]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions.

Stormy environment proof of concept.Be sure to watch in 1080P and in full screen. Ignore the Gwaties moving backwards. . Rain collision happens only on the path due to dramatic increase in render time. Thoughts are welcome.



Edit - Download it here for smoother playback.
http://www.inspiredvisuals.com/DK/Donke ... _test1.mp4

[Ribbedebie]

I... I have no words. So beautiful. ;w; You sure you weren't working with Rare at some point? Because it looks so real.

[Cyclone]

thanks glad you like it. qyz did you view the stormy scene? in your honest opinion what did you think

[VideoViking]

Glitch: if you look closely, you can spot the Gnawty nearest to the tree walk backward for one full second.

Either than that, impressive, Cyclone.

[Cyclone]

Yea. I just imported the Gnawty/Slippa models directly which included the animations I had set up for the walk cycles which also included frames which aren't meant to be rendered.

Taking a big break from the Jungle Hijinx Scene.

Here is a really early 'unripe' wip I though I would share. Note the green colour.



On a side note. I'm trying to make sure my computer can render all these animations and renders in 1920x1080 HD. These days HD standard so.. Also I overclocked my computer to render that Stormy scene which went from 6min a render down to 3. Saved hours of rendering time.

Also VideoViking this is the last model i'm working on then I will work on yours.

[Qyzbud]

qyz did you view the stormy scene? in your honest opinion what did you think

Yeah, I took a look at the YouTube video (fullscreen, as you recommended), and it's pretty sweet! I personally think it looked better when it wasn't full screen, but I think that was because of the inherent compression artefacts YouTube uploads get tainted with. I'm downloading the high quality version now so that I can witness it the best way possible.

*watches in full quality*

Oh wow. Yeah, that's great.

The splashes could probably be improved with some physics tweaks (gravity on the droplets), and perhaps some persistence in the way of secondary splashes, puddling, etc... but it's great as it is, so that's all just icing on top. It'll look even better when you decide to put your newly-overclocked rig through its paces and render with treetop collisions! Speaking of scene enhancements; some movement in the trees — be it from rain or wind (or both) — would really sell this scene. I'm picturing how much of an improvement that would be, and now I really want to see that! It will look amazing.

To round off this critique; the lightning looks excellent (as does the scene's lighting), and the clouds fit well and add to the mood.

I can't wait to see this scene evolve...

Brilliant. ← speaking of which, your banana (unripe as it may be) is coming along nicely, too!

[Cyclone]

The splashes could probably be improved with some physics tweaks (gravity on the droplets), and perhaps some persistence in the way of secondary splashes, puddling, etc...

Thanks for the detailed comments. They are really helpful man.
Good point. Gravity on those droplets is a must. But rendering rain physics on ~200 trees will not be possible(unless I find a decent way to cheat). It took forever even with overclocking on the ground
which is why only certain areas of the ground get rain physics. I hope it doesn't look too unrealistic having splashes only in certain areas.

3ds max renders particles calculating all previouse frames prior to the fine life of a particle. so the mor calculations of a longer frame range causes the render time to increase a lot.


Now look what you made me do. Got me working on wind physics for the trees! Will try to post some sort of wip later tonight. The banana can wait. Really simple modeling anyways.

[Qyzbud]

I'm always glad to give feedback — especially when I can contribute to such a high quality project.

Now look what you made me do. Got me working on wind physics for the trees!

[Cyclone]

^haha

Ok, rendering took longer then I thought. Memory usage increased. Now on the verge of not being able to render the scene at all...

Here are some previews of the foliage moving in wind. View in youtube site for more clarity.





Will post full scene renders in aprox 6 hours when renders complete.

[Cyclone]

OK. Finished rendering. The animations may not be long enough to get a feel for the wind effect. Also might be too uniform?





Didn't have enough ram to animate all the blades of grass.

[Qyzbud]

Okay, I've watched each of those around 30 times... I wish YouTube had a 'loop video' option.

This is a good start.

The ferns seem to have only partial animation — is that intentional, or is it just a work-in-progress? The moving fronds look good to me; it's like a feathery 'fluttering' sort of movement, which looks pretty realistic for a lightweight material being held semi-rigidly in medium-high winds — quite like a bird's feathers, I suppose. I think a little more bend/movement in the stems would look good here, but it's already quite believable.

The heavier material of the trees/leaves moves nicely, too — slower movement with more momentum. In that vein, however, I do personally picture those leaves being a little 'thicker' and more solid than the animation indicates; perhaps you could tweak the material/animation properties so that the leaves don't look quite so 'papery'?

Overall, looking great... and I may be in the minority regarding the adjustments I've suggested, so it'd be good to hear some opinions from others before making you change things.

Give your workstation a good pat for its efforts so far.

Note: The first two 'preview' videos suffer that pixelation issue I mentioned a while back.

[Phyreburnz]

Cyclone, I was wondering if I could use a render like this one below, once you get a little bit more detail stuff done (like the SHRUBBERY... sorry, I like Monty Python). Leocore asked me if I could make a title screen for his DKC4 project, and I was having trouble finding a jungle scene, and I can't believe I didn't think of asking to use your jungle until now! What I'd like to do is use a low to the ground image like this one and photoshop images of all 4 Kongs in the screen.

[Cyclone]

I managed to squeeze a bit more ram into the scene and now able to render the grass. I have no idea how I'm going to render all the extra foliage that I still need to model. Maybe use some matte painting techniques or something. Something that will come later once I storyboard the animations. Be sure to watch directly on you tube in the highest quality. the embedded versions don't do it justice.



Still need to merge the banana tops together in the banana bunch but it's pretty much done. Unless someone gives critiques.






Anybody know what the circled objects are? Hard to tell its so pixelated...

Cyclone, I was wondering if I could use a render like this one below, once you get a little bit more detail stuff done (like the SHRUBBERY... sorry, I like Monty Python). Leocore asked me if I could make a title screen for his DKC4 project, and I was having trouble finding a jungle scene, and I can't believe I didn't think of asking to use your jungle until now! What I'd like to do is use a low to the ground image like this one and photoshop images of all 4 Kongs in the screen.

Sure you can use it. I could remove the tree in the right foreground if it helps you pace the kongs into the scene better.

[Phyreburnz]

Looking awesome! As for the circled things, the one in the window (and the circle above the window) and the big box immediately to the right are vines. The one above the tire looks like a piece of paper, and the one to the left of the right of the tire looks like a coiled up hose. The striped thing... maybe pants? Those are my guesses.

And thanks for letting me use your image! I'll fool around with it and see what I can do and then maybe make some requests on trees moving. I'll have to see. Maybe even having the camera closer to the path near the slippas and/or gnawties would make for a good title screen.

[Cyclone]

Thanks Phyreburnz. hmm pants? DK doesn't wear pants. I wander why rare did that . What are your thoughts on the bananas?

Tire found in DKC. There are two animations. One with a tire 'bounce' effect and
one with a 360 rotation.









At the request of VideoViking I modeled The Gnawty Wheel or what ever it's called
with a crude wip animation. Texturing also probably needs work.





As always comments are welcome.

[Phyreburnz]

I think the tire looks perfect. The bounce animation is off, though. If you look at the sprites of it in the game, it goes down in just the center and it squishes up high.

Also, is "Kong Radials" what was written on the original tires? I've been wondering for YEARS what the tire said on it...

The banana animations look fantastic, as well!

[Cyclone]

Thanks for the comments Phyreburnz.

DK's Banana Hoard



Click on images for larger versions.

[VideoViking]

The Gnawty wheel looks good, Cyclone (By the way, it's called a millstone wheel). I don't see anything wrong with it, except for applying texture as you've stated.

[Cyclone]

Thanks video viking. Is that millstone wheel what you wanted for your idea? or did I model it for nothing?

And Qyzbud I'm missing your awesome creative feed back on my previous posts! Or are you getting tired of it> I don't mind either way so don't thinking i'm begging

[VideoViking]

I'll respond in PM. But it is the first step.

[Phyreburnz]

Tonberry made a suggestion for sprite editing a while back, but I couldn't exactly do it because I didn't have much to work with... I think you should give his idea a go. He thought of a new item, a tire swing. It could push you or enemies back or forward if you get too close. Since you already have the tire, all you need is the rope!

Would it be any trouble to take a few snapshots of your jungle render from a few different areas? I'm going to be using the Rareware renders within the scene to make a title screen for Leocore (not exactly sure which ones just yet), but it would be great to have a few different ones to pick from.

Oh! You didn't answer one question about the tire... do the originals really say "Kong Radials" on them? If they do... where in the heck did you find that out, because I really did wonder what they said for a long, long time.

[Qyzbud]

[...]Qyzbud I'm missing your awesome creative feed back on my previous posts! Or are you getting tired of it?[...]

You're right, I've been slack! I've had a few really busy days recently, and am just getting back to forum stuff today — feels good!

I've actually been really impressed with your past few updates, so please don't think my lack of feedback is due to a lack of interest or enthusiasm... far from it; I really admire what you're doing, and will always put any assistance I can render* as a high priority — when offline life permits, of course.

So, here's my 2¢...

Jungle breeze animation

Spoiler!

Fantastic progress — the shadows look great, and the fully animated grass and ferns are very convincing. The palm leaves have improved, but still look a little 'papery', rather than thick, dense leaves like I imagine them to be. Again, I'm not 100% sure that my vision of them is how they are really meant to be... I'd love to hear what others think about this. Either way, this is looking very nice indeed. One thing though; is that a group of floating trees I see in the top right corner?

Banana animations

Spoiler!

Top job on the modeling and animation here — looks spot on. The lighting looks great to me, as I tend to enjoy high-contrast, colour-saturated graphics on a dark background... but to my eye, there needs to be a slight hint of orange (or a more 'muted' yellow — less intense), and perhaps a little lower contrast to match the in-game banana look, if that's what you were aiming for. The arrangement of the bananas themselves within the bunch is close to the in-game appearance, but not a perfect match... not sure if that matters to you (or me, or anyone...), but I thought I'd mention it.

Kong Radials tire

Spoiler!

Looking good, but I agree with Phyre about the 'bounce' animation — it's definitely meant to bend in the middle rather than being squished down on either side... also, I'm thinking the font choice could be improved; I remember the text on the tires being more 'angular'... I'll take a look at some fonts when I get a chance and make a recommendation, if you like.

[...]one question about the tire... do the originals really say "Kong Radials" on them?[...]

They do say that, but I believe you can only see it in one or two official renders. I'll post a pic when I get a chance if nobody beats me to it.

Edit: I've added a couple of images a few posts down.


Also; here's my take on the objects you circled in DK's treehouse:

Spoiler!

• I think Phyreburnz is right about the vines, and I have no better suggestion than 'a piece of paper' for the object behind the tire.
• Rather than a hose, I always figured that coiled up thing was a rope — just because they're a prominent aspect of DKC — but it does look a bit more like a hose.
• I think the 'pants' are actually just a blanket — it's draped over the bed post a bit, which makes it look like it splits in two, but I think it's just the way it's hanging that makes it look that way.
• As for the top object you circled, it looks like it might be a light source of some kind... just look at the light/shadows beneath it and you'll see what I mean. I don't think it's a candle, but perhaps it's just an electric lightbulb, like the ones the walkway levels have?

I'll let you know if I can work out any more of these things more clearly, but that's all I can suggest for now.


* no pun intended!

[Phyreburnz]

As for the top object you circled, it looks like it might be a light source of some kind... just look at the light/shadows beneath it and you'll see what I mean. I don't think it's a candle, but perhaps it's just an electric lightbulb, like the ones the walkway levels have?

I'm 99% positive that it is not a light source and that it's the top of the vine that curls up the window. It looks like the light source would be the window. If you look closely at the shadows of the vines on the wall, right above the window and right below the edge of the circle, you can see the shadow of the vine is off to the right of the vine, so the light source would have to be directly below the vine, not straight above.

The purple outlines the vine, and the green shows the curves of the vine and the shadow.

Spoiler!

vine big.png (15.97 KiB) Viewed 159265 times

[Qyzbud]

You might be right that what we see is related to the vine... but it seems a whole heckofalot brighter than any other part of the vine, so I'm not entirely convinced. Do you suppose it's a broken off end or something? Branches, vines etc. are often darker on the outside, so if we're seeing the inside of the vine, that might explain it being so bright... maybe.

Anyway, here's a small version of a render that shows the 'Kong Radials' text — hopefully it's a clear enough example:



I do have a better one, but this is already on the server, so it'll do.

Edit: found a similar render online after a bit of searching; it's a little large, and includes other (awesome) renders, but the text is very clear:

Spoiler!

credit to M-Dog1000000 of the DK Vine forum — relevant post (with other scans)

[Jeffrey_Bones]

Cyclone, what program are you using to make your Gnawtys walk cycles? I have the 3D model of Expresso ripped from super smash bros brawl and I have been trying to get him animated but I can't seem to find a program that will do the job. (BLENDER IS KILLING ME)
if you don't know the file I'm talking about is here http://www.models-resource.com/wii_gamecube/supersmashbros.brawl/sheet/3669




BY THE WAY I LOVE YOUR WORK IT'S AMAZING

[Cyclone]

Phyreburnz I will try to post some more renders for you in a few days.

Qyzbud thanks for the detailed feedback. If you could suggest a better font on the tire that would be great.

Jeffrey_Bones i'm using 3ds max to animate.

[Cyclone]

Here is the picture with the boats in DK's cabin.





K.Rool with a more scaly texture using Normal Maps. Didn't retexture the feet/legs though.
What do you think of the new texture. Was the old one better?



Excuse the head. It's still not merged with the body.

Thanks!

[Qyzbud]

The boat picture is looking good, and fits well in the scene. I'm glad you're going in-depth with obscure details... it appears we've got lots to look forward to!

It's good that you're trying out new ways of rendering K. Rool's scales, but I think I prefer the previous look... the new rendering technique makes the scales look a bit blurry and distorted; perhaps there's some fine-tuning you could do to improve this? If not, I'd definitely switch back, or try other options.

As for the font matching I offered to help with — 'Janda Manatee' is probably the best match I've found so far a reasonable likeness:

Spoiler!

kong-radials-font-test-janda.png (132.38 KiB) Viewed 159179 times

Obviously, it's not a perfect match — the I and G in particular are noticeably different — but I think it would be a good one to use until we work out a better likeness (or better yet, the exact font Rare used).

I figured I'd create/share a roughly edited 'blank' tire template for other typographically-inclined individuals to play with.

Edit:

Best matches I've found so far

kong-radials-font-test-passion-lilita.png (131.11 KiB) Viewed 159173 times

'Passion One' (AKA 'Passion') has a better 'I' (no crossbars)... but 'Lilita One' might be worth considering; it's a nice looking font, but like Janda Manatee above, the 'I' has crossbars.

I think I'd recommend 'Passion One' over all others I've found, so far.

[Cyclone]

OK. I sharpened the normal maps and increased the height. If you look at the legs,feet,and,toes they are still using the original textures. Is it just the blurriness you don't like or is it the new scaly texture map?

Click image for larger version.


Thanks for the font choices.

[Phyreburnz]

The font "Showcard Gothic" in Photoshop looks really similar as well.

Spoiler!

kong radials.png (103.18 KiB) Viewed 159146 times

[Qyzbud]

Hey, that is quite similar — the top-heavy letters, small letter-holes and unusual 'G', especially! If we could only find the font Showcard Gothic was based on... to the DKC Fonts topic!

Edit: Mattrizzle just found the perfect match! — can't wait to see your next tire render/animation!


As for K. Rool's latest texturing; I definitely prefer the original look. The new texture looks ugly and artificial to my eyes... like it's stretched out, or projected over his form from an angle (think of a light projector hitting the surface at a non-perpendicular angle). It still looks blurry (and pixelated) to me, too.

Does normal mapping his scales let you save a lot of poly's? Does it allow for easier, more flexible texture modification? I imagine these are both the case, so it's probably worth experimenting further, rather than just going back to the original look... but in its current form, it's not my cup of tea!

[Cyclone]

Kongs Banana Hoard Scene

Does normal mapping his scales let you save a lot of poly's? Does it allow for easier, more flexible texture modification? I imagine these are both the case, so it's probably worth experimenting further, rather than just going back to the original look... but in its current form, it's not my cup of tea!

Yes normal mapping does save polys and the program i was using to create them is easier to create the textures.

[Qyzbud]

Woah — bananas/sign/cave look awesome!

Keep up the amazing work.

[Cyclone]

I'm in the need of story/animation ideas... My idea is goes like this.

- Kremlings enter the banana hoard and steal the bananas during a thunderstorm.
- scene showing the baddies taking some bananas
- next shows a march of baddies walking through the jungle during the rainy environment
- some krushas kidnap Diddy and throw/ him lock him in a barrel
- Next morning DK wakes up(interio scene of DK's house) amd enters the empty banana hoard.
- DK hears Diddy in the barrel
- the set off into the jungle searching for the bananas.

Any ideas such as camera angles ans such are welcom

[Qyzbud]

Ooh, I like.

Sounds as though you are being very true to the official story, which I strongly approve of.

Rather than making specific suggestions at the moment, I'd just like to put it out there that dynamic camera work would be awesome — panning/zooming/fly-by shots of the jungle to set the scene (and show off your environmental modelling/lighting skills), slight movement/shake of camera in 'still' camera shots to give a more 'real' feel to the scenes, etc... nothing extreme/over-the-top, just a tasteful amount of camera dynamics to breath extra life into DK's world.

[Phyreburnz]

I would LOVE to see a part in the beginning with King K. Rool (maybe him ordering his troops or something)!