Jacen Baurne for EliasWindrider [WIP]

Alright guys and gals, heres the rough cut of Jacen Baume.

-Request Thread Link-

First set of WIP's are a screenshot of my workspace as I position and pose the character, and the next couple are 2 variances in lighting condition. Dawn and early evening sunset. I could do mid-day as well.

Some notes:
- sample render quality right now, thus you'll see jaggies around the edges etc
- the hair I need to fix or change, as its not looking up to my standards
- I don't have the requested hover droid model, but I did put in one of the few I do have
- Armor isn't *exactly* as the drawn female version of the suit and armor, though I think its similar.
- requested helmet I do have, color and visor color are adjustable
- Armor camo pattern is adjustable
- amo belts are removable
- I don't have the requested gun, tho I added one that I do have. I also have many more to choose from.
- sky, clouds, shadow, lighting, moon are adjustable as they're a live environment not a static image. Likewise the ocean water plane.
- Tower & walkway prop can be swapped out for something different.
- resolution is adjustable.

So... Talk to me. What do you like of it sofar? What do you want changed or improved or different? What type of lighting do you want? Indoor? Outdoor?

It doesn't take me very long to make changes. Test renders take about 6-20 min pending on lighting and amount of props / set items used.

=============== Edit 1 ===============

Hmmm, I had forgotten the upload previews don't go full screen / full res. here's the photobucket wip pics:

- preview
- jacen dawn
- jacen early sunset

try the larger views ;)

=============== Edit 2 ===============
added one in daylight with decent lighting. also fixed the over-shine on the hair.
- jacen daylight

=============== Edit 3 ===============
Ok, I'm getting a few renders done, with the camera angle to the left at -26 degrees. The 5-20 degrees was close, but theres the walkway platform arials getting in the way. I used a second camera for this angle.

Preview 8
- 26 degrees left, 2nd cam
- top down project view

Next up will be the armor color changes. I've got some decent weathered metal / grey paint shaders I'm going to try on the armor.

Also: for better viewing information, these are the items used sofar:
- Major Cache - armor
- MOS Invasion - armor ammo belt (and formerly rifle)
- The Core
- HardCore - blaster carbine (current replacement for preview 8 rust)

Preview 8 "rust"

Ok, so if you clicked on the url links, you'll have seen in better detail what the stock model options are for textures and accessories. I do not have the extra texture sets like "Major Upgrade".

On the flipside, I do have my own custom (and growing) made library of procedural shaders. Its sort of my own digital painters pattern pallet where I can make worn metal or rusted metal textures, or anything like that. It just doesn't include the ability to modify the provided model textures by means of altering text, or redoing the text into aurebesh. Thats something I'd have to totally re-vamp the model's stock textures in photoshop. As currently, the stock textures have english words on the armor labels; thus my option of resorting to my own custom made shaders.

So here's a small sample of worn metal shaders i've made, previews directly in the Texture room:
- rustmetal3b
- rustmetal3c
- rust7
- rust7b
- rust7d
- rust7dd

Couple examples and a render using my shader "rustmetal3c" which is a blend of Source 1: rust7d with Source2: a new rust layer ontop of it, actual rust texture. The handy setup of these shaders is I could put any single whole shader into Source1, and another into Source2, and tweak the blender fractal pattern and scale for a near infinite variation.

As a render gets you this result:
- Jacen Doc8a

** Jacen Doc8aa *with soft shadows*
* somehow the setting got disabled, probably when the program crashed before i had a chance to save it.

The interesting thing is how the shader channels are setup as mixers, sources, and blenders (which dictate how the sources interact with one another - a fractal pattern that acts like a stencil cutout). Rust7d is a shader on its own with a set of color sources and mixers. Yet, we can layer as Source1 Rust7d with Source2 a seperate actual rust texture channel ontop, and let a blender fractal pattern mix the two. The following below further examples this.

- rustmetal3cchest
- rustmetal3cchestinverted
- rustmetal3cchestblender

...

Now, if your really wanting the stock armor texture, I can still do that if you wish, just note the labeling will be in its default english, without doing alot of photoshoping, cloning, and new labeling added in aurebesh. Do note this will take a while for me to do, and I may in some spots just cover up the labeling rather than re-write it in aurebesh.

I realize this update has alot of links to click, and quite a few options to ponder and think about. Let me know what you'd like. We can still try a few things yet... Even add a little more to the scene. Want a lit cigarette hanging from his lips? or a landmass or island in the distant background? its doable.

side note: The more stuff I add into a scene, the more I will eventually have to swap out stock textures with my inhouse made shaders, as they're more resource / memory efficient than jpg textures. We're doing alright sofar, since its just 1 guy, several pieces of armor, a droid, a elevator / bridge / platform, and a water plane.

=============== Edit 4 ===============

Sorry about the delay all, been busy with some regular fall activities. I and Elias chatted a few times over YIM, and pretty much got it tailored to the way he wants it, then it was just a matter of adding in a little background detail and getting a good quality render done.

I had a couple hiccups with the final render, the program didn't like something, so it was some trial and error though I finally got it. Will be making and uploading the final render later today. Theres one tiny little detail I just noticed I have to take care of yet.

Thanks for your patience :)