For those who have seen my last render that I posted here a while back, I've remade the cartoon worm. I'm not sure how long it has been but during the time that separated this post from my last post, I've been continually improving my graphics skills and have now even begun to create my own video game (StarGlider).

Anyways, here is my latest scene that I thought might be of interest to the fans of Team 17's worms games.

Great improvements
Those seems very smooth
I still think the lower corners of the mouths could be a little more elevated
Anyway, nice work

Impressive! :)

Best fan-made 3D worms I've ever seen! Great job man!

Wow, love it. It looks like it was created by one of the Team 17 artists.

Yes, they look pretty much like the Worms 4 model. Hm, the tails seem to be slightly too long imo.

This is very well done. Nice job.

Yeah you've improved a lot. The small TNT crate seems out of place, but otherwise I really like it.

Pyramid: You're right. Guess he still needs a face lift. :P I'll have to work on that a bit.

SupSuper: You think so? I personally think it's like the cherry to a cake, if you know what I mean. The angle of the camera might change your opinion.

Turbo: Yeah, I noticed that too. One more thing to remember for the next render. ;)

Thanks for the comments everyone! I guess it certainly isn't that bad, especially for a student who's working his way through high school! I had to teach myself all these things but if their is anyone out there who thinks that a small amount of effort can complete a big goal, I'll tell you now that I didn't learn all this in one night! Anyways, thanks again!

Pretty good, but to me, the worms seem rather... copy-pasted

.Jet: Yeah, maybe that's becase they all have the same expression. Next time they should all have different expressions...

Pretty good, but to me, the worms seem rather... copy-pasted

Well, you're not going to entirely re-model them, are you? You start with a basic template rig and you add features (like the gray hair).

Well, you're not going to entirely re-model them, are you? You start with a basic template rig and you add features (like the gray hair).
I thinkthe line can be drawn when the worms are the exact same!

DrMelon: You're right. You definitely wouldn't remodel them but in order to give the characters a bit of variety, I should've modified the models to give them different looks.

One thing: The ''Old'' worm has the gray beard when eyebrows are white

Really? I thought that was just because of the shading/lighting.

Yea it's the shading. I'm sure they got the same colours actually.

Good models but the shadows could use some saturation, I think

Thurbo: It is, but it certainly doesn't look all that good. Looks like some of his hair ages faster than the others.

Dix-Neuf: That's a problem I had while rendering. It takes multiple renders to get the scene right. This might sound like a quick task to some but when you're working on a computer with horrible hardware, just one render will literally take half a day.

[B]This might sound like a quick task to some but when you're working on a computer with horrible hardware, just one render will literally take half a day.

How that? I don't know how rendering works at all :p

How that? I don't know how rendering works at all :p

Quite simple - you need to project vertices onto a camera plane, then determine visible polygons, draw them, shade them based on the lights available, draw shadows, reflections, various post-effects like motion blur and lens flares... something like that.
And considering overall smoothness of the models, I would say there are about hundred thousand polygons in the scene.
Though, I must say, some things are probably not necessary here.

But I might be mistaken. :)

Cb14: You're actually off by some several hundred thousand polygons. If I were to use that many, my computer would probably have a mental break down and blow up. Hahaha. Don't worry about it though, you did have a good point. The models are smooth (something that would require many polygons) but each worm uses only about fifteen hundred polygons which isn't that much. The rest is automatically smoothed out when rendered (that way my computer doesn't freak on me :P).

Turbo: To put it into simpler words, a render is sort of like a 2D depiction of a 3D (or 2D) scene. It's like using playdoe. You make your playdoe models, set up the scene by moving them around, then you get some lights to light it all up, then you take your picture/render the scene and this is what you get. Unfortunatly, rendering doesn't go as fast as the flash of camera. There's a kind of complicated and lengthy explanation for this but I don't think you'd want to go into detail about it. Trust me.

Unfortunatly, I didn't light this scene up all that well so I'm going to fix it up a bit. Cons: the time it took to render this image was about four hours. The time it'll take to render the new image is about twenty hours since it's much more filled up and properly lit. Pros: judging by the previous render (which didn't finish since someone in my family shut the computer off unknowingly D: ), the new one is going to look absolutely stunning! Probably the best scene I've ever made! It'll be on show at my local high school art exhibit in a couple or so weeks along with a few more of my graphite drawings and digital art. It's a humongous improvement to the image I posted here. Let me tell you!

Plasma: Oh and btw. In the new scene I'm rendering, everyone has a different expression ;D. They're all happy though so don't be surprised if they look similar :P.

Dix-Neuf: The shadows were fixed in the new scene I'm rendering. You'll see it soon.

I just want you all to know though that I wouldn't have made this next scene that I'll be showing you soon if it weren't for all of your interest in the the render I posted here. I believe you'll be pleased with what's on it's way!

Nice avatar is better than Thurbo's!!!!!! :mad:


nah just joking

Of course, when I render things much of my render time is taken up doing photon simulation... because I'm a sucker for realistic light caustics.

Myles, what kind of renderer do you use?

Have you tried using different facial expressions? Like fear, confusion or something?

The program is able to smooth lines? :p Is that a rather new feature?

Nice avatar is better than Thurbo's!!!!!! :mad:


nah just joking

lol he's taken my avatar for his joke. Means either my avatar rulez or he likes me :cool:

There's more to 3D rendering than meets the eye.

SupSuper: You think so? I personally think it's like the cherry to a cake, if you know what I mean. The angle of the camera might change your opinion.Yeah it's just the angle or direction that looks odd compared to the rest, maybe my eye's just playing tricks on me. :p

I've yet to see a 3D worms rendering that uses hard lighting and subsurface scattering. It might just look cool.

Yeah it's just the angle or direction that looks odd compared to the rest, maybe my eye's just playing tricks on me. :p

Nah I see that, too. It's completely wrong, unless the crate is about to fall down. If you know what I mean ;)

There's more to 3D rendering than meets the eye.

Yeah it's just the angle or direction that looks odd compared to the rest, maybe my eye's just playing tricks on me. :p

Yes, the angle is wrong
Just compare the top of the small crate to the rest

Haha. Yeah... from the viewer's point of view, it does look off, but to me it make perfect sense. There's a dip in the big crate, therefore it would only make sense if the small crate on top fell in to that dip. That's why it looks off but you probably can't tell because the rendering sucks. The next render will be better though. Much better at that.

Cb14: I used mental ray to render this scene but because I didn't set up the lighting right, it looks kind of weird. Mental ray is actually very good for rendering and you'll see that in my next render. Also, check my artwork at picasaweb.google.com/mlalmond and take a look at the submarine. I rendered this in a couple hours and the renderer I used was mental ray.

poninja: It's good stuff isn't it? lol jk This one's just temporary. I'll have a better one soon.

DrMelon: Same here.

Thurbo: Yeah. I use Autodesk Maya and if you use click the number "3" on your keyboard in the 3D view, the object selected will smooth out. Then just render with metal ray. This feature isn't new btw.

The render I'm working on is taking longer than I expected. It's a big render (literal size wize) and for those who understand how 3D renderers work, the new scene uses 20 raytrace rays (twice as many as the one I posted here) and final gather (which I usually try avoiding because it adds a ton of render time). This is the forth day of rendering. AKA it's still going. I don't know how our computer was able to go for four days straight but it did, and it's nearing an end!

http://picasaweb.google.com/mlalmond

Easier to click on this like :p

For the crate: Yea, I was expecting something similar. The dip is impossible to see, unfortunately, thus everybody thinks its perspective is off...

Whoa. The computer has to stay on for days and maybe even weeks?! :eek:

Strange. I don't recall Mental Ray having some kind of runtime smoothing. Could you point me to that option, please?

Also, more than 4 days for just one image is imho too much. From what i've been able to get from your first image, you are using quite the number of lights. Are there more of them than six?

Besides, do those 20 raytrace bounces make much difference? In real world, light is hardly able to bounce five ot seven times, after that it becomes too weak for us to perceive. Even taking reflective bombs into account.

Turbo: Thanks. It looks kind of weird in the next render too I guess... that's ok though. Judging by the how fast this thing is rendering, I might have to cancel it all and start over with lower render settings.

Cb14: Like I said in my last post, all you have to do is go into the 3D view and press "3" and any object selected will automatically smooth out, then just render the scene using mental ray. This helped me a lot since our computer couldn't possibly handle many-poly models. Unfortunatly, it doesn't work with the maya hardware renderer or software renderer. I think you're right though, it shouldn't take this long to render. I followed this tutorial on studio lighting and used the same settings for the new scene. I don't think our computer can hand it like the tutorial writer's can though. My computer is horrible... and btw, I didn't know that fact about the 5 to 7 raytrace bounces. As for the number of lights, you predicted right. I used quite a few lights (mostly to light the areas where the fuses on the bombs are). Perhaps this is a bit unneccessary. That would certainly be one of the biggest reasons why the new scene is taking so long to render. But how else will I be able to create a realistic fuse without creating the light for the fuse?

Myles L.
Well, I use 3dsmax, not maya, so THAT method of smoothing is unfamiliar. But I guess even if your model itself doesn't have too many polys, the renderer has to deal with the smoothed one, and that's where the polycount increases.

As for the lights, I took fuses into account, too. That's why I said 6 lights: 5 for the bombs and 1 for the window. So I wondered in there were any extra.

Since someone complained about how the shadows were unsaturated, I think toning down the window light source could fix that. Also, there are different shadowing algorithms besides raytracing - e.g., shadow mapping. Sure, it's not as accurate, but who knows - maybe it would fit better? :)

And the last piece: about those 5 to 7 bounces. You can probably roughly measure the necessary amount like this: the bombs, as far as I can tell, are the most glossy objects in the scene. Compare the floor and its reflection in the bomb: the latter is significantly darker. So, a single ray's bounce decreases its intensity noticeably. How many bounces would "reduce it to pitch black"? After that, there's no point in bouncing it any further, as it will make no difference in surface's visible color.

But, despite what I've just said, I'm looking forward to seeing your new render as it is. Then would be the time for real suggestions. :)

Yeah there is a lot of improvement in you. After seeing this cartoon my eyes were stuck to and i have saw it for long time it is very good art by you i really appreciate you. If there would have allotment of marks i would have gave you cent percent.

Excellent work from an amateur artist ! To be perfect, means are needed ... so contacting Team 17 is needed :D