Aquatic Rig.B (Texturing)

Phase Seven: Final render post feedback

After receiving some feedback, I decided to change the story from being in ankle deep to falling through the water into the depth of the ocean. 

I have added some bubbles and caustic noise pattern to the Rays of Lights.

This will be my last entry for this challenge.

Thank you for organizing this fun challenge. 

And here are some extra renders without particles simulations and water depth, to highlight the textures more.

Here are some before and after bubble simulations

Phase Six: Feedback

Here are updated versions of my renders with altered roughness passes, hand-painted textures,  modifications to the lighting, and additions of fine details. Now I am looking for some feedback before submitting the final renders next week in 4K.

Phase Five (suite): Close-up Render

Hindsight:

I am happy with the color palette and depth on the top/front of the helmet and the overall armor as well as the light passing through the finger gaps onto its left shoulder area.

Phase three: Composition and Lighting

Position:

As much as I like the T-pose, I felt it was time to give it a different look. I started iterating on the position of RIGB and see what story could go with my water theme. 

Lighting:

I wanted to have Rays of light which implied using Volumetric Atmospheres and a series of Lights. (4 area lights, 2 spotlights, and a directional light as well as an Atmospheric Volume)

Environment:

I created a simple Bifrost simulation to get a water plane that I placed at ankle level as I didn't want the water to take precedence over the texture of RIGB but rather complement the story.

Conclusion:

I chose the have RIGB face a strong spotlight and by doing so, forced it to put its hand up to protect its lens. I also spread the fingers to allow light rays to go through.

Phase Four: Making first alterations after initial test Renders

After a quick set of renders, I realized some modifications were needed so I went back to Substance Painter and altered some of the masks I made, tweaked the opacity, the emissive values, and so on. I then reimported the textures in Maya and did a second set of renders. I still didn't see exactly what I wanted. 

Phase Five: First set of Renders

I decided to make further changes. Here is where the magic happened for me: I took some of the presets from AiStandardSurface as inspirations and took some ideas from them and applied that to my textures; for example, I cranked the thickness up to 100 and added some transmission depth up to 10. This gave the result I was looking for.

I also added some raindrops FX on the lower legs to match the fact that RIGB was in the water.

Using AOVs:

I created an AOV for each light source to check its influence on the overall composition (the images below are just example renders I stopped early on, to demonstrate the process I followed and are by no means the end product).

Hindsight:

I will refine the scene and optimize it more as the render time is enormous at the moment. That being said I am happy with the overall feel. The thighs are particularly striking to me. I will make some minor adjustments in Substance Painter to push the details a little further. I will also add a close-up render of the face later. I will modify the light intensity as well. 

Phase two: Texturing in Substance Painter

Draft 1:

My first approach was to go into Maya and create a Material for the Armor, the Joints, the Glowing elements, and the accessories. After a little bit of texturing and composition in Arnold, I realized the limitations of that approach.

Draft 2:

I decided to revert back to the original mesh provided and create all the various folders I wanted based on the materials or the functions of the textures I want (ie Bolts, LED...). This took me a good amount of time but worth it.

I wanted to create a texture for the main part of the armor that resembles a crystal/coral pattern and in order to do that I layered 5 levels of height with various colors (adding a blur slope on top of the Mask generators) to create the pattern.

For the tubbing, I used an emissive color to give it a glow and I added a Raindrop effect to the folder to mimic air bubbles. 

To achieve the opacity/translucent concept I have in mind, I will modify the aiStandardSurface in Arnold during the composition stage. So the feel of this textures will change but I will keep them as a base to work on.

Hindsight:

After importing all the various maps and setting them up in Arnold I came back to the texturing phase and adjust the textures from Draft 2 and added a Height to Normal filter to my materials/folders.

I will probably come back at a later stage to make some minor changes to fit the look I want and reimport the maps in Arnold.

Phase one: Mood Board/Research

Theme:

Being a Scuba diving instructor, I wanted to base the theme on Water. I also like ice and crystals which I wanted to reflect in my selection process. 

Texture Details:

Blue/Green colors, some opacity/translucency like a Jellyfish, and height details like an octopus skin.

Composition:

Place RIGB in water or near water with some Volumetric Rays of Light for composition.

Hindsight: 

Placing RIGB waist-deep in water or completely underwater will hide or reduce the visibility of the details, so I will probably change the composition but I still want a reference to water.