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This is about all I'm going to do on this one.

Notice the two little guys on the left.  ;)

NOTE:

I forgot to thank Bob and Walli. Thanks, guys.

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e x c e l l e n t  :)

This is really great!! The ants look very realistic (a pity that we don't have SSS in TG!). First I didn't see the two guys on the left. Crazy!
I couldn't resist and used my (temporarily ;D) favoured postwork on your image. DOF and chromatic aberration. Just for fun. I hope you don't mind. If you don't like to have your images altered by someone else please tell me and I'll certainly remove it.

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Terrific image, Marc! How about a very low POV for a follow-up... being one with the ants.

Quote from: MGebhart on April 29, 2010, 10:19:22 PM
This is about all I'm going to do on this one.
Notice the two little guys on the left.  ;)

Next : Ant wars !  ;)

Thanks for the compliments.

@Hannes: No problem. Looks cool. If you look on the left near the bottom there are two, tiny black Ants.

Hehe, love the little guys. They're very sneaky! Also, great grasshopper. Did you model all these?

- Oshyan

Oshyan,

Glad you enjoyed the render.

Here is where I got the reference for the Grasshopper. I took about a week on and off. 3D Studio MAX 2010.

http://www.sidney.ars.usda.gov/grasshopper/ID_Tools/F_Guide/extanat.htm

Heres the Ant Reference. It was pretty easy.

Note: See where a Sub Surface Scatter shader will work.  ::)

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Great modeling work. :)

- Oshyan

Here is a screen capture from MAX.

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hehe very nice !

The grasshopper model is really fantastic!

These are fantastic models.

Nice. Looking good. Perhaps there will be SSS shader somewhere in the future atleast I hope so :P

Nothing to change ..... everything so wonderful.... your details are so amazing !!

You can get some degree of 'fake' translucency in Terragen. In this case the default colour image has a value of 0.01 and the translucency(with no map) has a value of 250.
Ridiculous values but they work to some extent to make the guy seem not so solid. Of course, there'll be no shiny rainbowy bits but maybe other translucency/specular functions or images could approximate that, too...

[attachimg=#]

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dandelO,

That's just sweet.

I wonder if that will work in the whole scene. I'll give it a shot with a crop render.

Very nice work and thanks for the tip.

Your one of the few who always digs deeper.

Here is a spot render using dandelO's settings above. This looks much better and worth another render.

Thanks D.

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That translucency is incredible. I didn't think TG can do something like this. Fantastic, dandelO!!
Marc, your ant looks perfect like this. Please give us another big image!

Quote from: Hannes on May 02, 2010, 07:31:24 AM
... Please give us another big image!

Yes , please  :D

I agree, this could lead to a serious masterpiece of Terragen 2 capabilities. Not to mention being great art.

Here is another rendering using the translucency trick.

I saved it as an EXR out of Terragen and ran it through the Unsharp Mask in Photoshop CS4

What do you think?

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Here is a version using DOF

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Whew Marc. I like Anty02 the best. I hope you decide to make a larger image sometime.

How much larger? I thought 1200 x 750 would work for most monitors.

Nice! :)

I like  Anty02  the most , but maybe there is a little too much unsharp?
This is subjective of course . It is really nice as it is  :)

I prefer Anty03DOF. The translucency adds a lot to the picture! Great!

Wow. It looks even better. How the hell did you figure that out dandelO :D

Looks cool! :)

Quote from: freelancah on May 02, 2010, 12:28:37 PM
Wow. It looks even better. How the hell did you figure that out dandelO :D

Well, everyone knows to use the translucency channel for grass/leaves etc. What's stopping it being used on any other model? It might not be physically correct, but it looks fine to me. :)

More quick experiments with the ant. This time the values are more sensible.

Default colour map = 0.15
Translucency(no map) = 1
Displacement = 0.01 (via power fractal function, scales; 0.1, 0.1, 0.01).

[attachimg=#]

* Marc, sorry for hijacking. That'll be it here. :-[

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It's interesting you went from 250 to a value of 1 on the translucency. The power fractal works well however, I'm kind of torn between the first Anty and this one.

Thanks for going the extra mile.

I don't consider this hijacking, it's more contributing.

Well, there's no right or wrong way really. The first one had very little of the colour applied to the model so 250 was needed, here, much more colour is applied so a translucency value of 1 works fine. It's just a matter of balancing the orange glow of the colour map to make it not overly bright. :)

I might try a minute close-up render myself soon. Got to go, back later maybe...

It looks like something between the first and your last try would be very near to the real thing , DandelO ?

http://www.wikiwak.com/image/Meat+eater+ant+feeding+on+honey02.jpg

I made a Displacement map and applied it.

This is my effort.

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looks nice , Marc  :)

Thank you, Kadri.

This is starting to look amazingly good. The last full render had some really realistic looking ants IMO. The newest iterations with displacement and adjusted translucency may be even better but I do wonder if the more subtle effects and particularly the displacement will be visible without a closer camera perspective. I also think the lighting might be a bit too bright and even in the overall render.

Perhaps it would be good rather than applying general DoF to the current image to instead find a different lower camera PoV and render that with some nice DoF, thus highlighting the great detail on the ant model while also getting that nice DoF effect. If nothing else I'd say adjust the lighting a tad to be slightly less bright and even, and then render with the latest ant adjustments.

- Oshyan

Oshyan,

Is this what you had in mind?

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especially excellent render!

That's a photo! ;D Really nice work!

damn !!!
good render Oo

Yes, something quite like that. :)

- Oshyan

I only saw the green grasshopper now . Nice image , Marc  :)

I put the green grasshopper in during post work.

Glad everyone likes the render. 

I've had one render before getting some great info from you; now, a second version is under way with more ants and other stuff. It is models like these that great creative enthusiasm. Your work here is inspiring.

Just love this. Excellent render showcasing just what TG is capable of. Love the models.

Quote from: MGebhart on May 04, 2010, 09:00:53 AM
Oshyan,

Is this what you had in mind?

This is just great, Marc! Fantastic work!
Frank