[Francis]

Hello

Here's a Christmas card thing I was asked to do right before I left for Thanksgiving vacation. I had an afternoon to come up with something to be used as a Christmas card for the myst3.com site, and just ended up painting over a render we produced for a magazine print shot. I included before and after shots.

P.S. I think the elite forum thing is a bad idea - I see the forum as a microcosm of the internet - totally chaotic, but also totally democratic. No rules other than your own sense of social responsibility. It may be naive and overly optimistic, but as far as I'm concerned, I really enjoy the funky, chaotic, anarchic stuff going on. You gotta admit that this stuff (even the recent noise) is more interesting to read than some antiseptic corporate company line happy bullshit stuff, or everything anyone does is great art like Elfwood. Anyway, sorry about the mini rant - sort of got carried away. Here's the stuff (sorry for the huge size - myst3.com posted a tiny one and you can't see any of the grody brush strokes, which I know you guys like to see):

before:


after:



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Francis Tsai
TeamGT Studios

[A.Buttle]

Jingle bells, Batman smells, blah blah blah blah blah... Merry Friggin' X'mas!

And finally, someone who agrees with me about Elfwood.

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So...which part of "get out of town freak" weren't you clear on, John?

Joe Dillingham

[email protected]
Three Times A Day

[Jenn]

w00t.. nice pics

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DarkChyld

[sacrelicious]

I see a huge moon... now where's Santa and the reindeer?

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mmm... sacrelicious

[Lukias]

I like it alot and have no real idea how you alter the image to such a degree. Its a beautiful render.

Hitting the piss in that little building would be very cool, very cool.

Geez its Xmas already, it used to be so exciting I'd piss myself back when, but now it seems so money money money.

[EviLToYLeT]

go hurt em Francis!

"The artists and designers at Presto Studios have created this very special holiday graphic for the Myst III: Exile fans. We hope you all enjoy it !"

hehe... they call you artists and esigners?

[Cos]

hehe really cool francis, now all you need is a cyborg santa on a mutated rudolph with biobooster rocket launchers on his sled and we all laughing (abit like this actually)- HAHAHAHAHAHAkillHAHAHAHAHAHAkillHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAKILLHAHAHAHA.... erm ok cos,.... shuttap now

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-Cos Koniotis-

http://www.3dpalette.org/~coskoniotis

[A.Buttle]

Cos, generally, crack is considered a BAD thing to smoke... but you do whatever floats your own personal boat, man. Just don't get hurt.

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So...which part of "get out of town freak" weren't you clear on, John?

Joe Dillingham

[email protected]
Three Times A Day

[synj]

i enjoy because you took the same landscape and changed the season on it. that sounds like it could be a cool exercise to do every once in a while. thanks for the happy images.

-synj www.synj.net

[SporQ]

nifty, not only did he change the time of day, but the entire season of the pic. beautiful job.

my only crit (if you want em) is that it seems that the lighting is indicating that the moon should be further to the right, prolly off the pic. but it's good for the compsition where it is.

SporQ

[itsik]

big big WOW but....
you should try to draw some... fire... blood...weapon...and all the others

[micke]

Hey Francis!
I like both they look very good.

The sky on the christmas card is maybe a little bit too blue, but nothing else.
I guess it adds that special christmas-spirit.

-Mikael

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-Mikael Noguchi-

Mikael's artwork

[kimzoll]

RESPECT!!!!
Kim

[Axl]

Like your alterations. I think the sky creates more depth within the piece, the original sky looked too flat. I guess the lights are inevitable but they're a nice touch.
How did you create the starfield?

[Francis]

Hi and thanks for the comments and crits. I was notified by anticz (Mike Brown, the modeller/animator who did a lot of the work for this scene) that the original image I posted was supposed to be an exclusive cover shot for a magazine. Oops.

Anyway -

sac: The santa idea was actually suggested to me more than once, but the scrooge in me said "no."
Lukias: Just photoshop painting. Amen about Christmas=money. Almost as bad as weddings.
Evil: I have no problem with that at all. This image is the end result of the work of several people on this forum. The architecture was designed by Fruitbat (Seth Fisher), modelled, textured and lit by anticz (Mike Brown), and textured by Magpie (James Rochelle). I hope I'm not leaving someone out who worked on this...
Sporq: Agreed about the lighting being off - I wanted the moon in the composition, but I didn't want to go to the trouble of moving all the cast shadows that were so nicely calculated by 3DSMax.
Micke: Yes, too much blue for realism, but probably appropriate for overly sentimental Christmas crap.
Axl: The stars are just painted with the paintbrush, using size and opacity and maybe three or four different blues and purples.


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Francis Tsai
TeamGT Studios

[Joachim]

I only see the last one. . . looks really good. Are the mountains 3d modelled and then brushed ? Looks very huge, I like that. Agree with micke, I too don't dig that blue sky, though it's not that you've done something wrong...a matter of taste I guess.

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Joachim's Place

[natec]

Really nice francis, but man...I gotta go on the forum to see this?? whats up?

-n

[detonation2000]

what ever happened to "Merry Christmas?"

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As soon as your born you start dying,
so you might as well have a good time.
-Cake
Vertigo Designs
[email protected]
http://members.home.net/detonation2000

[Sergenth]

The blue would have looked better if the JPG compression didn't mangle the radial gradient you used, but the final pic is shrunken, so no big woop.

Neato.