Our latest CGI project: a Warthog!

Well,

I didn’t know what a warthog was, do you? I had to ask it twice, ‘A warthog you say?’. It is an ‘African Lens Pig’, a wild member of the pig family that lives in Africa (Wikipedia). When I saw a picture of it, I was thinking at Timon and Pumbaa, you know, the two  characters from Walt Disney.

So, my talented colleague Daniel Hanze had a nice challenge: modeling a warthog. Not only modeling the animal, but also adding the texture, fur and rendering. The warthog had to act as a model, standing in a photo studio on white paper. Nothing special, but this way, the viewer isn’t distracted from other details around the animal such as a background or probs.

The only thing we had to add in the studio with the warthog was mud, yes mud: sand and water. That was my part 😉 After playing with mud a whole afternoon, taking too many pictures, the complete make-over in photoshop could start. That was fun!

Step 1: Find the right reference material

Step 2: Start modeling

Step 3: Adding texture

subsurface scattering

specular

diffuse

Bump

Step 4: Lighting setup and rendering

Studio and light setup

Ambient Occlusion

Modo has some nice ‘fur’ features!

Step 5: Retouching and adding mud

Voila, that’s our Warthog!

Cheers,

Kristof & Daniel

www.lookit.be