Widdershins The Tentacle

Jason Galterio · March 2016

I admit it. I am jaded. I've been here too long. And I think that I've seen it all.

So it's very rare that a gush about a new product.

But... Widdershins The Tentacle... Genius!

wiz · March 2016

It should go well with the rest of my tentacle collection.

Strands of Horror - Mechanical tentacles and chains
Singers of Something or Other - Organic monsters with tentacles
Infiltrator - Mechanical snake that doubles nicely as a tentacle
The TentacleZ series off that "osity" site - Organic and with good variety
Tentacle EP off a site with a three word name - Organic with great suckers

Between serious jobs, the tentacles come out to play.

Jason Galterio · March 2016

I got sick of using the old DAZ Octopus (SKU 338 for god's sake) and making the body invisible!

Widdershins Studio · March 2016

You bring me great joy Jason :)

I didn't think it would be released until tomorow so was surpised to see it available.

I'm very pleased you both like it and will find it useful.

It took longer to make than my other things and I had to learn new skills, I'm glad it was all worth it.

Thank you for making my day :)

R25S · March 2016

It`s already in my cart since this mornig... (but wait til the next order).

Is it morphable, too? Or will their be additional morphs in the future?

I would like to have different Top-Ends.

Widdershins Studio · March 2016

Just posable at this time. I did think about morphs but left them out in the end - if that would be useful I can look into it though :)

R25S · March 2016

Would be nice...

something with a flat end like the ones from a giant squid (Architheutis)... or teeth on the suckers (like squids have).

Oso3D · March 2016

I imagine you could do some stuff with scaling, and displacement maps... earthworm-like rings?

(I've put this in my maybe list... I've gotten a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT of mileage out of Singers of Chzor, but something with suckers would be nice, too)

Widdershins Studio · March 2016

Yes you could try with scaling as I did do weight painting for scale too so the transistion should be relatively smooth.

I just fiddled quickly with it to get a flat end.

I'll have a play over the weekend with the base model to see how well morphs could work.

R25S · March 2016

Yes; the Singers are cool. I also like the Modular Mech Squid. And have several other Tentacles, too. But what I really miss is something like the ones from a Giant Squid... I also want a Architheutis as a figure (because it is an impressive animal/monster and would look very great in aquatic scenes)

Jason Galterio · March 2016

Widdershins Studio said:

You bring me great joy Jason :)

I didn't think it would be released until tomorow so was surpised to see it available.

I'm very pleased you both like it and will find it useful.

It took longer to make than my other things and I had to learn new skills, I'm glad it was all worth it.

Thank you for making my day :)

You are very welcome. I had to wait until I got home to finish out my cart, but that has been done. Haven't had a chance to render yet, but planning to this weekend. :)

And I second the idea for additions to this. Hopefully sales will make that a reasonable possibility.

Oso3D · March 2016

Trying out Widdershins' Tentacle. First image is default skin with a displacement map of my own design (which sounds fancier than it is), second is using my free shader preset WTP Rusted, third WTP Brainy, and fourth WTP Ocean Ripples.

I suspect, with a little work, I could adapt Singers of Chzor maps to this. Hmm. (will require some cleverness)

Oso3D · March 2016

So the answer to 'I wonder if I can adapt Singers of Chzor textures to this' is... yes.

I don't know if it would be considered, er, proper to explain the steps to do so?

Widdershins Studio · March 2016

Oh that's really clever

I especially like the brown one.

A tutorial would be cool I think. Go for it I say :)

Jason Galterio said:

Widdershins Studio said:

You bring me great joy Jason :)

I didn't think it would be released until tomorow so was surpised to see it available.

I'm very pleased you both like it and will find it useful.

It took longer to make than my other things and I had to learn new skills, I'm glad it was all worth it.

Thank you for making my day :)

You are very welcome. I had to wait until I got home to finish out my cart, but that has been done. Haven't had a chance to render yet, but planning to this weekend. :)

And I second the idea for additions to this. Hopefully sales will make that a reasonable possibility.

Looking forward to you showing us if possible :)

Two for additions then, I'll see what I can do.

SickleYield · March 2016

timmins.william said:

So the answer to 'I wonder if I can adapt Singers of Chzor textures to this' is... yes.

I don't know if it would be considered, er, proper to explain the steps to do so?

It's not in violation of the EULA to explain to people how to alter a texture between two products they've legitimately bought, and I think the Widdershins tentacle is pretty fun, actually. Go for it.

I would add some top coat at IOR 1.33 or so for Iray rendering, though, it's looking pretty dry in your image.

Oso3D · March 2016

Ok, Chzor maps seem to be 3072x3072 or 4096x4096 (I'm not entirely sure why, but hey).
First number is for 3072x, number in parens are for 4096x.
Note that this process may look meh at the bottom of the tentacle, so you might want to play with it or just keep the base out of view.

This approach essentially takes the Chzor map, clips it so the tip is right at the top and the base is right at the bottom and then squishes it to the left, fitting the map for Widdershins.

Steps:

Open Singer of Chzor tentacle texture in your image editor of choice.
Change canvas side to clip the top of the image. In GIMP and I think Photoshop, this means placing the indicator in the bottom row. Set new height to 2985 (or 3980).
Clip bottom of image (reverse of above), new height 2600 (or 3467).
Resize width to 1500 (or 2000) while leaving height alone (do not preserve aspect ratio).
Change canvas width to 3072 (or 4096) while image stays on the left.

If you really feel like it, you can fill the new canvas with the general background color, but it's not going to matter.

Serene Night · March 2016

I'm curious about the suction cups how do they look? I

Oso3D · March 2016

I CAN'T STAHP

Widdershins Studio · March 2016

SickleYield said:

timmins.william said:

So the answer to 'I wonder if I can adapt Singers of Chzor textures to this' is... yes.

I don't know if it would be considered, er, proper to explain the steps to do so?

It's not in violation of the EULA to explain to people how to alter a texture between two products they've legitimately bought, and I think the Widdershins tentacle is pretty fun, actually. Go for it.

Thanks :)

Serene Night said:

I'm curious about the suction cups how do they look? I

Here's a quick close up of the suckers below.

Will, that is funky :)

DId you add the teeth to the sucker texture or do something else ?

Oso3D · March 2016

I used the spec map as a bump map, used a simple gradient displacement map (tiling vertically through image editor). The cups are Mec4d's copper with suction neutral, tentacle Mec4d brass. The nice thing about tentacles/pipes/etc is that simple maps work fine since they can cut horizontally across the texture map and line up.

Widdershins Studio · March 2016

That's cool, I really need to learn more about displacement maps. I'll add that to my weekend plans too. Many thanks :)

Jason Galterio · March 2016

Just for the record, I didn't even consider the Chzor models. Mostly because Sci-fi scenes aren't my usual thing.

What sold me on this one was the promo picture using Steets of London. That really spoke Lovecraftian to me. That was what got my mind going with the possbilities.

Widdershins Studio · March 2016

You picked up on the Lovecraft influence then :)

For quite a while now I have been toying with an idea to do a Lovecraftian graphic novel and the seed was sown for the tentacle last year.

When I was working on the model I was also playing with non photorealism as per the thread in the art board. As soon as I saw Streets of London I had to have it. And then once I had made the tentacle it slotted right into place with that particular scene I had been playing with.