Skip to main content

Opilio Crab

W

hile working on numerous projects over the summer, I began re-shaping my king crab model to form a different species that will be in D_ROGUE; that is also caught in the Bering Sea.


A Chionoecetes Opilio.

This crab is a species of Snow crab, otherwise known as Opilio crab or Opies. It is a very abundant commercial species and is often caught by pots and trawlers as seen on the tv show Deadliest Catch.


Jason Bartlett ©


What sets this crustacean apart from a King crab, is they're shells are less rough, are overall a lot smaller, and have eight legs and two claws; not six legs and two claws, like King crabs.

Above, is the Opilio model close to completion in Maya. The poly count was high enough on my King crab model to sculpt and re-work the legs into the Opilio form.

Having the previous model to work from, helped speed up the modelling stage dramatically. Additionally, I had not modelled organic objects in 3D, since my second year of University (five years ago!); so, having another go at creating something organic, I felt was a chance to improve on from my previous model earlier in the year.

In the next post, I'll cover the UV unwrap process and the really fun part, texturing in Substance Painter!


Thanks for reading :)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Timeless Terror: Jaws @ IMAX (50th Anniversary Re-Issue) Review/Analysis

T he 50 th Anniversary Re-Issue IMAX screening of Steven Spielberg's  Jaws  (1975) was not just a revisit to a classic, but a thoughtful re-education and celebration of cinematic history. From the moment the MCA Universal logo and the iconic JAWS title card graced the colossal IMAX screen, the experience justified every penny. The stunning clarity plunged the audience into Amity Island’s perilous summer like never before. The enhanced resolution revealed details previously lost to small screens and the compression/conversions to old VHS and DVDs. A prime example of this is immediately apparent in the opening sequence. The day-for-night shots where Tom is running after Chrissie on the beach, is remarkably clearer. This allows for a much richer appreciation throughout. As someone with deep admiration for analogue artifacts, particularly works shot on ARRIFLEX or Panavision cameras with anamorphic lenses, this IMAX presentation elevate...

Arnold Render Tests

A fter months and months of modelling, UV unwrapping and exporting assets, it has been very refreshing to now open up Maya 2026 and experiment with all the new features. The first thing I just had to do was to try out the latest version of the  built-in ray tracing renderer, Arnold 7.4. Excitedly, I opened up the wheelhouse interior scene, dropped in a HDRI map on a skydome light, and experimented with all the settings. I increased the brightness of the lights in the attribute editor (as it is an interior space it will be inherently darker), and played around with the number of samples to improve the overall image quality (more iterations for rays to bounce and do their thing). I'm incredibly pleased with how these greyscale renders of the wheelhouse below turned out. They not only bring the space to life visually, but also motivate me to get back into the creative flow. Jason Bartlett © Jason Bartlett © Jason Bartlett © Jason Bartlett © Next time, I'll show some development of...

Crab Pot

For the next step of the modelling process of the crab pot, I was challenged with another huge hurdle ( to say the least). This stage was where all the painstaking problems crawled in again.  The rope. I thought making some bendy cords would be simple enough, but believe me, it was anything but. There aren't many tutorials, covering the whole modelling process to the end 'game ready' product, for rope. So, like previous obstacles I faced in the modelling stage, I used multiple methods and trial and error to find the best path.  Actually, creating a tube following a manually placed path, was the easiest part for me. I had picked this step up while at University. However, I had to manually place and move each Bezier path to form the guide lines, for yards of rope, in a natural and realistic way. Hundreds of them. I spent more hours than I would have liked, setting up the paths to guide the rope along. I kept asking myself that there must be an easier way to tie...