Angel
 

This is what I have so far. I am using a movie file for the texture as well as the displacment map, so each frame will be diferent.

For example...

I will try and describe the project I am working on. First of all there are 3 characters. The first one is the one that I am working on, (first realistic human, Post in WIP).
The animation will start of with the first character walking down a dark ally. He will get hit buy something but we will not see it. As he continues he will keep getting hit and pushed around by something we do not see. At the end he drops to his knees and then the whole thing rewinds. The whole thing starts again. This time the 2nd character is introduced. (The 2nd one is a Seraphim (Angel). I have attached an image. I want to use a lot of particle effects to give him a similar look to the picture from Nintendo’s “Geist”). You will see that he is the one that was pushing the first character around. It gets to the end and rewinds. In the third and final pass the 3rd character is introduced. (The 3rd is a fallen angel similar to the 2nd but decrepit. I want to make him very dark and he will leave trails of fire.) This time you will realize that the 2nd character was not beating him up but protecting him from the 3rd. At the end the first character prays (body language, there will be no talking), and than there will be a shot of the Fallen angel confronting the Angel. The Angel will open up his wing and brighten up. When this happens the fallen angel will go away. The Angel will then help the 1st character up and they will continue walking down the ally together.
I plan on showing allot of emotion in the 1st character as he is very proud and gets very upset at first. As the story progresses he will be humbled and realize that he is not able to do this on his own.
The part I am working on now is the angel.

This is what he looks like before displacement map

closer shot. (I will add wings soon)

tece:
The first thing I did was take the standered fire in maya and did a BUNCH of tweaks. I then put it on a plane and rendered out a image sequence in an orthigraphic camera. I used that as my texture. I then edited those frames in PS to make my displacment map. The rest is hard for me to explain, Just some Ramp shaders and stuff. Hope that makes some sence.

wow amazing stuff!
but on the first 2 images i cant recognize a face.....this will be very hard...could you also post the displacment map??just interested....the model itself is polys right??

For this Character his head will be covered buy two protective wings. (you will probably never see his face) As far as his face goes, well he is an angel and is in constant communication with God therefore God is his eyes and ears. For my fallen angel His wings will be corroded because he does not communicate with God anymore and therefore must rely on his own senses.

Atached is one of the frames from the displacment map. It is very sutel. (on one of my computers it just looks black) but it makes a big diferance.

uuh this is really dark...i can notice some dark grey elements in it but that map changes much? k!
good luck with your angel...will u animate it and make a short clip with it ???
m always wondering why artists stop with the finished model?why dont they make an animation or a clip or short film....if i could i would!!!!!

Dragonhawk:
The map actually changes it allot. if yo look at my wirframe you can see the change from the render. I will animate this when I am done.

Here is another render of my progress. What do you guys think? Is this working at all. What should I do to make it better. Did it look better before?

Here is another render of my progress. What do you guys think? Is this working at all. What should I do to make it better.

Did it look better before?

yes u had more variety (if that word exists) on the "skin" of that angel...now its mostly one-colour....also the glow was a bit better and more flame-like...

What should I do to make it better.

to me a combination would be best ...the face seems better as far as i can notice more of the head....but the body was better before...

im sorry that im the only one helping you here because u really know more than me so i cant help much i dont knwo whats up here on the forum....

i think the following:
you should concentrate most on the nebolous effect of the character...the face is secondary to me....
therefore the exhalation/haze (u understand) looks more flame like on the image....you have more fog as if the angel is only VERY cold and hast that cool athmosphere around him/her (contraproductive for the effect an angel shall have ....more warm in my opinion it shall be and yes i am crazy lol).

so focus most to that flame effect

Dragonhawk:
Thanks for your input!

"...i dont knwo whats up here on the forum...."

I think maybe I need to put the word girl, or nude as my topic, JK.

Any way I think you were right and I have done some adjustments, As far as the angel being "cold" I wanted to keep his colors very cool and for the next character (fallen angel) the colors will be warm.
I did this render without my partial effects but you can get the idea. What do you think of the head?
I wish I knew how to upload a video file so you could see what it looked like when it is moving.

If the texture swims, then the last render should rock. I like the layered look in the head area much better. The first two renders left the with very little definition. can you post a screen cap of the shader network?

also, if you want to send me the vid, I'll host it if it isn't overly huge, say less than 20mb.