So we pop our model into the 3ds Max frying pan with the heat set to Vray, stir in a couple lights and what we end up with is…ok my image isn’t actually finished (as you can see lol). But it’s getting close.

I’m pretty happy with the placement of the belt line and the top down illumination… The issue that I’m working through is the white block of light on the window. I know I could just paint this out in post but I know I won’t be a team of one working in a studio lol. The next step is to get my bounce light at the right intensity and see how everything looks. Then I’ll be in texture painting land. Mmmmm gritty cement I know this post was short and light on pics, I’ll do a break down when this project in finished (if I could ever get some spare time it would go a lot faster lol). That’s all for now, stay tuned folks!

Peace!

wait, what? I already made the 99 problems joke? Fine how about this knee slapper from the Galactic Empire: When Darth Vader handcuffs someone it’s called…wait for it…a “Sithizen’s” arrest. Eh? Eh? Whatever it’s not my joke anyway lol.

Howdy folks! It’s been a while…but it takes a while to teach oneself a new skill. I’ve finally gotten far enough in my quest for 3d knowledge to start an actual project. The plan is to make a still image of the Cadillac CTS-V (2011). I’m pretty obsessed with it…not that I don’t still love Ferrari’s 456 Italia and Lambourghini’s Aventador but there’s something about the CTS-V that’s just…slick.

I built this scene from the ground up (the CTS-V being from good ol’ turbosquid). I modeled a few bits that were missing in the car model and cranked up the turbo-smooth but other than that it’s a nice model to work with . I’m actually pretty far along in this project but I refuse to post any more lame test renders. This is the camera angle I picked- it will be an early morning lighting situation with vibrant golds, pinks and oranges…and whatever other fun colors I can get out of my hdri. 

I’m pretty sure I’d like the car paint to be white, the actual color is called “white diamond tricoat”. I’m going to try my hand at making a layered car paint shader…it should be fun …or something lol.

Stay tuned for slightly larger images and probably a sketch or two if I ever get up from my computer

Peace!

Ok I might have taken some liberties with those lyrics lol.

Anyway, howdy folks!

Still kindof flipping things around and figuring out exactly what I want these mushrooms to look like. So far I’ve found some pretty cool reference pics of gnarly looking mushrooms with crazy textures (probably mold or something else gross but whatever). I’m in a fight with the ground plane at the moment, that will be the first thing to tackle in the next painting session.

On the 3d end of things, I broke down and bought myself a few car models (good ol’ turbosquid never lets me down lol)…the first one up to bat is the Cadillac CTS-V. I made what I can only describe as a “Stonehenge-ish” place -minus the “omg are those things gonna fall?” factor. The car model is prepped and ready to go and I have a few cement textures brewin’ on the other computer. All that’s left to do now is set up my light rig and see how everything looks. That’s all for now, stay tuned for test renders and grunge texture goodness!

Peace!

Bonus points if you know ALL the words lol

Howdy Folks!

The space ninja project is still going but I won’t post an update about that until the modeling is finished and textured (ie: it’s gonna be a while lol). In the meantime I’ve been watching mad tutorials on just about everything and drawing like crazy After a bit of prompting from a call for entries for an Alice and Wonderland themed art show I decided it was time to give this digital painting thing one more try. I made a sketch (see latest sketches + mojo entry) and I don’t really know if I’ll enter the show or not, I just happen to like that kind of wonderland imagery.

I’ve got to say, using Photoshop to draw is somehow not as annoying as I remember it being lol. I did a scribbly value study yester-night and the wacom pen and tablet are feeling less…foreign to me, though nothing beats the feeling of pencil/paper.

This  is my stopping point for the day (well until I get home from work that is ) For this initial stage I’m trying to keep it to 3 values for each object; we’ll see how that goes, I can’t help wanting to use all the colors ever and it’s Photoshop so there are infinite possibilities….@_@ if it turns out looking more like Candy Land I’ll blame the color picker . That’s all for now, stay tuned for more painting and probably some really nerdy stuff.

Peace!

Ok not really but I have that SNL skit stuck in my head lol.  I don’t even know the words, I just make up my own….like a BOSS. Ok that was the last one (probably lol).

Howdy Folks!

Remember that space ninja sketch? Well I’ve started to model it out in max so I can have a character to play with (yay rigging and animation!) With any luck when it’s done it will be fit for 3d printing. Yes…I’ll make an army of space ninjas…but I digress lol.

So far I’ve got the head/helmet blocked in and an idea of how I want to go about modeling the rest of the body. The real fun will come with the armor. I want to make it look pretty high tech (and stabby!) but with a steam punk finish…At the moment I’m thinking lots of iron with oxidized gold, copper, bronze etc. pieces scattered throughout. Here’s where I left off yesterday:

That’s all for now, stay tuned like a BOSS lol

Peace!

Ok maybe not everybody but I did lol. Howdy folks! Today’s post wraps up my first official 3d project!

After I made the materials and got all the lights where I wanted them I noticed I was getting a lot of noise (like an ungodly amount lol) in my test renders so I called in my “resident computer expert” (a.k.a. my husband lol) to look at it. He showed me how to optimize my render settings for the fastest and best result and how to get the final image out of 3ds Max and into Photoshop via Nuke-which I want to try out when I finish my next render…it’s kind of way cooler than Photoshop in that the work flow is non-linear so I don’t have to worry about moving a layer and totally messing everything up . Here’s my final (for now) image, gussied up in Photoshop and toned down a tiny bit in Nuke:

That’s all for now, stay tuned for more 3d projects and sketches!

Peace!

Ok I’ve been watching way too much Star Trek lol. Howdy folks! I know it’s been a while but that’s because I’ve been researching and learning (which kindof makes me feel like an artsy mad scientist) .

In the last post I was just starting to play with the lights in Vray. Since then I’ve gotten a handle on how the lights work and have started making textures for my vault scene. I also got VRay RT working on my machine which is sweet to say the least. Check out the real time awesomeness here. Here’s where I left off this morning:

That’s all for now, stay tuned for shinier metals, brighter lights, and the finishing of the door’s  red “eyes”!

Peace!

Speaking of which, I kindof miss the Sega Genesis…ok and Sonic on the Dreamcast was sweet too. Anyway, I didn’t actually light up a robot in the explosive sonic sense…more like I wanted to play with the Vray lights so I just threw together a little robot to do tests on

So far I’ve named it S.A.M…I haven’t figured out what the actual words for the acronym are but that’s beside the point lol. I’m sure I’ll detail him out at some point but the purpose was really to get a feel for how the Vray lights work and now I really want to finish the vault scene so I can light it That’s it for now, stay tuned for more sketches and test renders.

Peace!

Ok everybody should have gotten that one right Howdy folks!

As the title may imply, I’ve been watching a lot of sci fi movies to get some visual inspiration for what I was imagining would be this super high tech compound of some sort. Somewhere between Back to the Future III and Thor  I started sketching with the intention to lock down the place I was trying to create. 20 or so sketches later I had replaced the heat vents with wall mounted planter boxes and added a rather large bonsai tree (see sketches and mojo). At that point I decided that my environment didn’t need to be a super secret compound in order to have something my character would want to steal.

In designing the power source of this compound like place, which looks like some sort of alien bean sprout suspended in a crystal, I came up with the idea of it being a genetically altered plant research facility. It would still have secured areas (hence the vault door is still there) but I want to design the space so that it has natural elements mixed with the tech stuff, kind of like Castle in the Sky but less apocalyptic. So the idea is to have crazy mosses and things growing in the boxes and a fountain/reflecting pool with a tree in the center (to be created with speed tree then imported into max) protruding from the wall with vine work that will spread across the ceiling. 

I just finished blocking in the ceiling this morning. I’d like to put green house style glass panes in that slanted part so I’m off to do some research/ask some folks about it Stay tuned for more sketches and updates!

Peace!

And my unseen character still slips in like a ninja gets in and out of the safe and triggers the alarm after the fact just for fun. Then there’s a high speed car chase in which the character causes a 14 car unit to crash into buildings, swerve for deer and generally explode. Then a flock of huge eagles rescues everybody from the hot lava that was filling the streets just as…Just kidding! What do I look like ILM?

Anyway, Howdy Folks! I’ve been working like mad to get this CG show on the road since I decided I wanted to start texturing next weekend ( >.<;). I’ve started adding things that are normally in rooms like heating vents and took out some things like the excessive amount of 360 degree security cameras.  I also wanted to “reinforce” the wall with something and decided to continue the shape that I made around the safe. At first it was going to be very utilitarian but I thought it might be nice if it served some aesthetic purpose as well, I mean, just because the vault room is in a crazy high security compound doesn’t mean it has to be ugly right ? That’s enough gibber jabber from me, here are some progress screen shots:

So apparently ctrl + x takes you into “expert mode” ie: all the menus disappear. Cool when you know about it, lame when you mistakenly push it and don’t realize until like 5 min later

I still have a few little widgies that I think I want to model onto this piece but I think I’m getting close to the nitpicking stage of putting bevels on everything and making sure the mesh isn’t doing crazy stuff…I tried to be good about making everything flow in a coherent way but there are a few little weird things going on…I don’t know if they’ll matter but I want all the textures to look as good as they possibly can

That’s all for the moment (I’ve got to take an 8 hour day job break lol) But I’ll be modeling it up throughout the week and posting more updates so stay tuned! Peace !