Bits and pieces, or, this week I should have taken notes. Unfortunately, the Twitter tool I use doesn’t like it when I use a title that long.
I sat down to work on this update and figure out what pictures I wanted to use and I had to think about what I worked on this week. I think that could be a good sign. It means I got a few things worked on. Yay.
So that book that I was telling you I got. And I decided that, even though it’s probably more of a reference book, I would just read it through. Turns out I’ve learned something already. I had been using the Snipping Tool in Windows to get screen shots when I
want to show the view in the view port or with the wire frame or the skeleton bones or things like that that don’t render. I have been using the Snipping Tool because I couldn’t find the screen shot option in 3DS Max. I now know where it is. Turns out that I needed to use the Default Workspace with Enhanced Menus. I haven’t tested it yet and I suspect that there are some things I will still use the Snipping Tool for. So even though reading about view ports and view port configuration seems pretty basic, it turns out to have been informative.
I am still working on bits and pieces for the Halloween card. I finished up the base of the jack-o-lantern. I had to connect the fleshy edges to the inside shell. That was particularly time consuming since I started out using a lot more polygons to get some nice detail and then when I used the boolean tool a few times it created a few more to allow for the shapes of the cut outs. I also modeled the stem. This wasn’t especially difficult. I started with a cylinder with enough faces to let me get some good ridges. And I scaled the top of it in a bit to make it more tapered. Then to get it curved I used one of the Free Form modifiers so that I could shape it without having to do it edge by edge like I have done before. Progress. Here are a couple of shots of the jack-o- lantern with the stem. I haven’t assigned any materials to anything yet.
A glowing jack-o-lantern needs a light source. I need a candle to go inside, something a bit
thick but not too tall. I started with a cylinder in 3DS Max and did some basic shaping. But I don’t want just a pristine unused candle. I want one that looks like it has been used. So it needs drips and a puddle. But I’m not very good at doing that with 3DS Max. It’s something I think more easily done in ZBrush. So to ZBrush the candle goes. Only, I forgot that to send from 3DS Max to ZBrush the object needs to not be too big. So the first time or two didn’t go so well. Once I remembered that lesson learned from creating the balloons for the Birthday Card, I scaled the candle down and tried again. I didn’t use a lot of different brushes to get the look I wanted. Mostly the smooth brush, the clay build up in subtract mode to clean up some stuff and for the drips I used the standard brush. Yeah the standard brush. I worked really well to hold it in a few 
places and let it sort of puddle. Sending it back to 3DS Max wasn’t so bad but I had a lot of polygons so it was pretty dense. I decided to try to fix that and used the ZRemesher and set the target polygon count at half what I had. That worked out, not as dense, and it kept the detail nicely. Once again, back to 3DS Max to create the wick and call it good for now. Again, no materials yet, but here are some pictures. The base that I started with and what I ended up with.
And finally this week I worked on a book. Yeah, I know, a book. How easy, right. Well, yes. Not very difficult. I started with a box and a cylinder. I cut the cylinder in half and deleted the polygons from one side of the box so I could join the two up. A few strategically placed edge loops, and some extrudes to get the shape. The spine was still round from the cylinder and while it looked good, not quite what I was wanting. So a bit of manipulation of the edges to make it more square looking. I applied the turbosmooth modifier to it but I haven’t yet collapsed it down to be the final of the model. I’ll wait and apply the materials first. It would be easier with fewer polygons to select. I like the way it’s turned out. I’m a little excited to create a few other style of books. The challenge may come in applying materials or textures to them. I’m not sure how I want to handle that yet.
Some progress. I’m always hoping for more. This week I have an extra day off from the day job and then there is the Memorial Day holiday so I have the opportunity to spend even more time on modeling and the like. Though I may not be successful in making the
best of the opportunity. You know, the more time I have to do the things I want to do or need to do, the less of that I get done. It’s sort of like the Murphy’s law of available time to task ratio or something like that. I’ll do my best though. Of course, I may have to take a break to see one or two of the new movies. It is, after all, a holiday weekend.