With the exception of last year, for the past 5 or 6 years I’ve created a holiday card and shared it and even posted it on my Zazzle site. I have had it on my list of things to do for this year and hadn’t really got to working on it. At least not that I thought. As it turns out. I have completed this year’s holiday card.
That aluminum Christmas tree is complete. I’m quite pleased with it. I even found a nice texture for the tree skirt. And I figured out how to add it and get it to look right. Without looking at a tutorial. I was so pleased with myself. I did have a few struggles. The cloth for that skirt was the first one.
I played around with the cloth simulation and the cloth brush a few months ago and thought I remembered how to use it. Apparently not. Well the brushes yes, the simulation, not quite. The reason for the simulation is that it makes it easy to get the cloth to drape properly as opposed to manually shifting each vertex. The cloth brush then lets you add some extra details, at least for how I used it. For other purposes it does so much more. To use the simulation you actually have to use animation so you can watch it drop. Then you stop it at the frame that you like how it looks. At that point, if you want to use it for a still image or to edit and sculpt on from there, you have to apply the cloth modifier. It ends the simulation and then makes it just another object basically. At least that’s how I’ve figured out how to use it. I may need a tutorial for it to learn more tips and tricks because I have a couple more projects that I think I’m going to need it for and I expect there is a more efficient way to work with it.
The other struggle I had was what to do about the background. For a while I thought about making a scene with cookies and a plate and some milk and maybe a small gift. Before I did that I wanted to create a really basic, plain scene. Nothing fancy, just something to showcase the tree. As I was working on that I struggled with the background. How did I want it to look? Busy? Plain? Light? Dark? I finally went for the product photo shoot look. I added a black wall behind it and adjusted the lights. It works great. And just like that, I have my holiday card for this year.
As soon as it is live on my Zazzle site I will post an announcement and a link to it.
After I finished the tree, I thought I would revisit the last card I did. I like the concept but the execution turned out not as good as I would like. So, since I was going to upload a new card, I thought I’d see if I could address a few things in the previous one and maybe upload a new and improved image. And of course, you know that isn’t what happened. As I got into the file in the newer version of Blender and adjusted the renderer to use Cycles, instead of Eevee which is what I originally used due to lack of information and knowledge, I started to see some serious issues. I suspect, the difference in Eevee from two years ago to today is part of why I see the problems now but didn’t see them then. And also the difference in Blender itself from two years ago to today. Which leaves me with the really unhappy prospect of possibly re-modeling a good portion of the scene.
As disappointing as that is, when I think about some of the many things I have learned this year I know I could do a much better job all the way around. So maybe it’s not such a bad thing. And, if I do it right, I might be able to use a slightly different way of combining models in a scene. And that would be way more efficient. But… I’m going to have to get more information on it.
How/why would I build my scenes a different way? Well, efficiency. What I have been doing is appending the models to the scene I’m working in. And that has worked out fine. Well for the most part. I append them and they become a part of the new scene and I don’t have to worry about any adjustments made to the original. There is a way, and I have known this from when I was using 3DS Max and Maya, to add your model into the scene in a manner that when you make edits to the original model it updates in your scene, or any scene you have it in. This can be really great, or not so great. If you make updates to it that don’t work in every other file you have it in, then you have a small problem. At least I think it’s small. Anyway, this is called Linking. I did see it in the menu when I added the tree stand to the tree, but I didn’t think to try it. I was just looking for how to “import” the stand into my scene. As I was listening to the Blender Today episode where they released Blender 2.91 Pablo talked about it. And small light came on.
What I’ve been doing for the last few years really has been to create a scene at a time and then if I could reuse some of the models from a previous scene I would by essentially importing them into the new scene. With the exception of the time I created a series of models, in their own files, of bows and gifts, I haven’t really just “created assets” for a library. That has worked fine up to now. But, as far as I can tell, that isn’t how a studio, game or animation, works. Each “asset” is its own file. So, with the mention of linking, and recognizing that some of my older work may need to be re-modeled, I am starting to think that it might be worth it to look at that and change how I work. Creating a tree in one file and decorations in another and a table in yet another, and then combining them all in a different file doesn’t take any of the fun away from modeling or building a scene. It just means working differently. That’s sort of what I started doing when I started creating the different sprinkles in the summer. I just need to continue down that path.
How I model things and build scenes is not the only methodology that I am changing. I’m also slowly starting to warm up to the cloud synching and saving of files. I have a local network connected drive that I can access from all my devices so you would think I would be using the cloud synching, like One Drive, and iCloud, and Creative Cloud, all over the place. I also use Google Drive so why not these others. I had reasons at one point, I don’t doubt, and now I suspect some of those were based on misinformation or a misunderstanding. I’m not sure. What I do know is that I am starting to come around, ever so slowly. What changed?
Well, as I finished up working on the tree project that I just finished, I started to get inspired to get back to work on the digital version of the leaf I did. I have something I want to do with it and I’m interested and excited to see how it turns out. And I’m just excited to work on it. Originally, I worked on the digital leaf on my iPad using Fresco. I didn’t pay attention to where it saved. I’m not even sure I had a choice. When I opened it on the iPad again, I found the option to send it to Illustrator on my desktop. That’s not where I want to work on it though. So I happened to open Photoshop in my desktop, and guess what, there in my recent items was my leaf from Fresco. I was able to open it from the creative cloud, in Photoshop, and I have all my layers right there and it’s ready for me to work on it. So I’m coming around to this thing about being able to access my files from anywhere.
I finally made my decision on my office software solution. I decided to go with Office 365 and to subscribe to it instead of sticking with one of the open source options. I have nothing against the open source options, and if I didn’t have the ability to pay for the subscription to Office 365, I would certainly be using one of them and donating what I could. Since I do have the option of using, and subscribing to Office 365, and more importantly, it has what I need and I am more familiar with it because I use Microsoft Office at the day job, it is the solution I have chosen. I think I’m going to be very happy with that choice. I’ve found a few benefits already.
It is the Thanksgiving holiday and weekend in the US. Mine looks a bit different this year than in years past. I imagine that is the case for many people this year. In addition to doing the food event differently, I have adjusted the time I take off from the day job this year. In the past I took the days of the week leading up to Thanksgiving as well as the Monday after. This year, I am taking the entire week after the holiday off from the day job. I’m looking forward to it. I have several projects and ideas I am either working on or ready to start and that seems like an opportune time to work on them. I might even get back to a book or two that I started reading before I got lost in studying for my test. I don’t have much of a variety of pictures this week so I’m including a few in-progress renders of the tree as well as what I finally ended up with. Oh, and an in-progress picture or two of my Mantis Shrimp piece. Enjoy.
