You would think that with having taken an extra day off from the day job. For no good reason. And having enforced inside, at home time. Because of a snowmagadon that wasn’t really in my area. It was mostly just icy. Which is enough reason to stay home for me. With all that. You would think that I would manage to get this written and posted on time. As you guessed. That is definitely not how things turned out.
The challenge of severe storms in the Charlotte area, the ones they want you to plan for, and stock up for, and stay off the roads for, is that you spend a lot of time waiting for this major event that you, and the weather people, don’t know how bad it’s actually going to be. What makes it even more frustrating is that Charlotte is pretty well known for half the metro area getting hit hard and half seeing very little of the storm, or the lighter side of the storm. What I realized this time, this is the second or third storm like this since the summer, is that it makes it very difficult for me to focus and get things done no matter what kind of storm it is. And, especially if I have something I’m planning to do that will be impacted by how bad the storm turns out to be. Do I get ready for the event, or do I just figure I won’t go, or will they cancel anyway.
Everything I would normally have done on Sunday got canceled and at that point I was finally able to settle in and do some stuff. That does mean that this month’s Blues Jam got canceled. While I’m disappointed I am very happy not have had to try to navigate the potentially icy, very rural roads that I take to get there. As a result I have no cool blues jam things to talk about again this week. And no videos to post of it either.
What I did do was spend more time working on that 3D art project. At least until my hand started getting sore and stiff. I looked down and realized that I had my wrist at a really bad angle and I was going to need to do something about that. I was going to need to either, find a different chair, which would be fast and easy, or raise the height of my desk, which would be a major undertaking. Since raising the height of my desk went along with a different project I was already planning, I opted for the major undertaking jumbo sized. My other project was to change my desk top from a very deep and not entirely useful corner or L shaped top to a straight top. Just one long top. My biggest challenge had been what to do for the top and then how to get it home. I won’t go too much into the details other than, I started with the idea of using a flat panel, hollow core, door, and ended up with essentially the same thing but a bi-fold closet door instead. The first wouldn’t fit in my car. The second one did. Setting up the new top for the desk also involved a bit of re-arranging of that side of the room. So, not even close to a small task.
The new desktop is all set up and everything, except the stacks of stuff I need to go through and put away, is all back in it’s place, or in it’s new place. I have only used it for a few hours and so far I really like the one straight slab much better than what I had. I also like the way moving things around has opened up the room and given me a bit more floor space. Now I need to re-calibrate my Oculus Rift.
That 3D art project I have been working on is coming along. I modeled a couple more pieces for the scene. I did them in separate files so that I can organize more easily and find them faster later if I need the model again for something else. I have added one to the new scene to see how it’s going to look. The other one I have one more piece to finish up before I add it. I am still working in Blender. I think it’s the best way to go since I’ll be getting rid of the other software in a few months and I need to get more comfortable in it. Wow. I just realized that the items I just modeled were the first really useful and purpose built items I’ve modeled in Blender. Man that’s a big step. To finally get to the point that I didn’t let the program I was using keep me from making what I wanted. Not only that, it wasn’t even a factor. I knew I wanted these things and since that’s the program I’m using I just did it.
That does not mean that I am anything more than a novice with Blender still. There are plenty of features and tools that I do not yet use and in some cases don’t know where they are. And there are things that I am still learning about. Like rendering and materials. Materials are especially tricky for me. I was a little spoiled by the Mental Ray materials for 3DS Max. There were a lot, and a large variety, and high quality. It meant I didn’t have to do too much work to make what I wanted. That’s not quite the case now and I struggle a little. However, I was watching more of this year’s Blender Conference presentations and found the one on non-destructive shading in Blender to be mind-blowing. The presenter did some great demonstrations of what he was doing to get some cool materials and textures. He explained everything as he was doing it and even showed what you get when you do one thing versus something else. He explained the whole thing much better than many tutorials I have seen on materials in other applications. I’m just stunned and excited and not even sure how or where to begin with it. And yet I can’t wait to try it out and see what I can do.
I did have my test this weekend. It was before the storm was expected to move through the area. I did well I think. There are still a few things I want to work on before my full test in a few more months. That’s what this was all about though. See where I was and figure out what I need to work on even more.
I’ll be getting back to more music stuff this week. As well as more work on the 3D art project. I’m hoping to have that completed, possibly sometime this weekend coming up. Hopefully. I’ve just got a couple more things to model and then the scene to build, and the materials for those last couple of items. Then lighting and rendering. Oh my. Sounds like kind of a lot. Hmm… Well, we’ll see what happens. For now, here are a few more pictures of bits of or for the scene.
While the fact that I had to do work for my day job this weekend, which interfered with really getting too deep into anything until Sunday afternoon, didn’t help. I probably wouldn’t have gotten myself kick started much earlier.
I also managed to run out of weekend for 3D art projects. I was humming along making progress on adding materials to my snowman in Blender. And then I was able to add a tree to the scene and get materials on it. And I got some fun renders. I even found a way to handle the sky using the lamp. I used a sky preset. How cool is that. I got all this ready and was thinking I had a couple more things I wanted to try to add, that I will have to model, and no more weekend. Oh well. At least I’m making progress.
It’s big progress. Once I finish up what I’m doing with this scene I’ve got a couple more ideas I’m ready to try. They are likely to be a little trippy, or edgy, or at least different. I was partly inspired by another of the presentations from this year’s Blender conference. The presenter, his company has a very distinct style and they have been getting work doing some advertising campaigns in that style. Which is cool because that meant we got to see some of the style before the product that they developed it for is actually out. It got me to thinking of different ways I might approach the holiday cards I create. If it works out, it will definitely be different and something that stands out. First, to finish this up. I’m so close.
So along with making actual progress with Blender, I had another milestone today. I turned off the auto-renew feature for the Autodesk subscription. When it expires in April, it expires. I’m kind of excited about that. I’m also excited by the 20 or so giga-bytes of space I’ll get back on my hard drive. Not to worry. I will rapidly fill that with Blues Jam videos and Blender models.
have intended, all year, to put together another Christmas card for this year. So it’s always been in my mind that getting back to the art was something I needed to do. I just hadn’t done it.
And then there are the personal reasons. The frustration with feature changes and rendering options that started to get in the way of my enjoying the process of creating 3D art.
I did manage to export all my models from 3DS Max and Maya to .obj files so I can import them into Blender. That means, like in previous years, I can take some of the assets I’ve already created and re-use them. The only real issue is that the materials and textures didn’t convert. So that’s where I started.
role or part they know they fill. Or it could just be experience. And then there are others. Sometimes they are spot on, and sometimes they are off in their own world. Occasionally, their world is really sounding great and you want to just be there with them so you don’t think anything of it. Sometimes, it may sound good but you don’t know why they couldn’t have figured out how to say it in 140 notes instead of 280.
A really good example, of how paying attention to each other on stage is important and works great; I came across a YouTube from The Road to Austin show. It was Bonnie Raitt and Ruthie Foster singing ‘Angel From Montgomery’, apparently, without a rehearsal. It sounds fabulous. And it flows really nicely. Have a watch. And watch how they pay attention to each other on stage. Another good example is Jimmy Vaughn as a guest of Eric Clapton playing ‘Before You Accuse Me’. It’s a work of art to watch Clapton hand out leads to different members of the band and they don’t miss a beat because, they are paying attention. They know where they are in the song. If they were looking down or away, at that point when the turn around hits, they are keeping and eye on the person leading the song.
songs. I got to looking at it and realized there are some songs on there that I’d like to learn. Some are songs that a few months ago I wouldn’t have considered because I didn’t think I’d be able to do them. Others are songs I’d forgotten about wanting to learn.
songs to start really working on. And see what sparks. Usually, when I choose a group of songs to work on there will be two of those, that will come together really quick and then the others take a little more time. Ok. Now I’m getting excited and motivated again. This will be fun. It’s always fun to see what I get bold enough to tackle and how it comes out.