A Black Belt, A Leaf, Funky Bird Feet

Posted on May 2, 2017 by SusanG

The vacation from the day job is over. It was one of the better stay home vacations I’ve had. I decided not to fight the need to relax and not get anything done and that paid off. By mid-week I was ready to start learning and art-ing. I was also mentally prepared for my Black Belt test. Which was a good thing.

Yes, that Black Belt test I’ve been talking about was this week. It was Saturday. And I passed. I got a new uniform, and plaque and a shiny new belt, in Black with my name on it. I was and still am so excited. I get to wear the uniform and belt to class this week and it’s just so cool. Now to start learning some new stuff, to go with all the old stuff I need to keep current. I’m looking forward to it. I had lots of well wishers and support and it was very much appreciated.

Me with my Master after the Black Belt test.

Before I got to test day, I spent some time watching a few tutorials for Maya. I finally finished the one on texturing. That was helpful since I’ve been having challenges working with Arnold. It just doesn’t handle the way I expect. I’ll get it figured out, I hope. I also started watching a full eleven hour intro to Maya 2017 course. What I’ve learned using ZBrush is that even if I’ve watched a tutorial or course on a topic once and used the program. Sometimes it takes using the program more and watching another tutorial on the topic for it to start to make sense or find a spot in the tool kit. So I think watching this will be much more useful than not. I’m hoping to learn a few things that might make my modeling more efficient.

And yes, I finally got down to working on modeling stuff. I worked on the foot of the FunkyBird. I think I mentioned that I had decided it needed more detailing even though it’s going to be in a boot. This way, if I want to take the boots off, it won’t matter. I’ll have already worked out the look and can proceed with whatever I want to do. To get it where I could work on the detail and adjusting the shape,I added quite a few edge loops particularly for the knuckles. And then I did some shaping. Where I could I did shaping by either edge or face but a lot of it was just moving points around. Some areas that needed extra geometry didn’t create full loops, or circles so I ended up just adding the edges by hand, choosing where to place the cuts on the existing edges to make the intersecting vertices. They weren’t always the most tidy looking lines which meant I had to go back and adjust their placement after I got the full line made. I also wanted the top and bottom edges of the foot to be a little softer so I tried to adjust those so once the smoothing is applied they look a little more rounded than squared off.

  

I was going to start on the wing/arm but couldn’t quite decide how I wanted to approach it that day so I moved on to something else. I finally decided how I want to approach it but I got started on something else while I was thinking about that and then a few things came up so I haven’t gotten back to working that out. That’s next I think.

While I was thinking on how to handle the arm/wing of the FunkyBird I decided to start working on the scene to put the WormGuy in. For starters, the plan is to have him sitting on one of those long leaves. I have tried once to model it in Maya and a bunch of things went wonky on me. This time it struck me to try it in ZBrush. It’s modeling, and more like sketching so I figured it might be worth a try to see if I could model it there and then take it into Maya. I was able to model a leaf of the general shape and layout I want. I am please with the way it came out. Of course, there is always something I want to be better. For now though, I thought it came out pretty good.

Taking it into Maya didn’t work the way I had hoped. The mesh was really dense. Lots of polygons and lots of vertices. I couldn’t have done work with it without first trying to thin it out. Instead of trying that in Maya I went back to ZBrush and used the Decimation Master plugin on it. Basically what the tool does is take the count and layout of the polygons and vertices and tries to keep the shape while it decreases the number of polygons, and vertices, by the percentage that you tell it. It took several passes to get the mesh down so that it wasn’t so dense that when you selected it you just saw a mass of green, you could actually see polygons, finally. Of course to get any kind of a good render in Maya with Arnold I had to add some lights and I added a sort of texture. I finally got the lighting so there wasn’t too much glare or wash out. Even with smoothing turned on, with all that decimation, you can see now the mesh is a bit rougher around the edges of the leaf.

Interestingly, once I tried the leaf in ZBrush and then into Maya, I was able to figure out how to model it in Maya. I started with a cylinder with plenty of divisions along it’s length and on the end caps and was able to do the basic shape development fairly quickly. Then, again, because of Arnold, when I wanted to take a render of it, I had to setup some lights. I decided to use a Skydome light which basically is a large sphere of light that encompasses pretty much everything in the scene, obviously depending on size. For what I work on, it is like putting my model in the middle of a room that all the walls, ceiling, and floor are big
panels of light. The problem with this is that it can eliminate the ability to see much shape detail because the light comes from everywhere so the shadows are nearly non-existent. I had to put a partial box around the leaf so I could see how the shaping was coming along. I also added a camera so I could move around and then always go back to that camera view to have a good comparison. I think I spent more time trying to figure out the box and the camera and light than I did working on the modeling. I’m not done with the modeling, this is still a basic block in. I have refinements I want to make to the transition from leaf to stem and I want to do some more refining on the leaf.

And then I installed 3DS Max 2018 and tried to update the rest of my Autodesk software, 3DS Max 2016 and Maya 2017 on Friday. All I really wanted to do was update my serial number but for some reason, my installation wasn’t going to play along. I spent several
hours on the phone with a technician from Autodesk. I really didn’t want to have to reinstall everything. Unfortunately, that exactly what we had to do for both Maya 2017 and 3DS Max 2016. The technician stayed on the line with me the whole time. But it took up such a large chunk of my day that by the time I got done with that a did the stuff I needed to get done that day, it was approaching dinner time and since I had to be up early the next day for the Black Belt test, there was no point in getting started on anything. I had hoped and planned to get back to things again before I sat down to write this but I haven’t.

In all it was a good vacation. I got most of the rest I needed. At least I got a mental break. I hope I will be more refreshed for the day job. And I got to work on some of the things I have been wanting to work on. I had a chance to learn some stuff. And I had some time to goof off and play video games and watch a few movies. I think it was a success. I’m not sure how the first week back is going to go. I suspect a couple of days are going to be jam packed and I will probably be wiped out and exhausted. Hopefully, with ideas that I’m ready to work through, already in my head, I’ll be able to maintain some momentum. It doesn’t have to be rolling down a steep hill momentum, it can be a nice ease hill momentum. Check back again to find out how that works out.

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Some Weeks Are Like That

Posted on April 25, 2017 by SusanG

Sometimes I am at a loss of how to start a post, or even what to call it. It’s easier when I’ve done a lot during the week or learned a lot. This week, neither of those happened. So.

Part of last week was taken up by the day job and finishing up some things there so they wouldn’t be left undone while I am on vacation. That tends to take up a lot of brain space. As a result, I went to bed early more than once. I was just too tired to try to think any more.

The other thing taking up a bit more brain space than I realized, is my Black Belt test. I really want to do well and I think I’m working over time on focusing for that. I would probably be better served if I were to relax a bit and let it go. Otherwise, I’m likely to be drained by the time of the test, or shortly after, if I’m lucky. I keep trying to get lost in something but it’s not worked so far. Though now that I’ve got a little more done for the FunkyBird, I might be able to do it.

Yes, though it is not a lot, I did do some work on the FunkyBird. I got a basic foot added. I haven’t done a lot of detail on it as I really just need it for reference and shape. At least that was my original thinking. Now I think I am going to put some more time in on it. I think I want it more finished instead of just a rough block in sort of thing. Here’s a quick look at the foot. You get an idea of what I’m going for. I think I’ve got the proportion just right so that’s helpful.

     

I also started on the arm or wing. I’m not entirely sure what it’s going to end up being. But it’s started. I have a lot of shaping to do. I’m not sure if I want it to fan out like that or if I want it more tapered or tapered and fanned. Since my reference sketch doesn’t have any detail for that I will likely just figure it out as I go. Which really isn’t the same in programs like Maya or 3DS Max as it is in something like ZBrush or even Mudbox. Sculpting programs are a lot like sketching in 3D. You can scrape away or add a bit here or there and sort of find the shapes as you go. Maya and 3DS Max and other box modeling type programs take a different approach. So it will be interesting to see how the shape for the arm or wing develops. For now, here’s what I will be starting with.

I am on vacation from the day job and so far I’ve mostly managed to play some video games and watch some movies on cable. Not really the start I hoped for. Oh well. I’m going to try not to worry over it and instead just enjoy ignoring my alarm clock. There is another side to ignoring the alarm clock and that is the night side where I get to ignore bed time as well. For someone who tends to really get going on something about an hour before needing to be in bed, this is definitely a bonus. For this week, if I don’t get started on something until late, it won’t matter. I can just keep at it until I reach a stopping point.

I still have the same hopes and goals for this week as I did for last week. I have modeling I want to get done and a test for the day job to study for. I also need to set up a new subscription to my Autodesk software. They discontinued the suite I’ve been using and the new one has mostly the same software, though, I think it cuts out a couple of things, just not stuff I use. And, bonus, it costs a little less. So I need to get that done. When I do, I should have access to the new 3DS Max with Arnold for the renderer. I haven’t seen if there is a new Maya yet but I’ll have access to that too when it becomes available.

Oh! While on the subject of Autodesk software. Part of my current subscription suite and the new one, is something called Motion Builder. I hadn’t really had a look at it, though I’ve had it for a couple of years. I finally opened it up and poked at it. I think I’m going to need to do more poking around at that. Once I do, and understand it better, I’ll share what it’s about.

This week should be interesting and exciting but that’s all I’ve got for this update. Check back to see how things are going.

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It’s Like a Dance

Posted on April 18, 2017 by SusanG

One step forward. Two steps back. One step forward. Two steps back.

It’s really not that bad this week. It was actually, a fairly successful week even if I don’t have a lot of cool stuff to show. I have some cool stuff to share.

I have a week and a day off from the day job next week. I’m really excited because during that time I will be testing for my Black Belt in Taekwondo. And as always with time off from the day job, I am looking forward to ignoring my alarm clock. I’m also a little
excited about my new plan. I’m hoping it works out. I did some prep work for it last week and then had a chance to basically start it over the weekend.

What I did was to take a concept I read about and decided to use it with how I approach my vacation time and what I might do with it. I’ve said this before. Vacation comes and I have a bunch of things I want to do and plan to do and then very very little of it gets done. So this time I decided to flip a coin to determine what, besides a couple of other key things, I would focus on during that time. I made it basically as random a process as I could. I wrote two options on some paper, folded it so I couldn’t see the choices, then I asked someone else to assign an H and a T to them. Then I tossed a coin. Whichever matched the result of the coin toss, H for heads, and T for tails, that is my focus for this time period. When I sat down this weekend and was trying to decide what I wanted to do with my time, I realized that since that was my focus for this period, then if I am indecisive about what to do, it will also be my default for what to do.

My choices were to work on programming type of things. I do have a computer geek day job. Or to work on 3D modeling and the like. The 3D modeling is the option that won the coin toss. So, when I couldn’t decide what to do I defaulted to that. That option doesn’t just mean that I only work on models and modeling. It means I could be learning how to do something by watching tutorial videos. Or doing research for an idea. Or, obviously, actively working on a model in any of the programs I use. For that matter, it could also include learning a new program related to the process.

When I got stuck. I took this idea, opened up my Pluralsight (formerly Digital Tutors)
account and chose a course to start watching. I chose a ZBrush one and it was about zspheres. The idea of zspheres is cool though I have struggled with them in the past
but this tutorial provided the right tone or information that made me grasp them a little better so that then I had to open ZBrush and give it a try. Good thing I didn’t have plans for my evening. I glanced at the clock once and it was a round 9:30 or 10:00 at night. I was finishing up things for the night and didn’t think I had really been at it that much longer. When I closed ZBrush to stop for the night and go to bed it was 12:30 in the morning. That was a good 5 or 6 hours well spent. And here’s the result.

After thinking about the guy for a while I decided he really needed eyes and eye lids so I had to add those and a little more detail. I haven’t detailed the hands or feet. I may not. I may stop here and move on to something else. Right now my goal is not necessarily a “finished” product but more a learning product. For this piece, I got more comfortable with the zspheres and adjusting them before making them into a skin. I figured out that unless I start with the head, I’m probably better off zsphering the body and then dynameshing a head on later, or vice versa. I did a little with the extract tool for this and later watched another tutorial on some of the topology tools in ZBrush so I’ve a different idea of how to maybe work with adding some clothing. Here’s that weird looking guy now.

  

I got to thinking about what inspires me. Or what appeals to me visually in the things I like. If it’s a game universe, what is it, the universe or the look of it. If it’s a movie, same thing. If it’s art what is it about the art that appeals to me. I think this is important because those are the things that influence the work an artist does and the style that they develop for their own. I’m pretty eclectic right now. I’m not overly consistent, I’m hit or miss with some of my characters and their appeal. So I’m actively looking at things and trying to understand what it is I like about them. Some of it is very hard to quantify. So I like the look of the movies Big Hero 6 and Frozen. I also like to read cyberpunk and some of the dystopian future stuff. I like sci-fi movies and space and so much more. It all influences what I have floating around in my head and it hasn’t quite all gelled into a cohesive thing yet. To help with all this, I picked up a couple of books that had some stuff in them that gave me a couple of ideas. One I was able to bookmark the page so I can easily get back to it and the other, I just had to sketch out a little of the idea.

I’ve recently discovered the coolness of the squid and the octopus. One of the groups I follow on twitter or instagram have in the last few months shared pictures of some really fun and interesting variety of both these species. That’s probably why Squiddy is
getting developed. As I was looking at some of the pictures in the books, which is primarily what I got them for, not the words. I got this idea. I just have the basics here to remind me of what I was thinking and I haven’t figured out which program I’m going to do it in yet.
I’m excited about the idea. I have some thinking to do on how to place things and what I want to happen with the different characteristic parts. This is a start though.

That’s my news for now. I will confess, I considered spending some time working on the Funky Bird before I wrote this so I would have new pictures of that to share. But, given that I got lost in ZBrush on Friday, there’s a good chance I could get lost in Maya and not get this all ready to go in time. So you will have to wait a little longer for an update on the Funky Bird.

If you were wondering about the other items I am focusing on for that vacation time, well they are studying for the test that I need to take for the day job. I have about 4 and a half chapters left to read and then I can start working with the practice tests. I’m also going to finish putting away the stuff that came out of the art room. Some of that still needs to go back in, I just need to make the right spot for it, and some of it needs to find a new room to live in. I am also preparing for the Black Belt test. Which I’m really excited about. I need to make my travel arrangements for the ZBrush Summit, and I need to have my car serviced.
With a little luck I have chosen just the right amount of stuff to focus on.

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Momentarily De-Railed

Posted on April 11, 2017 by SusanG

Monday, last week, I woke up with a new perspective on some things and ready to tackle other things and make real progress. I also woke up with a raging sore throat. And the progress train pretty much went off the rails from there. I even spent one evening staring at a blank television because I was too wiped to bother to turn it on. Fortunately, whatever tackled me seems to be fast moving and I’m on the mend. Though I have been warned the cough may try to hang on for a while.

This week I’m going to try to find some of those ideas and the enthusiasm that I started last week with and see if I can get this train back on track. I’m not sure how that’s going to go. Still. I’m gonna give it a try.

And I did get started, a little. I spent a little time adding the lower leg to the Funky Bird. I wanted to get the whole foot added in but I got tired and decided I was better off getting some sleep. So the foot still needs to be done. I want to do the foot because it is going to influence the shape of the boots the Bird will be wearing. Ah, yes, the Bird will be wearing some sort of clothes. Remember the sketch and the fuzzy collar? Once I get the foot, and maybe the boot, done then I’ll work on the arm. I’m leaving the face to last mostly because I’m afraid I’ve not got enough polygons to work with and I’m not ready to deal with that
yet. For now, here’s how the Funky Bird is coming along.

  

It has occurred to me that now that the Worm Guy is done it’s time to build the environment for him to sit in for the cheery card that he’s meant for. That doesn’t mean I’ve started it yet. I haven’t really. I did do a bit of testing out a way to make a leaf and that didn’t quite work out as I wanted so I didn’t keep the work. But I got some information from it and that’s the important part. I have been considering my options for creating the foliage that I want and I think I’m going to do it the “hard” way. There is a way I might have been able to do that could maybe be easier, that I haven’t tried before so I don’t really know how to do it and if I do it and it works, it may not actually work for the scene I’m building. So, the hard way, I’m going to model it all. I probably need to get to work on that.

Of course there are lots of things I need to get to work on. The challenge is figuring out what to do next. Some days I’m so excited to work on things and I want so badly to work on three or four things and I’m just busting at the seems and I get nothing done. I feel like a lawn hose that the water is turned on full blast and there is this massive crimp in the hose so there’s barely a trickle coming out the nozzle.
Ah well, at least I have a full week off from the day job at the end of this month. I can look forward to a little time that I can dedicate to un-crimping that hose and preparing for my Black Belt test for Taekwondo. Which is also coming up the end of this month. From now to then I’m going to do what I can to get the Funky Bird farther along, start on the scene for the Worm Guy, and do some work in ZBrush. At least that’s the plan. As always, check back to find out how things worked out.

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A Bird and a Squid

Posted on April 4, 2017 by SusanG

There should be a punch line to go with that, don’t you think? I don’t have one. It’s what I worked on this week. In addition to trying to finish putting the Art room back together and figuring out what to do with the stuff that maybe doesn’t belong in there.

At the end of last week’s post I made mention that a date has been set for this year’s ZBrush Summit. As I thought about whether or not to make plans to go in person this year, I thought about how I haven’t really made a lot of progress in my ZBrush skills. I’ve
made a little, but not a lot. I haven’t been spending much time working in ZBrush, I’ve spent it in 3DS Max or Maya where I am comfortable creating lower poly characters that I can then, hopefully, rig for posing in a variety of different ways. In ZBrush, I am still venturing through “the valley of suck”. That’s not to say that everything I do looks awful. It doesn’t. But it’s certainly incomplete. So I got to thinking that I might want to make another effort at improving my ZBrush skills. With that in mind I popped over to YouTube and watched some of the ZClassroom videos as a refresher. That also provided some inspiration for a little experimenting.

The results of the experimenting in ZBrush are this character, or rather, start of a character. I have previously tried to create a Squid in ZBrush and as I was doing it I discovered that I started too small and didn’t have the room to create the mouth or beak that is in the middle of all the tentacles. The video I was watching was doing a lot of moving a mouth around to open it and hollow it out and reshape it and so on. It’s a technique I’ve read about, and then tried to implement, and I’ve probably even seen it
before. This time the lesson stuck. So back to this beak. I decided I would give the squid a try again only this time I would start with the beak on the inside and then work out from there. I’m not sure how well it’s going to work but this is the start of that.

The squid head then led me to messing around in my sketchbook and I came up with Squiddy. Don’t let Squiddy’s slouchy posture and apparent delinquent attitude fool you. Squiddy is extremely intelligent, did well in school and all of that. Squiddy just can’t be bothered to explain it all to you. I’m thinking this sketch will be my model going forward on the Squid sculpt. We’ll see. Though, it is a design I would like to be able to rig for animating. Who knows, maybe I’ll get that figured out.

I got a little more work in on the FunkyBird. I’ve got some shape to the leg and kind of know what I’m going to do to finish it off. I just can’t decide if I should go ahead and model feet to go in the bulky boots and then model the boots separate. That’s probably what I should do. Now that I’ve decided that I’ll be able to move forward with the foot and get started on the arm. I still need to work on the face too. That will be interesting. Or not. I have a suspicion that I might not have enough polygons. Guess I will find out. Here are a couple of views of the leg. You can see that once I got a length for the thigh then I went ahead and tapered it. I’ll want to put in a knee and then get in the lower leg and foot.

      I didn’t sketch the lower part of the FunkyBird originally so when working on that part, I’m really making it up as I go. Which is fine but it can make it slower to make progress. I’ve got a better idea of what I want to do there now so with enough effort, I could start to make good progress.

I was thinking about how my dilemma with wanting to progress in ZBrush and yet wanting to be able to rig and animate my characters, with relative ease, for me. And I think I’ve got an idea. Sometimes when I doodle I do a sort of bust of a character. Most of the time I don’t get it all filled out but I’ll have an outline and it may include a slight pose which can give a hint of attitude and personality. But not all of these busts, do I want to turn into models to animate. At least, I don’t think I do. So it occurred to me that I can use some of those doodles as reference for sculpts in ZBrush and that would give me something to practice. I still have my other characters and then I have these. And if one of them turns out to be something I want to expand on, then I guess I get to learn how to do that.

That’s my plan for now. I don’t really know how successful I will be at it until I get started with it. It could end up being a lot of fun. Who know’s what you’ll get to see.

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