Weekly Update – May 7, 2015

Posted on May 7, 2015 by SusanG

Last week was nice. I was on vacation and was able to work on stuff and get in some time to laze around. This week, it’s back to work at my day job and it’s been busy there. I have a big project with a deadline and work needs to get done. That means that in addition to be tired from trying to adjust back to a normal schedule. I’ve also been a little wiped out mentally. So not as much has gotten done this week. Though I did finish out last weekend pretty good.

Remember the dolphin sculpt I was working on in ZBrush? Yep that one. Well, I finished it. Or at least to what I’m calling finished. I had a horrible time with the eye. It’s funny, in most other creatures, including humans, I find eyes the easiest, though come to think of it, this is the second project this year to challenge that. Anyway. The eyes for the dolphin gave me a lot of trouble. I think I tried it 5 times, maybe 6. I had to change the size, I had to change it’s location, and it’s shape and I forget what else. I had to go back to some books and I had to get out pencil and paper and draw it to get the feel for it so I could sculpt it. It was quite frustrating.

Dolphin_05032015a

Even with all the trouble, I persevered and got it finished. I even figured out how to get poly paint to work on it. Though I have a feeling I missed a step or two because at one point I clicked on something and was back to the base material. Then I clicked again and got the color back. After that, I had a poke around in some of the menus and found where I could create a turntable of it. Which I did. But there were a couple of things with it that I want to adjust and then make a new one before I post it. Here’s a picture of it painted instead.

Dolphin_05032015b

By default, when you don’t poke around far enough, when you create the turntable you get a nice ZBrush logo. Which is all fine and everything, I like their logo. However, I want mine on my turntable. The challenge there is that I haven’t got it created yet. It lives in my head and on some sketches on a piece of paper but nothing ready to be published yet. So. When I get the logo part fixed, I will post the turntable to YouTube and then post it here.

The fact that I need to get my logo done so I can use it changed a few of my priorities this week. The thing is, I was having trouble coming up with a way to create it digitally that would give me the freedom and versatility that I like about the idea, and keep a bit of the sketch look to it. Well, wouldn’t you know it, one night, just after I shut down the computer to go to bed, the probably solution to how to create the art came to me. I have to say that was something of a mental rattling. Unfortunately, I had shut down the computer, and I had to go to the day job the next day so turning it back on and getting into trying out the idea wasn’t really going to be a good choice because I could just feel that I would be up
way way to late and it would make for a painful day. I didn’t turn the computer back on.

When I finally got to where I was able to test the solution, I was able to confirm that it will indeed do what I want it to do, it’s just going to take a little work. What doesn’t though. I did leave out a key part, I want to be able to animate this. Yeah. So it is going to take a bit of work. For now though, I’m just trying to get a good image created with a nice material applied and then be able to render out a static image of it to use for say a business card, the overlay on the ZBrush turntable, an avatar, things like that. And then I can work on the fancier stuff. It should be fun though.

I have started that idea for the logo. I’ve got some refining to do and adjusting and all. I had hoped to have it done by this weekend but it’s looking like it will be a little longer than that.

I did get some work done on the TKD project last weekend as well. That will be fun coming up. I might have mentioned that I used a different method for creating the piece. It’s worked out quite nicely. I’m really happy with it. I do keep forgetting that I have at least one more part to add to it, if not two.

Oh. And I got my new Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suite all downloaded and registered. I’ve opened Maya twice thinking I will start to learn it. I’ve closed it twice without putting a thing on the canvas. There’s just so much to use and learn and get to know that at times it’s just a little too much to tackle at that moment. That’s how Maya has been this past week or so. I am a little excited about the new sculpting tools in 2016 though. That could be really cool even with out the subdivision levels.

Nothing from the sketchbook this week. Probably something next week though. There’s some gremlin beating on the inside of my skull and I’m hoping to pull it out and stuff it in the sketchbook so it leaves me alone. I’ve just got to find it.

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Now We Need a Seat

Posted on May 5, 2015 by SusanG

The basic framework for this folding chair is done and there is a back to lean against. It would help to have something to actually sit on. This should be pretty easy. Right. It really should be easy and were it a simple board or something it might be. It doesn’t, it has a little more sculpt to it than that and it’s metal.

The first really issue was deciding how to create the seat. It’s roughly square or rectangular shaped so a cube seemed like the best starting point. So I tried that first. Now it is a folding chair and I want it to be able to be folded up so I do need to properly finish out the bottom side. So with the cube shape I started by adding some edge loops and then I did some extruding to create some crisp and close edges and in the process I was able to recess those faces into the bottom. It got it all set and then added more edge loops and tried the TKD_Guy_04112015aturbosmooth modifier. I got some of the roundness in the corners that I needed but trying to get that slightly contoured look to the seat where you sit didn’t look like it was going to work very well.

Looking at it I started to wonder if perhaps using a cylinder, even with all the work to flatten the sides, might be a better idea. So I created a cylinder, flattened the sides using the soft select tool so that I would impact the selected edge more than the rest and I was able to do most of the transformation that way and then only needed a small amount of individual edge manipulation. But if you look you can see how the difference in the way the edges and points are arranged makes a difference. The first is the seat from the
cube and the second is the seat from the cylinder.

SeatWithEdges_04112015 SeatFromCylinder_04112015

Just because I thought the cylinder would give me better surface flow and edge flow doesn’t mean I didn’t still have a lot of work to do. As you can see I had pretty sharp corners at this point and they were going to need to be rounded out so I added edge loops to give me more geometry to work with. I didn’t quite expect, when I did the first one that it was going to basically loop around the corner but that’s what it did. It was a nice thing because that kept the center from getting too crowded.

I did quite a lot of manual manipulation of the points to get a nice round corner. The first one I did looked good so I started working on the next, and so on. I got them all done and realized that they weren’t quite round enough. They needed a deeper curve to them. So I started over with the point manipulation and did them all again. It took a good amount of time. The underside had to be moved too and I didn’t want the surfaces breaking through each other. Yes, at this point I was thinking that I really would have been better to get the main shape and then add the detail to the underside. Next time.

TKD_Guy_04132015bAfter the corners were rounded off I added a little contour to the seat surface. After all that was the reason for starting over with the cylinder. And now it’s really coming along. Next up, details.

 

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Weekly Update – May 1, 2015

Posted on May 1, 2015 by SusanG

Happy May Day! Did we all remember to set up our May Poles? Me neither.

I got a few things worked on, started, and even figured out this week. Which all in all makes for a pretty successful week. I have been on vacation from my regular job this week. Originally I thought that meant I would spend a lot of time working on projects. What it has really meant is that I slept late, a lot, and didn’t worry about waiting on the FedEx delivery on Monday, or the A/C service guy yesterday. It also made it easier to not stress too much about the water being out all day one day last weekend.

As I said, I did get some stuff worked on. I finally finished that pumpkin piece I have been working on since last fall. When I got the background completed, I became unsatisfied with the pumpkin itself. That was a little disheartening since that is where the bulk of the work is. What happened is that with the background fully saturated with color suddenly the pumpkin was washed out. It had a particle density issue, or more accurately, and color density issue. But solving that was going to require a significant commitment of time since I wanted one color for the whole thing and I didn’t want to have to remix colors over a
period of days. One day this week, I looked at it tacked to my wall and decided it was time to finish it. It was an 8 to 9 hour process. Really. And I did have to take a break in the middle because my hand was cramping. And now it is done.

20150501_101833

Yes, I did sign it twice. Once where I wanted the signature. Only to discover that the wax from the pencil was interfering with the ink in the pen I was using. And then again at the20150501_101401 bottom, where it will probably be covered by a matte but at least it’s a little more readable.

I didn’t get a lot of sketchbook time in this week. I didn’t have as much stuff plaguing me to escape my brain. So I don’t have a lot of that to show. I do have this character though. I kept trying to fill in his face until I figured out he was looking through a hole.

I did a little goofing around in 3ds Max this week. Many years ago at some fair or festival, we came across a round wooden coin like item and written on it was TUIT. The item in question is called a ‘Round Tuit’ for those people who keep saying the never get ‘around to it’. So I decided it would be fun to make a digital one. I even tried something I hadn’t done before. I of course created a very short cylinder and then I created text and Round_TUIT_04232015cextruded it to give it some depth. But I wanted to make it look like it had be pressed into or engraved into the coin. So I played around with the boolean functions to try to get it to properly extract itself from the surface of my coin. I finally got it to work using the Advanced Boolean tools. I couldn’t turbosmooth it though it makes quite a mess so I had to do a bit more manual manipulation to get the edges to look pretty.

I also worked on the sleigh project this week. I have the major part of it complete. Now it needs trim and packages and an environment to sit in. There was a lot of adjusting to this one and a bit of figuring out how to do parts. And now the base vehicle is created and it can be accessorized.

Sleigh_rev_04262015e

I got started on rigging the mannequin for animating for the TKD Guy project. That will be something to read about coming up. It looks like that is going to be fun. But maybe a little slow. Oh! And I got started on the hand target for the same project. That will also be something to read about soon, especially since I used a new process for it.

In addition to the artistic activities, as I mentioned, I had a FedEx delivery this week that was some books, mostly reference stuff on Animation and art. A really cool note, one of the books references a plate that is in one of the other books I got. And yes, when I read that that was where the picture came from, I had to open the other book and find it.

The other big deal for this week was finally subscribing to the Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suite Ultimate. More TOYS! Oh, sorry, more fabulous tools to work with. The only problem is that I am not yet able to fully register it as my contract hasn’t shown up in my Autodesk account. It has only been two days, still, I may try to get that resolved today so I don’t have to worry about it. I did get the 2016 version of 3ds Max, well and everything else. Oh my. All the changes. I tried using the workspace with the enhanced menus and was so lost. So much fun stuff!

And I apparently spent a little too much time manipulating vertices last night and my hand is a bit sore today so it looks like, I will be taking a bit longer break today and going to see the new Avengers movie.

Cheers!

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Working on the Seat Back

Posted on April 29, 2015 by SusanG

The frame for the folding chair was built. Next up, time to put in the seat back. I considered a few ways I could create it and finally decided that it might work if I copied part of the top of the back frame and built it from that.

To get a copy of the section of the frame I wanted I selected the polygons and then used the copy feature. Not terribly difficult. It was a little too large at this point, I needed it to fit inside the frame so I re-sized it with the scale transformation and got it to fit as best I could. So I had the top of that section but it didn’t really work as a full back. What I needed as it to be longer so I stretched it out. I selected some of the lower polygons and using the move tool transformed them so that they created more surface area and something close to the look I wanted. I had a little problem on the sides as when I did the original copy I had TKD_Guy_04082015dsome of the polygons that extended down the legs. This wasn’t going to be avoided the way I did it, I was just going to have to clean it up. It did take a little work though. Lots of moving points.

The way I created the back meant that I had this rounded bottom edge that I didn’t think I wanted. In retrospect I probably created a lot more work for myself. But I first tried sort of flattening it out and the I tried making it concave. Not much of it worked. So I cut a row or two of faces out so I didn’t have to worry about edges and point sticking through the surface as I tried to get the seat back nice and thin. I created a little mess and had to do some serious point and edge manipulation to make it look right again. It’s always fun when it comes to that because it can really make the eyes flip out.

Here are a couple of screen shots so you can see what I look at when I’m doing this. One shot is just showing the section with the point selection tool active and a solid surface look. The other shot is with the wire frame view activated so I can see everything behind as I select points.

ScreenSection_04092015a  ScreenSection_04092015b

TKD_Guy_04092015a

 

The manipulation of the points and edges to get it all looking nice was a time consuming process. I got it to a point and then had to take a break.

 

But a bit more time and patience and it was looking really nice.TKD_Guy_04092015c

TKD_Guy_04092015fAs you can see here I did manage to do something with the underside faces so that they weren’t too awful looking I ended up reconnecting the edges where I deleted faces. Part of the reason for doing this is that, when the turbosmooth modifier is applied, it will do some very odd and annoying things to lonely edges out there by themselves. So reconnecting them to each other allows for a bit better control of what turbosmooth does. Not much mind you, but some.

If you notice on most folding chairs, the back of the seat back is inset some. This is what I was trying to do that I thought it best to delete some of those lower faces. It doesn’t mean I TKD_Guy_04092015gdidn’t still end up with some issues that had to be cleaned up but I think it worked out pretty good. You can just see here that that side is inset from what it was.

I won’t say it was perfect at this point. Only that it was close enough that I felt ready to move on to the next part. The actual seat. This was it’s own challenge that included at least one do over. Check back for that adventure soon.

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Weekly Update – April 23, 2015

Posted on April 23, 2015 by SusanG

Another week nearly complete. Any other week and I would be lamenting the speed with which it passed. This week is a little different as I will be on vacation from my day job next week and I am very much looking forward to the opportunity to work on other things. At the moment my plans for the time include some seasonal maintenance on my home, and breakfast or brunch with a friend, and of course lots of time at the computer working on the TKD Guy project and anything else that strikes me.

I did make progress on the TKD Guy project this week. I completed the modeling work on the folding chair for the lobby. It was quite involved and so will take a couple more posts to tell you all about it. I still want it setup so that I can animate it being opened and closed easily. I started testing out how to create that rig and while I made some progress with figuring out what I need to do, I also discovered that I need to compensate for some annoying behavior. So I’m going back to the tutorials to find the one that tells about what to do for it.

With the modeling on the chair finished I decided I wanted a little break from the project and spent some time working on the dolphin sculpt in ZBrush. I think I have fixed the problem I was having with the width of the body. In the process I figured out that I had the eye in the wrong spot. I thought I had used symmetry when creating that eye and when I was looking to correct it I discovered, I didn’t. Guess it’s good I decided to fix it. This time I used symmetry and have an eye on each side. I’m still working on getting the head shape just right, along with the nose. So still some work to do but here it is now.Dolphin_04192015b

I worked a bit on the sleigh project as well. I want to add some thickness to the runners so I started on that. I made good progress and then decided to add a section that will be like a metal foot on the bottom of the runner. I got a good way to completing that and ran out of day. Running out of day is a constant problem for me. I don’t have any pictures of the changes to the sleigh. I forgot to take them before I shut down.

I’ve got a few items bouncing around in my head that will need to be let out soon. A couple will make it to the sketchbook and one will probably be a side creation in 3DS Max or ZBrush. I did manage to get a couple of other things out of my head and into a sketchbook this week.

DSCN0241_small  DSCN0233_smallDSCN0237_small

I saw a trailer for an animation that will be premiering at the Cannes Film Festival this year. It will be screening out of competition. It looks fabulous. It’s a combination of stop motion animation and CG animation. It’s called ‘Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince)’ from Mark Osborne. It’s due to be released in July in France but there is no U.S. release date yet. That has me a little disappointed. I would really like to see it.

I’m also looking forward to Pixar’s ‘Inside Out’. It is also premiering at Cannes, screening out of competition. It’s due for U.S. Release in June. I can’t wait.

I’m still working on the rigging tutorials but have decided to work along so I have a better feel and understanding of it. Just watching the tutorials is fine but I find that actually doing what they are showing as they show it, or just after, is more effective for me, for learning. And the rigging tutorials are a big part of what I will be working on next week.

And there we have it.

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