I’m all excited. The second term for my VR class starts this week. I can’t wait to see what I get to learn.
I haven’t been lazying about doing nothing this last week. Of course, with the travel there was a lot to catch up on. General chores and what not. Not to mention getting some 3D modeling and art worked on. And it turns out that I worked on a little more than I realized.
Every year after, or during the ZBrush Summit, I get the urge, desire, inspiration, itch, something, to work more in ZBrush. This year has been no different. Except it has. So first, I had to upgrade my ZBrush to the latest version. That would be version 4r8 and a patch or two. Yes, 4r8 has been available a few months. I’ve been a little busy. Now I have the upgrade and the cool new gizmo instead of the transform tool. YAY! Yes I have used it. YAY! The key for me is going to be finding things to make in ZBrush that will be a challenge, though anything in ZBrush is still a challenge for me, and is something I have a need for. I’m thinking of updating or revising my Christmas Tree model so I decided to give that a try in ZBrush. It’s not bad. It’s not fancy. And I learned how to use the radial symmetry feature to make it so much easier.
Aside from coming back from the Summit with a desire to work more in ZBrush, I also came back with a recognition of how woefully inadequate, and dulled some of my drawing skills are. Particularly when it comes to figurative drawing. So to give me reference for that for practice, I picked up a body building magazine to use the photos as reference for sketch studies. Here’s my first attempt. I’m pleased with it as a starting piece. I did more portrait stuff when I was doing people than figurative so this is a little new for me.
Oh! The Christmas card is done. It took ages to get the camera right, I had to change it twice. And then the lighting was just not right and worse depending on the camera. I finally got the camera right, and the lighting close. Then it took a few tries to get it bright enough. Finally I got a look that I like. It’s a family photo type of card. You should be able to check out the 2017 Holiday card here.
Speaking of the Holidays. I am working on a Christmas gathering sort of scene in Unity. I’m working out some things I might want to do for my VR class. I don’t really have time to figure out how to make all the low poly models myself so I’ve scrounged the Unity Assest Store for some free models and shaders and such to see what I can put together. It would be easier if I was doing a fantasy scene. Still I’ve found an interesting combination of things to make up this scene. I have also checked for some free models at TurboSquid. They have some that I may download, and then figure out how to get them into Unity. One of the things I’m going to try to do with this project is to figure out how to use the rails method of traversing the scene in VR. The method I’ve used so far is called dash forward navigation. For now, here’s how things look so far. Not too shabby for free.
After I finished the Holiday card I was on a bit of a roll. The next thing on my list is some business cards. I need some new ones that have a website address as well as email and phone. I could go plain like my current ones are but… I want something with a little art. I’ve finally decided on the piece I’m going to use. Now to get the rest of the card designed.
So yeah. A lot more than I realized got worked on. That’s good. With Term 2 of the VR class starting up, I’ll be deep in that for a bit I don’t doubt. I’m going to try to take the same approach as the I did the last term in that I’m going to stay on it and try to stay ahead of the due dates. With the official class end date as December 26, it would be nice to have it all done well a head of time. Somewhere in there I’ll get that business card completed. Not sure what else I’ll be able to get too. It will just depend on how things go. It should be interesting though.