Another item from the virtual pottery wheel. Vase? Bowl? Not sure what to call it. Again, everything from scratch.
.
Category: Shaders and Maps
Making the math look real
-
Urn
Got to playing with a 3D sim on the iPad which makes virtual pottery. I came away with the impression that I can make better in modo. Not a new thing, lathing a curve, but it gave me a little insight into basic shapes found on a potters wheel. Everything is from scratch.
.
-
Filling out the libraries
Did a major loading to modo 6, filling out the preset libraries. One area I like are the quick studio environments.
.
The glass is an interesting effect. One of the things I use as a standard for judging a rendering engine is how it deals with glass materials. Sometimes it gets interesting. The model originates from a couple of Groboto stock meshes that I hacked on and squeezed together in modo.
.
-
Metallic Tiles
I was reminded of an incident in the 90’s in POV-Ray. I was working on a procedural texture for some glazed ceramic tiles, and I was quite fond of the results. I would have honestly loved to have a kitchen tiled with the pattern. So I made a series of renders with various glass objects in the scene, and I posted one on my web site (main.com in those days, my ISP). A week later, I got an email from a gentleman who was interested in buying the tiles in 50,000 item lots. It was a difficult reply to write, telling him the tiles were only virtual. But it told me that I was on the right track.
.
Looking through the old stuff, we sure did render small images back then. We have been spoiled by the newest generation processors when it comes to speed.
.
-
Beans
A pair of beans (take a sphere, twist it, flatten it, duplicate it and 180°Y), give them a blush and a glimmer, render.
.
-
Bumpy
A bumper car, exported from Poser to modo, with custom shaders. I love the rendering speed.
.
-
Fuzzy cat
This is a free item, an abstract cat sculpture, that I found on Turbo Squid about a year ago. It was for C4D R13, a format my PPC R10 couldn’t touch. But now that I have R14, it was the first item I opened in it. And the first thing I did with it was export it to OBJ for use in modo 6. It wasn’t all quite as simple as it sounds, as I was poking around quite a bit with the software, setting preferences, checking new tools, etc.
.
But I got it over to modo 6 as a static mesh, gave it material zones, added fur, and rendered. It was a pretty simple procedure, but I can already see new potential for the mesh as a rigged and morphed figure for animation. But that is for another day.
.
Fuzzy
.
-
Pair of Faucets
Pair of faucets, chrome, outdoors, barren plain, modo, alpha layered png.
-
Grass burs, displacement, and narcolepsy
Can’t get enough sleep, napping three, four times a day, several hours at a pop, on top of the usual six hours. The last turn around to Houston was a gruel, not hard, but taxing.
.
Grass burs in the field like a bumper crop. Considering bagged mowing and burlap for one section.
.
A couple of examples of Techopage diffusion and displacement in modo. I may try specular too, for a matt in the dark and shiny in the bright effect, in a future session.
.
.
-
Shoes and other stuff
Well, I’m beginning to feel like Amelda Marcos, as I’m now the owner of eight pair of wearable shoes. I have no idea when it was that I was last so well endowed with quality footwear. Nike, Sperry, and more.
.
The picks I ordered have finally shipped. And the toys that weren’t backordered have all arrived, rainstick, wood block, maracas, nylon brushes, guiro scraper, cowbell beater (with rubber side), and harmonica holder (for my kazoo). The cabasas is on its way, and the guiro and cowbell are still on backorder. We now have a wide array of toys for the jam sessions, so no one has an excuse for not joining in the music.
.
The picks are my standard Pro-Grip medium, a 351 tortoise shell that I’ve used for over 15 years, since I discovered them when I bought the 12 string. I have used 60 of the half gross I got then, and I found a place where I got 5 dozen to bring myself back up to a full half gross. The dozen I still have would probably last me two or three years, but they have been discontinued, so it’s now or never, and I chose now. I was lucky to have found these, as everyone else is sold out. I probably won’t need to ever buy picks again, as long as they don’t get lost or stolen.
.
Add to the list the two pair of Wiss scissors (5 inch electrician and 8.5 inch industrial shears), which I have missed immensely. It is so nice to have quality cutting tools back in my life. I think they were probably the last tools I needed to replace from the shuffle. I don’t know where my originals are, maybe in boxes in the barn, maybe somewhere long gone. It’s a joy to feel them in my hands once again.
.
We’ve been keeping the delivery trucks rolling. Lots of online tracking going on. I took advantage of having funds, and I think that the shopping spree has concluded. I can’t think of anything I want now, except a new wallet. Finding the style I want (a specific type of traveler’s wallet) is not going to be easy.
.
2010 Cadilac SST (British seating), in modo
.
-
Amphora
A rough amphora that I modeled, shaded, and rendered in modo. 1k polygons, so a bit rough in places, but it works well enough for medium range. I considered a specular map, but decided against more effort, leaving it a weathered relic.
.
-
Playing in the water
Since there haven’t been any rain clouds passing overhead lately, I thought I’d go play in the water, in modo. Low flight POV.
.
-
Escape
A nine year old fire escape model that I uncovered online, and a plane I made for the backdrop. All materials from scratch inside modo, no image maps used.
.
Escape
.
-
Sec
A securitron in modo.
.
-
Fuzzy Apple
I decided that I want my apple to be fuzzy.
.
-
Apple’s apple
I saw a constructed Apple logo on Turbo Squid today as I was there doing a two month refresh of the available freebies. It was for C4D, and was 25M. I had to wonder why so large without succumbing to the urge to download it to find out what was bloating the download. Instead, I made my own from scratch in modo.
.
The reflection texture gave it a little character to celebrate the release of Lion, even though I’m not running it yet. Pardon me if the reflection bears some resemblance to surgical scars.
.
-
Totoro
Saw a request online for a 3d model of Totoro, a Japanese creature character from 90’s Japanese cartoon art. I dug around and found a 3ds version, but it wasn’t exactly accurate to the original, so I did a little modification in the right direction to the mesh. I added some slightly tattered modo hair to the right material zones.
.There will be more modifications, nose, whiskers, feet, ears (the thinning at the base was totally ignored in the original, so I’ll probably have to remove the existing ears, patch the holes, and add new ones from scratch. It will probably take a few days.
.
-
Shaders on modo 4.0.1 SP5
Running a few shaders through a render, making sure there’s no surprises (there so seldom are, especially recently). Polished bronze and stoneware.
.
-
The Pianist
Finished the scene immediately below. Hair was the only post-production.
.
In the gallery.
http://gallery.fringewood.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=338
-
Awwwwwning
An awning for a boutique entrance. modo
.
-
Got wood?
Procedural wood in modo, using a gradient driver for displacement.
.
-
Sky Bike
HDRE – High Dynamic Range Environment -> Environmental lighting effects
.
A small version of my newest desktop. Well, close to it. I made a few minor changes in the final. The sky bike is mine, from a couple of years ago. I like the reflections on the body.
.
-
Tube
The texture needs to be higher res, but I like it. I’ll have to render the texture larger (ArtMatic) and give it a second run in a desktop size.
.
-
NDA in progress of dissolving…
Releases so far:
.
.
.
.
.
-
Moonlit clouds
I am facing a rather serious challenge, to achieve the effect of light fluffy popcorn clouds backlit by the moon. modo seems the most likely candidate at this point. It’s not going to be easy.
.
At this point, I’m thinking a spotlight with a tight cone and loose fall off, working in a tightly defined volumetric layer, with shader filtration to form the clouds. Fun, fun, fun……