NFXstudios3d

New Scene

2012-02-10T09:29:00.000-05:00

This is a scene I created in Photoshop as an example in class last night. Took about an hour, using various pictures of sand and rock, radial blurs, and some levels adjustments.

Shuttlecraft

2011-11-21T10:45:00.000-05:00

I wrote a while back that there was a shuttlecraft in the works to go with the Enterprise model. This morning I think I pretty much finished up boxing it in. Here is the almost-finished model, minus a few details like windows and grilles, and of course materials. Looks kind of naked with just a white ambient occlusion material on it, but it's better than nothing.

Will be finishing this one up sooner or later.

New Website Now Online

2011-10-31T11:10:00.000-04:00

After what seems about a million years, the new website design is now online. I will be working, starting this week, on fleshing out the content, and hope to actually have the Flash gallery up and running soon™

If You Only Knew the POWER!

2011-10-17T13:45:00.004-04:00

Messing around in 3ds Max, and found this lying around in a bunch of cylinders that weren't busy doing anything else.

Final Update on Enterprise Mesh

2011-04-04T11:57:00.001-04:00

A final render of the 99.999% finished Enterprise mesh. As in the last update, it's painted as the U.S.S. Constitution here.

More updates coming soon™ on some new material.

First High Res Render of New Enterprise Mesh

2011-03-27T23:15:00.000-04:00

And here it is, the first high resolution render of the 99.5% complete Enterprise mesh. This one has been painted up as the USS Constitution, using some elements of all three original series versions of the Enterprise (the first pilot, second pilot, and production versions of the model all had distinct features and markings).

In this case, the differences from the production model of the Enterprise seen here (aside from the name and registry number) are the warp nacelle caps and the upper saucer markings. I have also varied the pattern of weathering on the saucer so it less distinctly like that on the Enterprise model.

More New Enterprise

2011-03-22T23:27:00.000-04:00

Quick update before bed. Started adding and lighting the windows. Worked out some of the kinks in the shader, but working on a couple more still. Progress is being made!

Enterprise Update

2011-03-18T20:56:00.002-04:00

As promised to those who have been asking, here is the first in-progress shot of the new high poly Enterprise. Total polygon count as of right now is 155,569. Besides incomplete textures and lighting, I have obviously not added the windows yet.

I think the tinkering with the metal shader is working swimmingly, though. Still a couple problems to iron out with speculars and some of the ambient occlusion. But it's coming along!

Apparently the slightly larger clicky version was acting up, so I removed it.

Keepin On Keepin On

2011-03-16T01:42:00.001-04:00

Some updates on the way. I've been threatening to replace the site design for a long time now, and it's high time something actually happened. The beta version of the "new" layout has been sitting around since last summer and is basically already obsolete without having actually been launched.

My plan is to get down to serious business this week and make something happen on that front. I need something that can keep this blog on its own page and also give me quick news updates on the front page, and a leaner design that shows off more work. As it is now, virtually anything worth seeing on the site is here on the blog, and that's not good for business.

Meanwhile, what started out as a re-texturing of my Enterprise model (you may recall the 3500 poly version modeled around 2007 and the 30,000 poly version modeled around 2008 or 2009) has turned into a full re-modeling of the Enterprise. I've completed the new mesh and it weighs in around 150,000 polygons, all spent in the cause of matching the studio model and the CGI version from the remastered original series. I already have an enclosed space that could be modeled into an actual hangar deck, and enough blueprints to fit a bridge, transporter room, sick bay, and engineering. No textures yet, but that will primarily involve UVW unwrapping the new model and fitting the latest textures from the 30,000 polygon model to it.

Of course, no one can ever have too many irons in the fire. While this has been going on, I've been re-tooling (mostly textures) my Romulan Bird of Prey model, which is a lean, mean 14,000 polygons. I also have a new Klingon D7 Battlecruiser about 30% modeled. After banging my head on the desk for a week or so over the primary hull, I've lately been banging my head on the desk over the secondary hull. The rest is busywork.

To round out that little menagerie of sci-fi models (you judge the pun), I will be kitbashing the Enterprise pieces into some of the old Franz Joseph designs and possibly banging out a shuttlecraft and a few odds and end pieces, maybe a Tholian ship. The Tholian ship looks like it relies more on lighting than geometry and textures. Might be a fun exercise.

And finally, so it doesn't appear as though my head is entirely in outer space (remember, I spent most of last year working on the old west saloon, crystal lake, and bits and pieces of Helmut's medieval world), I've been getting the itch to work on a new horror-themed setting, possibly a haunted house interior.

I'll have some more pictures next time around. I'm actually pretty jazzed about the new Enterprise model. It came out really, really nice. But even ambient occlusion renders look pretty bad naked; it needs some textures and fancy lighting before I can show it off. In the meantime, here's a shot of the current state of the Romulan Bird of Prey. Texture work continues....

Updating Textures

2011-02-28T18:57:00.001-05:00

So I decided I wasn't entirely happy with the textures for the Enterprise model I posted a few months back, and have decided to re-do them. It's still in-progress, but I have mostly completed re-texturing the saucer section and refining the model in a couple areas (such as re-doing the shuttle bay doors and ironing out a few oddly tessellated bits).

For the new textures I used for reference photographs taken of the original 11 foot studio model as it was unpacked (in pieces) for restoration; photos of the restored model as it sits now in the Smithsonian, and the nicely detailed coloring of the ship schematics in the Haynes workshop guide to the Enterprise (which agrees for the most part with the aforementioned sources). I also used high definition screenshots of the remastered model from the original series blu ray sets, although I have tried to stay more true to the original studio model than the new CG interpretation.

The engineering hull and warp engines still need to be re-painted, but it's coming along. For comparison, here is a shot of the first texture before I began work re-painting it:

And here are several shots of the new paint and texture work:

Let me know what you think of the new paint design!

Strange New World Part 2

2011-01-30T12:49:00.002-05:00

Just a random bit of Photoshop and 3ds Max doodling. The Enterprise discovers another strange new world.

Colt Army 1860

2010-10-22T11:37:00.000-04:00

This has been lying around the shop for most of the summer, and I guess I've neglected to post an image of it so far. It's part of the new saloon scene (which I've been back to work on as of today), so I thought I'd throw up this quick render.

New Work In Progress

2010-10-10T00:04:00.000-04:00

Yes, I'm still alive... and yes, this is very much a work in progress. The lighting needs a ton of work, and there are about a billion tiny details to add. But I think it's shaping up to be a neat scene already.

Warp Speed!

2010-09-21T11:47:00.000-04:00

Was screwing around in Photoshop last night before bed, and this happened. Thought it was pretty cool, so I'm posting it this morning. Enjoy!

Updates To The Shack

2010-07-07T15:20:00.000-04:00

It's not quite there yet, but it's getting closer. Free bagel to whoever spots the easter egg(s) first. One is easy, the other one not so easy.

The Dead Rise!

2010-07-05T23:59:00.000-04:00

Haven't posted anything in a couple days, so I probably haven't been doing much. However, reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated.

I've been playing around with a few areas of 3ds Max recently that I haven't previously had a lot of experience with, including a lot of Reactor simulations. But the one thing that has me pretty excited at this point is mrProxy objects which, combined with the new Object Paint feature in Max 2011, really lets you generate a ton of randomly (within parameters) generated meshes by painting them directly into a scene. The mrProxy objects save significantly on CPU time for rendering, and really keep the viewport from locking up due to excessive geometry.

The primary application, at this point, is generating extremely dense forests without wrecking my computer. No more need to screw around with half-assed opacity-mapped mattes that go haywire with the mrPhysicalSky and Mental Ray in general, and no more need to limit scatter objects to 50 or so in a scene. I was able to paint 150+ proxies for a 30,000 polygon mesh into my scene and render it out in minutes at 720p.

I will be using this to update The Camp and The Shack in the near future. And I will have some screenshots maybe as soon as tomorrow evening.

Stay tuned!

Truckin Along...

2010-07-03T19:19:00.000-04:00

Thought I'd mess around with materials in 3ds Max and see what happened. This is what happened. Probably the best possible way to make a really, really bad truck model actually work.

Row, Row, Row Your Boat...

2010-07-01T18:20:00.000-04:00

I whipped up this rowboat scene as a lesson for my 3d modeling class this weekend. The students will be asked to reproduce the rowboat model (with supplied reference drawings) using polygon modeling techniques, then again using lofting techniques, to compare the pros and cons of each. Later in the semester we will be covering materials, textures, lighting, and cameras.

Gone Sailing

2010-06-28T19:44:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I like to sit down and just fiddle around with 3ds Max and try out new techniques. I guess that's my version of doodling. Doodles usually don't see the light of day, and usually end up just getting deleted. I thought I'd throw up a shot of this one, though, since I think it's kinda neat.

I'm sure there are some old salts out there ready to read me the riot act for my half-assed rigging. I've never even been on a sailboat, let alone sailed one, and since this is just a doodle, I didn't really give it any of the due diligence an actual project would get (ie, I didn't look up much, if anything, and didn't really use reference pictures).

The entire thing is spline modeled. The hull was lofted, and I'm pretty happy with the way it came out, compared to building a spline cage and using a surface modifier. I used a cloth modifier and some space warps on the sails.

Anyhoo, it is what it is. I'm posting a screenshot rather than a render, since the flat gray really doesn't look like much. Enjoy!

It's Magic!

2010-06-27T15:20:00.000-04:00

Or at least, it says so in the title.

Enjoy!

Magic Rubik's Cube!

Gunslinger WIP

2010-06-23T15:31:00.000-04:00

Last week I received the finished gunslinger model from Aaron Jones, and I have started working on his materials today. I thought I would post the progress here.

All of the materials are currently incomplete; at this point they are simply tiling textures procedurally mapped onto the mesh. Once I am happy with the overall design, I will be applying more precise textures to a UVW unwrap. Still, I'm pretty happy so far with the progress.

Site Update On The Way

2010-06-11T18:30:00.000-04:00

There's been a major update to the site in the cooker for a little while now (the new layout can be checked here), and one of the new features will be the gallery page I've been promising for about 3 years.

Below is a sample of a few of the images that will appear in the new gallery, including a production lighting render of the new Saloon scene still in-progress.

Beware Romulans Bearing Gifts

2010-06-09T20:09:00.000-04:00

My starship (there were 12 of them -- insert name here) needed something to beat up on, and I had an old Romulan Bird of Prey model hanging around from at least 2008, so I decided to texture it up and rig it with lights. I estimate the starship gained about a third to half more polygons in the process of refining the mesh and cutting the windows in... the poor Romulan more than doubled in poly count. It was a very healthy 5000 polys to begin with, it's over 12k now. Ouch.

All the more to explode it with later though....

Strange New World

2010-06-09T14:27:00.002-04:00

I was playing around with some different planet rendering techniques today out of boredom, and decided to comp the U.S.S. Constitution into a closeup orbital shot (the geeks and freaks around here having noted, by now, that the previously posted starship is not actually the Enterprise). This is the result.

The planet texture is derived from a closeup photograph of a rock manipulated in Photoshop and blended with a random mashup of about 50 different shades of green. The clouds are courtesy of NASA. Thanks, NASA.

Get Those Klingons!

2010-06-08T01:41:00.000-04:00

Last update for tonight. This one is nearly done, just need to concoct a scene to put it in. Might re-do my old Klingon model from 2006 and pitch the two against each other... or maybe do one of those weird disco balls the 60s Enterprise always seemed to get in trouble with.

Anyway, here's the pic, and I'm off to bed. More updates tomorrow!

One More...

2010-06-07T21:22:00.000-04:00

The weekend wasn't a total loss in the Old West. Before I began my little vacation in the final frontier, this was the latest progress in the old one.

Standard disclaimer: this is, naturally, a work in progress. In the interest of render times and sanity, the saloon is now lit with only the default lighting and no shadows or raytracing.

More later, as it happens!

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

2010-06-07T19:12:00.001-04:00

So I decided to take a couple days off from the Saloon scene to clear my head a little, and was hunting through the half a billion models and scenes on my hard drive when I came across my old Enterprise model. The thing has been sitting there collecting dust since November of '08 and had still not been textured. I think I unwrapped it about a year ago. So for my break I figured I would slap some textures on this thing and see what happens.

Of course, nothing is ever as simple as just slapping some textures on. I had to do a few things to the mesh (re-centering some stuff that was somehow off-center, adding windows, etc), and rebuilt the glowy bits at the end of the warp nacelles with all the moving parts, working off a diagram of the guts from the original studio model. So those are animated, but you won't be able to see that in a still shot, naturally.

First render is below. Still a work in progress. The entire secondary hull still needs to be textured, and that's a big job. Will probably finish that up tonight or tomorrow and head back to the Old West.

And this one here is one of my favorite shots. It should actually be a lot better once the rest of the windows are modeled in and lit:

Bucking the Tiger

2010-06-05T19:11:00.000-04:00

Quick update with a new screenshot. This piece is just about complete. Might add the case keep and dealing box and a handful of checks. But it's just about there.

Updated Shots From the Old West

2010-06-05T10:42:00.000-04:00

A few more new images. Mostly lighting tweaks, but I've added some new whiskey bottles, wall sconces, and a few other odds and ends. I think the chairs are getting replaced. I'm in the process of hanging pictures on the walls right now -- not sure what they'll be, but they'll be there.

Victorian-era furnishings and architecture is a fun challenge, especially the more baroque elements, but also a heck of a workout. With all the complicated geometry, polished materials, and physical lighting, renders are also starting to become a bit of a hassle, so the majority of future updates will either not have any, or feature ambient occlusion renders (like one of the images below) that show off the geometry and design layout without having to calculate all the lighting and shiny materials.

Met with Aaron and Vince yesterday, for nearly 12 hours, to discuss this scene and a couple other potential projects. The gunslinger character is coming along quite well. I'll hopefully be publishing some early renders of him this weekend.

In the meantime, it's back to the grindstone. I've got 4 or 5 more unique picture frame designs to come up with, a faro table to finish, chairs to redesign and re-model, and about a half a billion other odds and ends, including a newspaper with the proper period typeface (yay for teaching typography classes).

Enjoy, and I'll be back later with more, sanity permitting!

News From the Frontier

2010-06-03T11:51:00.000-04:00

The Old West project is progressing, and I'm hopeful of having at least the first of three planned setpieces from the overall environment completed within the next two weeks. The Saloon is the first major setpiece, and it's coming along. There are still a half a billion small prop items needed for decorating the interior, and probably the facade of a building or two across the street. In addition, a ton of work remains on getting the lighting correct.

However, I'm pretty excited to say that this has turned into a three way collaboration, and so I'm doubly excited on the prospects for this series of environments. Designer and iPhone programmer Dustin Zagumny has been providing a ton of valuable input regarding the composition of the scene, particularly in his zany taste for non-emo-crybaby Steampunk elements in Old West design. The Steampunk time travel wristwatch he designed, and which I modeled earlier this year, were a major impetus for the creation of this scene to begin with, and am planning to work in more subtle Steampunk-themed items into the project.

Additionally, character modeler and animator Aaron Jones has agreed to provide a detailed gunslinger character that I will be working into the setting. The screenshots before Aaron moved the character into zbrush are nothing short of terrific. I'm hopeful of luring Aaron into more character/environment collaborations, based on what I've seen so far with this one. Add in Dustin's uncanny ability to design peculiar and unique mechanical devices, and I forsee some very interesting things coming in the future.

Anyway, here's the latest shot of the Saloon with tables, chairs, and a lonely spittoon added for detail. As usual, the lighting is a work in progress, so take that part of it with a grain of salt.

Be back later with more!

Updating the Shack

2010-06-02T09:23:00.000-04:00

Quick update on The Shack. Added a few more elements to the composition, switched out some materials, and changed up the lighting.

Instead of a 3 point stage lighting system, since the location is basically the middle of nowhere without any global illumination, I worked with a single free light to produce the light levels the way I wanted them. I'm sure there will some tweaks to adjust the image for those of you still using 30 year old monochrome Apple II monitors, but the composition is basically set.

In other news, the Saloon continues to come along. Chairs and a few other props have been added, a few materials changed, and I'm experimenting with various lighting setups while continuing to finish out the set decoration. There will be more on that later.

For now, here's the latest on The Shack:

Saloon Update Part 2

2010-05-30T18:46:00.000-04:00

The bar is just about finished, and although it's not in the position it will probably end up in, here's the latest screenshot. Still a lot of furniture, fixtures, and props to go, but things are coming along.

I'm hoping to have this scene completed within the next two weeks, and I'm pretty close to having all the shots I need for my updated portfolio. The demo reel is still straggling a little farther behind though, unfortunately. Still, I should have everything finished by the end of the summer, on schedule.

Saloon Update and Screenshot

2010-05-28T19:28:00.000-04:00

Here is the first published screenshot of the new Saloon. The structure modeling and texturing are complete, as well as the bar. The mirror is a placeholder until the backbar is modeled. The furnishings will include tables and chairs, spittoons, and perhaps a piano and/or a faro table.

The lighting here is pretty basic right now. The finished scene will use a combination of daylight and interior gas or electric lighting from fixtures that will be added later.

Enjoy! And I'll be back with more after a word from our sponsor.

Hello Mudder, Hello Fadder

2010-05-27T20:25:00.000-04:00

Who doesn't just love summer camp? Nature trails, archery ranges, first aid training, ax wielding maniacs....

Here are the first two shots of "The Camp," which is still a work in progress. There are a couple solutions I'm working on, and still fidgeting with the lighting and composition. Originally, I had lit this as another night time environment, but after Spooky House and The Shack, I decided to change it to daylight, then slowly fiddled it down to twilight.

The aforementioned easter eggs from the previous post are there, but one of them is currently blocked by a tree. I'll be correcting that in the next run. The other is visible in the current renders.

Enjoy, and I'll be back tomorrow with some more cool stuff (me hopes!).

Home On The Range

2010-05-27T19:19:00.000-04:00

It's been a few days since I've been in here with an update, so I'm going to throw out a quick one, and follow up with a new screenshot later.

One of the various setpiece environments I need to produce for the portfolio and demo is a fully textured Old West setting. I have considered at great length whether to texture the existing models I have from a few years ago (constituting an entire town) or start from scratch with the individual pieces I need, tailored to the specific shots I need. And after a lot of weighing on the issue and internal (and sometimes external) debate with myself, I decided yesterday to go ahead and begin building new assets.

The primary reason is that the existing ones are just too crude for the closeup shots I need with realistic textures and lighting. Two nights ago I began modeling the first floor interior of a new saloon, and spent most of yesterday detailing and texturing it. I've pretty much finished the structure, and am working on the furnishings now. There's nothing but default Max lights in the scene and the place is completely barren right now, so it's not worth the time to render a screenshot, but it's coming along.

I will finish this and hopefully a few other Old West themed items during the semester break. Since the shot I'm composing in this new saloon interior faces the bar and will include a reflection of the windows across the room, chances are I will need to model several other buildings (or at least facades) to be visible in the reflection. I'm also weighing my options on doing a gunslinger character to stand outside on the porch with his back to the window, holding up a pistol to his cheek. Since the character wouldn't require great detail, and would be seen entirely from the back (and probably in shadow), I will probably rig and clothe a generic human form and model a new Colt Army for him.

In the meantime, tonight I'm doing some tweaking to the lighting and environment of a summer camp setpiece I've been working on for several weeks now. It's part of the series that includes Spooky House and The Shack. I call this one.... ready? The Camp. I will have screenshots of that environment up later this evening as I finish rendering and compositing the current progress. It's not QUITE done yet, but it's getting pretty close, and there are a couple cool easter eggs in there for those with a good eye.

Stay tuned, and I'll be back later with more!

New Tutorial -- Planet Rings in 3ds Max

2010-05-25T00:24:00.000-04:00

I've uploaded a new tutorial this evening by request: planet rings in 3ds Max. You can find the link in the tutorials section of the website.

As always, if you have questions or requests for a new tutorial, I'm available by email pretty much any time of day.

All Hail The King!

2010-05-24T22:02:00.001-04:00

I really have no idea how this scene got modeled, only that I spent most of today on it. A couple weeks ago I was screwing around with fabric materials and thought it would be funny to do a velvet Elvis... one thing leads to another, and you end up with something like this. I think I spent more time composite mapping the gold records from original RCA labels than anything else, although I'm still tweaking the lighting.

Meanwhile, I've continued to focus on areas of Max, and design in general, that I haven't made much use of in the past. Almost nothing in this scene was poly modeled, which is a major first for me. The spotlight housings, floor, and ceiling are about all that was modeled from polygon objects. The walls (and window casting the reflection on the floor) are AEC objects, and the rest was spline modeled. Along with the beer glass posted yesterday, in which only the table surface and wall were polygon objects, I've been getting a lot of mileage out of spline modeling and finding the workflow to be a lot faster and smoother (not to mention easier on the CPU).

Anyway, enjoy, and I'll be back with updates on this and other things as they happen.

Have a Drink On Me!

2010-05-23T20:35:00.001-04:00

2 polys and only 6 carbs. It's been that kind of week.

But yay for spline modeling. Who needs polys anymore?

New Stuff

2010-05-16T09:25:00.000-04:00

Over the past week or so I've spent some time working on environment scenes and hero props outside the generic sci-fi and fantasy genres, focusing mostly on horror related themes. The first of these three is the "spooky house" scene posted a while back.

The second is not quite ready to be shown, but the third, inspired by Jason's shack in Friday the 13th Part 2, is just about there, so I thought I'd put up a shot of it.

As is the case with just about all these scenes, my twenty billion candle power monitor, which lights my entire neighborhood at night, shows me a brighter picture than just about anyone else on earth sees. So I'm still working on adjusting the light and shadow levels. The latest Spooky House and this render of The Shack should be fairly properly lit. If necessary, I'll post updates to these if I make adjustments.

More Spooky House

2010-05-11T21:32:00.000-04:00

I don't know why I've started calling it "Spooky House," since that sounds incredibly lame, but it's kind of stuck. There's been a bit more progress on the lighting and additional set decoration since the last update. I've also increased the overall lighting (thanks to my billion candlepower monitor, things that are as clear as daylight in the desert are too dark to see on a normal monitor) and added a flashlight beam from the perspective of the camera.

Also did a little work in post, adding a slight blue filter, desaturating the overall composition, and adding a little film grain. Still a ways to go. There are a lot more things I'd like to add or tweak. Some of the background mattes look a little flat with the current lighting setup. Naturally, not all of the foliage in the scene (in fact, not even most of it) is actual geometry, or I would need a Cray supercomputer to set up the shots and one of ILM's render farms to render it, but I think I can bring it out a little better without looking so flat.

So with all that ado over nothing, here's the latest update shot. I think this is definitely shaping up to be a portfolio piece, it's just missing one or two small things to put it over the top.

Enjoy!

Can You Repeat That? You're Breaking Up

2010-05-08T22:06:00.001-04:00

Just fiddling around a bit more with some of the effects I were playing with the other day.

First, for the steroscopically challenged:

And then for those of with two eyes, one of which sees only red, and the other of which only sees cyan:

I will try to get tutorials up on this sort of thing over the course of the weekend. And as usual, if you have any requests for specific 3ds Max tutorials, feel free to drop me a line at the contact page on the main site, and I'll be happy to oblige if I'm able.

First Look At New Scene

2010-05-07T22:02:00.000-04:00

Here's a quick first look at the new scene mentioned in the previous post. I'm still tweaking lighting and composition, as well as a few post processing effects, so this is not terribly close to final.

More New Stuff

2010-05-06T19:22:00.000-04:00

Of course, immediately after I posted a semi-official, semi-final list of environments to consider for inclusion in the new demo, not only do I find additional scenes hiding on my hard drive that were works in progress and need just a little touch up and finishing.... but I wake up this morning promptly at 7am with inspiration for a new composition, and have been working studiously on it for the past 12 hours, with a break of 2 or 3 hours, give or take, to run some errands.

No screens yet. In fact, I haven't even completed an actual render, just some previsualizations to test lighting. I had hoped to have a screenshot up by this evening, but with work looming tomorrow, and the possibility that a single frame of this composition will take an hour to render, it's looking like any screenshots will have to wait until Saturday night or Sunday.

But I think it's a pretty cool scene, and I think you will, too. Something sort of new, in a genre I haven't really touched much before. All I can say is, GOOD idea to render the 120 trees in their own Max file to use as an alpha mapped matte for the main composition. Good lord, I can't imagine what kind of names my computer would call me if I tried to render this shot WITH the 120 trees actually in the composition. I hear hard drives can leave some pretty nasty bite marks.

Thinking Aloud (Or Is It Typing Aloud... And Does Typing Make a Sound Anymore Anyway?) or: "If a Blogger Blogs on the Net and There's No One To Read It, Does It Make a Sound?"

2010-05-05T22:40:00.000-04:00

If you've read previous updates, you know I've been putting a lot of time into working on cutting a new demo reel as well as assembling a new print portfolio to replace the outdated one currently on the website.

As a rather vocal proponent of detailed project planning (just ask any of my students), I've got a production plan and asset list in progress, but here are a few of the things I'm considering as I whittle down what will eventually make it to the final cut.

First is environments, since an environmental modeler is what I bill myself as. I'm also pretty fond (obvious to those who read this blog) of traditional Medieval and Science Fiction settings. However, like anime, when it comes to portfolio work, if it doesn't cure cancer, it probably shouldn't be in there. Everyone and their brother is modeling spaceships and castles, so while those things do need to be represented among my work, there are a number of other genres that interest me and absolutely must be included.

The current lineup for environments that are on my slate for inclusion are:

Space environments

Alien solar system
Interstellar space/nebulas/galaxies

Space ship interior

Corridor
Engine room

Medieval environments

Castle armory
Castle throne room
Castle Exterior/courtyard

Old West environments

Saloon interior
Main Street exterior

Contemporary environments

Skyscraper exterior
Residential home interior

Living room

Morph from "clean" to "abandoned/haunted"

Each of these environments would have individual prop objects as part of the scenery, as well as "hero" objects with 360 degree turnarounds or other animations, that will use the matching environment as a backdrop. For example, the Templar Crusader gear which uses the Castle armory as a backdrop.

I expect to render out 15 or so 20 second clips of animation to cut into a final demo reel of around 5 minutes, so not everything rendered will make the cut. Some objects/environments may also exist in the print version only.

I've already written about the scope of the demo, rendering two versions in 1080, standard as well as anaglyph 3d. Additionally, I will downscale those to 720p and 480p for use in various different situations.

Major "hero" items that are on the shortlist for inclusion in the demo include three pieces of Templar Crusader gear: helm, shield, and sword; possibly my version of Excalibur as well, of which I've already posted early screenshots. Old West hero items will certainly include the Steampunk style time travel watch I recently blogged about, as well as renderings of the Colt Army model 1860 and the Winchester model 1873 rifle (commonly known as the gun that won the west). I don't have any definitive plans for particular science fiction themed "hero" pieces, but I'm leaning heavily towards using at least one of my Star Trek inspired models, either the classic Enterprise or the ship of my own design, the USS Constitution. It's possible the Romulans might make an appearance. I'm also pretty partial to an alien laser rifle I designed and modeled a few years back, and which was actually used anachronistically in my Old West scene.

I don't have a firm timetable yet on the duration of the project, but work is ongoing daily. Due to extremely long render times, I'm farming most of the HD video rendering out to a contractor, and doing the stills and untextured video renders in-house. I expect to have the demo cut and the portfolio printed by the end of the summer. Of course, there will be fairly regular updates as particular segments are completed and ready to be cut into the final project.

And just in case anyone is still wondering, the Flash gallery page is still under development, although I've yet to settle on a specific platform or resolution for the images. Likely the images for the gallery will have to be in an entirely different aspect ratio from the demo reel and the printed portfolio, adding yet another set of rendering tasks. Work is ongoing, and I'll post updates as they happen.

Signing off for now!

New Tutorials

2010-05-04T22:55:00.000-04:00

There are a couple new tutorials up as of this week. One is more of a basic tips and tricks sheet for 3ds Max, while the other is a basic how-to on creating a rocky type planet in 3ds Max using procedural maps without bitmaps.

Based on feedback, I have a couple others in the works as well. Suggestions are always welcome, so keep em coming!

Updates From the Land of the Living Dead

2010-05-03T00:16:00.000-04:00

Well, technically, I'm not dead, but I don't suppose I'm exactly living, either... at least not technically. Either way, I've been away from the blog for a while, so now seems like a decent opportunity to play a little catch-up with a quick update.

Quite a few of the shots that will be appearing in my demo reel and print portfolio have been composed and are in the process of rendering and printing. I don't have new video to post yet, as I haven't cut together the latest sequences to come back from rendering, but I do have a portfolio shot to share. This is close to final. A few tweaks to the lighting, and a correction in the logo in the lower right corner, and this particular comp should be good to go:

In other news, I recently modeled another interior sci-fi environment for my 3d class to light and compose camera shots. A lot of them came out pretty well.

This one comes courtesy of Carl Ashman:

And this shot of the same scene, from Tracy Hartfill:

And last, but not least, another student found a 3d tutorial this weekend that he thought was pretty cool, but couldn't get it to work. I agreed it was cool, but figured I could do better. This is the result:

Lots of displacement mapping, lens effects, and render effects going on there. I have other, more complicated compositions with nebulae and space ships, but this is the shot the planet came out best in.

Day by day (or is it week by week or month by month?) I'm inching towards the completion of my demo and portfolio overhaul. Rendering times are really killing me. But I am hopeful of having updates posted soon, and a final cut of everything by later this summer.

Stay tuned for individual updates before the final package is assembled!

Lots Doing

2010-04-22T19:46:00.000-04:00

Got a lot of things going on at once around here, and the latest posts really just kind of scratch the surface of what's happening.

I'm currently in the process of complete overhaul of my print portfolio and demo reel, so there has been tons of modeling, texturing, lighting, rendering, compositing, and you name it going on. I've pretty much settled on an asset list and a list of the shots that will appear. The process now involves completing the modeling and texturing of additionally required items, setting up and lighting camera shots, and rendering things.

The base renders are being done at 1920x1080, which is full 1080p resolution. From those base renders I will derive 720p and 480p versions, as well as individual shots for the print version. There will also be renders that are unique to each the demo reel and the print portfolio.

Included in all of this is rendering for anaglyph 3d viewing, so that's creating quite a learning curve for setting up and lighting shots. While it's not impossible to compose a shot for 2d, then add a camera and end up with a good 3d composition, it certainly isn't plausible. A number of significant factors need to be taken into consideration, and the shots need to be composed and lit for both the left and right cameras, and focal lengths/camera target distances are vital.

When all is said and done, there will be a new hard copy and PDF print portfolio, in both 2d and 3d, and a new demo reel in both DVD/BluRay formats with menu structure as well as a menu-less online version, available in 1080p, 720p, and 480p, both in 2d and 3d.

Stay tuned for more. I know I promised a 2d version of the last video posted, and I have a few other things to upload as well. Rendering has really been crunching on my CPU and slowing things down a lot, even with the renders spread across 3 computers.

New Excalibur Video

2010-04-21T11:20:00.001-04:00

Just finished a new 360 turnaround video of Excalibur in a medieval setting. The ceiling needs a little work that will be painfully obvious when you view the video. But at 7.5 hours per render at 1024x768, it won't be updated until later this week.

The video is also an anaglyph, so bust out those glasses again. I'll have the single camera video up later for those who live in 2 dimensions.

Too big to embed in blogger, so you can follow the link here:

Excalibur 3d Turnaround

Since it's a nearly 600mb file, I recommend right-clicking and saving rather than trying to stream with the QuickTime plugin.

Enjoy! Comments are always welcome!

New Project

2010-04-19T01:13:00.000-04:00

I'm in the process of updating both my portfolio and demo reel with the slew of new things I've been working on lately. Among the other things recently posted here, I'm just about finished texturing a pretty neat castle throne room, but in the meantime, here's a screenshot of Excalibur, the sword of King Arthur. In the context of rendering this out for my demo reel, there are a total of 8 shots that need to be composited together to create a 20 second sequence. 6 of the shots require roughly an hour each of rendering time, and the 2 shots of the fully textured sword and environment require upwards of 7 hours per shot, for a total render time of about 20 hours render time. Yikes. And I've only got about 1000 more objects and environments requiring similar rendering and compositing before this portfolio/demo project is complete. I plan to sleep sometime by the 4th of July.

Anyway, enjoy Excalibur. Free brownie points to those who can tell me the two phrases inscribed on the blade in Latin, and the symbolic meaning of those phrases to the Arthurian Romance.

Hard To Resist One More

2010-04-12T22:55:00.000-04:00

Maybe I'm just a major geek, but I'm really starting to dig this anaglyph 3d stuff. I was playing around earlier with a scene that will be a class demonstration on reflective materials, and looking at the camera angle of the final render, it was almost screaming to come to life in 3d. So, of course, it did. There's a whole lot of depth to this image, even if the "room" itself is much less detailed than the focus objects. What do you think?

Bust Out Those 3d Glasses!

2010-04-11T20:41:00.001-04:00

Was messing around with anaglyph images today, and put together this scene real fast. For those unfamiliar, anaglyph images are viewed with red/cyan lens glasses, and not the polarized RealD glasses used for newer movies like Avatar. The camera separation isn't quite perfect, but the result is still pretty decent, I think.

I'm currently working on a short 3d animation with a similar scene. Enjoy!

Garage Scene Update

2010-04-10T23:27:00.000-04:00

Not to be outdone, of course, here's the latest update of the garage scene as well. I've also begun some preliminary work of the diner exterior, mostly playing around with various ways of rendering the neon lighting and chrome. A few more odds and ends remain to be added to the garage. I'm finding it interesting to be working on high poly and low poly scenes at the same time.

Stream Environment Update

2010-04-10T23:20:00.000-04:00

Some adjustments to lighting, textures, and shadows. Starting to come around a little more to my liking. The class this afternoon produced some pretty impressive environments as well. I'll be looking into posting some samples if possible. For now, this is where I am on my own scene:

WIP Landscape

2010-04-09T18:24:00.001-04:00

Just a quick work-in-progress render of a landscape I was fooling around with this evening. Crappy Max trees and I don't have shadows turned on yet, but so far it's looking fairly decent, I guess.

Side Project: Updating Street Rod

2010-04-02T00:07:00.000-04:00

If you haven't played the legendary Street Rod, the game made by California Dreams and released in 1989 on the Commodore, Amiga, Atari ST, and DOS PC, you haven't played a racing game worth the trouble of installing it.

Sure, it didn't have fancy 3d graphics, or lifelike physics. But what it did have was every wannabe grease monkey's ultimate dream come true: to buy a classic car, tune it, and race it on the main drag for cash or pinks, while working your way up to "The King" in his black 1963 Corvette.

Set in 1963, the game gave you a couple hundred bucks and a newspaper. From the newspaper, you bought the rust bucket of your dreams and maybe a simple upgrade part. You could upgrade virtually every component of the car from intakes to tires, and even adjust the timing manually in a little mini game. Then you took your car out to the diner to raise funds for better and better gear.

So in a fit of nostalgia, I set about doing some concept modeling for a would-be modern update of the game, beginning with the familiar garage scene. Whether I can get a couple programmers and another artist on board to ever actually remake it, I don't know. But it was fun putting the garage scene together. It's just about done here. If I get around to future updates, I'll post them on the blog, as usual. Enjoy!

WIP Steampunk Time Travel Watch

2010-03-31T20:20:00.001-04:00

Here are a couple sneak peek images of a commissioned model I'm working on currently. I'm about 30 hours or so into the project. The design is a Steampunk (Victorian science fiction) style wrist watch that's also a time travel device. In the animation, the watch spreads apart and projects a holographic globe with a gyroscopic ring inside it. As it opens up, the screws are also animated to back themselves out with the proper number of revolutions, and the hands actually keep accurate time.

It's pretty close to being finished, just a few more tweaks and additional layers of animation remaining. This is the progress so far:

New Website Layout

2010-03-12T20:45:00.000-05:00

It may not look much like it, but there's a new site layout online as of this evening. The basic design remains the same, but the table structure and some tweaking to the graphics give me a lot more freedom and will make things a lot easier to update.

Of course, re-designing the site from the ground up is also good practice for the Dreamweaver class I'll be teaching this term. The graphical layout may look similar to the previous one, but everything was built new in Photoshop and re-sliced to optimize things. Still planning to have that Flash gallery up sooner rather than later. I'll be back with more on that later.

Testing Out the New Embeddedness

2010-03-11T17:10:00.000-05:00

Looks like I finally have the blog properly embedded in the site. This should help a wee bit with navigation to and from, with everything in one place now. Next up will be moving the hosting to my own server so I can hopefully have a little more control over file sizes and loading times.

And that new Flash gallery has got to be laying around here somewhere...

Dungeon Sewer WIP

2010-03-10T18:02:00.003-05:00

And just a quick WIP render of a dungeon sewer scene I'm working on. After not really seriously working on a single 3d modeling project in 8 or 9 months, I've been diving back in and finding myself doing primarily objects rather than environments. So I thought I'd add a new environment.

This one still needs a lot of work with materials and lighting, and needs a few more miscellaneous items added to flesh the scene out. But the progress so far looks promising, at least to me.

Might be too dark on some monitors. The monitor on my primary modeling machine is extremely bright, so I often find myself having to fine tune brightness settings in renders before sending final images out digitally or for print. Don't shoot me if this WIP render is too dark... shoot my monitor. Enjoy!

Small Round Shield With Materials

2010-03-10T17:58:00.003-05:00

I had to abort the post with the 360 degree turnaround video for this one due to file size issues, so I'm re-posting a couple stills.

These are primarily procedural materials generated in Max. The idea is to next render these textures out as bitmaps and add additional levels of detail in Photoshop. That will be happening sometime down the line.

As usual, click to embiggen.

Steampunk!

2010-03-10T17:44:00.001-05:00

I've been tapped by a colleague today to design and build a high res model of a Steampunk style wrist watch time travel device.

From the reference images I was shown and the description of his design, sounds like it's going to be an interesting project. I'll be back with more on that as I gather materials and begin the process.

More Goodies

2010-03-07T14:23:00.001-05:00

I must bore easily. Took a break from working on cars and modeled this up real quick. Going to add some materials to it this evening. Click to embiggen.

Mystery Car!

2010-03-07T12:44:00.002-05:00

Started work on a new car mesh this morning to change things up from spending so many hours on the Challenger. Working on several different projects at once usually helps give me a different perspective on each one, and keeps the work fresh and interesting.

If you can identify the tire tread pattern and the hubcap below, you can probably identify the car it belongs to:

Rolling Right Along...

2010-03-07T03:00:00.003-05:00

A few car updates. Work continues on smoothing out the wrinkles in the body (especially around the wheel wells now) and completing additional components. I've re-done the hood, added an undercarriage, with mufflers and tailpipe tips, cut holes in the undercarriage to fit the engine, trans, and driveshaft, and worked more on refining the rear bumper to fit in the taillights.

The glass in the windows is placeholder until I have time to do it correctly, so it's looking pretty creased right now the way it's cut.

That's all for now. Will be back with more after I've done some more body work and come along a little farther on the engine and drivetrain.

Tutorials Update

2010-03-07T02:53:00.002-05:00

I've finally finished and uploaded the first 3ds Max tutorial, which is an introduction to box modeling. It's aimed at complete beginners, and is approximately 40 pages with 40 images.

You can find it in the tutorials page of the main site.

Dirty Work!

2010-03-05T10:07:00.004-05:00

Manually adjusting edge loops on a 12k poly mesh is a major pain! But regardless of the remaining flaws still visible in the render below, things are coming along. Just a little bit more tweaking to finish cleaning up the mesh (and by a little bit more, I'm probably talking another 20 hours of pulling verts left right and center in 3 different viewports) and I should be ready to finalize it and start adding on the finish pieces.

I'm finding that obsessive compulsive disorder really comes in handy at times like this.

Late Night Update

2010-03-05T09:01:00.002-05:00

This was the progress as of about 2am this morning, before I finally turned in for the night. I reckon I spent approximately 15 hours modeling yesterday, not entirely on this mesh, but I did spent a tremendous amount of time smoothing out irregularities, grafting on the new hood, and replacing the fog lights since the last update. I also began modeling the taillight assembly (you can see it's capped off now in this view). In addition, I deleted and rebuilt the entire front skirt as part of moving the fog lights (which can't exactly be seen in this render).

Some of the changes to the mesh and the way tesselation, smoothing groups, and turbosmooth were applied, has resulted in some oddly smoothed contours along the side of the body. I'll be correcting that sometime between now and early next week. More updates as they happen!

Another Car Update

2010-03-04T18:12:00.003-05:00

Few more updates. Probably the last for today, unless I get some more work in before bed tonight. Did a lot of work fixing edge loops along the front bumper and fender, added the fog lights and the hood scoop. The hood scoop extrusion is too narrow right now, so I"ll have to borrow the hood from a previous version and widen it a bit.

There's still a little finessing to do on the corner of the front bumper. The way the low poly edge loops are right now, though, I'll probably have to finish correcting that with an FFD on the final high poly version.

Some of the other work remaining: window glass, taillight assembly, undercarriage, lenses for the headlights and fog lights, gas cap, mirrors, badges, and other small details that will probably be cut into the final high poly version. Some real materials probably could hurt, either.

Currently, the entire vehicle as pictured is just over 353,000 polys including the wheels (160,000 of those taken up by the ridiculously high poly brake calipers that I may replace with lower poly versions). The car body itself, as pictured, is exactly 44,500 polys. It's around 5,600 polys in the low poly version.

Feedback is welcome!

Update: did a little work on the headlights and couldn't resist messing with some mental ray shaders. Yeah, cart before the horse... but since this is automotive, and some cars do have the car before the engine, I guess it's fitting.

Video Final Version

2010-03-04T14:53:00.003-05:00

Whenever I assign a major project in class, I try to do a version of it myself both as an example for the students, as well as for my own portfolio. This was the final project for a Broadcast Media class, in which the students were asked to produce a 15 to 30 second television spot using any combination of 3ds Max and/or Adobe After Effects.

After tweaking the sound levels and fades, and adding a second or two onto the end, this is going to be my final version of this for now.

"Stardate 3.6.10" refers to the calendar date the project is due for class, by the way.

Car Update

2010-03-04T14:48:00.003-05:00

The last major contour of the body that needed to be finished was the rear bumper area, and I think I finally have that just about as right as it's going to get for now. The next step is to model the tail light assembly and get it to fit seamlessly into the body, the same way I had to do it for the grille in the front. I'll be grabbing a few more reference photos to double check some contours, and work on that later this evening.

I may have already mentioned this in another post, but I'm thinking my current plans for this project are going to change in scope just a bit. I've already started modeling the engine/transmission/drivetrain, but I think I'm going to hold off on that aspect and focus on finishing up the body with the undercarriage and wheel wells in place, but none of the internal mechanics aside from the brake assemblies (since those can be seen through the wheel spokes).

If that's the route I end up taking, I'll be pushing back the other aspects of the project until I have more time to devote full attention. In the interim, I'm working on a series of tutorials for the website, as well as planning to teach four classes this semester that I have to prepare for.

Anyway, here's the current progress:

Auto Body Work Continues

2010-03-02T21:45:00.004-05:00

Here's the progress after about 16 total hours of work. Most of today was spent building the front grille, finessing it into the car body with no gaps, tweaking a few of the contours around the front edges, and rebuilding most of the front bumper.

There's still a lot of body work that needs to be done before it becomes a little more presentable. The major contours still need a lot of refinement, the tail lights need to be modeled in (as well as the actual headlight lamps), and the hood scoops need to be added as well.

I'm actually a little divided at this point whether I'm going to go full-bore as planned and model a bulk of the mechanics, but even if I don't, I'll also still need an underbody/wheel wells. Easy enough to extrude those.

Updated pics below, with the wheels added so something in the shots would look good :)

The Body

2010-03-02T00:17:00.004-05:00

As I suspected, wheels just weren't enough. It's been such a long time since I really modeled something seriously, and auto bodies were always the most challenging type of geometry for me, for some reason.

Typically, I box model pretty much everything. I spent about an hour or so attempting to box model this mesh before giving it up and deciding to try edge extrusion. I started by tracing the midline of the car across the hood, roof, and trunk with a spline, and then extruding outward from there. This is the current result after about 7 or 8 hours work total on the auto body project.

Hopefully by the next update there will be enough of it so it will be recognizable. My current plan, since I already went so overboard with the wheels, is to try to model most of the important mechanics, including the suspension and engine/drive train. Guesstimating that this is going to take me a couple weeks to complete. Here's some preview shots below:

Additional Wheel Work

2010-03-01T12:27:00.003-05:00

OCD is kicking in. Did a little work on the wheel, which ended up requiring some re-engineering. The wheels are roughly 17" with a roughly 12" brake rotor. Seems proportionate enough to me. One thing I do know is that caliper isn't getting any bigger without re-engineering the ID of the wheel, and I'm not up for that right now :)

Tiring Work

2010-02-28T21:24:00.003-05:00

The final tweaks to the video are just about there. In the meanwhile, I thought I would (literally) reinvent the wheel by trying a few ideas about tire modeling using spline cross sections. When I couldn't get that to work right, I ended up modeling a tire the old fashioned way, then once I had a tire, I needed a wheel. Once I had a wheel, I needed a brake rotor. Once I had a brake rotor, I needed a brake caliper. Something tells me the rest of the car can't be too far behind.

Just About There

2010-02-27T22:27:00.003-05:00

There's still a little bit more tweaking to do, but here is the current version of the video. The final will still be posted somewhere on the main site. I am going to be adjusting the waveforms and fades on the sounds, and increasing the brightness a little bit on the title cards (my monitor is extremely bright, so I'm always having to compensate for that).

The fanfare music in particular needs to come down in peak volume a little, and fade out more gradually, and the transporter sound effect needs to come up in volume. I think I also need to tail it out at the end another second or two.

Will probably do the adjustments tomorrow and re-render. By that point, I'll have probably convinced myself to go back into 3ds Max and redo some of the animations. I guess what they say is true... movies are never released, they escape. Eventually this will be done.

Comments welcome!

3d Modeling and Video Editing

2010-02-27T19:27:00.003-05:00

Working on a little project incorporating some newly modeled material and some previous stuff from my portfolio. The end result, once I'm done with it in After Effects, should be a roughly 20-30 second video in 1080p resolution.

Once I'm done, I'll post the video on the main site, and probably a handful of tutorials with the various "how to" for a handful of the elements. Here's a teaser pic below.

Tutorials

2010-02-23T17:35:00.003-05:00

Following up on a discussion taking place during a Photoshop seminar I hosted recently, I am finally going to be adding a series of tutorials to the main website.

I've already uploaded a short document going over some basic design principles. I will be following shortly with both Photoshop and 3ds Max tutorials. If all goes according to my evil plan, the tutorials will range in expertise from beginner to more advanced techniques.

I am also in the process of optimizing the layout of the website itself to facilitate adding new content, including (finally) a Flash gallery of my own work. There should be at least a few decently big changes coming in the next few weeks.

Now With 100% More Tutorials

2010-02-23T09:45:00.000-05:00

I've begun adding tutorials to the main site, following a digital painting workshop I hosted this past week. Posted right now is a document covering some basic design principles. More detailed "how to" type tutorials will be following shortly (and hopefully a basic redesign of the front page so I can stick "news" there instead of just here on the blog.

Stay tuned!

More Space Scenes

2010-01-28T13:05:00.002-05:00

Seems like painting space scenes is becoming somewhat of a hobby since I've been teaching Photoshop classes in back to back semesters. Here are a couple of the more recent ones I've been working on.

Photoshop Madness

2009-10-25T15:25:00.002-04:00

I've been doing a little painting in Photoshop, mostly playing with different techniques of rendering starfields, but also tuning up some of my texture painting skills, with an eye more towards realism. Specifically, I've been playing around a lot with painting realistic wood grains.

Here's a space scene I recently painted. 90% of this is Photoshop. The little bitty starship in front of the gas giant is from 3ds Max. It isn't textured, but from that distance, I don't think it needed to be.

MMOs

2009-07-21T12:31:00.006-04:00

It used to be I'd spend several consecutive years without a break playing RTSs. Before that, sports games (Madden, NHL, Triple Play -- and later, MVP).

These days (at least, when I've been able to actually play games), MMOs are where it's been for me.

I like the persistence of the world, the continual character growth and customization, playing with friends or without, the steady stream of new content and systems. Nerfs, buffs, PvP, questing, grinding, collecting, achieving, crafting, exploring. It seems like good MMOs never really run out of stuff to do.

My first MMO was Star Wars Galaxies, in 2003, shortly after launch. I was playing RTSs then, mostly Empire Earth, creating huge skirmish maps that would lag my computer out to the point it could hardly function.

Walking around a Best Buy on a break from a grueling holiday season mask making shift, I spotted SWG on a shelf and picked it up on impulse. I'd been eyeing games like Everquest and Ultima Online for a couple years, interested in the possibilities of an online persistent world, but wary of the $15 monthly fee. I'd seen and read about SWG when it first launched in June, and been interested.

The cool thing about being a good mask maker during the Halloween season is that you're filthy rich. Never mind that you're pretty much broke the rest of the year, between paying bills, funding R&D for next year's lineup, and filling reduced numbers of orders while still needing to pay the same amount for materials to keep up stock.

So I had money, and decided to pick up SWG and give it a try. The box said I'd get a month free and that there was no obligation to buy any more if I didn't like it.

I barely made it through the first month. The game was cool, and the potential of the persistent world was definitely very cool. But early SWG had a very steep learning curve. There was also no content in the form of quests. You ran around Theed or Coronet killing a bazillion butterflies and mosquitoes and frogs to increase your pistol skills, hoping one day you'd kill enough of them to be a real Bounty Hunter.

But I made it through, met some friends, and in mid September formed a guild that's still around today, with many of the same usual suspects, Widowmakers. This was the beginning of a long relationship with MMOs, and the beginning of a lot of really long lasting real world friendships, which I think is what MMOs are really about for me anyway.

Over the years I've played a lot of them. I've tried the original Everquest, and played EQ2. On the list is also, D&D Online, Vanguard, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, City of Heroes/Villains, Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, and more that I'm sure I'm forgetting. I've beta tested for SWG expansions and for D&D Online (both the original beta and the new re-release beta). I've been a community leader and "Galactic Senator" in SWG and spent extensive time on the Test Server, where I've had the opportunity to work together with QA and Developers helping to solve bugs in new systems.

A lot of MMOs are very similar, but each of them offers various different systems that make them unique. The two best are WoW and SWG, by a wide margin, with EQ2 right up there with them. WoW is the perennial favorite. Very easy to get into, very intuitive, and yet as complex as you want to make it as you advance. Its also pretty limited in terms of character customization. This is where SWG comes in. SWG is all about character customization, down to the two or three individual colors on your shoes. SWG also has a very cool and immersive player housing system. You can own a part of the game. You can't do that in WoW. But that's also a drawback for SWG, since player houses are all over the place now, 6 years from launch. You can't walk 5 steps anywhere without running into a house. This is where EQ2 comes in. It has more customization than WoW, but less than SWG; and the player housing is instanced, so you can own your own house, but not clutter the landscape.

Each of these three games has a few things in common: they still look great after all these years, and they're very easy for a newbie to just pick up and play, but complicated enough that a jaded vet can still find complex things to challenge himself with every day. Of the 3, WoW runs the best. I think I could run it on my wristwatch. It also has a really cool achievement system. SWG doesn't run as well as WoW does, but it (and EQ2 as well) has a really cool collections mini-game that's a great way to pass the time on a rainy day.

Another feature common to MMOs, and one which appeals to me as an environment artist, is the vast environment. From endless fields and forests to bustling cities and small villages, there's a lot of scenery to look at. The biggest project of my academic career, in fact (which took up most of my senior year), was creating a hub city for a hypothetical Old West MMO. I called it Silver Rush Online, but that hardly matters. Building such a big and complex city was as much fun, if not more so, than running around in one in a live game.

WoW is unlikely to be unseated any time soon as the MMO champ, simply due to the fact that its so easy to play, so easy to run on any kind of computer, and so addictively simple, but there are a couple on the horizon that I'm really looking forward to: Star Trek Online from Cryptic, and The Old Republic from Bioware. Both games want to try to break the mold a little bit, and both look really impressive so far. Old Republic has a very cinematic look to it, full voiceovers, and looks to rely more on in depth storytelling than "the grind." Story has always been the hallmark of Bioware/Obsidian. If you're a fan of Baldur's Gate, Fallout, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, or Mass Effect, you know what Bioware is all about. Star Trek Online has a really neat paradigm with bridge crews and officer "pets," that sort of remind me of the old Baldur's Gate games where you had control over semi-autonomous NPC party members. Plus you get a bunch of really sweet starships and get to explore the entire galaxy.

Still, for me right now, WoW and SWG are the kings of the hill. SWG may be in a bit of a decline, which is a shame due in no small part to bad press (whether deserved or undeserved), but it's a still a terrific game with a lot of really cool systems and endless character customization. If I had a place to live in WoW, a city to call my own and have complete control over, like I do in SWG, I might never have to play another MMO. Its about the only thing lacking from WoW right now, other than character customization.

MMOs can be a lot of fun for a long, long time, and I look forward to the day when I can contribute to the development team of a major MMO as an environment artist. What could be more thrilling than building and decorating an entire world, or an entire galaxy, all your own?

Fun With XNA

2009-07-17T22:30:00.003-04:00

I guess this is the first post in quite a while... I bet you thought I was dead!

However, rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated, as the old saying goes. It's been a busy month since finishing up the Capstone project (and my last term at school). During that time, I've been job hunting, networking, brushing up on some software I haven't used in a while, and wandering around Azeroth in World of Warcraft. That's actually been kind of fun, considering it's been at least nine months, if not a whole year, since I've been able to actually play a game with any sort of attention level.

They say necessity is the mother of invention, and I've been tapped to teach a class on Microsoft XNA next month. I have had a little bit of experience with it in the past, so I've spent a few hours going through beginning tutorials to refamiliarize myself. This looks like its going to be a lot of fun, but challenging, given that my background is in art and not in programming. The 2d aspects remind me a lot of a class I took about two years ago in Allegro. I'll be cramming in a lot of study on C# this week and working on modding some of the tutorials out there to start getting my feet wet.

Thankfully, while I don't actually program well from scratch, I do have a pretty good understanding of OOP and the basic workings of classes, functions, loops, etc.

I'll be back in the coming week with more updates, maybe even some playable demos of the mods I plan to work on. I'll be working on both 2d and 3d stuff in order to familiarize myself more fully with the way XNA works.

Stay tuned!

All Done!! :)

2009-06-12T08:08:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was the big last day, for the project, the class, and the program. As of last night, I'm officially done with school!

This project couldn't have been as successful without the help of James Poole, Game Production Adviser and Capstone Professor; and Mikkel Jensen, my mentor for the project. I received so much valuable input from them, and can't thank either enough!

The end of the project and the class, though, isn't the end of the blog, nor the end of working on this particular level. Obviously, while it's "done" for the class, there's a lot of work remaining. Now it becomes a personal project, in addition to so many other little things I want to start getting into.

For now, though... hibernation. Then work, lots of it!

Daily Update 6-8-09

2009-06-08T21:35:00.002-04:00

Today's updates:

General: Created a stagecoach model and placed it in front of the Hotel.
General: Created a cemetery behind the Church. Raised an area of land into a short hill, surrounded the hill with fence stakes, and modeled several varieties of grave marker.
Barbershop: Modified round Saloon table into a square top table. Modeled straight razor, shaving cream jar, and brush. Extended the porch of the building a couple feet to accommodate the extra props.

I'll be back tomorrow with what will probably be the final updates!

Quick Update 6-8-09

2009-06-08T14:07:00.002-04:00

I honestly can't remember when I did it between my last post and this one, but sometime in between there, I finally got to adding the Stagecoach model I've been wanting to add for a while.

The holdup has not necessarily been the carriage itself, but the chassis beneath. All we ever really see of stagecoaches in photos and on TV seem to be high shots showing only the carriage, bonnet, and boot. Was finally able to dig up some shots of a stagecoach chassis that helped me piece together what I needed to create under there to make a realistically functional looking model.

Will be back into Max sometime today or tomorrow to add a cemetery and whatever little odds and ends I can squeeze in. The end is nigh!

Sleepy Update 6-7-09

2009-06-07T22:04:00.003-04:00

A couple of updates before I consider the possibility of potentially going to sleep.

Had a chat with Mikkel today, and discussed more design, project management, and documentation stuff. Mikkel would like to see more design philosophy, going into why certain choices were made or not made, etc, especially toward the end of the project. I hit on some of that in recent posts, but there's definitely room for collecting it all in one place and boiling it down into a single, comprehensible post. I will be on that as soon as humanly possible.

Made the following updates to the scene:

Ranch: Added a new ox cart model that utilizes the wagon wheel model created previously. Finally found a use for it.
General: Used the new telegraph wire spool model as a table on the porch of a generic storefront and created a scene with a chair, hat, and Winchester rifle.

Walking down Mainstreet in the scene, it's really starting to come to life now. I've done a lot of decorating of the porches and alley areas with miscellaneous props, both new and recycled. I estimate some 55-60 new objects have been created or modified or duplicated and sprinkled throughout the major areas of town.

While the project technically is not finished at this point (although it's very, very close), I've written up the post mortem document that is due upon completion of the class. There's too much in it to go into here, but it is generally a summation of the past couple weeks of posts, and how it all ties in with the class, and the program in general.

But like the poor chap in Monty Python who isn't dead yet, I'm not done modeling yet, so let's not consider the autopsy "official" until the last possible moment. George Lucas once remarked that movies are never released, they escape. Especially considering I haven't even approached textures on this project, it's obviously not "complete," but for the sake of what was laid out in the goals and milestones for the class, it's really, really close. I'm just not quite ready to call it done yet.

Barber Chairs

2009-06-07T15:16:00.001-04:00

For the Demon Barber of Mainstreet, I present:

A little under 500 polys, which was the limit I set for myself when I began on this mesh.

Daily Update 6-7-09

2009-06-07T14:26:00.003-04:00

A little more of that low-hanging fruit today so far. Needed a stepladder for one of em, but overall I've been adding as much detail and atmosphere to the environment as I can:

Barber Shop: Added a barber chair model.
Sheriff's Office: Added a Winchester Model 1873 Rifle.
Hotel/Saloon: Added a pocket watch to the night table with the pistol.
Post Office and Sheriff's Office: Added a flagpole and flag.
General: Continued to duplicate crates, barrels, wagon wheels, benches, chairs, hitching rails, and horseshoes around town.
General: Extended telegraph poles and lines along the railroad and off into infinity
General: Created a telegraph wire spool to be used as a table in various settings.

That's going to be all for the moment. I'll try to be back later with a couple more updates.

I Knew It All Along!

2009-06-06T23:12:00.003-04:00

As a slightly humorous aside....

More than one person in the past couple weeks has questioned the size of the revolver in the scene relative to the bed and nightstand it's lying on, believing the gun is too big. I was sure I had modeled it accurately from reference pictures, and from memory of having personally handled one, but ever the intrepid researcher, I measured the gun in Max and compared it to the specifications of the Colt Army Model 1860 on which the mesh is based. Not only are my critics wrong, but as it turns out, so am I :)

The Colt Army Model 1860 revolver measured 14 inches from butt to barrel. Unfortunately, my model is 13.92 inches in length, and therefore significantly inaccurate :) I will be addressing this lazy oversight and will not let it happen again!

Just a little bit of humor, hope everyone has had as much fun with this as I have. And some day, Jim, I will model you a train, accurate to within .08 inches in length!

Daily Update 6-6-09

2009-06-06T21:55:00.002-04:00

A couple minor adjustments to the geometry this morning, but nothing major enough to report on. I have, however, decided to stay the course with improving the detail of the environment with detail items rather than add a big ticket object at the last minute.

The big thing today was the Interfaces Conference. Lots of exposure to devs from around the US and Canada, some pretty good panels on game design, and tips on getting noticed in a sea of applicants. Also received some pretty good feedback on my portfolio, and I will be making some changes to that.

There will probably not be any more work tonight on this project, although I may sneak in a small model or two in between late work on other projects. Big week coming up. 2 projects and 2 speeches due, and Thursday is my last official day of class before graduation. Yikes. I bet they're going to expect me to work now! This has all been play so far :)

Late Update 6-5-09

2009-06-05T22:52:00.002-04:00

One more quick update for the night.

Working on a project where I'm presenting plain, low poly geometry without textures, can present a problem where certain models can look extremely plain. The reason is that so many details can be accomplished with normal mapping, etc, that there's not much value in spending the extra polys in the mesh.

To avoid having a bunch of super plain and ugly to look at, but very low poly models, in cases where I can spare a few cuts without damaging the poly count too badly, I've been adding in a few details I normally would reserve for doing with textures. This has mostly been the case with the "landmark" structures, the ones that need to stand out the most to sell the look of the project.

With that in mind, I did a quick run through the town and touched up on a couple structures to give them a little more value:

Ranch: Added door, and other architectural detail to the Barn mesh.
Livery: Added detail to the barn doors.

Daily Update 6-5-09

2009-06-05T19:21:00.002-04:00

Had an hour or so get a little modeling in today, so I worked on a couple of the more essential (or requested) prop assets.

Spoke with Mikkel this afternoon and we discussed the philosophy of changing track and adding a Town Hall structure model so late in the project as opposed to keeping on track. In the end, it comes down making the specific decision for specific reasons and, right or wrong, making sure I document the process involved in going one way or the other.

Some of Mikkel's concerns were his experience with it not typically being a good idea to add something so big so late in the process, and whether there was time to model the structure and keep it up to par with the quality level of the rest of the landmark structures.

I know it will take a good few hours to put this particular building together. The design, as I described previously, is pretty complicated architecturally. But that's also its appeal. I think Jim and I would both like to have a building like this, but it's probably not essential at this point.

Tomorrow I will be spending the majority of the day at the Interfaces Conference in Troy. I plan on working tonight on finishing up (or at least progressing on) the finals for my other remaining projects in different classes. I've got hours I can potentially schedule for dedicated modeling Sunday afternoon, Monday evening, or Tuesday morning. Sunday is iffy. Of four total projects remaining that are due this coming week (including this one), two of those are due first thing Monday morning. Chances are, Sunday will be primarily devoted to finishing those off. I'm considering this project "due" on Tuesday afternoon, with my last final due Thursday night. Therefore, any chance I'm going to have to work on a major piece would probably have to come Monday afternoon or evening.

In the spare minutes here and there, I'm going to continue to pick some "low hanging fruit" on this project, and make a decision tomorrow on whether to go ahead with the Town Hall. I will post by Saturday evening what my intentions are.

The low hanging fruit for today includes:

Livery: Blacksmith's anvil, hammer, and tongs
General: Mexican Lime Cactus flora

The anvil and the tongs were decently complicated models. Spent probably an hour to an hour and a half getting them together. The cactus was simpler and faster, but I'm not sure I'm happy with the poly count. It's not gaudy or outrageous, but 230 polys for a simple piece of flora that will be duplicated all over the environment might be a little bit excessive. I'll probably look to cut some down on that.

Next major update here I'll post additional screenshots of the new Blacksmith gear and anything else modeled between now and then.

Late Update 6-4-09

2009-06-04T23:34:00.000-04:00

Today was not a particularly big day for modeling work. Spent a good deal of the day helping out fellow students tie up loose ends on final projects, alleviate some anxiety over things like building websites and portfolio books, and coordinating some group projects from other classes.

I did get to speak with esteemed Professor Jim at length today about the state of the project, the things he and I would each like to see added before the end of the project (which is realistically coming up very quickly, with the post mortem and final mentor evaluation coming by Tuesday), and what can realistically be accomplished for the final milestone between now and then.

It's late in the game for a really major piece to be introduced. The purpose of the current (and final) milestone has been to create and distribute environmental decoration items... essentially a lot of set dressing to add realism to the scene. A lot of that has actually been accomplished.

Jim, of course, still wants a train (which I also want badly for the scene, but don't think I can find the estimated 20+ hours to build, and which sensei Mikkel believes is outside the scope of the project from an environmental modeling standpoint), although Jim and I do also seem to agree on the idea of the City Hall I mentioned in the previous posting. I showed Jim some of the reference photos I'd dug up previously, and we both really like the Victorian/Neoclassical architecture of a couple of the examples.

I think I could build the exterior of the structure in 3 or 4 hours, although some of the cornices and roof pitches look pretty complicated. However, I had previously estimated I need to produce in the neighborhood of 25-50 more environmental props to finish fleshing out the realism of the scene.

The problem I'm facing is one of dwindling time. I may not have more than 10 hours to devote solely to this project between now and next Thursday (realistically factoring in my obligations to other classes). The final, formal presentation of the project is on Thursday. This suggests I need to be done by Wednesday and ready to release whatever has been completed by then. That may diminish available hours even further.

25-50 evironmental prop items may conceivably consist of 5-10 completely unique pieces, modified and/or duplicated throughout the town. An environmental piece like that could be as simple as a 5 or 10 minute model, or may be as complicated as a couple hours per unique item. For example, Jim would like to see more flora in the desert (particularly, different species of cactus beside the saguaros I've peppered around the outskirts of town). That would be a pretty quick job. But something else I would like to see is a boardwalk/sidewalk type of structure running down at least one side of mainstreet. Something like that could take 2 or 3 hours to construct and then form to the terrain.

In the end, there are pros and cons, and I will also seek the advice of my good mentor Mikkel on the subject. Would one more standout landmark and a handful of "flavor" pieces benefit the project more than just a larger number of flavor pieces? That's a decision I'll be working on pretty quickly.

Meanwhiles, I did get a couple more minor things accomplished in the scene today. Among those:

Sheriff's Office: Added the 19th Century telephone to the Sheriff's desk, after some discussion with Professor Jim.
Hotel/Saloon: Modified the wall clock behind the bar slightly, at Jim's suggestion.
General: Added a pile of feed bags on the porch of the building across the street from the Livery. Will evalute those tomorrow for some physics issues in the way they lay on top of each other.

Early Update 6-4-09

2009-06-04T08:59:00.001-04:00

Why sleep when you can be modeling?

Added a couple items this morning. Normally I would keep a notepad open with a running tab of the changes throughout the day, but the day's work is going to be split among probably 3 or 4 different machines in 2 or 3 different locations, so I figure it's best to break it down as I go.

So far:

Hotel/Saloon: Added spittoons and a couple bar stools
General: Added telegraph lines between the poles
General: Duplicated more hitching rails throughout the commercial districts of town.

Edit, after the fact:

Looking over the town now, and it seems like it could really use a landmark structure representing a town hall, somewhere in the block of buildings representing the civic district. Probably in the place of the generic storefront between the jail and the post office (both of which are unique landmarks, and are adjacent to the courthouse, the biggest weenie in the bunch). Best bet would be to shuffle the jail over one spot and put the town hall in its place.

Would that the Delorean time machine in the scene really worked. I'm adding this to the list of things that would be neat to do if I have time. There are over 400 individual objects in the scene (among more than 90 total structures), and I estimate I probably have another 25-50 new objects to complete in the next week and a half to really flesh things out. Still very much on schedule, but that's never been a good excuse to not add cool new things. After all, who needs to sleep?

Daily Update 6-3-09

2009-06-03T21:02:00.000-04:00

It seems the surest way to guarantee I'll model something is to decide I'm not going to model anything.

Not a huge update, but I added the following this evening:

Sheriff's Office: Added an alien laser rifle to the rack above the coach gun (I love anachronisms -- shoot me).
Hotel/Saloon: Added a clock to the wall behind the bar, and a cash register to the bar itself.

That's definitely it for this go-round. I will be modeling more tomorrow for sure. My conscience will probably get the better of me and force me to remove the alien laser rifle, but I can always take solace in the 1985 Delorean hidden cleverly in an alley beneath a bunch of hay bales and pallets.

Additional Renders 6-3-09

2009-06-03T19:33:00.001-04:00

A couple more renders while I'm avoiding modeling stuff to save some sanity for the weekend.

The first render is a shot of a minecart I designed to sit on the rail spur that leads off from town into the mountains. Not particularly complicated, but it's one of those little things that adds detail to an otherwise boring environment (and it puts something on the tracks so maybe Professor Jim will forget about that train... hint, hint).

Next up is the new and improved Livery and Blacksmith. The first couple shots show the roof removed so the trusses and support beams can be seen. This looks pretty cool from the ground looking up, but its difficult to get in there with a camera to produce a decent screenshot with any sort of context. The entire roof system looks pretty complicated (and getting the pitches and eaves and gables to all line up right was kind of a pain in the neck), but it's actually very few additional polys. I think this is probably the biggest bang for the buck polygon-wise in the entire scene.

The final two exterior shots of the Livery show the current appearance of the redesigned structure as it looks from the street (or somewhere in the air above the street). The building has had an additional wing added to accommodate the horse stalls, and the corral has been enlarged slightly to accommodate the extra watering trough.

This is a shot of the interior of the Sheriff's Office/Town Jail. It's a little under-decorated right now, but there will be additional furniture and deco items added this weekend. I'm particularly pleased with the jail cells. Like the roof trusses in the Livery, they look a lot more complicated than they actually are, and I think as a whole they add good value to the scene. The doors are modeled independently of the cells themselves, within their own frames, so they can actually be animated to open and close. The desk is a modification of the desk from the Blacksmith's over at the Livery, dressed up to look a little more expensive, and scaled a little larger. The chair is the Faro dealer's chair from the Saloon.

Finally, a couple interior shots of the ground floor of the Dog's Head Saloon. As I noted in an earlier blog post, I started calling it the Dog's Head because I needed an animal trophy to mount on the wall behind the bar, and cut the head of a previous model I made of my dog, and attached it to a plaque. The Dog's Head Saloon offers billiards and roulette (where the major Saloon next door offers piano, Faro, and more seating area for patrons). The wraparound bar is newly modeled for this scene, and the double sidebars are copied over from the previous saloon. Billiards table and roulette table were made new for this location.

The upper balcony overlooks the barroom below, but there isn't much to look at up there besides a fancy railing, so I've omitted that from the screens. When I've added some doors to the individual bedrooms up there, I will post additional shots. You can see the stairway at the rear of the saloon leading up to the second floor.

That's all for now. I'll be back tomorrow with additional updates.

Picture Update 6-3-09

2009-06-03T17:09:00.000-04:00

A couple of renders taken recently, by way of a little update for today. I still plan to get a little modeling done this evening, and I will report back on that later. There are also more renders to put up, but they've been left behind on one of the machines at school, and I'll have to retrieve those tomorrow.

Daily Update 6-2-09

2009-06-02T18:27:00.000-04:00

Not an awful lot in the way of modeling work today to update. Left the house this morning, and discovered when I reached school that the most current version of the file that I'd stored on my flash drive was corrupted. Backup copies at home will be fine, but I was unable to access the most recent version to update today.

This weekend is the school-sponsored Interfaces Conference in Troy, MI, and I was asked by Kim Callery, Game department chairperson, to provide a handful of shots of the project to be displayed at the conference. Ambient occlusion renders of three shots on a dual core machine ate up a considerable amount of time, as well as compositing on a second machine in resolution high enough for print. A good amount of work, but I think I got some pretty good shots, and they'll be on display at a conference with several games industry folks in attendance. I'm honored to be asked to display my work.

In the meantime, I did find a few minutes to model a couple different styles of 19th century telephone. The town would have at least one telephone, and a telegraph machine, somewhere, but I'm not entire sure where to place them. Typically there would be a telegraph office, or perhaps a section of the Post Office or General store. The train station is another possibility. However, none of these buildings in the project have interiors. I'm considering using the phone in the Sheriff's office, but I may end up scrapping the model and holding onto it for a later date when I get more time to put into the project.

Tomorrow evening I'll be able to access the most current versions of the project and get back to work decorating the town. Professor Jim still wants to see a train. Trying to figure out a way to accomodate that with a week and a half left and a lot of little odds and ends needed around town to flesh out the details.

I'll be back tomorrow with another update.

Daily Update 6-1-09

2009-06-01T19:12:00.000-04:00

Today's daily update is that there's no real update to the physical work on the project. Kind of an offday, with an art history class and a public speaking class through the morning and afternoon.

I do have some random bits of design ideas bouncing around in the gray matter though, so that counts as some kind of work. I'm really happy with the two new interiors (livery and sheriff's office), as well as some of the additional deco stuff I've been able to strew around town.

The livery is in need of a little more deco itself. There's little more in the barn/stable area than a couple 6 poly hay bales up in the loft. Still need to do the anvil and blacksmith's tools, and probably some water troughs for inside the stalls. An ox cart somewhere in town would probably be a nice touch, as well.

Additionally, the wise and powerful Professor Jim keeps reminding me that the saloons need spittoons, so that's on the list as well.

Sensei Mikkel has also mentioned that he feels some of the landmark buildings, specifically the Mayor's house, might be a little under-detailed. Things like that I also need (and intend) to address in the coming week.

There should be lots of work to report on tomorrow. For now I'm going to enjoy a book, a little dinner, and maybe pop a Western in the Blu Ray player. Be back tomorrow with more good stuffs.