11/21/2011 morning speed model – aircraft

Speed Model 11/21/2011 – Time took from about 5:00 AM – 6:23 or so.  Recorded video around 6:25 AM.  I’ll go back and finish it later. Trying to do a speed challenge like this daily til I get better at 3d modelling, and have some stuff to put on Turbosquid besides my texture photos.  If camstudio didn’t take so much ram/cpu usage, I’d actually try recording the modelling process as I work…  Did a 10 minute completely blind contour drawing before this.  Not sure if I’ll scan it and upload, but might later.  Learned to do that reading the Drawing on the Right side of the brain.  I think it’s a nice way to enter ‘r-mode’ before taking on something like this speed modeling stuff, etc.

 

Speed Model Challenge: Spear

Spear © 6/8/2011 Jeff Thomann

This is a 3d model I created tonight for the speed model challenge over at http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=122&t=984188.

The Model took me approximately an hour and a half to create, but I was a bit distracted since we were watching America’s Got Talent at the same time, and I was also using an internet browser to look at various spear reference images at the same time. I was originally intending to base this on the Hofburg Spear of Destiny that supposedly the spear that pierced the side of Christ according to some, but decided that since I was on a timeline in order to complete this in less than 2 hours, I was going to sort of go off in my own direction with it as a generic spear that just has the rough basic shape as that spear.

I probably spent about 45 minutes adjusting various settings in the procedural texture settings in Lightwave to get the texture I was aiming for. I didn’t focus too much on lighting the scene. It’s just using the generic default light from Lightwave. I didn’t do my usual 30 minute ball point pen drawing tonight, but that’s ok because we spent some time at the mall in Barnes and Noble tonight where I looked at several books and magazines related to 3d modeling and drawing. I’m going to consider that a part of my weekly ‘artist date’ for this week. The ‘artist date’ is a part of The Artist’s Way Process. It involves spending time ‘filling the well’ by doing various things your inner artists guides you to do.

Another part of my ‘artist date’ earlier this week was playing Grand Theft Auto, Vice City for a few hours over the weekend. It’s always a little fun to go and act like a crazy stuntman driver in that game causing all sorts of havoc. Neat way to blow off a little steam.

Speed Model Challenge – Dumbbell

Speed Model Challenge – Dumbbell

The above is a quick ‘speed model’ I did tonight for the speed model challenge over at cgtalk http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=122&t=984188

I plan to do more of these speed model challenges in the future to get my 3d modeling skills up to a level where I want them to be. The above model took me a little over an hour to do, and the texture (which I’m not 100% too happy with at the moment) took about 20 or so minutes. The model was created in Lightwave 9.

Plant

A quick little plant I just created for the speed modelling challenge over at http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?p=6915314#post6915314. Total time to create this was about an hour and 25 minutes or so.

Egg

Just a quick egg model I put together in the last half hour or so. Did this for the speed modeling challenge over at http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?p=6915314#post6915314

Modeled a Kindle type of gizmo…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CaU8WPGA2U

98 Cloud Photos

I uploaded 98 photos of clouds in a zip file to Turbosquid that you can find at http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/578229?referral=mastermesh

Here’s a small small slideshow preview of the images in the zip file.

Redbud and Maple leaves in Fall

I uploaded a few scans of maple and red bud leaves that I took this fall, just before the first heavy snowfall. I just did not get them in a product in Turbosquid until last night/this morning.

Here’s a small summary image that shows what part of the bundle looks like:

Jeff’s Turbosquid Shops

Jeff’s Turbosquid Shops are at http://www.turbosquid.com/Search/Artists/mastermesh?referral=mastermesh

(118) 512×512 pixel seamless rock texture pics

I uploaded (118) 512 x 512 pixel seamless textures of various rocks and rock groupings to Tubosquid. These images were extracted from photos of rocks that I shot with a digital camera, and were made seamless in Gimp. They are 512 pixels wide and high so that the image size is a power of 2, a prerequisite for some 3d render engines and game engines.

Here’s a small summary image that shows what part of the bundle looks like:

36 512×512 pixel seamless brick textures that have 24 bit depth.

I have uploaded 36 512×512 pixel seamless brick textures that have 24 bit depth to Turbosquid. These images are available at http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/566147?referral=mastermesh. The photos these were taken from are some photos I took of a church a few years ago. I had never made them seamless til today. Hopefully someone will have uses for these photos. Here’s a small summary image that shows what the bundle looks like:

Kris 3d model

I’ve creaed a 3d model of Kris in Lightwave that I have uploaded to turbosquid. You can find this at http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/566126?referral=mastermesh

Here is what this object looks like

Find out more about Kris weapons at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kris

3d Handheld Battle Axe

I uploaded a 3d handheld battle axe that I created in Lightwave today to Turbosquid. It can be found at http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/566053?referral=mastermesh

Here’s what this object looks like:

Katana Sword 3d Model

I’ve uploaded a new 3d Katana created in Lightwave to Tubosquid. It can be found at http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/566018?referral=mastermesh. Here’s what it looks like:

9447 items on Turbosquid!

I was just randomly browsing my turboquid link over in the right column at http://www.jeffthomann.wordpress.com and noticed that I currently have 9447 items on Turbosquid.

Here’s the link:
http://www.turbosquid.com/Search/Artists/mastermesh?referral=mastermesh. Yes, may of the items there are a bit icky as keywords may be off, there may be some blurriness in some photos, etc, but a lot of the items there are actually pretty good. I’ll probably try to upload more there in the next year or two and see if I can’t get over 10k assets there!

imodeler template

Imodeler – http://www.imodeller.com/en/ is a progam that uses photogrammetry to build a 3d model out of a series of digital photos.

Dsculptor is another program that does this too.

I have an old copy of the version 1 of Dsculptor that I got off of a magazine cd a long time ago, and have a copy of Imodeler that I purchased a few years back…

Up until now, I’ve know it was easy to blow up the D-sculptor template since the version 1 template was basically a sqaure that was bisected a couple of times, but I had lots of problems trying to figure out how to blow up the imodeler template.

Well, now that’s no longer the case. I have been emailing the developer of Imodeler, and they gave me the dimensions. Since it’s simply a “list” it should be ok to post here as far as copyright/trademark stuff goes. Also, they should be thanking me since their site does not list these dimensions exactly outright, so it’s hard for me and a lot of others to blow this thing up to get models of cars, people, etc. up til now…

Here’s the dimensions for the template according to the email (part of the reason I’m posting this out here instead of just keeping the email is that the email may get deleted on accident someday?…)

The points are all 1 “unit” wide and at the following positions (in the same units – be it cm or inches):
23, 1
26, 1
26, 4

23, 18
26, 18
26, 15
26, 12

1, 18
4, 18
7, 18
1, 15
1, 12

1, 4
1, 1
4, 1
7, 1

First number is along the axis pointing towards right, second up.

We had people scanning forklifts with this pattern, so bigger objects are definitely possible.

Have a good time trying to build that template! I’m so glad that this info is out here now. It would have been so very handy many years ago when I first got in to this stuff..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match_moving

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match_moving – Since Voodoo is free, I might give it a whirl.

way back machine… motion capture from video…

funny how some keywords hit you years later and you find posts from yourself from long ago…

http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-208448.html

found that from this google…

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22pixel+tracking%22+%2B%22motion+capture%22&hl=en&rls=com.microsoft%3Aen-us&sa=2

yep, that’s my post from 2005! Geesh… Too bad I didn’t keep up with trying to learn this stuff back then. I think I even created an open source project for this type of stuff, but it never went anywhere since I wasn’t great at programming and knew little about the algorithms and stuff needed…

What I was looking for back then, and that I don’t think anyone has created to date, at least, not cheaply… is a full scale 3d motion tracking system… What IS NEEDED IN 3D ANIMATION!…

D-Sculptor and programs like it use photogametry to calculate an images location based on a scale that’s below/behind the object being photographed. It uses the photos as textures to make a 3d model… the model is not very great as far as animation goes since it’s basically a static point cloud…

What needs to be done is someone needs to do something like that and make it so that the created model is animatable directly from the getgo- something that detects human forms, animal forms, etc… mixes and matches with bvh type files and fbx type files to make skeleton rigs that are ready to roll, and do all of this cheaply… and/or as open source/free…

What needs to be captured would be the base form, some math to change that in to a quad/plolygonal mesh that has skeletons inside… and even mix it to do motion blends and stuff… Rigging as things are now is still very old school for the most part and animators do most work by hand… we need to eventually get to where it’s all automated so animators can focus more on the craftmanship and the fine details that they usuaully only get to at the very end of projects now so that the craftmanship of the entire industry can go up a few notches…

motion capture cheap…

http://freemotionfiles.blogspot.com/2009/06/cheap-motion-capture-with-free-software.html

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22cheap+motion+capture%22&hl=en&rls=com.microsoft%3Aen-us&sa=2

Yes, Chris, and anyone else who cares to read this. I did post this and the last few posts. This is NOT a robot. I usually bookmark this sort of stuff with del.icio.us but since I don’t have the toolbar for that installed on this computer, I’m just posting it the stuff here…

Believe it or not (yes, you probably do believe since I”m a bit nutty sometimes), I had a jogging suit with pom poms sewed on way back 6 or so years ago when I wanted to get in to this d-sculptor, imodeler, and greenscreen junk. However, way back then the computers I was using were way too slow to do much… Aura 1 used to be in Newtek’s ftp site for free. Not sure if it still is. Newtek is the company that makes Lightwave 3d… There was some sort of a pixel tracking thing in aura that could be exported to lightwave… so you could record motion and create paths for it in 3d. Now that I’m starting to get back in to 3d and stuff mentally, a lot of this old knowledge is starting to flood back in to my brain… interesting stuff.

I have a couple of 1000 watt spotlights that are typically used for construction jobs in my basement. I was going to use them to make a homebrew photo studio, or greenscreen studio a few years back. Not sure if I will do that or not… never used the lights yet since I’m not sure how safe they are (warning label on the side of the box talks about lead)…

I might use them to set up as cheap homebrew strobes to shoot my portfolio in the basement someday.

Need to clean out the basement someday before all of that can ever happen though, or before I can convert the basement in to a descent painting studio like I envision it to eventually be… (assuming I can find some way to ventilate it).

It’s still got quite a few things in it that is a bit unorganized from last year, when mother-in-law moved and father-in-law passed away, and we inherited quite a bunch of odds and ends that are now in storage in the basment…

interesting reading – diy greenscreen

http://www.lifeisaprayer.com/articles/photography/diy-greenscreen

http://www.google.com/search?q=homemade+greenscreen&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1

http://blog.mindbites.com/how-to-make-a-homemade-green-screen/