Learning 3D

Sierra experiments with suit materials

2011-12-22T11:46:00.000-08:00

A couple of shots with a more dynamic pose and some experiments with the suit materials. Eyes are now rigged in Houdini with a custom eye asset. These are raw renders, no post work done in AE.

From 3D 2010-2011

What modeling in Houdini looks like

2011-11-10T19:34:00.001-08:00

Here's some shots of what a somewhat complex model looks like in Houdini when you use it for modeling. The whole model (the HMSS Invincible project) was modeled with Houdini, and these are some shots.

From 3D 2010-2011

Obviously not how the network would normally be laid out, just done so you can see it all.

From 3D 2010-2011

Some animation work

2011-11-09T12:47:00.000-08:00

Finally some animation work, animation done in Messiah (as well as rigged there), then exported to Houdini, and play blasted. The bike rig is done in Houdini and animated there (just to make my life interesting).

First attempt

Another attempt, different cameras and secondary movements. Unfortunately the camera moves are a little silly and obfuscate the improvements (sigh, 1 step forward, 2 back :) ).

Attempt at putting together the introduction. The idea is that this takes place right after Same gets out of the Grid, down in Kevin Flynn's basement office. Sam's running a script that is backing up the system to his removeable drive. And back into the system we go...

More HMSS Invincible comps

2011-11-09T12:36:00.001-08:00

Done with After Effects, a couple of months back.

From 3D 2009-2010

Here the Mars glow didn't work very well - oops, win some, lose some...

From 3D 2009-2010

Couple more shots of the guard

2011-11-05T14:32:00.000-07:00

Some more shots of the nasty guard!

From 3D 2010-2011

Nasty Black Guard

2011-11-04T14:42:00.000-07:00

Some older updates to the Black guard. I was curious if I could model 90% of by hand, polygon modeling, as opposed to taking a base mesh into ZB and sculpting it there. And it turned out not too bad...

From 3D 2010-2011

Renders:

From 3D 2010-2011

Need to clean up the mesh, get rid of the n-gons, and then refine it a bit more in ZBrush before it goes into Houdini...

A few Tron belated updates

2011-11-04T10:12:00.000-07:00

Some updates, a few things I've modified. Sierra get's a shiny new helmet, a little more menacing, to kick the asses of any nasty Black Guard Programs she runs into:

From 3D 2010-2011

In action, opening scene, jumps out of a window! Rigging, animation in messiah, exported to Houdini, rendered with mantra. This is just a quick test to see what the glass explosion sim looked like.

From 3D 2010-2011

Environment render from Vue 9. The "rock" and flying thingy instances individually modeled in modo, then duplicated (via a copy node) in houdini, then exported to Vue and the rest of the scene put together and rendered in Vue.

From 3D 2010-2011

XF-91 updates

2011-11-04T10:06:00.000-07:00

Haven't posted in a while. Some updates from a while back on this baby:

Cut outs for the gear:

From 3D 2010-2011

Front

From 3D 2010-2011

Close up of rear moving parts, rigged in modo

From 3D 2010-2011

Another closeup

From 3D 2010-2011

Wires:

From 3D 2010-2011

Panels all opened up:

From 3D 2010-2011

What good is a super stealthy fighter without some missiles!

From 3D 2010-2011

Engines! Vector thrust units, with the flaps rigged

From 3D 2010-2011

Opened up for business

From 3D 2010-2011

Tron City

2011-08-30T11:33:00.000-07:00

Some stuff from this weekend. These are some basic models that will be used for environment renders (for matte paintings or 360 HDR Images rendered in Vue).

First some building models:

From 3D 2010-2011

Tron city

From 3D 2010-2011

Bridge:

From 3D 2010-2011

Black guard:

From 3D 2010-2011

quickie modo renders

From 3D 2010-2011

Light cycle materials update

2011-08-26T10:05:00.000-07:00

More work on the materials for the light cycle body, floor, and wheel light lines.

From 3D 2010-2011

Sierra rides a bike...

2011-08-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

Finally got her onto a light cycle

From 3D 2010-2011

More Sierra poses

2011-08-10T15:11:00.000-07:00

Some further posing after tweaking the rig's weights a bit more:

From 3D 2010-2011

Some work on the bad guy - a base model for the Sentry Guards (concept *obviously* not by me):

From 3D 2010-2011

Guard bike:

From 3D 2010-2011

Rendered in Houdini with PBR (not a very good render - I need to learn how to properly tweak it):

From 3D 2010-2011

Sierra strikes a pose

2011-07-27T07:38:00.000-07:00

Finally rendered a pose with houdini. The pose is generated by a rig in messiah and exported via MDD files to houdini. Body and face rig were based off of tutorials by Joe Cosman. I can't say enough good things about these tutorials - if you're going to do rigging/animation in Messiah, then go out and buy his Rigging 1&2 and Animation 1&2 tutorials.

Turntable image sequence:

From 3D 2010-2011

Experimental pose on the light cycle, just to figure out what the scale of the bike needs to be.

From 3D 2010-2011

Long Hair

2011-07-15T08:58:00.000-07:00

Sort of getting closer to having this work:

Frizzy:

From 3D 2010-2011

Straighter:

From 3D 2010-2011

Blowin' in the Wind

From 3D 2010-2011

Different hair shader:

From 3D 2010-2011

More rigging

2011-07-07T11:27:00.001-07:00

Got further along with the rig, using Joe Cosman's tutorials (http://www.lulu.com/product/media-download/rigging2/2319712) for this as a basis. Added some extra bones here and there for more support in the shoulder/lat regions. I'm using pmg's Messiah animation software to do this.

Progress so far:

Shoulder region

From 3D 2010-2011

Hips

From 3D 2010-2011

Eyelashes

2011-06-17T07:53:00.000-07:00

Experimented with adding eyelashes to the character, and refined the makeup a bit more:

From 3D 2010-2011

More character work

2011-06-14T07:57:00.000-07:00

Some further shots:

Refined it a little:

From 3D 2010-2011

Refined it even further:

From 3D 2010-2011

Brought into Houdini to try and add hair, still getting the hang of how to style the hair, not very good yet. Technique uses curve guides imported from Modo, then poly strips created with UV's and a texture map is applied to them. Something roughly similar to the Varga Hair tutorial (http://www.paultosca.com/varga_hair.html).

From 3D 2010-2011

Render of same:

From 3D 2010-2011

Render in larger "environment", post done in AE to get the glow.

From 3D 2010-2011

Turntable:

sierra wip 27 turntable from Jim Crafton on Vimeo.

More work on Sierra's face

2011-05-23T10:40:00.000-07:00

Some further work on the Sierra model, focusing on trying to get a reasonable face on her. Two possibilities:

From 3D 2010-2011

And an eyeball for the model once it gets brought into Houdini for rendering. This is based off of the "Creating Believable Eyes" series by Alex Alvarez at The Gnomon Workshop - Free tutorials. The original tutorial was for Maya and I adapted his workflow for Houdini. I even have a soft transform for the iris geo that lets me control how big or small the iris gets.

From 3D 2010-2011

Sierra and Houdini

2011-05-12T06:44:00.000-07:00

The model now renders correctly in Houdini - took a couple of tries to figure out what the problems were (mostly down to improper UV's) but it now works OK.

Renders in mantra:

From 3D 2010-2011

ZBrush turntable:

More work on Sierra

2011-05-11T07:25:00.000-07:00

Got some further work done, finished up the paneling, just trying to get things to render correctly in Houdini before I go back and finish the face.

From 3D 2010-2011

Simple colors just to test:

From 3D 2010-2011

Subtools all projected back into one mesh with more suit detailing, glow added in Photoshop:

From 3D 2010-2011

Sierra revisited

2011-04-25T06:55:00.000-07:00

So I'm going back to the Sierra idea. SIERRA (Search, Investigate and Execute Rapid Recovery of Archives), yeah that works as an acronym. SIERRA is the last program Kevin Flynn wrote, tucked away deep in the system so that CLU wouldn't find her and kept in "sleep" mode. SIERRA was intended to wake up in the case of a catastrophic failure and make sure that certain bits of the system were properly stored away for later use. Flynn's act of re-integration with CLU triggers her awakening, and she begins the process of fulfilling her programming, making a last dash effort to back up these critical parts and get in the IO stream that Sam has activated by backing up the system.

The model is based on some of the concept art for Tron Legacy, specifically that of Phil Saunders and Neville Page (his is the first image).

So here's an attempt at getting started on this in Zbrush, used a base mesh built in Modo.

From 3D 2010-2011

Experiments with getting paneling to work in ZB:

From 3D 2010-2011

Mesh with details built in

From 3D 2010-2011

Finishing up the light cycle

2011-04-25T06:50:00.001-07:00

Couple more updates to the bike, then it's time to take a break and start work on the rider.

Dashboard

From 3D 2010-2011

More light cycle work

2011-04-18T08:41:00.000-07:00

Some new updates here, been awhile since I bothered to post last.

Work in Moi, used for the NURBS modeling:

From 3D 2010-2011

Some renders in Modo:

From 3D 2010-2011

Close ups of the rear wheel detailing:

From 3D 2010-2011

Rendered in Modo:

From 3D 2010-2011

Details of the pedal and fixes to the handle bar assembly:

From 3D 2010-2011

Cutting panels in a saucer

2011-02-06T14:38:00.000-08:00

Quickie info on cutting panels into a mesh, this uses modo, but the technique is the same for any polygon modeler tool out there.

Create the base mesh, in our case a saucer (like the one found on the USS Enterprise from ST:TMP) with 16 divisions:

From Misc

Adjust accordingly and add subd edge loops along the corners:

From Misc

Apply subd to it (i.e. hit the TAB key in Modo)

From Misc

Freeze the subd mesh, this increases the number of polygons on the mesh and takes you out of subd mode. Alternatively you could just subdivide the mesh and smooth it. The point is that you want to greatly increase the detail in your mesh.

From Misc

Still have our 16 edges:

From Misc

Use this as a reference select the edges that we are going to apply a bevel to - this is where the panel cuts will ultimately go:

From Misc

Apply a thin bevel

From Misc

Select the faces that you now have (this is unfortunately a bit of a PITA, patience is a virtue here):

From Misc

Extrude the faces inwards, preferably along the face normal (as opposed to just extruding straight down). In modo the easiest way to do this is use the bevel tool in face selection mode.

From Misc

Increase your selection to include the newly added faces: (in modo shift + up arrow)

From Misc

Convert to edges:

From Misc

Bevel again, to round off the sharp edges:

From Misc

Repeat as needed.

Revisiting the light cycle

2011-02-04T14:28:00.000-08:00

This just keeps gnawing at me, so in bits of spare time here and there I've been learning Moi, a great 3D Nurbs modeling tool, to redo the light cycle.
After a number of attempts, here's what I've got so far. All of this is based off of Daniel Simon's fantastic work on the light cycle design for Tron Legacy. I have veered off the trail to make things a little more interesting to suit my own tastes.

From 3D 2010-2011

quickie render (in modo):

From 3D 2010-2011

2 Quickie light cycle shots

2010-12-30T09:00:00.000-08:00

Redid a render of the light cycle I came up with a few months ago. I'd like to completely redo this at some point.

From 3D 2010-2011

Notes to self

2010-12-18T08:37:00.000-08:00

Notes on manually converting a camera's position from Messiah to Modo.

In modo create a Locator, then a camera, and parent the camera to the locator. Set the camera's Y rotation to 90. The rest of the transforms from Messiah will be applied to the Locator.

In messiah go to the Setup tab and make sure you've selected the camera you're interested in. Check the Rest block. The X,Y,Z coords are straightforward. Remember units are in meters. Put these in the Locator's Position X,Y, and Z fields in modo.

In messiah the rotation fields are a little different from modo's. Messiah's Pitch is equivalent to Modo's X rotation, Heading matches to Y rotation, and Bearing matches Z rotation. Enter these values accordingly in the Locator's Rotation X, Y, and Z fields.

In messiah go to the Camera block. The Lens focal length (in millimeters) will be copied to the camera's Focal Length field, remember to specify "mm" when you copy the number in! In messiah, the Aperture height (in mm) gets copied to the camera's Film Height field in modo, again remember to use the correct units. The Film Width needs to properly match the with the aspect ratio of what your render output is. So if you're rendering out 1280X720, then the multiply the value of the File Height by the aspect ratio of the output and this should be your Film Width. In this case:

1280/720 = 16/9 = 1.77777

Film Width = Film Height * 1.77777

That should do the trick.

XF 91 concept jet fighter

2010-12-10T20:39:00.001-08:00

Another jet fighter! I don't have a clue why I like these things so much, but what the hell, it's fun to model.

Initial shape:

From 3D 2010-2011

After freezing the subd mesh, optimizing, and adding cutouts.

From 3D 2010-2011

A few clay renders

From 3D 2010-2011

Undersides

From 3D 2010-2011

Couple of updates to the blue lady

2010-12-10T20:33:00.000-08:00

A couple of updates from a month or so ago, busy working on something else at the moment...

Still has quite a bit of work to go.

From 3D 2009-2010

Another Feng Guo inspired model!

2010-09-09T08:22:00.000-07:00

This time I'm trying a complete ZBrush model based on the following Feng concept art:

I started with the following base mesh in ZBrush:

From 3D 2009-2010

Initial modeling, at subdivision level 0:

From 3D 2009-2010

Initial pose, just to see if the proportions are anywhere near correct:

From 3D 2009-2010

Next, subdivide the model's geometry and sculpt some more:

From 3D 2009-2010

More sculpting, now at subdivision level 2 and 3, mostly 3.

From 3D 2009-2010

Further updates to the XF-89, mostly texture mods

2010-09-07T06:44:00.000-07:00

Some work on the cockpit area and pilots seat

From 3D 2009-2010

Adding color and detailing:

From 3D 2009-2010

Close up of the instrumentation:

From 3D 2009-2010

Incorporated into ship body:

From 3D 2009-2010

Ship details:

From 3D 2009-2010

Group emblem:

From 3D 2009-2010

Further XF-89 updates

2010-08-16T06:55:00.000-07:00

Here's the latest shots of the model, now with textures slowly being added. First the original concept art:

First, finishing the model:

From 3D 2009-2010

With textures applied:

From 3D 2009-2010

The XF-89, from Feng Guo

2010-07-28T11:25:00.000-07:00

This is my first attempt to work directly from concept art - no ortho views at all, just the one shot of Feng's slick XF-89 craft. More here :
Concept Ships by Feng Guo

Original:

My take on it, using Modo:
Wires:

From 3D 2009-2010

Clay render:

From 3D 2009-2010

Cenaturi Air Systems Mk II "Flying Fury" progress

2010-07-20T06:36:00.000-07:00

Finally after weeks of procrastinating a bit more progress.

From 3D 2009-2010

Hooded Dasher

2010-07-06T22:05:00.000-07:00

I got stumped on the hard surface project I *should* working on, so I took a break and came up with this cute little cuddly guy! The idea came from Frank Herbert's Hooded Dasher, from his book "The Jesus Incident".

The ZSphere model:

From 3D 2009-2010

Initial mesh:

From 3D 2009-2010

After editing the mesh a bit in modo:

From 3D 2009-2010

After fiddling around with it in ZBrush:

From 3D 2009-2010

Cenaturi Air Systems Mk II "Flying Fury"

2010-06-29T12:36:00.000-07:00

This is my first project with Maya.

The Cenaturi Air Systems Mk II "Flying Fury" is an atmospheric flyer. Asymmetric design supported by an advanced anti-grav inertial system, which in addition to countering the off-balance right side turbine-thrust engine, also allows for exceptional handling. Flown by a single pilot, the craft is maneuvered with a combination of a 3D holographic display unit and a neural shunt that connects the pilot to the core flight systems of the craft.

Some quick pics:

From 3D 2009-2010

Tron project

2010-06-29T11:00:00.001-07:00

Back in May I stumbled across a CGTalk FX Wars competition with a Tron theme so I gave it a go.

Here's some of the models. First the lightcycle, initial modeling done in Houdini using NURBs:

From 3D 2009-2010

Over to Modo for further refinement using sub d surfaces:

From 3D 2009-2010

From Modo it was moved back into Houdini. Here's some animation tests:

Light Cycle Test 2 from Jim Crafton on Vimeo.

Light trail added:

Light Cycle Test 3 from Jim Crafton on Vimeo.

Light cycle test 4 from Jim Crafton on Vimeo.

First cut of the "rezz" effect, where the bike materializes out of thin air:

lc rez test from Jim Crafton on Vimeo.

Another version, with some tweaks to the timings of the various parts of the effect.

Light Cycle Rez test 2 from Jim Crafton on Vimeo.

The next model was the Recognizer, first cuts in modo:

From 3D 2009-2010

Then brought back into Houdini

From 3D 2009-2010

Quickie test animation:

Recognizer test from Jim Crafton on Vimeo.

Next up was the main character model, named "Sierra".
First cut in ZBrush. Base mesh was created with makehuman. Proportions not so good.

From 3D 2009-2010

After a bunch of fiddling around and the addition of backpack:

From 3D 2009-2010

More fiddling in ZBrush, added paint, hair, makeup, and some surface details:

From 3D 2009-2010

Turntable:

Sierra ZBrush turntable from Jim Crafton on Vimeo.

Brought back into Houdini and composited to added glow effects:

From 3D 2009-2010

After all this, some test shots. A run cycle:

Sierra Run cycle, version 2 from Jim Crafton on Vimeo.

A more complete shot, refinements made to run cycle:

Shot 2 test, running animation from Jim Crafton on Vimeo.

More refinements to the shot, at this point though I'm kind of running out of time. Learning character animation isn't so easy after all!

Shot 2 for tron fx competition from Jim Crafton on Vimeo.

Combination of the previous shot with a shot of the light cycle coming on line:

Tron FX shots 2 and 3 from Jim Crafton on Vimeo.

And that, unfortunately, is about as far as I got!

Some composites for the HMSS Invincible

2010-05-04T13:23:00.000-07:00

A couple of different composites of the same shot. Tweaks include adjustments to gamma and the addition of a star field.

From 3D 2009-2010

HMSS Texturing Done!

2010-04-21T07:36:00.000-07:00

More or less. Here's the updates.

From the front:

From 3D 2009-2010

3/4 views:

From 3D 2009-2010

Top deck weapons systems:

From 3D 2009-2010

Port/starboard weapons:

From 3D 2009-2010

Aft of ship:

From 3D 2009-2010

Two shots that have been composited, with the specular, diffuse, and emissions (Ce) channels adjusted.

From 3D 2009-2010

More Invincible texturing, at last

2010-04-07T20:13:00.000-07:00

Getting sick sucks.

Finally got the guts to take some shots of the current textured model, getting closer to finishing this up. This also shows a lot of the model lighting that will be used. The previous scene light was an area light that made the specular highlights show up nicely. I switched that in favor of a distant light, thinking that would be more realistic. It is, but now it's kind of washed out. Oh well, more experimenting. Enough twaddle, onto the pics:

From 3D 2009-2010

More texturing work done

2010-03-15T11:49:00.000-07:00

Got more texturing work done.

From 3D 2009-2010

And something with a little more light:

From 3D 2009-2010

More work on the Invincible: "Velle digitum meum"

2010-03-08T07:38:00.000-08:00

Started the long job of painting this thing. First steps:

From 3D 2009-2010

Beauty shots of the Enterprise

2010-02-24T18:32:00.000-08:00

Rendered some stills of the Enterprise today, using Modo's Render Output Layer feature to add extra layer to the rendered image, and then composited these together with some tweaks in Photoshop. Easy to do, and the results came out quite nicely!

From 3D 2009-2010

Further refinements to the Invincible

2010-02-24T06:41:00.000-08:00

More work done adding bits of detail:

From 3D 2009-2010

Completely redesigned the BFG:

From 3D 2009-2010

More work on the Invincible

2010-02-16T11:25:00.000-08:00

Further work done, this includes some experimentation with different fighters that would be onboard the Invincible. Original ideas came from http://conceptships.blogspot.com/, specifically

David Lecossu

A quick attempt at to see whether or not I wanted to continue:

From 3D 2009-2010

Jordan Lamarre-Wan

Another try, my choice to flip the front part 90 degrees:

From 3D 2009-2010

Jan Dolezalek

What I'm currently going with:

From 3D 2009-2010

Quickie test render in Modo:

From 3D 2009-2010

Adding weapons and deck detailing to the Invincible:

From 3D 2009-2010

With the fighter:

From 3D 2009-2010

Some animation test of the weapons systems going hot:

HMS Invincible Turrets test from Jim Crafton on Vimeo.

HMS Invincible 2nd Turrets test from Jim Crafton on Vimeo.

Weapons update

2010-02-12T08:11:00.000-08:00

Couple of updates showing possible weapons design. One is borrowed from Star Wars' Ion Cannon, another is based on a real world missile launcher, and another is just flat out made up.

Gun test for HMSS Invincible from Jim Crafton on Vimeo.

Gun 2 test from Jim Crafton on Vimeo.

Gun 3 Test from Jim Crafton on Vimeo.

More detail work to the Invincible

2010-02-08T09:30:00.000-08:00

Some more work on the HMSS Invincible, includes detail work to the hull plating, redoing the lighting for clean clay renders and AO, added deck "holes" to support some really big-ass guns along with rigged doors and raising flooring.

From 3D 2009-2010

Look inside and you can see the detail support the deck cut aways:

From 3D 2009-2010

Command tower area:

From 3D 2009-2010

Underside detailing:

From 3D 2009-2010

Engine detailing:

From 3D 2009-2010

A couple more updates to the Invincible

2010-01-27T06:20:00.001-08:00

Here's some more shots from last night, updated the solar panels of the dry dock, plus some more details to the engine.

From 3D 2009-2010

HMSS Invincible in drydock

2010-01-26T06:29:00.000-08:00

I wanted to have a bit of a scene to play with, to get some ideas for possible animation. So I came up with this:

From 3D 2009-2010

Further painting of the F 64 Harlot

2010-01-25T08:38:00.001-08:00

Finally got the basic UV maps for the F 64 Harlot model set up, and now I can start painting the model. Some quick shots of current progress

UV Map for the fuselage

From 3D 2009-2010

A few more updates to the Invincible

2010-01-12T06:48:00.000-08:00

Some detail work in the engines area

From 3D 2009-2010

Forgot to post this earlier

2010-01-05T10:52:00.001-08:00

A composite of the foofighter:

From 3D 2009-2010

composited with a photo of the desert using Houdini's COPs:

From 3D 2009-2010

This time with some clouds:

From 3D 2009-2010

and with motion blur:

From 3D 2009-2010

Some tweeks to the HMSS Invincible

2010-01-05T09:54:00.000-08:00

Well that's what I'm calling it:

From 3D 2009-2010

Introducing the F-64 Harlot

2010-01-04T07:49:00.000-08:00

Made a new mesh specifically to study UV mapping and texturing on, with the idea of then applying the lessons and finishing up the Dropship.

The F-64 is the USAF's newest generation of high performance stealth fighters, with a rumored maximum airspeed in excess of Mach 5, and a revolutionary inertial dampening system allowing the execution of incredibly complex maneuvers that would be otherwise impossible with existing technology.

Here's the latest progress:

From 3D 2009-2010

UV map of the airframe:

From 3D 2009-2010

Wireframe:

From 3D 2009-2010

A study in ships

2009-12-28T06:42:00.000-08:00

I "sketched" out a few ships in 3d, some using some reference material from conceptships.org, and one from a vague mental image I had of the ship in the early sequences in the movie "The Fifth Element". The latter is what I started to flesh out first (in Houdini):

From 3D 2009-2010

More details:

From

From 3D 2009-2010

And more details!

From 3D 2009-2010

Command tower:

From 3D 2009-2010

Engines:

From 3D 2009-2010

Quickie experiment for adding thrust:

From 3D 2009-2010

Foo fighter finished

2009-12-15T11:24:00.000-08:00

Say that three times, fast!

OK, here's the basic model that I'm hoping to base a tutorial off of:

From 3D 2009-2010

Earth, from Houdini

2009-12-08T06:26:00.001-08:00

Here's an Earth (and the Moon peeking out to the side) scene built from scratch with Houdini and several custom shaders. This was built based on techniques from 3DBuzz's "Maya Fundamentals" tutorials, and adapted to Houdini. I'd strongly recommend these to anyone getting started in 3D, really worth the money!

First initial cut (youtube video), using low resolution texture maps:

After looking around a bit, this is a render with much higher resolution texture maps, and the result is pretty dramatic, in my opinion:

From 3D 2009-2010

A few changes to the settings, and using even better imagery for the texture maps, I got this. The images can be found at Tor Oera's site.

From 3D 2009-2010

Same thing in video format:

Another cut of the foofighter

2009-12-05T21:21:00.000-08:00

Here's version two, which I think is what I'm going to stick with:

Clay shot

From 3D 2009-2010

Wires

From 3D 2009-2010

More clay shots:

From 3D 2009-2010

With materials:

From 3D 2009-2010

Detail close up, near the power charging unit:

From 3D 2009-2010

New model for tutorial

2009-11-16T07:04:00.001-08:00

Started a new model, intended for a modeling and materials tutorial for Houdini. The model is a "Foo-fighter", what was recovered, and now stored at places like Area 51!

Initial shape:

From 3D 2009-2010

Detailing:

From 3D 2009-2010

Close up:

From 3D 2009-2010

Now some initial attempts at adding materials:

From 3D 2009-2010

Underside "glow"/lights:

From 3D 2009-2010

Details:

From 3D 2009-2010

Close-ups:

From 3D 2009-2010

Finally a crude attempt at compositing:

From 3D 2009-2010

More texture work on the E

2009-11-02T06:13:00.001-08:00

Got more uv/texture work done on the Enterprise. Stuff like the various registry decals on the nacelles, saucer, saucer rim, hull got applied. Various bits of clean up in the mesh got done. Most of the core textures now applied.

From 3D 2009-2010

Details, lighting, and some texturing work on the E

2009-10-23T08:06:00.001-07:00

Got some more work done. A first stab at UVs and textures:

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Add some spots, adjusted the light "tempature" to make it a bit warmer:

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Further details, textures on the hull rings:

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More lighting

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Sensor details:

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Engineering hull details and fixes to saucer, dorsal, and front hull ring textures:

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More bridge details, and added bridge spots:

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Corrected saucer texture:

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More dramatic shot:

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More details

2009-10-12T12:06:00.001-07:00

Got further cleanup and detail work done this past weekend.

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Global Illumination with the Enterprise

2009-10-09T07:56:00.000-07:00

I stumbled on how to get GI working in Modo last night, as well as fixing bits of geometry and adding the rear shuttle bay panels and shuttle bay doors.

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Some pretty shots showing GI plus various bits of initial attempts at adding materials to the model.

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Some further detail work

2009-10-07T06:36:00.001-07:00

Got the forward sensors done last night. I discovered they are officially referred to as "Free Particle Field Attractor Sensors". Who knew.

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Finally, the Enterprise hull

2009-10-05T09:12:00.000-07:00

Finally got the hull worked out. Previous attempts had pretty much blown monkey chunks, but thanks to suggestions by other modelers from the luxology and 3D-Palace forums I managed to work out some usable geometry.

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There's a little glitch near the back, but that should be pretty easy to adjust. Looking forward to finishing the basics up, and going crazy adding details.

More work on the Enterprise nacelles

2009-10-01T13:18:00.000-07:00

Fixed the shape of the grilling. I had assumed they simply followed the same aurve as the forward grill piece. Nope, they actually curve inwards:

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Last bits of detail:

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Adding color:

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Hard surface articles for ZBrush

2009-09-29T10:38:00.000-07:00

A very large thanks to Kerwin for some realy interesting article on hard surface sculpting in ZBrush:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11

Again very cool stuff!

More nacelle work

2009-09-29T07:29:00.000-07:00

Finally got over the "hump" with these damn things. Got the side grilling "cover" (or whatever they are called, if someone knows what they are, feel free to leave a note) done and the the outer grilling as well. All that's left now is the inner grilling and the various bits of detailing, but that's pretty easy now. The hardest part is over. There are some little glitches I can fix, but overall I'm pretty pleased with how this has turned out. Modo has been a really nice tool to use.

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Enterprise engine nacelles

2009-09-27T07:45:00.000-07:00

Modeling these has proved to be very difficult. However I found a great tutorial by Roland Baron (at SciFi Meshes ) that briefly explains how he tackled it, and gives some great advice and ideas in how to break up the basic forms involved with the total nacelle shape. I can't say enough what a fantastic help this has been. And while I haven't followed everything exactly as he laid out, just seeing how someone else approached modeling these has given me ideas about how to move forward. So, if you ever decide to model the Enterprise from "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" check this out!

TMP Nacelles.pdf

Enterprise engine nacelles

2009-09-25T07:27:00.000-07:00

Finally got the engine nacelle to a point were I can move on. Actually I just got annoyed enough to not bother screwing around with anymore. Not a very artistic decision, but sometimes Pragmatism wins out over Artistry.

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Lunch time sketchs with ZB3,5

2009-09-24T13:00:00.001-07:00

Some fooling around with ZBrush during lunch. Both models were built with ZSpheres 2.

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Further Entrprise work

2009-09-16T11:21:00.000-07:00

Here's some more shots, the impulse engine, bottom of the saucer, and dorsal "neck".

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Details for the photon torpedoes:

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New project started

2009-09-10T13:10:00.001-07:00

Started a new project, the Enterprise NCC 1701-A from Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I've always thought this was the coolest version of the ship out of all the various incarnations. I'll be using Modo for this.

Here's some stabs at the main body, using modo's patch curves.

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This is a different take, just lots of polygons:

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The saucer and top bridge

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More Dropship work

2009-08-24T07:35:00.001-07:00

And it looks like this is now basically complete! More details below. Now I need to texture it.

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More work on the Dropship

2009-08-21T07:55:00.000-07:00

Some more shots, with more detailing. This is a really fun thing to model.

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Another 3D Palace tutorial

2009-08-13T16:07:00.000-07:00

I'm about halfway through another 3D palace tutorial - the Badger Dropship. Really awesome stuff they have over there!

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Modo!

2009-08-05T06:28:00.000-07:00

Last week I got my greedy little hands on Modo - awesome software! While it's very nice, I do now appreciate the price tag on Houdini a little better. Modo has some great tools, but the breadth and depth of Houdini is astonishing. But modeling with Modo has been really nice so far. I've been following Andy Brown's Tank 201 tutorial which has been really useful.

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A Grav Tank, based on a 3D-Palace tutorial

2009-08-03T13:14:00.000-07:00

I found 3D Palace last week, and since I had time off from work, found it a lot of fun to follow along with their tutorials. Here's the first result:

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This also proved a good excuse to learn how to take wire frame shots:

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Zbrush to Houdini - Displacement Map Workflow

2009-07-25T18:27:00.001-07:00

This is a quick walk through explaining how to get your ZBrush 3.x detailed model to render properly in Houdini 9/10 using ZBrush produced displacement maps. I found a number of links about this, but some were a little confusing as they talked about how to do this for older versions of Houdini. Apparently things have become much simpler since Houdini 9.x/10. I'd like to thank the guys at odforce for helping me with this.

One side note, from what I can tell, Houdini's (as of Houdini 10) integration or support for displacement from ZBrush is much nicer than that of some other programs. There's less fiddling around and fewer steps to screw up, which is a nice point in Houdini's favor.

First open up your detailed model in ZBrush:

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Switch down to subdivision level 1 if you're not already there.

We need to create a UV set. You could do this in some other program or even in Houdini, but this method seems to work fine too. Open up the Tool>Textures sub palette and click on GUVTiles. This will create a a UV set.

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Verify this by clicking on the CheckUV button - this will check UVs and if there are problem vertices, then they'll be highlighted in red. You'll get the resulting grey scale image in your current texture slot. You can turn this off if everything is OK.

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Now that UV's are in place we can export the tool. Click on the Tool>Export sub palette and make sure that only Obj, Qud (for Quads), and Txr are toggled. Leave the rest toggled off.

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In houdini create a new Geometry object, and add a File SOP. Import the newly exported obj file that saved out in ZBrush.

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Now back to ZBrush to setup and create our displacement map. Go to the Tool>Displacement sub palette and make sure that the Adaptive and SmoothUV buttons are toggled on. DPRes is the height/width of the resulting displacement map image, set that to whatever you want (I believe the usual suggestion of power-of-2 for sizes is still relevant).

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Go to the ZPlugin menu, and open up the MULTI DISPLACEMENT 3 sub palette. Click the Export Options buttons to bring up the settings dialog.

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The quick settings code is "DE-JCHK-EACADA-4D_D32". That's the top entry in the screenshot. Take a look at the actual settings this is affecting. Scale is set to "Auto", Smooth and Seamless are turned on, and, most importantly for Houdini, Vertical Flip is set to true. Accept the settings, and then create the map, by clicking on the Create All button in the ZPlugin > MULTI DISPLACEMENT 3 sub palette. This will start the process, and, depending on your model and computing power, may take a while. Once the files are saved you should end up with at least one tif file that has "4D_D32" in it's file name. This is the displacement map we'll be using in Houdini. Here's an example:

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Back in Houdini we need to bring in the displacement map. That's really easy, just go to the Material Palette and drag out a new Basic Displacement shader:

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Go back to the Geo node and we can see that we do have UVs in our imported geometry:

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Note the "uv" attribute that's now present. Add a Material SOP node and set the Material property to point to the newly added Basic Displacement shader that you just added.

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Open up the settings for the displacement shader and change the Overall Scale to "10", turn on Use Displacement Map, and set the Displacement Map path to point to your displacement map tif you created in ZBrush.

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At the scene level, select your geo node and go to the Render tab, and in there select the Geometry tab. Toggle on Polygons as Subdivision (Mantra). Under the Render>Dicing tab you can also play with the Shading Quality values but I didn't find them to make a really big difference.

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At this point you should be able to render and get some great results. Here's a sample of what I was able to get. First the ZBrush renders

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Next a Houdini render without the displacement map applied:

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Now with the displacement added:

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Note that the geometry we have in Houdini is a lo res version of the model, in the example here that's a model with 100,000 vertices vs. over 6 million that were used in the final subdivision level in ZBrush!

Further refinements to the head

2009-07-20T06:14:00.000-07:00

More refinements to the alien head, added eyes, and played with adjusting materials

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I'll be back

2009-07-17T13:22:00.000-07:00

I think we all know where this is going to be leading...

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If I get real motivated I'll document how I model it in Houdini. For rigging I'd refer everyone to check out the Technical Rigging DVD's at 3D Buzz.

Another head sculpt

2009-07-17T13:17:00.000-07:00

Some more ZBrush sculpting:

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Turntable:

Another ZB sculpt

2009-07-15T12:26:00.000-07:00

I got inspired by this image:
Balrog-lord-of-the-rings-4801000-1920-1200.jpg

and made a stab at a head sculpt in Zbrush:

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It will be interesting to see if I can bring it into Houdini and add the fire, lighting and smoke there.

More Mandy work

2009-07-09T09:26:00.000-07:00

Here's some more shots of the Mandy model, add hands, feet, and adjustments to the face. Still got a ways to go...

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Head shots:

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Ref image:

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Some test renders

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