Beetle, back again

So here it is. Took me long time to findout a proper timing for walk cycle.
I need add few more plants, re-lit and improve render quality. Also rework few materials, add dof, godrays, flare, atmo and particles, fix few glitches related to walk cycle, change one texture, change camera movement. So many fixes for one stupid scene... I hope it`s the last time this year I`m modeling, unwraping, texturing, rigging and animating for a 5-seconds-long-in-focus-sequence.

Reminder: beetle is a foreground element, this sequence lacks of kickass background.

Tip of the day:
Before recording a studio footage make a list of things that could go wrong

Website of the day:
ict.debevec.org/~debevec

news

a bunch of news: few days ago I managed to finish a one-sit project, more on it later.
I finally composed a test shot I did to test some displacement with motionblur. Here`s the vid:



Tip of the day:
Customize your software

Website of the day:
http://www.cbscores.com/

(rendering scores seem to be very accurate)

small retrospective

A small retrospective is what I thought might be good to do at this point.

A glimpse behind and I can honestly say that my diploma project is moving way slower than it should. What needs to be done now are core scenes, mattes and other big elements. Focus on what`s important, leave behind things that can be done right before giving final touches. Mid april checkpoint approaches at disturbing speed.

Other than that, a retrospective is a best occasion for showing images not worth being shown in a solo update.

Website of the day:
www.xnormal.net

Tip of the day:
Cache your simulations. Bake your GI. Automate as much as you can.

Windblown WIP

In past days yes, I did work on beetle shot, but I`ll come to it in future updates. Reason I`m posting today is next scene which is quite a challenge for me. Girl with windblown hair. Currently it is only foreground and it`s like 70% done. I still have to pay some attention to textures, post and hair simulation/rendering. Image also lacks few post effects. Animation will come when I`ll be pleased with hair animation and dynamics.
1-2-3-Here it goes:

Tip of the day:
Pay attention to bit depth, for tweaks work with highest supported.

Website of the day:
http://www.3dtotal.com/ (tutorial section)

I remade the rig, this one`s better but still not final. Animation was made in like 5min. I`m also adding detail to the scene.
That`s all, I`m back to work. Hope You like it.

Tip of the day:
Make sure your hardware is up to date, that you have all software updates and latest drivers.

Website of the day:
http://www.sxc.hu/

Bug update

Here`s updated beetle I`ve shown some time ago. Today I remade it`s UVs, reworked texture, fixed rig and hierarchy, created dark mossy root. Currently I`m working on how animate this thing. Now... I better go sleep.

Tip of the day:
Always double check everything. Costs less time and stress than fixing things once the damage is done.

Website of the day
www.cgpersia.com

animatic

Last week I`ve been lazy, and I must admit, for one reason or another didn`t do anything worth mentioning. Tried few simple plugins, testes this and that, watched few making ofs, read forums.

Anyway, few minutes ago I uploaded a piece of animatic I did for my diploma project like a month or so ago. Sketches and animation are rough, the goal was to show the mood and learn about storytelling without dialogs. The color tint/contrast is brutal, `cause I didn`t want people to focus on detail lacking in significance.



Tip of the day:
Learn from experts.

Website of the day:
www.stashmedia.tv

Welcome back. Today`s question is: am I really moving forward? Anyhow?
To answer it to yourself, watch latest video of my AE composite.



Yesterday I bought a new 6 core cpu and a new motherboard. Since installing this stuff requires reinstaling OS I`ll use this opportunity to finally format my C drive and move from my beloved and trusted XP64 to unknown future labbeled Win7 64. This because in past months I found some difficulties in setting a network render, due to my laptop and home PC OS diversities. Faster previews, faster renders. Apparently I might speedup also blog updates.. All I have to do right now is backup all the data, like documents, works, music, bookmarks, brushes, presets, installation files. All I might need. Change mobo and cpu, install everything... and that`d be it.


Tip of the day:
for any project longer than a week, prepare a production pipeline.

Website of the day:
mediafire.com (to share/backup your data)

It`s been quite a while since I last shown up here. During incoming weeks I`ll be finally able to truely dedicate myself to my diploma project. Here`s a test scene I made.



Everytime I upload something youtube does kill the quality. One day I`ll learn the proper tech specs... to preserve how it looks on my screen.
Few technical notes: notice the waterfall, it`s made in AE. Grass will be animated.  Main character, walking long the road is still missing. That`s all for now.

Tip of the day:
Keep growing your tool palette. The vastier is the easier you`ll make the right choice.

Website of the day:
www.creativecow.net

Bluebox

Today I`ve recorded footage I`ll be workin on during next weeks. My model did a pretty good job. I used a digital camera to get the video in 1080p. There were some technical problems, due to recording slightly of focus, spill effect, bokeh and motionblur, but the overall quality should be ok.
These days I`m finishing some of my school projects and in spare time I`m doodling in zbrush, so I can say that the things are facing forward... and moving slowly.
More updates soon.

Tip of the day:
Often less is definetly more.


Website of the day:
www.mattepainting.org



special thanks go to my model, Claire :)

Update

Oh well. I`m alive. And in exams period. To tell the truth I kinda dislike studying and making school stuff and... for the sake... giving final touches to the projects.
Anyway, as for blog stuff, I`m currently working on many different things that are not yet ready to be shown. The variety of topics goes from diploma-graphic-tablet-fastly-drawn-animatic to zbrush sculpts. I`m also working on some interns visuals I have to finish these days.
Here`s a small teaser image... And that`d be it for now.

Looks like next update will be pretty juicy, stay focused ;)

Tip of the day:
Learn to use your software `help`.

Afterall it was meant to be useful.

Website of the day:
www.flickr.com

DOF and color correction

Played with DOF and color correction. Working with tones is far from easy. Avoid color banding, use dithering
when possible and ofc look for high bit depth... Thinking of what I might start giving application specific clues or linking tutorials, from time to time. Stay tuned!

Tip of the day:
Pay attention to your workplace. Comfortable seat, apropriate/clean desk and proper lighting are a must.

Website of the day:
www.deviantart.com (messy but You can find some really nice stuff)

Pawlack`s model

Pawlack sent me with GPL his latest model.
Currently he does not have MAX installed on his computer so... I came with this fast render. You actually can`t see this here but the thing has real potential.

Model: Pawlack
Light&render: just me


Tip of the day:
If something takes lots of your time there`s a chance there`s software that can do this job for You. 
(if You own a mac, the chance is significantly smaller:)

Website of the day:
www.videocopilot.net

Keying tests

As usual, few fast tests. Wanted to test out some things related to keying. I`ll have to pay lots of attention to light diffusion and direction in the studio when recording my footage. Well, it`ll be a challenge to keep all the things under control. Oh, and, almost forgot, I`m planning to add some extra content, visible only to my blog subscribers :)

Tip of the day:
Buy poor software and You`ll buy a problem

Website of the day:
www.turbosquid.com

Fiery chicken-blob mix

Christmas is time of family reunion, traditional food and classy beverages... I think I`m getting lazy.

Here`s a one-day-project. Started like anything-for-an-advanced-aftereffects-post and ended in dynamics, realtime recording, procedural dynamic light emission, expressions. Grew to few hours of 3d work, several hour render and a couple hour postprocessing.
Just before lunching final render at 6 am I thought it might be nice to animate chickenblob burning excess of kinetic energy when it`s stops moving. Unfortunately was already tired when this idea came to my mind... Well, maybe next time.
In terms of utility of this excercise, I tested camera movement/targeting related things, timeremapping, some invasive color correction.
I`m perfectly aware of many other effects to be implemented (procedural twitches, dof, flares, bokeh, fog, ss, cross just to name few) but with a single render pass and lack of time this is how far the tests go.
Noise, resolution, TR flicker are time related issues (I`d render it to noiseless fullHD at 80frames per second if I had proper hardware).

Special thanks go to:
Kosma
Pawlack


Tip of the day:
Watch good tutorials.

Website of the day:
www.game-artist.net

Houston we have a problem

After having modelled few plants I wanted test them so I`ve thrown everything into one rapid messy composition.
Actually no textures were applied which does not justify how BAD this thing looks right now.
I planned adding more variety, doubling, tripling the number of plants, flowers, ivy, trees... Adding colorful, bioluminescent texture maps... But on how this thing is turning out I might just scrap it all.
Any ideas, suggestions?

Tip of the day:
Start small.

Website of the day:
Cgtextures.com

Beetle WIP

In first place WIP stays for work in progress.
The body is almost finished while legs are still in works, just layed down few polies to set a render.
The beetle will be visible in my diploma for just few seconds, half of which out of focus. Need a tablet to give the model and texture a final touch. Also, it requires a specular map and a rig.

This very special bug is dedicated to Olga, girl that makes me laugh and not only laugh :)

Tip of the day:
When something looks really bad just... nuke it out instead of looking for extreme fixes.

Website of the day:
www.zbrushcentral.com

SSS alien blob

This one`s loosely related to my diploma.
Well, to tell the truth I was working on some weird looking vegetation when I figured out it`d be good to practice with SSS. Might sound weird but it`s not fluid dynamics, it`s just a metaball.
Uh and sorry for color banding, I`m still testing the looseless postprocessing workflow.

That`d be it... An idea that came into my mind: I`ll start linking interresting websites to take a look at. During past years I accumulated quite few links I`d like to share. Stay tuned!

Tip of the day:
When it comes to CG write down your ideas and things to do. This helps finding proper order of making them. Save time.

Website of the day:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/

Testing ivy

Fast glimpse on what I`m working atm. Renders unexpectedly fast.
Might turn out nice when I`ll play with this proto few hours more.

Tip of the day:
Verbalise your needs. Once you know what they are, just google.

One of last small updates. Next ones coming will be more robust. I can almost sense them :)

I`m testing few things:
-new place-object-on-surface algorithm, with relatively high imput values
-new terrain generator even though these are my first steps in it
-new procedural texturing shader. Current version is based mainly on occlusion, slope, facing direction and least but not last complex naki/poxo/sema/luka...noise pattern.

-and ofc more grass.



Disclaimer: this image supposed to look better after postprocessing.


Tip of the day:
When in need, look for specialized software.

Procedural moss, AE post

Second update, way earlier than I expected.

Here`s ...proceduraly generated moss growing over stones. I`m far from being happy with the results but following this line of thought would make this blog pointless. So here it is.

As You can notice the moss is growing only on the occluded areas. The way it blends with stone is still in works... Well, I need to find right noise pattern, then scrap the current one `cause it`s ugly.
I might also add slope and direction factor to improve the shader.

As for post processing, yeah, I`m slowly moving from PS to aftereffects post. Makes everything automatic and allows to work on video footage way better than batch does.

Tip of the day:
Subtle is the key. When it comes to post ofc.

Vray - 2sided material - vegetation+fog+dof tests

Well, here`s first update.
I do realize that trees do look megafake, did modelled them quite rapidly and only for replicate/performance tests. To see how my software/hardware works with high polycounts.
Given scenes aren`t very complex, they vary from 300k to 2kk polies.

few words

Very often there`s a day when I`m making tens and tens of test renders. Sometimes I do save them... but in most cases those pics get lost. Last month I did 1000+ images of which only something like 50 got saved.
This made me think that it might be a good idea to open a journal, a place where I could post and store all this random stuff I`m doing during my spare time.
Anyway, most of my incoming updates will be dedicated to my diploma project.