Trying Agisoft

First run with photogrammetry! At least I learned some basic dos and don'ts. I'm sticking with the demo version while I practice more with the camera.  Since I'm in Pakistan, there's lots of good sources to practice photogrammetry 

Gothic Scene Blockout

Security Cam and that Black Friday deal

With a nice 4 day weekend, I had the chance to relax and catch up on things I've been needing to get to, meaning Overwatch and Bloodborne time.  No Black Friday shopping in-stores, but I did take advantage of Udemy's 15$ courses.  We'll see how they are in the coming months.

For now, I made a security camera using the Crease+ script.  I'll post to Polycount to get more feedback, but I need to make it more interesting then it currently looks.  



The camera's are based off of these images here:

IRay test

Did a quick IRay render in Designer for fun!

Maybe an IRay will work?

Moving forward with Crease Plus, I had this idea of a lab pool.  I don't think I'll render this in UE4, but perhaps Arnold or IRay.  The studio is entering crunch so I can't put the same time in as I do but nonetheless, I feel ecstatic looking at the designs everyday.

Just bought CreasePlus!

Bought a script called Crease+ and it's dope.  It feels like a small part of Modo is in Maya.  I'm going to be busy these next couple of weeks!  Here's one day of fun experimenting and learning of the tool!

More Parts for the Proxy

I'm trying to assemble the hull.  The design is going to be a mix of Hawken and Titanfall, but there is something building up now. I just need to get the cables via nurbs in tomorrow

Mecha Cockpit Proxy

This weekend I've started a high-poly mecha pilot seat.  Using some old models and kitbashing some of their older parts really helped speed things up.  I've used pinterest to gather some mechanical anatomy to make things feel cohesive.  I'm going for proxy first and then working on areas individually.  

Substance Designer drive!

OH MAN OH MAN.  I've been busy in Designer more and more.  I'm happy that I got the ok to use Substance Designer during my lunch breaks but I'm not sure if I can upload images to the web from there.  Still I'm grateful I can keep learning.  I've recently completed a stylized mud substance.

Tribot Modo Complete

Man, Modo is awesome.  I'm considering on moving from Maya to Modo because of this tutorial.  The workflow feels organic and the quality of the model feels right.  It's 40% off right now, but I don't have a grand to drop.  I'll be making the most of my trial license.  Someday I'll get to have a full license.

Modo Exercise

In prepartaion for the modo challenge, I spent this weekend practicing modo and getting used to the control scehemes.  A friend sent me tutorials and a gumroad page to use as resources, where I found a cool tachikoma-like modeling lesson.  Still need to complete the feet, more details and a render pass, but I think this can be concluded tomorrow.  

I gotta say, after getting used to the setup, Modo is impressive.

The Build Up

I want to make a mech, but I don't have the expeirence yet to crank one out.  So I'm doing smaller hardsurface works before attacking the big one. My next plan is to follow a concept from Deus Ex, and just recreate an arm that has those intricate hardsurface style.  I hope this'll just be a two week adventure, because I plan on entering the MODO challenge.

Nicoya

I was watching the debates and diving into Painter, so that wasn't a great idea. On the goodside, I'm listening to some bumpin tunes.  I still made a good stride in the material milestone of this exercise.  I added in a bunch of leaks, oils and grime.  I'll let this simmer and tackle this again tomorrow.

Unwraping and ch-ch-ch-changes

I've spent a lot of hours this weekend unwrapping and cuting out the garbage pieces or areas that would cause problems in the bake.  I threw it into Substance Painter to get the dice rolling for monday, applied a couple smart mats and painted in some dirt patches.  

This is fun

Today, I cut back about 40% of the IMM work I did.  It was fun but the design look blah.  I plan on baking this asset, so I need to prepare for the future. I have a plan for the pipes, but for now they create some nice negative space.  

IMM loving it!

I wanted to add pipes, so I learned how the Curve Modifier worked. I also learned about IMM Brushes.  I now love IMM Brushes. Seriously, how do tutorials skip out on such a great tool!?!

Hard Surface Headbust practice update

Going easy but smooth on Hard-Surface in ZBrush.  Since most pieces were retopo'd, I feel that I won't be seeing a big hastle when baking the maps down the road.  Tomorrow I'll aim to get some more floaty like pieces for the neck area and cables

Weathered Rock (No Maya Wayz!)

I've spent the past two weeks rumaging through ZBrush tutorial out there.  While I was opening up a file, I saw an older rock texture that was pretty well done.  Since it's been a year, I've went ahead and did a quick ZBrush and Substance action.  I like how this pipeline cuts out Maya, and in the longrun, could make freelance more easier to join in.

Top image is Substance, bottom is ZBrush.  The final polycount is about 5k, which is overkill but I'm not worried about that.  My concern was getting comfortable with creating assets and not touching Maya.

Expanding on Hard Surface in ZBrush

I was pursuing this, but it's really tough to keep the momentum after a week.  The tutorial I followed though has made it more easier for me to make hardsurface in ZBrush.  For now, we'll let this die here.

Compositing Exercise: FR

One of my goals in life is to complete some 3D Composite short.  To get there, it's going to take practice.  DePaul had a broken course that covered some topics on 3D Compositing, but now I"m exploring it more.  This stock footage was grabbed from a site I have bookmarked somewhere, but you can see what I have in store for it by this rough blockout.

UPDATED 02:  Here's the proxys!

Mom! Whats this green stuff?

Commuting to Chicago via public transit is terrible.  Somedays I'd leave the studio at 5:50 and wouldn't be home till 9:00.  Getting to work took about 2 hours, with an overall day of commuting coming out to 20$. Gross. That's also solid reason I haven't been documenting my work this week.  Fear not! There will be a car that I can use next week to get to work, cutting my commute down to an hour both ways.

I'm about to put a bow on this environment, but I discovered what Lighting Complexity is in UE4.  It's main purpose is to show texel density for lightmaps across the world.  A lot of my lightmaps were red and bad, so I spent the past two days cleaning up lightmaps.  I"m also cutting back on excessive modularity pieces(the ceiling and floor are all ind 4x4 meshes, when I could just use a flat plane.)