Not a lot of time to do anything yesterday morning but by the end of the day I did in fact remember to bring my USB home. Spent the evening organizing my files, videos etc. and finishing separating all the pieces of clothing for the pilot. Now that all those things I should have finished at the very beginning are complete I can start the modeling portion again. I’m pretty sure I was getting ahead of myself and really starting to get frustrated. Slow down Mike, organize your thoughts and then continue forward. Exactly the same thing I do at work and then don’t practice in my personal endeavors, lesson learned.
Clothing
Started working on and separating the clothing for the Pilot character. When I went back and looked at my base mesh for this character it looks perfectly acceptable for sculpting on without starting over using the skin modifier. Before I continue with the head and face I will finish separating off the clothing from the character. I had already finished separating everything except the shirt/sweater beneath the jacket. I had completely missed that little 🙂 detail. Once this process is complete I will save and place my USB into my pocket so I do not forget it at work again. This is a necessary step since our testing along with the bill of material changes I keep getting from the guy upstairs is making the day very busy and I forget the USB is still plugged in. I wish work would not have turned off our access to Dropbox!
At one point this afternoon I had eight items in work at the same time. For those of you technical people out there like me, I know that ‘multitasking’ is 100% impossible and people as well as computers can only ‘time slice’ their projects making it look like things are being done at the same time, computers being much faster than humans. Anyway, when I was finished I had to take a break, head outside and mentally checking everything off to satisfy myself everything was complete.
P.S. looks like everything may go OK with my little issue at work Monday.
Oops I got in trouble yesterday
Yes, I landed myself into some trouble yesterday. It all started on Friday when a meeting notice came out for Wednesday of next week and it was from an individual that made me a little angry last week. Well, I wanted nothing to do with her and the meeting as I was and still am under the impression that it will serve no purpose. I, in my infinite wisdom declined the meeting with the statement “I see no use in this c..p” and she didn’t like it, reported to my boss, her boss and HR. Oh darn I guess I better watch what I say truth or not.
On another (Blender) note I need to change the head I am using with dynamic topology. The holes created in the mesh for the eyes and neck are causing problems and I need to close those off before I can add the eyes and finish the sculpting. I left my USB at work last night so I will get on this right now and report the results this evening or in the morning.
MacBook Air
I was trying to work on my MacBook Air last Friday, I have used Blender many times while traveling using this computer but this time it failed me miserably. Regular modeling weather box modeling, mesh modeling has worked great but I have now found, do not model using Dynamic Topology. Wow, what a slow down.
Study and practice
Time for me to start looking more closely at the tools available at my fingertips when I start up Blender. While working on the Pilot character I was having trouble with the eyes as the orbital in the reference images creates an eye that would be a huge sphere which would not fit in the head. Now, watching the Introduction to Character Modeling course they make the same comment and the solution? Using the Lattice modifier, well damn I know about that. It is really time to start studying and practicing as I have said over and over again.
Time to start practicing what I preach!
Introduction to Character Modeling Course – CGCookie.com
I started watching the Character Modeling Tutorial for CGCookie.com Citizen members this morning and so far have been suitably impressed. If you are a Citizen take the time to watch this video course (to use the new term instituted by CGCookie.com 4.0) by Johnathan Williamson.
Watching this video I was paying particular attention to the work flow and saw that what I have been attempting to do was close to on target although I did forget to work on the sweater, I completely forgot about that detail. The other two were the use of the skin modifier which I have seen in action but have never put to use and as a result was not a tool I thought about and second, sculpting, this is a tool I am very uncomfortable with and that being said, I did not consider this at all. I believe I will incorporate both of these to some extent with the character I am working on. I don’t know how but I shall try.
Another thing have been doing lately is when CGCookie.com presents a new course I will download all the videos, fire up Camtasia Studio 8.0 and add all the videos to a project. I then publish this project including markers for a table of contents and presto I have a directory of files I can easily transfer to my 64gig thumb drive and take with me anywhere. Try it out, it works great.
I have not had much time to post lately. Work is getting a bit hairy right now with systems testing and when I got home this weekend the last thing I wanted to do was get on the computer. I need to complete some training videos for the guys here and put that off as well. Stay tuned for more in the near future (tonight…..) 🙂
This second round of testing is starting to take its toll, less than 4hrs a night sleep this week. No work this weekend so maybe some sleep is in order plus a little more blender. I worked on the head the day before yesterday and tried to recreate what I had completed at home when I get to work yesterday morning but for some reason I was coming out with bizzare results. I’ll give it a shot again this morning but for now here is a shot with a shiny metal Matcap.
 
My personal opinion of the two different methods of mesh modeling is that the method presented by CGMasters.net seems to produce the best looking results with the disadvantage of the time it takes. This is of course based on the time it takes me 🙂
I had a great productive day at work today getting much more accomplished than I had anticipated which all boils down to prioritization. It is a pain in the behind as I had to put off items I really wanted to work on but I had to balance what should be done, needs to be done and what can wait and roll into that equation the time it will take for each.
Y’all have a great evening because I am off to watch ‘The Big Brain Theory’ then ‘Mythbusters’ (while blendering) and off to bed because I have to get up at 2:00am and watch ‘Top Shot’!
Still working on the face and realized the reference drawings are not exactly good. By that I mean, if you look at where the smile ends in the side view and where the sides of the eyes are the facial proportions are not correct. If I keep modeling as close to the reference image as I have been, creating the eyes will be next to impossible. Here is a view of what I have so far but as with the hands I am going to try another approach and see what that looks like. This is definitely a learning experience.
Yes, I will be keeping all of the interim models as possible starting points for new models. More of an inspiration of sorts which means I’ll be keeping all the different hands, faces and when I do the ears (yes I am going to try the ears) I will keep them as well. I probably will not add the ears to the model as they will be hidden by the ear protection being worn but I will have them as a reference later.