Bunnie's Progress Thread

[BnBGobo99]

Hello all,

I'm going to use this thread to post all my modeling odds-and-ends.  Below are two things I worked on yesterday:

1. A can of Bunnie Fuzzy Removing Cream (shaving cream).  This was an exercise in edge loop selection and marking seams for UV unwrapping.  The cool electric circle was from a promo for a video-sprite-creation software and not something I made.



2. A weird boxy spacecraft?  This was a modeling exercise to see if I could mix round shapes, squares, sloping edges, round pegs in square holes, etc.  I used a lot of loop-cuts and merging verts to get the shapes the way they are.  For the cycles material, I used the following setup:

[Radialronnie]

That's a pretty [object] there. Is the pattern on it simply a texture overlayed on a glass shader? Is the red part of that too?

[BnBGobo99]

The pattern is a black&white vector graphic that's used to influence the glossy red and glass roughness. The object was unwrapped, the pattern applied using the UV texture coordinates, and then that was fed in as the roughness factor for the glossy and glass materials. The red glossy and glass patterns were distributed according to the checker texture node, so it was randomly how they came out.

[Strangebloke]

Nice work. That glass looks fantastic.

I haven't even tried to get my head round cycles yet. Still learning BI and materials, I can't face throwing away what I've already learnt and starting again yet. Besides cycles seems so slow for animation.
How long did it take to render that animation?

[BnBGobo99]

Thanks. I had to render it over night--probably about 2 minutes per frame on a really low sample setting (75). When NVidea releases their next series of cards this year, I'll be upgrading to a GTX 760--my current GTX 260 has a low CUDA count, and the new card will almost certainly speed up my cycles renders.

[Strangebloke]

Wow it looks VERY good considering hte low number of cycles.
I always thought you had to do thousands to get good results!

[BnBGobo99]

This time I modeled a cereal box. I was going to make a cereal box texture for it, instead I put on the Blender box design I did for a BlenderNewbies challenge. I might come back to it later and make a cereal box texture since this was a rushed job--there was a thread on BlenderUnderground titled "help me build a blender box", and I couldn't help myself. :p





(okay, I know a box isn't really making progress in modeling. This was a step in my "progression chart"... next is a soda can, after that a box with a more detailed open that's open.)

[Strangebloke]

Ha ha. I just saw that thread. Nice box mate.

But you know I've Googled frantically for Blender v2.92 and I can't find it anywhere

No modelling a box is not exactly a challenge but you have practised your UV unwrapping and texturing skills. Looks great.

[Yodaman921]

That's some pretty cool stuff you've got going. I've found that cube to be quite mesmerizing. Is there any sort of end goal you're working towards at the moment or just mainly refining some of your techniques?

[BnBGobo99]

Blender 2.66 introduces the Dynamic Topology Sculpting feature, and it's truly really very cool.

This took all of 30 seconds to model:

[BnBGobo99]

I made some wallpapers, I hope you guys enjoy.

[BnBGobo99]

I made some more wallpapers:





The logo and colors can easily be swapped out if anybody is interested in having a Blender or Windows version.

[BnBGobo99]

Remember how I said I was going to take a year-long break from Blender to focus on learning programming?  Well, I've learned I don't care much for programming after all.

So, I picked up a book called Engineering Design Graphics: Sketching, Modeling, and Visualization, 2nd Edition and learned how to pen&paper sketch draftsman-style.  There were a lot of good lessons on setting up your drawings that actually translated fairly well into modeling.  In fact, one chapter has nearly 80 objects with different shapes and features to practice your drafting skills.  These shapes present an inviting challenge for 3D generalists like ourselves.

I've finished 24 so far... they get progressively harder and more organic as they go... I'll post another image when I've finished them all.

[Radialronnie]

This is pretty neat!
I took a rather uninspiring introductory drafting class at a local college once which only brushed over 3d rendering so I'm only left with the singular ability to render a nice cube.  

[BnBGobo99]

Here's two that were more challenging than they looked (at least for me it was):

Image copyright 2013, 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

And how mine turned out:

(I'm getting some faceting effects. I've been playing with different smoothing/flat combinations, but nothing really cleans it up. I've been keeping them quads as much as possible with tri's only in a pinch.)

Give those two a whirl yourself!


Btw: here's an example of one of the more difficult pieces.

Image copyright 2013, 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

[BnBGobo99]

So, I decided I'd give true organic modeling a try, and this is what I came up with.  I should spend more time learning inorganic modeling first.

I call it, "Grumpy old gigantor-eyed bronzeman".

[BnBGobo99]

I gave the sample excercise in one of the posts above a try, and this is what I got.


 The 'u' arms are too short, and there is this odd fold where the 'u' meets the post, as well as some waviness along the bent edge.  The mesh itself is a mess. :S

Grade:


Well, my vacation is over... back to work tomorrow.  It might be a few weeks before I can touch Blender again, so more to come some other day.  



Update:  I redid the mesh to try and get a cleaner topology.  Before I went wild with edge loops for the subsurface, it was pretty clean!  But edge loops killed it, so maybe someday soon I'll do a third try.

[Radialronnie]

That looks like a blood hard mesh to get right with subD modeling. I guarantee your 'try' is better than I could do.

[Strangebloke]

Welcome back sir. Now isn't this more fun than programming

As an ex draughtsman I love the Engineering Design stuff. Was that toon rendered? It looks a bit like teh blocks they've used in the lastest HSBC advert. I was thinking I'd quite like to try reproducing that effect in Blender sometime.

See top bar here,
https://www.youtube.com/user/HSBC

[Dobi]

Wait a second, is that what you've been telling me about? "Strugling to make a similar price as your hinges"? Man, my hinges are not even meant to be rendered from that of a close distance and in that style. Your stuff is way better than the hinges for my Camaro. Those engineering parts of yours look pretty good, but if I were you, I would learn how to use those 3D CAD softwares out there and do that kind of stuff there. I remember trying to make some gym excercising equipment in Blender some time ago and I had the very same problems you're facing.  

[Unhurdof]

Heya Mike. Nice work here. I know you keep pretty busy but glad to see you're still Blendering. Good stuff.   

[BnBGobo99]

Thanks, I start school Monday, so I likely won't be on much afterwards. I'm starting my BA degree in Graphic Design and Marketing (trying to work in a job with a studio like The Mill or MPC.) ...And I have to maintain my languages too, so that takes a lot of study time each year.

Once I get out of the military in 2019, I'll take a few years off to fully develop a strong portfolio and maybe work on programming as well and see if gaming might be another viable option. Since I can only take a max of two classes a semester, it'll be early 2018 before I graduate (providing there are no delays). That sounds like a long time--but I've been among you guys for five years already--can you believe it!?!?   

I'll be working strongly on composting and modeling as far as 3D goes. I'm going to pick up the Autodesk Creation Suite along with Adobe's Creative Cloud and try to get a handle on those software since most (if not all) studios rely on those and my classes require Maya and Adobe software.

If y'all are interested, I'll post my progress along with some nifty tricks and lessons I get along the way in my course-work.

[BnBGobo99]

Here's my progress in class so far.  Our first assignment was to do a positive/negative space drawing--meaning make a black background and a white foreground without any details or contours on the shapes themselves.  The below image is taking what I learned from that lesson and adding some shadows and other contour features to make the shapes identifiable. I had to throw in the Utah Teapot--as the only 3D guy in the class I had to represent.


The background was drawn with charcoal and the shapes done with a normal #2 yellow pencil.  I blurred the background and the shadows with a rolled up paper stick called a "blending stick" and a tissue paper.  The above image took about four hours to complete.

I start introduction to Adobe Illustrator in a few weeks, so I'm ready to try that class out.  I think after I complete this degree I'm going to shop around for film schools that I can get a certificate in rather than pursuing another degree.

[Radialronnie]

This is really solid work! I'm a bit impressed that you have a proper Utah Teapot!
Ran out of room/time for the pitcher, eh?

[BnBGobo99]

Thanks, RR!

I tried again using a larger drawing sheet and a different arrangement based on feedback from the professor.  I also tried to shade a bit differently this time too and only used excess charcoal left behind on my blending stick and tissue paper.  The larger the page the infinitely more difficult it gets!   



The image has some serious issues--but after standing for hours to complete it I had to call it quits, lol.

Let me know if y'all have any tips for drawing, I never really drew by hand so everything from holding the pencil and standing to erasing techniques are all new to me.

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