zacktaich

I would love to do that, unfortunately I never downloaded the beta because the plugin wouldn't work for me. I guess someone else could do it.. Rodney, I could send you the .mdl if you would like to volunteer . Based on the suggestions of JoeW I redid the lighting. The point being to get rid of the "flatness" of the image by using shadows to define form and high lights to define the feature. Unfortunately, I believe it still lacks highlights, but it's a start. It's nowhere near finished, but as I'm leaving (again) tomorrow (this time for Portland, OR) I decided to post a milestone. There are a whole bunch of lights, the bright side is that it now has excellent antialiasing. The unfortunate part is that it's still lacking definition, and it now looks a bit washed out.

I live in Sunnyvale. Won't be able to for a little bit though, I'm gone most the summer, but I'd like to gauge interest on this.

Ha! I thought you were talking about the floor! Yeah, there is no material really there yet. Thanks for the tips!

I thought I did that a bit.. but I'll emphasize it more. They're there! They didn't make it into the 360, but in the two final images you should see them. Make sure you're seeing the images full size, they're rather large, and both IE and Mozilla Firefox tend to shrink them. Thanks again. Zack

Thanks! I look forward to hearing more about this short. This sounds really interesting. I'm probably not going to do this, I like the look of a nice clean guitar (and I'm modeling this after my own). I had never heard of this practice before, and I enjoyed looking over all the pictures on the website. Thanks! Zack

A pop quiz! And I'm so unprepared... Well right this moment it's near my monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers, but somehow I don't think that's fitting for this piece. Usually I have it on a stand (I don't think I'm gonna model that) and it's near to a practice amp, a few miscellaneous cords, a few pics, extra string packets, an electric tuner with it's battery hanging out (it's one of those batteries that has the little outside connector wires..), my strap, a capo (mainly used on my acoustic, an ovation 'celebrity'), and the least used item of them all: the pitch pipe. Do you think applying the decals as bump maps would give the definition you're looking for? I think it would help place the specular highlights properly. I'll see what I can do. I had trouble installing the viewer, and I couldn't see any of the files, even after the fifth time viewing, so I never installed the plug in. But maybe I'll make one even if I can't see it. What exactly would you like to see more of, if you told me I could maybe make a few images or some sort of turnaround to illustrate whatever you would like to see. I was having trouble with antialising, even after 36 passes(!) my problem was finally fixed when I learned to set blur to 0, although I still had to do a little shrinking in post.

Yeah, this bothered me a bit too. I have now some more wood choices, but until then I tried squeezing it down a bit and it wasn't bad. Thanks, I don't know about that though.... Your guitar is really high quality. It does need a strap, that's right. Well that's now added to my long to-do list (some of those to-do's will probably be never done...). Thanks. I agree. Any ideas of what should be added? I like it a little bit stark, but it could definitely use something. Some Ideas: An Amp A pick (possibly in between the strings) A strap Some Music Head phones Whammy bar, just laying around A cord Zack

Come on, Javier! Where'd you go? We miss you here. Put that animation on A:M Films! Show it's potential! Zack

I fixed a few things: Changed the settings here a bit bingo. Yup. It does now. Played around with this for a while, couldn't get it to work so I just took it back off. I'll work on it again later. Zack

Thanks, now for my own notes (and taken from previous commentors): -the tuning keys should be turned -the floor is a wee bit reflective -judging by the reflections, the guitar doesn't quite hit the ground -the strings will come out the top a bit more -material on headstock will be added -wall is flat, needs bump map to simulate, you know... that bumpy stuff -environment map on body needs to be less opaque -decals needed on tone and volume knobs -still no pickup selector, sorry mediaho! Anything I missed? Zack

HOLY SHNIKEYS!!! I never noticed how much good lighting could do... (oh, I modeled the scene around it too, super basic)

That was awesome!!! Loved it. Now I'm gonna have to show my sister. Great Stuff! Zack

This is why I hate IE. Mozilla Firefox handles it much better. If you click once on the shrunken image it expands, if you click it again it shrinks. Very nice. On another forum, whose name I cannot mention, I was told about problems with the textures. Joe W said that I would basically have to scratch the materials if I wanted to take it to the next step. I want to take the next step with this model, so I'm going to give it my best. Unfortunately I know next to nothing about texturing, especially when it comes to mechanical stuff, I think I could handle organic texturing much better . I think I'm going to keep the material on the neck, it's very similar to the one I have. More similar than anything I could ever do in photoshop. But the headstock has got to go. I'm going to apply an ambience map to everything reflective. So... my first question is, how do you apply an environment map? And do I then have to make the objects reflective? or is it handled automatically?

Thanks. 653*1280 too small for you, eh? I'll see what I can do. Zack

Thanks! Well unfortunately, modeling a human to play would get in the way of modeling the Ferrari Enzo.. just kidding. It will probably be a low run free model for a while. So basically people will have to contact me by email to get it. It keeps it from being put uncredited in peoples work. Maybe then someone will do the animation for it Zack

Heh, I noticed this after I modeled the pickguard, and I didn't know how exactly to cut the whole. I considered using booleans, although I hear they're a big render hit. For now I think I'll just make it black, and model the selector switch just to go through it. Yup, I just layed down the strings to check my placement and such. They will be wrapped around a few times then have about 1-2 inches hanging out. Yup, been struggling with this recently. Splines do not make it easy... Rest assured I will continue to tweak this. Good eyes . That's right! I completely left that out. well I don't think it's impossible to fix, in fact, it might be quite easy. edit: I was very lucky in that the topology was laid out in a way that made it a very quick fix. Consider it done. Thanks. Zack ps the headstock material is really bothering me. I'm moving on to surfacing now.

I like it! The scene would be a lot more dynamic if the sword was tilted a tad.

Except for some little plates on the back, modeling for the guitar is finished. I even added some material to the headstock. Questions, comments, critiques welcomed. Zack 5,904 patches. With the plates it should be just over 6000 in the end.

OK, I talked to Dan Shimmyo, resident expert on modeling and guitars, and he helped me to find some problems with the proportions (But not before questioning whether I had a girlie man's guitar and dealing with my inability to understand what he was saying, the sacrifices we make for perfection... ). The basic Idea was that I needed to grab out a ruler and see that my model was not thick enough. So here I present you a chunkier, more natural Strat. Questions, comments welcome. Please Zack (attachment: guitar00.mov) guitar00.zip

Thanks, I think I've posted 95% of what's here . Ok, here is a 360 degree turnaround of the model. Critique away. Zack guitar.zip

Ok, tuning keys done. The responses have really died here. That's ok. I plan to have this all finished before I leave on Friday (surfacing and all). Zack

Ok, wasn't sure which one he was talking about that was in his opinion poorly decaled. I really didn't notice. It all looked good to me!

Ok, added the tuning keys (well, the back part). Tell me what you think. I'm over 5000 patches at this point. Still very little lagging. Zack

Very nice job, oh and btw: commonly called a side walk here. Zack

Oh yeah, 4417 patches. A:M is actually not lagging at all right now. Very impressive. Hats off to you, Hash people! Zack