Blackjack_Davie

Oh snap, it's the girl from the permanent waves cover! WOOT I just got to say Tai. I love what your doing. Rush is an all time favorite band of mine, I was just never big on there videos though. Some are really good, but others. . . well, they're much better in person then on TV. I really hope you have the time to take this all the way and make a fan vid. And I really hope a copy of that vid winds up in one of their inboxes and that this goes some where for you. Keep it up! PLEASE keep it up!

It's why I love this program. One application does it all; modeling, animation, choreography, compositing, and for a price that i can afford without having to choose between my art and eating. I will for ever be grateful to martin and his staff.

Oh! I gotcha, I over modeled the inside lower muscle head of the quadriceps. okay. I'll tweak them down a bit.

I'm sorry what's wrong with the knees. I don't see it. Not that i'm saying there is nothing wrong, but if there's something you see, please tell me so i can try to fix it. I did some fiddling with the model and made some adaptations to make a model of my WOW rogue.

Took the model in a slightly different direction. I reworked the body proportions and tweeked the mesh a bit. I also put in some of the smart skins and stuff. I cleaned up the Walk a bit too. I use a 12 frame walk with keys 0 6 12 as the legs farthest apart position, 3 and 9 being the weight on one leg positions. I like it, still need to tweak out the muscle channels a bit. But I like how this is going. The next couple of weeks I'll spend more on muscles and dynamics. untitled1.mov

Sneek animation. I'm going to redo it. The more i look at it the more i don't like it. the motion is just unnatural and the stride length is wrong. The big issue is render time. Took me 18 hours to render this clip. and that's because i shut off reflections. with reflections on it would take 3 days to render. anyone have any tips for shortening render times? testrender.mov

WOOT!

any of you ever got the email with Illustrator 1.0? lol, One of my co workers sent it to me a while back, to think, the first illustrator was only 800k? wow well, here's a test render of the structure I'm using as a scene for my space epic.

If your a college student or know a college student, you can get the CS (creative suite) package for $600. I comes in 2 varieties that I know of. Web suite which has Photoshop, Illustrator, In design, go live, flash, shock-wave and dream weaver. Then there's the movie package which has illustrator, photoshop, premiere after effects. . . and others, i have the web suite.

Man, Modeling the environment is taking a lot out of me. Luckily the super market near me sells Bustelo dirt cheep I'm either going to start a new thread for this, or try to change the name as it's so far from the original intent of what I started to do. It was supposed to be a female head with a lypsinc and it's taken a life of its own. The stories been floating around in my head and sketch book for years now, since high school really but most of the serious work start 5 years ago. It was originally supposed to be a simple throw away story, something simple to write and draw and try to get published (was trying for heavy metal magazine) just to get my name out there so people knew who I was. But life happens as it does, so I never got the chance to do anything with it. Although I didn't do any physical work, mentally I've been developing the story and characters all this time. Now that I've finally made the commitment to go back to school and study animation this story is becoming much more than what I originally intended it to be. I'm basically writing this post 'cause it gives me an excuse not to work on the environment lol. The character you've been watching take form is Astaeira (random name I came up with, don't even know how I did come up with it) She's the tragic heroin of the story. She's got 3 pets which I'm still trying to design on paper; Deception, Rebellion, and Attrition. Here friend and cohort is Tech (finalized on paper, once i finish Ast, I'll model him) The monster she's going to fight is the Chimera (not the mythological beast, but named after it) The ship she's on is code named "Oblivion" (reasons for that are explained in the story) Chimera is the creature she fights throughout the story, but the real villain is Captain LeRose Astaeira's Father Nax and her father’s friend and advisor Tidus (They're dead in the story, but appear in day dreaming sequences) And last but not least Admiral Thrace (he a book end I added to smooth out the story, he literally appears at the very beginning and end) The basics are this. One galaxy divided into two warring factions both descended and formed when a civil war destroyed the empire that ruled the galaxy 500 years ago in the story. One side is the imperialists the other side is a union of corporations that revolted to gain independence from the empire. The oblivion is a ship (space station really, the dam thing is HUGE!) that was left over from the empire and was it’s crowning achievement but was found recently floating in imperialist space on a drifting course to Union space. The imperialists want the ship. It is 500 years old, but it was constructed using the best technology at the time, a technology long since gone. So far, all attempts to get the ship have failed, a recovery crew went in, they were never heard from again. A rescue party goes in to find them, they were never heard from again. A third special-forces team was sent it. (paste previous text) The empire wants the ship bad, but as bad as they want it, they want to keep it out of enemy hands all the more so there choice was to just destroy the ship. The story starts with Larose sitting in on an executive meeting to diced whether or not to go through with destroying the ship. Larose speaks up saying that he may have another option, to hire and send in a Rage Panther. (Astaeira) the councile doesn’t like this idea and are quick to shoot it down, mostly because there are no more Rage Panthers, the mercenary unit was destroyed 5 years ago on there last mission. Larose says that he’s found the last one. Admiral Thrace who knew and respected Nax though he was a mercenary asked Larose if he knew the name of the would-be panther, When he hears Astaeira’s name, he give his endorsement to Larose’s plan which strongly sways the council to hire Astaiera. Astaeira’s mission is three fold. Locate the previous teams and if they are alive rescue them. Second is to get the ship under control, third, if she can’t control the ship and there is no one to save, destroy the ship. So how’s 1 person supposed to succeed where whole military teams have failed. . . dude, it’s a sci-fi action epic! I divided the story into 4 major parts, The first part is the meeting above and her initial exploration of the ship trying to find the previous teams. It ends with her finding the dead soldiers and scientists and meeting up with chimera, the two fight and she kinda wins. The Chimera gets away by shedding part of its body but she gets hurt in the fight. The 2nd and 3rd chapter are more of her trying to outsmart the chimera and finding out more horrible secrets of the ship (the name oblivion is explained in the 3rd chapter, the ship is basically a giant containment unit for a black hole) In the forth chapter she defeats the chimera it basically starts with them fighting. She beats it down and the chimera gives here a small box. When she gets it the chimera gets shot in the “headâ€. She turns and dom-dom-dom-dom. . . there’s Larose with a smoking gun. Lorose thanks her for her efforts and has her escorted of the ship. She gets back to her own craft an talks to tech about what happened. Tech looks at the box and a plot twist later, she finds out that chimera was a guard dog trying to make sure that no one gets control of the ship that the ship was pure evil, that it was built for only one purpose, to destroy everything and anything. Astaeira decides to go back to the ship and take out Larose and destroy the ship. Throughout the story there is mention that a single Rage Panther could take out a platoon of imperial and or union soldiers and that Rage Panthers are actually decended from the Imperial Guards form the original empire. Their function was something like an arbitrator. They kept the balance between the military and the congress of corporations. Think if our judicial branch of government had a group of martials to enforce constitutional law. Astaeira finds out through the stuff in the box that chimera gave here that 500 years ago the corporations were going to secede. The military took control of the Oblivion and was intent of preventing the sedition. They knew however that the guard would never allow the use of lethal force so they made a preemptive strike against the guards home world using the Oblivion to destroy the entire solar system it was in. (the oblivion basically uses the black hole inside itself to desrupt a stars stability making it collapse or go nova) The remaining guards became mercinaries calling themselves Rage Panthers. Astaeira knowing this decides she's going to destroy that ship even if it will cost here own life. It does in the end, but in an awesomely heroic " batman gonna fly the watchtower and crash it into the Thanagarian hyper space bypass generator" kinda way. There's a lot more not in this post. But the major story ideas are here. Inspiration for this story has come from all over. John W. Campbells "The Mothballed spaceship" provided the basic architecture for the story. God I love that story Metroid Alien Iria Even playing WOW (its where I got the idea for the pets) And a table-top Battle Tech game I played once (how I got the idea for the functions of the pets) The monster Chimera actually was the thing that got the story started. I made Asaeira to kill it basically. But chimera was a funny story, I was developing a photo in high-school but the filter I used killed all the contrast on it, so as it appeared while I had it in the developing fluid, I got so turned off by it I took it out the try and put it aside instead of putting it in the 2nd chemical that stops the developing process. Some how the image ran in a weird way and made a disgusting form that gave me the idea for the chimera. Well, that's basically the way the story is going. Lets hope it gets there and I welcome you along for the trip and thank you in advance for any help and emotional support and encouragement you can spare. Lol. Well, time for more modeling.

How did you make the rust material? plated plug in with one of the atributes being a turbulance mat? Also, what's this Illustrator plug in?

probably. But I do want one grate model that can be manipulated by a character. I'll try. . . eventually. . . to remodel it using 4 point patches instead of 5 pointers.

Yah. the sewer grate is one piece. I was playing around with the idea of using cutter bones to nock out the holes in the metal, but i scrapped that idea and just went with one piece of geometry. Lol, I don't mind other people placing their work on my threads, it all serves the goal of furthering the community right? Though, you need a grill. charcoal'd be nice.

WOOT! my hunch is paying off. Basically I modeled the sewer grate so i could do a screen render, and take a snap shot of said render and use it in Photo Shop as a tile to make another more elaborate floor. First test is pretty good, needs some finessing but for a first try, I'm happy. I'm basically making an environment for my female model, walk cycles are fine stand alone actions, but actions like sneaking, running and jumping look weird out of context, so I want to give her a set to act in.

I've never worked on a model that i've hated until now. I never want to make another of these or anything similar to this any time soon. I don't mind tedious work, its the needless redundancy that got me. For some reason, the normals wouldn't stand still, they kept flipping on me in random directions. Every time I reopened the file. . . flip! Rotated the object. . . flip! flip one set of normals, another set flipped. GRRRRR!!!! maybe its just my machine, or the version of AM I'm Running or my use of 5 point patches. . . I don't know. anyway, i've attached the project file incase anyone else would ever need a storm drain cover. My pain is your gain. . . irongrateprjfiles.zip

got so wrapped up in detailing i neglected one major thing, It's called "ANIMATION" for a reason. lol here's a walk cycle. It looks. . . weird. the right arm is really twitchy and the animation itself is pretty rough. like, the legs are all wobbly. Did I set something up wrong? I'm using the 2001 skeleton. astwalk1.mov

where's his sister pam? will she take him out to look at the queen? will he shout out something obscene?

Day 6 without World of War Craft. the tremors are getting worse and I'm hallucinating. My wife sent me out to the store to get milk, when i came back, i could have sworn I saw a blue question mark over her head. Have I truly lost my mind? My only hope is to drown my self in the task of completing this model and getting it ready for animation. I've spent the past couple of days revamping the armor and trying to get it to look more machine made and less like play dough. The progress is slow but i've been keeping my focus with near toxic amounts of coffee and cigarettes. I hope i can make it through these trying times.

My only critique is that this is ANIMATION! master, not poser. . . hint hint. nudge nudge! go for it man, I'm sure there's a site or two where you can download screams.

I'd like to know too, I've gone back to college to study (eventually) 3D animation, so it would be nice to connect with New York and Jersey users. I know Luckbat used to host the events. If its a question of space? I'll talk to my wife and try to host one myself if people could make the trek out to Glendale Queens. From Jersey take the path train to the "L" train in manhattan, for the rest coming in from local areas, just take the L to Myrtle avenue and then take the Q55 bus to 71 place. or you can take the "M" to myrtle too, Driving is easy as I'm not to far from the Jacky Robinson Prkway Not a formal invitation to come, just giving some general information to people so they can get a sense as to how far the travel is to get here. I don't have the set up that luckbat has for showing Movies and tutorials from his computer. It would be cool to hang out again though.

Bah, progress on this is so slow. . . hopefully it will pick up now that i've stopped playing warcrack Okay, here's a character sketch, now that i've got a better idea of what i want the armor to look like, my big problem is the hair. I still can't get how to use the hair emitter.

More armor. I'm using the metalic plug in that comes with hash, but its not a rather convincing metalic.

erm. . . hair material? its image mapped geometry. err.. . . splines and patches with a hair map with cookie cut alfa chanel and a bump map. and layerd. well, here's some work on the suit

arg!!!!! Bad hair day revisited. . . .how in the world do i make realistic, if not eastheticaly pleasing hair?

Curse you Blizzard and your highly addictive, production halting video games!!!!! the bad news. not much progress on the model, the consilation is a well geared, hard hitting level 70 rogue!!!! BOYAH!!!!. . . err. but on the the topic. well, here she is. Made the head a body and gave the resulting character a name. Astaeira. Yes, with the name comes a history and a story to tell that if i ever pull my head out my butt (listens intently for a "pop") I may gain the disciplin to tell. lol. well, here some stills of the first draft body. its basically the irea body reproportioned some what. so yah, i've basically done about 5 hours of work in 5 months. (still no POP) enjoy.