The title is...

So, with some hiatus time taken the last few days to spend with friends and good friends at that, we've gotten into games, some stupid fun times, and a stupid video project that will end up on youtube eventually.  In fact, there may be lots of posts on youtube coming up in the next few weeks.  I'm also positive that the latest project i've been working on with these said friends on a more serious level will be finished soon.
The orchestration is two thirds of the way completed, and then we just need to record.  Last but not least, the music video will be in pre-production and then production before we know it!  Lots of fun times this summer making creative things.  I will continue to put more into the personal projects but there is still a trickle of progress.  Mostly on the stories that inspire my work lately.

Wierd Science

She's back...

Some more progress on the mechanical angel...

An oops shot, playing with the DOF settings and never have before, now i know they directly control the size of the aperture and not the F-stop like a physical camera.

Dialed back in right, still got a pretty "extreme" DOF effect on but it's within reasonable expectations..

My angel in disguise, Part 2

Finally!  Getting to play with some of my projects, and I'm enjoying the little updates here and there.  i'll soon be back to modelling the steampunk-ish angel, just playing around with some new texture ideas and a different renderer.

So far I'm liking the way she's turning out. I definitely want a rustic look to her.  Now that I like some of the texture ideas going on I need to do some real texture mapping.

 

 Just playing with the light, and no GI is not on.

My sky is falling!

It was very easy getting the lighting and background as I really didn't plan for it to be much.  Overall it was really simple thanks to Maxwell!  The studio application really simplifies things.

Alternate shot, no post on either of these.  I wanted to show some of the detail work that I did for the main shaft that's holding the whole thing together.  I'm thinking if I ever go back to this project I may update the panels for a series of glass windows with interiors that stretch across (kind of like a deck system from some futuristic space movie / tv show, take your pick).

So, with that said, I promised the wait would soon be over and there would be more updates on some of the projects I've started.  The wait is over!! Next blog expect some nice surprises for a favorite project of mine that I want to get rolling again.

That said, I wanted to show really quick some of the earlier renders I did working on this one,  this is where i started duplicating what i had made.

Crack the Skye

So, I was playing around with some modelling tutorials to get used to the different modifiers and working with geometry in different ways, and I combined what i was learning together to make something geometric.  It started out as 1 little piece and next thing i know.. "hm, what if i duplicate this, rotate this, duplicate this and move this here" etc...  Viola, a little space project in about 30 minutes.

Definitely took me a whole minute to figure out how to go into the modifier stacks once i'd done all the work to start deleting out sections here and there (a small hint, create copies instead of instances).

A "lighter" side of me

Entire hallway lit.  Wow what a chore.  My old system got this far before the project was just too unwieldy to open.  I couldn't even get a decent response from my computer to start playing with the lights' properties and scattering so I can get the effect I want; take a look below and you'll see what I'm talking about:

Nasty washed out areas due to the light webs I used.  The photometric lights are what I'm going for, I just need to drop a diffusing panel in front of them, and then adding fine detail work will come later.

The section up ahead where the end of the hallway is should be a bulkhead and large door kind of like in a submarine.  Definitely going to spend time working on that area when I get back to this project!

Bouncing off the walls!

First off, I'll announce that my facebook countdown to new projects is getting really close.  Today is a milestone i thought I'd just share that I've finally re-installed most of my software i had yet to get working again.  After several hard drive failures and tons and tons of lost projects, we'll see where it goes from here.  I can promise there will be new endeavors to pursue though!

On to the "Pressing Fear" hallway concept.  I had mentioned the lighting work i was doing while I was modelling the lights and fixtures.  Let's take an updated look at that.

Starting on the left flood-lights.  Definitely getting the idea I want here. The lights were getting ridiculous on my old dual core system, now that i finally have my software re-installed on my upgraded machine, 12-threads of goodness and 16 gigs of RAM should help out quite a bit, and that means i can get back to updating this one more!

You'll be seeing plenty more from this one.

Lighting the way

Struggling to get the right lighting setup for the lower flood lights on the right below:

However, it's definitely coming together.  Once I get the idea for how the lighting should be I'll start to focus on the hallway's structural details that I have to put in.  There's going to be an entire series of magnetic pickups and humbuckers that I need to create to line the wall behind those cylinders (yes that's right, don't ask why).

On the right track-light

Getting the mood dialed in, this shot is from the opposite side.

Just for reference, yes I did do a sketch of the idea I was going for.

From concept, to WIP:

Trying to get everything to scale right now.  Coming up next, the next set of lights. Modeling the structure to scale has been a challenge as I am still learning as I go.  Same with the lights.  I've opted for certain photometric lighting methods in this case to simulate the realistic light-web so that it will give more of the atmosphere I am going for.

These concepts I've been working on are ideas I've had from several dreams that I wrote down and turned into a story.  very dark, very interesting, and very scattered at the moment!

Walk with me

There's a bit of procrastination going on, I didn't realize I had so many iterative updates on this WIP.

More of the lighting update but you can already tell it's going to get blown out, so I started tweaking the lighting a bit; GI still enabled.

Much better!  The recessed lighting along the upper portion of the ceiling is coming out great, they aren't supposed to be bright enough to light the room.  Up next: Side lights.

A fly on the wall...

Hokay, so...  Here's the deal.  I started this hallway concept for a story I have been writing.  it's been a long time in the works.  It's also extremely surreal and mostly just an odd collection of chapters thrown together.  So anyway, here's this hallway concept i'm working on.

I started out modeling the corridor itself, but I decided to start getting the lighting placement into the scene ASAP.  This is with GI off.  Definitely getting the basic geometry down.  The cylinders along the opposite wall, the light pots in place below, and the ceiling lights as well.

Inception, eat your heart out!

While I was watching Robot Chicken I managed to scramble this together.  Kinda interesting.  Another concept on the My Own Little World series.

Geo, how I met you :)

I was playing around with some fairly simply geometric shapes, and got the idea to just create some design based on them and then make a pattern.... Patterns are like rules, some are meant to be bent, others broken:

I played around quite a bit with them, This one below was one of the first renders I did...

An alternate shot, playing around with the materials and elevations of the shapes...

Out of my mind... be back in 5

Not sure what I was up to, BUT - it looked cool!  Playing with some material settings and the same geometry, I did however cancel the render early so deal with the noise.