NES Console Project - WIP 09

Get ready for some huge updates!

So, first off, a few weeks back I did a little test to see what the final scene would look like.  It isn't rendered or anything, just a screenshot of the 3D Viewport, but still, it gave me an idea of what I was actually going for.

...a lot of Path modifying (for the cables) will be waiting for me...

And then, over the last week or so (not counting the time I spent fighting with my laptop to get it working properly again) I finally started texturing some of the objects!

I actually had to completely rebuild the UV map for this, as the proportions were completely off O_o  I have absolutely no idea how that happened...anyway, moving on:

Computer Troubles...

Long story short, had to reformat the disk and re-reinstall Windows after reinstalling it and trying to add Linux Mint to my system.  Worked really great until Vista told me I was at the maximum number of partitions...and I want to completely reorganize, so I need disk partitions.

Everything's working great so far though, I've reinstalled roughly 75% of my programs (they're mostly open-source so it's easy enough) and started reorganizing. going to burn some stuff to DVDs as well to clean up some stuff I haven't used in years, haha

Will hopefully be able to finish cleaning up and reorganizing today, so I'll maybe work a bit on my NES project :D

Skyward Sword Celebration Project - WIP 08

Don't worry, I haven't abandoned my blog, I'm still here, just much busier. ;)

So, over the weekend I finally made some real progress on the project, especially on Sunday - I listened to Sonic the Hedgehog music the entire time I was modelling, so that probably helped - you know, he's....fast.  Really fast.  "Faster than the speed of sound!"

Anyway, enough about Sonic and other random stuff, time for some WIP pictures!

A snapshot of the input panel on the back of the television.

Skyward Sword Celebration Project - WIP 07

Just finished the head of the screw I'll be using everywhere on the console pieces!

On the left is my first try, with a structure similar to those of the 3D Magnemite; on the right is the final version, which is much nicer :D

Planning your topology ahead of time really helps.

Took about as long to make both, but I took a bit more time to think about the topology I needed before actually starting on the second cap, which really made a difference.  I usually do a 50/50 of topology planning and topology improvisation/tweaking.

That corner on the inside of the bit-head was kinda tough though - I ended up incorporating it's sharpening edge-loops into it's structure instead of them being easily removable and editable.

The final one (on the right) isn't 100% circular, but once I get to the actual thread-section I'll fix that up :D

Skyward Sword Celebration Project - WIP 06

Adding in some overlooked details to the expansion slot... :D

Still a few left in other spots (screws, insets, etc.) but I'm not sure how easy they'll be to add in.

Screws are fun to do though, I made some once for my 3D Magnemite so I'm very curious to try again with my improved modelling skills :D

Skyward Sword Celebration Project - WIP 05

some progress on the Television for the scene:

still the base mesh, but it's supposed to be a ~20 year-old 13" Emerson :)  it's picture quality is still super-good, thankfully.

Skyward Sword Celebration Project - WIP 04

New video tour of the project!


Skyward Sword Celebration Project Tour 4 - HD from MeshWeaver on Vimeo.


Also, check out the "Skyward Sword Celebration Project" page above - it's been updated!

Skyward Sword Celebration Project - WIP 03

Little update :D

SkywardSword celebration WIP 6 by ~MeshWeaver on deviantART

(not shown on the picture : all the plugs and cables for the NES.  the adapter heads are kinda tough to make, but quite fun too, since I really have to think about how I shape them, while still trying to keep the vertex count at a reasonable level.)

I just had an idea

Hey, remember the "Super Smash Bros Brawl - Animation and VFX" posts?  Well, I haven't done any in a long time and I was looking at the list of videos when I played the other day, and it's ridiculously long.  On top of which, since the last one I've seen some amazing animations that I wanted to add to the series, but they weren't from Brawl.

So I had an idea.  I will be replacing the Brawl-posts with plain-and-simple "Game Cutscene" posts, featuring scenes from games such as Brawl (there are still a few I want to cover), The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario games, Sonic the Hedgehog, and more :D  I have a few in mind already, including some amazing Sonic cutscenes that I saw recently.

Anyway, this means that I will have to contact each YouTube member (in contrast to just one, ChildrenoftheAtomSB) whenever I want to embed a video, but hey, it's going to be totally worth it :D

...at least, I hope...

Skyward Sword Celebration Project - Cartridge Turntable

So as you can see, a turntable render of the NES game cartridge. Included in the video are both the default clay render turntable and a Wire version, for those of you curious about the topology :D

I also used Blender's built-in video editor for the first time to put this together :D  Went very well, and I definitely like the organization method - the various columns and things.

Anyway, here's the video.  Vimeo version is in queue for conversion - have to wait an hour before this 25-second video is converted, it's ridiculous.  Seems to me that the video conversion time should be judged by how long it is and the image quality...anyway, before I branch off again, here's the video, for real this time:

...I might have rendered it kinda fast, even though it was at 17 frames per second.  Maybe a slower animation would have been better, though the method I used doesn't really allow for much customization. I have to figure that out, there's going to be turntables of every object. :D  At least, I think...

Looking back...

Wow...  I was looking over my Flickr Photostream just now and I got a bit of a Flashback moment - it felt weird.  Really weird.  Seriously.

This was the trigger-picture:

When I saw this picture, it was like my brain had pressed the "Play" button on a memory tape somewhere in my head and I remembered all the steps involved in the project - extruding out the gum tray, creating every single face on the bottom of the tray by hand because I didn't know how to do it properly back then, figuring out how to do Transparency, sketching out the letters with a multi-subdivided Plane and then repositioning the vertices to match the shape with absolutely no regard to proper topology, and the rendering :D  I also remembered how proud I was to have achieved this - it was my first project outside of the tutorials (the reason I chose an Excel gum pack is because I had one lying on my desk at the time, I can still remember it, it had a tear on the side and was pretty banged up, I had carried it around in my pocket for a while).

It's weird, isn't it?  And to think that exactly two years later, I'd have my most complex project yet underway, with only one piece of the not-yet-final mesh probably over 100 times more complex than this simple gum pack :D

Well, while I'm talking about this kind of stuff, I'm going to send out a message to all of the new Blender-heads out there :  May the Blend be with you!

Skyward Sword Celebration Project - WIP 02

(btw, the post is longer than this.  Click the "Read More" button to...well...read more :D)


Hmm, I've posted pictures about this on DeviantART more often than I post about it here...weird.


Anyway, I've made a lot of progress since the first post, considering it was at the beginning of July.  Lots of W.I.P pictures too, as you can see:



SkywardSword celebration WIP 3 by ~MeshWeaver on deviantART


July 25th

New Tutorial - "16 Awesome Modelling Tools"

Hey Followers and whoever-might-be-reading-this :D


So I have a new tutorial online, covering 16 modelling tools I use the most often when working.  Each tool/function has its own intro and they're separated into individual parts...though not with the “P” shortcut.  It’s my best tutorial so far, if I say so myself :D


Also, as with all my other tutorials, it’s in full 1280x720 HD – ok, little disclaimer, the Vimeo version is slightly crappy for a few seconds right at the beginning (due to the *.wmv-to-*.mp4 conversion to bring down the file size), but it quickly settles into nice, high-definition images.



16 Awesome Modelling Tools - HD from MeshWeaver on Vimeo.





By the way, the YouTube link also includes the Playlist.


This is more of a beginner tutorial, btw.  I plan on maybe making more, like a mini featuring the Snapping tool, or various Modifers.


Enjoy!


MeshWeaver

Blender 2.5 Beta 3 vs 2.52svn30180

Hey Blenderheads!

So I just tested the render speed of Blender 2.5 Beta3, which is the new Official Blender Foundation release. I'd read some comments about it being slower than builds off GraphicAll.org, so I decided to test it out. I used Beta 3 (obviously) and 2.52svn30180. Both are 32bit, since I'm running 32bit Windows Vista.

I used the default scene, no modifications to the lighting or render size, etc., and used NRK's Cloud Generator on the default cube as my test model.

It gave out the exact same render, with almost identical render times:

Render Times:

Blender 2.52 svn30180 – 36.41s

Blender 2.53 (aka Beta 3) – 36.38s

pretty similar, though Beta 3 wins by 0.03s ;)

then, since the render times were so similar, i decided to re-test, but with a more complex scene. In this case I used my Frublaz Scene, which has 216,362 vertices when rendered.

Render Times:

Blender 2.52 svn30180 – 7m 58.60s

Blender 2.53 (aka Beta 3) – 6m 47.96s

so Beta 3 wins by a long shot...or a hookshot, one of the two ;) i mean, 1min faster is quite a lot

well, that's it...i'm off to test some more new features :D

see ya!

SVN 30379

Woah.

I was just on GraphicAll.org, downloading a newer version of 2.5...trying to keep up-to-date, of course.  I found one of loopDuplicate's Trunk builds (trunk = plain ol' Blender, no experimental features or anything - just read that on the page for the svn version), and I can't believe they're already on svn 30379!  I mean, when I started using them, it was before 26162, and now we're 4000 SVNs later!

...well, that's it.  just wanted to comment on that.

GraphicAll = http://www.graphicall.org/builds/

Skyward Sword Celebration Project - WIP 01

Hey Blenderheads, and non-Blenderheads :)

So I've started working on this project again.  I'd started it a while back (shortly after E3), but hadn't worked on it in a while.  I've made a lot of progress today though :


SkywardSword celebration WIP 1 by ~MeshWeaver on deviantART

then, the mesh for the...thing, is almost finished:


SkywardSword celebration WIP 2 by ~MeshWeaver on deviantART

...so?  :)

edit - now the "thing" is finished, btw.  had a few problems, such as the cord entrance, and then some joining issues (one of the pieces merged with another, and it wasn't supposed to, so that caused some pretty serious normals problems)...but all in all, i think it's done.  was fun :)  now I just have to make the rest of the darn thing...it's fairly complex

Retro Flashlight

so, I finally finished this project - took several weeks, working on it on-and-off...

this is basically a 3D version of a flashlight I bought in an antiques store a little over a year ago.  It can come apart into several different pieces, and each one in this render is modelled to match the original as close as possible.  took almost [I][B]ten minutes[/B][/I] to render, and I was working with 2.5, so imagine rendering in 2.49b :p


Retro Flashlight by ~MeshWeaver on deviantART

original resolution is 1280x960, btw

also, the batteries' labels were created using my very first image texture, created entirely in GIMP, with a few scans of the actual text when I couldn't get it to work properly in GIMP.  also created a Normal Map for the end cap (the thing that says Satellite) using a scan as reference.

comments would be totally welcome :D