Do those guys at Pixologic even sleep?!
First, earlier this week they released the awesome Decimation Master for ZBrush. And today they release this announcement for GoZ.
F'ing mind-boggling awesomeness.
*found out that washing detergent tastes kinda yummy in small portions
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Rhinoceroses? Rhinoceroseses? Rhinocerosi?
Was getting tired of paperwork, so decided to $#*&! it and try out something new this afternoon.
Maya's default skinning method is.. kinda horrible (and that's being KIND. It really really sucks). There's always weights in the wrong place, and even after skinning and locking and painting again, there's always weights moving around because of the normalization factor and you get stuck doing extra PSDs and adding influences and sculpts, yadda yadda yadda...
Anyway, was browsing around on the internet and found a cool little method on Highend3D that makes Maya bind the geometry to the bones, not the joints (simulating the skinning algorithm used in Blender) and it produces MUCH MUCH better results. I didn't even have to make any corrections to the binding :O Even in the 'problem areas' like the hip-leg and arm-shoulder parts.
This is the model I made for the test, a low-poly speed model of Rhino (one of Spiderman's villains). Around 1100 polys. Quickly rigged, and then skinned using the method described above, and did a quick run cycle just to test it out. Outtadawayyyy!!
Maya's default skinning method is.. kinda horrible (and that's being KIND. It really really sucks). There's always weights in the wrong place, and even after skinning and locking and painting again, there's always weights moving around because of the normalization factor and you get stuck doing extra PSDs and adding influences and sculpts, yadda yadda yadda...
Anyway, was browsing around on the internet and found a cool little method on Highend3D that makes Maya bind the geometry to the bones, not the joints (simulating the skinning algorithm used in Blender) and it produces MUCH MUCH better results. I didn't even have to make any corrections to the binding :O Even in the 'problem areas' like the hip-leg and arm-shoulder parts.
This is the model I made for the test, a low-poly speed model of Rhino (one of Spiderman's villains). Around 1100 polys. Quickly rigged, and then skinned using the method described above, and did a quick run cycle just to test it out. Outtadawayyyy!!Yeah I know... it isn't much and the timing's a bit shot. But this discovery kinda opened my eyes to a whole new way of doing things more efficiently. One of these days gonna explore it a bit more. But until that day comes... back to the boring work.
*Saturday! Yay! Waittaminit... more work?! Boooo.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
One-Eyed Willie W.I.P. 02
Between KPIs, CSRs, final marks, ICEMS, SIGs, LANs and arrghhhhh&$*#(@^~!
Anyways, managed to carve out a few more details on ol' Mr Goldfish. Still pretty much making it up as I go along (but a lot of references are getting mixed up in my head - it's pretty much a mash up of Crysis, Metal Gear Ninja, Stormtrooper, those funny-lookin frog suits we saw in that new GI Joe trailer, and a bunch of other stuff I'm not quite sure what I'm seeing).
Only managed to add some detail on the torso and carve out the rough proportions for the back part. Since I made the mistake of doing this part by part, and not planning the entire body proportions early on... I foresee a lot of cursing in the future. But I guess that's what you get when you DON'T PLAN :(
Didn't manage to sculpt it as detailed as I'd like since my com is already choking on polygons (looking forward to retopo this sucka to less than a few thousand polys). Extra details such as little plating bits, rivets, screws, dings, scratches and decals are gonna be textured on later (at least, I hope so. Really have no idea if I'm gonna finish this.)
I'm toying with the idea of donating this model to the FA2 students next sem - they could use it to make their obstacle course exercise, and hopefully put this guy through a whole bunch of ninja moves :O wachaaa! G'nite!
*Tomorrow is FAnite! Or is it? Have no idea what's going on...
Anyways, managed to carve out a few more details on ol' Mr Goldfish. Still pretty much making it up as I go along (but a lot of references are getting mixed up in my head - it's pretty much a mash up of Crysis, Metal Gear Ninja, Stormtrooper, those funny-lookin frog suits we saw in that new GI Joe trailer, and a bunch of other stuff I'm not quite sure what I'm seeing).
Only managed to add some detail on the torso and carve out the rough proportions for the back part. Since I made the mistake of doing this part by part, and not planning the entire body proportions early on... I foresee a lot of cursing in the future. But I guess that's what you get when you DON'T PLAN :(Didn't manage to sculpt it as detailed as I'd like since my com is already choking on polygons (looking forward to retopo this sucka to less than a few thousand polys). Extra details such as little plating bits, rivets, screws, dings, scratches and decals are gonna be textured on later (at least, I hope so. Really have no idea if I'm gonna finish this.)
I'm toying with the idea of donating this model to the FA2 students next sem - they could use it to make their obstacle course exercise, and hopefully put this guy through a whole bunch of ninja moves :O wachaaa! G'nite!
*Tomorrow is FAnite! Or is it? Have no idea what's going on...
Thursday, May 21, 2009
One-Eyed Willie W.I.P. 01
It seems like forever since I've posted up anything, so here's a little doodle I was working on earlier this morning.
Kinda making it up as I go along, so there's not really that much I can say about at the moment bout what was going on in my head while I was sculpting it. Maybe in the next update. Aaaanyway.. let's see whether I can actually devote myself to finishing this whole thing.. even with all the other stuff distracting me.
Mel = "It looks like a goldfish!"
Nadia = "It looks like 2 fishes! A giant fish sitting on top of a smiling moray eel!"
Joe = "........................................"
*Whee! FA Delta presentations tomorrow morning!
Kinda making it up as I go along, so there's not really that much I can say about at the moment bout what was going on in my head while I was sculpting it. Maybe in the next update. Aaaanyway.. let's see whether I can actually devote myself to finishing this whole thing.. even with all the other stuff distracting me.
Mel = "It looks like a goldfish!"
Nadia = "It looks like 2 fishes! A giant fish sitting on top of a smiling moray eel!"
Joe = "........................................"
*Whee! FA Delta presentations tomorrow morning!
Monday, May 4, 2009
Quickie - ....whuh?
Super quickie. This one pretty much reflects how I feel most of time these days. Need something to get me all excited again about something... about anything, actually. Gahh.. tomorrow is work again. Back to the grind. (<- refer to previous post about needing a vacation)
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