ekunzendorf

Hi, Thanks for the comments! Yes, the students modeled the speeder in Voxels while the other group modeled the drill bomber in Maya. I just merged it into Voxels as a way of comparing the two models. They will UV map the drill bomber in 3D Coat and then each student will paint there own version. I believe the speeder group's plan is to have each student retopo the section they built and UV map that. I am interested to see how they will solve the problem of retopologizing it. LBJ, yeah, I wondered if I gave them too much time too. 2 weeks seems long, but they are students as you note. I also try to keep in mind a couple of things: first, their instructor-me-just started using the program a couple of months ago, so they suffer from that. Also, we learn Maya alongside 3D Coat, and they produce four models and one textured group project over the course of the semester. Learning then doing tends to slow things down. Also, while one might think that a group project should speed things up; in reality, it slows things down on a small scale such as this model. I mention these issues not as excuses. In fact, I tell them that they should never be satisfiedjust look at the work that is out there; but I can't ignore the fact that they are students just beginning to learn. Comparing their work to professionals spending 40-60 hours a week working on a model seems a bit unfair. But of course, life is unfair; a fact that I tell them...repeatedly! That is a cool paper model Frenchy! Excelsior! Eric Kunzendorf Jacksonville University

Regretfully, I am on a Mac. So the applink doesn't work for me. But being able to hide the various objects is better than the numerical indicator I asked about. Great community folks! Excelsior! Eric Kunzendorf Jacksonville University

Hello All, Here are the results of a group project my students completed in their Basic Modeling Class. They were to pick a space ship or vehicle to model using 3D Coat, Maya, or any combination thereof. The Star Wars Speeder group (3 students) chose to do their model in 3D Coat. Team Drill Bomber (4 students) did theirs in Maya and will import and paint in 3D Coat. I merged an obj into 3D coat for purposes of comparison. The Speeder group is retopoing the model as I write. Let it not be said that hard surface models are difficult to create in 3D Coat! These students did these in 2 weeks. Excelsior! Eric Kunzendorf Jacksonville University users.ju.edu/ekunzen

Upon rereading my post, I realized I may have been unclear. I am selecting all the pieces of geometry and exporting them as one .obj file. Maya actually uses a transform node on top of the shape nodes. These transforms are read as individual subobjects within 3D coat. That is why everything has to be ungrouped and separated if one wants to paint one each subobject. I think what tiburbage was thinking was that each Transform can have any number of shape nodes under it. Further screwing things up is the fact that Maya has not only groups, but also layers. If you group transforms, 3D coat reads those groups as transforms and imports them as subobjects. This does not give you access to the geometry in the original Maya group. So, make sure, when exporting to obj from Maya, that each piece of geometry that you want to paint upon is ungrouped and uncombined. I hope that make sense. BTW, this makes the whole numerical indicator for the Sculpt tool irrelevant! Excelsior! Eric Kunzendorf Jacksonville University

I have just uploaded the final voxel tutorial to vimeo. It should be ready in about 30 min (currently 11:24 am EST). Excelsior! Eric Kunzendorf Jacksonville University

Okay, now I see clearly. Yes, if I export the obj from Maya as series of ungrouped objects, I have access to the individual pieces of the model as sub objects. Then I can hide them as needed. Yes, that will work. Thanks! Excelsior! Eric

Hi Phil, Thanks for responding. But no, this would be for an object that I have combined in Maya into one obj file. It retains the individual pieces of geometry, but is all one model. It becomes hard to isolate individual pieces. You can hide faces using the expand hidden command, but not easily. Moving would work. Interestingly, in the sculpt room, it is possible to select objects that parts of the obj file, if we could hide the selection, that would do it. Excelsior! Eric

Hello All, I just saw Phil's roughing character in Vox room, and I noticed that when he moved the curve points, the movement controller displayed numbers. How do I turn that on? More importantly, and more germane to the topic title, is there anyway to get that turned on in the sculpt room? I ask because when painting on a multiple object model, I go to the sculpt room and select and move objects out of the way to isolate them. Right now, I have no way of knowing how to move them back exactly. Hence my question. Excelsior! Eric Kunzendorf Jacksonville University users.ju.edu/ekunzen

Thank you all for the feedback! Sure Geo! By all means add away! I would have posted them all today, but I ran into the limit for the day on Vimeo. Excelsior! Eric Kunzendorf Jacksonville University

Hello All, I have posted the first 3 out of 11 tutorials for modeling the character head shown. I will be posting the rest over the next few days. In future videos, I will cover retopoing the head, painting and rendering in Maya, although any Mental Ray compatible renderer will work. Comments are welcome. Please find the first video at: Enjoy! Excelsior! Eric Kunzendorf Jacksonville University users.ju.edu/ekunzen

Yeah, definitely. But isn't that 3.5? We are still on 3.3 until the winter break when I can upgrade. Anyway, it had more to do with Maya displacement rather than 3D Coat which is SO easy to export. I wished Mudbox was that easy and successful on the Mac. Question: when I export the carcass mesh, is there any advantage to using a higher rez mesh? I used the lowest setting for speed purposes. It seemed to work, but I wasn't sure if I was losing anything. Excelsior! Eric Kunzendorf Jacksonville University.

Hello all! Greg Smith asked me to post a short tutorial when I got displacement for Maya worked out. Well, it would have been a LOOONNGGG tutorial, so I made a video. It is on vimeo here: The video is about 19 minutes, but it gives my take on the process. It spends a good deal of time in Maya because, frankly, the process in 3D Coat is quick and relatively painless. Not so much in Maya. Anyway, please let me know what you think; and for heaven's sake, if there is a better way of doing this, speak up! Excelsior! Eric Kunzendorf Jacksonville University users.ju.edu/ekunzen

Thanks for the replies! So from what I understand, there is no way to generate a displacement directly from the voxel model. Is that correct? And yes, Phil, I am working on 3.3. That is what we have in the lab because that is what we started the term with. I don't upgrade in the middle of a term. It causes A LOT of problems with instruction. I'll upgrade during our winter break. I'm looking forward to it! Update on what I'm finding. I took my Retopo mesh, which, interestingly enough, I had already merged for PPP and painted on it with color and depth. When I then merged for MV sculpting, the color carried over and the depth that I painted also displaced the mesh! This is pretty cool, but I didn't expect it. All I really wanted was the bumpy-ness of the smooth voxel model to carry forward. Okay, so I hid all the paint layers and just merged for MV and it worked! Now I just have to get my settings right in Maya. The displacement is displacing too much, I'll figure it out! Thanks again! Excelsior! Eric Kunzendorf

Hello All! This is probably a REALLY dumb question. But... I have a voxel model and a retopo'd mesh. I want to bake a displacement map from the voxel mesh and take it into Maya and render it in mental ray. Is there some trick to doing this? I am having a lot of trouble trying to get this to work. Specific questions include: Do I need to convert the Voxel model to mesh by quadrangulating? Scan depth is based on brush units, so if the voxels only project a small distance a way from the mesh (or dip under it a little) I can decrease the scan units from the default? Is there any problem with having larger scan units? For Maya, which sees black as 0 level, which Displacement Type should I use? Anyone know what Approximation Editor settings work best? Thanks and have a great one! Excelsior! Eric Kunzendorf Jacksonville University

Hello All! One thing I've noticed is that when there is a sharp edge as there is in your eyelids, and you merge for PPP, there will be some artifacting I had this happen with the feet on a character I had sculpted. To fix the problem, I had to add some edges to soften the hard edge before I merged by adding edge loops. This caused the hard edge to snap to the model and resulted in no artifacts on the resulting normal map. Hope this helps. Eric Kunzendorf Jacksonville University

Phil, I thought that might be the case to export and reimport. Good deal, we'll do that. artman, keep up the good info, I knew about moving polys to the new group, but you certainly don't know the extent of MY ignorance, which is VAST! Excelsior! Eric Kunzendorf Jacksonville University users.ju.edu/ekunzen

Hello All! This is probably REAL simple, but is there a way to duplicate a Retopo group or groups and the polys they contain? And THEN, is there a way to move those faces. Basically, one of my student has a four armed character and wants to be able to duplicate the arm and move it into position on the lower arm then use symmetry to copy the retopo mesh to the other side. Is this possible? Eric Kunzendorf Jacksonville University

I have 14 24" iMacs in our lab running 3D Coat We use Intel Core 2 Duo 3.06 Ghz 4 Gb of RAM 1.07 Ghz Bus Speed 6 Mb L2 Cache RAM is 800 Mhz DDR 2 SDRAM ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro I am also running a 15 inch MacBook Pro Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 Ghz 2Gb RAM 800 Mhz Bus Speed 3 Mb L2 Cache RAM is 667 Mhz DDR 2 SDRAM nVidia GForce 8600M GT graphics card 32-bit color Hardware accelerated My problem is that we are experience a large and frequent number of "Out of Virtual Memory" errors. Usually this follows undoing. Given that OS X does not allow us to adjust our Virtual memory settings, is there anything else we can do to help prevent these errors? Thanks, and thanks for a great program. Excelsior! Eric Kunzendorf Jacksonville University users.ju.edu/ekunzen

Artman, I feel like I have been kicked in the crotch by my own ignorance. I bow to your 3D Coat superiority sir! Excelsior! Eric Kunzendorf Jacksonville University users.ju.edu/ekunzen

Hello! One of my students has a retopo mesh that vanishes when symmetry across X is engaged. 3DC is trying to apply symmetry from the empty side. How do I get it to switch symmetry sides? Excelsior! Eric Kunzendorf Jacksonville University

Wow, thank you all SO MUCH for your kind comments! First, let me apologize for the poor quality of the sound. We have air conditioner issues in our lab. I'll try to fix that in the future. Phil, your zipper tutorial is great! Certainly deserving of its own thread! You are right, I used 3.3. I have 3.5, but can't get the icons to display smaller. They seem to be stuck on large. I am using the OS X version of 3D Coat if that helps diagnose the problem. Thanks again, and have a great day! Excelsior! Eric Kunzendorf Jacksonville University users.ju.edu/ekunzen

Of course, a LINK would be nice. I think this is it. This is my first time putting anything on Vimeo, so be patient with me, please. Excelsior! Eric Kunzendorf Jacksonville University

Hello All, I have posted a video tutorial for using the curve tool to carve smooth cuts in voxels. The effect is like using v gouges on wood. As of 4:04 EST, it is converting, so it should be done around 4:40 EST. It is probably something everyone already knows, but I haven't seen this covered anywhere on the web. (And if you have seen it, PLEASE drop me a line and tell me where.) Hope you enjoy it and find it useful. Excelsior! Eric Kunzendorf Jacksonville University

Um, you all might want to read back through the critiques given. I am coming to this in the middle, so there may be some history here of which I am unaware; but I am finding these critiques to be contradictory, snarky and in the case of the American Werewolf reference downright childish. At the risk of offending those who have posted, I don't get a sense that some of the people providing critiques are caring or trying to be helpful. Things got sarcastic fairly quickly. From what I have read, I think Phil has restrained himself fairly well. Phil provided his reference in the first post. Given the next few "crits" I think he was right to ask if anyone actually looked at the reference. The reference is 9 heads tall! Telling him to look at "real life" examples is not helpful. And suggesting he look at porn? For "real life"? C'mon, we can do better. I mean, if he were trying to make a "sexy" character, you could make the case for porn, but not for this. The purpose of a good critique is to help someone get where they want to go; if Phil had said he was creating a generic female, then these crits might make sense, but given his reference? No. Now as to the model: The proportions of the model are very close to the concept art. Compare the front and side views from the turntable to the concept art. I'd post a comparison, but I don't own the concept art. I don't think anyone would tell a director or modeling lead that an approved piece of concept art is not "proportional." You build to the artwork? Right? That said, the shoulders are too broad for the concept art. Her shoulders are narrower in the concept art. And yes, the arm and hands are problems. Part of the issue is that the bicep and tricep are too bulgy rounded. We see bodybuilders and assume that these muscles have to bulge, but they don't. In most people, females especially, they fit fairly neatly into a mostly cylindrical form which can then be modeled to barely indicate each muscle's locations. It would be better if those bulges were understated rather than overstated as they are in your model. The forearm as you've modeled is also problematic, and it may be the toughest part of the arm to get "right" because as mentioned supinating or pronating the hand changes the forearm shape. Tennis players and people who really use their forearms are great for this type of reference. And, yes, the palms of the hands are too long. Furthermore, the way the wrist blends into the hand is too tapered. This transition could be sharpened up a bit. The cylindrical form of the forearm doesn't insert into the hand with a hard edge, but it doesn't taper like you have modeled. Now, as to the legs. It seems to me that the back of the knee is a little high on the leg, but that could just be me. I do, however, think the front of the knees are a touch high on the model. I would suggest dropping the top of the knee to where the top of the patella now resides. What is annoying is that the reference artist kind of dropped the ball on the feet. (I SWEAR, people who draw or model females fighters/thieves/warriors etc in high heels or platforms should be FORCED to walk around in them for a day!! There would be no such drawings from them any more, I promise! The top of her foot is too thick. I would suggest modeling the feet straight and then deform them using the pose tool, then model the platforms. Here the concept art fails, so you have to work it out on your own. And then there is the face.I think I would model the face separately, allowing you to not worry about how it fits in with the body and just try to match the reference. Actually, I would probably create it in a 3d program like Maya or Lightwave, export as obj and merge it into the 3Dcoat scene. Heresy perhaps, but it should be effective. I hope this helps. This brings us to the real reason I think most people don't critique: IT TAKES A LONG TIME TO THINK THIS STUFF UP! I've spent 30 minutes on this. And I won't be hurt if you don't take the advice because at the end of the day, it is just my two cents. Excelsior! Eric Kunzendorf Jacksonville University users.ju.edu/ekunzen

Actually, I think you all should lay off the crits of the facing of the hands. It is an open question as to the way the artist makes the geo. Palms down (granted, the most common) puts the hands (forearms, actually) at their maximum rotation. Rotating the hands any farther down requires rotations of the upper arm bones from the shoulder. Similarly, it is very difficult to rotate the palms up. Weighting the forearm mesh properly is difficult for that motion. Palms forward, on the other hand, represents the hands rotated half way from their maximum down and maximum up positions. There is less tension in the forearms and biceps. And while it is true that you don't see people walking with their hands facing forward, how many people raise their hands above their heads with their palms pointed outward? I don't want to start a war about which is best, but you can't blithely dismiss palms forward as unusable, because it isn't. Excelsior! Eric Kunzendorf