ZBrush modeling

3D sculpt inspired by mixed martial arts.

Space Switching Video Series

A video series explaining the concept and scripting a tool to setup and interact with space switching setup for rigs.

Rigid Bodies Simulation

Small project with simulated rigid bodies and nParticle effects.

Maya Muscle Tutorial

A tutorial on using the spline deformer on custom geometry to create muscle flexing and stretching behavior.

Monday, March 26, 2012

More renders!








Some more nice renders.

Another Model Completed

Bicycle modeled in Maya 2012
I had a lot of fun with this one. This tutorial from Digital Tutors got me using so many tools and workflows I wasn't in the habit of using for modeling. Here is a final render for this cool looking bicycle model from yet another great tutorial. I'll post some more renders with wireframes too.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Getting Started - Part 2

As promised, below is link to a small video of the plane modeled from the tutorial in a basic animation, just hovering. Notice the fuel line follows the motion of the plane, since its rigged with a joint chain and IK handle parented to the fuel cap. This tutorial was fun, I particularly liked the rigging part. Digital Tutors has some really nice tutorials. Can't wait to check out the next. I'll be moving deeper into modeling. Going over different modeling strategies. I already took a peek at the tutorial overview, and looks pretty cool.

Please check out the video and comment. Thanks.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Getting Started - Part 1

So, like I posted last time, I started following some tutorials and going back to the basics. I've finished the jet plane going all the way from modeling from primitives, mostly NURBS, and converting them, and also polygons. This allowed me to get into good habits, and actually notice and hopefully in the future correct some bad practices I had. But it was fun modeling. The fan blades was done with a trick using special duplicate on the one mesh. Throw in a few trims, a lot of extrudes and lofting, and we get the base mesh. Then was applying the materials. The chrome was actually done differently to how I would usually do, I used a dgs material. The model has quite a simple shading network, but it was helpful to use a little of everything in this tutorial. From procedural texturing to working with specialized materials like the car paint for the bronze parts. Well, then came rigging and this I had a lot of fun with, and I am going to post next some videos of the rigging process and some animatable parts of the plane for you guys to see. I set up a few basic animation sequences that I'll render and post here too. Lighting was done lastly, all using directional lights, and it was just very basic, it wasn't really the purpose of this project. Just really to give a better look to the render, with shadows, and etc...

Jet Plane - Modeled in Maya 2012
So, this was the first, this is a render from the final model staged. Like I said, I'll make a couple videos to post showing some of the process. Please comment.

Thanks

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Back to the Basics

So I had this crazy idea... I decided that I'll start working from the basics, all through the production pipeline, from modeling to final compositing, and refine my workflow. I have handy some new tutorials I acquired recently, and just for fun, I'll go over them and post here the outcomes. New ideas, inspirations, interesting things I bumped into in the way, renders, etc. This will help me cover any gaps there might be from when I began learning some of the softwares, especially maya. And also get acquainted with some of the new features of the new editions. In other words, I wasn't really sure how to start this blog, so this is it. It will be a journal of my learning adventure. I'll try to post something every week or so. And I hope to have some fun with this. So first in the list is getting an overview of maya 2012 and then off to some BASIC modeling.