Home of the Penguin

[PenguinLord13]

Edit: I am adding all the work without all the information about the model up here, and if you want to read more about each piece you can read on. Again any feedback (good or bad) is welcome. Everything was made maya except the NEC robot thing: Added July 3, 2006: NEC robot (textured MY way, I didn't like the corny plastic used on the original robot, tires are untextured as I forgot to do it ) Abstract NEC bot scene (tires are now textured) Hey guys. I just got inspired by reading through Oneirautt's Sketchdeck, and decided to make a page out of my own art. Any feedback (good and bad) will make me very happy. I am using Maya 7 PLE, which is a nearly full-featured free version, with the only disadvantage being a large, but barely obtrusiive watermark (It covers the picture, but is mostly see-through). I am teaching myself using the book Introducing Maya 7: 3D for Beginners by Dariush Derakhshani, which I find is an excellent learning resource, unlike the book Maya at a Glance which I thought was a wasted $25 and would not recommend as it does not go into nearly enough depth, though it would probably make a good quick-reference book. I haven't been working with Maya in a while, as I don't really have time with school, but now that it's out, I am getting back to it. I am currently on the animation chapter of the book, but at the moment I am taking a break, and using the skills I already know, am creating an animatable version of Tux, the Linux mascot. Here are some pics so far: The original picture I used for tracing. This is the body. I traced the half outline of my source picture, and revolved it into a polygon. This is the subdiv with the arms added on. I converted the original model to subdiv. Then I refined a section for where the arms were to be. Refined it again, and selected two centered faces on each side, which I then scaled up, pulling them out, and creating flippers. This is the polygonal version with arms. I converted the subdiv to polygons, and did a few slight modification on the arms to make them look a bit better. Lastly, here is the skeleton. It is rigged to the model with a rigid bind, so I am in the process of adding flexors on all the joint so it bends smoothly. I would use a smooth bind, but as it goes all screwy and I don't really get how to paint weights yet, I'm using a rigid bind. As you can see, there are seven joints in each arms, which I did to make it look boneless, and bend ultra-smoothly. So far the arms animate decently, but they deform a bit, so I need to work on this. As you can see, there is still work to be done, and the model is not nearly complete. I still need to create eye sockets and add eyes (easy), create flippers that animate nicely for a walk cycle (harder), and when the model is done I want it to have a beak that can morph to look like tux is talking (I don't know how I'll do this yet). I also need to adjust the arms a bit so they don't deform at all, and I may add a few bones in the flippers so I can make the end wrap around stuff like a hand. Another issue is the part where the arms come out of the body is a bit deformed, and I don't know how to fix this, so advice will help. Other then that please leave any feedback and comments, as I'd love to know what you think.

[PenguinLord13]

Hi. Just an update, I improved on the tux model after a lot of twiddling and do-overs, so it now bends nicely, and the "hand" works, and is bound with a smooth bind (looks much nicer), but i still need to do some more tweaking so the arms look like the bend at the shoulder without distorting the rest of the model. But that's for later. I am taking a break from Tux now, and am trying to learn Blender, as people here have said it's a much easier to use program, and so far I like it, though I have a few things I don't like about the interface. I haven't decided yet if it will be what I use in the future, but there is a good chance, as it is much easier to learn than Maya, and is free. I won't post more tux pics until I add more features.

[PenguinLord13]

Hi again. I decided to switch to Blender, and have been doing tutorials. Using the NEC Robot tutorial in BlenderArt Magazine issue 1, which is a free online magazine for blender, I created the NEC robot, mostly following the tutorial, except for the "feet" things, which I traced and extruded out in both directions instead of making out of a plane. (I actually originally made copies of the curve and created edges and faces one by one (took a long time), but when I was nearly half way done I realized I could do it with extrusions, I did it that way and it didn't take long at all.) I also added wheels, with tires separately textured, and used totally different textures than they suggested. Then I tried my hand at putting it in an abstract scene. So, without further ado, here's the first one, the model with textures (except the tires, which I hadn't added when I rendered this): The textures were a bunch of textures from the Sonix car material library, and the blender material library, which I then modified for my purposes. The "feet" are brushed silver, just brightened, the body and most of the head is a VERY modified chrome (I think) texture, with high specular, and some reflectiveness, the green part of the face is a modified glass texture with transparecy removed, and more green, the white thing at the top of the green part is another modified chrome texture, the eye glass is yet another modified chrome texture with transparacy added, and the wheels are my own material. Next is the abstract thingy. I put the robot in a huge sphere shaded with a modified version of the body material, which I made ultra-reflective and added 10 lights of various types and colors. Then I added some cones which I gave my own material which is also very reflective and somewhat transparent. All in all this 516,033 faced scene (would have been less if it I didn't need to ultra-subsurf the body as it looked messed up on smooth display mode), with tons of reflection and transparancies proved a killer for rendering, and took somewhere over 20 mins to a half hour (I forgot to check how long it took). Here it is: In total I probably spent about 12 hours on the project, not including waiting times as I waited for stuff to render (1-5 minutes every time you want to see what it looks like adds up), and I'l like to here what you think of it. As always it isn't truly complete in my eyes, as there's always something to add, and for this I want to add treads and weapons, but I can't decide what weapons to add, so any input would be great.

[Beef Jerky]

That's some good stuffs you got there. Keep it up!

[PenguinLord13]

Originally posted by Beef Jerky That's some good stuffs you got there. Keep it up! Thanks. My next goals are to create a trireme (see here for a picture, it's a kind of ancient warship), but I don't know exactly how I'll do it, and to "upgrade" my NEC robot with a killer weapons system and tank treads, but I can't decide where to place the weapons, and what to use.

[Snakecharmer1222]

Sweet! You use 3D Maya! I used to do a little bit of animation with that during summer school in my 3D Animation class. I don't have the program at home but I used the skills I learned to do a little modeling and animation with gmax www.turbosquid.com

[PenguinLord13]

Sweet! You use 3D Maya! I used to do a little bit of animation with that during summer school in my 3D Animation class. I don't have the program at home but I used the skills I learned to do a little modeling and animation with gmax www.turbosquid.com [/b] Thanks, but what does turbosquid.com have to do with it. Another update, I have decided to switch back to maya, as I kinda liked the dropdown menus that go to the bottom of the screen and the many features Blender doesn't have. (Well, that and the fact that I managed to get a pirated version of the full version working...) (I didn't just tell you that ) Also, sorry about the lack of new artwork, I had camp and stuff, and haven't devoted time to 3d art in a while.

[Snakecharmer1222]

turbosquid.com is where I downloaded gmax, I haven't tried Blender though

[Oneironaut Zero]

Lookin good, Penguinman. I like the abstracted pic of the bot a lot. Great use of color.

[PenguinLord13]

Lookin good, Penguinman. I like the abstracted pic of the bot a lot. Great use of color. [/b] Thanks. It took me forever to get it right, as the textures are all ultra-reflective, and it has over half a million faces. So in the texturing and then rendering process I spent most of the day moving things around the tinyest bitt, and tweaking little things with the textures, and then waiting a few minutes minutes (on a lower resolution when doing the abstract one, full rendering took about 30 minutes).