D-SLR - Improvised Studio Shots Part II

I never thought I'd need to make a "Part II" for these posts, but it turns out a few days later, I learned how to set up more improv studios around my house. I made another setup, which was based around my desk:

Here, I have set up a model of the solar system, on a black bristol board as a backdrop, and the fluorescent lamp for lighting. I used side lighting mainly here, to show contrast, and to easily make out the planets and the sun in the model, defining shape. From this setup I got these shots:

Afterwards, I decided to use a wooden set of a study and an airplane as my subject. However, the side lighting proved too harsh on the wood, the contrast being too high. Instead of getting a reflector, I used a piece of white bristol board instead, ending up with this setup:

And from it, I procured these pictures:

Lastly. as I was putting the wooden sets away on a shelf, I realized how good the composition was. However, when I tried to take a picture, the lighting was too strong, so I decided to try and get even lighting all around. After a couple of tries with two pieces of of white bristol board and lots and lots of tape, I was able to set up a poster board, the kind you use for school presentations. Even then, I had to use a lot of tape, some sticky tack, and a couple things falling down. The end result and setup are shown here:

I finally got the nice even lighting in the end, although it wasn't the best. But with a few post-production tweaks, one could be able to fix it.

Logo Concept - Connections

I've decided to pass my time during my summer break to start fleshing out ideas and designs in my sketchbook, more importantly, the logo designs I've drawn in it for the past year. Here's the first of them, "Connections".

D-SLR - Improvised Studio Shots

Recently I've been practicing more and more with my D-SLR, and I realized that a lot of my subjects would be a lot better and well framed if I had a studio to work with, to choose backdrops and to change lighting around my subjects with. But since I'm not interested in buying any professional grade equipment any time soon, nor do I have the means to, I decided to settle with an improvised low-cost studio that I easily set up in my own bedroom.

Pretty much what my studio was.

I took a couple of practice shots with my new ability to change backdrops, but since my space is severely limited in my apartment, I doubt I'd be able to provide backdrops to anything larger than what would usually be considered macro or small subjects. Below are a few shots I gleaned from my short time with this small studio.

The last one was a bit more abstract, and even a hint morbid almost, but I'm sure it won't ruin anybody's day. It's a portrayal of electronic life, how the plug is "hanging" itself with the wire, and you can make many different messages from this picture. I hope it's thought provoking for you too.

Creature Concept - Planet

Here is a short description of my creature's planet, which I rendered and made on Photoshop with the "Flaming Pear" filters.

Iugosus

Iugosus, as I have named it, or literally, "mountainous" in Latin, is very loyal to its namesake. With most of the geography across this planet being mountains, plateaus, lakes, and plains, the lack of oceans make Iugosus a very barren place. The gravity is 0.9 G, just 0.1 G less than our own planet Earth's gravity. Due to the smaller amount of gravity, Iugosus has a thinner, but similar atmosphere to Earth. The climate ranges from temperate, alpine, semi-arid, sub-arctic, and arctic. The average temperature is cooler than Earth's own 13 degrees celsius, averaging out to around 11 degrees. The orbit is is 1.1 AU, just slightly further to its sun than our's.

Flash - Notitia Animation

Recently I've discovered how to embed .swf files into my blog posts, so I've decided to put this animation I've made for myself from last year into this blog post. You might have to wait for the .swf file to load beneath here. It might lag, so give it some time.

Creature Concept - Textured

Following along the lines of the technique used by Neo Ramjet in his Making of Snaiad page (http://www.nemoramjet.com/sndmakingof.html), I used a texture (below) of what is supposedly elephant hide on Google Images, the closest thing that I thought would fit my creature.

I slowly layered this texture with Photoshop over my line drawing of my creature, which I posted a while ago in May (http://notitiaproductions.blogspot.com/2010/05/creature-concept.html).

All this layering and warping to create a believable and realistic skin texture and a seamless appearance took a lot of layers to perfect, which eventually amassed to 36 layers that I had to navigate around with. Although I guess that isn't as bad as some of the collages I made for Junior High's Grade 7 year (for me) Yearbook, which in some files reached 72 layers.

I might plan to fully add in a background with a sky and everything, depicting what it is like on its virtual planet, but that's for a later post.

Flash - Website

I've been thinking about making a fully Flash website since December now, but I haven't gotten much further than the pre-loader until now. But don't worry, I'll include a link on the website that leads back to this blog anyways, so it's not the end of this blog. All the layers and ActionScript is going to take a while, so don't be surprised if I take the summer to finish! Here are a couple of in-progress screenshots:

Here's the pre-loader that got me started on the idea of a website in the first place.

I tweaked the layout for a bit, but eventually I settled on a navbar docked to the left.

Here is the home page, complete with glowing effects on the buttons when you hover your mouse over them, as seen here on the "Blog" button, which (should) links back to the blog right here. No worries, I won't abandon this place anytime soon.

However, after further adjustments and adding ActionScript to the buttons, things started to go a bit... out of plan. Things didn't work out the way I wanted them to, and I'm not sure if there's a way back now:

Everything plays at the exactly same time, running in order on the Flash timeline instead of by what the ActionScript dictates. I'm probably missing some code, but the Compiler Errors detect nothing that I typed wrong. I'll look into to see if I can get someone to look what I've done over.

But, in the end, I started this simply as an experiment, so I guess I'll learn as I go along. Hopefully.

Blender - Enterprise

Well, it turns out making the Enterprise wasn't all that hard, as long as I didn't try to make a model exact to the ship itself. So here it is:

Overview

Side View

Top View

Back View

Front

Overview

I guess it isn't that bad for my second Blender model. I think I'll try adding textures and maybe some animating next.

Blender - Spaceship

Here are more detailed screenshots on the spaceship I made for my camp.

Here are two overviews of the model itself.

Top View

Side View

Front View

Plus, recently, my brother told me to go ahead and to try to make the Enterprise, from Star Trek, for my camp instead, I thought it was going to be near impossible, but it's still under the wraps. Here's an in progress image.

It's going fairly well in fact, and I made all of that in just a bit over and hour and a half. I'll keep you all posted!

An Introduction to: Blender

For those who have not heard of it or know what it is, Blender is a 3D graphics program, where you can create 3D models and add textures and animations. With Blender, you can even make games and movies. It uses Python for its scripting language, which is apparently very useful, but I haven't gotten around to learning it yet. The thing that struck me about Blender is that, compared with Maya 2010 and zBrush. The same options are still there, with the ability to subdivide meshes and smoothing options. I was introduced to this a long time ago, when I was researching different types of 3D modelling programs.

However, when I downloaded it as freeware (it used to be a professional program with a fee, but the developers had a couple financial ups and downs, mainly downs though, and they got bankrupt) it seemed daunting to use and learn, which is actually one of its major drawbacks. However, I had the good fortune to be able to learn its basics at my summer camp, and our first experiments were with making spaceships, which we're supposed to use later on in a small game.

Here are a few screenshots of my finished spaceship (forgive me if some of you find more semblance between it and a fish than a spaceship, but I think it looks just fine).

Here, a rough render of my earlier model.

And here is my finished model, which I smoothed out a bit more.

Computer Camp

My mother signed me up for a computer camp, for the first two weeks of July. Although I already know some of the stuff they teach there, I still enjoy my time spent there with the counselors and other campers. I do like the review of the knowledge I already have and to further strengthen and add onto my own experiences, so I think I'm learning a great deal there.

That was a small assignment to teach us how to make reflections and the other basics of Photoshop. Today though, I had my first experience with HTML coding, and I liked it. I actually find it fun, in fact. I made a small experimental webpage on notepad, which I have a few screenshots of it here:

Well, HTML sure seems fun. And I've got to get around to learning ActionScript. Maybe I'll borrow some "For Dummies" books from the library. Can't be too late to learn something new, right?