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.

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.

An Introduction to: zBrush - Creature Concept

Recently, I've been experimenting with zBrush, a 3D modelling program, but it has a whole different spin to it. Unlike other 3D programs, it's interface allows the user to "sculpt" their creations out, using a set of zSpheres and then making a polymesh from it. Below, I was practicing sculpting out my creature concept.

Here you can see a zSphere primitive, where the entire creature is created out of connecting spheres.Next, I exported it to get a 3D poly mesh, which is where I ended up:

But not learning how to fully use a program before you actually start playing around with it does have its problems. It turns out the moment I exit the "Edit" mode on zBrush, it automtically converts what 3D model which took me 2 hours to make into a simple image file. I was stumped. I couldn't believe my bad luck. But at least I know have a single very nice render which you can see above. Hopefully, next time I'll do better, eh?

Manhatta

Recently I have been assigned a Geography project from my good-natured homeroom teacher. The project was centred around settlement design, and like every Gifted student I decided to go overboard with the requirements and model an entire city on my computer. This new city will be called Manhatta, and it will be built where Manhattan island currently is. The term "Manhatta" come from the ancient Lenape name for the island, before the British came along and plopped an "n" at the end of it.

Here are a few renders of the entire city. A few glitches were encountered during the rendering process, rendering everything to completely white, but the end result is still very satisfying.

A few more colour renders will follow this post detialing Manhatta's landmarks.