DarenDoc’s Slightly Nifty Musings Inc.

After all this chat about TMP, I wanted to integrate that into my “modo-izing” of older model files…

so I present a preview of what’s coming up.

I am still in the process of going through old files, and I decided to try and bring in my Poseidon model to Modo and see what I could get out of it.  Modo handles Lightwave objects fairly well, with only a small hassle sometimes of textures not making the transition intact… or once converted, mild adjustments to the settings are needed to give the same result.  So, when I brought the 225,000 polygon (small count for its relative detail) model over, I was expecting a bit of work still yet to be done.  Well, it came across pretty clean, and I only needed to tweak the luminance of some of the textures, and did some test renders of the old girl.

So, here’s something for the folks who were asking for more Poseidon…

Oh, the video above was not made during the Production, but afterwards… when I wanted to have something to put on my portfolio… thought it needed a nice beauty shot.  And, one last sidenote, I believe that in the Guinness’ book of world records for 2007, there is an entry for “largest CG model used in a film”… or something like that.  The winner was ILM’s model of this Poseidon… with a poly count of tens of millions.  But, the funny thing is, for the photo used in the story, they used one of my illustrations.  Makes me grin.

Click to Embiggen

Click to Embiggen

Click to Embiggen

I’ve been spending this week going through old projects, hence the batmobile yesterday, and today’s entry:  The Proteus from “Fantastic Voyage”… I started this 3d model back in 2000, and have basically rebuilt it over the past couple of days…. it still has a lot to go, but I think it’s coming along nicely…

No Raquel Welch yet, but click to see ginormous.

UPDATE:

I thought I would come up with a quick little environment and see how it was working…  the darn frame took 3 hours just to render.

the proteus braves the wonders and terrors of the bloodstream. (click to embiggen)

Work in Progress for the classic 1966 Batmobile 3D Model (Click for massive size)

Work in Progress, showing progress since first render was made... (Click for massive size)

Ah… the sweet freedom of unemployment.  The euphoria of having free time lasts a few days, and in that time, I’m gonna enjoy it, darn it.  So here’s a couple views of my 3D Batmobile rendered in the astounding Modo.  I’ve pretty much converted all my work into the Modo realm now, as it has gotten some decent animation tools in the recent 401 update… I really enjoy it’s modeling tools, and the rendering engine is top notch.

So here is a couple renderings of my favorite car… the classic 1966 Batmobile.  Am in the process of whittling down the mesh and simplifying it so that it renders cleanly and accurately.  I started with a not too terrible 3D mesh from online years ago… and have basically rebuilt the whole thing on top of it… accurizing it and detailing it until one day, (hopefully within not too long a time) I will be able to pump out pictures that will be indistinguishable from a real photo of the sweet ride.

I’ll keep posting updates as I get them done.  Until then… Atomic Batteries to Power, and turbines to speed!

Another note that I just realized is that this is the 100th post I’ve put up on this site since I started the blog at around this time last year.  Time sure flies!

BONUS:

Did two more renderings this afternoon… enjoy!

A back 3/4 view. (Click for gigantic picture)

Low Angle. (Click for gigantic pic)

Been super busy over the last couple months, you know… just taking care of things and trying to stay busy work-wise…   but just thought I’d break the silence with a little clip I did while playing around with a great new plugin from videocopilot.net called Optical Flares… it’s great, and really updates the kinda stuff you can do…

So I thought I would take one of my shots that I did for Star Trek New Voyages and “futurized” it more in keeping with the Abrams movie that so many of the kids like these days…

Oh… maybe that was a bit over done…