Archive for the ‘pet projects’ Category

It was about time to test whether the gag ball texture system would work right?

Good news: It works.

I encountered some mesh export issues that turned out to be a small blender bug related to the exporting of parented objects. The ball material itself needs a little bit of love, but the effect works quite well.

That molding seam I”ve added is unlikely to ever be visible, but if anything, it helps to line up the ball when editing. That version with all the ridges looks like a chew toy 😛

The texture is a bit larger than I’d like for something like this but “oh well”. Now I “just” have to come up with a handful of good (and not so good) ball ideas 😛

This has nothing to do with the current project, I know. But I was doing some hair practice and figured that I would share my pain with all of you.

1. This was the “result” of a flat hair modeling method I was trying, then realized I did not know what I wanted to make style-wise. So this abomination happened.
2. A more ‘traditional’ attempt, still trying to get some sort of front fringe (straight this time). Trash, just like the one before.
3. This time using curves instead, styling is a bit easier.
4. It went kind of okay until I got to the ear. So much visible scalp… Now, how do I finish this?
5. This is what happened in the back. This method has issues if you don’t need pointed ends.
6. This was a lire “advanced” spline curve approach with custom profiles and tapers. I was trying to get a cute oni-style with the horns.

Overall there is some good progression from version to version, but this is still all absolute trash and you wouldn’t catch me wearing any of this… or even sell it.

I guess it is some kind of bitter irony given how much I trash talk SL hair creators about their modeling skill 😛

The ballgag lining took me a little longer to nail down than I’d like, but after several failed attempts at getting it to look more velvet-like, I decided to go with this variant because it gives the best aspect to the surface and stitching at half resolution.

It looks okay as long as you aren’t rubbing your camera against it. Most of the inner faces aren’t really that visible anyway when worn, only those folded ends. A bit blurry but it should be fine, I’m sticking to my half-resolution commitment there.

Or right, I also forgot for about half a day that I had a cool texture card method for those rivets on the lining, so there was that too.

Good thing I do those texture tests since I “once again” forgot to triangulate my bake targets and to copy the normals from the original model.

I haven’t test-baked the lining yet, I’m just hoping it will look okay at half-resolution. I think I’m gonna make the texture tint-friendly rather than using a dozen versions.

Come to think of it… the wire muzzle used a little alpha masking trick for the rivet backs… maybe I should use it again, so I don’t have to worry about those getting tinted at all?.

Well, MOST of the ballgag unwrapping, that is.

I should have posted this one yesterday but I wasn’t quite finished. I figured that it wouldn’t hurt to wait a little.

There is a lot of empty space yes. Typically when I unwrap a bunch of straps, the longest strap will determine the scale. I’ve separated the inside & the outside so they sit side by side on the UV map. Normally I would drop down the resolution on the inside, and I will probably do that next, or at least before I start to bake textures.

Because the liner loops back at the end of the straps I can’t crunch down the texture too much.

The ballgag LPM model is now complete! I’ve finished the remaining straps, cleaned up, and re-optimized a few spots, and corrected the curvature steps here and there.

I also added all the low-poly rivets and metal fixtures to their respective models. I also finished the gag-ball model itself and optimized the inside of it as much as I could (It only needs to be visible after all, not pretty).

I’ve also figured out what I was doing wrong with the normal orientation cleanup on the cover sections that are used to show/hide the holes for the skins it will have and it is now basically seamless (before & after images included).

I started the unwrapping but I do want to give the straps ANOTHER pass, just to make sure that I’ve stripped out every possible hidden surface that I could. Overall the final model, with all the parts clocks around 12000 triangles at the moment.

This is quite a bit more than what I would have hoped, but I cannot really think of a way to bring it down significantly lower. Below 10K would be (purely arbitrary but) nice, I’m just not seeing 2000 triangles that I could simply do without at this point.

Low-polygon ballgag stuff! I know how much you all love those never-ending steps that never seem to get any closer to the final product.

I am getting a little worried because it is now tiptoeing over the 10000 triangle mark… not horrible but not amazing either, considering that the rivets aren’t in this version yet.

There is probably a bunch of edge loops I can simplify here and there, also the inside of the ball really doesn’t need a lot of detail either.

I could have waited until that overhead strap was completely done but I didn’t want to post this too late either.

You all know how this goes by now, takes the high-poly and patiently remodels over it something a lot more optimized 😛

4040 triangles so far.

That’s a little heavy considering all the things that I have yet to add. I’ll give those looped ends a second pass once I have everything else, and be a little more aggressive on those curves.

Or well, high-poly ballgag “complete enough” that I feel comfortable enough moving towards the next step: the low-poly version.

And yes, I did try to integrate a nose hook but it did not work as I hoped. Ryo gave me an idea for a different approach that would probably work better, so I’ll give it a try later.

I think the improvements to my leather backing, while subtle, look pretty good. Hopefully, it will look just as good on the low-poly model.

Sorry for the delayed texture update. It took me so long because I ended up unwrapping everything 3 or 4 times over the past 3 days. I kept getting distortions in my UV maps.

I am quite happy with this result so far, the grommets on the back strap need to be tightened a little but that’s an easy fix.

I really wanted to add a nose hook… I can probably still do it, but that will require some modification of the forehead strap… Unless I find a simpler way to do it…