Archive for the ‘pet projects’ Category

I think I have the textures at a point where they are almost 100% final, I’ve modeled the bolts, and separated everything, the bolts also have an extra “layer” on their surface that I want to use for “sealing” them, more about this (much) later ^_^.

The texture usage seem very reasonable for this many parts, I’m not sure how in-depth the “animations” are going to be when it is “assembled”, but I’m not there yet.

Someone also requested a square-shaped ring so I still have to model & texture that but it should be fairly quick.

Way too much time was wasted unwrapping this (two whole work days!) but I’m finally satisfied with it! So I did a quick and dirty texture bake again and figured out it was time for an in-world test 🙂

This is like the 3rd time I unwrap this object and I forgot the logo again (every project it seem).

I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but at least you get to see a more “complete” picture (I also don’t know why I have rendering glitches left and right).

It could have been worse.

I just discovered that Blender Cycle doesn’t like models with edited normals, and as it turns out it’s also not what I used on the headcage (but I thought…) so I made a kind of compromise by rendering it twice, and mixing the two diffuse maps.

The headcage material doesn’t work too well on its own on something that doesn’t have a lot of surface detail, and the normal map doesn’t bake properly with the new material, but mixing both gives me a relatively “nice” result.

I gotta make the final set of UVs now.

One thing does bother me: these 10 sides bolt holes seem just a little too visible. But I’ve been a dum dum and it’s how many sides they have on the high-poly.

16 sides would probably be better but it’s going to be annoying to fix.

Not much to show, I’ve cleaned up all the holes, because well, the whole “CAD” approach doesn’t make for very nice and precise holes when it involve boolean operations (who would have known!).

I’ve cleaned up most of the hard edges and fixed things that didn’t play nice with the subdivision modifier.

I haven’t done much more on the dirt mask but I do like it as it is, I might still introduce a little bit of chipping and scratching if it turns out that this is not enough after the first bake test.

On the lowpoly model side, I was HOPING to have something to show yesterday but I wasn’t in the greatest mood and MIGHT have scrapped it at least 3 times…

On the menu today:

• Slimmed down the edge trims to be more “in line” with what I had in mind.
• Much bigger leash ring. (bigger is cuter)
• Sturdier hinge & pin. (making it seamless was a pain with the modeling method I’m trying)
• Metal and edge wear tests. (I think it’s just too much but some discrete edge would give it some personality)

I would like those screw holes in the collar to be a litle less sharp, but the model has a tendency to explode 😀

I’ve played a bit with some interesting modeling methods I discovered during my break.

The idea of this collar is that it’s going to use threaded bolts instead of padlocks for locking, and it is constructed in such a way that you have to “lock” it to get a leash ring (the ring is attached to the mending plate on front) and unlocking it will effectively get rid of that ring. Quirky, I know.

• Picture 1 was the initial design but I’ve widened the edges and made them a bit more rounded.
• Pictures 4-5-6 show how it looks unlocked, partially and fully bolted.

Now called 雛見沢. sue me.

I finally have fixed the elevator landing so it doesn’t drop you on the tennis court anymore, added automatic lighting on the upper floor of the school and manual lighting to the gymnasium.

Unwrapping done, this is my first bake test on this project and it looks amazing 😀