Archive for the ‘pet projects’ Category

This time I’m working on something a little different from what I usually do: a cage.

As you can see I’m making it up as i go, the first door looked awful, and so did the first version of the “food hatch” at the bottom of the door.

Pop in a few rivets and it’s already more like it (what about welding tho?).

The base could use some embellishment and I still need to slap a few chaining plates here and there for good measure.

And it still doesn’t have a name, feel free to make a suggestion 🙂

I had to redo all the textures (as usual) due to a lighting issue and a UVmapping error. Today I rewrote my classic “coloring HUD” code to make it independent from the main code base.

Why? Because on many items, it’s the only reason that they have custom code and their own code branch and that’s just not optimal considering that the coloring HUDs are their own independent “thing”.

Only a few more details before the collar is ready: a name, HUD graphics, and to decide how to deal with the stud variations.

• All in one with extra coloring HUD options? That’s a lot of hidden meshes…
• All in the same package? That’s a lot of items in one box…
• Sold separately? Feels a bit like nickel&diming…

No spikes, studs or frills yet, (although I am not sure that I will end up doing those frills. ), but otherwise, the bulk of the model is done. I also did a little texture test, and there might be a little resolution issue going on. I see a few rendering glitches here and there, but nothing that cannot be fixed.

Maybe just a little bit… I never had the opportunity to use spikes on anything. I’m not sure about the ruffled version however, I don’t like how it is attached on the inside.

All right, so for the list of changes… the back leather pieces is a lot narrower, I’ve removed the rounded corner which looked dumb and moved the small strap edge almost edge to edge of the back piece. I also changed the angle where the two pieces meet because 90° was just too extreme and unnatural. Then there is the back ring stuff.

Pro tip, the Blender bolt generator plugin makes some nice rivet heads with a flattened top… aaand it’s pretty quick.

I got some good feedback on the pillowed aspect of the inside so I’m keeping it for now.

Today I scripted a very small proof of concept of an adaptive “gag”. The idea is that instead of using a fixed blacklist of words you cannot use, this one works the other way and you can only use words that are whitelisted.

Then things got slightly out of control and I made a very basic “learning” system, where the object listens on local chat and if a word is repeated enough times, it is automatically added to the known word list.

That’s pretty much like learning to talk I suppose, excepted that your vocabulary is entirely contained in a single 64k script, which makes it extremely limited, this is waaaay below “bimbo” level.

I’m running a few tests, trying to tweak the learning mechanism to avoid clogging it with garbage… Having it start from zero does suck quite a bit, it makes it impossible to be understood.

Well, almost, I still need to put my logo somewhere…

I did another quick attempt with this glossy “patent leather” matcap idea, it didn’t work at all, so back to the drawing board with this aspect.

I’m getting better at this, it’s taking less and less time. However there is something new. I’m experimenting with a normal based method to make metal and other highly reflective surfaces, and so far I like what I’m seeing. The real test will begin once I bake it to a static texture, I’m curious to see what will be left of it then.

I did some preliminary tests for an eventual patent leather version, but don’t hold your breath just yet. Without a model to bake to, it is pointless to do more material testing so I’ll resume on that part once I’m done with the low polygon model.

This is another knee-high ballet boot themed one. This time with a sleek wedge design and a zip front. I wasn’t sure about getting rid of the lacing initially, but I have to admit that it’s growing on me.

Don’t you just love spending your entire weekend supporting a radio communication system that doesn’t exist anymore? I do.

Summary of the radio functions so far:

• Power on/off.
• Chat speaker on/off.
• Morse audio transducer on/off.
• 4 selectable memory slots.
• Selectable frequency (duh).
• Message encoding can be shifted two bytes for fancy radio scrambling (not real encryption, but still cool).
• LEDs.
• LCD display.
• Sounds!