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davdud101

1 (5%)

ENSONIQ5

10 (50%)

headwax

3 (15%)

$imon

6 (30%)

Total Members Voted: 11

Voting closed: October 06, 2011, 08:21:54 pm

[Gyperboloid]

Yeap, nice stuff all.

I had system crash ( haha my computer  ). Lost some data which was created/edited these days. Project too  . Nevermind, I didn't like it anyway   .

There are some things I want to know. There are some bugzz ( ), that just kill me everytime. I don't know if it's because of mine system or it's Anim8or's "fault". So if you have same problems, then it's not my comp.

a) When I group something and then scale it, sometimes, all the meshes just go everywhere ( pic.1-2 )
b) When I group something ( but sometimes even without grouping, just a single mesh ) and rotate it, then if I hit "undo", it doesn't return into first position ( pic.3-4 )

[Gyperboloid]

And just one "clean" pic. with mili-progress   


P.S.: Those renders were made with a renderer I found, called Appleseed . It's open source, free  Renders are noisy, BUT rendering time was for everyone about 2 minutes !!! Don't need to install...like Anim8or 

[$imon]

Gyperboloid: Your Anim8or errors are common, so it's not you... if you want to work around the group-rescaling error, I guess you can join solids instead of group the objects, and detach them if you have to afterwards (which is a lot of work of course..)
I havent found any good workarounds, but then again I usually just 'deal with it' and move on. Maybe someone else has experimented with it and came up with an answer.
(maybe 'join solids' on all objects seperately might work? thus resetting the pivot etc... not sure)

I like your model so far! it will look awesome animated! It might need some weapons though.. thats up to you!
Good luck

[Gyperboloid]

Heh, thanks, I think I will finish it . And of course weapons are coming, those are just unfinished " legs ".  

About those errors... at least it's not my comp.   I have tried a lot, groups, meshes ( in the last pic it was just a single mesh...but still   ). I just think it's a bug ( sure it is ), as any others, but it's a very annoying one. Maybe we could find exactly what's going on, but it needs a lot of tests. I think because I do a lot of do/undo , delete some meshes all the time , rotate/re-rotate , group/ungroup , somewhere there Anim8or looses the ball  . And not that a lot of do/undo is by default a problem, but again because it's a kind of bug. And again, maybe we could find after which manipulation series ( grouping+/or rotating+/or ungrouping+/or joining solids +/or undoing all these e.t.c ) those errors show up, but it needs a lot of research.
But as I said before , it is not present all the time, you know , only ...at the most inopportune moment  . We can live with that.
About join/unjoin solids, because you said a lot of work...I don't know, maybe you know that , but there is somewhere a topic ( was good one as an idea, but as a lot other here is dead now ) where kubazz said ( don't know how did he find that ) that there is a "trick", if you want to unjoin some solids go into point editor and hit "l" ( Caps Lock of ) and all the solids will be unjointed ( although you maybe want to unjoin only some and not all, but you just then join again those you need ). I were always wondering why there is no unjoin command since there is a join solids one and thats why I always were afraid of joining solids, but after I found that topic and kubazz's message , I use it all the time. And don't know how did he find that ( probably by luck, since "l" as you know is a short cut for edge loop cut command ) since, as kubazz self said, Steve didn't say about that anywhere (site, manual ).

Any way, for these things we need a new topic ( or maybe get back to life that old one ), to discuss about everything technical , do some practice stuff e.t.c ( always were wondering  / again/ why there wasn't anything "alive" such )

Uh, we are very lazy, you know ?!!  

[davdud101]

Tell me why it just occured to me that I'm horrible at modelling?
My final, very, very junky entry:

[dwsel]

Tell me why it just occured to me that I'm horrible at modelling?

Don't be so harsh about your skills! I believe it's not that you're BAD at modelling. I see other things that might count here.

1. I'm wondering how many hours (by average) it takes for you to build the scene (modelling, mapping, texturing, lighting, composition, not counting rendering time)? I remember that you posted your final entry for the previous challenge sth. like 1 or 2 days after the topic was given. I was kinda surprised by such speed - mine took me 6-7 days 4-5 hours/day - which was obviously overkill, I think I was inefficient in many places, and I believe I'd do it faster next time or I'd build more complex thing in the same timespan. But my point here is to have patience and tweak the thing until you like the result.
..I dropped this challenge because I decided that I'd rather post noting than to release half-product...

2. Another reason is that imagination might not play well with reality. I have very often the feeling that something looks much differently from what I have imagined, what I had in mind.
I've read once that when you want to remember dream you have to write it quickly down immediately after you wake up, because you'll forget your dream very soon. I think it's the same case - when you have an idea - you might need to write it down first - wherever, because during the work the idea starts to blur in the memory. I started sketchbook/notebook lately for that task. I post example (not very pretty) pages from it with concepts for previous and current comp.

3. Next thing is to gather reference. It's easy nowadays - I google for i.e. 'motel desert' , 'vintage 50's motel' or sth. like that.

and http://www.rockhounds.com/rockgem/articles/laplap.shtml were meant to be my references for 'war machine'. Now I can fix errors of my imagination by comparing it to real-existing things.

4. Following 1 tutorial teaches nothing. I hate especially some Blender tutorials that say i.e. 'Hit 'A' shortcut and then something happens' without even knowing which function I called (sometimes no name is given just the short way to get to it), how it works (what if I want to use it in the future work for different task?), where I can find it (when I forgot the shortcut). So at the end I have an object and I don't know how it was created at all . Only combination of tutorials, some targeting other software gives one generic knowledge.

5. Modelling after photo or real life objects give another opportunity to learn. You have to jump through all problems encountered, solving them by yourself with no shortcuts. Measure the object to have good proportions, take photo of it and tweak, tweak, tweak.... until you get the exact representation. The same is for textures and lighting.

6. Showing WIPs and asking others for help, and actually following these advices.

I hope it's helpful somehow. Cheers!

[ENSONIQ5]

Dwsel's given some really good advice there, particularly regarding the sketchbook/notebook.  One problem we have as hobbyist modellers/animators is that we are one person working on all aspects of a project, from concept and design through to modelling, rigging and even sound recording.  Professional studios split these tasks across a team of people, each skilled in a particular area.  This means the conceptual artists can think big, imagining sweeping vistas and dynamic scenes, while the modellers can concentrate on getting every nut and bolt correct, every eyelash perfectly positioned.  By trying to be all members of the team rolled into one, it is often difficult to keep a handle on the big picture while still getting the tiny details correct.  We can tend to overlook problems or weaknesses in one area while concentrating on another.  The sketchbook (or notebook, or voice recorder, whatever) is a great way to record those big ideas and prevent them from getting lost in the detail.

[Gyperboloid]

  An extension ... please ?   Maybe a week ?  

[Arik_the_Red]

Well folks, I got all my work in order and thought I'd be able to upload, but this hospital network doesn't let me do file transfers

I'm in for a few more days, so I guess I'll just enjoy all the other works. I like everyone's entries. A lot of fun stuff, regardless of what each of you may think or not of your work.

I had this one in the bag, too... :S Oh well, maybe I can make it up the next time, and stay OUT of the hospital for it?

[Raxx]

Well, how about an extension instead then? Anyone who doesn't approve of an extension, speak up!

[Arik_the_Red]

Heck... what's the extension limit on a challenge? Seems to me we've had a few already...? I'll take it... though not sure when I can get an upload done. Maybe I can get my son to figure things out and haul a memory stick to the home machine....

[Raxx]

It's a general amount of time that lets people catch up. In this case the deadline will probably be extended until October 1st

[Arik_the_Red]

Raxx, whatever nasty things I ever said about you in the last 30 minutes... I didn't Thanks for dragging it on and on... though I hate to see Ensoniq5 and crew have to hold out for so long....

[ENSONIQ5]

I have no problem with it at all.  I think we all have enough unfinished projects languishing on our hard drives, I would much prefer to see finished works.

EDIT: Personally, the payoff from these contests is not the result of the voting, but the chance to be inspired and very often astonished by the entries of other entrants, and to share my output with those who appreciate the work that went into it.  My suggestion to all is to post whatever you have, keep regular WIPs coming, because that way you get the benefit of what the community can offer, even if your project never does get finished (and let's face it, no project is ever really finished.... just abandoned!).

[Gyperboloid]

Nice !    And Arik, you are in hospital ? What happened ?   Or you just work there ?