Soulburn 3D Education Page Updated July 3rd 2009

My Gnomon DVD "Hard Surface Shading And Texturing" is now out.

Here's the description from the website: "In this DVD, Neil introduces his pipeline for shading and texturing hard surface models. The pipeline can be used for any highres models, such as models for photoreal fx work, animated feature films, ride films or videogame cinematics. In Part 1, he discusses reference gathering, how to make a visual details list, and common shaders. Then he outlines all of the major methods for placing patterns on your surface, their advantages and disadvantages, and ways of creating patterns, including procedurals, photo manipulation, and hand painting. He breaks up the lecture with practical demonstrations in Adobe photoshop and 3dstudio max using the Scanline, Brazil and mentalray renderers, and stresses how the theory can be applicable to your 3d application and renderer of choice. In Part 2, he uses the theory and pipeline from Part 1 to shade and texture a 2000+ object robot character and simple environment using 3ds Max, Photoshop and Brazil. With a focus on texturing thousands of objects fast and efficiently and theory that is useful in any 3d app or renderer, this intermediate level course is sure to add many new tricks to your personal arsenal."

To order, or for more information, go here.

The Soulburn CG Education Page has been updated:

http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_education/cg_education.htm

* Added a few new details to Piles Of Rubble
* Added a few new details to Replacing Scatter With PFlow.

SoulburnScripts Updated July 2nd 2009

Max script update:

Updated several older scripts, here's the major updates:

bitmapCollector: Rewrote part of the script to get around a max bug introduced into max 2010.
edgeDivider: Now works on multiple edges.
objectDetacher: Added a count-up in the prompt area so you see how many objects the script has detached at a given point. Cleaned up the code a bunch, and fixed a bug which caused the script to sometimes not select the correct detached objects.
soulburnScriptsLister: Rewrote part of the script to get around a max bug introduced into max 2010.

http://www.neilblevins.com/soulburnscripts/soulburnscripts.htm

Thanks to everyone for your support.

Golem Rough

The name Golem (not to be confused with the character Gollum from Lord Of The Rings) refers to an animate creature in Jewish Folklore created entirely from inanimate matter. These creatures would be created to do the bidding of their masters, large, bulky, and powerful, usually they were mindless, took orders literally, and didn't speak. This started off as a quick speed painting, ended up being a little more finished than I'd originally intended, but I dug the composition and felt it deserved a little more polish.

4 Quick Silhouettes

Been doing some quick silhouette sketches recently, here's a few examples...





Also I've been playing with an experimental sketch program called Alchemy. Very cool app for getting those happy accidents.

Some New Abstract Paintings

Been playing around with some more abstract type speed painting, they're basically just exercises in color and form. Here's some examples, I have to say they're really relaxing to make, you just turn off that literal part of the brain and deal with pure composition.

SoulburnScripts Updated June 12th 2009

Max script update:

Created one new script:

bitmapPagerManager: The Bitmap Pager controls have been removed from the preferences of Max2010. This script gives you some of that control back, especially the ability to turn it off, which may speed up renders on 64bit OS's that have lots of RAM.

A bug fix to an old script:

modifierUtilities: Fixed a bug I introduced with the last update, now favorites should be working again.

http://www.neilblevins.com/soulburnscripts/soulburnscripts.htm

Thanks to everyone for your support.

Soulburn 3D Education Page Updated June 11th 2009

The Soulburn CG Education Page has been updated:

http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_education/cg_education.htm

* Added a new technique to Converting A Grayscale Image To Black On Transparent.
* Added a new lesson Chipped Paint Material.