Yes, yet another WordPress weblog
Here is a free Poser Character called “Decoo” by a Japanese Poser Artist named Akatora at his site here.
It comes in two versions, a thin, regular version, and a more voluptuous model, as seen below…
There are clothes made for the Thin Version, but I have not found anything yet for the bombshell body version.
There is also a younger poser charcter that he has called “Decoco” located on that same page.
I haven’t posted anything here in weeks……I have to admit, I’ve been busy doing other things…Namely fiddling with POSER. I learned lots of new stuff in just these past weeks, considering that I have had the software for more than a year now..
I’ll try post some nice renders that I did here soon.
Anyway, I used most of my tax refund money to get Autodesk Mudbox 2009. It’s pretty good!
I’ve always wanted to get in to sculpting - even went as far as getting sculpting tools and clay, etc. But just have not really done anything with them yet. But now there is software that emulates sculpting and even painting models now.
I was originally going to get Zbrush, I saw heard of it before , the first well known and quite popular digital sculpting and painting program that many people in the CG world works with.
But I read that Mudbox has better features ( I’m not sure what they are right now ). But it is a little bit more expensive - Mudbox is $745.00, while Zbrush is $595.
I really haven’t had a chance to really work with it in depth, but I have been fiddling with it for a bit. The first model that I created in Mudbox is , like I did with the Lightwave and 3ds Max software, a simple cube, as seen in the picture above.
Well, it’s a start!
Here is a very good instructional Mudbox video off of Youtube, if you are interested..
Mudbox 2009 Tutorial 1- Wacom Stylus Pen & Tablet - 3D training series
I’m finally getting around to learning the 3ds Max CG software I have. So far, it’s pretty similar to Lightwave, but the interface is a little more complicated.
As in my previous post regarding Lightwave, I also started of by first creating a primitive base cube.
I hope to make some more complex objects soon. Stay tuned…
If you been following this blog, you know that I bought Lightwave 9.3 nearly a year ago. I really haven’t done much with it since then, with the exception of upgrading it to version 9.5.
But as one of my New Years resolutions, I wanted to actually learn the thing, or else it’s just an expensive piece of software taking up space on my hard drive. I figured that I would start off learning Lightwave, since it seems , according to many in the CG industry, to be easier to master, and has a lower learning curve than Maya or 3ds max ( which, I hear is around two years, on average.)
After buckling down and actually beginning the reading the Lightwave Manual that came with the software, I was confident enough to fiddle around in the Lightwave Modeling interface, and actually begin to create something.
In Lightwave Modeler, under the “Create ” tab menu, I clicked the “Square” option and created a simple “cube” .
Yes, I know it’s nothing to look at, but it’s a start.
There are some good Lightwave tutorials out there. Lightwave 3D Tutorials seems like a good site for me to check out for a newbie like me.
Given enough time, I hope to be going from simple primitive cube shapes to this:
Hopefully….
DAZ 3D was having a sale this February.
I managed to get an upgrade from Carrara 6 Pro to 7 Pro for just under $90 using platinum club price.
I wanted to take advantage of
the 50% Platinum Club discount before it ended on 2/28/09. Since I was a member, Platinum Club members get 50% off in addition to the original sale discount
The listed sale price of the items would last until the date indicated on the product page, but the Platinum Club benefit price on all the DAZ Original products would change from 50% to 30% on March 1. So I had to act fast!
The regular price of the upgrade after the original sale discount of 30 % (?) was $181.12 ( now, as of 3/20 it is $ 169.95 ), and with my Platinum Club membership, 30% (or 50%) Discount it was $90.55. And with the $5.00 voucher the price was now $85.55.
They also had a free update for Carrara 7 owners , Carrara 7.1 , so that was also another good incentive to get the upgrade.
So what’s new?
Well, according to the product page :
“Carrara 7 Pro augments already impressive animation, landscape, modeling, and rendering capabilities with a strong set of new features. The significant enhancements to Carrara 7 help deliver a professional 3D solution at a price that fits into almost any budget. Carrara 7 will stimulate professional users toward greater creativity and help them to stay competitive, while providing incredible ease-of-use and unbelievable results.”
Not only does Carrara 7 include robust new features such as Multi-pass Rendering, 3D Paint, Vertex Modeling in the Assembly Room, UV Editing/Unfolding and NLA Grouping, version 7 also has many enhancements to previous features.
DAZ Studio Content Support Improvements
Better capabilities in bringing DAZ 3D products into Carrara.
We have enhanced the handling of DAZ scene files being loaded into Carrara 7. This will require an updated version of DAZ Studio (build 2.3.3.146) in order to see the full effect of the updates.
3D Paint
Adds capabilities for painting directly on the model.
Carrara 7 includes a new 3D Paint Tool that enables textures to be selected, edited and “painted” directly onto an object.
UV Editing/Unfolding
Create better 3D painting and textures with better UV’s.
Carrara 7 includes a new UV Editor that shows a 3D view of the polygon mesh, a 2D display of the UV values on the polygon mesh vertices, and a set of tools to manipulate them.
VERTEX MODELING
The Vertex Modeling capabilities that were previously only available in the “Modeling” room are now available in the “Assembly” room. This enhancement saves time by allowing you to perform modeling functions in the assembly room where other objects can also be seen.
Multi-pass Rendering
Image retouching/editing, without having to re-render. Another huge time saver!
The Multi-pass Rendering tool new in Carrara 7 enables you to render multiple passes and save these off to separate image files. These render passes or layers (multi-pass render layers) can be edited in another application such as Photoshop to increase contrast in the rendered image, change a reflection color, make an edit to a shadow map, or even swap out a background color.
This tool will make it faster to make changes to a rendering, instead of re-rendering for hours and hours. The edits to layers can be changed in minutes.
COLLADA Export (WIN OS)
You can now export a figure or scene into COLLADA format.
COLLADA is becoming a new standard for transferring content. In this new release of Carrara, you will be able to export your models in this new format.
Rendering Optimizations for Transparency
Improvements in memory management of the computer/software.
Carrara 7 now provides better and faster results by optimizing previously time consuming and complex transparency rendering operations.
Support larger texture sizes in the OGL display
Visual improvements in how textures are viewed in the OpenGL display.
Carrara 7 provides you the ability to increase the texture size that is displayed in the Open Graphics Library (OGL) or viewport. The settings will be based on what texture size your graphics board will support and can be adjusted for performance or quality (up to 4096×4096).
Overall, this new upgrade looks good. But I hear that it is aimed for mostly the amateur CG artists, not professionals ( they use Lightwave, Maya, 3ds Max, Cinema 4D, etc. ) But hey, that sound like me to a “T”!
Recently over at Warren Ellis’s Whitechapel Forum , there was a Remake / Remodel thread reimagining an re-interpreting old and little used comic book characters that were in the public domain. The last one that was done involved a creation of Peter Sadecky and other members of a Soviet underground movement called the Progressive Political Pornography Party. (??)
According to Mr Sadecky :
“They looked for a new hero, who would represent what they believed in and would be willing to fight for their ideals. Since this saviour did not seem to be forthcoming, PPP created their own, and called her Octobriana.”
( There have been stories that this was all a lie, and that this Peter Sadecky stole the artwork and concepts of the original Character, fled to the West, and re named her “Octobriana” )
Anyway, I had some ideas on doing this, but by the time I started to do some sketches, Warren Ellis closed the thread suddenly, due to some members not following rules or something.
I still thought that this was an interesting character to do, and I had also noticed that everyone was doing 2d art on the thread, so I decided to do something different, using the 3D application, software, Daz Studio.
I am still going to do some 2D traditional artwork of Octobriana, eventually…
Anyway, I titled the pictures collectively , ” The Komarovskiy Incident “.
In this picture, we see that Octobrianna on a mission to an abandoned Soviet “Secret City” or PGT ( Posyolok Gorodskogo Tipa [PGT] or “Urban-Type Settlement” ) …… When she runs into a little trouble…
For the creation of these renders, I was inspired by something I remembered a while ago that Mr. Ellis talked about Abandoned Russian Nuclear Polar Lighthouses and it got me thinking about what might still be lurking in some of those forgotten secret Soviet Nuclear Research Facilities. And what Bizarre Soviet Experiments may have been conducted during the 70 year reign of the Union. I found out that During WW II and the Cold War, the Russians had whole secret cities and factory-towns entirely devoted to chemical, biological and nuclear weapons research and manufacturing.
Google “zakrytye administrativno-territorial’nye obrazovaniia (ZATO)”, it’s quite interesting reading.
This render is called “The Komarovskiy Incident : Two ” . Now I wish that I could have figured out how to make the left pistol grip pose look better, otherwise, I think this is good picture!
Below is a “Pasty” of all the Octobriana renders I uploaded at my DeviantArts site so far. I’ll see if I can do more of Octobriana pictures - I ‘ll see if I can do some in Poser as well…
( my first Custom 3D Girl creation. You can tell I have a kyonyu / Meganekko / Sailor Fuku / Zettai Ryouiki fetish.. 
)
3Dカスタム少女 ( 3D Custom Girl )
While looking up information about anime shading on Youtube, I ran into this during my research….Honest!
On further googling , I found even more info, and how to get it, if you are not in Japan:
The Hongfire Anime Network forum has alot of good information regarding Custom Girl 3D:
The torrent is here, and the uncensor patch is here, if you are interested….
Here are some videos of Custom 3D Girl in “action”….
3D Custom Girl
3D Custom Girl Basic Functions
Some outfit options for Custom Girl 3D
I installed the “game”, and the uncensored patch - the software seems to have a small RAM footprint, compared to something like “Artificial Girl ” Hentai / Eroge ” build your own girl software.
I even tried my hand in creating a girl, as you can see from the picture above. I haven’t really played with it, but It looks like something I’ll be tinkering with alot more when I get a chance! 
I found this while surfing the internet last night…..I learned about the Super talented CG artist Ino Makoto ( 猪野誠, or “Ino” for short ), (whose works are more known for and familiar in the Hentai and eroge field of Japanese PC
” H - Games ” ), has put out a fascinating video of himself creating an illustration from scratch, in this case of the “Vocaloid” character Meiko, one of the earlier virtual idols that eventually culminated in the very popular Hatsune Miku.
The end result is a really sexy, but well done picture. Don’t you think?
Player 1
All of the videos in this post are from the Nico video site.
I like looking at videos of CG artists at work, and there are quite a few of these on the Nico website..There you can see some of the best, and of course I would imagine of great interest to CG art fans and artists alike ( as well as / or artist that are CG art fans ..).
Some of the subjects for these illustrations for the videos from the site that I have here are Hatsune Miku, Nagato Yuki and a Headphone Musume.
The software used for these types of pictures is one that’s called SAI,which is used predominantly, and some Photoshop.
easy paint tool sai is an art program that focuses on mainly anime style artists, and is very user friendly and can be learned in a single day, as opposed to Photoshop and other programs that take a college level course to fully use.
it seems to be a favorite program of Japanese 2D artist that specialize in this type of artwork, and is becoming steadily more well known outside of the Asian countries.
The first link is an english site where you can download the trial version the second is the actual japanese site where you can by the full version, its pretty cheap ( about $56 US Dollars ) compared to Photoshop (which I have ), and looks very good for the price, if you are not out for full digital manipulation stuff.
http://sai.detstwo.com/sai/
http://www.systemax.jp/en/sai/
Even though these videos were from the Japanese Nico website, I first saw them at this cool English Language Anime / Manga place ( that leans more toward echhi and Hentai stuff ) called sankakucomplex anime/manga Otaku .
Hatsune Miku.( Miku Hatsune )
Player 2
Hatsune Miku Plus Alpha (naked).
Player 3
. Nagato Yuki ( or Yuki Nagato ).
Player 4
And the video of the creation of a Headphone Musume Picture.
Looks like I better fire up the ol’ Photoshop……And get to it!
While surfing the internet ( at work! ) I found a really talented anime - style artist from Malaysia called XenoAisam.
He has a really nice page at Deviantarts , and a great blog at wordpress .
He has a cool instuctional video over at youtube, showing how he created his main character, called,
” Mess-ing with Naluri in 3ds max ”
Mess-ing with Naluri in 3ds max
And here is a nice animated gif of the Naluri Chracter…
This looks amazing! One can do almost anything with CGI software nowadays!
Looks like I also have to learn and work more with 3ds Max software this year….
Wow, another year has come and gone!
So Fast!
One of my new years resolutions and goals are to learn how to use , and master, all the 3D applications I bought this year.
In addition to the ones I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I now have:
Quidam 2 Studio
Maya 8.5 2008
3DX MAX 2009
Cinema 4D
And I upgraded to Lightwave 9.5 from 9.3.
I now have a ton of stuff for Poser - half of which is cataloged.
I also want to go back to doing 2d type artwork, like drawing on paper, as well as learn how to use Photoshop (I still have version 7.0, I want to learn how to use it before I upgrade up to CS )
I am not planning on getting any new 3D software this year, maybe Terrigen 3D terrain software, Upgrade to GeoControl 2
Maybe Adobe Aftereffects and some other Adobe movie making software. I’ll have to see…
Anyway, now that I have most of the bugs worked out of this blog, I expect to post more offten here, and hopefully show some of the stuff I’m doing art-wise.
So, to everyone reading this ( all two people! ) I wish you a Very Happy New Year!
