Spinneyhead Alley Backgrounds

Another product from Spinneyhead for use in the background of 3D backgrounds. The Alley Backgrounds set consists of 25 images, at 1600 by 1200 pixels, of back streets and alleyways around Manchester. Ideal for shortcuts, chases and secret meetings.

This, of course, has come out too early to be included in my vowed one product per month minimum target for 2007. However, I have a couple more of these sets planned for teh New Year.

Amazon affiliate links-

The photos were taken with a Canon Powershot A620, a top quality camera. The backgrounds are intended primarily for use in Poser from Creative Labs. Poser 6 for Windows. Poser 6 for Mac.

Technorati tag: Poser, Render, Background

Pop Art in Photoshop

A simple tutorial on creating pop art style images from photos.

via BoingBoing

PSBrushes

The largest selection of Photoshop brushes on the Internet, or so it claims.

I haven't got into the habit of using custom brushes yet, but the more I find the more I mean to.

Post Industrial backgrounds 2

Spinneyhead's tail grows a little more. The original Post Industrial backgrounds set was popular, so I went out and took some more pictures of decaying Manchester for you to use in the backgrounds of renders. (May require Animotions membership to view.)



Technorati tag: Background, Render, 3d, Long Tail

2D from 3D

Technology that can transform digital images into 3D models will be unveiled at a conference on Thursday. Microsoft's Photosynth will make it possible to move through a scene and see photos from any angle.

DAZ competition render

As a member of the DAZ3D Platinum Club I can get their weekly Platinum releases at a reduced price, and a chance to enter a weekly competition. The rules are fairly simple- use one or more of that week's Platinum Club items in your render.

This is my entry from a couple of weeks ago.

Post Industrial backgrounds

Post Industrial backgrounds for renders and art. Another product from Spinneyhead at Renderosity (where I go under the name of IanP).

Woodland Backgrounds for renders

I've got my first product listed on Renderosity. It's a selection of woodland and park background photos for Poser renders and other images. There are fourteen images at 1600 by 1200 pixels, each in three versions- the image and two levels of blur to simulate depth of field.

Poser 6 allows you to set depth of field in renders and will blur the foreground and background for you but, after waiting nearly fourteen hours for a scene to render, I figured that it's sometimes simpler to cheat. So the depth of field images can be set as the background for portraits and headshots, and could be useful for keeping attention focussed on the action in a comic strip.


IanP's English Woodland backgrounds

Poser conforming clothing tutorial

I've been having some problems with the cloth room in Poser 6, but hopefully this tutorial can make things a bit clearer for me.

Crystal Render

Another interesting way to get your 3D models into the real world. Crystal Render will take a 3D file and, using a focussed laser, turn it into a bubble image within a piece of crystal. There is currently a special offer discount for Poser owners.

About the CrystalRender process:

1. First, your 3D model is converted into a "pointcloud" with special 3D conversion software. A "pointcloud" is simply a collection of points that represent the original geometry surface. Think of it as "dusting for fingerprints" all over your model. Then, by removing the original 3D object, what is left behind is the sparkling dust pointcloud in the shape of your original model.

2. Next, a very powerful laser beam is focused at a specific point within the crystal and a brief burst of high energy is released. This concentrated energy heats the crystal and creates a tiny "stress crack" at this exact location. The points are very small (about 1/10 of a millimeter).

The crystal must be optically perfect, completely transparent and the structure must also be rendered from back to front, so that previously created points don't interfere with the laser drawing the new ones.

To draw more points, the laser is pulsed on and off and the beam is redirected with a mirror. The mirror is moved by computer-controlled motors between points. It is this way that the many thousands of points in a typical pointcloud model can be drawn with such incredible speed and accuracy.

3D Bike models?

Does anyone have any 3D models of bicycles, of a quality that could be used in design? James at Bicycle Design has passed on several requests he has received recently, because he can't find any on the 3d sites he checked on.

Sketch Up Google

Google purchased @Last software, who make a product called SketchUp, a 3d modelling program. They have now released a free version of the software with the aim that it be used to create 3d artifacts for Google Earth. There's even a 3d Warehouse to store them.

via Guardian Unlimited

Sale time at DAZ3D!

If you head over to DAZ3D this weekend you could pick up a few bargains. They've just purchased Hexagon 2.0 and, for a limited time, it's available to Platinum Club members for only $1.99.

Also on sale is Bryce. This is a tie in with various 3d community sites, allowing you to get the terrain modelling software at half price. The deal is running through sites such as 3DCommune and Renderotica.

Jean D'Arc

Apparently the Joan of Arc tutorial is one of the most famous on the web. 80 pages of modelling and texturing advice for 3DS MAX, but BlenderNation reckon most of it's good for other packages.

BlenderNation also has a bumper selection of links to textures and reference pictures.

Modelling a Toyota Celica from reference pictures.

3D- No Plugins

3DNP (3D-No Plugins) is a 3D viewer that doesn't need browser plugins, only JavaScript. 3DNP is licensed under GNU Public License (GPL) and is therefore completely free. It is easy to configure and can be integrated into your website by using an IFrame.

via Blender Nation

Holodeck for the Cyclorama

I'm considering a virtual reality tale done in Poser. Obviously it would have to start on a holodeck or blank VR domain, so I knocked up a grey and green texture for the DAZ Cyclorama as a starting point. (This is one of the many items that's available at $1.99 if you sign up for Platinum Club membership. I'm an affiliate, so I'll get money if you do, but I wouldn't recommend it if it wasn't a very useful service.)

Download holodeck.zip, unpack it into the appropriate folder then set it as the texture for the Cyclorama.

Next up I may put together some floating, semi-transparent control panels.

Pixel2Life

Pixel2Life has a number of tutorials featuring Blender, and looks a fair resource for other graphics and 3d programs as well.

via BlenderNation

Blender 3d

Blender is open source software for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback. I just downloaded version 2.41 and subscribed to the blog. I may be using the program to design futuristic cities for the Mongrels webcomic.

"photo realistic" digital images

Make your digital images more convincing and lifelike with just a handful of gradients and custom shadows. Once you’re done, your pictures will look like real photo prints, you’d swear they popped out of the screen.

Hair Styling

I've just discovered the tutorial section on e-frontiers site. Tomorrow I'm going to have a go at hair blowing in the wind using Poser 6's dynamic hair.

Lost in Space

I'm working on a new webcomic to be illustrated primarily with Poser. I've used the program before, on Deputised Experts, but then it was a tool for, well, posing the characters before drawing them.

With my purchase of Poser 6 I decided to do at least one comic predominantly in rendered images. That comic is Mongrels, as tory of post-humans policing the divide between homo sapiens and the AIs.

Adrift is the first Mongrels tale, set at an unspecified point in the series' continuity. It is, the sub header proclaims "The adventures of a dead man in a aspace suit". As our protagonist is floating in empty space and can't move his arms or legas it was an easy one to set up. poses and lighting don't change for most of the story, only the camera changes position. I'm using all this to learn a little more about textures, MAT files and other stuff.

Adrift was created using the products below from DAZ3d.

Michael 3.0 Base	Everyday Male	Michael 3.0 Head & Body Morphs
M3 Space Suit	Explorer Unit

3d Model Printing

Another way to get solid representations of your 3d models. 3dmodelprinting.com produce high quality polymer 3d prints from supplied files. The preferred format is .STL. I've found Model Press, which produces a free product to convert CAD and other 3d files to .STL.

Technorati tag: 3d printing

Reading Matter

A couple of books for the Poser 6 beginner.

3d image to 3d reality

Here's an interesting thing to do with your Poser figures. You can export them as OBJ files to Shader and from there export them as STL files for a company such as Tekpro to make a prototype model of.

Or you could shell out a few thousand dollars to get a 3d printer of your own.