Yes, I'm still around

Yes, I'm still around. Just trying to figure out what to do. But mainly I've been bouncing back and forth between posting to job boards and building my own site. At least until get tired of it all and fall into playing with noise makers or video games. It would be nice to have a regular job so I can be forced to focus on one thing long enough such that my other projects would become more interesting in comparison. Then that way I know I'd get them done too. (I know that explanation sounds wierd, but back when I had a regular job I'd write stuff down during breaks so I could get on them a bit during my non-work hours. Being unemployed is problematic with 100 random ideas popping up every day and having nothing make me focus on getting any developed. Having a creative mind is a problem when it gets too noisy. It's a lot like those old cartoons where a character would run in a dozen directions all at once.)

Starting sales at TurboSquid

Yes, I know I've made fun of TurboSquid in the past because of overpriced junk. But somebody then poignantly pointed out that it's the artist setting the prices. So I guess I can't entirely call the site on that (but they really should bother to do some product review.) I'm going to be selling some items at TurboSquid soon. Why? Well the other places I've done sales through cater mostly to Poser/Daz figures and such. So if it's not some costume or backdrop for virtual dollies, it tends not to move much. And with flagging sales, they tend to drop my items after a few months. So, I'm going to try my luck at a place where stuff is more miscellaneous. Wish me luck!

Minor update: Took me a bit to figure out some things. Also there has been some price markup on items sold at T.S. This is because they don't allow items to be sold for under $10. But relatively speaking it's still a bargain. (Compare the similar goods!) No longer a cheeseburger priced bargain, but rather my things are pizza priced bargains.

And this is my store at TurboSquid. Feel free to take a look.

Disney's Recycling

Somebody on one of the forums I go to gave this a link, and I thought it was funny enough to put here. It's funny how much recycling they do, no wonder why they don't want it to go into public domain just yet. lol

Oh yeah, you're going to want the linky! Here it is!
The article at Metro.co.uk.

iScribble Rocks!

I'm sure some stuff in my review of iScribble didn't sound the best, but overall I'm liking that particular web-app. No shortage of people to collab with, and the drawing tools level the playing field where you're relying more on technique than anything else. (No secret "hidden" tools or unusual theory to applying some process.)

Here's some links to my works or collabs there, enjoy!:

http://www.iscribble.net/gallery/drawing122876-Hamster-and-a-Yak.html
http://www.iscribble.net/gallery/drawing105098-Time-Killed-for-a-Pretty-Face.html
http://www.iscribble.net/gallery/drawing120797-Moon-Buggy.html

A Portfolio Review

A review of various CGI renders and "PhotoShopping", in case anybody visiting wants to get an idea of how diversely I can apply such skills. I would think that the selection is entertaining enough without being too gaudy or odd.

Edit--
Oh yeah, try not to notice the clipping of images too much. I tried scaling down the cross-linked images enough already, and the blogger CMS still leaves a few rough edges. So there are some things to be desired with the presentation, but I need to get on with doing some other things.





I have this sort of love/hate relationship with 3D rendering. I love it because I can make things that look almost real, and I can make and have stuff in a virtual world that I wouldn't be able to afford otherwise. I hate it because my computer isn't the newest thing, and trying to do some things requires processing power and ties up my computer such that I can't be doing those other things. Some renders take hours, and I'm not at a point where I can build a render-farm just yet.

I just noticed an "oops!" on my biplane above. (Did you notice it?) But since this isn't any commercial project and took some hours to render already, I'll let it go this time. If it was for something more important, I'd re-do or take a money hit on a deadline snafu to make up for it.


Ahh... Good ol' PhotoShop. There's a reason why it's an industry standard. And this is done with an older version. Either 7 or CS, nothing newer than either of those. Anything CS or later is pretty much icing on the cake. Still it makes me wonder why they'd call something stripped down to less than 7 "Essentials". They should just release 7 or the oldest CS under that name, and it would be groovy. Want the extras and toys? Then get the pro version. Still it's neat that I can make my car resemble a micro-machine toy in under an hour or so.

And here's my shopping cart 3D model. Perhaps it's not the most impressive thing to some folks. But guess what, this particular model has actually made me some money. Not huge, "OMG it's a business venture success!" kind of money. But rather, I can get a tank of gas or a pizza every now and then kind of money. It still wouldn't come close to covering rent or anything like that. And the price on it isn't at some ridiculous TurboSquid trumped up value. Nope. It's a reasonable $5.50 or so. Around the price of a typical meal at Burger King. And if you want to download it for that modest sum, it's over at Renderosity.com.

One place where brand identity could be better

On most things, I think being a little too tight about brand identity is silly. But I have found one place where it's lax to the point of annoyance. That is, it's too easy for the consumer to be mislead about what they're getting. And what product is that? Pencils, of all things. Yeah, you'd think that there wouldn't be that big a deal with some of the cheapest writing instruments around, but if you're a person who draws a lot (like myself) it's noticable. The thing I notice is that an Eberhard Faber Ebony pencil is a lot better than a Sanford Ebony pencil. But Sanford does make a nice Mirado pencil, however when going back for more Mirados, there's yet another company making pencils by that name. So as a consumer I'm being left uncertain or even mislead about what quality I'm getting. So yeah, it's really annoying.

Also on another tangent, what happened to Bic pens. I can't find 'em at the store. I thought they were a pretty established brand and a staple item in the writing instrument aisle. Sure, sometimes their quality varied, but they were consistent more than not for the cheap price. Now they're not there... I guess if I miss a cheap pen, what would it be like if certain auto companies would disappear if I wanted to see what product they had. (But I wouldn't be in the market for a car, until the stupid economy straightens out so I could get paid "real" money to work instead of the namby-pamby stingy bullshit paying jobs out there right now.)

Line-up of the interactive drawing programs.

Ok. I ended up finding yet another interactive drawing program. So now I'll write about it but all while doing a comparison to the other ones I know.

The "new" contender I found is iscribble.net, which is a flash based web app. It's neat because not only does it allow you to share the drawing space at the same time, but it puts a username by each cursor so you can see who is drawing what. And it also features a chat window, so you can communicate quickly and without using up the drawing space. The downside is that it's a little restrictive. Even though they request that users are over 16, you're still not allowed to do much of anything considered risque under their site rules. Also new users have to go through a probation type period where the toolset and site features are reduced. So if you're fresh, you more or less have to wait for somebody who has been around longer to save your work or submit it to the gallery.

The next one I'll go over is Flashitool. It's a neat web-based Joomla extension type app. And it allows drawing in a manner similar to iscribble.net, but without some of the additional features. In some ways it's pluses can be seen as iscribbles minuses, or perhaps the other way around. But one thing that I do like is that what tools it does have aren't restricted to a subset of users. And it's probably the most open and anonymous of all the interactive drawing apps.

After that, there's Drawball. It has a really limited toolset, and it's big attraction was anonymous access to one large common drawing space. It's a big grafitti space and used to have some pretty wild and crazy stuff. And it attracted a lot of 4chan people, so it had some freaky rule 34 wtf? kind of stuff amongst the art and grafitti. But now in the process of cleaning it up, a lot of the insanity has been erased and it's more restrictive. So although it may be safer, it's also not quite as fun as it once was.

Then last but not least is probably THE classic interactive collaborative drawing program. Unlike the others, openCanvas 1.1 is a standalone drawing application that runs under Windows OS. Since it's a dedicated art program rather than a script under a web interface, it has the best toolset and responsiveness. And it's a great app for drawing even outside of the network interface. However, it requires some techical aspects to networking if you have to get past a router. (Ports and such must be unblocked.) Also, by being a standalone app, it's restriction to Windows might put off frieds who use Mac OS or Linux.

So here's the quick overview:

iscribble:
Pros:

• web based
• nice interface
• good toolset
• big audience
• reduced anonymity
• gallery feature
• interactive portion of design is best so far

Cons:

• web based (sometimes it hiccups, or server goes down)
• toolset is limited for new users
• gallery feature is limited for new users
• drawing subjects are limited to PG-13

Flashitool:
Pros:

• anonymous (draw whatever the hell you want)
  
• everything goes into the gallery (if you remember the link, you can share it)
  
• no restrictions on newbs
• web based
• unrestricted
• Part of FOSS web content system
• Available at more than one website (in fact you can have it on YOUR website - for FREE!)
  

Cons:

• anonymous (no official way to claim participation in a drawing)
  
• can be slow or buggy sometimes, not every feature works properly
  
• everything goes into the gallery (think backlog w/ poor search features)
• no rules or restrictions (people can mess up your art)

Drawball
Pros:

• One big drawing space for everything (it's like a gallery in a big map or something)
• anonymity
• cool art
• interesting interface design

Cons:

• very limited toolset
• some stuff was too wierd (but it's mostly gone now)
  
• forced restriction of "ink" resource
• One bid drawing space for everything (to do new stuff, old stuff has to be drawn over)

openCanvas (specifically openCanvas version 1.1 b 72)
Pros:

• Standalone application (more responsive than anything on web-based Flash or Java apps)
• Best toolset (Does really neat things with color blending and is pressure sensitive)
• Good program for drawing even when not using network feature
• Records the drawing process, and saved files can be replayed

Cons:

• Windows OS only
• Networking program may require some knowledge of computer networking
• Networked mode only allows four users maximum
• Program was early "beta" poorly translated from Japanese (Some dialogs produce gibberish)
• Cache in networked mode prone to glitching on sessions over an hour (remote user input fails to render correctly after that time)
• Audience for networked drawing is limited (finding other people willing to draw with you isn't as easy as it should be)

Fun with lightbox

Basically I made a kludge of a device for diffuse lighting on close-up shots of small items. Nothing too fancy. But I know there's junk that can be sold on eBay or whatever. But it's artistic in the sense that I can use it for photos of things I'm making too. Or random stuff. It'll be handy.


Addenum: Looking how others implemented this with studio flashes, I just came up with a great idea for "ghetto" strobes for additional lighting on the cheap. Basically it involves the the blinker type bulb for the small holiday "twinkle" lights, a 9v battery (or two), and some aluminum foil for a reflector. Being that it's the season, the blinker bulbs should be available in stores now. Just gotta go hunting. And yes, the strobe can get very hot and is bright enough to burn your retina if you look at it. (I made one before as a kid so I learned some things, but had no real good use for it. Now I know of a reasonable implementation and the memory came back to me. *grin*) But it'll be handy if you set it up properly for taking photos. Just don't stare at the thing and handle it properly.

Job Hunting Sucks

Job Hunting Sucks... so I made a short funny animation about it. But what the hey. I guess I consider the worst offenders those who post as "entry level position" but require 5 years experience. Guess what? If the job actually requires 5 years experience, you're lying about it being "entry level"! And what I find amusing is that the HR ass-clowns (pardon my terminology, but their behavior obviously put them in the category) don't understand why they're not getting qualified people. Do they understand what entry level means? Entry level means: amateur, beginner, and absolute noob. Now I doubt you'll find people smurfing (as in gaming) in the creative industry just to get their jollies at lower pay. If you want the experience, say so up front and expect to pay for it! Otherwise, give people who need to get into an industry an honest shot at trying. And if newbies on the job aren't up to snuff, fine, get someone else three months later. But don't post nonsense on job listings and not expect to get nonsense applications in return. It doesn't work that way.

Oh yeah, my rant video... (Or at least what I made in under a day, or five hours even.)

Actually I could do better quality, but there are still other things I'd do with my time besides perfecting a rant video. (I just needed to get some stuff out of my head.) Now if someone wanted to spend money so I'd take a week or so making and polishing an animation for them, I'm all for it. Would around $20/hr be out of line?

I hate to rant on my art blog, but sometimes I have to share such things with a bigger audience than my normal "rant" blog gets. But next post will definitely be art related randomness again.

Square Smoothed Holes in Wings 3D

Two demos I made showing how to make square holes stay square when smoothing them in Wings 3D. Enjoy.



And method number 2.



Oh, and not to forget an equally good third method. (Thanks to Fonte Boa!)

Another Shuttle Vid

This one is less advert and just a plain ol' flyby. Perhaps someone out there will appreciate my 3D modeling. Sometimes I wish I could do something more showy in the vid, but when it takes about 2 hours of computer time to render... I just don't quite feel all that productive doing that. If only I knew someone with a Carrara based render farm that didn't mind being generous about giving away some machine time.

M-Balla-balla?

Spotted this hilarious vid posted in the IRC group #rendergods. I'm not sure what the hell the dude is saying, but the animation is nicely done and funny and the music is pretty cool. If anyone cares to translate what little dialog there is, feel free to post in the comments or on the video itself.

Quick Shuttle Preview

Just watch the vid, it's pretty short and still gives a nice look.



Oh yeah, you might want to download it...
Here's the link: http://www.sharecg.com/v/28809/3d-model/pauljs75_NasaShuttle

Yes, this place is random.

I know, some of you see my link associated with 3D stuff (which I do enjoy making) and expect to find more info on it here. But then you see my other random artwork. Yes, I am an artist in general. So that means not everything will consist of 3D polygonal meshes. Sometimes I do get bored of 3D, so I do other things to stretch my legs in regards to other artistic aspects so I don't get too rusty. But in the end, I do come back to doing 3D. Perhaps it's more tame than other things I enjoy making, so it probably is a suprise when you come here and see ridiculous cartoons and drawings. Hopefully it entertains more than offends, even if it seems less sensible sometimes. :)


But for the update in this post, I've uploaded a pretty neat model of the NASA Space Shuttle orbiter with UV maps, and plan on making a bare-bones version of my OH-6A model available soon. Thanks for dropping by, and if you do - comment. I've yet to see any on this blog. It would be nice to know if there are actual visitors, because then I just might be inspired to make more interesting content.

Photoshop Poop Pt. 2.

Just having some fun with the ol' hamster pic and some other funny pic I snagged off the net. Nothing too major, but maybe lol-worthy.

Moar PhotoShop Poo

More PhotoShop poo, because who ever bothers to look at this blog anyways?
This time its some cutie pootie random anime inspired thing. Why? I don't know.

PhotoShop Experiment gone wrong

Just playing around with some different stuff because I got bored a bit. Trying out various brushes and things to see if there's any interesting results. Didn't find too much of importance, but the practice couldn't hurt anything.

Faster faster faster!

Too bad cheering on a render can't make it go any faster. But that's the way it goes sometimes. Almost makes me wish I had at least two decent computers instead of one. So that way one could render and the other could be used for other productive stuff. (Not sure if web browsing or chat could be considered that productive, but at least I can do those two and leave 99% of the other cycles free for Carrara to render on.)

I think I'll have a really spiffy airplane pic once it's all done though. Hopefully the volumetric clouds assigned to a particle emitter in order to produce a believable smoke trail are worth the wait.

The better "Ebony" pencil is...

If you like to draw the ol' fashioned way on occasion, sometimes you go to the art store and buy pencils and such...

Anyhow I went and got some extra "Ebony" pencils, because they draw nice and dark and fairly smoothly without a lot of pressure. So when doing quick random sketches, they're hard to beat.

You would think they're all the same, but there happens to be more than one brand with that label or designation. I found in my own testing that the Eberhard Faber ones draw just a bit darker and smoother than the Sanford ones.

So take note if you see both brands available at an art store, the Eberhard Faber ones are better. (At least for the "Ebony" type pencils. Your results and consistency may vary for other types.)

Thinking of some page design stuff...

I'm wondering about something now in regards to web page design. It seems like the trend is that monitors will be getting higher and higher resolution in the future. It is such now that XGA size is the most common (which is good, since I like it. It's sharp enough, yet refreshes plenty fast). But in the future even that will be towards the SVGA and VGA side of display resolutions. Also the market for widescreen aspect monitors is going up, so even that has to be thrown in the mix in addition to the 4:3 ratio screens.

Why is this a problem? It will make things more difficult to design properly by the pixel. What looks good on one screen will look itty-bitty on a high-res display, and will bleed off the viewed page in a horrible manner on a lower-res display. What can be done about this?

But I've noticed one thing that's really cool in the latest and greatest (as of this blog post) Firefox 3. When you use the page zoom feature, it properly scales the images in addition to the text. And the browser rendering seems to be able to do so in a smoother manner than forced sizing of the past. (Doesn't tend to get too blocky scaling up, nor aliased/oversharp looking scaling down.) What does this mean? Well, I'm thinking that HTML/CSS should (if not already does) support declaring image sizes by pts, inches, mm, or other sizes independent of actual pixel resolution. So you can have a 1"x1.5" pic on a page regardless of screen resolution. Throw in font size set by pts instead of px, and the layout stuff becomes a lot more consistent. Almost like print.

Now there is one downside I could think of too this, but it falls upon either the stupidity/ignorance of the OS or even the computer user. And that is an improperly set display dot pitch ratio. If it's wrong, the images on their screen will not scale properly to the physical space on the screen. Currently a lot systems assume 72dpi for screen display, but this is obviously wrong. A lot of newer stuff is more like 96 or 120dpi, and can even go higher for those occasional crazy-big monitors. But then again, I think some newer setups have more plug n' play built to correct this... So designing a page to dimensions rather than pixels may be the sensible way to go.