Computer build pt. 2....

So as I mentioned, I just finished my computer build and am loving the results.  To get around the lack of internal and external USB ports I ordered a 5 port usb3 PCIe card, an internal hub and an external 7 port hub which should take care of all my usb needs. Also, since I wanted at least 4 sticks of ram I ordered 2 more 16gb rdimm3s.  I decided to go with the much cheaper 16 gig chips and put the big money into the video card with the thought that the ram would be easier and cheaper to upgrade later when prices drop since I don't anticipate the quadros having a significant price reduction in the near future.

Now that things are working correctly I and I have finished installing the new software, it is time to check out what is new in the latest versions.  Maya 2015 is great, and I am loving viewport2.0, but I am putting together this post today because I got a chance to try out painter x3.

My friend Rose posed for some really quick life drawing sketches (a few 1-2 minutes and two 10 minute) to test out some of painter's pencils and brushes.  I haven't found a set/method that I am completely happy with yet, but I am looking forward to testing out the others in the days to come.

Clara & Bell

So I have more done on Clara and Bell.  When I have had time I have worked a bit more on Clara in Zbrush, as well as starting the robotic arm in Maya.  I also brought Bell into Maya to get a feel for the size relations between the two of them.

My next steps are flushing out all of the folds and pockets in the pants, and working out the anatomy in her arm.  The shirt in the picture is just a temp stand in blob.  I haven't decided what her upper wardrobe is going to look like.

Huge project finally completed...

So I have been looking to upgrade my system for a while now, but have been debating between going one very fast i7 chip or sporting dual slightly slower xeon chips.  It all came down to how Maya used the cores.

Since I bit the bullet and finally upgraded my Maya 2009 Ultimate to Maya 2015 (I have always bought them outright so I was not really interested in the subscription based version) I needed to know if 2015 was the same as previous versions in how it used the processor and ram, especially now that they have come out with viewport 2.0.  After a ton of research on the program, and a month and a half of going back and forth between i7 and xeon build I finally found out that 2015 will use muti-threads across multi-cores only when dealing with rendering, fur, cloth, hair, particles.  The rest of the time it really is all about single thread speed.

I decided to go with the dual cpu system but only buy one of the chips, which would allow me to spend the money in a much faster chip with the ability to add on additional one later.  Instead of two $880 CPUs, I spent $1600 on one faster chip with a much better benchmark.

I went this route because it would allow me a good working computer with continued upgradability when prices come down to a more reasonable range.  I am about $6000 in already on this computer. :\


Here is my current build.....

CoolerMaster Cosmos 1000 Case

Supermicro X9DAI-O LGA2011/ Intel C602/ DDR3/ SATA3&USB3.0/ A&2GbE/ EATX Server Motherboard

Intel Xeon E5-2680 v2 Ten-Core Processor 2.8GHz 8.0GT/s 25MB LGA 2011 CPU

Two 16GB Kingston 1600 DDR3 Registered ECC ram

Bluray rewriter, DVD rewriter, and internal Memory card reader for the front

I went with this board for the dual Xeon CPU capability and that it is able to be upgradable to a whopping 512GB RAM.  A lot of the "workstation" boards that I came across maxed out at 64GB RAM and while that may sound like a lot now, in a few years that will probably fall short of what I need.  If you are thinking of going this route, which I feel is a good option if you have the money, there are a couple things you should know. 

1.  Although the board says that it is a standard EATX board, it is not.  5 of the 10 mounting holes do not line up with a standard case and you will need to address the problem when mounting the board into your system.  You can either drill and tap extra holes for mounting, or do what I did which seems to work just fine; use metal, screw based risers in the 5 holes that line up correctly and modified plastic risers to keep the board off the metal bottom.  The metal risers will stop it from falling off, and the plastic risers will help reinforce the board against bending when you install cards, ram, etc.

2.  I didn't notice when I ordered the board, but it only has one double 9pin usb header for the front of the case.  While it does have one standard usb plug in there, I would have much preferred a lot more headers.  I am looking for a PCI-e card that will add more internal headers, as well as more external ports in back because when adding webcam, wacom tablet, spyder screen calibrator, mouse, keyboard, etc... I have a lot of usb accessories.  Not necessary if you don't have a lot of usb needs, but for me it is almost essential.

3.  Not a big deal for a desktop as it is on a laptop, but it doesn't have any onboard wireless networking.  It does have two wired connections and I am looking in to the ability to set up both in a LAG configuration to my switch. 

I also bit the bullet and went with the 8GB Quadro k5200. 

So far, I love this system and it is crazy quiet.  I have been able to get a bit more done with Clara, and will be posting more images soon, but I have been putting most of my free time into researching, buying and building this new system.  :)

Bit more...

So since my last post I spent some time on a bit of birthday shenanigans, then the next day I told my friend that I would help him put together a portfolio website for his architecture work.  Since then pretty much all of my free time has gone into helping with that, but I got a couple breaks and did a bit more to Clara.  She now has a boot.  :)

It is pretty much ready to start getting some wear details, thread lines, etc going in, and I haven't decided yet but I am contemplating putting in some design work into the leather work.  It would be fun to sculpt in, but I don't really see the character as someone who would really care about frilly things.  

One crazy little thing, the spur is just a basic maya object that I tried to goZ into Zbrush (like I did with the rest of the boot pieces), but it must have crashed 20-30 times appending it into the file.  I have never had such a hard time getting something into Zbrush.  Might have been faster to just sculpt it.  :\

More as develops. 

Clara (and Bell?)

I really liked the character and decided to put a bit more into it.  I will flush her out into a full character.

Named her Clara.  Roughed in braid, roughed in body, added more distinct eyes.

I see her as an older, rough, part cyborg cowgirl (robotic arm).  From another sculpt project I had been modeling a horse base mesh for a Pegasus character and decided to kit bash it into this project so Clara could have a mount, but Maya crashed 3 times last night while I was trying to clean up the wireframes so I took the hint and went back to zbrush.  I really need to update my Maya.  :\

Once I get the loops nicer and make sure all polys are quads, I will drop him into zbrush and have some sculpting fun.  I am thinking of calling him/her Bell and adding a chest mounted speaker so s/he can "talk".

Working in Zbrush again....

A quick bust sculpt as practice.

Quick Post...

Here is a quick stump zbrush sculpt to keep my hand moving.  I have quite a bit of new stuff to show, as well as some new features implemented on my site.  Check out the new 3d turnable images on the 3d stills page.  I am going to be uploading a lot of modeling work now that I have in-site user interactivity working so people viewing the site can turn the models at will.  :)

Zbrush fun...

Because I have been working Graphic Design I haven't had as much time for Zbrush sculptures, but here was a quick, fun character sculpt to get my tablet-legs again.

I have also been getting ready for convention season and stocking up on alters.  So much painting.  :)

Travels north...

I recently took a Social Media Graphic Designer freelance gig and was able to work remotely, so I decided to take a trip up north, visit family and work from Oregon.  What was supposed to be a week long gig and a week long visit was extended when they kept me on for much longer.  I ended up staying up north for three months and have a HUGE Oregon beard that just feels silly now that I am back in the Hollywood area.

I worked on 5 films with the company, including The Frozen Ground, We're the Millers, and Hunger Games - Catching Fire.  It was fun, but I am ready to get back to studio work.

I have been working on some video game models that I can't show until they are done and uploaded, but to keep this blog going I will upload a random logo design for a french babysitting service.  Really quick piece, but it was fun none the less.  Myrtille & Citron translates to blueberries and lemon.

A random one hour lunch crunch speed sculpt.  Dog guard.

I have been working on a lot of traditional stuff lately, so I thought I would stretch my zbrush muscles and do a quick sculpt.  Chimp study.  About 30 - 40 min to get this, will do some details and fur tomorrow.

MORNING UPDATE - Another hour to hour and a half...

Looking back at it, I think that if I continue working with the fibermesh rather than sculpting the hair I will start using more passes to get a more believable look to it.  I am not really liking the groom tools as they are now and hope they get a revamp in version 5.  I think it works for a speed sculpt though.  :)

"Gettin' it done" challenge...

So I was working on the frog prince for the gettin' it done challenge at zbrushhangout.com when I saw that blizzard was hiring for an environmental artist and put it down to start modeling out the prop piece.  Then I realized that the prop piece still conforms to the rules for the challenge and I was stoked.  I switched over to using this, but will probably have enough time to get both of them done.  Here is where I am at currently.  Finish up the lighting, a bit of paint and a final render will let me move on to the next piece.

More to come....

UPDATE:  And a bit of color.

Prop...

So I fiddled around with the base mesh for a while before realizing that using GoZ to import the maya model into Zbrush does things that I don't want, and after trying to fix it a number of times I decided that from now on I will just export an obj and import it the normal way.  It seems to have less complications.

I redid the base mesh, brought it into zbrush and re-sculpted everything for a much cleaner model.  I liked the depth of the old model a bit better, so I am going to add a bit more marks, then a dirt map, then on to the other objects but here it is 7:30 in the morning and I have yet to sleep again.  I think time for a nap.  Later today I might be heading out for some archery practice, and shooting arrows while drowsy might not be the best idea.  :)

UPDATE:  After some much needed sleep, I brought in the skulls from the first version of the model and started adding the ropes to the scene.  Ropes are a bit fun and a bit aggravating.

UPDATE Again...  

Ropes in place. 

UPDATE:

And yet another WIP...

Fixed the lighting to a 3 point, started basecoloring the tools, added noise, kept pushing details.

Environmental / Prop Sculpture...

Seeing a job posting on Blizzard's website made me realize how little environment / prop modeling I have to show on my site, so I sculpted a quick skull to start an assets library.  I will clean it up at a later date if I am going to use it for anything high res, but for what I have in mind I really don't need it high poly.

Now the concept piece I have is Banderlog's work, but I wanted something fun to model and I like his style. I have blocked out the shapes, and am ready to start working the details.  After that, I am really excited to use zbrush to create some cool rope in the scene.  

UPDATE:  Couldn't sleep, so I went back to work.  Textured and base painted the post.  I am excited about getting the rope in there... seems like it could be a nice learning experience.  

6:30am and a crash?  Time to try for a little sleep.  Ug.