www.tomacmuni.com - Art folio and sketchbook commentary.

Lunch time deviation.

2011-06-23T07:30:11Z

Lunch time deviation using Scultpris v6.

UDK paintover

2011-06-22T16:47:05Z

A UDk scene paintover, and below, the raw scene (not quite the same angle though).
I fixed up the position on the step of the little one.

New Sculptris

2011-06-22T16:23:23Z

Half an hour before bed, playing with the new version of Sculptris, and roughly painted fur afterwards.
It's a bit random, just winding down after a long and rather busy day.

A work by my student.

2011-06-22T16:20:02Z

A 3DSMax sculpted model by a student from my class.
Bit skinny elbow. It reminds me of Return of the Jedi.

Penumbra

2011-06-09T16:17:44Z

Minimalism or laziness? Render of a penumbra from an area light. Want to show off during a candle light dinner?
Try to explain why a penumbra occurs without sounding like a complete brick.

Sunday Session (Scene)

2011-06-05T13:21:41Z

Today I am making a scene in which to fuss around with some features in UDK that I haven't tried before.
This is made entirely with the shipping models.

UDK Alien Concept

2011-05-30T10:01:18Z

With other work going on, the only time I get to paint is during the class while my students are doing their own projects. It means I have these short bursts, starting something, kind of warm ups. This one I like. It is painted over the UT3_Female skeleton for UDK.

Quicky - Boy Bouncing Ball

2011-05-26T02:08:34Z

List of things to fix would be quite long.
Bump could be more punchy.
Specific specular/reflectivity maps would help
Skinwrap result from high to low res could be cleaned up.
Fingers are stiff in animation and weakly modeled.
Glass could have more specular pop.
Ball should be a basketball and have squash and stretch.
Forgot the bandaid on the face. Added specs instead.. well, it's all just for fun.

Animation: www.youtube.com/watch

Flying SUBUV dragon in UDK

2011-05-18T01:44:50Z

This is a render from a dragon flying cycle used as a sprite 4x4 tiled texture in a particle system in UDK.
It looks nicer animating. This screenshot shows bloom, plus light shafts in the environment light coming off the wings of the
dragons closest to the hotspot (the source light is out of place against the skybox sun but I was just testing). Again the
light shafts, which reflect the dragon animation, appear more clearly when animated.

Sunday Session

2011-05-08T06:07:49Z

B

2011-04-27T17:28:39Z

Another in class painting, this was for a demo on shading a face, and after I did the blocking in I just played about with it.
The point was, to shade the lit form of the face, not just draw an outline. I did three or four quick pictures to show template painting can help.

Quick idea sketch

2011-04-18T09:16:04Z

I did this in class while my students were doing their work.
I wanted to do some kind of genetically engineered hypercat -- just thumbnail, to get an idea rolling.

My EVE online starship design.

2011-04-05T16:20:29Z

I did this for the deviantart Eve online design competition back a few months ago.

It was a very intriguing contest to see all the entries for. The high res is on tomacmuni at deviantart gallery.

UDK Racing Game Training Video

2011-03-30T02:26:47Z

The first half of a training video series I made about level layout in UDK for Noesis at www.design.com
has been posted on their site: www.design3.com/udk/fundamentals/udk-racing-game-level-design

This was a job I did over New Year 2010-2011 and it was really interesting. For me there were a few
interesting challenges, like looking after my husky puppy while working busily.

Check out the introduction video: www.design3.com/udk/fundamentals/udk-racing-game-level-design/item/1352-chapter-1-introduction

UDK for Doghouse Design

2011-01-20T02:25:57Z

Below is a doghouse I built in UDK in about 30 minutes, out of the existing objects it comes with, based on a quick drawing I did in a notepad.

I thought the sloping double roof was a nice touch - the big top layer could be removable. The grill on the verandah would be hinged/slidable to get it out of the way into the roof space. I made a matinee animation of that, and of course the kennel doors opening too.

The materials make it look rough and ready, but the idea is that the doghouse structure is sturdy and simple and good for hot climates as it has a lot of air going through it and shelter from sun and rain, and it is wood so hopefully heat is diffused adequately, short of adding an air conditioner (those cost heaps). The iron man is there for scale - I don't have a model of a dog.

Ribbon Dress

2010-11-16T09:52:28Z

This is a first idea kind of sketch - just playing with an idea for a billowy frock.

Skin tone

2010-11-16T08:24:49Z

This is a photo paint over. The original photo looks a bit different, and the hair is changed. I added the ear as it was covered.

Admittedly, this isn't an important part of the project, just practising. Eventually the character will be highly simplified or stylised, whichever is the right term.

Garment idea

2010-11-10T10:25:06Z

Idea for something I resumed working on (again).

Some student work touched up - click pics to enlarge.

2010-11-08T10:14:54Z

I don't know if I did this for fun or educational purposes.
My students were busy doing their thing photographically, so I started to paint on their drawings from the 3D class.
The pregnant? lady took the longer time. I like how the girl with curly hair has in one view a frown and the other a smile.
I noticed my monitor colours from class computer to office computer are way way out ... had to work around it. Still,
it is up to the students to get the actual model done. Maybe I can update this post in six weeks or so to show that.

UDK

2010-11-02T10:00:54Z

I have been learning some new tricks, in particular how to do a custom player character in UDK.
The Youtube links below show the process for this.

Video of 3DSMax Biped skinning test for UDK character.

Related video of 3DSMax Custom model implemented as UDK character.

Prior video of 3DSMax simple test character in UDK.

Earlier video of UDK tutorial, narrated. And Part 2 of the tutorial.

It is a lot easier to make a character that follows the skeleton (and animations) of the existing
rig for UDK than to make a custom rig and custom animations and custom implementation in UDK.
That is some heavy work by comparison to just replacing the mesh on the bones and adding new textures.

Celtic art redone

2010-10-29T10:43:02Z

A student bought in a celtic design from a picture they found on google, and I used this picture to make a model then sculpted it into this example. The overall swirls look similar to the original, but the texture and mood look quite different. The green one is mine, done using MentalRay, and the silver one is the original. I don't know if the design is really ancient Irish art or a modern version, but it looks nice. I sort of improvised it as a sculpt then bought it into 3DSMax for a quick render.

This one is an IRAY render in 1 minute - there are a couple of firefly pixels on it, but it seems okay otherwise. The PC has 8 GB Ram and 1.5 GB Nvidia OEM card, so it can eyeball this scene fairly fast. I mixed down the colour hues in this version.

Warm up

2010-10-20T10:42:01Z

This is a photo reference drawing, just getting used to getting back into a comic style -- as much as my scribbly method allows.
Taking the photos was fun.

Back in action

2010-10-13T10:34:12Z

I was doing my EVE contest entry for a while, and before that a lot of UDK, so I didn't draw people for a while.
Just starting to get back into it. This is some preliminary costume nutting.

Pure spiel on comics

2010-10-13T03:59:15Z

I don't usually post written content by itself here, but I wrote this in reply to http://www.eatsleepgeek.com/free-digital-comics/

What I wrote below is available in a nicely formatted PDF at http//www.tomacmuni.com/files/comic4free.pdf

'Free comics can be a strange concept for people to grapple with.'
It's like the psychology of free stuff comes with the psychology of suspicion. If there's something good for free people think there's a catch, or the quality is bad. Plenty of times, if you aren't sure what you are getting, it's not worth the download time (which is really a cost too) to find out if it's worth it.

In terms of up front presentation, comics in particular often look great up front and then turn out to be slickly coated poop.
I would say that any fragmentary content (like an issue of which you may never see the second installation) should be free, but if you want to get the complete edition or set, then payment would be fair. Comic publishers sometimes provide high quality preview material as a draw in for a low quality entire story. Most stories that run very long eventually become diffuse anyway and everyone turns out to be everyone's brother and not worth continuation. That's usually just after they put out the film.

Quite often, if I'm faced with an available issue 1 of a story by an unknown and issue 38 of a comic I haven't read before by, well, I dunno, let's say Warren Ellis, eh, then I will go with the unknown because I don't know if I'll be able to find the prior 37 issues of the Ellis stuff.
I think online distribution should alleviate that pain ... let me buy all 37 issues in one go and I will pay. If is a first issue, or I just want issue 38 and I didn't buy the other stuff, give it to me for free until I want to access more of the same.

Now, if you want to have a good wedding of quality comics with some kind of industry survival you have to allow people to sample the wares confidently before they purchase ... probably a good mechanism here would be to let people see the comic in some protected form online (like in a bookstore where you can flip through it but can't walk out of the shop with it without paying - unless you are bad) but then be required to pay in order to keep a full resolution offline copy on a device, a copy maintained by a hookup to an account accessed via login so it is harder to copy it around afterward and also easier to protect if the device fails. If offline copies come with features like ad-free and fullscreen/zoomable page content, and other little widgety tweaks then that would compel a lot of purchases. Because looking at some shrunk down preview in a flash window on an ad saturated website is no fun.

If I'm gonna buy a downloaded comic I want to be sure the download is resumable and repeatable for my login - Applestore works well in that respect.

So, what about piracy? (any downloadable content can be handed on to another person)... well, if you are purchasing a login that verifies user rights to read content offline then you can provide content that is locked to being connected through that login. If you don't like to be connected in order to read something, then buy a book. Say I have an iPad and buy the offline copy of an edition of ABC Warriors by Bisley from way back. It would be registered to the device - all these devices have unique IDs. If I login and confirm that I've registered then fine. Applestore (and Cydia too) is able to track what applications you have purchased on an iPad even if you wipe your entire iPad and have to restore it. Anyway, if I copy the comic to another device then I would have to login again to read it, with some kind of confirmations perhaps (perhaps like EVE online does when you launch it from a different IP address). To prevent login sharing, just limit the number of devices you can copy something to. Not many people have more than three devices that are worth reading a comic on (an iphone is not worth it period, unless maybe for Dilbert or Calvin and Hobbes). If someone sells up their machine and buys a fresh one (somehow getting too many current devices), then just de-authorise the previous one ... this is what Refractive Software does with their octane render software for instance. To install the fresh one you have to alert them before you can do it, and since you alerted them, they can track your usage and make sure it's as per the EULA, so to speak.

Complicated? Well, yes, but along with this, logging into a distribution service also helps people stay connected and current with what's coming out, so it's giving the publisher a route to advertise easily off their site. And the logged in user is able to enjoy community benefits easily. And the actual content is clean and can be enjoyed as intended.

About collection - there's nothing that prevents a digital distributor from offering a premium printing service for those who find it fun to keep their edition on a shelf. It saves on over printing and returns if the only prints made are for those who have already bought the content. Again take EVE online - they ship a magazine called EON which is published by an online game magazine specialist in London - they only print the number of magazines that are subscribed or ordered individually, presumably with a small stock for back issue trading.

As to the price - well, a comic on the bookshelf of my local shop is about 15-50$
Granted, it's on nice glossy paper and I didn't have to wait an hour for it to download.

Personally, speaking, and this whole trawl is just opinion, I'd say 25c a page is a fair deal for publisher and purchaser. I'm not talking about a tiny JPG screengrab of a page like most comic publishers offer in their Flash-based previewing readers but a big 1:1 CBR style original page. But you know, open market and all that. If you pay for it, they will try to charge more. Also, a page by a lesser artist can't be charged at the same price as a great artist - but it can be very hard to tell with new content. That's why we need to look inside, have peer review, and .. among other things, book shops. Of course, good comics helps too.

Tom Mooney
ipad4tom@gmail.com
www.tomacmuni.com

Test character to try exporting to UDK

2010-09-28T08:22:10Z

Today I spent 6.5 hours to model, paint, sculpt and skin with biped this little Turtle.
The point of it is that it is very simple -- that's why I didn't spend much time designing it, so no surprise he has not very turtle-like feet. Now that he is rigged, I want to try implementing him as a creature in UDK.
I have a lot of tutorials and videos on this topic, but so far it has been a little over my head (mostly for the Unrealscript part). Any help appreciated.

My workplace has an Autodesk 3DSMax subscription, so I finally get to try out Iray. It's simple to use, with just a time setting for how long the frame will calculate (or by samples if preferred).
I just used a Daylight and a default everything. The rendered result may have a few speckles but I guess they would filter out if rendered for long enough. The main thing is a preview render can be obtained almost immediately.