My Image Of The Month (IOTM) series has been delayed by many things. One of those is the complexity of modeling detailed buildings. I get lost in the details. With the recent addition and improvements to Blender's Geometry Nodes, I wondered if that would be a good workflow for some of these buildings with complex but repetitive elements.
Rick's Blog
Mar
24
2023
My Image Of The Month (IOTM) series has been delayed by many things. One of those is the complexity of modeling detailed buildings. I get lost in the details. With the recent addition and improvements to Blender's Geometry Nodes, I wondered if that would be a good workflow for some of these buildings with complex but repetitive elements.
Aug
15
2019
This is a project I started almost a year ago, but which soon stalled. I'm back to actively working on recreating one of the paintings in the series, Piazzo San Marco, by the artist Giovanni Antonio Canal.
Apr
20
2019
In anticipation of Easter, I thought a little frivolity was in order.
Dec
13
2015
The next step for my Last Supper project was to add hair to the models. I have very little experience with modeling/rendering hair in Blender, so this step was also more involved than I originally anticipated. My intent was to create a rough draft of the hair, with another iteration of styling/coloring once the near-final lighting for the scene is complete. So, from that point of view, I was successful, but I still think the current result looks like a toupee factory exploded. :)
Oct
18
2015
The good news about about having to scrap and rework everything you have just done is that, eventually, you get fairly quick at whatever you are doing. In this case, I have gotten much quicker at creating a model in Makehuman, exporting/importing to Blender and posing. :) This week, I was able to create initial clothing and re-pose each of the characters. Some mistakes I made were part of the learning curve; others still have me scratching my head. As someone once said, 'All movement is progress!'
Oct
07
2015
I used MakeHuman to create Jesus and the disciples. There was a small delay after installing MakeHuman, apparently due to a conflict with python libraries. I found that if I ran MakeHuman with Administrator rights, I avoided whatever the problem was. The learning curve was fairly steep but at the end I created a custom character, fully rigged and imported into blender in about 20 minutes. Interestingly, with Blender set to imperial units, I needed to export the MakeHuman models with the units set to 'meters'. Below is the current scene with bodies roughly positioned. (CAUTION: Partial Nudity - May not be appropriate for children under 53 years. ;) ).
Feb
09
2015
The Image Of The Month (IOTM) for January was based on the painting by Robert Finale, Home For Christmas. It seemed like a good idea on January 1st. In retrospect, I could have started with a month or three of paintings not quite as complex. However, the good thing about challenging yourself is that even if you only get halfway there, you are still making progress.
Jan
22
2015
It is always difficult to get going in January, so I am going to consider the week of 12 January the first week, for this month's Image Of The Month (IOTM); unfortunately the deadline is still the end of the month.
The first week consisted of framing the shot and attempting to match the artist's 'camera' and perspective as closely as possible. I ended up cutting the people out of the original and pasting them into a single file. This allowed me to scale each person/group so they were relatively equal, which, in turn, allowed me to export the images as separate files and import them into Blender. Once their size was established, the only way to visually scale the people larger/smaller was to move them nearer/farther from the camera. This was very helpful in establishing the characters', and associated buildings/props, relative distance from the camera. Using that information, I created rough approximations of the major objects in the scene.
To the left is the scene setup. The near and far houses, church, large trees and street lamps are represented. The bridge, being a major component in the scene, has the most detail. A screen is set up to represent the background, but textures have not been applied to any items, at this point. I spent a considerable amount of time, playing with the lens position and size to perfectly match the artist. Eventually, I realized part of the beauty of art is that, although it is quite good, it is not perfect. I am mentally coming to grips with the fact that 'close enough' is the goal. :)
To the right is an initial render. You can see the images of the people that were imported to help with relative positioning. The large 'mountain' of snow' in the background is the cylinder that will eventually contain the background texture. I may use terrain and trees to form the background, but I suspect I will need at least a week tweaking the lighting and materials, leaving me very short on time for modeling. The good news is my Model Of The Week is providing good lessons, allowing me to finish early. That should free up a little extra time for this project. If I stay on schedule, the modeling will be finished by the end of this week. That will leave me a full week to tweak materials, lighting, camera and the worst modeling SNAFU's. What could possibly go wrong? :)
Jan
05
2015
Similar to the Model Of The Week (MOTW), the Image Of The Month (IOTM) is a self-inflicted challenge to improve my 3D skills. In the IOTM, the challenge is to create a 3D replica of a famous painting each month. Still in the Christmas spirit, I selected a painting by Robert Finale, Home For Christmas.
My intent is to provide weekly updates on the work in-progress.